UK PM urged to apply pressure on Qatar to help free Liri Albag, Eliya Cohen and Ziv and Gali Berman
The families of four Israeli hostages have urged Rishi Sunak to apply pressure on Qatar to help free their loved ones.
The father of 18-year-old Liri Albag, the older brother of 26-year-old twins Ziv and Gali Berman, and the girlfriend of Eliya Cohen, also 26, pleaded with the prime minister to do everything in his power to secure their release after 108 days in captivity.
Continue reading...Josep Borrell says minister came to meeting with plans for an artificial island off Gaza and a railway to India
One of the EU’s most senior diplomats has criticised the Israeli foreign minister for not properly engaging with a summit in Brussels designed to pave the way for a peace plan in the Middle East.
Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs, told reporters Israel Katz had come to the meeting to present plans for an artificial island off the coast of Gaza and a railway to India, concepts that had nothing to do with the peace talks.
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The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip “could not be worse”, the EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said on Monday.
“From now on I will not talk about the peace process, but I want a two-state-solution process”, Borell was quoted by Reuters as saying ahead of an EU foreign ministers’ meeting.
Continue reading...Criticism from the assistant foreign minister, Tim Watts, comes as backbencher says Israeli prime minister ‘is not a partner for peace’
The Australian government has said it is deeply disappointed by comments from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he rebuffed international calls for a pathway to a Palestinian state.
The assistant foreign minister, Tim Watts, said the remarks undermined prospects for peace. He also urged Israel to “live up to” its commitment to uphold international law in its military operations in Gaza, where the death toll has passed 25,000 Palestinians.
Continue reading...The prime minister said he rejected the terms of a deal which included Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza
The prospect of a deal to release the remaining hostages held by Hamas appeared to recede on Sunday after a Hamas official said Benjamin Netanyahu’s rejection of their conditions meant there was “no chance” of their return.
Netanyahu had earlier dismissed the militant group’s conditions to end the war, which he said included leaving Hamas in power and Israel’s complete withdrawal from the territory.
Continue reading...Territory’s health ministry says most casualties are women and children, and that thousands more may lie under rubble
Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza has killed 25,000 Palestinians, the health ministry in the territory has announced, as the UN chief described the scale of civilian killings as “heartbreaking and utterly unacceptable”.
Most of the casualties were women and children, the ministry said, and thousands more bodies were likely to remain uncounted under rubble across Gaza.
Continue reading...Foreign secretary told MPs he had not made formal decision to continue, but papers reveal he recommended move
The chair of the foreign affairs select committee is writing to the foreign secretary, David Cameron, asking him to clarify his claim that he had not taken any formal decision to allow arms sales to Israel to continue amid the Gaza crisis.
Written evidence presented by the UK Department for Business and Trade shows the foreign secretary on 8 December recommended arms sales licences be allowed to continue when presented with three options: stopping arms sales, pausing them, or allowing them to continue.
Continue reading...Sir Ephraim Mirvis says use of the term is moral inversion designed to ‘tear open the still gaping wound of the Holocaust’
The chief rabbi has said using the word “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in Gaza is an “increasingly frequent, disingenuous misappropriation of the term”.
Sir Ephraim Mirvis said the use of the term was a “moral inversion, which undermines the memory of the worst crimes in human history” and was designed to “tear open the still gaping wound of the Holocaust”.
Continue reading...Human rights worker Ayman Lubbad is among the Palestinian prisoners claiming abuse in Israeli custody, where six have died
The Gaza-based human rights activist Ayman Lubbad has not seen his wife and three children for more than a month, since he was ordered to strip to his underwear in the street outside his home, then driven away with other Palestinian men for a week of abuse and detention.
He was tortured and humiliated, he said, giving one of various accounts of recent Israeli abuse of Palestinians in detention; at least six have died, and one autopsy report showed serious injuries, Haaretz newspaper reported.
Continue reading...Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps says it has lost four members in strike on Syrian capital
A suspected Israeli strike killed the Iranian Revolutionary Guards’ espionage chief for Syria and three other guard members on Saturday, Iran has said, in an attack that destroyed much of a multistorey residential building in Damascus.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said six people were killed in the Israeli strike on the upmarket Mazzeh neighbourhood in the Syrian capital.
Continue reading...The Israeli leader is under pressure over course of the Gaza war but is doubling down on opposition to a two-state solution
Defiant Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu doubled down on opposition to Palestinian statehood, deepening the divide with Israel’s closest international allies, as cracks in his wartime “unity” government became increasingly evident.
Anger with Netanyahu is also increasingly visible on the streets, even though there is broad public support for the war. On Saturday, protesters gathered in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Caesarea and Kfar Saba, some calling for bolder action to secure the release of hostages, and others demanding the prime minister step down.
Continue reading...Shadow foreign secretary tries to continue as demonstrators shout and criticise Labour’s stance on Israel-Gaza war
A keynote speech by David Lammy at a Labour-linked thinktank’s conference has been disrupted by protesters who held Palestinian flags as they shouted “ceasefire now”.
As security officials at London’s Guildhall rushed to take the first two individuals out of the building, another three protesters began shouting and criticising Labour’s stance on the Israel-Gaza war as Lammy attempted to continue his speech at the Fabian Society event.
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The Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) has said the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza “remains dire”, with people returning to “primitive methods for food preparation and general hygiene”. It also said the situation had been “exacerbated by the continuous Israeli blockade hindering aid delivery”.
In a post on X, the PRCS quoted Mohammed Abu Msbeh, its director of ambulances and emergency centres in the Gaza Strip, as saying:
People have returned to primitive methods for food preparation and general hygiene, to make bread.
The daily struggle for water is a daily torment for Gaza residents to secure life-sustaining droplets, who stand in large crowds for hours with containers.
Continue reading...Shadow foreign secretary says Israeli president must explain how post-conflict Gaza will operate
The shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has described Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state when the war in the Middle East ends as “unacceptable”.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he echoed Keir Starmer’s reaction to Netanyahu’s stance. Lammy said: “We are committed to the recognition of a Palestinian state. We want to work with international partners to achieve that.”
Continue reading...As pockets of war multiply across region so does the risk that conflict becomes more contagious and intractable
On Thursday morning the Iranian news website Entekhab ran, without irony, the headline: “Taliban call on Pakistan and Iran to show restraint and urge both sides to settle differences through diplomatic means”.
If proof were needed that a new, more dangerous world order may be upon us, the Taliban cast in the role of advocates for restraint seems conclusive.
Continue reading...President accused of allowing country to become a target because of ‘complicity in bloodshed of Gaza’
The Cyprus government is facing growing criticism over British military bases on the island being used by UK and US forces to stage airstrikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
President Nicos Christodoulides has been accused by activists of turning a blind eye to the risks the EU’s most easterly state might confront if the strategic facilities on the island continue to be deployed in military operations.
Continue reading...US president says Israeli PM not opposed to all two-state solutions after pair talk for first time in nearly a month
Joe Biden has said the creation of an independent state for Palestinians was still possible while Benjamin Netanyahu was still in office, following a call with the Israeli prime minister on Friday.
The US president spoke to Netanyahu for the first time in nearly a month about differences over a future Palestinian state, as well as Israel’s ongoing offensive in Gaza, where the Palestinian death toll is approaching 25,000, according to local health authorities.
Continue reading...Julian Hill labels Israeli prime minister’s position ‘appalling’ as he calls for financial consequences for Israeli settlers
Benjamin Netanyahu’s declaration he rejects any moves to establish a Palestinian state after Israel’s offensive in Gaza has been labelled “appalling” and a step toward “apartheid” by influential Labor MP Julian Hill.
Hill has called for a suite of measures to respond, including financial consequences for Israeli settlers and an international push to fast-track recognition of a Palestinian state. The left faction convener argued that the “vast majority of the world recognises Israeli sovereignty only within the 1967 borders”.
Continue reading...Labour leader says Israeli PM’s comments are unacceptable and Palestinian statehood not in his gift
Keir Starmer has criticised Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, saying he is “wrong” to reject moves to establish a Palestinian state.
The Labour leader stepped up criticism of Israel’s government, after Netanyahu told the White House that he rejects any moves to establish a Palestinian state when Israel ends its offensive in Gaza, and that all territory west of the Jordan River would be under Israeli security control.
Continue reading...Documents reveal humanitarian law investigation was far more intensive than David Cameron suggested
UK Foreign Office legal advisers were unable to conclude that Israel was in compliance with international humanitarian law (IHL) in its bombardment of Gaza, court documents reveal.
After reviewing specific potential breaches of IHL cited in a report by Amnesty International, the Foreign Office initially concluded it had “serious concerns” about breaches.
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