Middle East

When fans saw rapper Macklemore had cancelled an upcoming gig, some of them assumed it was in solidarity with Gaza. But it wasn’t. The gig was in Dubai and he’d cancelled over the war in Sudan, which has already killed tens of thousands of people, left millions more hungry and …

Monday’s walkout comes as the government faces calls to get a deal to free the remaining Gaza captives. Source link

The UN’s World Health Organization says it aims to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza, weeks after the first polio case was detected in the region in 25 years. The rollout relies on a series of localised pauses in fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters. To be effective, the World …

US Central Command says it targeted members of IS leadership in an effort to “disrupt and degrade” the group’s plans. Source link

Ariel Geller’s family was invited for a guided tour of Haifa’s Hecht Museum in Israel, a few days after the four-year-old smashed a rare, 3,500-year-old jar in the museum. The museum told the BBC the crockery dated back to the Bronze Age between 2200 and 1500BC – and was a …

In a statement published on Friday, external, Anera said the transport plan for the aid convoy to Rafah had been co-ordinated and cleared with Israeli authorities and that its agreement with transit company Move One had called for unarmed security guards. “Shortly after departing Kerem Shalom, initial reports indicate that …

Down another shattered street, paved with broken glass and burned pieces of rubble, I hear a voice at the window above me. It turns out to be Umm Yazan. She says the army laid wires from her home to blow up two of the houses opposite – families she has …

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which said on Thursday that it had killed five members of armed groups in Tulkarm, including their local leader. The military did, however, announce that forces had pulled out of the al-Faraa refugee camp near Tubas after completing what it called …

Jenin, the focus of news networks today, has been living through a news blackout. The Palestinian phone network was down for much of the day – lines cut by the Israeli military operation here, the telecoms company said. The resident I speak to says his family still has water and …

Around 1.26m doses of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) are already in Gaza, with 400,000 additional doses set to arrive soon. The campaign will be administered by “the Palestinian Ministry of Health, in collaboration with WHO, UNICEF, UNRWA”. Over 2,000 health and community outreach workers have been …

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres has called on Israel to immediately halt its operation, saying it was “fuelling an already explosive situation”. He urged Israeli forces to “exercise maximum restraint and use lethal force only when it is strictly unavoidable”. The IDF said the five Palestinians were killed after “exchanges …

On Tuesday evening, Under-Secretary-General for Safety and Security Gilles Michaud said in a statement that the UN was determined to stay in Gaza to deliver life-saving aid to Palestinian civilians. But, he noted, “like most Palestinians in Gaza, we are running out of safe spaces for our own staff”. Mr …

They have reportedly sunk two ships and killed at least two crew members in that time. They have claimed – often falsely – that they are targeting ships only linked to Israel, the US or the UK. The Sounion was first hit by gunfire from two small boats last Wednesday, …

It is not known why the ship wanted to dock, but vessels on long journeys tend to stop for supplies, respite or to offload or take on cargo. Last December, Namibia’s neighbour and ally South Africa launched an ongoing case at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) alleging Israel is …

Last week, Israel’s domestic intelligence chief Ronen Bar wrote to ministers warning that Jewish extremists in the West Bank were carrying out acts of “terror” against Palestinians and causing “indescribable damage” to the country. Since the start of the war in Gaza, there has been an acceleration in settlement growth …

The Nur Shams camp has been targeted by the IDF several times in recent months. In April, the Palestinian Red Crescent said 14 people died in a two-day Israeli operation. And in July the IDF bulldozed the camp’s main street. In Monday’s second reported attack near Bethlehem, Palestinian media said …

The spotlight has also fallen on Israel’s religious leaders. Rabbi Eliyahu Mali attracted attention after he gave a talk in March at a conference for Israel’s Zionist yeshivas – Jewish religious schools with a strong belief in the State of Israel. Rabbi Mali is the head of a yeshiva that …

The United Nations says it has had to temporarily suspend its aid operation in the Gaza Strip because of Israeli military evacuation orders in the centre of the Palestinian territory. A senior official told the BBC that its humanitarian staff had been unable to operate on Monday because of safety …

It was the biggest flare-up here since the Gaza war began last October, after Hamas killed 1,200 people in Israel in a single day. Since then, Hezbollah has been trading fire with Israel across their shared border, showing support for its ally Hamas, and proclaiming solidarity with the people of …

Earlier, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, told a cabinet meeting that “what happened today is not the end of the story”. “We are striking Hezbollah with surprising crushing blows,” he said. “Three weeks ago, we eliminated its chief-of-staff and today we thwarted its attack plan.” “Nasrallah in Beirut and [Iranian …