Category Archives: Israel

Netanyahu says Australian PM Albanese’s record ‘forever tarnished by weakness’ after Australian Jewish group urges calm

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Israeli prime minister ignores pleas to resolve dispute with Australia through ‘diplomacy rather than public posturing’

Benjamin Netanyahu has ignored pleas from Australian Jewish groups to calm his feud with Anthony Albanese, further criticising the prime minister and escalating an ugly spat between the two leaders.

Australia’s peak Jewish group, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), on Wednesday labelled Israeli prime minister Netanyahu’s attack on Albanese as “inflammatory and provocative”, and a “clumsy intervention” which had affected Australia’s Jewish community.

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Buchenwald can refuse entry to people wearing Palestinian keffiyeh, German court rules

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Court in Thuringia rejected woman’s request to enter concentration camp memorial while wearing the scarf

A German court has ruled that a Nazi concentration camp memorial has the right to refuse entry to those wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf.

The higher administrative court in the eastern state of Thuringia on Wednesday rejected a request from a woman to be allowed entry to the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial while wearing a keffiyeh.

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Macron hits out at ‘abject’ Netanyahu claim of rise in antisemitism in France

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French president responds to Israeli PM’s ‘erroneous’ allegations in relation to decision to recognise state of Palestine

Emmanuel Macron has hit out at Benjamin Netanyahu for his “abject” and “erroneous” remarks after Israel’s prime minister claimed that antisemitism had “surged” in France after the country’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state in September.

In a statement released late on Tuesday, the office of the French president pushed back against Netanyahu’s claim. “The analysis suggesting that France’s decision to recognise the state of Palestine in September is behind the rise in antisemitic violence in France is erroneous, abject, and will not go unanswered,” it said. “The current period calls for seriousness and responsibility, not generalisation and manipulation.”

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Israel to call up around 60,000 reservists before planned offensive on Gaza City, says Israeli military official – as it happened

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Israel is “killing all prospects” for peace in the Middle East, Jordan’s foreign minister has said amid escalating international outrage over Israel’s plans for a new large-scale offensive in Gaza City and plans to massively expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Ayman Safadi made his remarks during a visit to Moscow on the same day that the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, approved a plan to conquer Gaza City, an urban area home to hundreds of thousands of people in the north of the Palestinian territory.

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Israel expands Gaza City offensive as UK decries West Bank settlement approval

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Construction would be ‘flagrant breach of international law’ and undermine two-state solution, foreign secretary says

Israel has announced it is expanding its military operations in Gaza City, as the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, condemned its approval of a huge new illegal settlement in the West Bank as a “flagrant breach of international law.”

The Israel Defense Forces spokesperson Effie Defrin said the IDF had begun the second phase of Operation Gideon’s Chariots in Gaza, which it launched in May.

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Australia’s peak Jewish group condemns Netanyahu’s ‘clumsy’ attack on Albanese and calls for end to ‘spat’

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Executive Council of Australian Jewry says Australian and Israeli governments should use ‘diplomacy rather than public posturing’

Australia’s peak Jewish group has lambasted Benjamin Netanyahu’s attack on Anthony Albanese as “inflammatory and provocative”, adding that the “clumsy intervention” showed a “woeful lack of understanding of social and political conditions in Australia” – notwithstanding what the group describes as “unseemly” conduct from Australia’s leader.

The concerned intervention by the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) came as Australia and Israel entered the third day of a diplomatic tit-for-tat prompted by Australia’s visa cancellation of far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman on Monday.

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Israel to respond by Friday over Gaza truce plan accepted by Hamas

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Israel under pressure to accept ceasefire proposal that is said to be almost identical to earlier US-backed plan

Israel has said it will deliver its response to international mediators by Friday over a new Gaza ceasefire plan accepted by Hamas amid mounting pressure for a truce in a war that has claimed more than 62,000 Palestinian lives.

After mass protests in Israel demanding a deal to secure the release of the remaining 20 living Israeli hostages held in Gaza, it appeared that Hamas had reduced its demands over a prisoners-for-hostages exchange as well as over the scope of an Israeli-demanded “security buffer zone”.

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Mediators optimistic Israel will accept ceasefire deal that is ‘almost identical’ to one they earlier agreed – as it happened

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Qatar says no breakthrough has yet been made but Hamas has given ‘positive response’

The UN’s human rights office on Tuesday condemned a far-right Israeli minister for taunting a Palestinian prisoner in his cell and sharing the footage online, Reuters reports.

National security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir published a video on Friday last week showing him confronting Marwan Barghouti, the most high-profile Palestinian detainee in Israeli custody.

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Netanyahu lashes out at Albanese as ‘weak politician who betrayed Israel’ as diplomatic row escalates

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Israel’s prime minister accuses Australian leader of ‘abandoning’ Jews as tension escalates over visa cancellation and Palestinian recognition

Benjamin Netanyahu has launched an extraordinary broadside against Anthony Albanese, labelling Australia’s prime minister “weak” in a social media post, hours after local Jewish groups called for calm in diplomatic relations.

“History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews,” read a post on X from the account of Israel’s prime minister, on Tuesday evening Australian time.

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Hamas says it accepts proposal for Gaza ceasefire and release of hostages

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Deal would include 60-day halt to violence and exchange of half of living Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners

Hamas officials say they have accepted a proposal for a Gaza ceasefire deal that would include the release of half of the approximately 20 remaining living Israeli hostages as part of a phased resolution to the war, as Gaza health officials said 62,000 Palestinians had died in the 22 months of war.

The proposed deal follows negotiations between Hamas and Egyptian and Qatari officials that have been taking place in Cairo in recent days, and comes after the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was confronted on Sunday by Israel’s biggest protests of the war, which called for a deal to secure the release of the hostages.

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Netanyahu criticises protests in Israel against his handling of Gaza war

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Israeli PM suggests demonstrators are toughening Hamas’s stance and delaying the release of hostages

Benjamin Netanyahu has criticised massive street protests against his handling of the Gaza war, and failure to secure the release of remaining Israeli hostages, suggesting demonstrators were giving comfort to Hamas’s position in negotiations.

The Israeli prime minister made his comments against the backdrop of the largest protests in almost two years of war, with estimates that upwards of 400,000 people joined marches across Israel on Sunday.

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Hamas delegation in Egypt receives new Gaza truce plan, reports say – Middle East crisis live

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Negotiators in Cairo receive proposal calling for 60-day truce and hostage release in two batches, says Palestinian official

Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest, said on Monday it had decided to exclude six companies with connections to the West Bank and Gaza from its portfolio, following a review of its Israeli investments.

The $2tn wealth fund did not name the companies it had decided to exclude, but said these would be made public once the divestment was completed, Reuters reports.

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Israel’s foreign minister revokes visas of Australian representatives to Palestinian Authority

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Penny Wong calls decision, which follows Australia’s refusal of a visa for the far-right Israeli politician Simcha Rothman, ‘unjustified’

Israel’s foreign minister has revoked the visas of Australian representatives to the Palestinian Authority, citing Australia’s “unjustified refusal” to grant visas to Israeli figures and its intention to recognise Palestinian statehood.

In a post to X on Monday night, Gideon Sa’ar said the decision was made following the Albanese government’s cancellation of Simcha Rothman’s visa on Monday ahead of his speaking tour this month.

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Far-right Israeli politician barred from Australia ahead of speaking tour

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Simcha Rothman – a supporter of plan to remove Palestinians from Gaza – was scheduled to appear at events in Sydney and Melbourne

A far-right Israeli politician, who has described Palestinian children in Gaza as “enemies” and called for Israel’s total control of the West Bank, has been denied entry into Australia ahead of an upcoming “solidarity tour”.

Simcha Rothman, a member of the Knesset for the far-right party Religious Zionism, was scheduled to appear at two public events in Sydney and Melbourne in August and two private events billed as a “solidarity tour”.

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Hundreds of thousands of protesters gather in Tel Aviv to demand end to Gaza war

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One of largest rallies in Israel since start of conflict follows general strike to press government to stop military action

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have gathered in Tel Aviv to call for an end to the war in Gaza and the release of hostages, one of the largest demonstrations in Israel since the start of the fighting in October 2023.

The rally on Sunday evening was the culmination of a day of nationwide protests and a general strike to pressure the government to halt the military campaign. “Bring them all home! Stop the war!” shouted the vast crowd, which had converged on the so-called Hostage Square in Tel Aviv plaza – a focal point for protesters throughout the war.

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Ex-Israeli intelligence chief said 50 Palestinians must die for every 7 October victim

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‘It does not matter if they are children,’ said Aharon Haliva in recorded comments calling the death toll ‘necessary’

The Israeli general who headed military intelligence on 7 October 2023 has said 50 Palestinians must die for every person killed that day and “it does not matter now if they are children”, in recordings broadcast by Israel’s Channel 12 TV station.

Aharon Haliva said the toll in Gaza, which he put at more than 50,000 dead, was “necessary” as a “message to future generations” of Palestinians.

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Israeli media ‘completely ignored’ Gaza starvation – is that finally changing?

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A growing focus on hunger in Gaza in the global media has led some Israeli outlets to report on it for the first time

Images of Palestinian children in Gaza, emaciated by hunger under the blockade imposed by Israel, and of families grieving the more than 61,000 people killed in the territory have stirred outrage among foreign governments and much of the global public. Inside Israel, however, the reaction has been markedly different.

In a poll conducted in late July by the Israel Democracy Institute (IDI), more than three-quarters of Jewish Israelis – 79% – said they were either “not very troubled” or “not troubled at all” by reports of famine and suffering among Gaza’s Palestinian population.

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Israeli unit tasked with smearing Gaza journalists as Hamas fighters – report

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Israeli-Palestinian magazine says IDF ‘legitimisation cell’ set up to blunt global outrage over killing of media staff

A special unit in Israel’s military was tasked with identifying reporters it could smear as undercover Hamas fighters, to target them and to blunt international outrage over the killing of media workers, the Israeli-Palestinian outlet +972 Magazine reports.

The “legitimisation cell” was set up after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack to gather information that could bolster Israel’s image and shore up diplomatic and military support from key allies, the report said, citing three intelligence sources.

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‘Hellish’: heatwave brings hottest nights on record to the Middle East

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Temperatures did not drop below 36C in Sedom, Israel on Tuesday night, while several parts of Jordan stayed above 35C on Monday

Jordan and Israel have suffered through their hottest nights on record, with nocturnal temperatures in the Levant well above levels that scientists consider “hellish”.

Temperatures on Monday night did not go below 35C (95F) in Ghor es-Safi and Aqaba in Jordan, while in the capital, Amman, they stayed above 31.8C.

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Far-right Israeli minister taunts jailed Palestinian leader in prison visit

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Itamar Ben-Gvir posts video footage showing him making threatening remarks to a gaunt Marwan Barghouti

Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has posted video footage in which he is seen taunting the imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti in jail, prompting strong condemnation from Barghouti’s family and Palestinian leaders.

The 13-second clip shows Ben-Gvir, a far-right politician on whom the UK and several other countries imposed sanctions this year for incitement to violence against Palestinians, making threatening remarks to Barghouti while Israel’s prisons minister, Kobi Yaakobi, an ally of Ben-Gvir stands nearby.

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