Palestinian baby shot dead by Israeli troops in occupied West Bank

The seven-month-old, Sam Fahd Abu Haikal, was in his mother’s arms when soldiers fired on family in Hebron

Israeli troops killed a seven-month-old Palestinian baby in the occupied West Bank and injured his parents after opening fire on the family’s car, despite it having complied with an order to stop.

Soldiers opened fire on Friday on a car carrying the infant and his parents in the Tel Rumeida area of Hebron. The seven-month-old, Sam Fahd Abu Haikal, was critically injured, evacuated in critical condition to a hospital, where he later died.

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Kuwait and Bahrain targeted by Iran after exchange of fire with US

Iran attacks American bases in Gulf states after Washington shoots down drones and strikes Iranian radar sites

Bahrain has said Iran fired ballistic missiles and drones at it and Kuwait, hours after the US and Iran exchanged strikes over the Gulf, the latest in a series of flare-ups that threatened to break the fragile ceasefire.

Air raid sirens rang out on Saturday in Bahrain and people were told to move to a safe location and await further instructions. Kuwait’s military said it was intercepting drones and missiles launched at the country.

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Israel strikes southern Lebanon after ordering evacuations of nine villages

Thousands flee including from village hosting at least 2,500 displaced people, one day after Hezbollah rejects ceasefire

Thousands fled their homes after Israel issued forced evacuation orders for nine villages in southern Lebanon before strikes that killed six people on Friday, a day after the Hezbollah militant group rejected a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon.

Hundreds of families left Anqoun, a village hosting at least 2,500 displaced people, after the Israeli military said it would soon operate against what it said were Hezbollah targets there, ordering residents to leave. The roads leading to Sidon, the closest large city, were choked with cars as families sought shelter.

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Hezbollah rejects Israel-Lebanon truce as Trump scrambles to end Iran war

Group calls ceasefire a ‘roadmap to annihilate part of the Lebanese people’, throwing regional peace talks into doubt

Hezbollah has rejected a US-brokered ceasefire plan agreed by the Lebanese and Israeli governments, throwing the future of a truce in Lebanon and regional peace negotiations into question.

The group’s leader, Naim Qassem, called the plan a “roadmap to annihilate part of the Lebanese people” in a statement on Thursday.

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Penny Wong says she believes Israeli soldiers sexually assaulted and abused Australian women after Gaza flotilla

Foreign affairs minister says her position is to ‘always believe women’ when sexual assault allegations are made

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, says she believes the Australian women who have alleged they were sexually assaulted and beaten by Israeli soldiers after being detained as part of a humanitarian flotilla attempting to bring aid to Gaza.

Appearing at Senate estimates, Wong said the treatment of the Australian women was “unacceptable”, and the allegations they had subsequently made were “distressing”.

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Three Lebanese hospitals hit by Israeli forces in under a week

Airstrikes in south of country kill nine people and wound another 150, most of them medical staff

Three hospitals in southern Lebanon have been attacked by Israel in under a week, wounding more than 150 people and killing nine, according to Lebanon’s ministry of health.

Israel carried out an attack in the immediate vicinity of the public hospital in Tebnine on Wednesday, just days after strikes next to the Hiram and Jabal Amel hospitals in Tyre. The attack next to Jabal Amel on Monday killed four people and injured 127 – most of whom were medical staff.

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US and Iran launch fresh strikes amid stalled ceasefire talks

US military says it struck tanker and sites on Iran’s Qeshm Island and defended Kuwait and Bahrain from missile attacks

The US and Iran have exchanged fresh missiles and drone strikes, further jeopardising efforts by Washington to secure a new ceasefire agreement with Tehran.

US forces fired a Hellfire missile to disable a tanker attempting to break through the American blockade of the strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, and later said they repelled Iranian reprisal attacks in the region and attacked sites on Iran’s Qeshm Island.

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Democrats who marched in New York’s Israel Day parade decry attendance of far-right minister Smotrich

Politicians’ statements reflect difficulty facing pro-Israel Democrats as voter support for country falls

Several prominent New York Democrats who participated in the city’s annual Israel Day parade on Sunday have condemned the participation of Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right Israeli finance minister and a leading figure in the Israeli settler movement, in the event.

Smotrich was among several Israeli lawmakers and cabinet officials who marched in the parade on Sunday. His appearance marked his first trip to the US in more than a year, and came less than month after he said the international criminal court (ICC) was seeking an arrest warrant against him.

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Why Benjamin Netanyahu poses an obstacle to US and Iran peace deal

Prime minister under pressure to show his campaigns against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran have brought results as he faces elections with his political survival at risk

If there is to be a peace deal between the United States and Iran, it will have to go through a familiar obstacle: Benjamin Netanyahu. Israel’s military operations in Lebanon have become a sticking point in the talks for a potential opening of the strait of Hormuz – once again testing the volatile alliance between Donald Trump and Netanyahu.

This time, the Israeli prime minister is under exceptional pressure to show that his campaigns against Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran have brought results as he faces elections with his political survival at risk.

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Israel strikes southern Lebanon despite Trump’s effort to shore up ceasefire

Warplanes carry out dozens of airstrikes and Israeli army issues evacuation warning for city of Nabatiyeh

Israeli warplanes have launched dozens of strikes across southern Lebanon despite a new agreement supposedly brokered by Donald Trump aiming to bolster the tattered ceasefire in Lebanon.

The US president said on Monday that he had stopped an imminent Israeli strike on Beirut and that he had spoken to Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and representatives of Hezbollah and both agreed that “all shooting will stop”.

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Aipac affiliate has funded lavish trips to Israel for dozens of Congress members since 7 October, filings reveal

Revealed: AIEF, a charitable affiliate of pro-Israel lobby Aipac, has spent millions on travel for lawmakers from both parties, even as voters’ support for Israel plummets

Dozens of members of Congress and Capitol Hill staffers have enjoyed lavish gifted travel to Israel funded by an Aipac affiliate since 7 October 2023, amid Israel’s expanding wars on its neighbors and despite plummeting levels of support among Americans for the country’s policies, a Guardian analysis has found.

Congressional ethics filings and other public records show the trips, led by the American Israel Education Foundation (AIEF), revolved around one-sided briefings on Middle East politics and Israeli domestic and foreign policy. Lawmakers and their staffers from both parties met Israeli officials, military contractors and civil society figures, including Benjamin Netanyahu and advocates for the annexation of the West Bank and the displacement of Palestinians from Jerusalem.

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UK government has failed Palestinian people, says senior Labour MP

Emily Thornberry criticises Israel’s ‘staggering’ sense of impunity and rebukes Donald Trump for abandoning Gaza

The UK government has let down Palestinian people and failed to make it economically impossible for Israel to continue to act with impunity in the West Bank and Gaza, the Labour chair of the foreign affairs select committee, Emily Thornberry, has said.

She accused her own government of lacking ambition and wringing its hands on the Palestinian crisis, and she chastised Donald Trump for declaring a ceasefire in Gaza and then walking away, leaving Gazans to live in rubble.

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Democrats split on Israel parade as Mamdani keeps promise to skip event

New York mayor refused to attend as other Democrats drew rebukes for marching with Israel’s far-right finance minister

As they have done for decades, prominent members of the Democratic party establishment marched on Sunday in New York City’s annual Israel Day parade. Perhaps more noteworthy, however, was who was missing.

Zohran Mamdani, the mayor of New York City, refused to attend, citing his opposition to the Israeli government, which he has accused of committing genocide in Gaza.

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‘A shock to all Lebanese’: Israel sends a message as it takes ancient fort

Conquering of Beaufort Castle for first time in 26 years brings back memories of occupation of south

When Hussain Alawieh used to take tourists to Beaufort Castle, they would marvel at the view. The ancient hilltop fort, captured nearly 1,000 years earlier by Crusaders, still offered the same sweeping panoramic views of south Lebanon and the Litani River that empires fought over for a millennia.

On Sunday, the view from the castle was obscured by white phosphorus smoke, the toxic incendiary munition providing a smoke screen for advancing Israeli soldiers. Out of the fog rose an Israeli flag, and the castle, for the first time in 26 years, was once again conquered.

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No 10 braced for ‘excruciating’ revelations as messages between Mandelson and ministers to be released – UK politics live

Sources predict ‘toe-curling’ revelations as more than 1,000 pages of documents relating to his appointment as US ambassador to be published

At the Downing Street lobby briefing the PM’s spokesperson said the release of the Mandelson files today would be “an unprecedented piece of government transparency”.

He said that party political material would be included, despite precedent suggesting it should be included, and that some material had to be declassified to allow it to be published.

The broad scope of the [humble address motion – see 9.26am] has required the discovery, assessment, analysis and preparation of thousands of individual documents and messages.

This is a task that has involved every government department.

Yeah, I have changed what I would say. I wouldn’t say that phrase any more.

And I think that, you know, over the last few years, I think a lot of us, myself included, have thought about this question in quite some detail.

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Israel seizes strategic castle in deepest incursion into Lebanon in 26 years

Experts say capture is largely symbolic, but it complicates efforts to extend the ceasefire between US and Iran

Israeli troops have captured a clifftop castle as they made their deepest incursion into Lebanon in more than 26 years, further shattering a nominal US-brokered ceasefire and complicating efforts to extend the separate truce between the Washington and Tehran.

After days of intense fighting and airstrikes in nearby villages, the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said the military had captured Beaufort Castle, also known as Qalaat al-Shaqif, which it had used as a base during its previous occupation of southern Lebanon between 1982 and 2000.

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Donald Trump shares draft Iran peace agreement with Israel and other allies

US president’s move comes as both sides try to prevent fresh ceasefire breaches scuppering a potential deal

Donald Trump has circulated a draft peace agreement for the war with Iran among allies including Israel as both sides try to prevent fresh breaches of the ceasefire escalating out of control and scuppering any deal.

In an attempt to speed up the negotiations, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Mohammad Ishaq Dar, will fly to Washington on Friday to meet his US counterpart, Marco Rubio.

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Israel’s defence minister says large-scale Palestinian migration from Gaza will go ahead

Human rights groups and lawyers say policy amounts to ethnic cleansing

Israel’s defence minister has said he is committed to the ethnic cleansing of Gaza through large-scale migration of Palestinians as part of Israel’s long-term plans for the territory.

Israel Katz said the government would implement a plan for large numbers of Palestinians to leave Gaza “at the right time and in the right manner”, in a statement on Wednesday marking the targeted killing of Mohammed Odeh, Hamas’s most recent military commander.

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Israel launches more than 120 airstrikes against Lebanon in a day

One of heaviest days of bombing in weeks complicates peace talks as Israel targets sites linked to Hezbollah

Israel launched more than 120 airstrikes against Lebanon on Tuesday in one of the heaviest days of bombing in weeks, as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said his military was escalating its offensive against Hezbollah.

A ceasefire brokered by the US last month between Israel and the militant Islamist movement now appears close to total collapse, complicating negotiations to bring a definitive end to the war with Iran.

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Storied New York food co-op votes to boycott Israeli products after contentious campaign

The Park Slope Food Coop boycott vote follows tensions and rifts among members and larger community

Members of a storied food co-operative in Brooklyn have voted to boycott about a dozen products from Israel and Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine – capping years of contentious debate over a conflict half a world away that has threatened to rip apart a landmark institution for liberal New Yorkers.

The Park Slope Food Coop vote, which took place Tuesday night during a three-hour virtual meeting attended by about 7,000 of the co-operative’s 17,000 members, follows months of dueling campaigning that one local rabbi opposed to the boycott described as a “proxy war”. The boycott is supposed to impact some brands of tahini, peppers and persimmons as well as other products. Sixty-seven percent of participants voted in favor of the boycott.

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