Category Archives: Israel

Summary of advice that UK arms sales to Israel not unlawful to be released

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Andrew Mitchell preparing to share details of assessment that there is no clear risk in breaching international human law

The British government is preparing to publish a summary of its legal advice stating there are no clear risks that selling arms to Israel will lead to a serious breach of international humanitarian law (IHL).

In a pre-prepared concession to the business select committee, the deputy foreign secretary, Andrew Mitchell, said: “In view of the strength of feeling in the IHL assessment process, I will look to see what more detail we could offer in writing on the IHL assessments in relation to Israel and Gaza both in process and substance.”

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Israel calls on ‘civilised nations’ to boycott ICC arrest warrants against its leaders

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Government urges ‘free world’ to oppose warrants against Netanyahu and defence minister for war crimes in Gaza

Israel has urged what it called “nations of the civilised world” to refuse to implement any international criminal court arrest warrants issued against its leaders.

Karim Khan, the chief prosecutor of the world’s top court, announced on Monday that his office had applied to a pre-trial panel for arrest warrants for three senior Hamas officials, as well as the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the Hamas attack of 7 October and the ensuing seven-month-old war in Gaza.

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Israeli officials cancel decision to confiscate camera from US news agency

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Backtrack on Gaza live feed camera follows widespread condemnation from media groups and Israel’s closest ally, the US

Israeli officials seized a camera and broadcasting equipment belonging to the Associated Press in southern Israel on Tuesday, before reversing course in the face of widespread condemnation from media groups and criticism from its closest ally, the United States.

Officials had accused the US-based wire service, which has subscribers around the globe, of violating a new media law by providing images to Al Jazeera.

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Israel-Gaza war: ICC arrest warrant ‘attempt to deny Israel the right to defend itself’, says Israel defence minister – as it happened

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Yoav Gallant, named alongside Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar and Mohammed Deif, criticises decision

Crowds have gathered in Tabriz in Iran to pay respects to those killed in a helicopter crash on Sunday, including the late president Ebrahim Raisi and foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

Associated Press reports that a procession led by a vehicle carrying the caskets of the dead slowly moved through the narrow streets of the city, which is the closest major one near to the crash site. Thousands in black slowly walked beside the coffins, some throwing flowers up to them as an announcer wept through a loudspeaker for men he described as martyrs.

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Israeli soldiers and police tipping off groups that attack Gaza aid trucks

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Exclusive: Members of security forces giving settlers who intercept vital supplies information on location of convoys, group says

Individual members of Israel’s security forces are tipping off far-right activists and settlers to the location of aid trucks delivering vital supplies to Gaza, enabling the groups to block and vandalise the convoys, according to multiple sources.

Settlers intercepting the vital humanitarian supplies to the strip are receiving information about the location of the aid trucks from members of the Israeli police and military, a spokesperson from the main Israeli activist group behind the blockades told the Guardian.

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Biden attacks request by ICC prosecutor for Netanyahu arrest warrant

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US president sides with Israeli PM as he calls Karim Khan’s pursuit of warrants for Netanyahu along with Hamas leaders ‘outrageous’

Joe Biden has attacked as “outrageous” an application by the international criminal court for warrants seeking the arrest of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, along with senior members of Hamas, for actions carried out in Gaza.

The US president sided unambiguously with Israel after the ICC’s prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced he was pursuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, the Israeli defence minister. Khan is also pursuing the arrests of three leading Hamas figures, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri – better known as Mohammed Deif – and Ismail Haniyeh over Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October last year.

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Australian doctor trapped in Gaza hospital begs government to evacuate medical team

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Push to reopen borders essential to get aid in and humanitarian workers out ‘before we have another Zomi Frankcom’

An Australian doctor trapped inside one of Gaza’s few remaining functioning hospitals has urged the Australian government to do more to get him and his colleagues out and additional medical aid in.

Sydney-based Dr Modher Albeiruti is among 16 international doctors and medical workers who have been stranded inside the European hospital in Khan Younis since Israel took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing this month.

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ICC prosecutor seeks arrest warrants for Israeli PM and Hamas officials for war crimes

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Karim Khan applies for warrants relating to alleged crimes committed during 7 October attack and ensuing war in Gaza

The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has said he is seeking arrest warrants for senior Hamas and Israeli officials for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant.

Karim Khan said his office had applied to the world court’s pre-trial chamber for arrest warrants for the military and political leaders on both sides for crimes committed during Hamas’s 7 October attack and the ensuing war in Gaza.

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UN humanitarian chief delivers ‘apocalyptic’ warning over Gaza aid

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Emergency relief coordinator says famine looming as Israel’s Rafah offensive blocks vital aid routes

The United Nations’ humanitarian chief has warned of “apocalyptic” consequences due to aid shortages in Gaza, where Israel’s military offensive in the southern city of Rafah has blocked desperately needed food.

“If fuel runs out, aid doesn’t get to the people where they need it. That famine, which we have talked about for so long, and which is looming, will not be looming any more. It will be present,” the UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, told AFP on the sidelines of meetings with Qatari officials in Doha.

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Rescuers search for Raisi helicopter– as it happened

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This blog has now closed. Follow our live coverage of the search for Ebrahim Raisi’s helicopter on our new blog here.

Here is a video of the Israeli war cabinet minister, Benny Gantz, threatening to resign if Benjamin Netanyahu fails to adopt an agreed plan for Gaza:

Here are some of the latest images coming out from the newswires:

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Zarah Sultana: the Labour MP taking on the Tories, and her own party, over Gaza

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Coventry MP, whose antipathy for David Cameron sparked her interest in politics, has largest TikTok following in parliament

When the UK foreign secretary, David Cameron, sat in the BBC TV studio last Sunday morning, he clearly had no idea of the identity of the woman sitting on the panel opposite him, simply referring to her as “the Labour MP”.

By contrast, Zarah Sultana, the MP for Coventry South, knows everything about Lord Cameron, telling the Guardian that it was her hatred of him as prime minister that first brought her into politics as a young, leftwing, Muslim woman. Her whole political outlook has been shaped by Cameron: the trebling of tuition fees and austerity.

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Israeli minister vows to quit war cabinet if PM fails to agree new Gaza plan

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Benny Gantz’s threat to withdraw his opposition party from coalition calls into question future of government

The Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz has threatened to resign if Benjamin Netanyahu fails to adopt an agreed plan for Gaza, calling into question the future of the Israeli government.

During a press conference on Saturday, Gantz announced that if a plan for postwar governance of the territory is not consolidated and approved by 8 June, his opposition National Unity party will withdraw from the coalition government.

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Islamic Jihad leader killed in West Bank and 70 targets hit in Gaza, says Israel

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IDF says ‘senior terrorist operative’ Islam Khamayseh was killed in strike on the city of Jenin

Israel says its jets have struck 70 targets across Gaza in the past 24 hours, while an airstrike in Jenin killed a “significant” Islamic Jihad figure who operated as the head of logistics for the organisation’s brigade in the city.

The strike, carried out on Friday night by a fighter jet and a helicopter, killed Islam Khamayseh, a “senior terrorist operative in the Jenin camp” who was responsible for a series of attacks in the area, the IDF said.

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Hamas ‘rejects’ any military presence in Gaza as aid begins to arrive along US-made pier – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Israel-Gaza war coverage here

Israel on Friday attacked South Africa’s case against it in the international court of justice as an “obscene exploitation” of the genocide convention, claiming it aimed not to protect Palestinian civilians but to defend Hamas militants.

Israel’s representatives told the court their country was fighting a war of self-defence it “did not want and did not start”. They said Israel had made “extraordinary” efforts to protect civilians, and had complied with orders from the court to let more aid into Gaza.

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Israeli abuse of jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti ‘amounts to torture’

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With thousands now held without charge, lawyers say Israel is
signalling that no detainee is safe

Marwan Barghouti spends his days huddled in a cramped, dark, solitary cell, with no way to tend to his wounds, and a shoulder injury from being dragged with his hands cuffed behind his back.

Barghouti holds almost mythic status within Palestinian politics, seen as a figure whose potential to unify different factions has only grown during his 24 years in prison.

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Supplies arrive in Gaza via new pier but land routes essential, says US aid chief

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Samantha Power says barely 100 trucks of aid a day enter Gaza, far less than 600 needed to address threat of famine

Humanitarian assistance has begun to arrive in Gaza along a US-made pier, but the US aid chief said the new sea corridor could not be a substitute for land crossings, and warned that deliveries of food and fuel entering Gaza had slowed to “dangerously low levels”.

The White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, confirmed on Friday that truckloads of humanitarian aid, including food from the United Arab Emirates, sent by ship from Cyprus, had been unloaded on the Gaza coast and handed over to the control of the UN.

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Israel recovers bodies of three hostages taken by Hamas, including Shani Louk

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Bodies of Amit Buskila and Itzhak Gelerenter also recovered from Gaza as Israel says 129 hostages remain in captivity

The bodies of three hostages kidnapped by Hamas, including the German-Israeli Shani Louk, have been retrieved from Gaza by the Israeli military, it announced.

The other two hostages were identified as Amit Buskila, 28, and Itzhak Gelerenter, 56, according to the military spokesperson Rear Adm Daniel Hagari, who said the three victims were taken to Gaza after being killed by Hamas at the Nova music festival.

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South Africa’s ICJ genocide case aimed at defending Hamas, Israel claims

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Israel complains of ‘obscene exploitation’ of genocide convention and asks judges to throw out bid to halt Rafah offensive

Israel on Friday attacked South Africa’s case against it in the international court of justice as an “obscene exploitation” of the genocide convention, claiming it aimed not to protect Palestinian civilians but to defend Hamas militants.

Israel’s representatives told the court their country was fighting a war of self-defence it “did not want and did not start”. They said Israel had made “extraordinary” efforts to protect civilians, and had complied with orders from the court to let more aid into Gaza.

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No genocide taking place in Gaza, Israel tells UN’s top court – as it happened

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Israel is appearing at international court of justice after South Africa asked it to urgently order end to assault on Rafah

Yemen’s Houthis said they downed a US MQ9 drone on Thursday evening over the south-eastern province of Maareb, the group’s military spokesperson said on Friday.

According to Reuters, the Iran-aligned group said they would release images and videos to support their claim and added that they had targeted the drone using a locally made surface to air missile.

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Spain denies port of call to ship carrying arms to Israel

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Foreign ministry says it will reject all such stopovers because ‘the Middle East does not need more weapons, it needs more peace’

Spain has refused permission for a ship carrying arms to Israel to dock at a Spanish port, its foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, said on Thursday.

“This is the first time we have done this because it is the first time we have detected a ship carrying a shipment of arms to Israel that wants to call at a Spanish port,” he told reporters in Brussels.

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