Death toll in Lebanon walkie-talkie explosions rises to 20, with more than 450 injured – Middle East crisis as it happened

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Local Palestinian media is reporting that a 17-year-old child has been killed by Israeli security forces near Ni’lin, west of Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The claims have not been independently verified.

Overnight Israel’s military announced the deaths of four soldiers.

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Pagers in deadly attack on Hezbollah ‘made in Europe’, as Middle East braces for reprisals

Taiwanese company Gold Apollo says a company in Europe made the pagers used in extraordinary attack in Lebanon that Hezbollah blames on Israel

The Taiwanese manufacturer linked to pagers that exploded as part of a deadly and unprecedented attack in Lebanon against Hezbollah has said the devices were made by a company in Europe, as the militant group blamed Israel and vowed revenge attacks.

Potentially thousands of pagers were remotely and simultaneously detonated across Lebanon, killing at least nine people and wounding almost 3,000 on Tuesday. Lebanon’s health minister, Firass Abiad, said a young girl was among the dead, and that more than 200 people had critical injuries.

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Lebanon explosions ‘an extremely concerning escalation’, says UN official, as Hezbollah threatens retaliation – as it happened

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German news media outlets have called on Israel to grant them access to Gaza, and for neighbouring Egypt to allow entry to the territory via the Rafah border crossing.

“After almost a year of war, we call on the Israeli government: allow us to enter the Gaza Strip,” a group of newspapers, agencies and broadcasters wrote in an open letter.

To date, CPJ has determined that at least five journalists were directly targeted by Israeli forces in killings which CPJ classifies as murders: Issam Abdallah, Hamza Al Dahdouh, Mustafa Thuraya, Ismail Al Ghoul, and Rami Al Refee. CPJ is still researching the details for confirmation in at least 10 other cases that indicate possible targeting.

Immediately stop the process of replacing (Gallant). The firing of the minister weakens Israel in the eyes of her enemies, and will further deepen the division in the people of Israel…

The prime minister knows better than anyone that all the economic indicators also prove that Israel is deteriorating into an economic abyss and sinking into a deep recession.

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Israel expands war goals to include return of residents near border with Lebanon

Statement from Benjamin Netanyahu comes after defence minister says the possibility for an agreement with Hezbollah was ‘running out’

Israel will expand its war goals to include the return of northern residents who were evacuated due to attacks by Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, according to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The decision was approved during an overnight meeting of the security cabinet, Netanyahu’s office said. Israeli forces have exchanged near-daily strikes with Hezbollah since Hamas’s 7 October attack sparked the war in the Gaza.

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At least 16 killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, Palestinian officials say

Five women and four children said to be among dead with strike hitting residential building in crowded Nuseirat camp

At least 16 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes across central Gaza on Sunday night and Monday morning, including five women and four children, Palestinian health officials have said.

Rescuers said an airstrike early on Monday destroyed a residential building in the densely populated Nuseirat refugee camp in the heart of central Gaza, killing at least 10 people, including four women and two children.

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Israel-Gaza war: new generations being recruited as conflict continues, senior Hamas official says – as it happened

Osama Hamdan rejects claim by Israeli defence minister that Hamas ‘no longer exists’ as a military formation

Polio vaccination coverage in Gaza has reached 90%, the head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency said on Monday, adding that the next step was to ensure hundreds of thousands of children got a second dose at the end of the month.

The campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza under 10 years of age against polio, which began on 1 September, presented major challenges to Unrwa and its partners due to the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, Reuters reported.

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Columnists quit Jewish Chronicle over Gaza stories based on ‘fabrications’

David Baddiel and Jonathan Freedland among those to resign over articles by former IDF soldier Elon Perry

A number of prominent columnists have resigned in protest from the Jewish Chronicle after allegations it printed articles about the Gaza conflict that were based on “wild fabrications”.

The weekly title, the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper, is facing calls for an investigation after it deleted nine articles by Elon Perry because of doubts over their accuracy and concerns he had misrepresented his CV.

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Netanyahu tells Houthis they will pay ‘heavy price’ as missile hits Israel

Rebel group claims what would be first missile to have landed in Israel from Yemen, but no reports of casualties

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has warned Yemen’s Houthi rebels will pay a “heavy price” after the group claimed its first ballistic missile strike on Israel and its leader warned of bigger attacks to come.

The missile – claimed by the Houthis as an advanced surface-to-surface hypersonic missile – triggered air sirens across the country at about 6.30am, and local media aired footage of people racing to shelters at Ben Gurion international airport south-east of Tel Aviv. According to reports, it hit an open area in the Ben Shemen forest, causing a fire near Kfar Daniel. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

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‘The war has stolen our future’: Gaza children begin second school year without education

Small initiatives are trying to maintain some learning, but resources are scant and many children are put to work

Every evening, for two hours, Asma Mustafa sits down with the small children of Nuseirat camp in central Gaza for what now passes as school in the beleaguered strip. She makes do with what is available: sometimes there are pens and paper for basic maths and literacy, but most of the time class time is taken up with storytelling, singing and play.

“I have been doing this since November,” said Mustafa, 38, who taught at a girls’ high school in Gaza City before the war. “Many children are now working or helping their families find basic things like food during the day, but I try to give them a little bit of structure and normality in the evenings.”

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Alarm in UK and US over possible Iran-Russia nuclear deal

US president Joe Biden and British PM Keir Starmer fear secret arms link-up amid talks in Washington over Ukraine

Britain and the US have raised fears that Russia has shared nuclear secrets with Iran in return for Tehran supplying Moscow with ballistic missiles to bomb Ukraine.

During their summit in Washington DC on Friday, Keir Starmer and US president Joe Biden acknowledged that the two countries were tightening military cooperation at a time when Iran is in the process of enriching enough uranium to complete its long-held goal to build a nuclear bomb.

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Funeral for slain Turkish American Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi draws hundreds

Family members and political leaders gather in Turkish Aegean coastal city of Didim to mourn activist slain by IDF

Hundreds of people waving Turkish and Palestinian flags gathered on Saturday for the funeral of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a Turkish American activist killed in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Cevdet Yılmaz, Turkey’s vice-president; Hakan Fidan, the foreign minister; Numan Kurtulmuş, the parliament speaker; and Özgür Özel, the main opposition leader from the Republican People’s party (CHP) were among mourners at the ceremony in the Turkish Aegean coastal city of Didim.

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Israel-Gaza war: UN worker killed in West Bank during Israeli operation – as it happened

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The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) disaster risk management teams, in cooperation with the Palestine Ministry of Social Development, distributed food parcels to 11,000 families in Gaza and North Gaza governates, the humanitarian organisation shared on X.

“This effort aims to alleviate the ongoing suffering of citizens due to the worsening humanitarian situation in the northern part of the [Gaza] Strip, caused by the shortage of food supplies as the Israeli occupation continues to block the entry of humanitarian aid,” the PRCS wrote on Friday.

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Israel’s prime target: the hunt for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar

Motivated pursuers using advanced technology and brute force have yet to pin down their cautious quarry. Would his death or capture stop the war?

A group of Israel hostages were huddled in a tunnel in Gaza a few days after they had been dragged from their homes on 7 October, when the man who had plotted their abduction appeared out of the subterranean gloom.

His hair and beard were grey and his dark-ringed eyes stared out from under thick black brows. It was a face familiar to them from a thousand broadcasts and newspaper stories: Yahya Sinwar. The Hamas leader in Gaza was the most feared man in Israel, even before he ordered the October raid in which 1,200 people – two-thirds of them civilians – were killed and 250 taken hostage.

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Israel seeking to close down Unrwa, says agency’s chief after school bombing

Philippe Lazzarini says closure would have ‘devastating consequences’ and calls for investigation into deadly strike

A campaign is under way to drive the UN relief agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, out of existence, its commissioner general has said, days after 18 people were killed when Israeli jets bombed an Unrwa school in Gaza.

Philippe Lazzarini said in an interview that the Israeli government was seeking to close down the agency, having failed to persuade western donors to stop funding it on the grounds of allegations about links between Unrwa staff and Hamas.

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Israeli forces mischaracterised events leading to fatal shooting of US activist, says Washington Post

Protests in West Bank village had subsided half an hour before IDF shot Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, says report

Israeli security forces mischaracterised the events that led up to the fatal shooting of a Turkish-American protester in the West Bank, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.

The Israel Defense Forces claimed that their soldiers were targeting the leader of a violent protest when they shot Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old member of the International Solidarity Movement who had come from her native Washington state to Israel to protest against settlements in the West Bank.

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Head of Israeli spy agency Unit 8200 resigns over 7 October failings

Yossi Sariel takes responsibility for military surveillance unit’s role in intelligence failures before Hamas-led assault

The commander of Israel’s military surveillance agency, Unit 8200, has announced his resignation, publicly accepting responsibility for failings that contributed to the deadly 7 October attacks.

Yossi Sariel said on Tuesday that he had informed his superiors of his intention to step down after the completion of an initial investigation into Unit 8200’s role in failures surrounding the Hamas-led assault last year.

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Aid not reaching Gaza, say relief groups as ‘more than a million go without food’

Medical supplies, toothbrushes and shampoo also remain stuck in backlog of lorries unable to enter from Egypt

Relief groups have said more than 1 million people in Gaza will not have enough food this month, while trucks loaded with fresh vegetables or meat spoil waiting to cross Israeli checkpoints, and thousands of aid packages of food, medical supplies and even toothbrushes and shampoo remain stuck in a backlog of lorries unable to enter from Egypt.

“We estimate that over a million Gazans will go without food in September,” said Sam Rose, a senior deputy director of UN’s relief agency for Palestinians (Unrwa), in Gaza. “Over half the medicines in our health centres are running low, as is chlorine for water purification and other basic supplies.”

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Israel-Gaza war: killing of Unrwa workers by Israeli strike ‘appalling’, says UK foreign minister – as it happened

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Syrian media is reporting that in addition to killing two people in a drone strike on a vehicle inside Syria, Israeli forces have also shelled the Syrian town of Al-Rafid in the south-east of the country, close to territory controlled by Israel.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said that Israeli attacks have killed at least 34 people and injured 96 over the past 24 hours in the territory.

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Hundreds gather on a Seattle beach to remember US activist killed by Israeli military

Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was killed while protesting against West Bank settlements, though a witness says she posed no threat

For her 26th birthday in July, human rights activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi gathered friends for a bonfire at one of her favorite places, a sandy beach in Seattle where green-and-white ferries cruise across the dark, flat water and ospreys fish overhead.

On Wednesday night, hundreds of people gathered on the same beach in grief, love and anger to mourn her. Eygi was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers last Friday in the occupied West Bank, where she had gone to protest and bear witness to Palestinian suffering.

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