Two hostages freed on Saturday, with another expected to be released from different location
Here are images coming in of people in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square watching a screen broadcasting news footage of this morning’s hostage releases.
The Guardian’s Peter Beaumont is reporting on these latest hostage releases.
Continue reading...Two men handed over to Red Cross in southern Gaza Strip with a third due to be freed in Gaza City in exchange for jailed Palestinians
Middle East crisis live: Hamas release of more hostages under way
Three more Israelis – all male civilian hostages – were being released to Israel on Saturday as part of the continuing ceasefire agreement with Hamas in Gaza.
Hamas handed the first two hostages over to the Red Cross in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday morning before they were received by the Israeli military a short while later.
Continue reading...British-Israeli Emily Damari was taken on 7 October 2023 and says Hamas denied her medical treatment after shooting her twice
The freed British-Israeli hostage Emily Damari spoke to Keir Starmer on Friday and told the prime minister Hamas held her in facilities belonging to the UN refugee agency Unrwa, her mother, Mandy, has said.
Damari, 28, who was released 12 days ago, after more than 15 months in captivity in Gaza, with two fingers missing, also told Starmer that Hamas had denied her access to medical treatment after shooting her twice.
Continue reading...Israel freed 110 Palestinians in exchange for three Israelis and five Thai nationals held in Gaza
As the line of white buses drew closer to the West Bank city of Ramallah at dusk, their most notorious passenger stood at the window of one of the buses and waved. Skinny in his grey Israeli prison tracksuit, his head shaved, Zakaria Zubeidi lifted two fingers to make a peace sign and gestured at jubilant crowds.
The 49-year-old, a former leader of a Palestinian militant group jailed for attacks that killed several Israelis, was among 110 Palestinian prisoners freed in exchange for three Israelis and five Thai nationals held by Palestinian militants in Gaza. The prisoners’ release was delayed by Israeli officials, who expressed dismay at the chaotic scenes in Gaza that accompanied the Israelis’ transfer to the custody of the Red Cross.
Continue reading...UN agency says work in West Bank and Gaza will continue amid concerns over impact on delivery of aid
International staff working for the UN’s main agency serving Palestinians have been forced to leave after Israel’s ban on the agency came into effect.
As the UN flag was still flying above the headquarters building in Jerusalem, Palestinian staff were not present at the site over security concerns amid a planned “celebration” by Israeli rightwing groups outside the compound.
Continue reading...Palestinians in war-devastated Gaza and occupied West Bank expected to be hardest hit by ban on refugee agency
The main UN agency serving Palestinians in the occupied territories, including Gaza, looks likely to be shut down on Thursday as Israel defied widespread international support for the agency in a move Unrwa predicted would “sabotage Gaza’s recovery and political transition”.
Unrwa’s banning looks certain, as Israel’s high court of justice refused a last-minute request to intervene to suspend the law forbidding the agency from operating in Israel.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: After Donald Trump’s remarks, renewed alarm about what will follow the first phase of the ceasefire
Good morning. Donald Trump presented his proposal as one rooted in a concern for the safety of Palestinians: it was time to find many of the residents of Gaza somewhere else to live. “I’d rather get involved with some of the Arab nations and build housing at a different location where they can maybe live in peace for a change,” he said. “You’re talking about probably a million and a half people, and we just clean out that whole thing and say: ‘You know, it’s over.’”
That was more than stream of consciousness: Trump doubled down on his comments on Monday. But the idea of “cleaning out” Gaza is not welcomed by the Palestinians who live there – or the countries that Trump has in mind as their new home. And if they were to be forced to leave after Gaza was devastated by the Israeli military, it would appear to be a clear case of ethnic cleansing.
Kumbh Mela festival | Dozens of people are feared to have died in crowd crushes at India’s Kumbh Mela festival, local officials have said, as vast crowds went to bathe at one of the holiest sites of the Hindu gathering. People were crushed in the early hours of Wednesday as tens of millions flocked to immerse themselves in the sacred confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.
UK economy | Rachel Reeves is unveiling plans to create “Europe’s Silicon Valley” between Oxford and Cambridge as she stakes the government’s success on kickstarting economic growth. The chancellor will announce a blueprint to improve infrastructure across the region in the hope of adding £78bn to the UK economy within a decade.
Extremism | Yvette Cooper will reject internal Home Office advice to widen the definition of extremism to include violent misogyny and conspiracy theorists, the Guardian understands. The home secretary is expected to reject a report saying that authorities should adopt an “ideologically agnostic” approach in favour of focusing on Islamist and far-right violence.
Tax | Roman Abramovich, the billionaire Russian oligarch, may owe British tax authorities as much as £1bn, according to analysis of documents that suggests his companies failed to pay tax on profits made through an elaborate offshore investment scheme.
Technology | US tech stocks tentatively recovered on Tuesday after the emergence of the Chinese DeepSeek app wiped $1tn (£800bn) in value from the leading US tech index. Nvidia recovered somewhat from Monday’s 17% drop, rising 9%.
Continue reading...US president insists leaders of both countries would agree to move that could be ‘temporary or long-term’
Donald Trump has repeated his suggestion that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza for Egypt or Jordan, despite widespread opposition to the proposal from Palestinian leadership, the UN and US allies in the region.
Speaking to reporters onboard Air Force One on Monday night, the US president was asked about his comments over the weekend about “cleaning out” the Gaza Strip either “temporarily or long-term”. Trump reiterated he would “like to get [Palestinians from Gaza] living in an area where they can live without disruption and revolution and violence so much”.
Continue reading...US president has already caused trouble abroad and at home with incoherent ideas about Middle East politics
The suggestion by the US president, Donald Trump, that Gaza’s Palestinian population could be “cleaned out” and moved to Egypt and Jordan is an idea that has long been circulated by the Israeli right.
Over the decades since the Six Day war in 1967, when Israeli forces first captured the Gaza Strip, which had been under Egyptian military rule, Israeli officials and commentators have periodically pushed the notion that Palestinians in Gaza could be resettled in Egypt.
Continue reading...UN agency ordered to vacate HQ by Thursday – just as aid is being increased to Gaza after ceasefire
Israel has insisted it will not back down over its plan to close down the Gaza operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa), the UN relief agency for Palestinians, even though critics say the move will jeopardise urgent humanitarian aid efforts.
Israel has ordered the UN agency to vacate its headquarters in East Jerusalem by Thursday, after the Israeli Knesset passed a law on 28 October banning its operations in Israel and the Palestinian territories. It has not yet said how it will implement a related law ending all Israeli government cooperation with Unwra, which could come into force on the same day and strangle its operations in the West Bank and Gaza.
Continue reading...People begin long walk at dawn to what remains of their homes after 24-hour delay over release of Israeli hostage
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flooded back into northern Gaza on Monday after Israel opened military checkpoints that had divided the strip for more than a year, ending a forced exile from homes and loved ones that many feared could become permanent.
In the dawn light, crowds that had waited by the road overnight began the long walk back to their homes and business – or what remained of them – as soon as the crossing opened.
Continue reading...US president has suggested Palestinians should leave Gaza for neighbouring countries to ‘just clean out’ whole strip
Donald Trump’s proposal that large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “just clean out” the whole strip has been rejected by US allies in the region and attacked as dangerous, illegal and unworkable by lawyers and activists.
The US president said he would like hundreds of thousands of people to move to neighbouring countries, either “temporarily or could be long-term”. Destinations could include Jordan, which already hosts more than 2.7 million Palestinian refugees, and Egypt, he added.
Continue reading...First full-scale replica of Frank’s attic annexe goes on show next week on International Holocaust Remembrance Day
The first-ever full-scale replica of Anne Frank’s attic annex goes on show in New York next week, part of an ongoing effort to maintain awareness of – and combat – antisemitism in the midst of conflict in the Middle East and political tensions in the US.
Eighty years on from Frank’s death, aged 15, in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, the exhibition at the Center for Jewish History in downtown Manhattan aims to introduce new audiences to one of the most famous victims of Adolf Hitler’s “final solution”.
Continue reading...Civilians and militants gather amid rubble to watch handover of four women held hostage for 15 months
For the crowds of militants and civilians gathered in a central Gaza square to witness the handover of four Israeli soldiers held hostage for 15 months, the atmosphere was one of triumph and jubilation.
Hundreds of people gathered on the piles of rubble in Palestine Square, Gaza City, among flags of Palestinian militant groups, to watch a painstaking hostage handover, while in Tel Aviv crowds of Israelis gathered in suspense.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: As Israeli security forces launch an operation in the city of Jenin and violence by settlers escalates, Emma Graham-Harrison explains what happens next
Good morning.
A few days after a ceasefire brought at least temporary relief to Gaza, violence erupted in the occupied West Bank. On Tuesday, the Israeli military launched what was described as an extensive raid in the city of Jenin, a day after Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians, setting vehicles and property ablaze in a violent rampage. Two Israeli were arrested even though dozens of armed settlers were involved in the rioting. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned the attacks, but it is evident that extremist settlers feel emboldened by government policies and ministers who back their agenda.
Media | The Duke of Sussex has settled his high court legal action against the publisher of the Sun, News Group Newspapers. NGN offered “a full and unequivocal apology” to Prince Harry “for the phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators instructed by them” at the News of the World. It will also pay “substantial damages”.
US politics | Donald Trump has threatened Russia with taxes, tariffs and sanctions if a deal to end the war in Ukraine is not struck soon, as the new US president tries to increase pressure on Moscow to start negotiations with Kyiv.
Social media | TikTok’s power to deliver “exhilaration” and the UK’s relationship with China are shaping the UK government’s acceptance of the short video app despite “genuine concerns” about how the data of millions of Britons may be used, the technology secretary has said.
Politics | Campaigners will be blocked from “excessive” legal challenges to planning decisions for major infrastructure projects including airports, railways and nuclear power stations as part of the government’s drive for economic growth.
UK news | A former soldier has pleaded guilty to murdering three women with a crossbow at their home in Hertfordshire last year. Kyle Clifford admitted killing Carol Hunt and her daughters Hannah and Louise in Bushey on 9 July.
Continue reading...Further shooting and explosions reported after 10 killed yesterday as Ayman Safadi tells Davos meeting of fears for territory
After months of negotiations, a ceasefire has paused the devastating war in Gaza, but it risks collapsing as a result of deep distrust between Israel and Hamas and the multi-phased nature of the deal, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Qatar, which mediated the talks along with the US and Egypt, has expressed hope the six-week truce and hostage-prisoner exchange will become permanent. However, that outcome is far from certain with the releases timetabled at a slower pace in comparison with a previous truce agreement.
Continue reading...Communication lines open 24 hours intended to avoid breakdown over reported violations and other issues
Qatari, US and Egyptian negotiators are running a communications hub in Cairo to protect the ceasefire in Gaza, as Donald Trump said he was not confident the break in fighting would hold.
Violations have already been reported. Medics in Gaza said on Monday that eight people had been hit by Israeli fire. The start of the ceasefire was also delayed when Hamas did not provide the names of hostages to be released.
Continue reading...Palestinian health ministry says at least eight killed in operation launched day after Donald Trump lifted sanctions on violent settlers
Israeli security forces have launched an operation in the West Bank city of Jenin, a day after bands of Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians, smashing cars and burning property and the new US president, Donald Trump, announced he was lifting sanctions on violent settlers.
At least eight Palestinians were killed and 35 people were injured, according to the Palestinian health ministry.
Continue reading...Groups call for Benjamin Netanyahu’s arrest and urge Australia to pressure Israel on Palestine just as South Africa was over apartheid
Pro-Palestine protests that have been held every week in Sydney and Melbourne since 7 October 2023 will now switch focus to pressuring the federal government into cutting ties with Israel, organisers have said.
Amal Naser, from the Palestine Action Group (PAG), called the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel a “step forward” for the pro-Palestine movement in Australia, and said the group would now pivot from weekly protests to targeted protests that call for specific policy change in government.
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Continue reading...Ceasefire celebrations replaced by shock and sorrow as people begin to assess the scale of devastation
After the first night in Gaza for more than a year without the sound of drones or bombing overhead following the successful implementation of a ceasefire, people in the besieged Palestinian territory have begun returning to destroyed homes and searching for missing loved ones.
The truce that took effect on Sunday with the release of the first three hostages held by Hamas in exchange for 90 Palestinians from Israeli jails was greeted with euphoria as a large influx of desperately needed aid supplies entered the strip.
Continue reading...