Category Archives: Israel-Gaza war

Quaker group pulls NYT ad over paper’s refusal to let it call Israel’s Gaza bombing ‘genocide’

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Organization said paper’s refusal ‘outrageous attempt to sidestep the truth’, choosing ‘silence over accountability’

The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organization that advocates for peace, said on Monday the group cancelled a planned advertisement in the New York Times in response to the paper refusing to allow it to refer to Israel’s actions in Gaza as a genocide.

“The refusal of The New York Times to run paid digital ads that call for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza is an outrageous attempt to sidestep the truth,” said Joyce Ajlouny, general secretary for the AFSC, in a press release. “Palestinians and allies have been silenced and marginalized in the media for decades as these institutions choose silence over accountability. It is only by challenging this reality that we can hope to forge a path toward a more just and equitable world.”

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MPs call for greater criticism of Israel’s policies over Gaza – UK politics live

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Palestinians trapped in a ‘doom loop of hell’, MPs told

At the end of last week Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary and runner-up in last year’s Tory leadership contest, said the child abuse grooming scandal started with “mass migration” and “importing hundreds of thousands of people from alien cultures, who possess medieval attitudes towards women”. In response Samuel Kasumu, a former Tory adviser on race issues, said that comments like that could lead to people being killed, while Kemi Badenoch defended her colleague.

In an inteview on the Today programme this morning, asked if Kasumu’s comments made him reconsider his views, Jenrick replied:

That’s complete nonsense. MPs have been killed in this country in recent times by a jihadist and by a neo-Nazi. They were killed because of the views of those individuals, not what anything an MP has said. We have to fight extremism in this country, wherever we find it, and you fight that by standing up to the extremists, you don’t fight it by shying away, by turning a blind eye, by looking the other way.

I’m not going to tiptoe around this issue. Millions of people in our country are listening to your programme this morning, and they are appalled by what is happening to young girls, and they are shocked that there might be girls in that situation today. We have to stop this.

I think some people who come from that country do. I’m not saying everybody.

NR: Did Sajid Javid’s family [the former Tory chancellor] come with a medieval culture to this county?

RJ: I’m saying some people do.

Robert Jenrick’s attempt to exploit this appalling scandal for his own political gain is completely shameless. He didn’t lift a finger to help the victims when a minister, now he’s jumping on the bandwagon and acting like a pound shop Farage.

Kemi Badenoch should sack him as shadow justice secretary and condemn his divisive comments, instead of letting him run a leadership campaign under her nose.

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Reports of optimism about Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal

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US secretary of state says he is confident agreement can be reached in renewed push before Donald Trump takes office

Israel and Hamas appear to be edging closer towards a ceasefire and hostage release deal that could bring the bloodshed in the Gaza Strip to an end amid reports of optimism among decision makers.

The latest round of negotiations intended to broker a lasting truce in the 15-month-old conflict resumed in Qatar on Sunday. Hamas said on Monday that it had given mediators a list of 34 Israeli captives seized during the group’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war, who could be freed as part of the “first phase of a prisoner exchange deal”.

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Hamas releases video it says is of Israeli hostage held in Gaza since 2023 attack

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Family of now 19-year-old conscript Liri Albag appeals to PM to ‘take decisions as if it were your own children there’

The armed wing of Hamas has released a video it says is of an Israeli hostage held in Gaza since its October 2023 attack.

Liri Albag, described by local media as a soldier, was 18 when she was captured by Palestinian militants at the Nahal Oz base on the Gaza border along with six other women conscripts, five of whom remain in captivity.

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About 30 killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza as truce talks set to resume

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‘Harsh day’ of bombardments with several children among dead, says Gaza’s civil defence agency

Gaza’s civil defence agency said about 30 people were killed in Israeli bombardments on Friday, as Hamas said indirect negotiations for a truce in the war were set to resume in Qatar.

The Israeli military said three rockets targeted its territory from the Gaza Strip, the latest in a flurry of launches by militants in the devastated Palestinian territory.

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‘Safe zone’ among areas targeted as Israeli airstrikes kill at least 43 in Gaza

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Director general of Gaza police among 11 reportedly killed in al-Mawasi encampment, designated a civilian safe zone

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 43 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including 11 people in the sprawling al-Mawasi tent encampment designated as a humanitarian safe zone for civilians.

Among those killed in the al-Mawasi strike was the director general of Gaza’s police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his deputy, Hussam Shahwan, according to the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry.

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Israeli strikes kill at least 12 Palestinians in Gaza on New Year’s Day

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Officials say most of the victims were women and children as Israel’s war against Hamas continues into the new year

Israeli strikes killed at least 12 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on New Year’s Day, mostly women and children, officials said, as the nearly 15-month war ground on into the new year.

One strike hit a home in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza, the most isolated and heavily destroyed part of the territory, where Israel has waged a major operation since early October. Gaza’s health ministry said seven people had been killed, including a woman and four children, and at least a dozen had been wounded.

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Israel’s hospital attacks have put Gaza healthcare on brink of collapse, says UN

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Assaults on medical facilities could amount to war crimes in certain circumstances, human rights office report says

Israel’s pattern of sustained attacks on Gaza’s hospitals and medical workers has brought the coastal strip’s healthcare system to the brink of “total collapse”, according to a report by the UN’s human rights office.

The report, which catalogues the besieging and targeting of hospitals and their immediate grounds with explosive weapons, the killing of hundreds of medical workers, and the destruction of critical life-saving equipment, said that in certain circumstances the attacks could “amount to war crimes”. Israel has consistently denied committing war crimes in Gaza.

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Israel orders remaining residents of Beit Hanoun to leave

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Order triggers new wave of displacement and there are reports of damage to two more Gaza hospitals

Israel has issued new evacuation orders for all remaining civilians to leave Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza as part of a blistering three-month-old campaign that Israel denies is aimed at depopulating a third of the Palestinian territory, amid reports Israeli attacks have damaged two more struggling hospitals in Gaza City.

The Israeli army forcibly evacuated Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia on Friday, leaving the northern third of the strip, which is cut off from the rest of Gaza, with just one small functioning medical centre, al-Awda, in nearby Jabalia. On Sunday, everyone remaining in Beit Lahia was ordered to leave after Palestinian militants launched five rockets from the area that targeted Israeli territory.

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WHO ‘appalled’ by Israel attack on northern Gaza’s last functioning major hospital

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Kamal Adwan in Beit Lahia was partially destroyed and critical patients are at grave risk, the UN body says

The World Health Organization says it is “appalled” by an Israeli raid which it said had shut down and partly destroyed the last major hospital still functioning in northern Gaza.

Israel’s “systematic dismantling of the health system” combined with a siege of the population in the north of the coastal strip over the past 80 days “puts the lives of the 75,000 Palestinians remaining in the area at risk”, the WHO said.

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Last major health facility in north Gaza ‘out of service’ after Israeli attack

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Gaza officials say staff at Kamal Adwan hospital, including its director, have been detained as WHO reports Israeli forces burned and destroyed key departments

The last major health facility in northern Gaza has been put out of service, the World Health Organization has said, and its director detained according to Gaza officials after an Israeli military operation targeting sites near the Kamal Adwan hospital.

“Initial reports indicate that some key departments were severely burnt and destroyed during the raid,” the WHO said in a statement on X.

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Officials claim Israeli military ‘burning’ Kamal Adwan hospital after forced evacuation of patients – Middle East crisis live

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Israel says Gaza hospital is ‘Hamas terrorist stronghold’ and it made efforts to facilitate evacuation of those inside

An estimated 730,000 people living in tents in camps for the displaced in northwest Syria are experiencing dire conditions this winter including from flooding, the UN humanitarian office has said.

The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said yesterday that more than 200 family tents in camps in Idlib and northern Aleppo were damaged by flooding from heavy rainfall on 23 December.

“Since the start of 2024, flooding and strong winds have damaged more than 8,800 family tents – including nearly 2,000 that were fully destroyed – across 260 camps,” OCHA said.

In early December, the UN said about 1.1 million people had been displaced since Syrian rebels launched the offensive that ousted former president Bashar al-Assad. Among those displaced were more than 100,000 people who have fled into Kurdish-administered areas in northern Syria amid escalating factional fighting and fears of retaliatory attacks.

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Officials claim Israeli military ‘burning’ Kamal Adwan hospital after forced evacuation of patients – Middle East crisis live

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Israel says Gaza hospital is ‘Hamas terrorist stronghold’ and it made efforts to facilitate evacuation of those inside

An estimated 730,000 people living in tents in camps for the displaced in northwest Syria are experiencing dire conditions this winter including from flooding, the UN humanitarian office has said.

The UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said yesterday that more than 200 family tents in camps in Idlib and northern Aleppo were damaged by flooding from heavy rainfall on 23 December.

“Since the start of 2024, flooding and strong winds have damaged more than 8,800 family tents – including nearly 2,000 that were fully destroyed – across 260 camps,” OCHA said.

In early December, the UN said about 1.1 million people had been displaced since Syrian rebels launched the offensive that ousted former president Bashar al-Assad. Among those displaced were more than 100,000 people who have fled into Kurdish-administered areas in northern Syria amid escalating factional fighting and fears of retaliatory attacks.

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Five Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli strike on van in Gaza

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Men were asleep in marked press vehicle, say witnesses, as renewed hostage negotiations reach impasse

Five Palestinian journalists were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their vehicle in central Gaza, their employer has said, while Israel has also struck several areas in Houthi rebel-controlled Yemen in air raids.

Faisal Abu al-Qumsan, Ayman al-Jadi, Ibrahim al-Sheikh Khalil, Fadi Hassouna and Mohammed al-Lada’a were sleeping in their broadcasting truck, marked as press, when it was targeted in a direct strike by the Israeli military, witnesses told Palestinian media. Another 32 people were killed in other Israeli pre-dawn strikes across the territory, the local health ministry said.

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Middle East crisis: one child killed every hour in Gaza, UN says – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our coverage of the Middle East here

Israeli forces have killed a Palestinian man in a dawn raid on a refugee camp near the city of Tulkarm in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Palestinian and Israeli officials said. The Israeli military said the man was killed in a “counter-terrorism” operation that resulted in 18 arrests, Reuters reports. Palestinian news agency Wafa said that Fathi Saeed Odeh Salem died after snipers shot him and fired on ambulance crew. We have not yet been able to independently verify any of this information. Meanwhile, medics said at least nine Palestinians, including a member of the civil emergency service, were killed in four separate Israeli airstrikes across the territory today.

At least 45,338 Palestinian people have been killed and 107,764 injured in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

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Israel’s war in Gaza amounts to genocide, Amnesty International report finds

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Human rights group says Israel ‘brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell’ on strip’s 2.3m population

A report from Amnesty International alleges that Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip constitutes the crime of genocide under international law, the first such determination by a major human rights organisation in the 14-month-old conflict.

The 32-page report examining events in Gaza between October 2023 to July 2024, published on Thursday, found that Israel had “brazenly, continuously and with total impunity … unleashed hell” on the strip’s 2.3 million population, noting that the “atrocity crimes” against Israelis by Hamas on 7 October 2023, which triggered the war, “do not justify genocide”.

The unprecedented scale and magnitude of the military offensive, which has caused death and destruction at a speed and level unmatched in any other 21st-century conflict;

Intent to destroy, after considering and discounting arguments such as Israeli recklessness and callous disregard for civilian life in the pursuit of Hamas;

Killing and causing serious bodily or mental harm in repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, or deliberately indiscriminate attacks; and

Inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about physical destruction, such as destroying medical infrastructure, the obstruction of aid, and repeated use of arbitrary and sweeping “evacuation orders” for 90% of the population to unsuitable areas.

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Australia splits with US to back UN resolution demanding end to Israel occupation of Palestinian territories

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Vote marks a change to the nation’s official stance held for more than two decades

Australia has split with the US and voted with 156 other countries at the UN to demand the end of Israel’s “unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory as rapidly as possible”.

The vote marks Australia’s return to the position for the first time in more than two decades.

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Hamas and Fatah agree to create committee to run postwar Gaza Strip

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Two main Palestinian factions agree during talks in Cairo that politically independent technocrats will run territory

Hamas and Fatah – the two main Palestinian factions which have been at odds for almost two decades – have agreed in talks in Cairo to create a committee that will jointly run the postwar Gaza Strip.

While Israel had refused to countenance a “day after” governing scenario involving Hamas or the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank, the move nonetheless signifies fresh willingness from Hamas to give up its rule of Gaza and could help advance internationally mediated ceasefire talks.

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Middle East crisis: Israel will not differentiate between Lebanon and Hezbollah if ceasefire collapses, defence minister Katz says – as it happened

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Israel Katz says Israel will no longer offer Lebanon an exemption and will enforce ‘maximum impact and zero tolerance’

Israeli media reports that the cabinet is set to meet in the coastal city of Nahariya on Tuesday, a symbolic show of renewed security in the north after the ceasefire deal with Lebanon came into effect.

The move has received some criticism, however, with Hebrew news site Ynet reporting that the heads of local authorities in the north of Israel are angry that they have not been invited to participate.

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Unrwa suspends aid deliveries through main Gaza route after convoy attacked

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Agency says armed gangs looted several trucks carrying food supplies and urges Israel to ensure safe flows of aid

The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees has suspended aid deliveries through the main lifeline for the Gaza Strip after a fresh attack by armed gangs on a humanitarian convoy, amid a severe food crisis caused by more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hamas.

In a statement on Sunday, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of Unrwa, said several trucks carrying food supplies were looted the day before on the road from Kerem Shalom on the border with Israel, now the main aid crossing point into the besieged Palestinian territory. The route had not been safe for months, he said on X, referring to the unprecedented hijacking of nearly 100 aid trucks last month.

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