The Observer view on Iran’s rigged presidential election | Observer editorial

It is not only Iranians who will suffer if a hardliner wins, it could have profound consequences for world peace

Iran’s beleaguered voters do not have much of a choice in this Friday’s presidential election. The regime, dominated by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, a fiercely anti-western conservative, has cynically manipulated the contest to ensure that a like-minded hardliner, most probably Ebrahim Raisi, head of the judiciary, wins.

While the result is hardly a cliff-hanger, its impact may nonetheless be far-reaching – in Iran and internationally. The possibly negative consequences for talks on curbing Iran’s nuclear programme, for peaceful relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the west, for the wars in Syria and Yemen, for the geopolitical balance and for Iran’s own citizens are alarming.

Continue reading...

New Israeli coalition government seeks to put an end to the Netanyahu era

The opposition-led administration will be sworn in on Sunday if it can prevail in a confidence vote in the Knesset

Benjamin Netanyahu is due to be ousted from office on Sunday by a new Israeli government formed with the primary aim of dethroning the country’s longest-serving leader.

A motley grouping of politicians, including former Netanyahu allies turned foes, have set aside bitter differences to put an end to the prime minister’s historic run in power. If successful, it will also break a political stalemate that has seen four snap elections in the country since 2019.

Continue reading...

Ex-Mossad chief signals Israel culpability for Iran attacks

Yossi Cohen reveals details of Iran nuclear programme attacks in interview timed to support Netanyahu

The outgoing head of Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, has signalled the country’s clear responsibility for a series of attacks targeting Iran’s nuclear programme in an interview that appeared to have as much to do with Israel’s febrile politics as with Iran.

In a public intervention that appeared timed to help Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, before a Knesset vote on Sunday that could end his 12 consecutive years in office, the agency’s former head Yossi Cohenrevealed details of operations long attributed to Israel.

Continue reading...

One Gaza street, 43 deaths: ‘The real war is the aftermath’ – video

Omar Abu al-Ouf lost his parents, grandparents and two siblings when his building was bombed by the Israeli military last month, in a street where 43 people were killed. Two weeks after the 16-year-old was pulled from the rubble, he leaves hospital to visit his remaining family and return to what’s left of his devastated neighbourhood in Gaza City. Many of Omar’s neighbours also lost loved ones, and search through the rubble for possessions, after a war which killed more than 250 people in Israel and Gaza, the vast majority of them Palestinians 

Continue reading...

The conflict in the Middle East is sustained by the silencing of Palestinians | Ghada Karmi

Throughout history, our story has been narrated by others who treat our rights as less deserving of recognition

The silencing of the Palestinian story is nothing new. In 1950s Britain, a few years after Israel was established, even the name Palestine went out of use. When asked as a child where I came from, people would think I’d said Pakistan.

I remember how frustrating it was that no one wanted to hear our story, as if we had invented it. “It’s the land of the Jews,” I was repeatedly told. “The Arabs are only squatters on it.” Israel’s stunning victory in the 1967 war compounded these attitudes, and the Zionist narrative of Israel’s moral right to exist in the Jewish people’s “ancestral land” became supreme. Constantly made to understand we were second-class human beings with no valid right to “someone else’s country” was demoralising and intimidating.

Continue reading...

Biden accused of U-turn over Egypt’s human rights abuses

Critics say US president’s realpolitik ignores Sisi regime’s ‘hostage-taking tactics’ against dissidents

“It’s a hostage negotiation and it has been all along,” said Sherif Mansour, describing the arrest of his cousin Reda Abdel-Rahman by Egyptian security forces last August as an attempt to intimidate Mansour into silence.

Abdel-Rahman has been imprisoned without trial for nine months. Mansour, an outspoken human rights advocate in Washington with the Committee to Protect Journalists, has since learned that he and his father are listed on the same charge sheet, all accused of joining a terrorist group and spreading “false news”.

Continue reading...

Jerusalem sinkhole swallows up parked cars – video

A Jerusalem hospital parking lot has collapsed into a sinkhole, Israeli police say, but no casualties have been reported. Security video distributed by the Jerusalem Shaare Zedek Medical Center, showed cars falling into the sinkhole. Israeli police, backed by fire and rescue services, blocked the roads surrounding the hospital to conduct searches in the area. Hospital officials said they believed the collapse to have been triggered by a highway tunnel being dug nearby.

Continue reading...

Israeli police stop far-right march through Jerusalem

Plans blocked after a similar parade stoked tensions that contributed to last Gaza conflict

Israeli police have blocked a planned march by Jewish nationalists through Palestinian neighbourhoods of Jerusalem after a similar parade last month played a key role in building the tensions that led to the latest Gaza conflict.

In a statement, police said a permit for a different time or route might be considered.

Continue reading...

Netanyahu says Israeli coalition poised to unseat him is result of ‘election fraud’

Accusation comes as security services warn of an escalation in violent discourse in the country

Benjamin Netanyahu has said a newly formed Israeli coalition that is poised to unseat him as prime minister was the result of “the greatest election fraud” in the history of democracy.

The sweeping accusation, similar in tone to those made about the US election by his former close ally Donald Trump, came as Israeli security services warned of an escalation in violent discourse in the country.

Continue reading...

Myanmar school strikes and a plane diverted to Minsk: human rights this fortnight – in pictures

A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Colombia to China

Continue reading...

Palestinians welcome end of Netanyahu era – but fear more of the same

Relief in the occupied territories is mixed with sense that ‘nothing will change’

“It is the end of Netanyahu’s dark era,” says Kareem Hassanian, 44, a Palestinian psychologist who lives in the Gaza Strip, a place still counting the cost of the latest devastating war between Israel and Hamas.

He adds quickly: “And it’s the beginning of a new dark era. The new coalition won’t be different from the previous one. Israel still occupies Palestine. We will not see the end of the occupation in the coming years.”

Continue reading...

Netanyahu attacks ‘dangerous’ coalition seeking to topple him

Israel’s longest-serving leader begins fight to remain in power as opposition parties rush to establish government

Benjamin Netanyahu has fought back against what he slammed as a “dangerous” coalition of opposition parties that were rushing to establish a government aimed at unseating the country’s longest-serving leader.

A day after the opposition head, Yair Lapid, announced that he and Naftali Bennett – his far-right partner and prime minister in waiting – could form a “government of change”, the race was on to get it voted on in parliament and sworn in.

Continue reading...

Israeli opposition leader tells president he can form government

Under terms of Yair Lapid’s proposed deal, far-right politician Naftali Bennett would replace Benjamin Netanyahu as PM

The Israeli opposition leader has told the country’s president that he can form a government, a critical step that places Benjamin Netanyahu in his most precarious political position for more than a decade.

After days of frenetic negotiations, Yair Lapid told President Reuven Rivlin less than an hour before a midnight deadline that he had the support of a majority of opposition parties for what has been called a “government of change” – a mix of bitter ideological rivals united by a shared desire to oust Israel’s longest-serving leader.

Continue reading...

Israeli opposition parties face midnight deadline to form government

Yair Lapid’s 28-day mandate to forge majority and end Netanyahu’s time as PM ends on Wednesday

Israeli opposition politicians have until midnight on Wednesday to hash out final negotiations to build a coalition government that would end Benjamin Netanyahu’s 12-year run as prime minister.

Under the country’s election laws, opposition leader Yair Lapid’s 28-day mandate to forge a majority by allying with rival parties ends on Wednesday. By this time, he should have informed the president he has succeeded.

Continue reading...

Senior figures attack ‘obstruction’ of ICC’s Palestine investigation

Exclusive: Open letter signed by dozens of European ex-officials calls for end to ‘unwarranted public criticism’ of inquiry into alleged war crimes

More than 50 former foreign ministers, prime ministers and senior international officials, including two British Conservative former ministers, have signed an open letter condemning political interference in efforts by the international criminal court (ICC) to investigate alleged war crimes in Palestine.

The letter follows moves by the Trump administration to sanction court officials – orders that have since been reversed by the Biden administration – and is also seen as a rebuke of Boris Johnson, the British prime minister.

Continue reading...

Far-right politician would be Israel’s next PM in proposed deal

Yair Lapid says Naftali Bennett would serve first in proposed post-Netanyahu power-sharing deal

The far-right Israeli politician Naftali Bennett will be the country’s next prime minister under a proposed power-sharing deal intended to oust Benjamin Netanyahu, the head of the opposition has confirmed.

Yair Lapid said in a speech on Monday that his efforts to forge a coalition of ideologically opposed parties could lead to a new government within days, and with it, Netanyahu’s removal from office after 12 years in power.

Continue reading...

Bennett and Netanyahu address public as opposition figures reach deal – video

The rightwing Israeli politician Naftali Bennett and opposition leader Yair Lapid have agreed to forge a coalition government that would oust the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, after 12 years in power. 

In a televised address, Bennett announced his intention to form 'a national unity government' alongside Lapid. Minutes after the speech ended, Netanyahu went on air to rail against Bennett

Continue reading...

Israeli opposition figures reach deal aimed at ousting Netanyahu

Far-right politician Naftali Bennett says he has agreed to a deal with Yair Lapid to forge a coalition government

The far-right Israeli politician Naftali Bennett and opposition leader Yair Lapid have agreed to forge a coalition government that would oust Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from his 12 straight years in power.

“It’s my intention to do my utmost in order to form a national unity government along with my friend Yair Lapid, so that, God willing, together we can save the country from a tailspin and return Israel to its course,” said Bennett, a former settler leader and religious nationalist, in a televised address.

Continue reading...

‘One name in a long list’: the pointless death of another West Bank teenager

Obaida Jawabra was weeks from turning 18 when he was shot by an Israeli soldier, after a life shaped by arrests and imprisonment

Route 60, the north-south artery that carves its way through the West Bank, is both the lifeblood of the region and a source of daily fear.

Flanked in parts by 2.5-metre-high (8ft) separation barriers, military checkpoints and watchtowers crewed by Israeli snipers, the 146-mile highway that starts and finishes in Israel but passes Hebron and Bethlehem in the West Bank, has been the scene of many fatal attacks and violent clashes.

Continue reading...

Italy cable car crash: five-year-old survivor to be moved out of intensive care

Eitan Biran, whose parents, younger brother and great-grandparents were killed in the crash, has woken up and spoken to his aunt

The five-year-old boy who survived last weekend’s deadly cable car crash in the Italian mountains that killed his parents and sibling is awake and will soon be moved out of intensive care, hospital officials said on Thursday.

Eitan Biran has been in critical condition since the cabin plunged to the ground on the Mottarone mountain, killing the other 14 people inside, including his parents, younger brother and great-grandparents. Thirteen of the passengers died at the scene, while Eitan and another child were taken to hospital. The other child later died.

Continue reading...