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The UN security council scheduled an emergency meeting on Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza on Monday afternoon at the request of the United Arab Emirates, the Arab representative on the council, according to a report by Associated Press.
Israeli airstrikes have hit areas around Gaza’s largest hospital, destroying roads leading to the facility, which is a major shelter for Palestinians fleeing Israeli bombardment, residents have told Associated Press.
Continue reading...Scottish first minister expresses relief after communications were cut off during Israeli bombardment
Scotland’s first minister has expressed relief after discovering his parents-in-law in Gaza are alive, although they have run out of clean drinking water.
Humza Yousaf said the welcome news had come through on Sunday morning, hours after describing his worries about whether they were alive or dead following the imposition by Israel of a communication blackout in Gaza on Friday.
Continue reading...Jake Sullivan’s comments are a marked softening of the Biden administration’s hardline support of Israel
Thousands of Palestinians killed in Israel’s attacks on Gaza over the past three weeks “did not deserve to die”, according to the US national security adviser, in a marked softening of the Biden administration’s hardline support of Israel.
In an interview with ABC News on Sunday, Jake Sullivan, the White House’s chief security adviser, said Hamas is “hiding” behind civilians but that doesn’t lessen Israel’s “responsibility under international humanitarian law and the laws in war to do all in their power to protect the civilian population”.
Continue reading...From magazine editors to Hollywood agents, supporters of Palestinians experiencing widespread rebuke
A rising number of prominent US figures have faced discipline over controversial public comments they have made about the Palestinian cause, as attacks by Israel on Gaza after the 7 October massacre of Israelis by Hamas fighters intensified.
David Velasco, the editor in chief of Artforum magazine, was reportedly fired after the magazine published an open letter in response to the war.
Continue reading...Keir Starmer has ‘listened’ to rebels and will ‘continue engaging’, says Peter Kyle, amid mounting pressure from senior party figures
Members of Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet will not be punished if they break party ranks by demanding a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, because Labour is a “diverse party”, Peter Kyle has suggested.
The shadow science, innovation and technology minister also rejected claims that Labour was taking Muslim votes for granted, and said the party was not basing its policy on the conflict around what might win votes.
Continue reading...Head of refugee agency says wheat, flour and hygiene supplies taken as Israel continues its bombardment
Order is beginning to collapse in the besieged Gaza Strip after thousands of desperate people raided UN warehouses in search of food, as the international criminal court’s top prosecutor said impeding relief supplies to the population may constitute a crime under the court’s jurisdiction.
Wheat, flour and hygiene supplies were taken from on Saturday from four UN-run centres across the blockaded 25- by 7-mile strip, home to more than 2 million trapped people, Thomas White, Gaza director for the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said on Sunday.
A UN peacekeeper on the Blue Line between Israel and Lebanon was injured in cross-border fire, the world body said.
Rishi Sunak and Emmanuel Macron “stressed the importance of getting urgent humanitarian support” into Gaza.
Jack Sullivan, Joe Biden’s national security adviser, said the US believed “there should be humanitarian pauses to get hostages out, potentially to get aid in”.
A delegation of families of Israeli hostages being held by Hamas urged President Isaac Herzog to keep their plight at the top of the political agenda.
Continue reading...Mahmoud Abu Amir is among thousands of Palestinians frantically trying to locate their loved ones from afar
For Mahmoud Abu Amir, the war in his native Gaza began on Monday 9 October. An Israeli airstrike flattened a large area in the Jabalia refugee camp where he spent most of his life, demolishing the apartment block that was sheltering most of his family including his wife, Mayar, and their two young children.
Two days earlier, Hamas militants had stormed towns and kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip, killing 1,400 Israelis and taking at least 200 more hostage. When Abu Amir called his family that day to check on them, “it was a shock”, he said. “No one expected this to happen. But my wife, and my entire family were dead scared. They knew something would happen to them. They live near the border and they knew they would pay the price.”
Continue reading...Half of young Americans are skeptical of US support for Israel, and campus protesters demand a ceasefire in Gaza
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
On Wednesday night, Joe Biden basked in the pageantry of a state dinner – white-jacketed violinists, golden chandeliers dotted with pink roses, a vivid wall display of 3D paper flowers. But soon after toasting the Australian prime minister in a pavilion on the White House south lawn, the US president had to step away to be briefed on a deadly mass shooting in Maine.
Continue reading...Scotland’s first minister speaks of family worry after Israel cuts off population of Gaza from communication with world
Scotland’s first minister has said he does not know if his parents-in-law who are trapped in Gaza are dead or alive after Israel knocked out communications there.
Humza Yousaf said he and his wife, Nadia, are “desperately worried” and that she is “numb” as they try to find out news about her parents.
Continue reading...Communications blackout cuts off stream of Snapchat updates from residents about life in the conflict
• Israel and Hamas at war – live updates
Communications went dark in Gaza on Friday, but the few voices that emerged described a night of intense airstrikes and panic among a population fearing that the outage signified a new stage in the violence.
The social media platform Snapchat has been used since the war began by some Gazans to post images from their lives, with videos showing people in long queues at bakeries or for water, or gathered in crowds at hospitals and schools.
Continue reading...As Israel’s ground operation intensifies, World Health Organization issues an urgent statement saying it is unable to cope with a total blackout
Gaza was plunged into darkness, isolation and violence on Saturday night, its communications with the outside world almost entirely cut, as Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announced his country was entering “the second stage” of what was likely to be a long and difficult war against Hamas.
In a televised press conference Netanyahu told Israelis: “We have unanimously approved the widening of the ground invasion … Our objective is singular: to defeat the murderous enemy. We declared ‘never again’, and we reiterate: ‘never again, now’.”
Continue reading...Polls suggest that four in five people blame the Israeli government for the 7 October massacres and over half want the PM to resign
In October 2011 Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier abducted by the Palestinian group Hamas and held for five years in the blockaded Gaza Strip, walked through the Rafah crossing into Egypt, accompanied by militants wearing suicide vests.
His release was widely celebrated across Israel; in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, so too was the agreed exchange of 1,027 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Foremost among them was Yahya Sinwar, who returned home to Gaza, eventually becoming Hamas’s most important leader in the territory. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, then in his second term, did face some criticism for the starkly asymmetric deal. The daily Jerusalem Post said at the time that “any such exchange, however humane to Shalit and his family, would imperil thousands of other Israelis”.
Continue reading...People with families in Gaza call on British government to help get them out and to join calls for ceasefire
On Friday evening, as Israeli air and ground forces ramped up their operations in the Gaza Strip and a communications blackout fell across the embattled territory, Salim Hammad received a text from the UK Foreign Office notifying him of a possible increase in attacks and violence.
“What are we supposed to do with that information?” said Salim, a 34-year-old doctor in Oxford whose father, Abdel, is stuck at the Rafah border crossing.
Continue reading...Wael al-Dahdouh’s wife, children and grandson were killed in Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Tuesday
• Israel and Hamas at war – live updates
An Al Jazeera correspondent has returned to work just days after his entire immediate family were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza.
Wael al-Dahdouh’s wife, son, daughter and grandson were killed in the strike late on Tuesday. They had moved to a house in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza following Israel’s warning on 13 October.
Continue reading...Doha positions itself as region’s lead mediator but balancing relations with Hamas and the west has become diplomatically precarious
A two-sentence tweet by Israel’s national security adviser has revealed the acute dilemma Israel and the west face in dealing with Qatar, the energy-rich state that has positioned itself as a mediator of conflicts around the world, from Khartoum to Kabul.
“I’m pleased to say that Qatar is becoming an essential party and stakeholder in the facilitation of humanitarian solutions,” Tzachi Hanegbi wrote. “Qatar’s diplomatic efforts are crucial at this time.”
Continue reading...‘The war inside Gaza is going to be long,’ Netanyahu says, calling the ground invasion a ‘holy mission’.
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, says Israel must stop the “madness” and end Gaza strikes, according to Agence France-Presse.
“The Israeli bombardments on Gaza intensified last night and once again targeted women, children and innocent civilians and worsened the ongoing humanitarian crisis,” Erdoğan said on X. “Israel must immediately stop this madness and end its attacks.”
Continue reading...Representative explains resolution ‘did not recognise terror group Hamas as perpetrator of 7 October attack’
Australia has abstained from casting a vote in a UN resolution calling for an immediate humanitarian truce in Gaza, arguing it was “incomplete” because it did not mention Hamas as the perpetrator of the 7 October attack.
On Friday, the United Nations general assembly overwhelmingly called for an “immediate, durable and sustainable humanitarian truce” between Israel and Hamas and demanded unhindered aid access to the besieged Gaza Strip.
Continue reading...Aid trucks trickle into Gaza while Israel steps up operations and the UN’s general assembly calls for an immediate truce
Fourteen more aid trucks crossed the border from Egypt to Gaza, joining the 20 aid trucks that had entered the previous day, which was the first aid convoy to arrive in the territory since Hamas’s terrorist attacks on Israel on 7 October.
Continue reading...UN refugee agency says 10 of 50 bakeries it helps have been hit and fuel is running out to transport flour to those that remain
A fifth of bakeries supported by the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza have been bombed so far, as warnings have been issued of “catastrophic” food shortages due to a lack of fuel.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said 10 of the 50 bakeries it supplies with flour, helping to lower the soaring cost of bread, have been hit in airstrikes and fuel is running out for vehicles to transport flour to those that remain.
Continue reading...Resolution, passed by 120 votes to 14, is not binding, but carries great political and symbolic weight
The UN general assembly has overwhelmingly called for an “immediate, durable and sustainable humanitarian truce” between Israel and Hamas and demanded unhindered aid access to the besieged Gaza Strip.
The motion drafted by Jordan is not binding, but carries political weight, reflecting the degree to which the US and Israel are isolated internationally as Israel steps up its ground operations.
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