Category Archives: Palestinian Territories

Huge crowds expected at pro-Palestine march ahead of Labour conference

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Protesters in Liverpool to call on government to implement full arms embargo against Israel over Gaza war

The UK’s first pro-Palestine national march to be staged outside London is expected by organisers to attract tens of thousands of people on the periphery of the Labour party conference in Liverpool.

The 19th “national march for Palestine” will start at midday on Saturday near Lime Street railway station and end near King’s Dock, where Keir Starmer’s party is gathering this weekend.

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Israeli soldiers filmed pushing bodies of Palestinians off West Bank roof

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IDF says its is reviewing the incident, which took place during a raid in the town of Qabatiya

Israeli soldiers have been filmed pushing three apparently lifeless bodies from a rooftop during a raid in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, in the latest in a series of suspected violations by Israeli forces since the start of the Israel-Hamas war that rights groups say show a pattern of excessive force toward Palestinians.

The incident took place in the town of Qabatiya in the northern West Bank, where the Israeli military has been carrying out large-scale raids since late August that the Palestinian health ministry says have killed dozens of people.

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Australia abstains from UN vote on occupation of Palestine after ‘disappointment’ with resolution’s scope

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The Australian ambassador to the UN said Australia supported many of the principles of the resolution that called on Israel to end the occupation of the Palestinian territories

Australia “abstained with great disappointment” on a United Nations general assembly resolution that called on Israel to end the occupation of the Palestinian territories within 12 months, the Australian ambassador said.

Despite casting an abstain vote on Thursday morning, the Australian ambassador to the UN, James Larsen, said Australia “supports many of the principles of this resolution” and was “already doing much of what it calls for”.

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UN members back resolution directing Israel to leave occupied territories

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General assembly votes overwhelmingly in favour of Palestinian resolution after ICJ ruling in July

In a symbolic step exposing Israel’s continued international isolation, the UN general assembly has voted overwhelmingly to direct Israel to leave the occupied Palestinian territories within a year.

The non-binding vote follows a historic advisory ruling in July by the international court of justice (ICJ) urging Israel to cease “its unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territory as soon as possible and stop all settlement activity there immediately”.

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Death toll in Lebanon walkie-talkie explosions rises to 20, with more than 450 injured – Middle East crisis as it happened

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Local Palestinian media is reporting that a 17-year-old child has been killed by Israeli security forces near Ni’lin, west of Ramallah, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The claims have not been independently verified.

Overnight Israel’s military announced the deaths of four soldiers.

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At least 16 killed in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, Palestinian officials say

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Five women and four children said to be among dead with strike hitting residential building in crowded Nuseirat camp

At least 16 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes across central Gaza on Sunday night and Monday morning, including five women and four children, Palestinian health officials have said.

Rescuers said an airstrike early on Monday destroyed a residential building in the densely populated Nuseirat refugee camp in the heart of central Gaza, killing at least 10 people, including four women and two children.

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Columnists quit Jewish Chronicle over Gaza stories based on ‘fabrications’

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David Baddiel and Jonathan Freedland among those to resign over articles by former IDF soldier Elon Perry

A number of prominent columnists have resigned in protest from the Jewish Chronicle after allegations it printed articles about the Gaza conflict that were based on “wild fabrications”.

The weekly title, the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper, is facing calls for an investigation after it deleted nine articles by Elon Perry because of doubts over their accuracy and concerns he had misrepresented his CV.

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Netanyahu tells Houthis they will pay ‘heavy price’ as missile hits Israel

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Rebel group claims what would be first missile to have landed in Israel from Yemen, but no reports of casualties

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has warned Yemen’s Houthi rebels will pay a “heavy price” after the group claimed its first ballistic missile strike on Israel and its leader warned of bigger attacks to come.

The missile – claimed by the Houthis as an advanced surface-to-surface hypersonic missile – triggered air sirens across the country at about 6.30am, and local media aired footage of people racing to shelters at Ben Gurion international airport south-east of Tel Aviv. According to reports, it hit an open area in the Ben Shemen forest, causing a fire near Kfar Daniel. There were no reports of casualties or damage.

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‘The war has stolen our future’: Gaza children begin second school year without education

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Small initiatives are trying to maintain some learning, but resources are scant and many children are put to work

Every evening, for two hours, Asma Mustafa sits down with the small children of Nuseirat camp in central Gaza for what now passes as school in the beleaguered strip. She makes do with what is available: sometimes there are pens and paper for basic maths and literacy, but most of the time class time is taken up with storytelling, singing and play.

“I have been doing this since November,” said Mustafa, 38, who taught at a girls’ high school in Gaza City before the war. “Many children are now working or helping their families find basic things like food during the day, but I try to give them a little bit of structure and normality in the evenings.”

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Israel-Gaza war: UN worker killed in West Bank during Israeli operation – as it happened

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The Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) disaster risk management teams, in cooperation with the Palestine Ministry of Social Development, distributed food parcels to 11,000 families in Gaza and North Gaza governates, the humanitarian organisation shared on X.

“This effort aims to alleviate the ongoing suffering of citizens due to the worsening humanitarian situation in the northern part of the [Gaza] Strip, caused by the shortage of food supplies as the Israeli occupation continues to block the entry of humanitarian aid,” the PRCS wrote on Friday.

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Israel’s prime target: the hunt for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar

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Motivated pursuers using advanced technology and brute force have yet to pin down their cautious quarry. Would his death or capture stop the war?

A group of Israel hostages were huddled in a tunnel in Gaza a few days after they had been dragged from their homes on 7 October, when the man who had plotted their abduction appeared out of the subterranean gloom.

His hair and beard were grey and his dark-ringed eyes stared out from under thick black brows. It was a face familiar to them from a thousand broadcasts and newspaper stories: Yahya Sinwar. The Hamas leader in Gaza was the most feared man in Israel, even before he ordered the October raid in which 1,200 people – two-thirds of them civilians – were killed and 250 taken hostage.

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Pro-Palestine protester cleared of racial offence over ‘coconut’ placard

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Marieha Hussain had denied her placard depicting Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman was racially abusive

A teacher who held a placard depicting Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as coconuts has been found not guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence.

Marieha Hussain, 37, had denied the prosecution’s allegation that the placard she held at a pro-Palestine protest was “racially abusive”.

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Israel seeking to close down Unrwa, says agency’s chief after school bombing

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Philippe Lazzarini says closure would have ‘devastating consequences’ and calls for investigation into deadly strike

A campaign is under way to drive the UN relief agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, out of existence, its commissioner general has said, days after 18 people were killed when Israeli jets bombed an Unrwa school in Gaza.

Philippe Lazzarini said in an interview that the Israeli government was seeking to close down the agency, having failed to persuade western donors to stop funding it on the grounds of allegations about links between Unrwa staff and Hamas.

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Body of activist killed by Israeli forces in West Bank returns to Turkey

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Second autopsy to be performed on Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi before funeral in her family’s home town

The body of the slain Turkish-American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi has landed in Istanbul to continue to its final resting place in her family’s home town on the Aegean coast, with the coffin carried by a procession of Turkish honour guard soldiers.

An autopsy report conducted in the Israeli-occupied West Bank town of Nablus lists Eygi’s cause of death as a brain haemorrhage after a bullet penetrated her skull, as the 26-year-old attended a pro-Palestine protest in nearby Beita.

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Israeli forces mischaracterised events leading to fatal shooting of US activist, says Washington Post

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Protests in West Bank village had subsided half an hour before IDF shot Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, says report

Israeli security forces mischaracterised the events that led up to the fatal shooting of a Turkish-American protester in the West Bank, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.

The Israel Defense Forces claimed that their soldiers were targeting the leader of a violent protest when they shot Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old member of the International Solidarity Movement who had come from her native Washington state to Israel to protest against settlements in the West Bank.

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Aid not reaching Gaza, say relief groups as ‘more than a million go without food’

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Medical supplies, toothbrushes and shampoo also remain stuck in backlog of lorries unable to enter from Egypt

Relief groups have said more than 1 million people in Gaza will not have enough food this month, while trucks loaded with fresh vegetables or meat spoil waiting to cross Israeli checkpoints, and thousands of aid packages of food, medical supplies and even toothbrushes and shampoo remain stuck in a backlog of lorries unable to enter from Egypt.

“We estimate that over a million Gazans will go without food in September,” said Sam Rose, a senior deputy director of UN’s relief agency for Palestinians (Unrwa), in Gaza. “Over half the medicines in our health centres are running low, as is chlorine for water purification and other basic supplies.”

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Israel-Gaza war: killing of Unrwa workers by Israeli strike ‘appalling’, says UK foreign minister – as it happened

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Syrian media is reporting that in addition to killing two people in a drone strike on a vehicle inside Syria, Israeli forces have also shelled the Syrian town of Al-Rafid in the south-east of the country, close to territory controlled by Israel.

The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said that Israeli attacks have killed at least 34 people and injured 96 over the past 24 hours in the territory.

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Hundreds gather on a Seattle beach to remember US activist killed by Israeli military

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Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was killed while protesting against West Bank settlements, though a witness says she posed no threat

For her 26th birthday in July, human rights activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi gathered friends for a bonfire at one of her favorite places, a sandy beach in Seattle where green-and-white ferries cruise across the dark, flat water and ospreys fish overhead.

On Wednesday night, hundreds of people gathered on the same beach in grief, love and anger to mourn her. Eygi was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers last Friday in the occupied West Bank, where she had gone to protest and bear witness to Palestinian suffering.

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Six UN aid workers among 18 killed in Israeli strike on Gaza school

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Unrwa says attack on school sheltering refugees in Nuseirat led to highest death toll among its staff in a single incident

Israel has bombed a UN school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza, killing at least 18 people, including the shelter manager and five other Unrwa staff.

The al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat is home to about 12,000 displaced people, mostly women and children, the UN said. It has been hit five times since the start of the war in Gaza.

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