Category Archives: Palestinian Territories

Israel-Gaza war: at least 12 Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrike on school, say Gaza defence authorities – as it happened

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Israeli military says it struck Hamas militant base inside the school but civil defence agency spokesperson says bodies of men and children recovered

Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned on Tuesday of the risk of the Gaza war expanding regionally in a way “difficult to imagine” during a meeting with U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken, the Egyptian presidency said.

He added:“The ceasefire in Gaza must be the beginning of broader international recognition of the Palestinian state and the implementation of the two-state solution, as this is the basic guarantor of stability in the region.”

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Israel says bodies of six hostages have been recovered from Gaza

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IDF says the dead men were all civilians abducted from kibbutzim during 7 October Hamas attack

Israel has recovered the bodies of six hostages who were seized during Hamas’s 7 October attack and taken to Gaza, its military has announced.

An overnight operation in Khan Younis in southern Gaza found the bodies of Yagev Buchshtab, Alexander Dancyg, Avraham Munder, Yoram Metzger, Nadav Popplewell and Chaim Peri, all civilians abducted from their homes in kibbutzim adjacent to Israel’s barrier wall with the Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Tuesday.

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Blinken says Gaza ceasefire talks ‘may be last opportunity’ for hostage deal

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US secretary of state says Netanhayu supports US ceasefire proposal, after meeting with Israeli PM

The US secretary of state has said during a visit to Israel that the current round of ceasefire talks is “maybe the last opportunity” to broker a truce and a hostage and prisoner swap in the 10-month-old war in Gaza.

Antony Blinken met Israeli officials, including in a three-hour one-on-one with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Monday during a 24-hour trip to Tel Aviv before he travels on to Egypt.

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Middle East crisis: Netanyahu’s office says meeting with Blinken was ‘positive’ – as it happened

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Israeli prime minister says meeting with US secretary of state was ‘conducted in good spirit’ as Blinken says latest push for ceasefire is last opportunity

My life in Gaza was constantly at risk, and I could have been targeted and killed at any moment. Had I stayed, there is every chance that I would’ve been one of the 40,000 Palestinians killed by Israel, of which as many as 17,000 are children, over 11,000 women and 113 journalists like me. A Lancet study even suggests that the Gaza death toll could exceed 186,000.

I had less than 24 hours notice that I was leaving Gaza, but it wasn’t one of those times where I was excited to pack to go on a vacation. It felt like I was living everything my grandpa once lived through during the Nakba in 1948. I left Gaza with a heavy heart, a fake Dolce & Gabbana top, a black jacket and lipstick.

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Israel perpetrating war crimes in plain sight in Gaza, says ex-UK diplomat

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Mark Smith, who quit Dublin embassy role, says he raised his concerns over weapons sales with foreign secretary

Israel is “flagrantly and regularly” committing war crimes in Gaza, according to a former British diplomat who recently resigned over ministers’ failure to ban arms sales to Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

Mark Smith, who resigned as a counter-terrorism official at the British embassy in Dublin after raising complaints about the sale of British weapons to Israel, told the BBC on Monday that he believed Israel to be in breach of international law.

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Lawyers seeking arms export ban submit claims of Israeli war crimes to UK court

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Case brought by NGOs is attempt to prevent the UK government continuing to grant arms export licences

Claims of Palestinians being tortured, left untreated in hospital and unable to escape constant bombardment have been submitted to the high court in London by lawyers seeking an order preventing the UK government continuing to grant arms export licences to British companies selling arms to Israel.

The 14 witness statements covering more than 100 pages come from Palestinian and western medical doctors working in Gaza’s hospitals, as well as from ambulance drivers, civil defence department workers and aid workers.

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Will the latest talks between Hamas and Israel lead to a ceasefire in Gaza?

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Negotiators are hopeful but the US believes it may be the last opportunity to secure release of hostages

Mediators said they were hopeful about brokering a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war after two days of talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, last week, announcing that a “bridging proposal” had been agreed.

However, previous optimism that a deal was close at hand proved to be misplaced. Joe Biden said in February that he believed a ceasefire agreement was “imminent”, while the beginning of Ramadan in March, and intense diplomatic efforts before Israel’s invasion of Rafah in May, were also touted as “last chances”.

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Blinken arrives in Israel for 11th-hour talks on Gaza ceasefire deal

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US secretary of state flies into Tel Aviv amid signals that a breakthrough may not be as close as had been suggested

The US secretary of state has arrived in Israel for 11th-hour talks aimed at shoring up a deal for a lasting ceasefire in the war in Gaza, amid signals from Israeli and Hamas officials that a breakthrough may not be as close as international mediators had suggested.

Antony Blinken flew into Tel Aviv on Sunday as part of Washington’s renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire in the 10-month-old conflict, negotiations seen as even more urgent after last month’s back-to-back assassinations of a top Hezbollah commander and the Hamas political chief, Ismail Haniyeh.

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Foreign Office official quits over UK refusal to ban arms exports to Israel

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Mark Smith says evidence of Gaza war crimes is clear, but that his complaints were brushed aside

A Foreign Office official has resigned over the UK’s refusal to ban arms exports to Israel because of alleged breaches of international law.

Mark Smith, a counter-terrorism official based at the British embassy in Dublin, said he had resigned after making numerous internal complaints, including through an official whistleblowing mechanism, but receiving nothing but pro-forma responses.

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Eighteen members of same family killed in Israeli strike on Gaza

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Dead included 11 siblings aged between two and 22, hospital says, as well as their parents and grandmother

An Israel airstrike in Gaza has killed at least 18 people from the same family, even as mediators expressed optimism for an imminent ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas after 10 months of war.

The airstrike on Saturday hit a house and adjacent warehouse sheltering displaced people at the entrance to the town of Zawaida, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, to where casualties were taken. An Associated Press reporter there counted the dead.

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David Lammy warns of rising risk of full-scale regional war in Middle East

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The UK foreign secretary and his French counterpart write in the Observer about their fears over Israel’s escalating tensions with Iran

• It’s never too late for peace in the Middle East – we must break the cycle of violence

There is a rising risk of “full-scale regional war” in the Middle East, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, has warned, amid frantic international efforts to calm tensions with Iran and reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.

With the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, flying into Israel this weekend to push for a deal, Lammy has joined forces with his French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, to warn that now is a “perilous moment” for the region in the midst of widespread fears of escalation involving Tehran and allied militias in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.

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Both Israel and Hamas’s leaders believe there is more to gain by fighting on

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Decision-makers on either side of the conflict are biding their time in order to secure the best ceasefire deal

With the most recent round of talks now over, any hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza in the immediate future appear this weekend to have been dashed. There are further discussions scheduled for this week, but these feel more like a desperate attempt to keep the process alive than offering a real chance of peace.

This is not the first time there has been similar disappointment. A dozen or more rounds of mediated negotiations, a UN resolution, pressure from Washington and other powers, and much else has failed to push either the leaders of Israel or Hamas to make the concessions necessary to stop the 10-month-old war.

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Israel-Gaza war: new evacuation orders in Gaza as 15 reported killed in Israeli strike – as it happens

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This live blog is now closed, you can read more about the Israel-Gaza war here

The uncle of three of the people killed in the strike in southern Lebanon early Saturday said they were factory workers who were in their housing accomodation when they were hit. He denied that there were weapons at the facility.

“There was nothing at all like that,” Hussein Shahoud told AP. “There was metal for construction, for building, for all kinds of purposes.”

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Gaza sees first polio case in 25 years as UN calls for mass vaccinations

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Highly infectious disease confirmed in 10-month-old as UN chief urges pauses in fighting to contain spread

Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday, after the UN chief, António Guterres, called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.

Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.

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Gaza ceasefire talks to resume next week after no breakthrough in Doha

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US, Qatar and Egypt issue optimistic statement that may also be aimed at stalling Iranian retaliation against Israel

The latest round of Gaza ceasefire talks have ended in Doha without a breakthrough, but a new date next week has been set for further negotiations to attempt to end the 10-month-old war.

A White House statement signed by the co-mediators Qatar and Egypt described a fresh proposal that built “on areas of agreement” and bridged remaining gaps in a manner that allowed for “a swift implementation of the deal”.

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David Lammy condemns ‘abhorrent’ Israel settler attack on West Bank village

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Foreign secretary says settlers must be ‘brought to justice’ after violence in Palestinian village leaves one dead

The UK foreign secretary has condemned the “widespread rampage” in a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank after an attack by dozens of Israeli settlers left at least one person dead.

The Palestinian health ministry said a man was killed and another left critically injured by the settlers who opened fire on Thursday night in the village of Jit.

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Israel-Gaza war: UN calls Israeli settler attack in West Bank ‘horrific’ – as it happened

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The attack, which has been widely condemned, left a Palestinian man dead and about a dozen injured

To Australia now and a row between an independent MP and the leader of the opposition.

Liberal party leader Peter Dutton has insisted he is not racist after Zali Steggall, the independent MP, defended calling Dutton so in parliament and accused him of fuelling division with his political attacks over visa-holders from Gaza.

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One Palestinian killed as Israeli settlers attack West Bank village

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Assault condemned by Israeli authorities, with Netanyahu’s office pledging trial for perpetrators

• Middle East crisis live – latest updates

Dozens of Israeli settlers have attacked a Palestinian village near Nablus in the occupied West Bank, killing at least one person, in the latest deadly incident of settler violence amid surging tensions in the Palestinian territory.

The Palestinian health ministry said one man was killed and another critically wounded by Israeli settlers who opened fire during the Thursday night attack in the village of Jit, in the north of the West Bank, which is surrounded by Israeli settlements.

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Israel-Gaza war: Gaza death toll passing 40,000 is ‘grim milestone’, says UN; UK foreign secretary ‘to meet Netanyahu’ – as it happened

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This live blog is now closed. For more on the Israel-Gaza war, read our full report:

The president of New York’s Columbia University resigned yesterday, citing the toll taken by a “period of turmoil” after she faced scrutiny for her handling of demonstrations at the institution over the Israel-Hamas war, AFP reports.

British-American economist Minouche Shafik is the fourth president of an Ivy League university to step down in the wake of the bitter divisions and anti-war protests that swept campuses across the US.

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New round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations begin without Hamas

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US, Qatar, Egypt and Israel meet in Doha in effort to prevent fighting spiralling into region-wide Middle East conflict

A new round of negotiations aimed at brokering a ceasefire in the war in Gaza and preventing the fighting from escalating into a region-wide conflict got under way in Doha, as the death toll in the Palestinian territory reached a grim milestone of 40,000 people, according to local health authorities.

Mediators from the US, Qatar and Egypt met an Israeli delegation in the Qatari capital on Thursday afternoon, with talks expected to continue into the next day. Hamas, the Palestinian militant group, is not directly participating in the talks, meaning expectations of a breakthrough are low.

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