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Category: War

China challenges West on Gaza by offering Palestinians a new platform

China challenges West on Gaza by offering Palestinians a new platform

Middle East Eye reports: As 14 Palestinian leaders lined up for a photograph in Beijing on Tuesday, they each made sure to shake hands afterwards with one man: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Tuesday’s Palestinian unity talks, where an agreement for a post-war Gaza framework was signed, were an opportunity for China to provide a rival platform to Israel and its western allies on the future of Palestine and the Middle East. “China’s major goal is to gain consent and…

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WHO ‘extremely worried’ about possible Gaza polio outbreak

WHO ‘extremely worried’ about possible Gaza polio outbreak

BBC News reports: The World Health Organization is “extremely worried” about the possibility of an outbreak of the highly infectious polio virus in Gaza after traces were found in wastewater. Dr Ayadil Saparbekov, head of the WHO’s team in the Palestinian territories, told reporters a risk assessment was being implemented and that in the meantime health workers were providing protection advice to Gaza’s 2.3 million population. But, he added, it would be “very difficult” for people to follow it, given…

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Lebanese journalist wounded by Israeli strike carries torch at Olympics

Lebanese journalist wounded by Israeli strike carries torch at Olympics

The New Arab reports: A Lebanese photojournalist who was severely wounded during an Israeli strike on south Lebanon carried the Olympic torch in Paris to honour journalists wounded and killed in the field on Sunday. The torch relay, which started in May, is part of celebrations in which about 10,000 people from various walks of life were chosen to carry the flame across France before the Games opening ceremony on 26 July. Christina Assi of Agence France-Presse was among six journalists struck by Israeli shelling on 13 October while reporting on…

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We volunteered at a Gaza hospital. What we saw was unspeakable

We volunteered at a Gaza hospital. What we saw was unspeakable

Mark Perlmutter and Feroze Sidhwa write: In the United States we would never dream of operating on anyone without consent, let alone a malnourished and barely conscious 9-year-old girl in septic shock. Nevertheless, when we saw Juri, that’s exactly what we did. We have no idea how Juri ended up in the Gaza European Hospital preoperative area. All we could see was that she had an external fixator — a scaffold of metal pins and rods — on her left…

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Israel confirms airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Hodeidah port

Israel confirms airstrikes targeting Yemen’s Hodeidah port

Middle East Eye reports: The official spokesperson for the Houthis, Nasruddin Amer, described the Israeli airstrike on the oil tanks and power facility at Hodeidah port as “a brutal act of aggression against Yemen aimed at worsening the suffering of its people and pressuring Yemen to halt its support for Gaza.” The Israeli military announced that it carried out strikes on the Red Sea port city of Hodeidah in Yemen earlier on Saturday. In a post on X, Amer dismissed…

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For 18 years she worked in the U.S. government. Then came the war on Gaza

For 18 years she worked in the U.S. government. Then came the war on Gaza

  For 18 years, Hala Rharrit worked in the US State Department, most recently becoming its Arabic-language spokesperson. But the Biden administration’s response to Israel’s war on Gaza forced her to resign in April, becoming the first US diplomat to quit in protest over the US’s Gaza policy. In this wide-ranging Real Talk interview, Rharrit reveals what went on behind the scenes, how her Gaza reports were received by US officials, and why she ultimately decided to resign.

The hidden ties between Google and Amazon’s Project Nimbus and Israel’s military

The hidden ties between Google and Amazon’s Project Nimbus and Israel’s military

Wired reports: On April 16, police entered Google offices in New York and California to detain several employees protesting a $1.2 billion cloud contract with Israel’s government called Project Nimbus. The deal, shared with Amazon, has met pushback from some employees at both companies since 2021, but the protests have grown louder since Israel’s renewed conflict with Hamas after the attacks of October 7, 2023. Current and former Google and Amazon workers protesting Project Nimbus say it makes the companies…

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Deceive, defy, and defer: Netanyahu’s time-tested strategy to outmaneuver Biden

Deceive, defy, and defer: Netanyahu’s time-tested strategy to outmaneuver Biden

Lev Grinberg writes: Watching President Joe Biden clumsily debate Donald Trump on June 27, many Israelis could instantly recognize how their own prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been able to exploit the weaknesses of the aging commander-in-chief for so long. Netanyahu has had a close relationship with his “friend Joe” for decades, going back to Biden’s days in the U.S. Senate and especially during the early years of the Barack Obama administration. According to Biden’s biographer Evan Osnos, the then-vice…

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Why researchers fear the Gaza death toll could reach 186,000

Why researchers fear the Gaza death toll could reach 186,000

Mona Chalabi writes: Even if Israel’s bombing campaign were to stop, the death toll in Gaza is expected to soar. A letter published in the medical journal the Lancet claims that the final figure could eventually be about 186,000. Written by scientists who model how war affects health, the letter lays out the importance of an accurate count – and the difficulty of achieving one. For the past nine months, Israeli forces have waged an intense military campaign that has…

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Mustafa Barghouti: Israel’s goal is total ethnic cleansing

Mustafa Barghouti: Israel’s goal is total ethnic cleansing

  A panel of United Nations independent experts has accused Israel of engaging in a campaign of starvation and genocide in Gaza as the effects of the famine are being felt across Gaza. Palestinian physician and activist Mustafa Barghouti says “what we see today is a purposeful act of starvation” and that the real intention of the Israeli government has never changed. “Their main goal is the total ethnic cleansing of all of Gaza people and all of the Gaza…

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U.S. and Germany foiled Russian plot to assassinate CEO of arms manufacturer sending weapons to Ukraine

U.S. and Germany foiled Russian plot to assassinate CEO of arms manufacturer sending weapons to Ukraine

CNN reports: US intelligence discovered earlier this year that the Russian government planned to assassinate the chief executive of a powerful German arms manufacturer that has been producing artillery shells and military vehicles for Ukraine, according to five US and western officials familiar with the episode. The plot was one of a series of Russian plans to assassinate defense industry executives across Europe who were supporting Ukraine’s war effort, these sources said. The plan to kill Armin Papperger, a white-haired…

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A Gaza cease-fire agreement appears within reach

A Gaza cease-fire agreement appears within reach

David Ignatius writes: The breakthrough came recently, when Hamas relented on its demand for a written guarantee on a permanent end to the fighting. Instead, it accepted the reassuring language of a U.N. Security Council resolution, passed last month, affirming the U.S.-negotiated deal. Here’s the key passage: “If the negotiations take longer than six weeks for phase one, the ceasefire will still continue as long as negotiations continue,” the U.N. resolution says. American, Qatari and Egyptian mediators would “work to…

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U.S. officials say Russia is unlikely to take much more Ukrainian territory

U.S. officials say Russia is unlikely to take much more Ukrainian territory

The New York Times reports: Russia is unlikely to make significant territorial gains in Ukraine in the coming months as its poorly trained forces struggle to break through Ukrainian defenses that are now reinforced with Western munitions, U.S. officials say. Through the spring and early summer, Russian troops tried to take territory outside the city of Kharkiv and renew a push in eastern Ukraine, to capitalize on their seizure of Avdiivka. Russia has suffered thousands of casualties in the drive…

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‘I’m bored, so I shoot’: The Israeli army’s approval of free-for-all violence in Gaza

‘I’m bored, so I shoot’: The Israeli army’s approval of free-for-all violence in Gaza

+972 magazine reports: In early June, Al Jazeera aired a series of disturbing videos revealing what it described as “summary executions”: Israeli soldiers shooting dead several Palestinians walking near the coastal road in the Gaza Strip, on three separate occasions. In each case, the Palestinians appeared unarmed and did not pose any imminent threat to the soldiers. Such footage is rare, due to the severe constraints faced by journalists in the besieged enclave and the constant danger to their lives….

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Israeli government accused of trying to sabotage Gaza ceasefire proposal

Israeli government accused of trying to sabotage Gaza ceasefire proposal

The Guardian reports: The Israeli government has been accused of attempting to sabotage a US-backed ceasefire proposal, according to Israeli media, by introducing new demands despite previously accepting the plan. Hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza had risen in recent days following reports that Hamas had given initial approval for a new proposal for a phased deal, after ninth months of war since the attack on 7 October. Egyptian officials and representatives of Hamas said the Islamist militant organisation had…

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Israeli army ordered ‘Hannibal Directive’ on Oct. 7, Haaretz reports

Israeli army ordered ‘Hannibal Directive’ on Oct. 7, Haaretz reports

The New Arab reports: The Israeli military ordered the “Hannibal Directive” on 7 October, according to a report in the Israeli media on Sunday. The “Hannibal Directive” is a military protocol where Israeli soldiers would kill captives and their captors to stop enemies from being able to use Israeli citizens as bargaining chips. The directive dates back to the 1980s but was revised after Hamas members abducted a soldier in 2006. While it officially does not allow soldiers to kill…

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