UK foreign secretary will reportedly meet Benjamin Netanyahu amid increasing tensions with Iran
David Lammy is reportedly planning an imminent trip to Israel amid high tensions with Iran, in an attempt to help avert an escalation of war in the Middle East.
The foreign secretary will meet Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Israel Katz, the foreign minister, along with Stéphane Séjourné, the French foreign minister, Sky News reported.
Continue reading...The figure given by the strip’s health officials does not tell the full story of Palestinian losses, excluding those missing or buried in rubble
Dalia Hawas was 24 years old when an Israeli airstrike flattened the apartment building where she lived in February, burying the young mother with her 10-month-old daughter, Mona. They are not listed among Gaza’s war dead, because their bodies were trapped too deep beneath the rubble for rescue teams to reach them.
Ten months into Israel’s war on Gaza, the death toll has passed 40,000, according to health authorities there. Most of the dead are civilians and the total represents nearly 2% of Gaza’s prewar population, or one in every 50 residents.
Continue reading...Meta has system for evaluating the effectiveness of its own moderation for Arabic language content but not Hebrew
Meta is struggling with moderating content related to the Israel-Palestine war, particularly in Hebrew, despite recent changes to internal policies, new documents have revealed.
Internal policy guidelines shared with the Guardian by a former Meta employee who worked on content moderation outline a multilayered process for moderating content related to the conflict. But the documents indicate Meta, which owns the platforms Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, does not have the same processes in place to gauge the accuracy of moderation of Hebrew content and Arabic content.
Continue reading...Newspaper and campaign group allege Palestinians are sent ahead of troops into buildings or tunnels that need clearing
Israeli soldiers are using Palestinian civilians as human shields in Gaza to enter and clear tunnels and buildings they suspect may have been booby-trapped, a leading Israeli NGO and newspaper have reported.
The practice was so widespread across different units fighting in Gaza that it could in effect be considered a “protocol”, said Nadav Weiman, the executive director of Breaking the Silence, a group founded by Israeli combat veterans to document military abuses.
Continue reading...Islamist group says it won’t ‘negotiate just to negotiate’, raising fears of Iranian attacks on Israel if no deal is agreed
Hamas appears unlikely to participate in a new round of talks on a Gaza ceasefire deal on Thursday, further eroding hopes of an agreement that might stave off expected retaliatory strikes by Iran against Israel for the killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran last month.
Most observers already had low expectations of the ceasefire talks, with Israel hardening its position in recent weeks and fears that Hamas, now led by its most hardline faction, would offer few concessions.
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Palestinian newborn twins, their mother and grandmother were killed by an Israeli strike on their Gaza apartment as their father picked up their birth certificates.
Mohammed Abu Al-Qumsan had just picked up the certificates when he found out the twins had been killed, along with his wife and her mother, by a strike on the building where they were sheltering, according to Reuters.
My wife is gone, my two babies and my mother-in-law. I was told it’s a tank shell on the apartment they were in, in a house we were displaced to.
Today, it was registered in history that the occupation army targets newborn children who are barely four days old, twins along with their mother and grandmother.
Continue reading...Mohamed Abuel-Qomasan’s wife and mother-in-law also killed in strike that hit home where they were sheltering
Four-day-old twins have been killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza while their father went to register their birth, he has said, as Israel continued its bombardment of the territory.
Mohamed Abuel-Qomasan said his wife, Joumana Arafa, a pharmacist, had given birth by caesarean section four days earlier and announced the twins’ arrival on Facebook, the Associated Press reported.
Continue reading...Plaintiff in New York case says he lost job after complaining that his manager openly celebrated terrorism against Israel
A Jewish former employee of Intel sued the chipmaker on Tuesday, saying he was fired after complaining that the senior executive he reported to openly celebrated antisemitism, Hamas and terrorism against Israel.
The plaintiff, a former vice-president of engineering using the pseudonym John Doe, said Intel fired him on 2 April in a purported cost-cutting move barely two months after assigning him to report to Alaa Badr, vice-president of customer success.
Continue reading...Tehran blames the country for killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iranian capital
Iran has rejected western calls not to retaliate against Israel for the killing in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, late last month.
“Such demands lack political logic, are entirely contrary to the principles and rules of international law, and represent an excessive request,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanani, said.
Continue reading...Iran has vowed severe response to assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. This live blog is closed
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 39,929 Palestinians and wounded 92,240 since 7 October the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said on Tuesday. A total of 32 Palestinians have been killed and 88 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement.
The Associated Press reports that Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 16 Palestinians, including four women and seven children, and orphaned another four children, Palestinian medical officials said Tuesday.
Ten people were killed in a strike late Monday on a house near the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israel ordered mass evacuations in recent days, saying it must act against Palestinian militants.
Nasser hospital, where the bodies were brought, said another four children, including a 5-month-old infant, were wounded. The infant’s parents and their other five children were among those killed. The parents of the other three wounded children were also killed, according to the hospital’s list of casualties. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies.
A separate strike near Deir al-Balah in central Gaza killed a woman and her twin babies, who were four days old, and their grandmother. Another strike in central Gaza killed a man and his nephew.
An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital and spoke to the father of the twins, who had planned to register their birth on Tuesday.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because its fighters operate in residential areas. The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
Shootings take place in ‘two separate incidents’, according to armed wing of group, which did not identify victims
The armed wing of the Palestinian group Hamas has said its militants shot and killed an Israeli hostage and wounded two others, both women, “in two separate incidents” in Gaza.
Palestinian militants seized 251 hostages during their 7 October attack on Israel that triggered the ongoing war, 111 of whom are still being held in Gaza, although the Israeli military says 39 are dead.
Continue reading...Broadcaster defends Radio 4 presenter’s ‘legitimate’ questions to David Mencer, who claimed she was parroting ‘terrorist organisations’
The BBC has defended Mishal Husain, a presenter on its Radio 4 Today programme, after she was accused by an Israeli government spokesperson live on air of “blindly repeating what terrorist organisations … feed you”.
In a tetchy interview on Monday’s programme, David Mencer, said Husain warranted the “pro-Palestinian reporter of the year award”.
Continue reading...US says it has prepared for significant attacks by Iran or proxies as Tehran stresses right to respond to assassinations
Iran has insisted on its right to an “appropriate and deterrent response” against Israel as the White House said it had prepared for what could be significant attacks by Iran or its proxies as soon as this week.
The comments come as the US announced it had ordered the deployment of the USS Georgia, a nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine, to the Middle East, amid mounting concern over the determination by Iran and its proxies to retaliate for Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, made the comments to his Chinese counterpart on Monday, according to state media.
Continue reading...US defence secretary Lloyd Austin orders USS Abraham Lincoln strike group to quicken transit to Middle East and deploys guided missile submarine, says Pentagon
A hospital in southern Gaza has received the bodies of 13 people, including a child, who were killed in Israeli strikes on Khan Younis, the Associated Press reports.
The strikes came as Israel has ordered mass evacuations from Gaza’s second-largest city in recent days, claiming Palestinian militants are firing rockets from the area. Khan Younis suffered heavy destruction earlier this year during a major Israeli air and ground offensive.
An AP journalist counted the bodies at the nearby Nasser hospital and saw funeral prayers being held Monday morning.
The dead include a medic who was killed along with two others in a strike on his house, according to the hospital records.
This footage from Gaza City shows the moment an Israeli airstrike hit a house in the suburb of Sheikh Radwan on Sunday. One person was killed and several others were wounded, according to Palestinian medics. According to Reuters, the cameraman who filmed the video said the Israeli army had notified people of a possible strike in the area.
Continue reading...Secretary of defence also announces deployment of guided missile submarine, as Hamas appears to push back against resuming ceasefire negotiations
The US has ordered a strike group of fighter jets and navy warships to accelerate its deployment to the Middle East, as the region braces for possible attacks by Iran and its allies after the killing of senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah.
The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, ordered the Abraham Lincoln strike group to accelerate its deployment to the region, while at the same time announcing the deployment of a guided missile submarine, after speaking with his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant.
Continue reading...Displaced residents uncertain where to flee to as IDF prepares to fight Hamas in city in southern Gaza Strip
Thousands of people have fled the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis after the Israeli military warned of a new operation to flush out Hamas militants that it says have regrouped there.
In al-Jala, a neighbourhood in the south of the city that the Israel Defense Forces had previously designated a humanitarian zone, residents on Sunday packed their belongings, uncertain where to seek refuge. Israel said rockets had been fired from the area.
Continue reading...Thousands of Palestinian residents and displaced families leave as Israel steps up offensive in southern Gaza Strip
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The death toll from an Israeli air strike on a Gaza City school has risen to 80, Palestinian health authorities said.
The Israeli military acknowledged the strike on the Tabeen school on Saturday morning, claiming it hit a Hamas command centre within the school. Hamas denied having a base at the school.
Continue reading...Compound where about 6,000 displaced people were sheltering hit as many prepared for dawn prayers
At least 80 people have been killed in Israeli missile strikes on a school compound in Gaza City, according to the territory’s civil defence service, the latest in a string of attacks on schools that the Israeli army says are targeting militants using them as bases.
The bombing of Tabeen school, where about 6,000 displaced people were sheltering, was hit when many people were preparing for dawn prayers on Saturday, and reportedly caused a fire. Video from the scene showed horrific loss of life, with body parts, rubble and destroyed furniture scattered across blood-soaked mattresses.
Continue reading...Australian foreign minister joins UK, Germany and France in condemning comments made by Bezalel Smotrich and repeats calls for ceasefire
Deliberately starving civilians is a war crime, foreign affairs minister Penny Wong has said, joining international condemnation of comments made by the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.
On Wednesday, Smotrich suggested that deliberately starving people in Gaza might be “justified and moral”.
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