PM acknowledges international pressure is increasing but says it will not stop Israel achieving its goals
Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to press ahead with sending Israeli troops into Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, rejecting deep international concerns over the risks to more than a million Palestinians who have sought shelter there.
The prime minister said no amount of international pressure would stop Israel from realising all of its war aims.
Continue reading...Comments come after Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Israeli military would go ahead with plans for operations in Rafah
The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said Israeli forces released Tamer Fouad Salim Al-Qarm, a PRCS volunteer, yesterday after a “36-day detention during the occupation’s raid on al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis”.
The PRCS added in its post on X that Israeli troops continue to detain 13 PRCS members and volunteers, “whose fate remains unknown to this moment”.
Continue reading...Destruction of buildings, too few ambulances and having to work in ‘red zones’ all adding to trauma
There have been no medical evacuations from northern Gaza for more than a month so severely injured people are trapped in damaged hospitals where they cannot get adequate treatment, a leading medical charity has warned.
Ambulances need urgent access to take the most vulnerable patients for specialist care, said Patrick Münz, head of mission in Gaza for German medical charity Cadus.
Continue reading...Israeli negotiators are heading to Qatar after the group dropped calls for a permanent end to hostilities and agreed a 40-day pause
Israeli negotiators are expected to arrive in Qatar on Sunday amid intense new efforts to bring the war in Gaza to at least a temporary halt, after Hamas abandoned key ceasefire demands last week following a series of setbacks.
In recent days, the militant organisation has been disappointed by the failure of its calls for a wave of protest during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, angered by the appointment without consultation of a new prime minister by the Palestinian Authority (PA) and suffered the possible death of a key military commander in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
Continue reading...Source tells Reuters that discussions would cover issues including prisoner-hostage exchanges and humanitarian aid
Record numbers of Palestinian detainees are filling Israeli prisons where they face “systemic abuse” and torture, rights advocates warned, calling for international action, reports AFP.
Members of several Israeli NGOs travelled to Geneva this week to raise concerns before the UN about a major “crisis” inside the country’s prisons.
Continue reading...Hamas seeks scaled-back release it can portray as victory as Israeli government weighs conflicting pressures over hostages
In a cafe on a dusty roundabout in the small West Bank town of Silwad, men sit and play cards, one eye on the large TV screen showing the latest news from Gaza. When there is any mention of a possible ceasefire deal – and so the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails – there is silence.
“Nobody tell us anything officially. We see on the news about a deal. So we just know that my brother might be released,” said Akhram Hammad, a 45-year-old blacksmith whose sibling Tayyer is serving multiple life sentences for shooting dead seven Israeli soldiers and three civilians at a checkpoint not far from Silwad in 2002. “It would be really good and everybody would be really happy; otherwise, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.”
Continue reading...Group of more than a dozen writers decry organization’s inadequate response to ‘genocide’ being committed by Israel
More than a dozen prominent authors and literary figures have withdrawn from PEN America’s flagship World Voices Festival in protest of what they see as an inadequate response by the organization to the “genocide” being committed against Palestinians by Israel in Gaza.
The group of writers, which includes Naomi Klein, Michelle Alexander, Hisham Matar, Isabella Hammad and Zaina Arafat, sent a letter to PEN America asserting it had “betrayed the organization’s professed commitment to peace and equality for all, and to freedom and security for writers everywhere” by failing to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war.
Continue reading...President also condemns US surge in Islamophobia in comments that could portend broader shift in sentiment towards Gaza war
Joe Biden on Friday said Senator Chuck Schumer made “a good speech” that reflected many Americans’ concerns when he publicly broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over his handling of the war in Gaza.
While the US president announced no changes in his administration’s policy towards Israel, his views on the speech Schumer made Thursday from the floor of the US Senate, where the New York Democrat is the majority leader, could portend a broader shift in sentiment.
Continue reading...Israeli PM’s decision may be intended to put negotiating pressure on Hamas, observers say, after his cabinet discussed truce proposal
Benjamin Netanyahu has approved plans for an attack on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than a million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have sought shelter, officials in Israel have said.
The decision was made as a ship towing a barge loaded with food arrived off Gaza on Friday. It was a test run for a new aid route by sea from Cyprus into the devastated Palestinian territory, where famine looms after five months of Israel’s military campaign.
Continue reading...Reuters reports that Israeli military is preparing to evacuate the population of Gaza border town
Reuters has a breaking news line about the Gaza aid ship, the Open Arms, that set off from Cyprus on Tuesday. According to the news agency, witnesses have reported that the ship is close to Gaza’s coast now.
More details soon …
Continue reading...At least 70 people have had to cancel or postpone travel while one man remains stuck in an Istanbul airport
Palestinians fleeing Gaza with valid Australian visas only for them to be cancelled mid-flight or at airports have been described as “collateral damage” for the federal government’s failures.
One charity group helping Palestinians to leave the war zone, the Palestine Australia Relief and Action (Para) group, said it has already had to cancel or postpone the upcoming flights of at least 70 people, including sick and elderly, and is frustrated by the lack of clarity.
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Continue reading...Israeli military denies reports after officials say eight people killed in separate strike on aid distribution centre
Gaza’s health ministry has said Israeli fire killed 20 people waiting to receive desperately needed aid in the besieged Palestinian territory, but the Israeli military said the reports were “erroneous”.
Gaza officials said the attack occurred as a crowd gathered to receive aid from a truck at the Kuwait roundabout, a key interchange used by humanitarian convoys carrying food into northern Gaza. More than 150 people were wounded, they added.
Continue reading...Pallets with 50% more supplies than first boat, Open Arms, being loaded in Cyprus
The charity sending food aid to Gaza on a ship travelling across the Mediterranean from Cyprus is loading a second boat with supplies, which it hopes will set off in the coming days.
Pallets containing 300 tonnes of food aid – 50% more than the first shipment – are expected to be screened and loaded by the end of Thursday, but there is no indication yet when it will leave the port of Larnaca.
Continue reading...Senate majority leader’s scathing speech draws criticism from Mitch McConnell and Mike Johnson as well as Israel’s ambassador to the US
Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, has called for Israel to hold new elections, arguing that prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “no longer fits the needs of Israel”.
Schumer, long a strong supporter of Israel and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the US, strongly criticized the Israeli leader in a 40-minute speech on the Senate floor.
If prime minister Netanyahu’s current coalition remains in power after the war begins to wind down, and continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing US standards for assistance, then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course.
As a democracy, Israel has the right to choose its own leaders, and we should let the chips fall where they may. But the important thing is that Israelis are given a choice.
Continue reading...This blog is now closed. You can read the latest news and reaction to Schumer’s speech in our US politics blog:
Lebanon’s National News Agency reports Israeli planes have overflown Jezzine in southern Lebanon. There are unconfirmed images circulating social media appearing to show airstrikes have been carried out. Israel and anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon have repeatedly exchanged fire since 7 October.
The aid ship from Cyprus expected to arrive on Gaza’s shores is only “a drop in the ocean” of what is needed to address the acute crisis in the territory, the International Rescue Committee’s lead on the crisis said late yesterday.
Continue reading...Senate majority leader says Israeli prime minister has ‘lost his way’ and warns that country risks becoming ‘a pariah’
Chuck Schumer, the US Senate leader and a top ally of Joe Biden, on Thursday broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over his handling of the invasion of Gaza and called for Israel to hold new elections, in comments that upset its ruling party and allies on Capitol Hill.
The shift by Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the United States, came as he continued to press lawmakers to pass a military assistance package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, the countries Biden has named as America’s top national security priorities.
Continue reading...Ro Khanna, Biden campaign surrogate, believes US president should take tougher line with ‘insufferably arrogant’ Israeli PM
Joe Biden has committed a “strategic mistake” by “bear-hugging” the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as he prosecutes war with Hamas, a leading congressional progressive Democrat and Biden campaign surrogate said.
“The bear-hugging of Netanyahu has been a strategic mistake,” Ro Khanna said, accusing the Israeli leader of conducting “a callous war” in Gaza, in defiance of the United States.
Continue reading...Analysis shows how jets and tanks are being kept fueled despite interim ICJ ruling warning Israel to prevent genocidal acts
Israeli jets and tanks bombarding Palestinians are being fueled by some of the world’s most profitable fossil fuel companies – and US tax-payers, according to research.
Israel relies on crude oil and refined products from overseas to run its large fleet of fighter jets, tanks and other military vehicles.
Continue reading...Child suffered fatal gunshot wound after riots broke out at Shuafat refugee camp during Ramadan
A Palestinian boy has died after being shot by Israeli border police at a refugee camp in East Jerusalem in the first such fatality in the Israeli-annexed territory during Ramadan.
The child – who was variously reported as being 12 or 13 years old – suffered a fatal gunshot wound during clashes between residents of the Shuafat refugee camp and police.
Continue reading...Itay Chen, 19, was serving in the IDF when militants attacked his base and killed him, and then took his body to Gaza
Joe Biden has said he was devastated to learn that a dual US-Israeli citizen thought kidnapped and held in Gaza had actually been killed during Hamas’s 7 October attack.
Itay Chen, 19, was about one year into his military service in the Israeli Armoured Corps when his base near the Gaza border was attacked.
Continue reading...