Aid ‘still not reaching Gaza’, as top US official warns famine has started

Samantha Power becomes first US official to confirm famine, while aid workers decry continuing lack of help

A surge in aid into Gaza that Benjamin Netanyahu promised Joe Biden a week ago has so far failed to materialise, aid workers say, as the US aid chief confirmed that famine was beginning to take hold in parts of the besieged coastal strip.

A key port has not been opened to aid shipments, and a new crossing into northern Gaza has officially opened but UN agencies are not yet allowed to use it, even though they provide the vast majority of food aid for the territory.

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US seeking to deter Iran from strike on Israel, officials say

US declaring commitment to Israeli security while also working to prevent regional war, say officials

The US is seeking to deter Iran from carrying out a retaliatory strike against Israel with concerted declarations of commitment to Israeli security, while at the same time trying to prevent the outbreak of a major regional war, officials in Washington have said.

US officials still believe that a direct Iranian missile or drone strike is possible within the next few days, in retaliation for the Israeli bombing of an Iranian consular building in Damascus on 1 April, which killed a top Islamic Revolutionary Guards general and six other Guard officers.

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Hamas says it does not have 40 hostages who fit criteria for deal with Israel

US-backed proposal involves women, children and elderly or sick hostages in Gaza being exchanged for 900 Palestinian prisoners

The Palestinian militant group Hamas has indicated it does not have 40 captives who are still alive who meet the “humanitarian” criteria for a proposed hostages-for-prisoners ceasefire agreement with Israel.

A senior Israeli official confirmed claims made at the weekend by Hamas during talks in Cairo that it does not have 40 hostages in Gaza who meet the exchange criteria.

Guardian Newsroom: Crisis in the Middle East
On Tuesday 30 April, 7-8.15pm GMT, join Devika Bhat, Peter Beaumont, Emma Graham-Harrison and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad as they discuss the fast-developing crisis in the Middle East. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live

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Russia warns against travel to Middle East amid fears of Iranian attack on Israel – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

Israeli forces killed three sons of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in an airstrike in Gaza without consulting senior commanders or political leaders including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says Reuters citing Israeli media reports on Thursday.

Quoting senior Israeli officials, Walla news agency said neither Netanyahu nor defence minister Yoav Gallant had been told in advance of the strike, which was coordinated by the Israeli military and the Shin Bet intelligence service.

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Tim Kaine: Biden knows Netanyahu ‘played’ him in early months of Gaza war

Senator and leading foreign policy voice in Democratic party tells the Guardian Biden has come to realise the limits of his influence

Senator Tim Kaine, a former vice-presidential nominee and leading foreign policy voice in the Democratic party, has said Joe Biden now understands that Benjamin Netanyahu “played” him during the early months of the war in Gaza but “that ain’t going to happen any more”.

In an interview with the Guardian on Tuesday, Kaine accused the prime minister of making Israel “dramatically less safe” and hurting its longstanding relationship with the US, and said the US president had come to realise the limits of his influence.

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Hamas leader repeats Gaza ceasefire call after sons and grandchildren killed

Deadly Israeli airstrike prompts comments by Ismail Haniyeh, as two sides remain far apart on key issues

Three sons and at least two grandchildren of the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, have been killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, the exiled political chief of the militant group has said from his base in the Qatari capital of Doha.

Haniyeh told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that his children Hazem, Amir and Mohammed and several of their children were visiting relatives for Eid at the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza when their car was targeted in an Israeli airstrike. Sixty of his relatives had been killed in the six-month-old war, he said, including 14 who died after an Israeli airstrike hit the family home in Gaza City in October.

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German university rescinds Jewish American’s job offer over pro-Palestinian letter

Nancy Fraser, professor of philosophy at the New School, condemned killings in Gaza carried out by the Israeli military

A leading Jewish American philosopher has been disinvited from taking up a prestigious professorship at the University of Cologne after signing a letter expressing solidarity with Palestinians and condemning the killings in Gaza carried out by Israeli forces.

Nancy Fraser, professor of philosophy and politics at the New School for Social Research in New York, said she had been cancelled by the university, which has withdrawn its invitation to the Albertus Magnus Professorship 2024, a visiting position, which she had been awarded in 2022. The letter was written in November 2023 following the 7 October attacks on Israel by Hamas, prompting Israel’s attack on Gaza.

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Middle East crisis live: Israel threatens to strike Iran directly – as it happened

Israel’s foreign minister says Israel will attack Iran directly if Tehran launches an attack from its territory

The commander of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon (Unifil), Aroldo Lazaro, said on Wednesday the danger of escalation on the Lebanon-Israel border was real, reports Reuters.

“Unifil calls for a return to the cessation of hostilities, and a move towards a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution to the conflict,” Lazaro said in a statement.

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Netanyahu making a ‘mistake’ on Gaza, says Biden, as he urges Israel to push for ceasefire

US president gives some of his strongest criticism of Israeli PM yet, saying he needs to ‘empower’ Israel’s negotiators to call for a truce

US president Joe Biden has said prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach on Gaza was a “mistake” and urged Israel to call for a ceasefire, in an interview that aired on Tuesday.

Biden’s comments were some of his strongest criticism yet of Netanyahu amid growing tensions over the civilian death toll from Israel’s war on Hamas and dire conditions inside Gaza.

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Israel’s security at core of German foreign policy due to Holocaust, ICJ hears

Nicaragua asks UN’s highest court to halt German weapons sales to Israel, alleging it is breaching obligation to prevent genocide

Germany has said Israel’s security is at “the core” of its foreign policy because of the history of the Holocaust, but denied accusations at the UN’s highest court that is aiding genocide in Gaza by arming Israel.

Nicaragua has brought a case against Germany at the international court of justice (ICJ) urging judges to order a halt to German weapons sales to Israel, alleging it is in breach of its obligation to prevent genocide and ensure respect of international humanitarian law.

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Unrwa vital to avert starvation in Gaza, says agency official

Comments by Sam Rose, of the UN body for Palestinian refugees, come amid fears Israel plans to squeeze agency out of Gaza

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees must remain “the backbone of any humanitarian response” for the 2 million people in Gaza if mass starvation is to be avoided, the Unrwa director of planning, Sam Rose, says.

Israel is continuing to impede Unrwa convoys to northern Gaza, where 300,000 people are facing famine, he said. “Our space is continuing to be squeezed at a time when the international community urgently needs to get as much assistance as possible to people in the north.”

Guardian Newsroom: Crisis in the Middle East
On Tuesday 30 April, 7-8.15pm GMT, join Devika Bhat, Peter Beaumont, Emma Graham-Harrison and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad as they discuss the fast-developing crisis in the Middle East. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live

Continue reading...

Middle East crisis live: Netanyahu says date for Rafah invasion has been set with Israel buying 40,000 tents for evacuations

Israeli PM says Rafah invasion will go ahead as official says tents are part of evacuation plan

Recent tragedies in Gaza are not a reason to “walk away from Israel”, the former British home secretary, Suella Braverman, said.

Asked if the UK should still be selling arms to Israel, Braverman told LBC: “I don’t think the fact that these tragedies happen is a reason to walk away from Israel, and to stop selling arms to Israel, because of that broader battle that they are engaging with.”

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‘Hell on Earth’: famine nears in northern Gaza despite Israeli aid pledges

Doctors describe rise in infections and amputations among dangerously malnourished patients

Every morning, starving mothers arrive at the doors of al-Awda hospital in northern Gaza desperately seeking baby formula. Many mothers of newborns are unable to breastfeed, the head of the hospital said, because they are so underfed.

Inside the hospital, where doctors are undergoing treatment for malnutrition alongside their patients, surgeons say they are carrying out increasing numbers of amputations owing to the effects of acute hunger.

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David Cameron to set out UK basis for continuing arms sales to Israel

Foreign secretary’s intervention comes as pressure grows on ministers to reveal legal advice over Gaza conflict

David Cameron will set out the UK’s reasoning for continuing to export arms to Israel on Tuesday as ministers face ongoing pressure to disclose the official legal advice on the trade.

The foreign secretary will discuss the Middle East crisis with his US counterpart, Antony Blinken, on a visit to Washington where he is also expected to give an update on the UK’s arms export regime.

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Home Office refusal of Gaza family reunion requests ‘irrational’, judge rules

Families brought legal challenge after Home Office refused to decide on reunion applications without biometric data

Families in Gaza have won a legal case against the Home Office after a judge ruled the department’s decisions were a “disproportionate interference” in their right to a family life.

Two challenges were brought against the Home Office in February this year after it refused to decide on family reunion applications from families in Gaza without biometric data, including fingerprints and photographs.

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No progress made at Cairo ceasefire talks, says Hamas, as Israel pulls troops out of southern Gaza – as it happened

Israeli defence minister says withdrawal forms part of preparations for later attack on Rafah

An Israeli strike on southern Lebanon early on Monday killed a field commander in the heavily-armed Lebanese group Hezbollah, as the United Nations warned that shelling was spreading and urged a halt to the violence.

Hezbollah and the Israeli military have been exchanging fire across Lebanon’s southern frontier in parallel with the Gaza war, adding to fears of a wider regional conflict.

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Father of killed World Central Kitchen worker tells Blinken US should suspend aid to Israel

‘If the United States threatened to suspend aid, maybe my son would be alive today,’ John Flickinger told the US secretary of state

When the US’s top diplomat called with condolences over the killing of John Flickinger’s son in the Israeli airstrikes on a World Central Kitchen aid convoy in Gaza, Flickinger knew what he wanted to say.

The grieving father told Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, that the killings by Israel in the Hamas-run territory must end – and that the United States needs to use its power and leverage over its closest Middle East ally to make that happen.

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Palestinians return to destroyed homes in Khan Younis after Israeli withdrawal

People find landscape in southern Gaza city marked by shattered buildings and stench of death from under the rubble

Thousands of Palestinians, exhausted by six months of unrelenting war and multiple displacements, trudged back to the devastated city of Khan Younis on Monday, a day after Israel’s unexpected withdrawal of its forces from southern Gaza.

With many making the journey on foot from nearby Rafah, they struggled to find homes that had been atomised by the force of the bombardment in neighbourhoods heavy with the smell of death, where family and neighbours worked to dig out bodies long buried in the rubble.

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Monday briefing: The ‘unprecedented’ pressure to suspend arms exports to Israel

In today’s newsletter: The killing of aid workers in Gaza last week has western leaders under even greater scrutiny – and raises questions about the fragility of the Israeli coalition government

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Good morning.

Six months since the 7 October massacre by Hamas and the Israeli military’s ensuing ground offensive in Gaza, Israel is more isolated than ever before, and at odds with its closest allies.

Welfare | Tens of thousands of unpaid carers looking after disabled, frail or ill relatives are being forced to repay huge sums to the government and threatened with criminal prosecution after the Department of Work and Pensions erroneously overpaid them.

NHS | A study of more than 12,200 NHS workers across the UK has found that one in 10 reported unwanted incidents including being touched or kissed, demands for sex in return for favours, or derogatory comments.

Health | Guardian analysis of NHS figures for 2022-23 found that black women are up to six times more likely to experience some of the most serious birth complications during hospital delivery across England than their white counterparts, with the figures being described as “stark” and disheartening”.

Housing | The Resolution Foundation said average rents could increase by 13% over the next three years as current high growth in the private rental market works its way through existing tenancies.

Africa | After more than 9,940 miles (16,000km) over 352 days across 16 countries, Briton Russ Cook, aka the “Hardest Geezer”, has completed the mammoth challenge of running the length of Africa.

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The disappeared of Gaza: tens of thousands missing in territory since start of war

Families left unsure if loved ones are alive or dead as they search through rubble for signs of survivors

Late one night in March, Ahmed Abu Jalala rose quietly, trying hard not to wake his family, sleeping around him on the floor of a UN-run school in northern Gaza.

The 54-year-old father knew his six children needed food, but after months of war there was none. Little aid reached Jabaliya, where they had been staying since fleeing their small home in the early weeks of the conflict, and his children had been reduced to eating wild plants. So Abu Jalala went out into the darkness to search for flour being brought by a humanitarian convoy.

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