Thousands turn out to commemorate mass displacement of people in 1948
Israeli soldiers have shot 16 people at the Gaza frontier on a day of rallies commemorating the mass displacement of Palestinians during the war that led to Israel’s creation in 1948.
Each year, typically on 15 May, Palestinians mark the nakba, or catastrophe, when more than 700,000 people fled or were expelled from towns and villages seven decades ago.
Continue reading...Calling themselves the Gaza skate team, a group of young Palestinians get together to skate and rollerblade amid deprivation and high security
Continue reading...Gulf state reveals funding plan after ceasefire ends latest Israeli-Palestinian hostilities
Qatar has said it is sending $480m (£370m) to Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after a ceasefire deal ended the deadliest fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants since 2014.
Qatar’s foreign ministry said $300m would go towards supporting health and education programmes of the Palestinian Authority, while $180m would go toward urgent humanitarian relief, UN programmes and providing electricity.
Continue reading...Protests expected at song contest over country’s treatment of Palestinians
Israel has said it will block activists who plan to disrupt the Eurovision Song Contest from entering the country, as anxiety mounts that the event, watched by a global TV audience, will become a focus for protests against the country’s treatment of the Palestinians.
The world’s longest-running televised song competition will take place on 14-18 May in the coastal city of Tel Aviv. Contestants have begun to arrive, stage lights have been hung and fresh grass has been laid for a massive party on the seafront.
Continue reading...Air and tank strikes kill 19 Palestinians after Netanyahu orders ‘massive attacks’, while rockets kill four in Israel
Militants in Gaza and Israeli forces engaged in a bloody and spiralling clash over the weekend, with Palestinian factions launching hundreds of rockets towards towns and cities in Israel, which retaliated with more than 250 strikes.
In exchanges that marked some of the worst fighting in recent years, 19 Palestinians, including two pregnant women and a toddler, have been killed since hostilities began on Friday, the health ministry in Gaza said. The dead included at least eight militants and a Hamas commander killed in the first targeted assassination Israel has conducted in the strip for years.
Continue reading...Six people have been killed in Gaza after Israel responded with airstrikes and tank fire to about 250 rockets being fired over the border by Palestinian militants on a day that has put further strain on an already fraying ceasefire.
It was the second day of fighting after a month-long lull in violence around the blockaded enclave and came while leaders of Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, were in Egypt for talks aimed at restoring the ceasefire.
Continue reading...Recep Tayyip Erdoğan criticises attacks as six Palestinians and an Israeli civilian die in renewed violence
Turkey’s president has attacked what he called “Israeli terrorism” after the Gaza office for the Turkish state-run news agency was destroyed during the latest round of hostilities between Israeli forces and Palestinian militants.
More than 24 hours of heavy fire continued into Sunday, as militants launched rockets out of the strip and Israel responded with air attacks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the military to launch more “massive strikes” on Gaza and move tanks, artillery and infantry to the edge of the enclave.
Continue reading...Three fatalities reported in Gaza after Israel respond to 200 rockets fired by Palestinian militant
An infant, her pregnant mother and an adult have been killed in Gaza after Israel responded with airstrikes and tank fire to about 200 rockets being fired over the border by Palestinian militants, further straining an already fraying ceasefire.
Two days of fighting have brought an end to a month-long lull in violence around the blockaded enclave. It came while leaders of Hamas, the militant group that controls Gaza, were in Egypt for talks aimed at restoring the faltering ceasefire deal.
Continue reading...Trump son-in-law says upcoming Middle East peace plan will be ‘very acceptable’ to Palestinians
Jared Kushner has revealed aspects of the US peace plan for the Middle East, indicating it would pull back from longstanding mentions of a two-state solution with the Palestinians and accept Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Kushner, the son-in-law and senior adviser to President Donald Trump, is expected to present a long-awaited deal next month on behalf of the US administration, which has closely aligned itself with Israel’s rightwing.
Continue reading...Stephen Fry, Marina Abramović and Sharon Osbourne among stars describing the boycott movement as ‘an affront to both Palestinians and Israelis’
Public figures including Stephen Fry, Sharon Osbourne, Marina Abramović and pop mogul Scooter Braun have signed a letter speaking out against a proposed boycott of this year’s Eurovision song contest, which is to be held in Tel Aviv in May.
Their letter states that Eurovision’s “spirit of togetherness” across the continent is “under attack by those calling to boycott Eurovision 2019 because it is being held in Israel, subverting the spirit of the contest and turning it from a tool of unity into a weapon of division”.
Continue reading...As the co-founders of Seret, the UK Israeli film and television festival, we are surprised that, yet again, there has been a call for a boycott on screening films from Israel here in the UK, from film-makers who believe that they are supporting the “Palestinian cause” (Letters, 26 April).
Israeli films are distributed globally, and the cinemas they are screened in are delighted and proud to show them to their audiences.
Continue reading...The Guardian’s Oliver Holmes describes his quest for positive news in one of journalism’s most notoriously difficult beats
I had pretzels and a beer ready to pop. It was after 10pm and I was watching a live feed of mission control. An Israeli-built spacecraft was approaching the lunar surface and due to touch down within minutes. It was a straightforward good news story – the first privately funded attempt to land on the moon.
Flight engineers had their eyes glued to screens and I was listening to one talking through the details in Hebrew. Then, amid the technical jargon, I heard a jolting phrase in English: “Not OK”.
Continue reading...Regarding Jeremy Beecham’s thoughts on Roger Waters (Letters, 19 April), I think we can take it as read Waters would not encourage Madonna to support the Assad regime by playing Damascus.
John Warburton
Edinburgh
• You failed to mention the two most important filmed rock concerts (Homecoming review – Beyoncé documentary is a triumphant celebration, 19 April): Monterey Pop and Woodstock. To write about seminal filmed rock gigs without mentioning them is like writing about influential 60s groups without mentioning the Beatles or the Stones.
Jon Ingram
Ilkley, West Yorkshire
Roger Waters’ mother imploring her son to “decide for yourself” and execute the “right thing to do” was no doubt in reference to the juvenile politics of the playground (If you believe in human rights, Madonna, don’t play Tel Aviv, 17 April). Unfortunately, these simple values can not be transposed to the labyrinthine issues of the Middle East in general and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular.
Sadly “bad stuff” occurs in all conflicts, which are not as clearcut as Waters would suggest: baddie Israelis (“apartheid”, “ethnic cleansing”, “slaughter”) versus goodie Palestinians (“fortitude”, “grace”, “heads high”).
Continue reading...Exclusive: letter from former officials says Europe must stand by the two-state solution
High-ranking former European politicians have condemned the Trump administration’s one-sided Israel-Palestine policy and called in a letter for Europe to reject any US Middle East peace plan unless it is fair to Palestinians.
The letter, sent to the Guardian, the EU and European governments, was signed by 25 former foreign ministers, six former prime ministers, and two former Nato secretary generals.
Continue reading...For as long as she can remember, Mary Giacaman, a Christian Palestinian, has watched the outcome of the Israeli election on TV. “But not this year,” she explained. “It was too depressing, and anyway I knew what would happen.”
This Holy Week, the 56-year-old Catholic will be attending mass each morning as usual at Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity across the square from her olive wood carved souvenir shop; she will spend a festive Easter day with her sons, daughters and six grandchildren. If nothing else, it will be a welcome distraction from a “very bad” election result, which saw a decisive victory for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Continue reading...Parke says she did not want to be a distraction during the election campaign, despite her views being ‘well known’
The Labor candidate for the West Australian seat of Curtin, Melissa Parke, has pulled out following reports that she told a public meeting last month that the way Israel treated Palestinians was “worse than the South African system of apartheid”.
Parke, formerly a federal member for Fremantle, said on Friday night that she did not want to be a distraction during the election campaign. The seat of Curtin was previously held by former Liberal party deputy leader Julie Bishop.
Continue reading...Ultranationalist PM has been at heart of backlash against peace efforts during 13 years in power
It was a win by the slimmest margin. Back in 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu took the Israeli election by less than 1% of the total votes.
Twenty-three years later, he has pulled off more knife-edge election acrobatics, securing a fifth term even though he tied in the election, after his main rival conceded.
Continue reading...Spacecraft crashes in to lunar surface after engine and communications breakdown
An Israeli spacecraft has crashed into the lunar surface, ending the first privately funded attempt to land on the moon.
About the size of a washing machine, the 585kg (1,290lb) robotic lander experienced an engine and communication failure in the last seconds of touchdown.
Continue reading...Trump’s decision to recognise Israeli sovereignty over territory it seized from Syria sets a troubling precedent, experts fear
Under intense questioning about why the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights was good but the Russian seizure of Crimea was bad, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, told senators that there was an “international law doctrine” which would be explained to them later.
It turned out there was no doctrine. The state department’s clarification of Pompeo’s remarks contained no reference to one, and experts on international law said that none exists.
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