Category Archives: Israel

Clashes over Israeli settlements prompt fears for Monday’s Jerusalem Day march

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Reports seven were injured in Palestinian clashes with Israeli police on Sunday, despite now-delayed court ruling on East Jerusalem settlements

Israeli police faced off with Palestinian protesters in another full night of clashes in East Jerusalem, ahead of a planned parade by hardline Israeli nationalists through the Old City in an annual flag-waving march meant to cement Israeli claims to the contested area.

The Palestine Red Crescent reported seven injuries, including four hospitalisations, as officers in riot gear clashed with Palestinian demonstrators clashed in East Jerusalem. Confrontations continued until after dawn, when police stormed into the Old City’s al-Aqsa mosque, the third holiest site in Islam, and fired stun grenades at worshippers, who lobbed stones.

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Israeli settlement ruling delayed as Jerusalem tensions run high

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More than 120 injured in continuing Palestinian protests over planned evictions in the Sheikh Jarrah area

Israel’s supreme court has delayed a deeply contentious decision on whether Palestinians can be evicted by force to make way for Jewish settlers, after hundreds of Palestinians were wounded in confrontations with the police in some of Jerusalem’s worst unrest in years.

A former Israeli defence official described the atmosphere as like a powder keg ready to explode at any time, after more clashes erupted outside the Old City overnight on Saturday.

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Scores injured in second night of Jerusalem clashes

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Palestinian Red Crescent says 80 people were hurt during clashes with Israeli police outside Jerusalem’s Old City

Clashes have erupted for a second night between Palestinians and Israeli police outside the Old City of Jerusalem as tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers prayed at the nearby al-Aqsa Mosque.

At least 80 people were injured, including a one-year-old, and 14 were taken to hospital, the Palestine Red Crescent said. Israeli police said at least one officer was hurt.

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Israeli police clash with Palestinians at al-Aqsa mosque – video

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Israeli police broke into the prayer room at the mosque in East Jerusalem as several hundred Palestinians stayed on after Friday prayers to protest against potential evictions of Palestinians from homes on land claimed by Jewish settlers.

At least 178 Palestinians and six officers were injured in the night-time clashes at Islam’s third-holiest site and around East Jerusalem.

Israel’s supreme court will hold a hearing on the long-running eviction legal case in Sheikh Jarrah on Monday, as nightly clashes have continued during Ramadan

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More than 205 Palestinians wounded in Jerusalem al-Aqsa clashes

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Confrontations at holy site leave 17 Israeli police officers wounded, with international calls for calm

More than 205 Palestinians and 17 Israeli police officers were wounded during a night of intense clashes at a sacred Jerusalem site that holds the Dome of the Rock, medics and police said, a serious escalation in a weeks-long rise in violence.

Tensions in Jerusalem have soared recently, with Palestinians complaining of oppressive restrictions during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. An upcoming Israeli court ruling on whether authorities can evict dozens of Palestinians – and give their homes to Jewish settlers – has further inflamed the situation.

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Refugees and the Armenian genocide: human rights this fortnight in pictures

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

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‘Green list’ guide: the countries travellers from England can visit

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The government has revealed the destinations to which quarantine-free holidays will be allowed

The government has just announced its green list for quarantine-free international travel into England. The countries on it are Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Brunei, Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands, Israel, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha, and Portugal, including the Azores and Madeira.

Related: England’s traffic-light system for foreign travel: all you need to know

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James Packer’s ties with Israeli PM and spy chief became ‘national risk’ – report

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Australian tycoon was obsessed with Israel’s elite, once kissing feet of an ex-president, local media reports

James Packer’s entanglement with Israel’s elite, including a close personal relationship with Benjamin Netanyahu and the now Mossad chief, was considered a “national risk”, according to an Israeli report, quoting testimony from witnesses in Netanyahu’s corruption trial.

The Australian casino mogul, 53, developed an obsession with the Jewish state over the past few years, once kissing the feet of the former president Shimon Peres when he came for a dinner, according to “a person who was close” to Peres. He also considering converting to Judaism, Haaretz newspaper reported.

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Two Pfizer Covid vaccine doses give over 95% protection, shows Israel study

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First research of its kind shows power of vaccines to stem pandemic, cutting hospitalisation, death and infection rates

Two doses of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine have proved more than 95% effective against infection, hospitalisation and death from Covid-19 in Israel, the country with the highest proportion of its population vaccinated in the world, research has found.

One shot of the vaccine was partially effective, offering 58% protection against infection, 76% against hospitalisation, and 77% against death. The authors of the observational study in the Lancet medical journal say this shows the importance of having the second shot.

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Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid tasked with forming a government

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President Reuven Rivlin chooses another candidate to build a government after Benjamin Netanyahu fails to meet deadline

Israel’s president has tasked the head of the opposition, Yair Lapid, with forming a government after Benjamin Netanyahu failed to do so, leaving the country’s longest-serving leader facing a fresh challenge to his historic hold on power.

Netanyahu’s rightwing Likud party won the most seats in a March election and was given 28 days to build a majority coalition government. But that deadline passed on Tuesday, allowing Reuven Rivlin to choose another candidate.

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Israel’s Netanyahu fails to form government before deadline

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Veteran leader proves unable to create a coalition after inconclusive election on 23 March

Benjamin Netanyahu has failed to form a coalition government, extending a two-year political deadlock in Israel – and putting the country’s longest-serving leader back on the defensive as his rivals move to unseat him.

Following an inconclusive snap election on 23 March – the fourth since 2019 – the 71-year-old leader had hoped to clinch what would be a unique and historic partnership in Israeli politics.

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British man who died in crush at Israeli festival is named as Moshe Bergman

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Bergman, 24, had been in Israel to train as a rabbi before dying at Mount Meron

A British man who died in a crowd crush at a Jewish festival in Israel has been named as Moshe Bergman.

The 24-year-old from Salford, Manchester, had been in the country to train to be a rabbi in Jerusalem. He had been living in the city for two years and had married 18 months ago.

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Israel holds day of mourning for 45 crush disaster victims

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Questions raised about accountability for deaths at Jewish religious festival at mystic’s tomb

Israel observed a day of mourning on Sunday for 45 people crushed to death at a Jewish religious festival, with flags lowered to half-mast and questions raised about accountability for one of the country’s worst civilian disasters.

In accordance with Jewish tradition, funerals were held with as little delay as possible. More than 20 of the victims of Friday’s disaster on Mount Meron were buried overnight after official identification was completed.

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At least 10 children and teens among dead in crush at festival in Israel

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Partial list records 45 deaths at ultra-Orthodox event as identification of bodies continues

At least 10 children and teenagers were among 45 ultra-Orthodox Jews killed in a crush at a religious festival in northern Israel, according to a partial list of names published on Saturday as the identification of victims in Israel’s deadliest civilian disaster continued.

Four Americans, a Canadian and a man from Argentina were also among those killed. Two families each lost two children. The youngest victim was nine years old.

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Witnesses recall deadly crowd crush in Israel – video

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Witnesses recount their experiences of the night dozens of people died in a crowd crush at an ultra-Orthodox religious festival in northern Israel attended by tens of thousands of people on Friday.

About 150 people were injured at the annual Lag B’Omer commemorations in Galilee. The prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, promised a thorough investigation to ensure such a tragedy is not repeated and called for a day of mourning on Sunday

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‘It’s unfathomable’: Israel mourns after deadly crush at holy festival

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People tell of unfolding horror at Mount Meron as inquiry begins into one of the country’s worst peacetime disasters

Signs of the night’s tragedy were scattered everywhere. Crushed plastic bottles lined the narrow sloped path, barely 3 or 4 metres across. A metal handrail lay bent, completely ripped from the ground by the force of the crushing throng of people. And, further down the walkway, an unused body bag.

This thin passageway at a Jewish pilgrimage site in Mount Meron, northern Israel, was the scene of a horrific crush just after midnight on Thursday. Crowds of ultra-Orthodox men and children leaving a religious gathering, the first of its kind since nearly all coronavirus restrictions were lifted, slipped and trampled each other in the panic.

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Israel is committing the crime of apartheid, rights watchdog says

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Human Rights Watch calls on international criminal court to investigate ‘systematic discrimination’ against Palestinians

Human Rights Watch has accused Israeli officials of committing the crimes of apartheid and persecution, claiming the government enforces an overarching policy to “maintain the domination by Jewish Israelis over Palestinians”.

In a report released on Tuesday, the New York-based advocacy group became the first major international rights body to level such allegations. It said that after decades of warnings that an entrenched hold over Palestinian life could lead to apartheid, it had found that the “threshold” had been crossed.

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At least three killed as Iranian fuel tanker attacked off Syria

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State news agency says fatal fire broke out after ambush thought to have involved drone

At least three people died when an Iranian fuel tanker was attacked off Syria’s coast on Saturday, in the first assault of its kind since the Syrian civil war started a decade ago, a war monitor said.

“At least three Syrians were killed, including two members of the crew,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

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Gaza militants fire rockets after clashes flare in Jerusalem

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Rockets seen as response to unrest in mostly Palestinian east Jerusalem, including far-right Jewish groups chanting ‘death to Arabs’

Militants in Gaza have fired at least 35 rockets into Israel in one of the most intense flare-ups in months, seemingly triggered by days of tensions in Jerusalem in which far-right Jewish groups and the Israeli police have clashed with Palestinians.

Hours of sustained rocket launches early on Saturday – and Israel’s retaliatory strikes on the strip using fighter jets and attack helicopters – broke a months-long lull along the frontier with the coastal enclave.

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