2 hours ago Middle East crisis live: 20 killed in Gaza overnight with strike on ‘humanitarian zone’ among deadly attacks

Palestinian medics say strikes included one which hit a tent camp in al-MawasiLebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, has begun a tour of military positions in the country’s south, almost a month after a ceasefire deal that ended Israel’s assault on the country.The truce came into effect on 27 November and prohibits Israel from conducting offensive military operations in Lebanon, while requiring Lebanon to prevent armed groups including Hezbollah from launching attacks on Israel. It gives Israeli troops 60 days to withdraw from south Lebanon. Mikati’s tour comes after the Lebanese government expressed its frustration over ongoing Israeli strikes and overflights in the country. “We have many tasks ahead of us, the most important being the enemy’s (Israel’s) withdrawal from all the lands it encroached on during its recent aggression,” he said after meeting with army chief Joseph Aoun in a Lebanese military barracks in the southeastern town of Marjayoun. “Then the army can ca...

Events

5 hours ago Middle East crisis live: Israel orders closure of one of last functioning hospitals in northern Gaza

Head of Kamal Adwan hospital says it is ‘next to impossible’ to obey shut down order due to lack of ambulances to evacuate patientsThe UN agency for Palestinian Refugees, Unrwa, has been planning all year for winter in Gaza, but the aid it was able to get into the territory is “not even close to being enough for people,” Louise Wateridge, an agency spokesperson, said as many of the near 2 million Palestinians displaced by Israel’s war struggle to protect themselves from the wind, cold and rain.Unrwa distributed 6,000 tents over the past four weeks in northern Gaza but was unable to get them to other parts of the Strip, including areas where there has been fighting. About 22,000 tents have been stuck in Jordan and 600,000 blankets and 33 truckloads of mattresses have been sitting in Egypt since the summer because the agency doesn’t have Israeli approval or a safe route to bring them into Gaza and because it had to prioritise desperately needed food aid, Wateridge said.In the early ho...

Politics

22 hours ago Middle East crisis: families scavenging for food scraps in Khan Younis, says Unrwa

‘Every day we see people scavenging through trash looking for food or material to burn for warmth,’ says UN agency spokespersonTurkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, has met with Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al Sharaa - also known as Abu Mohammed al-Golan - in Damascus, Turkey’s foreign ministry has said. No further details were provided. Fidan said yesterday that Turkey will do “whatever it takes” to ensure its security if the new Syrian administration cannot address Ankara’s concerns about US-allied Kurdish groups it views as terrorist groups (see post at 10.32 for more details). Fidan also said that the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, led by al Sharaa and which swept into Damascus to topple Assad early this month, had “excellent cooperation” with Ankara in the battle against Islamic State and al-Qaeda in the past through intelligence sharing.Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the newswires from Gaza: Continue reading...

Society

28 hours ago Middle East crisis: Israeli strikes kill 28 Palestinians in Gaza – live updates

The strikes came a day after Pope Francis condemned the bombing of children in Gaza as ‘cruelty’Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli airstrikes overnight and early this morning have killed at least 28 Palestinian people. Civil agency spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said at least 13 people were killed in an airstrike on a house in Deir al-Balah – a town in central Gaza – belonging to the Abu Samra family.Bassal said that eight people, including four children, were killed in the attack on the Musa Bin Nusayr school, which had been repurposed as a shelter for Palestinians displaced by the war. Bassal said an overnight Israeli airstrike killed three people in the southern city of Rafah, and a drone strike this morning hit a car in Gaza City, killing four people.They (Israeli forces) have been using heavy artillery and detonating explosive devices that had been planted in the areas surrounding the hospital, preventing and impeding the movement of ambulances, as well as that of people seek...

Events

29 hours ago At least 17 Palestinians killed as Israeli forces attack Gaza school and hospital

Pope Francis condemns killing of children in Gaza as ‘cruelty, not war’

Events