US says Lebanon ceasefire talks making ‘good progress’ – as it happened

US secretary of state and defence secretary express hope of ceasefire in near future as Hamas rules out short-term truce for Gaza

Reuters reports that the Israeli military said on Thursday it had shot down a drone smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory to Israel on Wednesday.

No other information was provided. We will update the blog as more details come in.

Rafael and Lala Goliev … residents of Lod, were arrested after they carried out tasks on behalf of an Iranian cell that recruits Israelis from the Caucasus countries in Israel.”

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US identified 500 cases where its weapons harmed Gaza civilians but hasn’t taken action

Some the incidents might have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources

US state department officials have identified nearly 500 potential incidents of civilian harm during Israel’s military operations in Gaza involving US-furnished weapons, but have not taken further action on any of them, according to three sources, including a US official familiar with the matter.

The incidents – some of which may have violated international humanitarian law, according to the sources – have been recorded since 7 October 2023, when the Gaza war started. They are being collected by the state department’s Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG), a formal mechanism for tracking and assessing any reported misuse of US-origin weapons.

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World must act to prevent ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Gaza, António Guterres warns

Secretary general makes appeal as civilian casualties mount amid intensive Israeli strikes on north

The UN secretary general, António Guterres has warned Israel could carry out the “ethnic cleansing” of Gaza if the international community does not make a determined stand to prevent it.

Guterres made his appeal at a time of mounting civilian casualties from the Israeli bombardment of northern Gaza. A strike on Tuesday in Beit Lahiya district killed at least 93 people, in what the UN said was just one of at least seven “mass casualty incidents” across Gaza in the past week.

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Palestinian student stripped of UK visa after Gaza remarks wins human rights appeal

Home Office failed to show presence of Dana Abu Qamar ‘not conducive to public good’, according to tribunal ruling

A Palestinian student who was stripped of her student visa after remarks she made about the Israel-Gaza war has won a human rights appeal against the Home Office’s decision.

The Home Office failed to demonstrate that the presence of Dana Abu Qamar, 20, was “not conducive to public good” after the law student’s visa was revoked in December 2023, according to a tribunal ruling.

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Middle East crisis: UN security council warns against attempts to dismantle Unrwa – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. For the latest on the Middle East, read our full coverage here.

Under the laws – which will not be implemented for several months – Unrwa could not “operate any institution, provide any service, or conduct any activity, whether directly or indirectly”.

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‘Waiting to die’: Layla Moran raises plight of NHS surgeon who fears for parents in Gaza

Exclusive: Surgeon who treated Lib Dem MP has worked for NHS for 20 years and grew up in the Jabaliya camp

In April, Layla Moran was admitted into hospital for sepsis. For a while, doctors thought antibiotics would clear the infection but it soon became clear she needed surgery. While recovering, a surgeon told her he had removed her appendix. “He told me his name and I was like, ‘Hold on, where are you from?’”

Like Moran, Mohammad is Palestinian. The NHS surgeon grew up in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza and has worked for the health service for 20 years. Moran, the Lib Dem MP for Oxford West and Abingdon, had to remain in hospital for an extra week. During that time, the pair got to know each other.

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Nine days of horror as Israeli offensive on exhausted northern Gaza intensifies

With families too worn out to flee yet again, the death toll in recent strikes is nearing 300

Israel’s recent offensive in northern Gaza has killed more than 700 people in a little over three weeks, with nearly 300 of those deaths, mainly in the north, occurring in the past nine days alone. While it has attempted to justify its renewed focus on the north by claiming it is targeting regrouped Hamas fighters, the intensity of the fighting has caused heavy losses among the 100,000 civilians still living there. Many of them are families who, exhausted by Israel’s multiple forced displacement orders, have chosen to stay in the north.

The Israeli military has repeatedly struck shelters for displaced people across Gaza, saying it is carrying out precise strikes targeting Palestinian militants and has tried to avoid harming civilians. The strikes have often killed women and children. These are the reported deaths in the past nine days:

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Middle East crisis: US concerned by ‘horrifying’ Israeli airstrike that killed at least 93 civilians, including 20 children, in Gaza – as it happened

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Al Jazeera has spoken with the director-general of the Gaza government’s media office, Ismail al-Thawabta, who has said at least 93 people were killed in the Israeli airstrike on northern Gaza’s town of Beit Lahiya. Gaza’s health ministry said earlier today that 60 people were killed in the strike this morning, which hit a residential building housing displaced civilians. Al-Thawabta said that the building Israel attacked housed 200 people. Dozens of people are reported missing and 150 others estimated to be injured. Medics said 20 children were among the dead.

Many of those injured have been rushed to nearby Kamal Adwan hospital inside the Jabalia refugee camp. But the hospital is struggling to treat them as it reportedly has run out of medical supplies and only has two paediatric doctors, with no surgeons. Israeli forces detained dozens of medical staff at the hospital days ago. Dr Hossam Abu Safiya, director of the hospital, told Al Jazeera on Friday that most of the surgeons had been arrested by Israeli troops, meaning urgent surgeries could not be performed.

The UAV (drone) force of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a specific military operation targeting the industrial zone of the Israeli enemy in the Ashkelon region.

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Israeli airstrike on Beit Lahiya kills 93, says Gaza rescue agency

Medical staff and emergency services say those killed in the attack include many women and children

Scores of Palestinians including many women and children have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a crowded apartment building in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya.

Gaza’s civil defence agency said 93 people had been killed and 40 were still missing, as emergency workers dug through the rubble looking for the dead and injured on Tuesday morning. Many of those present at the time of the attack were members of the extended Abu Nasr family.

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Hezbollah elects new leader following Israeli strike that killed Nasrallah

Naim Qassem replaces group’s longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah after he was killed by Israel

Hezbollah has elected its deputy secretary general, Sheikh Naim Qassem, as its new head, ending a month-long leadership vacuum after the group’s long time leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed by Israel.

Since Nasrallah’s death, Qassem has filled in for him, giving a public address earlier this month in which he vowed that Hezbollah would continue fighting Israel in what it described as a war of attrition, despite painful losses.

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Bill Shorten urges Israel to look after Palestinian civilians after Unrwa banned in Gaza

Coalition meanwhile says Australia should divert aid funding away from the UN humanitarian assistance body

Bill Shorten has said Palestinians in Gaza should be “prioritised” and urged Israel to look after civilians at risk after Israel’s parliament voted to ban the UN Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) from Israel and the areas of Gaza, the West Bank and annexed East Jerusalem within 90 days.

Meanwhile, the opposition said the Albanese government should divert the millions of dollars in funding to Unrwa to other more “trusted” humanitarian organisations.

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US calls on Israel to tackle ‘catastrophic humanitarian crisis’ in Gaza

Failure to help improve the situation on the ground could be met by restrictions on US military aid

Israel is not addressing the “catastrophic humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, the US envoy to the United Nations has said as a deadline imposed by Washington looms for the Israelis to improve the situation or face potential restrictions on military aid.

“Israel’s words must be matched by action on the ground,” Linda Thomas-Greenfield told the security council. “Right now, that is not happening. This must change – immediately.”

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Deadly airstrikes reported in Lebanon – as it happened

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The Israeli army told residents in parts of Lebanon’s southern city of Tyre to leave immediately, warning that it would attack Hezbollah targets there.

“Hezbollah’s activities force the (Israeli army) to act against it forcefully,” military spokesperson Avichay Adraee wrote in a post on X that included a map of targeted areas in the coastal city.

Hezbollah’s activities force the IDF to act against it forcefully, as we do not intend to harm you.

You must immediately move out of the area marked in red and head north of the Awali River.

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Israeli parliament votes to ban Unrwa from Israel within 90 days

Lawmakers also voted to declare UN relief agency a terror group, banning any direct interaction with Israeli state

Israel’s parliament has voted to ban the UN relief and works agency (Unrwa) from the country within 90 days, in defiance of US and other international pressure to maintain the largest provider of humanitarian assistance to the country’s Palestinian population.

In a 92-10 vote late on Monday, the Knesset banned the agency, which operates in Israel according to a 1967 treaty, from conducting “any activity” or providing any service inside Israel, including the areas of annexed East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank.

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Israeli prison staff accused of assaulting Marwan Barghouti

Prominent Palestinian detainee, a former high-ranking member of Fatah party, attacked in his cell, say rights groups

Palestinian prisoner rights organisations have accused Israeli prison authorities of “brutally assaulting” Marwan Barghouti, the most prominent Palestinian detainee in Israeli custody.

Prison staff assaulted Barghouti in his solitary confinement cell at Megiddo prison in northern Israel on 9 September, the Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club and a support group for Barghouti said in statements.

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London conference hears UK and Israeli criticism of conduct of Gaza war

Speakers at event call for commitment to a two-state solution and urge Labour government to do more

Criticism of the Israeli government and calls for tolerance and a commitment to a two-state solution were the major themes of an event in London on Sunday organised by the left-leaning Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

The conference, titled Israel After October 7th: Allied or Alone?, featured speakers from across Israeli and UK politics, academia and media. It served in part to show the extent to which some members of the Jewish diaspora have been traumatised not just by the horrors of 7 October but also the response of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

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Israeli strikes in Gaza kill 70 as UN chief calls civilians’ plight ‘unbearable’

One person killed as truck rams into bus stop in Israel, and Benjamin Netanyahu heckled at memorial event

Approximately 70 people have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in the past day, health officials in Gaza said, as Israel’s renewed campaign in the north of the strip shows no sign of slowing despite the revival of ceasefire talks after a three-month-long hiatus.

Separately, one person was killed when a truck rammed into a bus stop in Ramat Hasharon, north of Tel Aviv, on Sunday, in what Israeli police are treating as a suspected terrorist attack. About 40 people were injured to varying degrees, some seriously, and were taken to nearby hospitals, police said.

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Cutting off Unrwa would deeply harm Israel’s reputation, says UK minister

Hamish Falconer says legislation under consideration by Knesset is ‘neither in Israel’s interest nor realistic’

Israel’s reputation as a democracy would be “deeply harmed” if the Knesset pressed ahead with bills this week that would end all Israeli government cooperation with the Palestinian relief agency Unrwa, the UK’s Middle East minister has said.

Hamish Falconer said such a move at a time when the humanitarian crisis in Gaza was catastrophic and worsening would “neither be in Israel’s interest or realistic”.

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Middle East crisis live: two more Palestinian journalists reportedly killed in Gaza; deadly Tel Aviv crash investigated as terrorist attack

One killed and at least 29 injured after truck hits bus stop in Israel; protesters shout ‘shame on you’ as Israeli PM speaks at memorial ceremony for victims of Hamas attack

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has commented on Israel’s airstrikes on Iran, which the IDF said targeted missile factories and other sites near Tehran and western Iran on Saturday morning.

In a speech, Netanyahu said:

The air force attacked throughout Iran. We hit hard Iran’s defence capabilities and its ability to produce missiles that are aimed at us.

The attack in Iran was precise and powerful, and it achieved all its objectives.

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Iran-Israel’s shadow war is out in the open and will only escalate unless causes addressed

Face-to-face military confrontation on each other’s soil has now been normalised

For years, Israel and Iran have waged a “shadow war”, attacking each other indirectly using proxy forces, assassinations, informants, spies and hybrid, non-military covert means. Now this undeclared, largely silent war is undisguisedly out in the open. It’s become a shooting war, it’s noisy, it’s escalating, and there’s no end in sight.

This is not to say Israel’s large-scale, three-wave air assault on Tehran and other targets inside Iran early on Saturday morning means the two enemies are now engaged in all-out conflict. This is not yet the full-scale, region-wide conflagration so many in the Middle East fear. That may be coming, but it’s still in the future.

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