Category Archives: Israel

Middle East crisis: ceasefire talks ‘expected to resume on Sunday’ – as it happened

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Source tells Reuters that discussions would cover issues including prisoner-hostage exchanges and humanitarian aid

Record numbers of Palestinian detainees are filling Israeli prisons where they face “systemic abuse” and torture, rights advocates warned, calling for international action, reports AFP.

Members of several Israeli NGOs travelled to Geneva this week to raise concerns before the UN about a major “crisis” inside the country’s prisons.

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Top senator calls on Biden to ‘use all levers’ to pressure Israel over Gaza

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Democrat Chris Van Hollen says Biden must cease giving arms to Israel until it lifts restrictions on aid and does more to protect lives

Joe Biden should use his leverage and the law to pressure Israel to change how it is prosecuting the war in Gaza, the Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen said.

Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, is among a group of senators urging Biden to stop providing Israel with offensive weapons until it lifts restrictions on the delivery of food and medicine into Gaza, where children are now dying of hunger and famine looms.

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‘Everyone has friends in jail’: how Palestinian prisoners became central to Gaza ceasefire talks

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Hamas seeks scaled-back release it can portray as victory as Israeli government weighs conflicting pressures over hostages

In a cafe on a dusty roundabout in the small West Bank town of Silwad, men sit and play cards, one eye on the large TV screen showing the latest news from Gaza. When there is any mention of a possible ceasefire deal – and so the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails – there is silence.

“Nobody tell us anything officially. We see on the news about a deal. So we just know that my brother might be released,” said Akhram Hammad, a 45-year-old blacksmith whose sibling Tayyer is serving multiple life sentences for shooting dead seven Israeli soldiers and three civilians at a checkpoint not far from Silwad in 2002. “It would be really good and everybody would be really happy; otherwise, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.”

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Authors withdraw from PEN America festival in protest over Israel-Gaza war

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Group of more than a dozen writers decry organization’s inadequate response to ‘genocide’ being committed by Israel

More than a dozen prominent authors and literary figures have withdrawn from PEN America’s flagship World Voices Festival in protest of what they see as an inadequate response by the organization to the “genocide” being committed against Palestinians by Israel in Gaza.

The group of writers, which includes Naomi Klein, Michelle Alexander, Hisham Matar, Isabella Hammad and Zaina Arafat, sent a letter to PEN America asserting it had “betrayed the organization’s professed commitment to peace and equality for all, and to freedom and security for writers everywhere” by failing to call for a ceasefire in the Israel-Gaza war.

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Biden says Schumer made ‘good speech’ in breaking with Benjamin Netanyahu

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President also condemns US surge in Islamophobia in comments that could portend broader shift in sentiment towards Gaza war

Joe Biden on Friday said Senator Chuck Schumer made “a good speech” that reflected many Americans’ concerns when he publicly broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over his handling of the war in Gaza.

While the US president announced no changes in his administration’s policy towards Israel, his views on the speech Schumer made Thursday from the floor of the US Senate, where the New York Democrat is the majority leader, could portend a broader shift in sentiment.

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Netanyahu approves Rafah attack plans as aid ship reaches Gaza

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Israeli PM’s decision may be intended to put negotiating pressure on Hamas, observers say, after his cabinet discussed truce proposal

Benjamin Netanyahu has approved plans for an attack on Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, where more than a million people displaced from elsewhere in the territory have sought shelter, officials in Israel have said.

The decision was made as a ship towing a barge loaded with food arrived off Gaza on Friday. It was a test run for a new aid route by sea from Cyprus into the devastated Palestinian territory, where famine looms after five months of Israel’s military campaign.

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Middle East crisis live: Netanyahu’s office ‘approves plan for Rafah operation’

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Reuters reports that Israeli military is preparing to evacuate the population of Gaza border town

Reuters has a breaking news line about the Gaza aid ship, the Open Arms, that set off from Cyprus on Tuesday. According to the news agency, witnesses have reported that the ship is close to Gaza’s coast now.

More details soon …

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Palestinians who had Australian visas cancelled mid-flight are ‘collateral damage’, charity group says

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At least 70 people have had to cancel or postpone travel while one man remains stuck in an Istanbul airport

Palestinians fleeing Gaza with valid Australian visas only for them to be cancelled mid-flight or at airports have been described as “collateral damage” for the federal government’s failures.

One charity group helping Palestinians to leave the war zone, the Palestine Australia Relief and Action (Para) group, said it has already had to cancel or postpone the upcoming flights of at least 70 people, including sick and elderly, and is frustrated by the lack of clarity.

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Israeli forces kill 20 Palestinians waiting for aid, Gaza health ministry says

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Israeli military denies reports after officials say eight people killed in separate strike on aid distribution centre

Gaza’s health ministry has said Israeli fire killed 20 people waiting to receive desperately needed aid in the besieged Palestinian territory, but the Israeli military said the reports were “erroneous”.

Gaza officials said the attack occurred as a crowd gathered to receive aid from a truck at the Kuwait roundabout, a key interchange used by humanitarian convoys carrying food into northern Gaza. More than 150 people were wounded, they added.

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Charity hopes to send second food aid ship to Gaza in next few days

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Pallets with 50% more supplies than first boat, Open Arms, being loaded in Cyprus

The charity sending food aid to Gaza on a ship travelling across the Mediterranean from Cyprus is loading a second boat with supplies, which it hopes will set off in the coming days.

Pallets containing 300 tonnes of food aid – 50% more than the first shipment – are expected to be screened and loaded by the end of Thursday, but there is no indication yet when it will leave the port of Larnaca.

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Middle East crisis: Netanyahu is ‘major obstacle to peace’ and should call election, says Schumer – as it happened

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This blog is now closed. You can read the latest news and reaction to Schumer’s speech in our US politics blog:

Lebanon’s National News Agency reports Israeli planes have overflown Jezzine in southern Lebanon. There are unconfirmed images circulating social media appearing to show airstrikes have been carried out. Israel and anti-Israeli forces in Lebanon have repeatedly exchanged fire since 7 October.

The aid ship from Cyprus expected to arrive on Gaza’s shores is only “a drop in the ocean” of what is needed to address the acute crisis in the territory, the International Rescue Committee’s lead on the crisis said late yesterday.

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Schumer faces backlash after calling for new Israeli elections to oust Netanyahu

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Senate majority leader says Israeli prime minister has ‘lost his way’ and warns that country risks becoming ‘a pariah’

Chuck Schumer, the US Senate leader and a top ally of Joe Biden, on Thursday broke with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, over his handling of the invasion of Gaza and called for Israel to hold new elections, in comments that upset its ruling party and allies on Capitol Hill.

The shift by Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the United States, came as he continued to press lawmakers to pass a military assistance package for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, the countries Biden has named as America’s top national security priorities.

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Biden’s ‘bear-hugging’ of Netanyahu a strategic mistake, key Democrat says

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Ro Khanna, Biden campaign surrogate, believes US president should take tougher line with ‘insufferably arrogant’ Israeli PM

Joe Biden has committed a “strategic mistake” by “bear-hugging” the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, as he prosecutes war with Hamas, a leading congressional progressive Democrat and Biden campaign surrogate said.

“The bear-hugging of Netanyahu has been a strategic mistake,” Ro Khanna said, accusing the Israeli leader of conducting “a callous war” in Gaza, in defiance of the United States.

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Revealed: How the global oil industry is fueling Israel’s war on Gaza

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Analysis shows how jets and tanks are being kept fueled despite interim ICJ ruling warning Israel to prevent genocidal acts

Israeli jets and tanks bombarding Palestinians are being fueled by some of the world’s most profitable fossil fuel companies – and US tax-payers, according to research.

Israel relies on crude oil and refined products from overseas to run its large fleet of fighter jets, tanks and other military vehicles.

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Israel broke international law with tank shelling that killed journalist, UN finds

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IDF fired two rounds at ‘clearly identifiable journalists’ in Lebanon last year when there was no exchange of fire in area

An Israeli tank that killed a Reuters journalist and wounded six others in Lebanon last year fired two 120mm rounds at a group of “clearly identifiable journalists” in violation of international law, a UN investigation has found.

The investigation by the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), summarized in a report seen by Reuters, said its personnel did not record any exchange of fire across the border between Israel and Lebanon for more than 40 minutes before the tank opened fire, killing Issam Abdallah, a 37-year-old video journalist.

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Palestinian boy killed by Israeli police during clashes in East Jerusalem

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Child suffered fatal gunshot wound after riots broke out at Shuafat refugee camp during Ramadan

A Palestinian boy has died after being shot by Israeli border police at a refugee camp in East Jerusalem in the first such fatality in the Israeli-annexed territory during Ramadan.

The child – who was variously reported as being 12 or 13 years old – suffered a fatal gunshot wound during clashes between residents of the Shuafat refugee camp and police.

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Palestinian citizen of Israel granted UK asylum in case said to be unprecedented

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‘Hasan’, 24, argued he would face persecution in Israel on grounds of his race, faith and its ‘apartheid regime’

A Palestinian citizen of Israel has been granted asylum in the UK after claiming he would face persecution in his home country on the grounds of his race, his Muslim faith and his opinion that Israel “is governed by an apartheid regime”.

“Hasan”, whose real identity is not being disclosed for his own protection, has attended pro-Palestinian protests in the UK, and his lawyers also argued that his activism would place him at increased risk of hostile attention on his return.

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US citizen thought to have been taken hostage in Hamas attack reported dead

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Itay Chen, 19, was serving in the IDF when militants attacked his base and killed him, and then took his body to Gaza

Joe Biden has said he was devastated to learn that a dual US-Israeli citizen thought kidnapped and held in Gaza had actually been killed during Hamas’s 7 October attack.

Itay Chen, 19, was about one year into his military service in the Israeli Armoured Corps when his base near the Gaza border was attacked.

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UK pressing for ‘full explanation’ of alleged abuses after Gaza hospital raid

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Andrew Mitchell responds to Labour question in Commons about reports of Israeli mistreatment of medical staff

A UK Foreign Office minister has called for an investigation into a report that medical staff in Gaza faced violent and humiliating treatment in detention after an Israeli raid.

Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis – at the time the largest functioning hospital in the Palestinian territory – was raided over several days by Israeli forces in an attack that began on 15 February.

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Palestinian aid agency funding will stay frozen until reports received, says UK

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US, UK and Australia and others will decide on Unrwa support only after seeing reports on Israeli claims, says Foreign Office minister

Countries including the US, UK, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and Australia will not take a decision on ending the suspension of funding to the Palestinian relief works agency Unrwa until they have seen two interim reports on the organisation, the UK Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell has said.

Mitchell’s remarks put back a decision on the funding for weeks, and runs counter to the decision by Sweden, Canada and the EU to resume funding the agency.

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