Category Archives: Israel-Gaza war

Joe Biden ordered Gaza pier to be built despite fears of aid experts

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Report by US Agency for International Development into $230m pier paints scathing picture of a failed project

Joe Biden declared the US intention to build a pier off the coast of Gaza as a means of delivering food despite advice to the contrary from aid experts in his administration, according to an official investigation into the ill-fated project.

A new report by the inspector general of the US Agency for International Development (USAid), which was responsible for delivering food to Gaza by the pier, paints a scathing picture of a failed project, in which political and security imperatives outweighed humanitarian considerations.

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Middle East crisis: 10 Palestinian militants killed in major West Bank raids; US announces new sanctions against Israeli settlers – as it happened

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Israeli, American, Egyptian and Qatari negotiators were meeting in Doha on Wednesday for “technical/working level” talks on a ceasefire in Gaza, a source with knowledge of the meeting told Reuters without giving further details.

At least 40,534 Palestinians were killed and 93,778 wounded in Israel’s military offensive on Gaza since 7 October, health authorities said on Wednesday.

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Red Sea tanker attack: hopes rise that major oil spill can be averted

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Waters around vessel attacked by Houthi rebels last week appear to be free of oil, EU mission Red Sea says

The area around a Greek-flagged tanker attacked last week by Yemen’s Houthi rebels appears to be free of oil, the EU mission in the Red Sea has said.

The tanker came under fire last week off Yemen’s port city of Hodeidah. The Houthis, who control Yemen’s most populous regions, said they were behind the attack.

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Middle East crisis: Gaza hostage Qaid Farhan Alkadi rescued in ‘complex operation’, says IDF – as it happened

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The Biden administration remains in an intense phase of Middle East diplomatic activity working to avoid a regional war while optimistically spinning the prospects for a Gaza breakthrough deal.

Following the latest round of provocative Israeli extrajudicial killings in Tehran and Beirut and the intensified exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah over the weekend, the region appeared to lurch further in the direction of all-out war. Preventing that is a worthy cause in itself.

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Israeli Bedouin kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October reunited with his family

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Israeli forces spoke of Qaid Farhan Alkadi’s rescue from tunnel though some reports suggest he may have initially escaped

A member of Israel’s Bedouin minority who was kidnapped by Hamas on 7 October last year has been reunited with his family amid conflicting accounts about his rescue from Gaza.

The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it had rescued Qaid Farhan Alkadi, 52, who was abducted in the Hamas attack while he had been working as a security guard at a packing factory on a kibbutz.

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Gaza polio vaccine rollout hindered by Israeli evacuation orders, says UN

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Aid workers preparing to distribute medicine to children in effort to contain outbreak call for pause in fighting

The UN has said its ability to function in Gaza is being crippled by a flurry of Israeli evacuation orders, forcing Palestinians into ever smaller and more remote areas, days before a critical effort to contain a polio outbreak.

Aid workers warn that without a humanitarian pause, a vaccination drive due to begin this weekend could fail to reach enough children to stop the spread of the virus, which was detected there this month for the first time in 25 years. A baby has already been partly paralysed by the disease, and health experts have warned it could spread rapidly given the terrible sanitation and overcrowding in camps for Gaza’s exhausted, displaced population.

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Netanyahu faces Israeli calls for broader strikes against Hezbollah

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Benny Gantz and Itamar Ben-Gvir say prime minister needs to remove the threat in the north completely

Benjamin Netanyahu is facing a political backlash in Israel for the limited nature of Sunday’s airstrikes against Hezbollah, amid calls for a broader offensive in Lebanon.

Some of the fiercest criticism came from the far-right wing of the prime minister’s own fractious coalition, which is also increasingly divided over the status of Jerusalem’s holiest site.

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Zomi Frankcom’s brother calls for those responsible for her death in Israeli airstrike to be prosecuted

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Mal Frankcom says he wants people behind strike that killed seven people to be ‘tried and convicted and punished’

The brother of the Australian aid worker Zomi Frankcom, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike, has called for those responsible for his sister’s death to be prosecuted and punished.

Frankcom, a 43-year-old from Melbourne who was working in Gaza with World Central Kitchen, was one of seven people killed in April when a convoy of cars was hit by an Israeli airstrike.

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Netanyahu says attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon ‘not the end of the story’

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Israeli air raids on rocket sites are part of dangerous rise in hostilities, increasing fears a major conflict could erupt

Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that Israeli air raids targeting Hezbollah rockets in southern Lebanon in the early hours of Sunday morning were “not the end of the story”, after the two sides exchanged their heaviest fire since the war in Gaza began, raising fears of an all-out regional conflict.

The Israeli prime minister did not specify what further action, if any, was planned after the intense exchanges but he suggested Israel’s moves would be aimed at “changing the situation in the north”.

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Attorney general intervenes in Foreign Office review of weapons sales to Israel

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Exclusive: Richard Hermer tells officials he can’t approve decision to ban arms without knowing if their use would breach international law

Keir Starmer’s most senior legal adviser has intervened in the contentious decision over whether to ban UK arms sales to Israel, the Guardian has learned, as officials struggle to distinguish between “offensive” and “defensive” weapons.

Sources say Richard Hermer, the attorney general, has told Foreign Office officials he will not approve a decision to ban some weapons sales until they can say for sure which could be used to break international humanitarian law.

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Israel and Hezbollah have good reason to avoid war – but it remains possible

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Neither side seems prepared for realities of land warfare, but a small mistake may have deadly consequences

If Israel and Hezbollah wanted an all-out war it would have happened a long time ago. Each side would welcome the destruction of the other, but the time has not been right so far for either of them to plunge into a full-scale conflict.

The intense exchange of hostilities across the Israel-Lebanese border on Sunday morning once more took the parties to brink of such a war, but once again they paused and pulled back.

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EU top diplomat to call for sanctions against far-right Israeli ministers

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Inflammatory statements of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have drawn widespread condemnation

Europe’s most senior diplomat will call for sanctions on two far-right Israeli ministers, as the EU battles to rescue its credibility on the Middle East.

At a meeting of the EU’s 27 foreign ministers on Thursday, Josep Borrell will make the case for sanctions against Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, two far-right government ministers, whose inflammatory statements and behaviour have drawn international condemnation.

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Israel and Hezbollah trade strikes as Hamas plays down talk of imminent ceasefire deal in Gaza – as it happened

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IDF launches waves of what it calls ‘pre-emptive’ strikes into Lebanon as Hezbollah fires hundreds of rockets in major escalation of tensions

Circling back to Lloyd Austin and Yoav Gallant speaking, the Pentagon said the US defence secretary reaffirmed Washington’s commitment to Israel’s defence.

Reuters reports that a Pentagon readout of the call said Austin spoke with the Israeli defence minister “to discuss Israel’s defence against Lebanese [Hezbollah] attacks”.

Secretary Austin reaffirmed the United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel’s defence against any attacks by Iran and its regional partners and proxies.

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Israeli airstrikes kill at least 36 Palestinians in southern Gaza

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Deaths reported by Gaza health workers come as delegations gather in Egypt for ceasefire talks

Multiple Israeli airstrikes killed at least three dozen Palestinians in southern Gaza, health workers said Saturday, as officials including a Hamas delegation gathered for ceasefire talks in Egypt.

Among the dead were 11 members of a family, including two children, after an airstrike hit their home in Khan Younis, according to Nasser hospital.

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Hamas sends delegation to Cairo peace talks but rules out direct participation

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Negotiations stall over Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand for an Israeli presence on Egypt-Gaza border

Hamas has sent a delegation to Cairo to be briefed on progress in peace talks, but an official from the group said it would not participate directly in the negotiations it had been boycotting for the past 10 days.

Hamas representatives were expected on Saturday in the Egyptian capital, where negotiators from Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar have been holding talks on a elusive deal that would involve the release of Israeli hostages, the freeing of Palestinian detainees and a ceasefire.

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Baby in Gaza partly paralysed from polio in territory’s first case for 25 years

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WHO says infant in stable condition as it prepares to vaccinate more than 640,000 children amid war

A Palestinian baby in Gaza has been partly paralysed from polio in the first case there for 25 years, amid preparations for a difficult and dangerous vaccination campaign in the midst of war.

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, confirmed that the affected infant had lost movement in his lower left leg, but was in a stable condition.

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Israel-Gaza war: Israeli forces claim to have killed prominent Hezbollah member in attack on Lebanon’s Ayta al-Jabal – as it happened

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IDF says it has killed Muhammad Mahmoud Najam in attack in southern Lebanon

The Lebanon Health Ministry said one adult and one child were killed in an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon, Haaretz is reporting.

Lufthansa will resume flights to Amman in Jordan and Erbil in Iraq starting 27 August, Reuters is reporting.

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US officials say Gaza ceasefire ‘in sight’ but Israel and Hamas downbeat

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Warring sides indicate breakthrough not imminent as renewed fighting rages in parts of Palestinian territory

US officials have expressed optimism that a ceasefire deal in the war in Gaza “is in sight”, despite growing indications from Israel and Hamas that a breakthrough is not imminent and as renewed fighting rages in parts of the Palestinian territory.

Washington has put pressure on both parties to accept a bridging proposal suggested during internationally mediated talks in Qatar last week, dispatching the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on his ninth visit to the region since the conflict broke out 10 months ago. The latest round of negotiations, in which Hamas is not directly participating, were scheduled to restart in Cairo by Thursday but appear to have been postponed.

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Uncommitted holds sit-in outside Democratic convention after Palestinians denied a speaker

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Movement launched protest after party rejected requests for Palestinian American to speak on the main stage

A sit-in that began Wednesday evening in protest of the Democratic convention’s denial of a Palestinian American speaker on the main stage continued on Thursday.

Uncommitted, a national movement that began in Michigan, won 30 delegates to the convention and has tried to use the party process to pressure Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to broker an end to the war in Gaza. The sit-in has been taking place outside the United Center, where Harris will speak this evening, is the latest attempt to get the Democratic party to allow greater prominence for the anti-war movement at this week’s convention in Chicago. Organizers were expected to remain in place until or unless the party changes course.

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Israel-Gaza war: Israeli police arrest four suspected over settler attack on Palestinian village – as it happened

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Three adults and one minor arrested over suspected acts of terrorism against Palestinians, Israeli security services say. This live blog is closed

The crew of a Greek-flagged oil tanker that was attacked in the Red Sea on Wednesday abandoned the vessel and were rescued by the EU’s Red Sea naval mission “Aspides”, an official in the mission told Reuters on Thursday.

The Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea region since November in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

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