Category Archives: Israel

What happens to Gaza the day after the war ends?

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A reformed Palestinian Authority or a multinational force have been mooted as solutions for security in the territory, but both proposals have met resistance

When Antony Blinken arrived in the Middle East on his most recent visit, one of the US secretary of state’s aims was to lift some of the fog over what happens to Gaza in the war’s aftermath, but he is meeting resistance both from Israel and Arab states.

Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, said on Saturday at a press conference alongside Blinken: “What happens next? How can we even entertain what will happen in Gaza when we do not know what kind of Gaza will be left after this war is done? Are we going to be talking about a wasteland? Are we going to be talking about a whole population reduced to refugees? Simply, we do not know – we do not have all the variables to even start thinking about that.”

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‘No ceasefire, no votes’: tens of thousands attend pro-Palestinian rally in Washington DC

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Protesters call on Biden to demand ceasefire in Israel-Gaza conflict and end military aid to Israel

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters marched through downtown Washington DC on Saturday in what organizers hoped was the largest US demonstration of its kind since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza after Hamas attacked the country last month.

The crowd waved Palestinian flags, carried posters and chanted slogans during the National March on Washington: Free Palestine, which took place alongside similar events across the US and elsewhere in the world.

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Gaza ‘siege conditions’ unacceptable, says Lammy as Labour toughens line on Israel

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Shadow foreign secretary toughens line on Israel-Palestine in light of ‘shocking number’ of dead civilians

Labour has warned that the “siege conditions” in place in Gaza are unacceptable and called for an immediate humanitarian pause to the fighting, in the party’s strongest intervention over Israel’s intensifying war against Hamas.

David Lammy, the shadow foreign secretary who visited the region last week, said that the “number of dead Palestinian civilians and children is shocking” as he called on Israel to take further steps to stop a “humanitarian catastrophe”. He said that Israel “must uphold international law” and also warned of violence in the West Bank.

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Rashida Tlaib claims in video that Biden supports Palestinian genocide

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Michigan Democrat is only Palestinian American in Congress and warns Biden voters ‘will remember in 2024’

Michigan Democratic congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American member of Congress, has released a video accusing Joe Biden of supporting the “genocide of the Palestinian people”.

Tlaib has been a withering critic of Biden’s staunch backing of the Israeli war against Hamas in Gaza and the White House refusal to listen to demands from some progressive Democrats to back calls for a ceasefire.

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Protesters block London’s Oxford Street in pro-Palestine demonstration

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Free Palestine Coalition’s sit-in stops traffic in central shopping district as protests continue across UK over Israel-Hamas war

More than 350 protesters shut down part of Oxford Street on Saturday as they staged a sit-in protest during the shopping district’s busiest hours.

The demonstration, organised by the Free Palestine Coalition, a collective of grassroots groups standing in solidarity with Palestine, occupied a busy junction and stopped traffic for more than an hour by sitting down in the road.

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As their soldiers fight hand to hand in Gaza, Israelis wonder about the endgame

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Casualties in Gaza are growing, and so is Israel’s concern about the war’s direction

In the dark and the cloying heat of a Gaza night, the troops of the 13th Battalion of Israel’s Golani Brigade were attempting to advance in northern Gaza amid the flashes of air and artillery strikes across the Gaza Strip.

The ambush, when it happened, caught them by surprise – 30 fighters from an elite Hamas unit emerging from hidden tunnel entrances.

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Israel-Hamas war live: UN secretary general says ‘nowhere is safe’ in Gaza as Palestinian death toll tops 9,000

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António Guterres calls humanitarian situation in Gaza ‘horrific’ as thousands of people remain without food, water and medicine

Agence France-Presse has reported on the aftermath of what Hamas authorities said was Israeli tank shelling that killed 20 people at the Osama bin Zaid boys’ school north of Gaza City.

The report said:

Ambulance teams rushed into the debris-littered building to aid the injured and remove the dead.

Stunned onlookers wept and wandered the scene with hands clasped above the head in horror and disbelief.

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Antony Blinken meets Arab leaders in fresh effort to stop Gaza conflict escalating

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US secretary of state meets officials from Jordan, Lebanon, Qatar and UN as further civilian casualties reported in Gaza

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, met senior Jordanian and other Arab officials in Amman on Saturday in the latest effort by Washington to avert a regional escalation of the war between Israel and Hamas, ease the acute humanitarian crisis in Gaza and build support for planning a post-conflict future for the territory.

The trip was Blinken’s second to the Middle East since the conflict began almost a month ago but came against the backdrop of further civilian casualties in Gaza and an apparent snub from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

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Leftist Democrats invoke human rights law in scrutiny of Israel military aid

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Congressional progressives say proposed $14.3bn breaches 1997 Leahy act as assault on Gaza has overwhelmingly harmed civilians

Leftwing Democrats in Congress have invoked a landmark law barring assistance to security forces of governments deemed guilty of human rights abuses to challenge the Biden administration’s emergency military aid program for Israel.

Members of the Democratic party’s progressive wing say the $14.3bn package pledged by the White House after the 7 October attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,400 Israelis breaches the Leahy Act because Israel’s retaliatory assault on Gaza has overwhelmingly harmed civilians. An estimated 9,000 people have been killed in Gaza so far, among them 3,700 children, according to the Gaza health ministry, run by Hamas.

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Israeli PM tells US: no pause in Gaza fighting without release of hostages

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Netanyahu says ‘full force’ offensive will continue, despite growing concerns over civilian casualties

Israel will continue its offensive in Gaza “with full force” and will refuse any temporary ceasefire that does not include the release of more than 240 hostages held by Hamas, Benjamin Netanyahu has said, rejecting US calls for a pause in the fighting.

Earlier on Friday, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, flew into Israel to urge the Israeli prime minister to temporarily stop its military offensive to allow aid into the territory amid rising concerns over civilian casualties as the fighting intensifies.

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UN says agency in Gaza ‘practically out of business’ – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. Our live coverage of the Israel-Hamas war continues here

On Friday afternoon, the Hezbollah secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, is to make a highly anticipated speech. The head of the influential Iran-backed Shia militant group will break weeks of silence with a broadcast from Beirut, which comes in the wake of a rise in violence on Israel’s northern border.

Hezbollah said on Thursday it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening. The clashes have so far been mostly contained to the frontier, and Hezbollah has used only a fraction of the firepower that Nasrallah has been threatening with Israel for years.

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Keir Starmer defends his call for humanitarian pause in Gaza, saying it is quickest way to provide help – UK politics live

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Labour leader says he thinks most practical way to get aid into Gaza is to have a humanitarian pause

Keir Starmer is delivering his speech to the North East Chamber of Commerce now.

He starts by saying they are near the A1, where there is a stretch of road that Rishi Sunak recently promised to upgrade.

It’s a story you see right across Britain. Infrastructure projects, some with billions already committed, businesses planning around the structures developed in rooms like this.

But the projects and investment get blocked by objections, consultations, legal challenges, ballooning costs delays, delays, delays – until it’s easier just to give up and move on.

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Democrats grow nervous over Israel’s conduct in Gaza as Senate leader vows not to consider House security bill – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. For the latest reporting on US politics’ involvement with the Israel-Hamas war, read our latest report:

One minute after the House approved an Israel aid package that excluded providing similar assistance to Ukraine, the top Republican in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, tweeted this:

This what some would call a “subtweet”: McConnell does not mention the House proposal at all nor its architect, Republican speaker Mike Johnson, but he is clearly referring to the just-passed bill. While some Republicans are ready to cut off aid to Kyiv, McConnell remains a steadfast backer of the country’s defense against Russia.

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Israeli forces attack Hamas targets in Gaza City as ground war intensifies

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IDF spokesperson says military ‘powerfully deployed’ north of Gaza and civilians still urged to move south

Israeli forces have surrounded Gaza City and are attacking Hamas infrastructure and destroying tunnels used by militants to launch attacks, the Israeli military said.

Airstrikes continued alongside the intensifying ground offensive in what Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, described as the second stage of the war.

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View on Israel-Gaza emerges as rare divide for California’s Senate hopefuls

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Democratic rivals Adam Schiff, Barbara Lee and Katie Porter have near identical platforms and Israel-Gaza could be a deciding factor

As three leading California Democrats vie for a rare opening in the Senate, the Israeli offensive in Gaza has exposed rare fault lines in the candidates’ otherwise aligned platforms.

Following Hamas’s attack on Israel last month, all three leading candidates in the race to fill Dianne Feinstein’s seat – representatives Barbara Lee, Adam Schiff and Katie Porter – condemned the group’s actions. But as Israel ramped up its attacks on Gaza in retaliation, their divergent approaches to foreign policy became clear.

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Blinken to urge Israel to show restraint in campaign to destroy Hamas

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US secretary of state in Tel Aviv to call for pauses in fighting to allow more aid to enter Gaza

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, has arrived in Tel Aviv to meet Israel’s war cabinet and urge it to show greater restraint in its campaign to destroy Hamas, starting by allowing more aid to enter Gaza and implementing humanitarian pauses.

Israel says it has Hamas surrounded in Gaza City and has shown no willingness to back a break in the fighting advocated by the US president, Joe Biden, let alone agree a ceasefire.

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‘Failed to be a critical friend’: UK accused of taking eye off Israel-Palestine crisis

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Critics say government shies away from standing up to Netanyahu in tilt to Indo-Pacific and pursuit of Middle East trade deals

Concerns that the UK Foreign Office has neglected the Israel-Palestine conflict in its tilt to the Indo-Pacific and the pursuit of trade deals across the Middle East is to be investigated by the foreign affairs select committee.

Alicia Kearns, the chair of the committee, which will start holding evidence sessions on the issue in November, has been one of the most prominent MPs warning that a crisis was brewing that required greater attention and a more robust approach from the UK towards Israel’s new government.

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US House passes $14.3bn aid package for Israel despite Democratic opposition

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Led by House speaker Mike Johnson, Republican plan passes Thursday 226-196 as Biden threatens veto

The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a Republican plan to provide $14.3bn in aid to Israel as it fights Hamas, despite Democrats’ insistence it has no future in the Senate and the White House’s promise of a veto.

The measure passed 226-196, largely along party lines, with most Republicans supporting the bill and most Democrats objecting.

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Biden says 74 Americans with dual citizenship evacuated from Gaza

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The evacuees were able to cross from the Gaza Strip into Egypt, the US president said on Thursday

The United States has been able to get 74 Americans with dual citizenship out of the Gaza Strip, Joe Biden said at the White House on Thursday, one day after evacuees began crossing into Egypt.

“Good news, we got out today 74 American folks, dual citizens,” the president told reporters in the Oval Office at the start of a meeting with the president of the Dominican Republic, Luis Abinader.

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Tension escalates on Lebanese frontier amid Hamas and Hezbollah barrages

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Hamas armed wing the al-Qassam brigades says it hit border town, while Hezbollah claims attack on 19 Israeli positions

Hamas’s armed wing, the al-Qassam brigades, said its fighters in southern Lebanon were behind the shelling of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shmona, where four rockets landed in an industrial area, injuring two people and damaging buildings.

In a second barrage, Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia militant group, said it had simultaneously attacked 19 positions in Israel on Thursday evening in the latest escalation on Israel’s northern border.

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