Category Archives: Israel

Emmanuel Macron ‘pushes for Israeli inquiry’ into NSO spyware concerns

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French president reportedly spoke to Naftali Bennett to ensure ‘proper investigation’ after Pegasus project

Emmanuel Macron has reportedly spoken to the Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, to ensure that the Israeli government is “properly investigating” allegations that the French president could have been targeted with Israeli-made spyware by Morocco’s security services.

In a phone call, Macron expressed concern that his phone and those of most of his cabinet could have been infected with Pegasus, hacking software developed by the Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group, which enables operators of the tool to extract messages, photos and emails, record calls and secretly activate microphones from infected devices.

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Israeli PM: Ben & Jerry’s sales ban will have ‘serious consequences’

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Naftali Bennett hits back at Unilever after subsidiary stops selling ice-cream in occupied territories

The decision by Ben & Jerry’s to stop selling its ice-cream products in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem has been met with fierce criticism from the Israeli political establishment, including a warning from the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, that the decision will have “serious consequences” for Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company, Unilever.

The announcement from the ice-cream maker, which has also taken political stances on the climate crisis and social justice issues such as Black Lives Matter, is one of the highest-profile rebukes of Israeli settlement building to date by a well-known brand.

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Ben & Jerry’s to stop sales in occupied Palestinian territories

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Vermont-based company says sales in the occupied lands were ‘inconsistent with our values’

Ben & Jerry’s ice-cream has announced that it will no longer sell its ice-cream in the occupied Palestinian territories, saying the sales are “inconsistent with our values.”

The announcement on Monday was one of the highest-profile rebukes by a well-known brand of Israel’s settlements which are regarded as illegal under international law.

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Israel offers Covid vaccine booster shots to at-risk adults

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Third Pfizer jabs made available to those with weak immune systems as Delta variant fuels rise in infections

Israel said on Sunday that it would begin to offer a booster shot of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine to adults with weak immune systems, but that it was still weighing up whether they should be given to the general public.

The rapid spread of the Delta variant has fuelled a rise in the number of new infections from single digits a month ago to around 450 a day, and the country has moved to fast-track its next Pfizer shipment.

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Israeli PM suffers setback in vote on Arab citizenship rights law

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Parliament fails to renew law barring Arab citizens from extending citizenship rights to spouses

The Israeli parliament has voted down an extension to controversial legislation that bars Arab Israelis from extending residency or citizenship rights to Palestinian spouses, in an early blow to the country’s new coalition government.

After a marathon all-night voting session that ended on Tuesday morning, the Knesset decided not to renew the law in a 59-59 vote. The outcome is widely seen as a stinging defeat for the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who failed to unite the coalition’s disparate ideological wings in what he reportedly himself referred to as a “referendum” on the new government.

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‘I can’t give up on my leg’: the Gaza protesters resisting amputation at all costs

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Despite chronic pain and deadly infections, Palestinians wounded in protests three years ago still hope to recover without surgery

Sitting on his hospital bed, with external fixators screwed into his right leg, Mohammed al-Mughari has been in pain and on medication since he was shot in the leg more than three years ago.

He lives with a chronic bone infection – from bacteria now resistant to most antibiotics. Doctors, including in Jordan and Egypt where he sought treatment previously, have all recommended that an amputation could end his long-term suffering, but he has steadfastly refused.

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Reporting on Israel: ‘Thirty years on, we are still covering the same old enmities’

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The Guardian’s outgoing Jerusalem correspondent Oliver Holmes talks to predecessor Ian Black about how much – and how little – the job has changed over the years

It was the end of the 1980s and the Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, Ian Black, was talking shop with his competitor at the Sunday Times, the late Marie Colvin. “We were discussing when there might be a Palestinian state,” Black recalls of their conversation in Jerusalem. “We thought maybe it would happen in two or three years.”

Israel and the Palestinian territories were deep into the first intifada, an uprising against the occupation that lasted from 1987 until the early 90s. It was a period in which violence spiked, but also a time of nascent hope that the lengthy military grip over Palestinian life might finally end.

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Israeli coalition faces early test over illegal West Bank settlement

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Leftwing Israelis accuse new government of kowtowing to right in deal to evacuate Evyatar outpost

Leftwing Israelis have accused the new government of kowtowing to the right over the handling of an illegal settlement near the West Bank city of Nablus, in what is viewed as an early test of the ideologically divided coalition’s stability.

About 50 Jewish families who have moved to the Evyatar settlement over the last two months, building on a hilltop claimed by Palestinian olive farmers, agreed to vacate the land on Friday afternoon.

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Million Pfizer jabs face being dumped after Israel-UK swap deal fails

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Israel says technical issues have scuppered deal to give UK Covid vaccines expiring on 30 July

More than a million Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine doses held in Israel that are due to expire at the end of July may be thrown away after attempts to broker a swap deal with the UK failed.

Israel had reportedly offered the jabs to Britain in return for a similar number of vaccines that the UK is due to receive from Pfizer in September. Health authorities are racing to vaccinate as many of its adult population as possible before Covid restrictions are lifted in England later this month.

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Israel hits Gaza with airstrikes after more incendiary balloon launches

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Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Israeli-blockaded Gaza, said the strikes hit training sites

Israel hit Islamist militant sites in Gaza with airstrikes on Friday in retaliation for incendiary balloon launches from the Palestinian enclave, in the latest unrest since a ceasefire ended May’s conflict.

Security sources with Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Israeli-blockaded Gaza, said the strikes hit training sites. There were no injuries reported.

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European region Covid cases jump 10% as WHO calls for Euro 2020 monitoring

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All eyes on Israel, as countries look to see if 85% vaccination rate there will prevent deaths during surge

New Covid cases in the World Health Organization’s 53-country European region rose 10% last week after falling for 10 straight weeks, the body has said, warning of a possible new surge before autumn and calling for more monitoring of Euro 2020 matches.

Infection numbers continue to fall in many parts of the region, including the EU, but Katy Smallwood, WHO Europe’s senior emergencies manager, said some – such as Russia – were recording their highest daily death tolls of the pandemic.

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‘I refuse to visit his grave’: the trauma of mothers caught in Israel-Gaza conflict

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Many women have lost children, been separated from newborns or are unable to breastfeed and bond with their babies because of the war

In the last month of her pregnancy, May al-Masri was preparing dinner when a rocket landed outside her home in northern Gaza, killing her one-year-old son, Yasser.

Masri had felt the explosion’s shockwave when the attack happened last month, but was largely unharmed. Running outside once the air had cleared, she found her husband severely wounded and her child’s body covered in blood.

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Vaccine inequality: how rich countries cut Covid deaths as poorer fall behind

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Developed countries are seeing the benefits of quickly vaccinating their populations, but concerns remain about the unequal share of global vaccine supplies

New analysis by the Guardian has confirmed that a speedy Covid vaccination campaign pays off when it comes to escaping the worst of the pandemic.

As the chart below shows, countries such as Israel, the UK and the US have all seen deaths decline as vaccination coverage extended to the most vulnerable in their societies.

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Israel restores indoor mask requirement after rise in Covid cases

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Increase is probably due to highly contagious Delta variant, says pandemic response chief

Israel has decided to reimpose the mandatory wearing of masks in enclosed public spaces owing to a rise in Covid-19 cases just 10 days after the measure was lifted – a blow for a country that has prided itself on one of the world’s most successful vaccine rollouts.

The head of Israel’s pandemic response taskforce, Nachman Ash, told public radio on Friday that mask mandates in most indoor situations would be reinstated, after the country recorded four successive days of more than 100 new cases, with 227 cases on Thursday.

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Fossilised bones found in Israel could belong to mystery extinct humans

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Remains with combination of Neanderthal and early human features date back 100,000 years

Fossilised bones recovered from an ancient sinkhole in Israel may belong to a previously unknown group of extinct humans that lived in the Levant more than 100,000 years ago.

Researchers unearthed the bones alongside stone tools and the remains of horses, fallow deer and wild ox during excavations at the Nesher Ramla prehistoric site near the city of Ramla in central Israel.

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Amnesty: ‘catalogue of violations’ by Israeli police against Palestinians

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Palestinians face repression from Israel and Palestinian Authority, human rights watchdog says

The latest flare-up of violence in the Gaza Strip has been accompanied by a “catalogue of violations” committed by Israeli police against Palestinians in Israel and occupied East Jerusalem, according to research from Amnesty International.

Arab citizens of Israel have been subjected to unlawful force from officers during peaceful demonstrations, sweeping mass arrests, torture and other ill-treatment in detention, and police have failed to protect Palestinians from premeditated attacks by rightwing Jewish extremists, the human rights watchdog said on Thursday.

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Israel responds to incendiary balloons with airstrikes on Gaza – video

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Israel launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip for a second time since a ceasefire ended May’s 11-day conflict with Palestinian militants. The strikes came after incendiary balloons were launched into Israel for a third day running. Israel's military reported that fighter jets struck Hamas 'military compounds and a rocket launch site'  and said its forces were preparing for a 'variety of scenarios including a resumption of hostilities'

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Israel launches new airstrikes on Gaza in response to incendiary balloons

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Military says it is prepared for all scenarios including ‘resumption of hostilities’

Israel has launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip for a second time since a shaky ceasefire ended last month’s 11-day war.

The strikes late on Thursday came after activists mobilised by Gaza’s militant Hamas rulers launched incendiary balloons into Israel for a third day running. The balloons are basic devices intended to set fire to farmland and bush surrounding the Gaza enclave.

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Israel mounts Gaza Strip airstrike in response to incendiary balloons – video

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Israel has launched airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, the first since a truce ended 11 days of cross-border fighting in May. The airstrike comes in response to incendiary balloons launched from the Palestinian territory. The flare-up in violence followed a march in East Jerusalem on Tuesday by Jewish nationalists that had drawn threats of action by Hamas, the ruling militant group in Gaza and counter-protests. Israel's military said its aircraft attacked Hamas armed compounds in Gaza City and the southern town of Khan Younis in the early hours of Wednesday. The strikes come after the Israeli fire brigade reported 20 blazes in open fields in communities near the Gaza border were caused by the release of the incendiary balloons.


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