Browsing: Middle East

The World Central Kitchen (WCK) has said they will suspend operations in Gaza following the death of seven of its workers in Israeli air strikes. The WCK says the workers killed were British, Australian, Polish, Palestinian and a dual US-Canadian citizen.

The international food charity said the workers were part of an aid convoy leaving a warehouse in central Gaza.

Israel is set to ban Al Jazeera after the Israeli parliament approved a law giving the government the power to ban broadcasts of TV channels. PM Benjamin Netanyahu said he would “act immediately” to close the Qatari-owned network local office. 

A car bombing targeted a busy market in northern Syria, resulting in the deaths of at least seven people. The attack, which occurred in the town of Azaz in Aleppo province near the Turkish border, also left several others wounded.

The International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations’ highest judicial body, has ordered Israel to take measures to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza, including opening more land crossings to allow food, water, fuel and other supplies into the war-ravaged enclave.

Israeli strikes have killed at least 36 people near the Syrian city of Aleppo, reports say. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) says the targets were weapons stores used by Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. 

A UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories has said there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is “committing the crime of genocide against the Palestinians as a group in Gaza.” 

The White House has confirmed that Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has agreed to reschedule a planned US-Israeli official meeting to discuss a possible operation in Rafah, just days after Netanyahu cancelled the delegation. 

Hamas has said 18 Palestinians have died after trying to retrieve desperately needed aid that was airdropped over northern Gaza. 

Israel claims that the UN resolution, which calls for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, has damaged ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas. 

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, has said that Israel had definitively barred it from delivering aid to northern Gaza, where the threat of famine is highest. 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is in the Middle East discussing post-war plans to govern and secure Gaza. His talks with Arab leaders in Saudi Arabia and then Egypt will focus on what the US calls “an architecture for lasting peace”.

In a recent talk with the BBC, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Gaza’s two million people are experiencing “severe levels of acute food insecurity.” 

The White House says senior Hamas leader Marwan Issa has been killed in an Israeli air strike. 

Israeli forces conducted an overnight raid on al-Shifa hospital in Gaza, reportedly involving tanks and heavy gunfire at the facility. The IDF did not provide prior public notice of its intention to conduct a new operation at al-Shifa.

President Mahmoud Abbas has designated Mohammad Mustafa as the new prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, responsible for governing parts of the occupied West Bank.

Displaced Palestinians in Gaza are to be moved to “humanitarian islands” in the middle of the strip, ahead of any offensive in Rafah, according to the Israeli military. 

The UN has said that a new land route to deliver food to northern Gaza has been used for the first time in three weeks. Six lorries from the World Food Programme crossed via a gate in the Gaza border fence, the Israeli military said. 

UNRWA – the UN agency for Palestinian refugees – has said a member of their staff has been killed and 22 others injured after Israeli forces hit a food distribution centre in Rafah.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said starvation is being used as a weapon of war in Gaza. He said the lack of aid entering the strip was a “manmade” disaster.

An aid ship has set off from a port in Cyprus taking much-needed food to Gaza. The aid ship is carrying almost 200 tonnes of food, travelling via a new sea route, to deliver aid to a population on the brink of famine. 

Gaza aid ship yet to leave Cyprus An aid ship expected to depart for Gaza on Sunday remains in Cyprus. The ship is loaded with…

Initial hopes for a 40-day truce, timed to coincide with the beginning of the Islamic month of Ramadan next week, have not materialised. International pressure to secure a ceasefire has intensified amid growing concerns about a looming famine in the region.

President Joe Biden has unveiled plans for the US military to construct a port in Gaza to get more humanitarian aid to the region by sea.

Around 70% of these homes are slated for construction in Maale Adumim, situated east of Jerusalem, while the remainder will be built in nearby Kedar and Efrat, south of Bethlehem. 

Three crew members lost their lives in a Houthi missile strike on a cargo ship near southern Yemen, according to US officials. This marks the first fatalities caused by the group’s attacks on merchant vessels.