Iran’s Revolutionary Guards seize Israeli-affiliated ship

State news agency says MSC Aries was taken in strait of Hormuz and is being transferred to Iran’s territorial waters

A vessel has been seized by Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards in the strait of Hormuz, 50 nautical miles off the coast of the United Arab Emirates.

Commandos dropped from a helicopter on to an Israeli-affiliated container ship, the Portuguese-flagged MSC Aries, and Iran’s state news agency said the vessel was being transferred to Iran’s territorial waters.

Continue reading...

‘Shhh or I’ll shoot you’: family of jailed Christian woman tell of Israeli raid

Troops took Layan Nasir away at gunpoint from her home in the West Bank and her parents haven’t been told where she is

The Israeli troops arrived at about 4am last Saturday to take 23-year-old Layan Nasir away at gunpoint from her parents’ home in the West Bank town of Birzeit. There was no arrest warrant or charges, and her parents haven’t been notified of where she is held.

The only Palestinian Christian woman currently in Israeli detention, her case has been raised by the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. “I’m shocked and deeply concerned,” he said in a post on X. “Please pray for Layan’s safety and swift release.”

Continue reading...

Hamas weakened and divided but far from defeated six months into Gaza war

Few of Hamas’s senior leaders have been harmed but its ability to govern is reduced and thousands of fighters are dead

Six months after the surprise attacks it launched into Israel, triggering the Gaza conflict, Hamas is weakened and divided but far from defeated, experts, officials and sources close to the militant Islamist organisation say.

Hamas remains in de facto control of swaths of Gaza, including the parts where much of the territory’s population is now concentrated, and has re-established a presence elsewhere. In recent days, Hamas “operatives” armed with batons have been sighted keeping order on the streets of Khan Younis, the southern city from which Israeli forces withdrew just last week. On Wednesday, rockets targeting a kibbutz in Israel were launched by militants from Jabaliya in northern Gaza.

Continue reading...

Iranian attack on Israel expected ‘sooner rather than later’, says Joe Biden

President said US are ‘devoted to the defence of Israel’ as he urged Tehran to show restraint

Joe Biden has said he expects an Iranian attack on Israel “sooner rather than later” and issued a last-ditch message to Tehran: “Don’t.”

“We are devoted to the defence of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” Biden told reporters on Friday.

Continue reading...

Ireland and Spain reiterate plan to form alliance to recognise state of Palestine

Leaders of two nations vow to muster international support for two-state solution to Gaza crisis

Ireland and Spain have reiterated their intention to forge an alliance of countries that will soon recognise Palestine as a nation state.

The Irish taoiseach, Simon Harris, and Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, vowed on Friday to muster international support for a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine.

Continue reading...

Middle East crisis: threat of Iranian attack on Israel ‘still viable’, says White House – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

An assessment conducted by a UN team in Khan Younis after the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the area, has reported “widespread destruction”.

In an update on its website, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) wrote:

Every building they visited – and most of those they observed – had been damaged, and paved roads had been reduced to dirt tracks. They inspected a UN warehouse, four medical centres, and eight schools, and all but one had significant damage.”

Street and public spaces in Khan Younis are littered with unexploded ordnance posing a severe risk to civilians, especially for children. Our team found unexploded 1,000 pound bombs lying on the main intersection and inside schools.

Residents who returned to the area, and some who remained during the fighting, told the team about the dire shortages of food and water and the loss of critical health services due to the destruction of the al-Nasser and al-Amal hospital.”

Continue reading...

Germany faces domestic lawsuit over its arms sales to Israel

German human rights groups bring court action amid rising dismay in country at deaths in Gaza

Germany will face a fresh call to revoke all arms sales to Israel on Thursday in a lawsuit that puts more pressure on Berlin amid a rising outcry about the scale of deaths and destruction in the war on Gaza.

A lawsuit in the German domestic courts will ask judges to urgently direct the government to revoke all arms licences to Israel issued since 7 October, when Hamas launched its attack on Israel.

Continue reading...

Irish taoiseach and Spanish PM to discuss Palestine nation state plan

Pedro Sánchez is first foreign premier Simon Harris will meet since becoming leader

The new Irish taoiseach is to meet the Spanish prime minister to discuss their joint plan to recognise Palestine as a nation state and their attempts to force the EU to assess Israel’s human rights obligations as a condition of their trade deal with the bloc.

Pedro Sánchez, who is due to arrive in Dublin on Friday, is the first foreign premier Simon Harris will meet since his promotion to the office of the taoiseach this week.

Continue reading...

Aid ‘still not reaching Gaza’, as top US official warns famine has started

Samantha Power becomes first US official to confirm famine, while aid workers decry continuing lack of help

A surge in aid into Gaza that Benjamin Netanyahu promised Joe Biden a week ago has so far failed to materialise, aid workers say, as the US aid chief confirmed that famine was beginning to take hold in parts of the besieged coastal strip.

A key port has not been opened to aid shipments, and a new crossing into northern Gaza has officially opened but UN agencies are not yet allowed to use it, even though they provide the vast majority of food aid for the territory.

Continue reading...

US seeking to deter Iran from strike on Israel, officials say

US declaring commitment to Israeli security while also working to prevent regional war, say officials

The US is seeking to deter Iran from carrying out a retaliatory strike against Israel with concerted declarations of commitment to Israeli security, while at the same time trying to prevent the outbreak of a major regional war, officials in Washington have said.

US officials still believe that a direct Iranian missile or drone strike is possible within the next few days, in retaliation for the Israeli bombing of an Iranian consular building in Damascus on 1 April, which killed a top Islamic Revolutionary Guards general and six other Guard officers.

Continue reading...

Hamas says it does not have 40 hostages who fit criteria for deal with Israel

US-backed proposal involves women, children and elderly or sick hostages in Gaza being exchanged for 900 Palestinian prisoners

The Palestinian militant group Hamas has indicated it does not have 40 captives who are still alive who meet the “humanitarian” criteria for a proposed hostages-for-prisoners ceasefire agreement with Israel.

A senior Israeli official confirmed claims made at the weekend by Hamas during talks in Cairo that it does not have 40 hostages in Gaza who meet the exchange criteria.

Guardian Newsroom: Crisis in the Middle East
On Tuesday 30 April, 7-8.15pm GMT, join Devika Bhat, Peter Beaumont, Emma Graham-Harrison and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad as they discuss the fast-developing crisis in the Middle East. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live

Continue reading...

Tim Kaine: Biden knows Netanyahu ‘played’ him in early months of Gaza war

Senator and leading foreign policy voice in Democratic party tells the Guardian Biden has come to realise the limits of his influence

Senator Tim Kaine, a former vice-presidential nominee and leading foreign policy voice in the Democratic party, has said Joe Biden now understands that Benjamin Netanyahu “played” him during the early months of the war in Gaza but “that ain’t going to happen any more”.

In an interview with the Guardian on Tuesday, Kaine accused the prime minister of making Israel “dramatically less safe” and hurting its longstanding relationship with the US, and said the US president had come to realise the limits of his influence.

Continue reading...

IDF colonel discusses ‘data science magic powder’ for locating terrorists

Video of official from Unit 8200 in February 2023 raises questions about Israel’s denials of use of AI in Gaza

A video has surfaced of a senior official at Israel’s cyber intelligence agency, Unit 8200, talking last year about the use of machine learning “magic powder” to help identify Hamas targets in Gaza.

The footage raises questions about the accuracy of a recent statement about use of artificial intelligence (AI) by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), which said it “does not use an artificial intelligence system that identifies terrorist operatives or tries to predict whether a person is a terrorist”.

Continue reading...

Hamas leader repeats Gaza ceasefire call after sons and grandchildren killed

Deadly Israeli airstrike prompts comments by Ismail Haniyeh, as two sides remain far apart on key issues

Three sons and at least two grandchildren of the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, have been killed in an Israeli airstrike in the Gaza Strip, the exiled political chief of the militant group has said from his base in the Qatari capital of Doha.

Haniyeh told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that his children Hazem, Amir and Mohammed and several of their children were visiting relatives for Eid at the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza when their car was targeted in an Israeli airstrike. Sixty of his relatives had been killed in the six-month-old war, he said, including 14 who died after an Israeli airstrike hit the family home in Gaza City in October.

Continue reading...

German university rescinds Jewish American’s job offer over pro-Palestinian letter

Nancy Fraser, professor of philosophy at the New School, condemned killings in Gaza carried out by the Israeli military

A leading Jewish American philosopher has been disinvited from taking up a prestigious professorship at the University of Cologne after signing a letter expressing solidarity with Palestinians and condemning the killings in Gaza carried out by Israeli forces.

Nancy Fraser, professor of philosophy and politics at the New School for Social Research in New York, said she had been cancelled by the university, which has withdrawn its invitation to the Albertus Magnus Professorship 2024, a visiting position, which she had been awarded in 2022. The letter was written in November 2023 following the 7 October attacks on Israel by Hamas, prompting Israel’s attack on Gaza.

Continue reading...

Wednesday briefing: Israel turns on Netanyahu – but is it enough to end his premiership?

In today’s newsletter: Despite protests and the fact that almost three-quarters of Israelis want the PM to quit, huge obstacles stand in the way of his exit

Sign up here for our daily newsletter, First Edition

Good morning. Almost three-quarters of the Israeli public want Benjamin Netanyahu to resign as prime minister. More than two-thirds say he is handling the war in Gaza badly. And more than half think his government is not doing enough to bring the Israeli hostages held by Hamas home.

Now the ultranationalists he relies on to prop up his fragile coalition are warning that they will bring the government down if he does not go ahead with a major assault on Rafah – and the opposition leaders who joined his war cabinet, Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot, are coming under increasing pressure to step down. With tens of thousands of people joining renewed protests calling for Netanyahu’s removal, his political prospects would appear to be dire.

Gender identity | Thousands of vulnerable children questioning their gender identity have been let down by the NHS providing unproven treatments and by the “toxicity” of the trans debate, a landmark report has found. Read the key findings, an interview with author Dr Hilary Cass, and views from young trans people and their families.

Israel-Gaza latest | David Cameron has confirmed the UK government will not suspend arms exports to Israel after the killing of seven aid workers in an airstrike on Gaza last week. The foreign secretary said that he had reviewed the most recent legal advice about the situation on the ground, but this left the UK’s position on export licences “unchanged”.

Politics | William Wragg has resigned the Conservative party whip days after admitting to giving out colleagues’ personal phone numbers to someone he had met on a dating app. Wragg, who represents Hazel Grove, will now sit as an independent MP.

Museums | A staff member who put his own art on display at Munich’s Pinakothek der Moderne has been fired. The 51-year-old man had smuggled his work “in the hope of achieving his artistic breakthrough”.

Peter Higgs | Nobel prize-winning physicist, Peter Higgs, who proposed a new particle known as the Higgs boson, has died. Higgs was awarded the Nobel prize for physics in 2013 for his work in 1964 showing how the boson helped bind the universe together by giving particles their mass.

Continue reading...

Netanyahu making a ‘mistake’ on Gaza, says Biden, as he urges Israel to push for ceasefire

US president gives some of his strongest criticism of Israeli PM yet, saying he needs to ‘empower’ Israel’s negotiators to call for a truce

US president Joe Biden has said prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approach on Gaza was a “mistake” and urged Israel to call for a ceasefire, in an interview that aired on Tuesday.

Biden’s comments were some of his strongest criticism yet of Netanyahu amid growing tensions over the civilian death toll from Israel’s war on Hamas and dire conditions inside Gaza.

Continue reading...

UK will not suspend arms exports to Israel, David Cameron says

Foreign secretary says Britain’s position on export licences is ‘unchanged’ after reviewing latest legal advice

David Cameron has confirmed the UK government will not suspend arms exports to Israel after the killing of seven aid workers in an airstrike on Gaza last week, as he insisted the UK would continue to act within international law.

The foreign secretary said that he had reviewed the most recent legal advice about the situation on the ground but this left the UK’s position on export licences “unchanged”.

Continue reading...

Israel’s security at core of German foreign policy due to Holocaust, ICJ hears

Nicaragua asks UN’s highest court to halt German weapons sales to Israel, alleging it is breaching obligation to prevent genocide

Germany has said Israel’s security is at “the core” of its foreign policy because of the history of the Holocaust, but denied accusations at the UN’s highest court that is aiding genocide in Gaza by arming Israel.

Nicaragua has brought a case against Germany at the international court of justice (ICJ) urging judges to order a halt to German weapons sales to Israel, alleging it is in breach of its obligation to prevent genocide and ensure respect of international humanitarian law.

Continue reading...

Unrwa vital to avert starvation in Gaza, says agency official

Comments by Sam Rose, of the UN body for Palestinian refugees, come amid fears Israel plans to squeeze agency out of Gaza

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees must remain “the backbone of any humanitarian response” for the 2 million people in Gaza if mass starvation is to be avoided, the Unrwa director of planning, Sam Rose, says.

Israel is continuing to impede Unrwa convoys to northern Gaza, where 300,000 people are facing famine, he said. “Our space is continuing to be squeezed at a time when the international community urgently needs to get as much assistance as possible to people in the north.”

Guardian Newsroom: Crisis in the Middle East
On Tuesday 30 April, 7-8.15pm GMT, join Devika Bhat, Peter Beaumont, Emma Graham-Harrison and Ghaith Abdul-Ahad as they discuss the fast-developing crisis in the Middle East. Book tickets here or at theguardian.live

Continue reading...