Category Archives: Israel

European broadcasters to vote on expelling Israel from Eurovision 2026

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European Broadcasting Union says vote required after several nations threaten potential boycott

The European Broadcasting Union has confirmed it will hold an online vote in November that could see the Israeli broadcaster Kan expelled from next year’s Eurovision song contest.

In a letter sent to participating broadcasters on Thursday, the EBU president, Delphine Ernotte Cunci, wrote there was an “unprecedented diversity of views” on Israel’s participation in Eurovision, and the issue required “a broader democratic basis”.

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Israel’s future in Uefa could come to a head before World Cup qualifiers

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  • National team and club sides may face suspension

  • Next Uefa international break begins on 6 October

Uefa could decide as early as next week whether to suspend Israel from its competitions, with the governing body facing growing pressure from inside and outside the game.

Reports on Thursday, initially in the Times, suggested a vote that would determine Israel’s participation in World Cup qualifying and that of Maccabi Tel Aviv in the Europa League could be held by Uefa’s executive committee before the international break begins on 6 October.

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Israel carrying out crime against humanity in Gaza, Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas tells UN – as it happened

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Speech by Palestinian Authority president also says Hamas should have no role in governing Palestine and must disarm

Alimi says the policy of containment has given the Houthis time to expand its arsenal.

“It has become clear the peace we seek cannot be asked for but must be imposed by force,” he says.

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‘Tunnel vision’: how Israel is using archaeology for political ends

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Scientists say Netanyahu government and its US backers are trying to construct a history shorn of all complexity

When the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, visited Jerusalem this month, the itinerary his Israeli hosts laid on involved more archaeology than anything else. On his first day, Benjamin Netanyahu took Rubio underground to excavations near the Western Wall. On the second day, Israel’s prime minister gave his American visitor the honour of inaugurating a tunnel burrowed under a Palestinian district, along a Roman-era street nicknamed the Pilgrimage Road, in a “City of David” archaeological park established by an Israeli settler organisation.

Both events were intended to emphasise Jerusalem’s Jewish roots and its status, Netanyahu stressed, as “our eternal and undivided capital”.

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At least 20 people reported injured after drone strike on Israeli city of Eilat

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Two people seriously injured, says national ambulance service as military says drone was launched from Yemen

At least 20 people have been injured, two seriously, after a drone launched from Yemen hit Israel’s Red Sea resort city of Eilat on the border with Jordan and Egypt.

Police said the drone fell in Eilat’s city centre, causing damage in the area frequented by tourists.

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‘We are at our limit’: Gaza’s last hospitals overwhelmed as thousands flee south

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‘Not enough of anything’, says surgeon, as Israel’s assault forces injured, sick and hungry people to leave Gaza City

The few remaining hospitals and clinics in central and southern Gaza are being overwhelmed by a “tsunami” of injured and sick patients fleeing a new Israeli offensive in the north of the devastated territory, medics say.

At both Nasser medical complex, in the southern city of Khan Younis, and field hospitals in al-Muwasi, the coastal “humanitarian zone” designated by Israel, staff are struggling to cope with large numbers of new arrivals forced out of Gaza City in the north of the devastated Palestinian territory.

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Explosions and drones targeting Gaza aid flotilla boats, activists say

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The Global Sumud Flotilla said they would ‘not be intimidated’, after third report of drone attacks this month

Organisers of a Gaza-bound flotilla carrying aid and pro-Palestinian activists have reported explosions and multiple drones that targeted some of their boats, currently situated near Greece.

“Multiple drones, unidentified objects dropped, communications jammed and explosions heard from a number of boats,” the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) said in a statement. “We are witnessing these psychological operations first-hand, right now, but we will not be intimidated.”

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Middle East crisis: Trump to address UN general assembly as Israeli attacks on Gaza City continue – as it happened

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US president to address UN general assembly in New York after UK, France, Belgium, Canada, Australia and Portugal recognised a Palestinian state

The UN investigators cited examples of the scale of the Israeli killings, aid blockages, forced displacement and the destruction of a fertility clinic to back up its genocide finding.

The 1948 UN Genocide Convention defines genocide as crimes committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such”. To count as genocide, at least one of five acts must have occurred.

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Netanyahu may struggle to find response that matches rhetoric on Palestine recognition

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Israeli PM has threatened bilateral action and annexation of occupied Palestinian land but there are risks in either

Benjamin Netanyahu was quick to denounce the recognition of a Palestinian state by many of Israel’s historic allies, but the prime minister may be struggling to decide how to turn rhetoric into a concrete response.

His options are perhaps more constrained than he would have his supporters believe. He has variously threatened annexation of occupied Palestinian land and bilateral action against countries that joined the tide of recognition.

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Disruption across Italy as tens of thousands protest against Gaza war

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Schools and stations closed and ports blocked in one of Europe’s biggest demonstrations opposing Israel’s offensive

Tens of thousands of people have taken to the streets in dozens of cities across Italy – shutting schools, disrupting trains and blocking ports and roads – in one of Europe’s largest nationwide protests against Israel’s offensive in Gaza.

The protests came as France and several other countries prepared to recognise Palestinian statehood at the UN general assembly on Monday after the UK, Australia, Portugal and Canada did so on Sunday.

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European officials warn Israel not to annex parts of West Bank in response to recognition of Palestinian state – Middle East crisis live

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UK, Australia, Canada and Portugal recognised Palestinian statehood on Sunday with France set to do the same

The Israeli military, which justifies its assault on Gaza City by saying it wants to “destroy Hamas military infrastructure” hasn’t given a timeline for the ground offensive, but there are indications it could take months.

Amid this flurry of diplomatic activity, Israel is continuing to launch deadly attacks on Gaza, including on Gaza City, the biggest urban centre in the territory.

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At least 40 killed in Gaza and five in Lebanon in Israeli strikes

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Military steps up Gaza City takeover campaign as high-rise towers targeted and residents ordered to leave

Israeli strikes killed at least 40 people in Gaza on Sunday, including 19 women and children, as well as five people in Lebanon.

At least 14 people were killed in a single strike on a residential block in southern Gaza City, health officials at al-Shifa hospital said. Another attack killed at least eight Palestinians in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to al-Awda hospital.

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Netanyahu calls UK’s Palestine recognition ‘absurd prize for terrorism’

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Opposition leader Yair Golan blames government’s political recklessness and refusal to end the war in Gaza

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, called the UK’s recognition of Palestine on Sunday “an absurd prize for terrorism”.

In remarks to ministers released by his office, he said Israel would have “to fight both in the UN and in all the other fronts against the slanderous propaganda aimed at us, and against the calls to create a Palestinian state that will endanger our existence and constitute an absurd prize for terrorism”.

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UK set to recognise Palestinian state on Sunday

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Keir Starmer expected to confirm move after concluding the situation has worsened significantly in recent weeks

The UK is expected to recognise a Palestinian state on Sunday after Israel failed to meet the conditions set out by Keir Starmer in July.

The prime minister is to make the announcement after concluding the humanitarian situation has deteriorated significantly in the past few weeks. The move comes despite pressure from the US and the families of hostages held by Hamas.

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Israel attack on Yemeni newspaper was second deadliest on journalists ever recorded

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Press freedom group says ‘brutal and unjustified attack’ is deadliest since 2009 Maguindanao massacre in Philippines

Thirty one journalists and media staff were killed by Israeli strikes on newspaper offices in Yemen last week in what the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Friday was the deadliest attack on journalists in the last 16 years.

Israel struck a newspaper complex in Sana’a, Yemen’s capital, which housed three Houthi-connected media outlets on 10 September. At the time, members of the Yemeni army’s press arm were finishing the weekly print edition, according to the publication’s editor-in-chief, which increased the number of journalists present during the strike.

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IDF warns aid workers only hospitals are protected sites in northern Gaza

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Israeli military says aid infrastructure could be targeted after order to ‘all Gaza residents and inhabitants’ to leave

Humanitarian workers in northern Gaza have been repeatedly warned by the Israeli military that only hospitals will be considered protected sites and all other aid infrastructure could be targeted.

In messages and conversations with aid workers in recent days seen by the Guardian, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said an order to “all Gaza residents and inhabitants” to evacuate Gaza City, the biggest urban centre in the territory, applied “to all humanitarian locations [there], except hospitals” and warned that “to defeat Hamas [Israeli troops] will operate … with great force”.

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Civilians made up 15 of every 16 people killed by Israel in Gaza since March, data suggests

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Report from independent conflict tracker Acled indicates one of the highest civilian death rates since start of war

About 15 of every 16 Palestinians the Israeli military has killed since its renewed offensive in Gaza began in March have been civilians, data collected by the independent violence-tracking organisation Acled indicates.

The civilian death rate implied by a report from Acled, which stands for Armed Conflict Location and Event Data, is one of the highest recorded during the conflict, and will increase international pressure on Israel as its forces advance into Gaza City, forcing up to a million people to evacuate and threatening further large-scale civilian casualties.

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More than 250,000 displaced from Gaza City in past month, UN figures show

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Tens of thousands more forced to flee makeshift homes and shelters daily in face of new Israeli offensive

More than a quarter of a million people have been displaced from Gaza City in the last month, according to figures from the UN, with tens of thousands more forced to flee makeshift homes and shelters daily in the face of a new Israeli offensive.

Strikes by Israeli artillery, tanks and warplanes hit Gaza City again on Thursday as a UN official said “new waves of mass displacement” were under way, after about 60,000 fled the new assault in 72 hours earlier this week.

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UK preparing to recognise Palestinian state as early as Friday

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Move comes after Israel fails to meet UK conditions that would have postponed step

The UK is preparing to recognise the state of Palestine as early as Friday, after Israel failed to meet conditions that would have postponed the historic step, including a ceasefire in Gaza.

Keir Starmer insisted the timing of the UK announcement had nothing to do with Donald Trump’s visit, even though the US president said at a press conference that he disagreed with Britain’s decision, without elaborating.

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Israel’s culture minister threatens national film awards after Palestinian story takes top prize

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Miki Zohar says he will cancel funding for the Ophir awards after The Sea, about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy who is denied entry to Tel Aviv, wins best picture

Israel’s culture minister, Miki Zohar, has announced that funding for the Ophirs, the country’s national film awards, would be cancelled after The Sea, a film about a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, won the best feature film prize.

In a statement on X, translated by Israeli news media, Zohar said: “There is no greater slap in the face of Israeli citizens than the embarrassing and detached annual Ophir awards ceremony. Starting with the 2026 budget, this pathetic ceremony will no longer be funded by taxpayers’ money. Under my watch, Israeli citizens will not pay from their pockets for a ceremony that spits in the faces of our heroic soldiers.”

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