Category Archives: Israel

‘It’s become a litmus test’: wins for Israel critics shine light on key issue for Democrats

Posted on by

Candidates who believe Israel has committed genocide won big in New York – will it push the party to move their way?

Regardless of which party wins control of Congress in November, New York City voters have all but ensured that next year a vocal bloc of new House Democrats will arrive on Capitol Hill, elected, in large part, because they believe Israel has committed a genocide in Gaza.

That is an upshot of the primary elections held Tuesday in New York, where voters ousted two incumbent House Democrats and replaced a third who is retiring with progressives championed by Zohran Mamdani.

Continue reading...

US says it struck Iran targets after attack on cargo ship in the strait of Hormuz

Posted on by

Strikes against military facilities were in response to drone attack a day earlier on a cargo vessel

The US has struck Iran in a tit-for-tat response to a drone strike on a cargo ship, as the ceasefire between the US and Iran that reopened the strait of Hormuz undergoes its greatest test yet.

The US strikes targeted multiple missile and drone facilities in Iran near the strait of Hormuz and on Qeshm Island on Friday in what appeared to be a limited strike meant to respond to Iran’s attack on a Singapore-flagged cargo ship without escalating the conflict.

Continue reading...

Israeli forces arrest Palestinian ‘doctor of the poor’

Posted on by

Dr Mazen Al-Rantisi, a 71-year-old physician well known for providing care to low-income Palestinians, was arrested in the occupied West Bank

Israeli forces on Sunday arrested a prominent 71-year-old Palestinian physician known as the “doctor of the poor” in a pre-dawn raid on his home in the occupied West Bank, prompting widespread condemnation.

Dr Mazen Al-Rantisi, a physician widely known for providing care to low-income Palestinians, was arrested in the al-Tira neighbourhood of Ramallah.

Continue reading...

Israel says IDF is staying in southern Lebanon, undermining Iran peace talks

Posted on by

Defence minister says troops not withdrawing though Tehran sees end to war in Lebanon as part of deal with US

The Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, has said that Israeli troops would not withdraw from southern Lebanon, further complicating Iran peace talks as fighting in Lebanon continues to be an obstacle to permanent peace.

Speaking on stage in an interview in Tel Aviv, Katz said Israeli troops would remain in south Lebanon – echoing sentiments from the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Continue reading...

Israeli former leaders and security chiefs threaten legal action over ‘Jewish terrorism’

Posted on by

Leaked letter to PM and military demands action to stop violence against Palestinians in occupied West Bank

Dozens of Israelis from the country’s security, political and cultural elite have threatened legal action against their government over support for Jewish terrorism and an “ideology of ethnic cleansing” in the occupied West Bank, according to a leaked letter.

Two former prime ministers, former heads of all the Israeli security services, former judges, a Nobel laureate and the country’s most revered living novelist were among the signatories to a “final warning” over violence against Palestinians.

Continue reading...

Israel continues to commit genocide by targeting children in Gaza, UN inquiry finds

Posted on by

Independent report says by aiming at children Israel is undermining capacity of Palestinian people to exist

Israel continues to commit genocide by deliberately targeting Palestinian children in Gaza, an ⁠independent UN inquiry has found.

The report by the UN independent international commission of inquiry examined violations against Palestinian children since the start of the war in Gaza, and said about 30% of the people killed by Israeli forces have been children.

Continue reading...

Middle East crisis live: Trump claims Iran has agreed to nuclear inspections ‘long into future’, accusing Tehran of ‘false statements’

Posted on by

US president says Tehran has committed to ‘nuclear honesty’, while Iran’s foreign ministry says there are no plans for IAEA to inspect sites bombed by US and Israel last year

Oman and Iran said in a statement that the two countries will ⁠form ⁠a ​team to reach an ⁠agreement on “administration of navigation ⁠in ​the Strait ‌of Hormuz” ‌and associated ‌costs and services, Reuters reports.

The two states will hold ⁠talks with ​coastal countries ​and other ​concerned parties, ​the ‌statement ​said.

Continue reading...

Trump faces fresh bipartisan criticism on Iran deal as Vance hails peace talks

Posted on by

Objections comes as Trump threatens to renew attacks on Iran if it doesn’t rein in its proxy in Lebanon

US political figures from left and right voiced fresh objections on Sunday to Donald Trump’s provisional deal with Iran – even as the US president made new threats while Vice-President JD Vance hailed progress during the first round of direct peace talks in Switzerland.

Negotiations in Lucerne between the US and Iran have already run into difficulties, after Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Iran must immediately stop their highly paid PROXIES in Lebanon from causing trouble. “If they don’t, we’ll hit Iran very hard again, just like we did last week, only harder!!!”

Continue reading...

US-Iran talks strained as Trump threats spark Iranian walkout

Posted on by

Talks expected to continue for rest of the week despite disruption caused by US president’s threat to bomb Iran and kidnap negotiating team

High-stakes talks between the US and Iran are expected to continue for the rest of the week in Switzerland, after a tense start that saw Iranian negotiators walk out in protest at a stream of threats issued by Donald Trump on social media.

The US president had threatened to bomb Iran and even to kidnap the Iranian negotiating team unless the strait of Hormuz was reopened, forcing mediators Qatar and Pakistan to continue negotiations in the background.

Continue reading...

Al Jazeera cameraman Ahmed Wishah killed in Israeli strike on Gaza

Posted on by

Wishah among at least 260 journalists killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023

Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera has said one of its journalists was killed by an Israeli strike in Gaza on Saturday, becoming one of the at least 260 Palestinian journalists to have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023.

Ahmed Wishah, a cameraman for the network, was killed in a strike targeting a house in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, the broadcaster said on its website.

Continue reading...

Iran says it is closing strait of Hormuz over Israeli strikes in Lebanon

Posted on by

Unclear if threat has been carried out or if move will jeopardise talks with US scheduled for Sunday

Iran has said it is closing the strait of Hormuz after waves of Israeli strikes in Lebanon in a move that threatens to derail the fragile interim peace deal with the US, signed just days ago.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned ships not to approach the strategic waterway, which before the war carried a fifth of global oil and liquid gas supplies, citing what it called Israeli crimes in Lebanon and a US violation of commitments to establish a ceasefire there.

Continue reading...

Israeli attack kills famed turtle sanctuary ecologist in Lebanon

Posted on by

Mona Khalil led decades-long effort to protect nesting site for turtles near her home in south of the country

The Lebanese marine activist Mona Khalil, who became a beloved figure in the country for a decades-long effort to protect a nesting site for turtles near her home, has died from injuries sustained in an Israeli strike.

Khalil, 76, ran a sanctuary called the Orange House Project near the Mediterranean city of Tyre. She hosted volunteers in her house to clean and monitor a mile-long beach and welcomed tourists to stay and learn about conservation.

Continue reading...

Israel and Hezbollah renew ceasefire after deadly flareup disrupts opening of Iran talks

Posted on by

JD Vance pulls out of US-Iran meeting in Switzerland on implementation of peace deal after clashes in southern Lebanon

Israel and Hezbollah agreed to renew a fragile ceasefire in Lebanon on Friday after 24 hours of intense violence that posed an early challenge to the new agreement between the US and Iran to end their conflict.

A meeting that was scheduled to take place on Friday between Washington and Tehran in Switzerland to discuss implementation of the new deal was cancelled when Hezbollah killed four Israeli soldiers and Israel carried out a wave of retaliatory airstrikes in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa valley that killed at least 47 people.

Continue reading...

JD Vance tells Iran deal critics in Israel: Trump is your only ally left in the world

Posted on by

In a sharp rebuke to critics of Trump’s deal with Iran, the vice-president referenced the billions in defence aid Israel recieves from the US

US vice-president JD Vance has lashed out at Israeli critics of the Iran deal, saying Donald Trump is Israel’s only ally left in the world, in a sharp rebuke that referenced the billions in defence aid ⁠the country receives from America.

Vance was defending the deal ⁠reached this week to end the war ​with Iran that critics in the US and Israel have slammed for failing to curb Iran’s missile program and providing no clear path to dismantling its nuclear facilities, while constraining Israel in its war with Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.

Continue reading...

Construction equipment multinationals may be aiding Israeli war crimes, experts say

Posted on by

Images show Israeli military using six companies’ bulldozers and excavators to demolish south Lebanon villages

Human rights experts have alleged that six multinational construction equipment conglomerates may be aiding and abetting war crimes by supplying excavators and bulldozers to Israel, after photos and videos showed the Israeli military using their equipment to demolish villages in south Lebanon.

The Guardian geolocated and verified images showing the Israeli military using excavators made by six companies – Caterpillar, Volvo, Hyundai, Doosan, Hitachi and Komatsu – to destroy homes, public utilities, shops and other structures across southern Lebanon.

Israel has levelled entire villages inside the “yellow line”, a 608 sq km area occupied by Israel along the Lebanese-Israeli border. At least 46 villages in south Lebanon have suffered heavy damage, most of it caused by demolitions carried out after the 17 April Lebanon-Israel ceasefire, according to a satellite analysis by Bellingcat.

Continue reading...

US-Iran deal may get oil flowing again, but region’s root problems are unsolved

Posted on by

Few analysts believe final settlement can be reached in 60 days – and even if it is, war and instability could soon return

In much of the Middle East, news that the US and Iran had come to a fragile agreement was greeted with relief tempered with doubt that any deal would resolve the turbulent region’s deep problems or even prevent a future return to war.

In Kuwait, a frequent target of Iranian drone strikes during the 15-week conflict, Iyad Joumma, a 37-year-old Jordanian engineer, spoke for many.

Continue reading...

Trump hails Iran deal that fixes nothing except a problem his war caused

Posted on by

Deal will leave things almost exactly as they were before feckless war of choice started

If we get to a Friday signing ceremony without this uncertain new US-Iran deal being derailed by any of its inherent ambiguities, then nuclear talks can finally restart in the same place – and at almost exactly the same point they were before this conflict started.

The world will have irrevocably been changed in other ways. There is no going back for the 120 Iranian children in Minab killed in their primary school in the war’s first hours, nor for their bereaved parents, or any of the thousands in Iran, Lebanon and around the region whose lives were erased or blighted by a feckless war of choice.

Continue reading...

‘We want to be 100% sure’: war-weary Lebanese greet truce with caution

Posted on by

While officials welcome ceasefire, many people are uncertain it will last – and return to find homes destroyed

Hours after the US-Iran ceasefire was announced, residents of south Lebanon began to race back to their villages. One man filmed as he drove into the entrance of Harees, his arrival interrupted as the car in front of him suddenly veered off the road. An Israeli armoured vehicle was parked in the middle of the road less than 100 metres ahead; he scrambled to turn around.

“It was packed with explosives. I guess they still want to blow things up,” said Abdullah al-Ali, a municipal official in Harees. Ali said that the entrance to the town had been blocked off after two other explosive-laden vehicles left by the Israelis were discovered in the area.

Continue reading...

US-Iran peace deal hinges on shipping, sanctions relief and deferred nuclear talks

Posted on by

Agreement contains no restrictions on Iran’s ballistic missiles, nor does it call for regime change or surrender

The basic structure of the US-Iran deal reached late on Sunday – a return to the prewar status quo – has been on offer from Iran for more than a month. So has the specific architecture: an immediate unwinding of the consequences of the US-Israeli war through the reopening of the strait of Hormuz and a deferral of the actual negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme, the ostensible cause of the war. The concept of a 60-day ceasefire to resolve these issues has also been a fixture for more than a month.

But it has taken the mounting pressure on the US and Iranian economies for both sides to recognise politically that a return to all-out war was unlikely to resolve the impasse, and if so, compromises would have to be struck.

Continue reading...

Netanyahu declares victory over Iran – and rules out withdrawal from Lebanon

Posted on by

Preliminary agreement between Washington and Tehran has prompted anger in Israel, and criticism of Netanyahu

Benjamin Netanyahu has hailed a historic victory over Iran and ruled out any immediate withdrawal from Lebanon, saying that Israel’s forces would remain there “for as long as necessary”.

“We established deep security zones around the state of Israel. We did this in Gaza, in Lebanon and in Syria,” the Israeli prime minister said in a televised press conference on Monday. “And I want to make it clear: we will remain in these security zones … to protect our country.”

Continue reading...