Category Archives: Israel

Pro-Palestine rally leaders credit public ‘pressure’ with Labor’s shift on Gaza

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Change of heart on ceasefire shows ‘collective action is working’, Sydney protest speaker says

Speakers at Sydney’s pro-Palestine rally have said public outcry against the war in Gaza has pushed the Albanese government to shift its position and back calls for a humanitarian ceasefire, while criticising Labor for not calling for a permanent end to the conflict.

On Wednesday Australia joined 152 other nations in voting in favour of a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and an immediate and unconditional release of all hostages in an emergency session of the United Nations general assembly. The move followed Australia’s decision in late October to abstain from casting a vote on a similar motion.

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MP Layla Moran’s family trapped inside Catholic church in Gaza City

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‘Beyond desperate and terrified’ relatives among hundreds inside compound amid bombing by Israeli forces

An MP’s relatives have been trapped alongside hundreds of other civilians in a Catholic church in Gaza City since almost the start of the conflict, and the situation has only grown more dire in recent days.

Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford and Abingdon, told the BBC that some of her Christian Palestinian extended family – a grandmother, her son, his wife and their 11-year-old twins – sought refuge inside the Holy Family Church complex after their home was bombed in the first week of the war.

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USAid contractor and family killed in Israeli Gaza airstrike, agency says

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Deaths of Hani Jnena, 32, wife and daughters aged 2 and 4 led NGO to call for Biden to demand Israeli accountability

A contractor for the US Agency for International Development (USAid) in Gaza was killed with his wife and two daughters aged four and two in an Israeli airstrike in November, his employer said on Saturday.

“We are deeply saddened to confirm the tragic loss of our colleague, Hani Jnena (33), along with his family in Gaza, including his wife, Abeer (32), and their two young daughters, Mariam and Zayna, aged 4 and 2,” the non-profit organization Global Communities, which partners with governments and private-sector entities for humanitarian work, said in a statement.

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‘Israel only responds to force’: support for Hamas soars in West Bank after October attack

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Residents of Jenin say Israeli army seems intent only on revenge as they pick through wreckage of their homes

Fluffy pink slippers on her feet and scarves thrown over her hair and pyjamas, Amal Abu Ghazi, 39, leaned against a wall as she watched her family clear out the rubble from their ruined house in the Jenin refugee camp, in the north of the occupied West Bank.

Her husband used a stick to smash the remaining shards of glass out of the window frames of their two-storey home and her brothers-in-law hauled out the remains of sofas and tables; somehow, a laptop had managed to survive intact. Israeli soldiers had burst in two nights ago, Abu Ghazi said, arresting her sons, 20 and 18, and ordering the rest of the family to wait outside before troops used explosives to demolish the building.

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Iran says it has executed Mossad agent accused of spying for Israel

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Unnamed person had handed classified information to a ‘Mossad officer’, official Irna news agency reports

An agent of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, has been executed in Iran, the official Irna news agency reported.

“This person communicated with foreign services, specifically [the] Mossad, collecting classified information, and with participation with associates, provided documents to foreign services, including the Mossad,” it said.

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Al Jazeera asks legal team to refer journalist’s killing to ICC – as it happened

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This blog has now closed. Read our full report on the latest developments here.

Israel has said it is opening a military police investigation into the killing of two Palestinians in the West Bank after an Israeli human rights group posted videos that appeared to show Israeli troops killing the men – one who was incapacitated and the second unarmed – during a military raid in a West Bank refugee camp.

The B’Tselem human rights group accused the army of carrying out a pair of “illegal executions”.

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Israel tempers claims of imminent Hamas defeat as both sides seem set on long war

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The militant group’s ideology and its complex tunnel network means it is no ordinary enemy

Israel’s insistence to the Biden administration that it needs more time to defeat Hamas has raised questions over the level of damage inflicted on the Islamist militant organisation, and whether it is changing tactics in its fight against the Israel Defense Forces.

In a week in which nine Israeli soldiers were killed, including two senior commanders and several other officers in a single complex ambush in the Shejaiya neighbourhood of Gaza City, analysts and commentators have begun to question previously bullish assessments about Hamas’s ability to fight.

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West Bank: Israel opens probe after videos appear to show troops shooting Palestinians at close range

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Two men, one unarmed and the other already injured, died after being shot in a military raid on a refugee camp

Israel has said it is opening a military police investigation into the killing of two Palestinians in the West Bank after an Israeli human rights group posted videos that appeared to show Israeli troops killing the men – one who was incapacitated and the second unarmed – during a military raid in a West Bank refugee camp.

The B’Tselem human rights group accused the army of carrying out a pair of “illegal executions.”

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Israeli military says its troops shot and killed three hostages by mistake

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IDF identifies hostages killed as Yotam Haim, Alon Shamriz and Samer El-Talalqa, saying they were mistakenly believed to be a threat

The Israeli military has said that its troops shot and killed three hostages being held by Hamas after mistakenly identifying them as a threat during fighting in a battle-torn neighbourhood of Gaza City.

The announcement on Friday came amid heavy fighting across the embattled territory that led to an influx of dead and wounded into hospitals in Deir al-Balah, Khan Younis and Rafah.

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Bernie Sanders demands answers on Israel’s ‘indiscriminate’ Gaza bombing

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Senator introduces resolution to investigate ‘humanitarian cataclysm … being done with American bombs and money’

The US’s support for Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza is facing new scrutiny in Washington following a resolution by the independent senator Bernie Sanders that could ultimately be used to curtail military assistance.

It is far from clear whether Sanders has the support to pass the resolution, but its introduction in the Senate this week – by an important progressive ally of the US president Joe Biden – highlights mounting human rights and political concerns by Democrats on Capitol Hill.

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Lufthansa to resume flights to Tel Aviv in January – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. See all our Israel-Gaza war coverage here

The Israeli heritage minister, Amichai Eliyahu, of Otzma Yehudit, the far-right party led by Itamar Ben-Gvir, said in a radio interview that the Gaza Strip must be “fully” occupied.

In comments reported by Haaretz, Eliyahu said: “Anyone who sells an illusion that [Hamas] will return to manage things does not want to remember what happened on Simhat Torah.”

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UK terror threat level under close review after foiled alleged attack plot in Europe

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Arrests in Germany and the Netherlands increase fears that Jewish institutions in the UK could be targeted by Hamas

Britain’s terror threat level is being kept under “very close” review amid concerns that extremist groups could target Jewish institutions in the UK, a day after German prosecutors said they had foiled a Hamas attack plot by making four arrests.

MI5 and counter-terror police indicated they were focused on whether the war in the Middle East could galvanise extremists into taking violent action, as Israel’s intense bombing of Gaza extends to its third month.

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Israel says it will open new aid crossing into Gaza Strip

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Announcement follows pressure from allies in US to alleviate humanitarian crisis in besieged territory

Israel has said it will open a new aid crossing into the Gaza Strip in the face of pressure from allies in Washington to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory and wind down its wide-scale bombings and armoured ground operations against Hamas.

The Kerem Shalom crossing between Gaza and Israel, previously used for goods and aid deliveries, would reopen to process humanitarian supplies, the office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Friday.

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Biden in a bind as Netanhayu ready to flout any US attempt to rein in Israel

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Israel PM has defied US calls for restraint in Gaza and told domestic audience he will not compromise

US efforts to show it retains significant influence over the Israeli government were dealt a double blow on Thursday when the Israeli defence minister said it would take months to complete the task of rooting out Hamas, and a leaked US intelligence assessment revealed up to 45% of the 29,000 air-to-ground munitions that Israel has dropped on Gaza since 7 October have been unguided “dumb bombs”.

The predictions of a months-long campaign were delivered on camera by Yoav Gallant to a stony-faced Jake Sullivan, the US national security adviser, who had arrived in Israel to convey a message that its campaign needed to change – and preferably be wrapped up in weeks. They were later reinforced by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Neyanyahu, who said Israel would not stop until complete victory.

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Israel tells US it needs ‘months’ to defeat Hamas

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Defence minister addresses US national security adviser as Biden administration presses for end to war

Israel will fight on until “absolute victory against Hamas”, the country’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has told a senior official from the Biden administration, as another minister said the war could last “more than several months”.

Netanyahu’s comments were made to Jake Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, during a visit to Israel hours after its defence minister, Yoav Gallant, told Sullivan that many more months were needed to defeat Hamas in Gaza.

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IDF censures its soldiers filmed mocking call to prayer in Jenin mosque

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Israeli military says soldiers have been removed from duties after incident in West Bank city

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have condemned the behaviour of several of their soldiers who were filmed singing and mocking the Islamic call to prayer over the loudspeaker of a mosque in the city of Jenin.

The incident came during three days of raids in the occupied West Bank, during which Israeli troops have killed 12 Palestinians, including one youth shot dead at a hospital, according to Palestinian officials and international health charities.

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Israel-Gaza war live: White House says it wants Israel’s war in Gaza to ‘end as soon as possible’ and be of lower intensity

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Spokesperson adds ‘we’re not dictating terms … about how long it has to be’ as Jake Sullivan says Israel being urged to lower intensity of military operations

A pro-Palestinian group temporarily hacked into the Israeli army website on Wednesday.

The group, calling themselves Anonymous Jo, left a message on the homepage of the website warning of further attacks against Israeli forces.

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Israeli ministers block Mossad head’s effort to restart Gaza hostage talks

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Relatives of the abductees say they are shocked, as reports say David Barnea was stopped from visiting Qatar

Israel’s war cabinet has blocked a planned visit to Qatar by the head of the country’s foreign intelligence service that was aimed at kickstarting negotiations over a new hostage release deal.

According to several reports, David Barnea, the head of Mossad, had wanted to travel to Qatar but was blocked by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and other cabinet ministers.

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Gaza a ‘living hell’ after heavy winter rains drench makeshift tents

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Conditions deteriorate amid floods, escalating food shortages and waves of disease

Heavy winter rains have lashed Gaza, washing out tents and flooding some areas, as the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees described deteriorating conditions in the coastal strip as a “living hell”.

Amid escalating shortages of food, spreading waves of communicable disease and the near collapse of Gaza’s health system, the winter storm turned large areas to mud and drenched many of those sleeping in makeshift plastic tents.

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Gulf states press for two-state roadmap after UN vote on Israel-Gaza war

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UAE and Qatar say they will not again fund Gaza reconstruction without Israeli concession, as US isolation grows

Gulf states are capitalising on the resounding vote at the UN general assembly in favour of calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza by warning the US they will not once again fund the reconstruction of Gaza unless Israel agrees to a published roadmap to a two-state solution.

In Israel the general assembly vote was dismissed as a further sign of anti-Israeli bias at the UN. But with the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, due to visit the region, pressure is building on Israel to show greater flexibility about what will constitute a military victory and how Gaza will be administered once the war ends.

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