Page 46 - Gaza Conflict

In Davos, Israel's Prez calls ties with Saudi key to ending war in Gaza

Normalising ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a key element of ending the war with Hamas and a gamechanger for the entire Middle East, Israeli President Isaac Herzog said Thursday at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in the Swiss town of Davos. It's still delicate, it's fragile, and it will take a long time, but I think that it is actually an opportunity to move forward in the world and the region towards a better future, Herzog said. It comes days after Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Faisal bin Farhan, said on a Davos panel that the kingdom agreed regional peace includes peace for Israel. He said Saudi Arabia certainly would recognise Israel as part of a larger political agreement. But that can only happen through peace for the Palestinians, through a Palestinian state, he said. US Secretary Antony Blinken also reiterated in a talk at Davos that a pathway to statehood for Palestinians could help improve Israel's security and its relations with other countrie

Israeli army continues strikes in southern Gaza; 16 dead including kids

An Israeli airstrike on a home killed 16 people, half of them children, in the southern Gaza town of Rafah, medics said early on Thursday. The military continued to strike targets in areas of the besieged territory where it has told civilians to seek refuge. There was meanwhile no word on whether medicines that entered the territory Wednesday as part of a deal brokered by France and Qatar had been distributed to dozens hostages with chronic illnesses who are being held by Hamas. More than 100 days after Hamas triggered the war with its October 7 attack, Israel continues to wage one of the deadliest and most destructive military campaigns in recent history, with the goal of dismantling the militant group that has ruled Gaza since 2007 and returning scores of captives. The war has stoked tensions across the region, threatening to ignite other conflicts. More than 24,000 Palestinians have been killed, some 85 per cent of the narrow coastal territory's 2.3 million people have fled their

'Boycott Mcdonald's' trends as UK unit issues statement on Israel-Hamas war

Besides McDonald's, several Western brands have been facing the heat over the issue, including prominent names such as Starbucks, Puma, and Hewlett Packard, among others for their "support for Israel"

Palestinians suffer as about 60K wounded overwhelm remaining doctors: UN

Palestinians are dying every day in Gaza's overwhelmed remaining hospitals which can't deal with the estimated 60,000 injured people and daily arrival of hundreds more hurt in Israeli's military offensive, a UN health emergency expert said on Wednesday, while a doctor with the International Rescue Committee called the situation in Gaza's hospitals the most extreme she had ever seen. The two health professionals, who recently left Gaza after weeks working in hospitals there, described overwhelmed doctors trying to save the lives of thousands of wounded people amid collapsing hospitals that have turned into impromptu refugee camps. The World Health Organisation's Sean Casey, who left Gaza recently after five weeks of trying to get more staff and supplies to the territory's 16 partially functioning hospitals, told a UN news conference that he saw "a really horrifying situation in the hospitals as the health system collapsed day by day. Al-Shifa Hospital, once Gaza's leading hospital wi

Fertiliser subsidy bill to fall up to 34 % to Rs 1.8 trillion this fiscal

The government's fertiliser subsidy bill is likely to decline 30-34 per cent to Rs 1.7-1.8 lakh crore this fiscal due to fall in global prices and lower imports of urea, Union Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Wednesday. Asked about any adverse impact on imports due to problems in Red sea, the minister asserted "there is no shortage of fertilisers in the country". Addressing a press conference, chemicals and fertilizers minister Mansukh Mandaviya highlighted that the urea imports are estimated at 40-50 lakh tonnes this fiscal, lower from around 75 lakh tonnes imported in the previous year, helped by higher domestic production and increased use of nano liquid urea. "Ministry of External Affairs is making necessary interventions and our Navy is giving protection to Indian cargo vessels," Mandaviya told reporters. According to exporters, freight rates have skyrocketed by up to 600 per cent due to the Red Sea crisis which would hurt the world trade. The geopolitical tension around th

Israel-Hamas war: Qatar, France send medicine for hostages in Gaza

A shipment of medicine for dozens of hostages held by Hamas was en route to Gaza on Wednesday after France and Qatar mediated the first agreement between Israel and the militant group since a weeklong cease-fire broke down in November. The medicines will be shipped through Egypt and delivered to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which will then hand them over to Hamas. Qatar said the deal also includes the delivery of additional medicine and humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the besieged coastal enclave. The deal came more than 100 days into a conflict that shows no sign of ending and which has sparked tensions across the Middle East, with a dizzying array of strikes and counterstrikes in recent days from northern Iraq to the Red Sea and from southern Lebanon to Pakistan. In Gaza, Palestinian militants are still putting up resistance across the narrow coastal strip in the face of one of the deadliest military campaigns in recent history. Some 85 per cent of the ...

China calls for Gaza peace talks; Hamas to tell fate of Israeli hostages

Hamas aired video showing three Israeli hostages it is holding in Gaza and urged the Israeli government to stop the offensive against the Palestinian Islamist group and bring about their release

Houthi-fired missile strikes a US-owned vessel off Yemen, raising tensions

The attack on the Gibraltar Eagle, though not immediately claimed by the Houthis, further escalates tensions gripping the Red Sea after American-led strikes on the rebels

Israel cabinet passes amended 2024 budget, allocates $15 bn for war in Gaza

Israel last year approved a two-year budget for 2023 and 2024, but the Gaza war has shaken up government finances, requiring budget changes and additional spending

Right time for Israel to scale back military offensive in Gaza: White House

The White House said on Sunday that it's the right time for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip, as Israeli leaders again vowed to press ahead with their operation against the territory's ruling Hamas militant group. The comments exposed the growing differences between the close allies on the 100th day of the war. Also Sunday, Israeli warplanes struck targets in Lebanon following a Hezbollah missile attack that killed two Israeli civilians an older woman and her adult son in northern Israel. The exchange of fire underscored concerns that the Gaza violence could trigger wider fighting across the region. The war in Gaza, launched by Israel in response to the unprecedented October 7 attack by Hamas, has killed nearly 24,000 Palestinians, devastated vast swaths of Gaza, driven around 85 per cent of the territory's 2.3 million residents from their homes and pushed a quarter of the population into starvation. Speaking on CBS, White House National Security Coun

Netanyahu vows to keep fight against Hamas on as war hits 100-day mark

Israeli statements exposed a growing dissonance between the domestic perception of the timing and goals of the war and increasing international impatience in the face of a deepening crisis in Gaza

EAM Jaishankar, Blinken discuss Red Sea attacks, Gaza, Ukraine war

The United States has welcomed the "increased cooperation" with India in defending freedom of navigation in the Red Sea as the two countries discussed "shared concerns" over the reckless Houthi attacks in the region. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke Thursday and "discussed the United States and India's shared concerns over the reckless Houthi attacks in the southern Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, which threaten the free flow of commerce, endanger innocent mariners, and violate international law". State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller said in a statement that Blinken emphasised the Red Sea is a major commercial corridor that facilitates international trade and "welcomed increased cooperation with India in defending freedom of navigation in the region". Jaishankar and Blinken also discussed the Israel-Hamas conflict, efforts to prevent the escalation and increase the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza. Blinken also

ICJ opens hearing on Israel's 'genocide' in Gaza as toll mounts to 23,200

Gaza war: South Africa has initially asked the ICJ to order an immediate suspension of Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip

Blinken sees path to Gaza peace, reconstruction after his West Asia tour

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrapped up his latest urgent Mideast tour on Thursday in talks with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi as American officials claimed modest success in getting wide regional support for planning for reconstruction and governance in Gaza after Israel's war with Hamas ends. Blinken secured buy-in from previously reluctant Arab and Muslim nations to begin such planning in discussions with the leaders of Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain over the weeklong mission, his fourth to the Middle East since the war began in October. Each country along with Greece, which Blinken also visited pledged to participate in the general planning, although precise contributions have yet to be determined. On our previous trips here, I think there was a reluctance to talk about some of the day-after issues in terms of long-term stability and security on a regional basis, Blinken told reporters at Cairo's airport after his .

Top UN court set to hear S Africa's allegation of Israeli genocide in Gaza

A legal battle over whether Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza amounts to genocide opens Thursday at the United Nations' top court with preliminary hearings into South Africa's call for judges to order an immediate suspension of Israel's military actions. Israel stringently denies the genocide allegation. The case, that is likely to take years to resolve, strikes at the heart of Israel's national identity as a Jewish state created in the aftermath of the Nazi genocide in the Holocaust. It also involves South Africa's identity: Its ruling African National Congress party has long compared Israel's policies in Gaza and the West Bank to its own history under the apartheid regime of white minority rule, which restricted most Blacks to homelands before ending in 1994. Israel normally considers U.N. and international tribunals unfair and biased. But it is sending a strong legal team to the International Court of Justice to defend its military operation launched in the aftermath of the Oct.

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Loss of civilian lives in Gaza war 'clearly unacceptable': India at UNGA

She underlined that India is aware that the immediate trigger was the terror attacks in Israel on October 7, which were shocking and deserve our unequivocal condemnation

US defends veto on Gaza ceasefire, Palestinians demand halt to fighting

The United States defended its veto of a call for the immediate suspension of hostilities in Gaza at a U.N. meeting Tuesday and again faced demands by the Palestinians and many other countries for a cease-fire now in the Israel-Hamas war as well as by a group of rabbis in the gallery. U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood called the Russian-proposed amendment to a Dec. 22 Security Council resolution which it vetoed disconnected from the situation on the ground. The council then adopted a watered-down resolution, with the U.S. abstaining, calling for urgent steps to immediately allow expanded humanitarian aid into Gaza, and to create conditions for a sustainable cessation of hostilities. Wood called it striking that those urging an end to the conflict have made very few demands of Hamas, following its surprise Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel that killed around 1,200 people, to stop hiding behind civilians, lay down its arms, and surrender. And he reiterated ongoing U.S. efforts to ..

Work with moderate Palestinian leaders to rebuild Gaza: Blinken asks Israel

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has called on Israel to work with moderate Palestinian leaders on plans for a post-war Gaza. Israel has so far ruled out calls to allow the internationally recognised Palestinian Authority to govern Gaza and instead talked about maintaining open-ended military control over the territory. The US has said a revitalised authority should return to Gaza. Israel must stop taking steps that undercut the Palestinians' ability to govern themselves effectively, Blinken said Tuesday. The authority was ousted from Gaza when Hamas seized power in 2007. Israel must be a partner of the Palestinian leaders who are willing to lead their people and living side by side in peace with Israel, he added. He said Arab leaders across the region are ready to assist, but only through a regional approach that includes a pathway to a Palestinian state.

Medics, patients flee southern Gaza hospitals as fighting intensifies: WHO

"We are seeing the health system collapse at a very rapid pace," he added, saying that an estimated 600 patients had fled one facility