UN rights chief calls on states to challenge Israel over occupation

September 9, 2024 4:44 PM

UN rights chief calls on states to challenge Israel over occupation

The U.N. human rights chief said on Monday that ending the nearly year-long war in Gaza is a priority and he asked countries to act on what he called Israel's "blatant disregard" for international law in the occupied Palestinian territories. Nearly 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza health officials, since Israel unleashed a military campaign in response to cross-border attacks by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, 2023 in which 1,200 people were killed and a further 250 ta...

Israeli forces pull out of Jenin leaving a trail of destruction

September 6, 2024 5:49 PM

Israeli forces pull out of Jenin leaving a trail of destruction

Israeli forces pulled out of the Palestinian city of Jenin on Friday, leaving a mass of damaged buildings and infrastructure, following one of the biggest security operations in the occupied West Bank in months. Road diggers began clearing piles of debris and rubble left by the operation, which involved hundreds of troops and police backed by helicopters and drones entering all areas of the city and the adjacent refugee camp as well as surrounding villages. Thousands of residents were displace...

US charges Hamas leaders over Oct. 7 attack on Israel

September 4, 2024 11:03 AM

US charges Hamas leaders over Oct. 7 attack on Israel

The United States announced criminal charges on Tuesday against Hamas' top leaders over their roles in planning, supporting and perpetrating the deadly Oct. 7 attack in southern Israel. The charges against Yahya Sinwar, the militant group's chief, and at least five others accuse them of orchestrating the Oct. 7 attack, which killed 1,200 people, including more than 40 Americans. That attack triggered an Israeli assault on Gaza that has killed more than 40,800 Palestinians and laid waste to muc...

Israeli attacks in Gaza kill 35 Palestinians but pauses allow third day of polio vaccination

September 4, 2024 10:37 AM

Israeli attacks in Gaza kill 35 Palestinians but pauses allow third day of polio vaccination

Israeli forces killed at least 35 Palestinians across Gaza on Tuesday as they battled Hamas-led militants, Palestinian officials said, but brief pauses in fighting allowed medics to conduct a third day of polio vaccinations for children. Among those killed were four women in the southern city of Rafah and eight people near a hospital in Gaza City in the north, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said. Later on Tuesday, an Israeli airstrike killed nine Palestinians inside a house near Omar ...

Netanyahu resists Biden’s pressure, says Israel must control Gaza’s Philadelphi corridor

September 3, 2024 10:11 AM

Netanyahu resists Biden’s pressure, says Israel must control Gaza’s Philadelphi corridor

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday rejected calls to soften his demand to keep troops in the southern Gazan border area as the price for a ceasefire deal, saying it was vital for Israel to control a key lifeline for Hamas. The issue of the so-called Philadelphi corridor, on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip bordering Egypt, has been a major sticking point in efforts to secure a deal to halt the fighting in Gaza and return Israeli hostages held by Hamas. Hamas has rejected...

Massive protests hit Israel after six hostages killed in Gaza

September 2, 2024 10:10 AM

Massive protests hit Israel after six hostages killed in Gaza

Massive protests swept Israel on Sunday following the death of six hostages in Gaza as frustration mounted over the failure of the country's leadership to secure a ceasefire deal that would free Israeli captives. Crowds estimated by Israeli media to number up to 500,000 strong demonstrated in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and other cities, demanding that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu do more to bring home the remaining 101 hostages, about of a third of whom Israeli officials estimate have died. In...

Israel, Hamas agree to zoned three-day pauses for Gaza polio vaccinations, WHO says

August 29, 2024 11:02 PM

Israel, Hamas agree to zoned three-day pauses for Gaza polio vaccinations, WHO says

The Israeli military and Palestinian militant group Hamas have agreed to three separate, zoned three-day pauses in fighting in the Gaza Strip to allow for the vaccination of some 640,000 children against polio, a senior WHO official said on Thursday. The vaccination campaign is due to start on Sunday, said Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization's senior official for the region. He said the campaign would start in central Gaza with a three-day pause in fighting, then move to southern Gaz...

Israeli hostage Qaed Farhan al-Qadi receives medical care at Soroka Medical Center in Beer Sheva, Israel on August 27, 2024. Photo by Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) /Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images

August 28, 2024 10:38 AM

Israeli military says hostage rescued from Gaza tunnel in ‘complex operation’

Israeli special forces have recovered an Israeli hostage from a tunnel in southern Gaza in "a complex rescue operation", the military said on Tuesday, more than 10 months after he was abducted by Hamas-led gunmen. It said 52-year-old Qaid Farhan Alkadi, a member of the Bedouin community in southern Israel who worked as a security guard on a kibbutz near the Gaza border, had been transferred to hospital and his condition was stable. Military spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Alkadi ...

Israel battles Hamas in Gaza as space for displaced families narrows

August 27, 2024 6:50 PM

Israel battles Hamas in Gaza as space for displaced families narrows

Palestinians displaced by fighting in the Gaza Strip crowded onto the seashore as Israeli forces continued to battle Hamas fighters in central and southern areas, with health officials reporting at least 17 people killed in strikes on Tuesday. Ceasefire talks were continuing in Cairo with little sign of a concrete breakthrough over key issues separating the sides, including future control over two corridors in the Gaza Strip once fighting ends. In recent days, Israel has issued several evacuat...

Israel and Hezbollah in major missile exchange as escalation fears grow

August 26, 2024 10:31 AM

Israel and Hezbollah in major missile exchange as escalation fears grow

Hezbollah launched hundreds of rockets and drones at Israel early on Sunday, as Israel's military said it struck Lebanon with around 100 jets to thwart a larger attack, in one of the biggest clashes in more than 10 months of border warfare. Missiles were visible curling up through the dawn sky, dark vapour trails behind them, as an air raid siren sounded in Israel and a distant blast lit the horizon, while smoke rose over houses in Khiam in southern Lebanon. On Sunday evening, sirens sounded i...