IDF says it has killed Muhammad Mahmoud Najam in attack in southern Lebanon
The Lebanon Health Ministry said one adult and one child were killed in an Israeli strike on southern Lebanon, Haaretz is reporting.
Lufthansa will resume flights to Amman in Jordan and Erbil in Iraq starting 27 August, Reuters is reporting.
Continue reading...Prisoners including Nobel prize winner Narges Mohammadi were reportedly beaten for protesting against a recent execution
There are fears for the fates of women’s rights activists imprisoned in Iran after a surge in executions since the election of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, in July.
At least 87 people were reportedly executed in July, with another 29 executed on one day this month. The mass executions included Reza Rasaei, a young man sentenced to death for his participation in the Woman, Life, Freedom protests.
Human rights organisations fear further executions in the lead-up the second anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in custody and the unprecedented nationwide protests that followed. Amini, who was 22, had been arrested for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code before she died in September 2022.
Continue reading...Three adults and one minor arrested over suspected acts of terrorism against Palestinians, Israeli security services say. This live blog is closed
The crew of a Greek-flagged oil tanker that was attacked in the Red Sea on Wednesday abandoned the vessel and were rescued by the EU’s Red Sea naval mission “Aspides”, an official in the mission told Reuters on Thursday.
The Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea region since November in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
Continue reading...Israeli military says it struck Hamas militant base inside the school but civil defence agency spokesperson says bodies of men and children recovered
Egyptian president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned on Tuesday of the risk of the Gaza war expanding regionally in a way “difficult to imagine” during a meeting with U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken, the Egyptian presidency said.
He added:“The ceasefire in Gaza must be the beginning of broader international recognition of the Palestinian state and the implementation of the two-state solution, as this is the basic guarantor of stability in the region.”
Continue reading...Israeli prime minister says meeting with US secretary of state was ‘conducted in good spirit’ as Blinken says latest push for ceasefire is last opportunity
My life in Gaza was constantly at risk, and I could have been targeted and killed at any moment. Had I stayed, there is every chance that I would’ve been one of the 40,000 Palestinians killed by Israel, of which as many as 17,000 are children, over 11,000 women and 113 journalists like me. A Lancet study even suggests that the Gaza death toll could exceed 186,000.
I had less than 24 hours notice that I was leaving Gaza, but it wasn’t one of those times where I was excited to pack to go on a vacation. It felt like I was living everything my grandpa once lived through during the Nakba in 1948. I left Gaza with a heavy heart, a fake Dolce & Gabbana top, a black jacket and lipstick.
Continue reading...The UK foreign secretary and his French counterpart write in the Observer about their fears over Israel’s escalating tensions with Iran
• It’s never too late for peace in the Middle East – we must break the cycle of violence
There is a rising risk of “full-scale regional war” in the Middle East, the foreign secretary, David Lammy, has warned, amid frantic international efforts to calm tensions with Iran and reach a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas.
With the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, flying into Israel this weekend to push for a deal, Lammy has joined forces with his French counterpart, Stéphane Séjourné, to warn that now is a “perilous moment” for the region in the midst of widespread fears of escalation involving Tehran and allied militias in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Continue reading...Decision-makers on either side of the conflict are biding their time in order to secure the best ceasefire deal
With the most recent round of talks now over, any hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza in the immediate future appear this weekend to have been dashed. There are further discussions scheduled for this week, but these feel more like a desperate attempt to keep the process alive than offering a real chance of peace.
This is not the first time there has been similar disappointment. A dozen or more rounds of mediated negotiations, a UN resolution, pressure from Washington and other powers, and much else has failed to push either the leaders of Israel or Hamas to make the concessions necessary to stop the 10-month-old war.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more about the Israel-Gaza war here
The uncle of three of the people killed in the strike in southern Lebanon early Saturday said they were factory workers who were in their housing accomodation when they were hit. He denied that there were weapons at the facility.
“There was nothing at all like that,” Hussein Shahoud told AP. “There was metal for construction, for building, for all kinds of purposes.”
Continue reading...AI company bans accounts and says operation did not appear to have meaningful audience engagement
OpenAI said on Friday it had taken down accounts of an Iranian group for using its ChatGPT chatbot to generate content meant for influencing the US presidential election and other issues.
The operation, identified as Storm-2035, used ChatGPT to generate content focused on topics such as commentary on the candidates on both sides in the US elections, the conflict in Gaza and Israel’s presence at the Olympic Games and then shared it via social media accounts and websites, Open AI said.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Israel’s reluctance to compromise is under mounting pressure – will Tehran’s intentions change the prospect of peace?
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Good morning. Ten months after Israel’s invasion of Gaza began, the death toll compiled by health officials there has reached 40,000 – one in 50 of the territory’s prewar population. There are thousands more killed by Israeli forces whose bodies have not yet been recovered. Among those known to have died recently are Ayssel and Asser, four-day-old twins killed in an Israeli airstrike along with their mother and grandmother while their father, Mohamed Abuel-Qomasan, was out registering their births.
While a ceasefire is catastrophically overdue for Palestinians in Gaza, there is still no sign that one will soon be agreed. A new round of talks yesterday in Doha with Israel and mediators from the US, Egypt, and Qatar were said to have got off to a “promising start”. They are expected to continue today. But Hamas is not participating.
Contaminated blood | Victims of the contaminated blood scandal will begin receiving compensation before the end of the year, with some entitled to more than £2.5m, the government has confirmed. About 3,000 people who contracted HIV or hepatitis C as a result of the infusions have already registered as potential recipients.
Ukraine | Volodymyr Zelenskiy has claimed Kyiv’s troops have full control over the Russian town of Sudzha, which had a prewar population of 5,000 people and contains infrastructure pumping Russian gas towards Europe. Both Ukraine and Russia claimed advances elsewhere in Kursk region on Thursday.
Education | Pupils achieved the best A-level results in a generation on Thursday, with marks that highlighted the growing gap between the strongest and weakest-performing parts of the country.
Mpox | Sweden confirmed its first case of the more contagious variant of mpox, a viral infection that spreads through close contact, marking the first time it has been found outside Africa. The person was infected while in a part of Africa where there was a large outbreak of the disease.
US news | Five people have been arrested and charged over the death of Matthew Perry, prosecutors said, including the actor’s personal assistant and two doctors. The doctors supplied the Friends actor, who died at his Los Angeles home in October 2023, with a large amount of ketamine, the US attorney Martin Estrada said, and “took advantage of Mr Perry’s addiction issues to enrich themselves”.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed. For more on the Israel-Gaza war, read our full report:
The president of New York’s Columbia University resigned yesterday, citing the toll taken by a “period of turmoil” after she faced scrutiny for her handling of demonstrations at the institution over the Israel-Hamas war, AFP reports.
British-American economist Minouche Shafik is the fourth president of an Ivy League university to step down in the wake of the bitter divisions and anti-war protests that swept campuses across the US.
Continue reading...UK foreign secretary will reportedly meet Benjamin Netanyahu amid increasing tensions with Iran
David Lammy is reportedly planning an imminent trip to Israel amid high tensions with Iran, in an attempt to help avert an escalation of war in the Middle East.
The foreign secretary will meet Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and Israel Katz, the foreign minister, along with Stéphane Séjourné, the French foreign minister, Sky News reported.
Continue reading...Islamist group says it won’t ‘negotiate just to negotiate’, raising fears of Iranian attacks on Israel if no deal is agreed
Hamas appears unlikely to participate in a new round of talks on a Gaza ceasefire deal on Thursday, further eroding hopes of an agreement that might stave off expected retaliatory strikes by Iran against Israel for the killing of a Hamas leader in Tehran last month.
Most observers already had low expectations of the ceasefire talks, with Israel hardening its position in recent weeks and fears that Hamas, now led by its most hardline faction, would offer few concessions.
Continue reading...Arezoo Badri was shot as police attempted to pull her over in the northern city of Noor
A woman is reported to have been left paralysed after being shot by Iranian police who were attempting to stop her car over alleged violations of Iran’s draconian hijab laws.
According to human rights groups and sources inside Iran, Arezoo Badri was driving home in the northern city of Noor on 22 July when the police attempted to pull her over after her car was identified as being on an impoundment list.
Continue reading...Tehran blames the country for killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iranian capital
Iran has rejected western calls not to retaliate against Israel for the killing in Tehran of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, late last month.
“Such demands lack political logic, are entirely contrary to the principles and rules of international law, and represent an excessive request,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanani, said.
Continue reading...Iran has vowed severe response to assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. This live blog is closed
Israel’s military offensive in the Gaza Strip has killed at least 39,929 Palestinians and wounded 92,240 since 7 October the Palestinian enclave’s health ministry said on Tuesday. A total of 32 Palestinians have been killed and 88 wounded in the past 24 hours, the ministry said in a statement.
The Associated Press reports that Israeli strikes in Gaza killed at least 16 Palestinians, including four women and seven children, and orphaned another four children, Palestinian medical officials said Tuesday.
Ten people were killed in a strike late Monday on a house near the southern city of Khan Younis, where Israel ordered mass evacuations in recent days, saying it must act against Palestinian militants.
Nasser hospital, where the bodies were brought, said another four children, including a 5-month-old infant, were wounded. The infant’s parents and their other five children were among those killed. The parents of the other three wounded children were also killed, according to the hospital’s list of casualties. An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies.
A separate strike near Deir al-Balah in central Gaza killed a woman and her twin babies, who were four days old, and their grandmother. Another strike in central Gaza killed a man and his nephew.
An Associated Press reporter counted the bodies at the nearby Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital and spoke to the father of the twins, who had planned to register their birth on Tuesday.
Israel says it tries to avoid harming civilians and blames their deaths on Hamas because its fighters operate in residential areas. The military rarely comments on individual strikes, which often kill women and children.
US says it has prepared for significant attacks by Iran or proxies as Tehran stresses right to respond to assassinations
Iran has insisted on its right to an “appropriate and deterrent response” against Israel as the White House said it had prepared for what could be significant attacks by Iran or its proxies as soon as this week.
The comments come as the US announced it had ordered the deployment of the USS Georgia, a nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine, to the Middle East, amid mounting concern over the determination by Iran and its proxies to retaliate for Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran. Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Bagheri Kani, made the comments to his Chinese counterpart on Monday, according to state media.
Continue reading...US defence secretary Lloyd Austin orders USS Abraham Lincoln strike group to quicken transit to Middle East and deploys guided missile submarine, says Pentagon
A hospital in southern Gaza has received the bodies of 13 people, including a child, who were killed in Israeli strikes on Khan Younis, the Associated Press reports.
The strikes came as Israel has ordered mass evacuations from Gaza’s second-largest city in recent days, claiming Palestinian militants are firing rockets from the area. Khan Younis suffered heavy destruction earlier this year during a major Israeli air and ground offensive.
An AP journalist counted the bodies at the nearby Nasser hospital and saw funeral prayers being held Monday morning.
The dead include a medic who was killed along with two others in a strike on his house, according to the hospital records.
This footage from Gaza City shows the moment an Israeli airstrike hit a house in the suburb of Sheikh Radwan on Sunday. One person was killed and several others were wounded, according to Palestinian medics. According to Reuters, the cameraman who filmed the video said the Israeli army had notified people of a possible strike in the area.
Continue reading...Microsoft appears to confirm that alleged hackers with ties to Iran sent email from ‘account of a former senior adviser’
Donald Trump said that only “publicly available information” had been stolen by a hack of his campaign for the presidency as he pinned the dramatic theft on the Iranian government.
The news of an alleged hack emerged amid reports from the news website Politico that it had begun getting emails from an anonymous account with internal documents from the Trump campaign, including a vetting dossier on his running mate JD Vance.
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here
The death toll from an Israeli air strike on a Gaza City school has risen to 80, Palestinian health authorities said.
The Israeli military acknowledged the strike on the Tabeen school on Saturday morning, claiming it hit a Hamas command centre within the school. Hamas denied having a base at the school.
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