Category Archives: Israel-Gaza war

Layla Moran urges more action on Israel and warns of ‘cruel destitution’ in Gaza

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Lib Dem MP says UK’s recent tone is tougher but ‘in terms of concrete actions, not much has changed’

Layla Moran has told the UK government to match its tougher tone on Israel with action as she warned that people in Gaza face “unbearably cruel levels of destitution”.

The Lib Dem MP called for further action, including recognition of a Palestinian state, in a renewed appeal for the family of Mohammad, an NHS doctor who operated on her last year, whose elderly parents remain stuck in northern Gaza.

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Israel launches major offensive in Gaza after airstrikes that killed more than 100

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IDF aiming to seize strategic areas as part of expansion of war against Hamas in attempt to force release of hostages

Israel has announced a major new offensive in Gaza after launching a wave of airstrikes on the territory that killed more than 100 people, in what it said was a fresh effort to force Hamas to release hostages.

In a statement late on Friday, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had “launched extensive attacks and mobilized forces to seize strategic areas in the Gaza Strip, as part of the opening moves of Operation Gideon’s Chariots and the expansion of the campaign in Gaza, to achieve all the goals of the war in Gaza”.

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Trump acknowledges starvation in Gaza as Israeli airstrikes kill more than 100

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President says US will ‘take care of’ situation in Gaza on final day of Gulf tour in Abu Dhabi

Donald Trump has said people are starving in Gaza and the US would have the situation in the territory “taken care of” as it suffered a further wave of intense Israeli airstrikes.

On the final day of his Gulf tour, the US president told reporters in Abu Dhabi: “We’re looking at Gaza. And we’re going to get that taken care of. A lot of people are starving.”

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NYU withholds diploma of student who condemned Israel in graduation speech

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University says it ‘strongly denounces’ commencement speech by Logan Rozos, who called out ‘atrocities’ in Gaza

New York University is withholding a student’s diploma after he condemned Israel’s deadly war on Gaza during his graduation ceremony speech.

On Wednesday, Logan Rozos, an undergraduate student speaker from NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, delivered his commencement speech in which he said: “The only thing that is appropriate to say in this time and to a group this large is a recognition of the atrocities currently happening in Palestine.”

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Ben & Jerry’s co-founder arrested for protesting Gaza blockade at US Senate hearing

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Ben Cohen and others interrupted RFK Jr at hearing to protest Israel’s Gaza blockade and Medicaid cuts

Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream, has been charged with “crowding and obstructing” others after he was arrested while protesting against the Gaza blockade during a US Senate hearing.

Cohen – the Ben in Ben & Jerry’s – made his stand on Wednesday while Robert F Kennedy Jr was addressing a hearing of the health, education, labor and pensions committee. A group of activists heckled the health secretary over his anti-vaccine posture, yelling: “When Bobby lies, children die,” and “Anti-vax, anti-science, anti-America”.

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Israeli airstrikes kill at least 80 as Trump talks of turning Gaza into ‘freedom zone’

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Violence over last 48 hours diminishes hope that US president’s visit to Middle East would pause hostilities

At least 80 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling on targets across Gaza as faltering talks on a new ceasefire continued and Donald Trump said he wanted the US to “make” the devastated territory “into a freedom zone”.

Trump’s statement recalled the plan he put forward in February for the US to take control of Gaza to reconstruct it as a luxury leisure and business hub. The scheme implied the possible permanent displacement of many or all of the territory’s 2.3 million people and triggered global outrage.

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Israel’s ‘no hunger in Gaza’ narrative flies in face of obvious evidence

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Justification for Israel’s blockade is hard to sustain amid photos of malnourished children and critical famine warnings

For many decades, Israel was proud of its officials’ ability to defend and argue and convince around the world. The war in Gaza has seen the country’s public diplomacy face its greatest test – as was made clear on Wednesday morning with a robust exchange between David Mencer, a spokesperson for the Israeli government, and Nick Robinson, a presenter of the BBC’s flagship Today programme.

Mencer stressed that he was speaking on behalf of the prime minister and made an uncompromising statement of Israel’s arguments, including the accusation that Hamas – described as a “genocidal death cult” – uses civilians as human shields.

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Israeli bombing wave kills dozens in Gaza including at least 22 children, say reports

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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.

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Netanyahu must now work for support of US as Trump tires of Israel’s war in Gaza

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The US president will not visit Israel on a trip to the Middle East and his envoy has reportedly said Netanyahu’s government is drawing out the war

Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff didn’t mince his words. In a meeting late on Sunday with former hostages and relatives of those still held in Gaza, he told them Israel is drawing out a war the US wants to end, local media reported.

On the eve of the release of Edan Alexander, the last living American being held by Hamas, Witkoff spelt out the gulf between his boss and the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.

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‘Never again war’: Pope Leo calls for peace in Ukraine in first Sunday address

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New pontiff also urges a ceasefire and humanitarian aid in Gaza and welcomes truce between India and Pakistan

Pope Leo XIV has called for a just and lasting peace in Ukraine and pleaded for an end to global conflicts, which he likened to a “third world war in pieces”.

In his first Sunday address at the Vatican, the new pontiff urged an immediate ceasefire and humanitarian aid in Gaza and the release of all hostages. He also welcomed the truce between India and Pakistan and referenced the end of the second world war in 1945.

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There is suffering everywhere you look, says mother of emaciated baby girl trapped in Gaza

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Babies such as Siwar Ashour are suffering from malnutrition as crucial supplies run out amid Israel’s total blockade on aid

Siwar Ashour was born into war and hunger and has known nothing else. She is now in real danger of dying without ever having known a moment of peace or contentment.

The six-month-old Palestinian girl, whose painfully emaciated body symbolised the deliberate starvation of Gaza when she appeared on the BBC this week, was only 2.5kg when she was born on 20 November last year.

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Daughter of Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard arrested at Columbia University protests

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Ramona Sarsgaard, 18, given ticket for criminal trespassing after Wednesday’s actions against Israel’s war in Gaza

The daughter of actors Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard was among those arrested at the latest Columbia University protests, marking the latest development in the anti-war demonstrations that also led to the temporary suspension of student journalists.

On Friday, the New York Post reported that 18-year-old Ramona Sarsgaard, a Columbia freshman, was arrested during Wednesday’s campus protests where students demonstrated against Israel’s deadly war in Gaza.

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UK Lawyers for Israel condemned over claim war may reduce obesity in Gaza

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Palestinian rights group says remarks criticising a Lancet analysis on impact of the conflict are ‘sickening’

A UK-based advocacy group for Israel has been criticised for suggesting a reduction in obesity resulting from the war in Gaza may increase life expectancy there.

The comments by UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), which came amid warnings of impending famine in Gaza, were condemned as “sickening” by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC).

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Are we heading for another world war – or has it already started?

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The rules-based world order is in retreat and violence is on the rise, forcing countries to rethink their relationships

In a week in which former allies in a redividing globe separately commemorated the 80th anniversary of the end of the second world war, the sense of a runaway descent towards a third world war draws ever closer.

The implosion of Pax Americana, the interconnectedness of conflicts, the new willingness to resort to unbridled state-sponsored violence and the irrelevance of the institutions of the rules-based order have all been on brutal display this week. From Kashmir to Khan Younis, Hodeidah, Port Sudan and Kursk, the only sound is of explosions, and the only lesson is that the old rules no longer apply.

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Columbia University calls in police to clear pro-Palestinian protesters

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University’s president says activists refused to leave library despite warnings of disciplinary action and arrest

Columbia University asked the New York police department to help clear pro-Palestinian activists from the campus’s main library after protesters clashed with the school’s public safety officers.

Claire Shipman, the university’s acting president, said in a statement that protesters had refused to leave the building despite being warned that a failure to comply would result in disciplinary action and possibly arrest for trespassing.

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Court orders detained Tufts student Rümeysa Öztürk returned to Vermont

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Lawyers say the Turkish national, who has been held in a Louisiana Ice center for two weeks, was illegally detained

A federal appeals court on Wednesday granted a judge’s order to bring a Turkish Tufts University student from a Louisiana immigration detention center back to New England for hearings to determine whether her rights were violated.

A judicial panel of the New York-based US second circuit court of appeals ruled in the case of Rümeysa Öztürk after lawyers representing her and the US justice department presented arguments at a hearing on Tuesday.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

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Netherlands urges review of EU-Israel trade deal over ‘catastrophic’ Gaza aid block

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Foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp tells top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas he believes Israel is in breach of rights obligations linked to trade agreement

The Dutch government, seen as one of Israel’s most loyal allies in the European Union, is calling for an urgent review of the EU Israel association agreement, the basis for the EU-Israeli free trade agreement, the Dutch foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp told the Guardian.

Veldkamp described the Israeli ban on the supply of aid into Gaza as “catastrophic, truly dismal” and in clear breach of international humanitarian law.

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Trump says three Israeli hostages held in Gaza have died

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US president reports three deaths and laments ‘terrible situation’ but does not provide further details

Donald Trump said Tuesday that three more hostages held by Hamas in Gaza have died, bringing the number still alive to 21.

At a White House swearing-in ceremony for his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump revealed that three more Israeli hostages have died in Gaza, meaning that just 21 of the hostages taken from Israel during the 7 October attacks remain alive.

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Senior Tory MPs and peers break ranks to call for recognition of Palestine

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Exclusive: Conservatives ask Keir Starmer to stand ‘against indefinite occupation’ and ‘reinforce international law’

More than a dozen senior Conservative MPs and peers have written to the prime minister calling for the UK to immediately recognise Palestine as a state, breaking ranks with their own party to do so.

Seven MPs and six members of the House of Lords have signed the letter to Keir Starmer urging him to defy the Israeli government and give formal recognition to Palestine in advance of key UN talks next month.

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How Trump’s walkaway diplomacy enabled Israel’s worst impulses

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The common perception is that Trump has largely moved on, leaving an emboldened Netanyahu to his own devices

The Israeli plan to occupy and depopulate Gaza may not be identical to Donald Trump’s vision of a new riviera, but his inspiration and the US’s walkaway diplomacy have ushered Benjamin Netanyahu to the precipice of a dire new chapter in the Israel-Gaza war.

The common perception in both Washington and Israel is that Trump has largely moved on, leaving an emboldened Netanyahu to his own devices, while his offhand proposals for turning Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” have provided cover for rightwing Israeli politicians to enthusiastically support the forced resettlement of the Palestinian population.

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