Category Archives: Palestinian Territories

State Library of NSW apologises after guard asked student wearing keffiyeh to leave

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Library says it is ‘deeply distressed’ about incident and ‘does not condone discrimination on grounds of cultural dress’

The State Library of NSW has apologised after a student wearing a keffiyeh was asked to leave by security.

Issuing a public apology, the State Library said it was “deeply distressed” the student was asked to leave by a security guard on Sunday for wearing the keffiyeh.

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Netanyahu tries to avoid coalition implosion over Gaza ceasefire plan

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Israeli prime minister juggles differing demands of partners after Joe Biden announced latest peace proposal

Benjamin Netanyahu is once again trying to balance the demands of centrist and far-right members of his government after a threat from his extremist allies to collapse the coalition if Israel moves forward with a new ceasefire plan for Gaza announced by the US president, Joe Biden.

In an unexpected broadcast from the White House on Friday night, Biden urged Hamas to accept what he said was a new proposal from Israel for a three-phrase plan towards a permanent ceasefire in the nine-month war.

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For Labour, the Gaza crisis is a foreign policy tightrope in waiting

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Starmer’s belief in international law and the rise of Labour Friends of Israel offer clues to potential stance on Palestinian statehood

A snap election, and the certainty that the Gaza crisis will not be resolved by polling day, means Keir Starmer already knows the first foreign policy challenge of his expected premiership.

Even if the peace proposal announced by Joe Biden on Friday is accepted by both Israel and Hamas, something a Labour-run Foreign Office would encourage, vast issues remain concerning the future role of Hamas and Iran in Middle Eastern politics, as well as Israel’s conduct in the conflict, and restoration of faith in the universality of international law.

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Children die of malnutrition as Rafah operation heightens threat of famine in Gaza

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Arrival of Israeli troops in the southern border town has choked aid supplies, as hunger deepens in southern Gaza

Fayiz Abu Ataya was born into war and knew nothing else. Over his first and only spring, in a town stalked by hunger, he wasted away to a shadow of a child, skin stretched painfully over jutting bones.

In seven months of life, he had little time to make a mark beyond the family who loved him. But when his death from malnutrition was reported last week, it sounded a warning around the world about a rapidly deepening crisis in central and southern Gaza, triggered by the Israeli military operation in the southern town of Rafah.

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Students walk out of University of Chicago graduation over Israel policies

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Pro-Palestinian students staged the walkout as school withheld degrees of four seniors pending disciplinary review over protests

Dozens of students protesting Israel’s ongoing military strikes in Gaza walked out of the University of Chicago’s commencement on Saturday as the school withheld the diplomas of four seniors over their involvement with a pro-Palestinian encampment.

The disruption to the rainy two-hour outdoor ceremony was brief, with shouts, boos and calls to “stop genocide”. A crowd of students walked out in between speeches and a demonstration followed the official ceremony. Some chanted as they held Palestinian flags while others donned traditional keffiyehs, black-and-white checkered scarves that represent Palestinian solidarity, over their robes.

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Biden’s botched Gaza ceasefire deal only demonstrates his lack of influence | Julian Borger

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The US president’s announcement on Friday suggested a ceasefire might be close, but Benjamin Netanyahu’s rebuke was swift and decisive

The latest peace plan for Gaza was given a launch worthy of a historic turning point, with the US president delivering remarks directly to camera from the White House state dining room, declaring it finally “time for this war to end”.

Yet even as Joe Biden spelled out the proposal – leading in theory to a permanent end to hostilities, large-scale food deliveries and the start of reconstruction, there was clearly something awry.

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Israel’s opposition leader urges Netanyahu to accept ceasefire proposal

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Israeli PM says his country’s conditions for ending conflict have not changed after US president presented ceasefire plan

Benjamin Netanyahu has reiterated that Hamas must be completely destroyed before Israel will agree to end its war in Gaza, casting doubt on Joe Biden’s announcement of a new Israeli-led ceasefire proposal.

The Israeli prime minister made a rare statement on Saturday, during the Jewish Shabbat, in which he said: “Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.

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Israel’s opposition leader urges Netanyahu to accept ceasefire proposal – as it happened

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At least 36,379 Palestinian people have been killed and 82,407 injured in Israeli strikes on Gaza since 7 October, the Gaza health ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

An estimated 95 Palestinians were killed and 350 injured in the past 24 hours alone, the ministry said.

Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel.

Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place. The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter.

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Biden urges Hamas to accept Israeli plan for Gaza ceasefire: ‘Time for this war to end’

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US president outlines deal that would offer permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal for hostage release and rebuilding effort

Joe Biden has urged Hamas to accept a new peace deal he said Israel has put on the table, offering a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in return for the release of all hostages and the long-term reconstruction of the shattered coastal strip.

“It’s time for this war to end … for the day after to begin,” Biden said, outlining the framework of a three-phase agreement, which he said had been put on the table by the Israeli government.

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New review by UK ministers again finds no reason to stop arms exports to Israel

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Latest three-month period to 24 April includes Israeli strike that killed three workers for British World Central Kitchen

UK government ministers have reviewed a further three months of the IDF’s presence in Gaza and found no reason to suspend arms exports to Israel.

The latest review of evidence examined Israel Defense Forces’ behaviour until 24 April, the Foreign Office said in a statement late on Friday.

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Israel-Gaza war: IDF says its troops have ended operations in eastern Jabaliya – as it happened

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

Here is an extract from a piece about a small group of Israelis stopping settlers obstructing aid trucks, by Lorenzo Tondo and Quique Kierszenbaum in Tarqumiya, with photographs by Alessio Mamo:

At approximately 10.30am on a scorching Monday, a group of five young Israeli settlers arrived at the Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the West Bank, where dozens of aid trucks bound for Gaza were expected.

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‘Solidarity over hatred’: the small band of Israelis stopping settlers obstructing aid trucks

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Peace activists confronting settlers acknowledge they are ‘a minority within a minority’

At approximately 10.30am on a scorching Monday, a group of five young Israeli settlers arrived at the Tarqumiya checkpoint, west of Hebron in the West Bank, where dozens of aid trucks bound for Gaza were expected.

The settlers had received detailed information about the timing, location, and number of trucks that would pass through the checkpoint that morning. What they had not anticipated was that dozens of peace activists had also gathered in Tarqumiya with a specific mission: to prevent the settlers from blocking the vehicles and ensure that the aid continued its journey to Gaza.

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Haunted and uncertain: the story of one Gaza family’s exile in Turkey

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Ahmed Herzallah, his wife and three children have been catapulted into the unknown after fleeing their destroyed home

In the darkened backroom of an Istanbul hotel packed with refugees from Gaza, the light from Ahmed Herzallah’s phone screen illuminates a picture of his destroyed home in Gaza City. The building, with its curved black-and-white striped exterior that wrapped around a street corner, used to be a place for celebration, where the family gathered together for birthday parties, graduation ceremonies or when his sisters visited home at the beginning of each summer.

The apartment building where Ahmed lived with his wife, children, parents, two brothers and their families was often filled with members of their extended family, the sound of singing, and the smell of homemade pastries and maftoul, a stew made of chicken and couscous. But the picture that he displayed on his phone was spliced with another, showing the entire block reduced to rubble. His extended family is now scattered around Gaza or exiled across the globe.

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Israel in effective control of entire Gaza land border after taking Philadelphi Corridor in south

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The IDF says that it is in ‘operational’ control of the buffer zone on Egypt’s border, a move which risks complicating relations with Cairo, amid Rafah offensive

Israel is in effective control of Gaza’s entire land border after taking control of a buffer zone along the border with Egypt, Israel’s military has said, a move that risks complicating its relationship with Egypt.

In a televised briefing on Wednesday, chief military spokesperson Daniel Hagari said Israeli forces had gained “operational” control over the Philadelphi Corridor, using the Israeli military’s code name for the 14km-long corridor along the Gaza Strip’s only border with Egypt.

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How a single comma is allowing Israel to question ICJ Rafah ruling

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Israel is among those arguing that international court of justice directive is ambivalent and far from a blanket order to halt its offensive

Israel has asserted that Sunday’s attack, which set ablaze a crowded refugee camp in Rafah and killed 45 Palestinians, is not in breach of last week’s International Court of Justice ruling – a directive widely seen to have instructed Israel to completely stop its military offensive in the southern Gaza city.

The apparent contradiction reflects a fierce and continuing debate over the ambivalent language of the ruling – and the placing of a single comma in a key sentence.

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‘Bodies everywhere’: the horrors of Israel’s strike on a Rafah camp

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Sheltering displaced Palestinians describe the fear and grief caused by Sunday’s airstrike that killed 35 people

It took nearly half an hour for the first ambulances and firefighters to reach the stretch of blazing tents in the Kuwait peace camp in Rafah on Sunday night. The crowding and rubble that slowed the passage of emergency vehicles fuelled the spread of flames through the temporary homes of the displaced.

Zuhair, a 36-year-old lawyer, had been sitting on a road near his own tent, watching the news with friends as the last glimmers of twilight faded from the sky, when an explosion shook the area at about 8.45pm.

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Israeli campaign against ICC may be ‘crimes against justice’, say legal experts

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International lawyers believe conduct of Israeli intelligence service should be investigated by prosecutor in The Hague

Efforts by Israel’s intelligence agencies to undermine and influence the international criminal court (ICC) could amount to “offences against the administration of justice” and should be investigated by its chief prosecutor, legal experts have said.

Responding to revelations about Israeli surveillance and espionage operations against the ICC, multiple leading international law experts said the conduct of Israeli intelligence services could amount to criminal offences.

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Israel-Gaza war: Turkey’s Erdoğan says ‘spirit of UN dead in Gaza’ – as it happened

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President says ‘UN cannot even protect its own staff’ and hits out at fellow Muslim-majority countries for failing to agree a collective stance

See all of our Israel-Gaza war coverage

Bethan McKernan is Jerusalem correspondent for the Guardian.

The US state department has said that it opposes “threats or intimidation” against members of the international criminal court (ICC) in the wake of the Guardian’s reporting on Israel’s secret “war” of surveillance, hacking and threats aimed at sabotaging The Hague’s Israel and Palestine investigation.

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Dua Lipa denounces ‘Israeli genocide’ in Instagram post

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Singer calls for 88 million followers to ‘show your solidarity with Gaza’ following Israeli attack on Rafah

Pop singer Dua Lipa has condemned the military operations in Gaza, describing them as “Israeli genocide” in an Instagram post to her 88 million followers.

Reposting a graphic from the group Artists4Ceasefire, along with the hashtag #AllEyesOnRafah that has trended in the days following Israel’s bombing of the Palestinian city, she wrote: “Burning children alive can never be justified. The whole world is mobilising to stop the Israeli genocide. Please show your solidarity with Gaza.”

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White House says Israel’s latest actions in Rafah do not cross US red line

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Washington says it is also monitoring Israel’s inquiry into attack on Sunday that killed at least 45 people in Gaza camp

The Biden administration has said recent Israeli operations and attacks in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah do not constitute a major ground operation that crosses any US red lines, adding that it is also closely monitoring an investigation into Sunday’s deadly strike on a tent camp.

Speaking after Israeli tanks were seen near al-Awda mosque, a landmark in central Rafah, the national security council spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters the US was not turning a “blind eye” to the plight of Palestinian civilians.

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