Category Archives: Palestinian Territories

US-made Gaza pier resumes aid shipments after storm damage

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Repairs complete but security concerns after Israeli operation to free hostages mean food has not yet been distributed

Humanitarian assistance has begun to come ashore in Gaza from a US-made pier once more, two weeks after the short-lived sea corridor was suspended due to storm damage, but security concerns after one of the bloodiest days of the war meant the aid was not distributed.

The head of the World Food Programme (WFP), Cindy McCain, said the food distribution from the pier had been “paused” because she was “concerned about the safety of our people”. An Israeli military operation on Saturday freed four hostages but killed 274 Palestinians and left one Israeli commando dead. McCain told CBS’s Face the Nation programme that two of WFP’s warehouses in Gaza had also been rocketed and a staffer injured.

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‘Like the horrors of judgment day’: Palestinians on Israel’s hostage rescue

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People were shopping in Nuseirat market when the first airstrikes hit. Then hundreds began running

The market in Nuseirat was busy on Saturday morning. Among the crowds were Asia El-Nemer, looking for a pharmacy that still had stock of her sister’s medication, and Ansam Haroun, hoping to find new clothes to lift her daughters’ spirits on the forthcoming Eid al-Adha holiday.

This part of central Gaza had emptied at the start of the year when Israeli troops first moved through, destroying Haroun’s house in an airstrike, but filled up again from May as more than a million people fled north to escape another operation in Rafah.

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Outrage over ‘massacre’ in Gaza as Israel rescued four hostages

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Top EU diplomat says ‘bloodbath must end’ after Israeli attacks killed at least 274, according to Gaza ministry

Israeli attacks in central Gaza killed scores of Palestinians, many of them civilians, amid a special forces operation to free four hostages held there, a death toll that has caused international outrage.

At least 274 Palestinians were killed and 698 wounded in Israeli strikes on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, Gaza’s health ministry said on Sunday. The Israeli military said its forces had come under heavy fire during the daytime operation.

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Hamas claims three hostages died, including US citizen, in Israel raid that killed more than 200 Palestinians – as it happened

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Hamas’ armed al-Qassam Brigades said three hostages were killed in an Israeli military operation on Saturday in which some hostages were freed. This live blog is closed

At least 236 Palestinians were killed in Israel’s raid to free hostages Saturday, Gaza health officials have told the Washington Post.

At al-Awda Hospital, where victims were transported, there were 142 bodies, hospital director Marwan Abu Nasser told the US newspaper. Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital spokesman Khalil al-Degran said over the weekend that the hospital had at least 94 bodies. Hundreds more are believed to be wounded.

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More transparency needed on exports to Israel after Greens ‘exploited’ information vacuum, Labor says

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Defence industry minister says ‘social division and damage’ led government to rethink position on releasing information

The Albanese government has conceded it was forced to release more details about defence exports to Israel by a growing awareness that an information vacuum was being “exploited” and allowing misinformation to spread.

The defence industry minister, Pat Conroy, said the “level of social division and damage to our community has caused us to rethink the level of transparency needed”.

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Outgoing federal Labor MP backs Palestinian-Australian to replace her in Melbourne seat of Calwell

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Maria Vamvakinou announces she will quit politics at next federal poll and throws support behind former adviser Basem Abdo

Veteran Labor MP Maria Vamvakinou has announced she will end her political career at the next federal election and has backed a prominent member of the Palestinian-Australian community to replace her.

Vamvakinou, the member for Calwell in Melbourne’s outer north-west, has told the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, she will step down at the upcoming poll due by the middle of 2025.

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Thousands gather at White House for pro-Palestinian protest

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Police use pepper spray as demonstrators unfurl red banner to symbolize Joe Biden’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza

Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered outside the White House on Saturday to protest Joe Biden’s response to Israel’s ongoing military strikes on Gaza.

Footage posted to social media showed police using pepper spray on protesters, who faced arrest at the mass demonstration.

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Israel rescues four hostages in Gaza, as attacks nearby kill at least 93 Palestinians

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Woman and three men freed from Nuseirat, as EU diplomat condemns ‘reports from Gaza of another massacre of civilians’

Israeli special forces have freed four hostages held in Nuseirat, central Gaza, as Israeli attacks and airstrikes in the same area killed at least 93 Palestinians, including children, local medics said.

The rescue raid was the largest of the war, bringing three men and a woman who were kidnapped at the Nova music festival back to Israel.

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Survivors of Israeli strike on Gaza school describe finding children’s bodies

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Territory’s civil defence chief says more than 40 killed with toll increasing due to lack of medical care

Survivors of an Israeli airstrike on a UN school in central Gaza have described finding children’s bodies that had been torn apart by the blast, as Israeli attacks on the area continued for a second night.

Gaza’s head of civil defence said his teams at al-Sardi school in Nuseirat found only civilians among the dead. Mahmoud Basal said the death toll from the attack was more than 40 and still climbing, because injured survivors could not get proper medical care.

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Israel-Gaza war live: Gaza facing Israeli attacks from land, sea, and air, witnesses report

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Refugee camps under fire across region, according to reports

At least nine Yemeni employees of UN agencies have been detained by Yemen’s Houthi rebels under unclear circumstances, authorities said on Friday, reports the Associated Press (AP). The news agency adds that others working for aid groups are also likely to have been taken.

The detentions come as the Houthis, who seized Yemen’s capital nearly a decade ago and have been fighting a Saudi-led coalition since shortly after, have been targeting shipping throughout the Red Sea corridor over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.

The AP reports that the Houthis have cracked down at dissent in Yemen, including recently sentencing 44 people to death.

Regional officials, speaking to the AP on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to brief journalists, confirmed the UN detentions.

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Keir Starmer expected to push for Palestinian state in Labour manifesto

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Labour policy likely to irritate Israel, whose prime minister reacted angrily when Ireland, Spain and Norway officially recognised Palestine in May

Keir Starmer is planning to use the Labour manifesto to make his strongest commitment yet on Palestinian statehood in a move to shore up the party’s core support on the left, sources have told the Guardian.

People with knowledge of the document say the Labour leader is expected to include a pledge to recognise Palestine before the end of any peace process, and to make sure such a move does not get vetoed by a neighbouring country.

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‘We will not go away’: Israeli demolitions leave Bedouins homeless

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Bedouins erect tents only for Israeli forces to return and dismantle them in Negev village earmarked for clearance

Under the unrelenting heat of the Negev desert, for the fifth time in the last two weeks, Tayaeer Abu Asda has set up an improvised tent, which will serve as a temporary home for his wife and five children for at least the next three days. Abu Asda, 38, a Palestinian Bedouin and truck driver, is one of a group of Bedouins now numbering 500 who have been living for decades in Wadi al-Khalil, a village east of Be’er Sheva, about 12 miles (20km) from Gaza.

In early May, Israeli authorities demolished 350 structures in the community, 47 of them homes, leaving hundreds of children homeless. In the shadow of the conflict in Gaza, the government described this action as “an important move of sovereignty and governance”.

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Israel-Gaza war: dozens reported killed after Israeli strike on UN school in refugee camp – as it happened

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Unrwa chief says 6,000 displaced people were sheltering at school when it was hit and at least 35 have been killed. This live blog is closed

Local authorities report that 37 people have been killed after an overnight Israeli strike on the UN-run Unrwa school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in near Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

Inages from the site show a large number of bodies laid out for burial outside a hospital in Deir al Balah. Unrwa communications director Juliette Touma told Reuters on Thursday that the number of those reported killed in the Israeli offensive on the Nuseirat school is between 35 and 45, but it still cannot confirm the number at this stage, she added.

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Dozens killed in Israeli strike on UN school, witnesses say

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Israel says it targeted Hamas fighters in strike on school where hospital officials say displaced Palestinians were sheltering

Israel bombed a UN school sheltering thousands of displaced Palestinians in central Gaza in the early hours of Thursday morning, killing at least 33 people including 23 women and children, according to hospital records and an eyewitness.

The Israeli military said it targeted “20 or 30” Hamas and Islamic Jihad fighters who had taken part in the 7 October attack and were now using the school as an operations centre. The military spokesperson Lt Col Peter Lerner said he was not aware of any civilian casualties.

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Police arrest student protesters who occupied Stanford president’s office

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Police arrest 13 pro-Palestinian demonstrators who staged occupation of office while roughly 50 others linked arms outside

Police at Stanford University arrested a group of pro-Palestinian demonstrators who had barricaded themselves inside the campus president’s office on Wednesday morning to demand that the school divest from Israel.

A group of about a dozen students staged an occupation of the office of Richard Saller, Stanford’s president, while roughly 50 others linked arms outside, the Stanford Daily reported. The group entered the building around 6am on Wednesday, the final day of classes for the spring quarter, and said they intended to stay until the university met its demands.

The Associated Press contributed

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Starvation already causing many deaths and lasting harm in Gaza, agencies say

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Extreme hunger taking huge toll, say food security reports, regardless of delays to possible declaration of famine

Months of extreme hunger have already killed many Palestinians in Gaza and caused permanent damage to children through malnutrition, two new food security reports have found, even before famine is officially declared.

The US-based famine early warning system network (Fews Net) said it was “possible, if not likely” that famine began in northern Gaza in April. Two UN organisations said more than 1 million people were “expected to face death and starvation” by mid-July.

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Clashes in Jerusalem as thousands of Israelis parade through Muslim quarter

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Fears that Flag Day event will spark more violence, with far-right minister expected to attend and Hamas calling for ‘day of anger’

Thousands of Israeli religious nationalists have paraded through Muslim parts of the Old City of Jerusalem in the annual Flag Day march, an event that threatens to trigger further violence in the Israel-Hamas war.

The march, in which Israelis enter the Muslim quarter through the highly symbolic Damascus Gate and walk to the Western Wall waving the national flag, takes place around sunset on what Israel calls Jerusalem Day, marking the capture and occupation of the eastern half of the city and its holy sites in the war of 1967. Control of Jerusalem is at the centre of the decades-old conflict, and the Israeli takeover is not recognised internationally.

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Netanyahu threatens ‘extremely powerful’ response to Hezbollah attacks

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Israeli PM promises to ‘restore security to the north’ as strikes near border with Lebanon escalate

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has threatened an “extremely powerful” response to attacks by Hezbollah from Lebanon, which have escalated in recent days.

His comments, made during a visit to the city of Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel near the border with Lebanon, came after Hezbollah launched a wave of attacks earlier this week that set off substantial fires, fanned by dry and powerful winds.

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Israel-Gaza war: Israel prepared for ‘strong action’ in north near Lebanon, says Netanyahu – as it happened

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Israeli prime minister tours country’s northern border with Lebanon; gunman wounded after shots fired at US embassy north of Beirut. This live blog is closed

Here are the fuller quotes from Benjamin Netanyahu, who was touring northern Israel near the UN-drawn blue line which has separated Lebanon and Israel since 2000 and said that Israel was prepared for strong action in the region. Earlier this week Israel’s military and emergency rescue teams fought large fires set of by rockets fired into Israel.

Reuters reports Netanyahu said:

Whoever thinks that they can harm us and we will sit idly by is making a big mistake. We are prepared for a very strong action in the north. In one way or another we will restore security to the north.

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