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Hamas and US CIA officials will meet Egyptian mediators on Saturday, according to an Egyptian security sourceIsraeli warplanes have attacked targets in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, after a rocket was launched towards the Ein Hashlosha kibbutz in Israel on Friday, the IDF has said.The Israeli army said in a statement on X, formerly Twitter, that the rocket fell in an area near the border...

Palestinian restauranteur speaks from Bethlehem, where food stalls are sparse as farmlands are under attackFadi Kattan looked forlornly at the stalls inside the Bethlehem vegetable market bearing small quantities of oranges, watermelons and cauliflowers. “This stall should be heaped with products, he said. “And over there should be piles of aubergines and courgettes.”The watermelons from Jenin looked too small for the season, while he...

A senior Hamas official told AFP the group was looking to end the war but had reservations about the ceasefire planThe EU has offered Lebanon a financial package of €1bn (£855m / $1.07bn), European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen said in Beirut on Thursday.The funds would be available from this year until 2027, von der Leyen told a joint news conference with Lebanon’s...

More than a thousand supporters at a pro-Palestine encampment in California face arrest by police, a day after it was attacked by pro-Israel counter-protestersUS campus protests: live updatesWhere are the US college campus protests and what is happening?Tensions are growing at the University of California where hundreds of police in riot gear have gathered after warning pro-Palestinian protesters to disperse or face arrest, a...

Antony Blinken holds two-hour meeting with Netanyahu while Hamas considers ceasefire proposalIsrael’s leaders were under renewed pressure to allow more aid into Gaza on Wednesday after the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, told Benjamin Netanyahu to “accelerate and sustain improvements” seen during recent days in the amount of humanitarian assistance reaching the territory.Humanitarian agencies say that though the number of lorries entering Gaza...

Riyadh seeks more modest agreement with Washington in absence of Gaza ceasefire and Netanyahu resistance to Palestinian stateThe US and Saudi Arabia have drafted a set of agreements on security and technology-sharing which were intended to be linked to a broader Middle East settlement involving Israel and the Palestinians.However, in the absence of a ceasefire in Gaza and in the face of adamant resistance...

Protesters have clashed on the University of California campus in Los Angeles hours after New York police cleared out Columbia encampmentThe occupation of Hamilton Hall came after protesters’ defied a 2pm Monday deadline to abandon their camp at Columbia or face suspension. The university promptly began suspending participating students.Posts on an Instagram page for protest organisers shortly after midnight urged people to protect the...

Egyptian official says group wants clear terms allowing displaced people to return to the north of GazaSee all our Middle East crisis coverageReporting for Al Jazeera from Rafah, Tareq Abu Azzoum has said that Israel appears to have “ramped up airstrikes and land bombardment”. He writes for the news network:Israeli artillery units have been relentlessly pounding the Nuseirat refugee camp – in the northern...

The US president made the comments in a call with Egypt and Qatar’s leaders as Hamas considers its response to the latest ceasefire proposalAl Jazeera is carrying a quote from Hamas spokesperson Osama Hamdan. It quotes him saying:It’s clear from the Israeli paper that they are still insisting on two major issue: they don’t want a complete ceasefire and they are not talking –...

Observation was made by medics contributing a new pain management manual for treating children in conflict zonesChildren being treated in Gaza’s hospitals are “underplaying” pain because it “seems trivial” in the context of the wider conflict, doctors have said.International medics met in Doha, Qatar, on Saturday to discuss plans for a new trauma pain management manual to support professionals treating children in Gaza and...

Pictures released by US central command come after satellite photos showed US navy ship offshore with floating platform being built alongside itSee all of our Israel-Gaza coverageThe US military has released pictures it says show that a pier to help bring more aid into the besieged Gaza Strip is now under construction.The images show what appears to be a large metal construction with workers...

State department says five units mostly from IDF but including at least one police unit responsible for gross violations in West Bank The US has found five units of the Israeli security forces responsible for gross violations of human rights, over incidents in the West Bank before the current Gaza war, the state department has said.The findings come at a time when Israel is...

US secretary of state says Iran is biggest source of instability in region but adds many nations interested in ‘path of greater peace’Biden and Netanyahu speak amid pressure over Rafah and ceasefireAntony Blinken has told a meeting of regional leaders in Riyadh that the most effective way to alleviate humanitarian suffering in Gaza is to secure a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.Speaking in Saudi...

US secretary of state to meet regional leaders after Hamas says it is studying Israel’s latest counterproposalA senior Qatari official has urged both Israel and Hamas to show “more commitment and more seriousness” in ceasefire negotiations in interviews with Israeli media.The interviews with the newspaper Haaretz and the Israeli public broadcaster Kan were published and aired on Saturday evening.If I look at the situation...

Tents, debris and personal items from the Nova festival, where 364 people died on 7 October, form shocking exhibit on Wall StreetWhile New York was preoccupied with student protests over the US’s ­support of Israel’s war in Gaza last week, another aspect of how the city with the largest Jewish population outside Israel is coming to terms with bloodshed in the Middle East was...

Risk-filled mission to escort aid from US-built floating pier into combat zone under consideration in defence ministryBritain’s defence ministry is considering sending troops into Gaza to escort trucks of aid being driven off a giant floating pier built by the US military, a UK defence source has said.The pier is due to be completed next month in the eastern Mediterranean, and then it will...

Islamist group release new video apparently showing two hostages as UN warns famine thresholds will be breached within six weeksHamas has said it is studying the latest Israeli counterproposal regarding a potential ceasefire in Gaza, a day after media reports said a delegation from Egypt had arrived in Israel in an attempt to jumpstart stalled negotiations.The signs of renewed truce talks come as the...

Israeli media reports planned visit, citing unnamed officials, in the wake of stalled talks mediated by Qatar, the US and EgyptSee all of our Israel-Gaza war coverageA premature Palestinian infant, rescued from her mother’s womb by an emergency caesarean section shortly after the woman was killed by an Israeli airstrike, has died, her uncle said Friday.Associated Press reports Rami al-Sheikh said Sabreen Jouda died...

UK and US leaders among those calling for release, as families renew pressure on Netanyahu to restart negotiationsThe leaders of 18 countries including the US and the UK have called on Hamas to free Israeli and dual-national hostages held in Gaza.“The fate of the hostages and the civilian population in Gaza, who are protected under international law, is of international concern,” they said. “We...

Israel says the graves were dug by people in Gaza a few months ago but the corpses had been examined by IDF soldiersHere are some of the scenes in Jerusalem, where people, including Israeli interior security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, have been worshipping during the Passover holiday.Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Rafah for Al Jazeera, states that two people have been killed there by drone strikes....

Israeli prime minister terms pro-ceasefire rallies ‘horrific’ as students demand universities divest from weapons makersThe Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday condemned pro-Palestinian protests at universities in the United States as “horrific”, saying the demonstrations “have to be stopped”, as he categorized students as antisemitic.There’s been rising tensions at campuses across the US as demonstrations began last week after students at Columbia set...

Two reservists brigades mobilised for Gaza missions while rows of tents put up in Khan YounisIsrael appears to be readying to send troops into Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, the only corner of the strip that has not seen fierce ground fighting and where more than half of the Palestinian territory’s population of 2.3 million has sought shelter.The Israeli military said on Wednesday that...

State department says Hamas has changed their demands, but that the US will keep pushing for an agreementSee all our Israel-Gaza war coverageUN rights chief Volker Turk has said he was “horrified” by the destruction of the Nasser and al-Shifa medical facilities in Gaza and reports of mass graves discovered there.The emergency services said yesterday that 73 more bodies had been found at the...

The US secretary of state has rejected the idea that Washington might have a “double standard” when applying US law to allegations of abuses by the Israeli military in Gaza, while suggesting that examinations of such charges are ongoing.“In general, as we’re looking at human rights and the condition of human rights ...