Cairo in touch with both sides and other mediators in effort to restart negotiations for truce in Gaza during Ramadan, say security sources
The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has said that hunger is “everywhere” in Gaza and described the situation in the north of the enclave as “tragic”.
The agency is calling for humanitarian access across the Gaza Strip and an immediate ceasefire.
Continue reading...Warnings that war in Gaza and Iran’s lack of cooperation on its nuclear programme are strengthening hand of hardliners
There are growing fears among diplomats in the US and Europe that Iran’s largely unmonitored nuclear programme and the destabilisation caused by the Gaza conflict are strengthening the hand of Iranian factions that back the development of nuclear weapons.
The Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi, has reiterated in recent days that his country is pursuing a civilian nuclear programme for now.
Continue reading...Cross-party group of peers expected to ask for more details about why minister made and withdrew claims about two academics
The cabinet minister Michelle Donelan is to face more questioning this week over her judgment after taxpayers funded a payout to an academic she had falsely accused of supporting Hamas.
The science secretary will appear before a cross-party group of peers on Tuesday, when she is expected to be questioned on the process that led her to make the accusation, which she has since retracted. The decision to leave taxpayers with the £15,000 bill is also likely to be raised. The sum was paid “without admitting any liability”, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said.
Continue reading...Key site is al-Aqsa mosque on what Jews call the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Peaceful access for Muslims could send a message of calm
Israelis and Palestinians are bracing themselves for a tense and potentially violent week, with no sign of a ceasefire likely in Gaza and calls from Hamas for protest marches around the Islamic world to mark the start of Ramadan on Monday.
Earlier this month, a halt to hostilities before the Muslim holy month looked possible, but hopes have dimmed since indirect talks in Cairo ended without progress last week.
Continue reading...HMS Richmond destroyed two targets with Sea Ceptor missiles, defence secretary Grant Shapps said
A Royal Navy frigate used its missiles to shoot down two attack drones as the US and its allies came under sustained Houthi attack in the Red Sea in the early hours of Saturday.
The UK defence secretary, Grant Shapps, announced HMS Richmond’s role in destroying the targets in a post on X.
Continue reading...Marchers on Saturday came from wide range of backgrounds as rightwing press characterises city as ‘no-go zone for Jews’
As on previous Saturdays in the past six months, there were two marches taking place in London yesterday. The first, a gathering of tens of thousands of full-throated, flag-waving supporters of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza gathered at Hyde Park Corner at noon, and shuffled peaceably and patiently in the sunshine in the direction of the American embassy at Vauxhall, over the river.
The second march was taking place mostly in the imaginations of right-wing commentators and politicians who increasingly choose to see these displays of solidarity with the Palestinian cause only as a provocation and a threat. Following the prime minister’s Downing Street address on 1 March which represented these gatherings as representative of “forces trying to tear apart” our democracy, the latest figure to loud-hailer that version of reality was the government-appointed commissioner for countering extremism, Robin Simcox, who argued on Friday the marches were “a permissive environment for radicalisation”, leading to a hysterical Daily Telegraph front-page headline that read: “London is now a no-go zone for Jews”.
Continue reading...European Commission hopes maritime corridor will open by Sunday, while Israel strikes large residential tower in Rafah
A ship laden with humanitarian aid intended for Gaza is preparing to leave Cyprus, amid acute international concern as conditions in the territory continue to deteriorate.
A US charity said it was loading aid on to a boat in Cyprus, which will be the first shipment to Gaza along a maritime corridor the European Commission hopes will open by Sunday.
Continue reading...Attenders reiterate call for ceasefire in Gaza and condemn PM’s comments linking protests to ‘extremism’
Tens of thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday reiterating calls for a ceasefire in Gaza in the first national demonstration since Rishi Sunak suggested pro-Palestine demonstrations were a display of “extremism”.
The march began in Hyde Park Corner and ended outside the US embassy in Nine Elms. Near the start of the march, a crowd gathered around drummers, whose instruments were clad with the Palestinian flag and who played to chants calling for an end to Israeli occupation.
Continue reading...US charity preparing vessel with hopes it could leave for territory this weekend
The UN’s top aid official has renewed his call for a ceasefire in Gaza and outlined six priorities in the humanitarian response.
In a social media post via the account of the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs (Ocha) on Friday, Martin Griffiths, the UN emergency relief coordinator, wrote:
The hostilities in Gaza entered their sixth month. These six facts should keep us all awake at night:
1) More than half a million people are on the brink of famine. Children are dying of hunger.
1) A ceasefire and full adherence to the rules of war.
2) Additional entry points, supply routes and storage capacity in Gaza.
Continue reading...Open Arms vessel, loaded with humanitarian supplies, is waiting for approval from Israel before leaving
A Gaza-bound aid ship expected to make the maiden voyage along a new maritime corridor from Cyprus has yet to set sail because of logistical challenges.
Government officials confirmed on Saturday that while a vessel belonging to Open Arms, a Spanish search and rescue group, had been loaded with food, water and other supplies and was ready to depart the Mediterranean island, it was unlikely to leave before Sunday.
Continue reading...Iran-backed group is attempting to strike ships it claims have links to Israel, in solidarity with Gaza
Houthi forces in Yemen claim to have launched one of their largest attacks on US shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, saying they sent 37 drones to hit US navy war ships and a commercial ship.
The US Central Command said it had stopped the attack, which it attributed to Iranian-backed Houthi forces. The US spoke of only shooting down 15, not 37, drones.
Continue reading...Commission president says pilot delivery is expected to set sail on Saturday but did not say where shipments would land or unload
The EU has announced the opening of a sea corridor this weekend for shipping humanitarian aid from Cyprus to Gaza in the race to stave off a famine that is already claiming lives.
“We are now very close to the opening of the corridor, hopefully this Sunday. And I’m very glad to see that an initial pilot operation will be launched today,” the EU commission president, Ursula Von der Leyen, told reporters after touring harbour facilities at the Cypriot port of Larnaca, the departure point for the aid shipments.
Continue reading...Package ‘fell down like a rocket’ on roof of house near al-Shati refugee camp where people were waiting, a witness says
Five people have been killed and 10 injured in Gaza when they were hit by a pallet of aid parachuted into the territory as part of a humanitarian airdrop.
Witnesses said the accident happened on Friday morning near the coastal refugee camp known as al-Shati, one of the most devastated parts of Gaza, after a parachute attached to the pallet failed to deploy properly and the parcel fell on a group of men, teenagers and younger children hoping to obtain food and other supplies.
Continue reading...UN special rapporteur on torture to carry out fact-finding investigation after receiving allegations detained Palestinians were mistreated
Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories have expanded by a record amount and risk eliminating any practical possibly of a Palestinian state, the UN human rights chief said on Friday, reports Reuters.
The UN’s high commissioner for human rights Volker Türk said that the growth of Israeli settlements amounted to the transfer by Israel of its own population, which he said was a war crime. The US Biden administration said last month the settlements were “inconsistent” with international law after Israel announced new housing plans in the occupied West Bank.
Continue reading...US president makes last State of the Union address of this presidential term, with much at stake as he heads into re-election fight against Trump
For some reason, expelled former Republican congressman George Santos has returned to watch the State of the Union from the House floor:
Axios reports he wanted to hang out with the lawmakers who voted to remove him from office last year for being a big-time liar:
Continue reading...‘You need drivers, trucks and a distribution system that doesn’t exist,’ says president of Refugees International aid advocacy group
The US plan to build a floating port off the Gaza coast is a bold move, reminiscent of the Mulberry harbours built after D-day in Normandy, but there are serious concerns that what relief it brings will be too little too late for Palestinians facing starvation.
“When we talk about the sea route, it’s going to take weeks to set up and we are talking about a population that is starving now. We have already seen children dying of hunger,” said Ziad Issa, the head of humanitarian policy at the ActionAid charity.
Continue reading...President lays out plans in State of the Union speech while senior US official says ‘we are not waiting on the Israelis’
US forces will build a temporary dock on the Gaza shoreline to allow delivery of humanitarian aid on a large scale, Joe Biden announced in his State of the Union speech, amid warnings of a widespread famine among the territory’s 2.3 million Palestinians.
“Nearly two million more Palestinians under bombardment or displaced, homes destroyed, neighborhoods in rubble, cities in ruin, families without food, water, medicine. It’s heartbreaking,” Biden said on Thursday night, declaring that the US was leading humanitarian relief efforts.
Continue reading...Prime minister vows to continue offensive as Hamas delegation withdraws from ceasefire talks
Israel will not give in to international pressure to stall an attack on the southern Gaza city of Rafah and will continue its bloody offensive against Hamas, said Benjamin Netanyahu.
“There is international pressure and it’s growing, but … we need to stand together against the attempts to stop the war,” the prime minister told a military graduation ceremony in southern Israel, saying that Israel’s forces would operate against Hamas all through the Gaza Strip “including Rafah, the last Hamas stronghold”.
Continue reading...Hamas statement says talks over deal will continue after official earlier said Israel was rejecting demands to end offensive in Gaza
Family members of hostages still being held in Gaza are holding a news conference in London. You can watch it here.
At least 30,800 Palestinians have been killed and 72,298 have been wounded since Israel began its military assault on Gaza after the 7 October Hamas attack inside Israel, according to the latest figures from the health ministry.
Continue reading...Difference between the west’s responses to human suffering in Ukraine and Palestine defies reasoning, Anwar Ibrahim says
The Malaysian prime minister, Anwar Ibrahim, says he has appealed directly to his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese, to reinstate funding to UNRWA, arguing the aid agency was the most effective channel to “help the besieged civilians” of Gaza.
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