The World Health Organization says it has only three days of fuel for its medical operations in southern Gaza, with shortages already forcing one of three remaining hospitals in the city of Rafah to shut down. The Rafah border crossing with Egypt has been closed since Israel's military took control of the Palestinian side early Tuesday, blocking the entry of desperately needed humanitarian aid. The U.N. says northern Gaza is already in a state of full-blown famine. Israel said it reopened Kerem Shalom crossing, the other main entry point for aid, on Wednesday. U.N. officials say no aid has entered Gaza, and there is no one to receive it on the Palestinian side because of ongoing fighting. The war in Gaza has driven around 80% of the territory's population of 2.3 million from their homes and caused vast destruction to apartments, hospitals, mosques and schools across several cities. The death toll in Gaza has soared to more than 34,500 people, according to local health officials. Th
Yemen's Houthi rebels on Thursday claimed two missile attacks in the Gulf of Aden on two Panama-flagged container ships that caused no damage, while also saying they targeted a ship in the Indian Ocean in a previously unreported assault. The claims by Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree come as the tempo of the rebel attacks have waned in recent weeks as they've been targeted by repeated airstrikes launched by a U.S.-led coalition warship in waterways crucial to international trade. The Houthis insist their assaults will continue as long as Israel's war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip goes on. Saree in a prerecorded statement claimed attacks on the MSC Diego and MSC Gina. The Joint Maritime Information Center, a U.S.-led coalition of nations operating in the Mideast, said those two missile attacks happened early Tuesday. "Neither were hit and all crew on board are safe," the center said. The vessels were last reported proceeding to next port of call. The center added that the vessels were likely ...
Izzat El-Reshiq, a member of Hamas' political office in Qatar, said in a statement late on Wednesday that the group would not go beyond a ceasefire proposal
Biden administration likely to deliver verdict this week on whether Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and restrictions on aid delivery violate international and US laws
Turmoil on campuses began after the Oct 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, which is designated a terrorist organisation by the US, and the Jewish state's retaliatory response in Gaza
Police cleared a pro-Palestinian tent encampment at the University of Chicago on Tuesday after administrators who had initially adopted a permissive approach said the protest had crossed a line and caused growing concerns about safety. University President Paul Alivisatos acknowledged the school's role as a protector of freedom of speech after officers in riot gear blocked access to the school's Quad but also took an enough-is-enough stance. The university remains a place where dissenting voices have many avenues to express themselves, but we cannot enable an environment where the expression of some dominates and disrupts the healthy functioning of the community for the rest, Alivisatos wrote in a message to the university community. Tensions have continued to ratchet up in standoffs with protesters on campuses across the U.S. and increasingly, in Europe nearly three weeks into a movement launched by a protest at Columbia University. Some colleges cracked down immediately on ...
Hamas announced Monday it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal, but there was no immediate word from Israel, leaving it uncertain whether a deal had been sealed to bring a halt to the seven-month-long war in Gaza. It was the first glimmer of hope that a deal might avert further bloodshed. Hours earlier, Israel ordered some 100,000 Palestinians to begin evacuating the southern Gaza town of Rafah, signalling that an attack was imminent. The United States and other key allies of Israel oppose an offensive on Rafah, where around 1.4 million Palestinians, more than half of Gaza's population, are sheltering. An official familiar with Israeli thinking said Israeli officials were examining the proposal, but the plan approved by Hamas was not the framework Israel proposed. An American official also said the US was still waiting to learn more about the Hamas position and whether it reflected an agreement to what had already been signed off on by Israel and international ...
The Israeli offensive took place as mediators struggled to secure a ceasefire agreement between Israel and its Hamas foes and as the conflict entered its 8th month
There are no safe zones in Gaza, EU's top diplomat Josep Borrell told journalists
US State Department still believes Israel-Hamas truce agreement is 'absolutely achievable'
A Monday deadline for pro-Palestinian protesters to leave an encampment at Massachusetts Institute of Technology cleared many demonstrators only to have the site retaken while protesters at the Rhode Island School of Design began occupying a building in the ongoing protest movement connected to the Israel-Hamas war. At MIT, protesters were given an afternoon deadline in which to voluntarily leave the protest site or face suspension. Many left, according to an MIT spokesperson, who said protesters breached fencing after the arrival of demonstrators from outside the university. On Monday night, dozens of protesters remained at the encampment in a calmer atmosphere, listening to speakers and chanting before taking a pizza dinner break. Sam Ihns, a graduate student at MIT studying mechanical engineering and a member of MIT Jews for a Ceasefire, said the group has been at the encampment for the past two weeks and that they were calling for an end to the killing in Gaza. Specifically, our
The Hamas militant group says it has accepted an Egyptian-Qatari cease-fire proposal to halt seven-month war with Israel. It issued a statement Monday saying its supreme leader, Ismail Haniyeh, had delivered the news in a phone call with Qatar's prime minister and Egypt's intelligence minister. The two Middle Eastern nations have been mediating months of talks between Israel and Hamas. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
Israel's government has ceased operations of Qatar-based network Al Jazeera in the country. Reacting to the ban, Al Jazeera said that it was a “criminal act”, and critics called it a 'dark day
A delegation of the Palestinian militant group Hamas was in Cairo on Saturday as Egyptian state media reported noticeable progress in cease-fire talks with Israel, though an Israeli official downplayed the prospects for a full end to the war in Gaza. Pressure has mounted to reach a deal halting the nearly 7-month-long war. A top UN official says there is now a full-blown famine in northern Gaza, while Israel insists it will launch an offensive into Rafah, the territory's southernmost city on the border with Egypt, where more than 1 million Palestinians are sheltering. Egyptian and US mediators have reported signs of compromise in recent days, but chances for a cease-fire deal remain entangled with the key question of whether Israel will accept an end to the war without reaching its stated goal of destroying Hamas. Egypt's state-owned Al-Qahera News TV channel said Saturday that a consensus had been reached over many disputed points but did not elaborate. Hamas has called for a ...
Brown University, the liberal Ivy League institution, agreed this week only to hold a board vote this fall on whether its $6.6 billion endowment should divest from any Israeli-connected holdings
The support for Israel in Europe and the US is not as unshakable as it may seem
Dror Or, a 49-year-old held captive in Gaza, has died, the Hostages Families Forum said Friday. Or marks the 38th hostage killed, the forum said. He was one of about 250 people abducted when Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people, mostly civilians. Israel says militants still hold around 100 hostages and the remains of more than 30 others. Dozens of people demonstrated Thursday night outside Israel's military headquarters in Tel Aviv, demanding a deal to release the hostages. Meanwhile, Hamas said it would send a delegation to Cairo as soon as possible to keep working on cease-fire talks. A leaked truce proposal hints at compromises by both sides after months of talks languishing in a stalemate. Across the United States, tent encampments and demonstrations against the Israel-Hamas war have spread across university campuses. More than 2,000 protesters have been arrested over the past two weeks as students rally against the war's death toll and call f
Law enforcement on the UCLA campus donned riot gear on Wednesday evening as they ordered the dispersal of over a thousand people who had gathered in support of a pro-Palestinian student encampment, warning over loudspeakers that anyone who refused to leave could face arrest. A small city sprang up inside the barricaded encampment, full of hundreds of people and tents on the campus quad. Some protesters prayed as the sun set over the campus, while others chanted we're not leaving or passed out goggles and surgical masks. They wore helmets and headscarves, and discussed the best ways to handle pepper spray or tear gas as someone sang over a megaphone. A few constructed homemade shields out of plywood in case they clashed with police forming skirmish lines elsewhere on the campus. Meanwhile, a large crowd of students, alumni and neighbours gathered on campus steps outside the tents, sitting as they listened and applauded various speakers and joined in pro-Palestinian chants. A small ..
According to reports, Egypt has revived stalled negotiations between the Israel-Hamas for a ceasefire agreement, thereby pushing crude oil prices lower.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Wednesday announced his government will break diplomatic relations with Israel effective Thursday in the latest escalation of tensions between the countries over the Israel-Hamas war. Petro again described Israel's siege of Gaza as genocide. He previously suspended purchases of weapons from Israel and compared that country's actions in Gaza to those of Nazi Germany. Tomorrow, diplomatic relations with the State of Israel will be broken for having a genocidal president, Petro said during an International Workers' Day march in Colombia's capital. If Palestine dies, humanity dies, and we are not going to let it die. Israel's Foreign Minister Israel Katz quickly rebuked Petro's comments on the platform X. History will remember that Gustavo Petro decided to side with the most despicable monsters known to mankind who burned babies, murdered children, raped women and kidnapped innocent civilians, he said. Weeks after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southe