Deaths reported by Gaza health workers come as delegations gather in Egypt for ceasefire talks
Multiple Israeli airstrikes killed at least three dozen Palestinians in southern Gaza, health workers said Saturday, as officials including a Hamas delegation gathered for ceasefire talks in Egypt.
Among the dead were 11 members of a family, including two children, after an airstrike hit their home in Khan Younis, according to Nasser hospital.
Continue reading...Negotiations stall over Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand for an Israeli presence on Egypt-Gaza border
Hamas has sent a delegation to Cairo to be briefed on progress in peace talks, but an official from the group said it would not participate directly in the negotiations it had been boycotting for the past 10 days.
Hamas representatives were expected on Saturday in the Egyptian capital, where negotiators from Israel, the US, Egypt and Qatar have been holding talks on a elusive deal that would involve the release of Israeli hostages, the freeing of Palestinian detainees and a ceasefire.
Continue reading...IDF says it has killed Muhammad Mahmoud Najam in attack in southern Lebanon
The Lebanon Health Ministry said one adult and one child were killed in an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon, Haaretz is reporting.
Lufthansa will resume flights to Amman in Jordan and Erbil in Iraq starting 27 August, Reuters is reporting.
Continue reading...Ronen Bar sparks row with letter to Netanyahu about actions of ‘hilltop youth’ being a ‘large stain on Judaism’
The head of Israel’s security agency, Shin Bet, has warned the country’s leaders that Jewish terrorism in the West Bank is out of control and has become a serious threat to national security.
Ronen Bar issued the warning in a letter to the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, the attorney general and members of the Israeli cabinet, some of whom are outspoken backers of the extremist settlers responsible for the escalating violence.
Continue reading...Warring sides indicate breakthrough not imminent as renewed fighting rages in parts of Palestinian territory
US officials have expressed optimism that a ceasefire deal in the war in Gaza “is in sight”, despite growing indications from Israel and Hamas that a breakthrough is not imminent and as renewed fighting rages in parts of the Palestinian territory.
Washington has put pressure on both parties to accept a bridging proposal suggested during internationally mediated talks in Qatar last week, dispatching the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on his ninth visit to the region since the conflict broke out 10 months ago. The latest round of negotiations, in which Hamas is not directly participating, were scheduled to restart in Cairo by Thursday but appear to have been postponed.
Continue reading...Rights granted to two subclasses of bridging visa E as part of ‘additional assistance’ to those affected by conflict
The federal government has extended work rights and Medicare access to some visa-holders from Gaza and Israel as it prepares to shift those who arrived on visitor visas since the 7 October attacks on to bridging visas.
Without public announcement, the government issued a regulation on 5 August extending Medicare access to people holding two subclasses of bridging visa E who had already been granted work rights, and also to immediate family members who are also visa-holders.
Continue reading...Three adults and one minor arrested over suspected acts of terrorism against Palestinians, Israeli security services say. This live blog is closed
The crew of a Greek-flagged oil tanker that was attacked in the Red Sea on Wednesday abandoned the vessel and were rescued by the EU’s Red Sea naval mission “Aspides”, an official in the mission told Reuters on Thursday.
The Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea region since November in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Continue reading...A quarter of all incidents, such as destruction of dams, pipelines and treatment plants, seen in Gaza Strip and West Bank
Israeli attacks on Palestinian water supplies in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip accounted for a quarter of all water-related violence in 2023, as armed conflicts over dwindling resources surged globally, according to new research.
Almost 350 water conflicts were documented worldwide in 2023, a 50% rise on 2022, which was also a record year, according to the Pacific Institute, a California-based non partisan thinktank tracking water violence. The violence included attacks on dams, pipelines, wells, treatment plants and workers, as well as public unrest and disputes over access to water, and the use of water as a weapon of war.
Continue reading...The attacks came after US president Joe Biden pressed Benjamin Netanyahu on the urgency of sealing a ceasefire deal
Israel launched strikes on more than 10 areas across southern Lebanon, a spokesperson for the army said, hours after Hezbollah launched more than 50 rockets and a swarm of drones, hitting homes in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and wounding one person.
Israeli warplanes struck weapons depots, military buildings and a launcher used by Hezbollah in an overnight operation, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said on Thursday.
Continue reading...Number of homes struck in Golan Heights, with one person wounded
Hezbollah has launched more than 50 rockets and a swarm of drones towards northern Israel, hitting a number of homes in the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights and wounding one person.
The strikes on Wednesday by the Lebanese militant group came the day after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, met mediators from Egypt and Qatar, even as Hamas and Israel poured cold water on any prospect of any imminent pause in the fighting in Gaza.
Continue reading...Overcrowding in humanitarian zone dissuading those given evacuation orders by IDF from leaving, say UN officials
Thousands of people facing Israeli airstrikes in Gaza have been forced to abandon plans to comply with Israeli evacuation orders telling them to move to a designated “safe humanitarian zone” because there is no space for them there.
At the weekend the Israeli military told residents of multiple neighbourhoods in and around the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah to leave their homes before planned attacks and go to the narrow strip of coast around the small town of al-Mawasi that was designated earlier in the war to receive displaced people.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Following the return of six killed Israeli civilians, Benjamin Netantahu is facing calls from inside and outside the country to find a way to stop the conflict
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Good morning. There were 115 Israeli hostages, dead and alive, left in Gaza; now there are 109. Yesterday, the Israel Defense Forces said that it had recovered the bodies of six civilians taken by Hamas on 7 October last year – Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell and Chaim Peri – from tunnels under the city of Khan Younis. While the families of all six had already announced that their loved ones were believed dead, that physical confirmation was devastating all the same.
Meanwhile, at least 12 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school yesterday, Gaza’s civil defence agency said, adding that the building was being used to house displaced people. Israel claimed that it was a command and control centre for Hamas. The count maintained by Gaza’s health authorities of dead Palestinians stands at more than 40,000.
Autumn budget | Rachel Reeves is planning to raise taxes, cut spending and get tough on benefits in October’s budget, amid Treasury alarm over the state of the public finances. Changes could include rises in inheritance tax and capital gains tax, while Reeves may also reject pressure to remove the two-child benefit cap.
US politics | Amid chants of “Yes, she can!”, Barack Obama gave the closing speech on the second night of the Democratic national convention and said: “We are ready for a President Kamala Harris.” He was introduced by his wife Michelle, who said that Harris had sparked hope and alleviated “a palpable sense of dread about the future”.
Italy | Six missing people are now presumed dead after a yacht sank off the coast of Sicily. They are tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch and his teenage daughter Hannah; Morgan Stanley International chair Jonathan Bloomer and his wife, Judy; and lawyer Chris Morvillo and his wife, Neda. A body recovered on Monday was confirmed as that of the vessel’s chef, Recaldo Thomas.
Health | Scotland’s drug deaths remain the worst in Europe, as ministers pledged to intensify efforts to deal with the problem after a “hugely concerning” 12% increase in fatalities last year.
Spain | The world’s oldest known person, Spain’s Maria Branyas Morera, who was born in 1907 and lived through two pandemics and two world wars, has died in her home in north-eastern Spain at the age of 117. Branyas got Covid-19 aged 113 in 2020 but made a full recovery and was said to be “completely lucid”.
Continue reading...The US secretary of state’s ninth visit to the region since the start of the conflict has ended without truce agreement
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said that “time is of the essence” to secure a Gaza ceasefire, as he wrapped up a Middle East tour with an agreement between Israel and Hamas still elusive.
The deal “needs to get done, and it needs to get done in the days ahead,” Blinken told reporters in Doha before departing for Washington, as he reiterated his call for Hamas to accept a “bridging proposal” for a deal, which he said Israel had accepted, and asked both parties to work towards finalising it.
Continue reading...Exclusive: research tracks dozens of oil and fuel shipments that could have aided Israel’s war on Gaza
Israeli tanks, jets and bulldozers bombarding Gaza and razing homes in the occupied West Bank are being fueled by a growing number of countries signed up to the genocide and Geneva conventions, new research suggests, which legal experts warn could make them complicit in serious crimes against the Palestinian people.
Four tankers of American jet fuel primarily used for military aircraft have been shipped to Israel since the start of its aerial bombardment of Gaza in October.
Continue reading...Israeli military says it struck Hamas militant base inside the school but civil defence agency spokesperson says bodies of men and children recovered
Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned on Tuesday of the risk of the Gaza war expanding regionally in a way “difficult to imagine” during a meeting with U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken, the Egyptian presidency said.
He added:“The ceasefire in Gaza must be the beginning of broader international recognition of the Palestinian state and the implementation of the two-state solution, as this is the basic guarantor of stability in the region.”
Continue reading...US secretary of state says Netanhayu supports US ceasefire proposal, after meeting with Israeli PM
The US secretary of state has said during a visit to Israel that the current round of ceasefire talks is “maybe the last opportunity” to broker a truce and a hostage and prisoner swap in the 10-month-old war in Gaza.
Antony Blinken met Israeli officials, including in a three-hour one-on-one with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Monday during a 24-hour trip to Tel Aviv before he travels on to Egypt.
Continue reading...President set to receive electrifying welcome but thousands also expected to protest in Chicago over Israel military aid
Joe Biden will take centre stage for perhaps the last time on Monday night when he addresses the Democratic national convention in Chicago – as the US president faces a backlash over one of his most complex legacies.
Tens of thousands of protesters are expected to converge in the host city to demand that the US end military aid to Israel for its ongoing war in Gaza. Activists have branded Biden “Genocide Joe” and called for the vice-president, Kamala Harris, to change course.
Andrew Roth and Rachel Leingang contributed reporting
Continue reading...Israeli prime minister says meeting with US secretary of state was ‘conducted in good spirit’ as Blinken says latest push for ceasefire is last opportunity
My life in Gaza was constantly at risk, and I could have been targeted and killed at any moment. Had I stayed, there is every chance that I would’ve been one of the 40,000 Palestinians killed by Israel, of which as many as 17,000 are children, over 11,000 women and 113 journalists like me. A Lancet study even suggests that the Gaza death toll could exceed 186,000.
I had less than 24 hours notice that I was leaving Gaza, but it wasn’t one of those times where I was excited to pack to go on a vacation. It felt like I was living everything my grandpa once lived through during the Nakba in 1948. I left Gaza with a heavy heart, a fake Dolce & Gabbana top, a black jacket and lipstick.
Continue reading...Mark Smith, who quit Dublin embassy role, says he raised his concerns over weapons sales with foreign secretary
Israel is “flagrantly and regularly” committing war crimes in Gaza, according to a former British diplomat who recently resigned over ministers’ failure to ban arms sales to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.
Mark Smith, who resigned as a counter-terrorism official at the British embassy in Dublin after raising complaints about the sale of British weapons to Israel, told the BBC on Monday that he believed Israel to be in breach of international law.
Continue reading...Case brought by NGOs is attempt to prevent the UK government continuing to grant arms export licences
Claims of Palestinians being tortured, left untreated in hospital and unable to escape constant bombardment have been submitted to the high court in London by lawyers seeking an order preventing the UK government continuing to grant arms export licences to British companies selling arms to Israel.
The 14 witness statements covering more than 100 pages come from Palestinian and western medical doctors working in Gaza’s hospitals, as well as from ambulance drivers, civil defence department workers and aid workers.
Continue reading...