Israels

António Guterres, the Secretary-General of the United Nations, has called Israel’s ‘targeted strike’ on Hamas officials in Doha a ‘flagrant violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Qatar.’

An unofficial tribunal led by former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn accused the UK of aiding Israel’s war crimes and being complicit in genocide. Its findings carry no legal weight, but the testimonies of those who witnessed the suffering in Gaza have been stark.

The United Arab Emirates warned Wednesday that Israel’s annexation of the occupied West Bank would cross a “red line,” and end “the vision of regional integration,” Anadolu reports.

“Annexation would be a red line for my government, and that means there can be no lasting peace,” Emirati Special Envoy Lana Nusseibeh told The Times of Israel news outlet.

“It would foreclose the idea of regional integration and be the death knell of the two-state solution,” she said.

In 2020, the UAE signed US-sponsored agreements with Israel to normalize their relations. Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco also followed suit.

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said early Wednesday that Israel plans to annex 82% of the occupied West Bank to prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state.

“Israeli sovereignty will be applied to 82% of the territory,” Smotrich, the leader of the far-right Religious Zionism Party, told a press conference in Jerusalem.

The far-right minister called the West Bank annexation “a preventative step” against moves by many countries to recognize Palestinian statehood.

READ: Russia urges Israel to abandon E1 settlement plan, warning it threatens two-state solution

Several countries, including Belgium, France, the UK, Canada, and Australia, announced plans to recognize Palestinian statehood during the upcoming meetings of the UN General Assembly on Sept. 8-23, joining 147 nations that already do.

On Aug. 20, Israel approved a major settlement project, called E1, which aims to split the occupied West Bank into two parts, cutting off the northern cities of Ramallah and Nablus from Bethlehem and Hebron in the south and isolating East Jerusalem.

The international community, including the UN, considers the Israeli settlements illegal under international law. The UN has repeatedly warned that continued settlement expansion threatens the viability of a two-state solution, a framework seen as key to resolving the decades-long Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

In an advisory opinion last July, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

READ: Israel launches 2nd phase of offensive to occupy Gaza City

Israel is rewriting the rules of the game in the Middle East, not through diplomacy, peace treaties, or multilateral negotiations, but by deploying advanced military tools such as drones, guided missiles, cyberattacks, and cross-border intelligence operations. This aggressive approach, often justified under the banner of “self-defense,” goes beyond defense in practice and has resulted in a violent reconfiguration of the region’s political geography. While the United States should strategically focus on containing China, competing in technology, and maintaining dominance in the Asia-Pacific, Israeli policies have dragged Washington into a quagmire of costly and unending conflicts in the Middle East. This situation has not only undermined regional stability but has also jeopardized America’s global standing. Furthermore, this fragmented and chaotic Middle East demands greater energy and resources from the U.S., offering an opportunity for other actors to exploit this disorder to expand their influence.

Israel and the Violent Redesign of Middle Eastern Geography

Over the past decade, Israel has significantly altered its approach to perceived security threats. Rather than relying on diplomatic tools or classical deterrence, it has embraced a strategy that can best be described as a violent redesign of the Middle East’s geography. This strategy includes a combination of targeted assassinations, precision bombings, sophisticated cyberattacks, and deep intelligence operations inside neighboring countries. While the stated objective is to neutralize threats from actors like Iran, Hezbollah in Lebanon, resistance groups in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen, and Palestinian resistance movements, the actual result has gone far beyond defense, raising fundamental questions about the territorial sovereignty of other nations in the region. 

    Israel’s repeated strikes on targets in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon, and most recently inside Iran, have not only violated national sovereignty but rendered traditional red lines—defined by international treaties—virtually meaningless. These actions send a clear message to the region: in the new Middle East order, borders are no longer defined through diplomatic agreements but by military power and the flight paths of drones and missiles. What we are witnessing today in the Middle East surpasses traditional conflicts or conventional warfare. Israel is creating a new missile-based order in which the rules of engagement are dictated not by negotiations or international treaties, but by military and technological superiority. In this new order, drones and guided missiles have become tools for rewriting the region’s political and military boundaries. Although this strategy is ostensibly designed to secure Israel, it has in practice contributed to the growing instability across the region.

    The message of this new order to regional actors is unmistakably clear: deterrence is no longer achieved through diplomacy or conventional state armies. In the absence of coordinated responses from regional governments, non-state resistance groups have emerged as the only effective counterforce to these aggressions. Groups like the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Kata’ib Hezbollah in Iraq, and Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza—despite their ideological and political differences—share one common goal: resisting Israel’s military and intelligence dominance. This decentralized, networked resistance has posed an unprecedented challenge to Israel. Unlike traditional wars fought in defined battlefields with clear enemies, these confrontations lack both fixed timelines and geographic clarity. Even Israel’s most advanced defense systems, such as the Iron Dome, face limitations in confronting these diffuse and asymmetric threats.

A Geopolitical Challenge for Washington

The strategic and political alignment between the United States and Israel has elevated this from a regional crisis to a global challenge for Washington. At a time when the U.S. should be allocating its resources to compete with China, secure maritime routes in the Asia-Pacific, protect Taiwan, and drive technological innovation, it is now forced to spend a significant share of its time, resources, and international credibility managing the fallout of Israeli policies. America’s unwavering support for Israel, from advanced arms sales to diplomatic cover at the UN Security Council and intelligence cooperation, has made it an active partner in this new missile order. Every Israeli strike on Iranian, Lebanese, Syrian, or Iraqi territory, directly or indirectly, implicates the United States. Israel’s recent attacks on Iran, Syria, Yemen, and deep inside Iraq have compelled Washington to again bolster its military presence in the region. The more America is drawn into managing Middle Eastern crises, the less it can concentrate on global rivalries, especially with China.

    This dynamic is particularly costly at a time when the U.S. is attempting to rebuild its image among countries of the Global South. Across the Islamic world—from North Africa to Central Asia—Israeli actions are viewed not as defensive, but as acts of aggression and occupation. Since the U.S. stands fully behind Israel, this animosity is directly projected onto Washington. Even America’s traditional allies in the Persian Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE, are now distancing themselves from U.S. favoritism and moving toward engagement with other powers like China and Russia.

    One of the most consequential outcomes of this new missile order is the shift in regional discourse. Whereas peace and negotiation were once regarded as primary means of conflict resolution, power now defines the regional order. Through its actions, Israel has demonstrated that the rules of engagement are no longer based on international agreements or even traditional diplomatic norms but on military and technological capability. This shift has not only militarized the region further but also placed the United States in a difficult position. While Washington tries to present itself as a mediator for peace and a guardian of global stability, its unconditional support for Israel has severely tarnished that image.

    Some analysts in Washington may still argue that Israel is America’s first line of defense in the Middle East. However, that view—rooted in Cold War logic—no longer aligns with the geopolitical realities of the 21st century. If this “defense” leads to expanded conflict zones, intensified regional hostilities, and a stronger axis of resistance, it can no longer be considered a strategic asset. Israel has become a liability that holds American geopolitics hostage. The costs of this situation are multifaceted: military costs to sustain a regional presence; political costs from losing credibility in international institutions; missed opportunities in competing with China; and the growing influence of other powers in the security vacuum of the Middle East.
    The fundamental question for American policymakers is this: is the United States prepared to sacrifice its 21st-century geopolitical future for unconditional loyalty to a single ally? However strategically important Israel may be, it cannot alone justify America’s deviation from its global priorities. It is time for Washington to redefine its support for Israel—not based on historical habit or domestic pressures, but grounded in long-term national interest. This redefinition could include pressuring Israel to return to diplomacy, scale back aggressive actions, and strengthen regional cooperation. Without such a shift, Israel’s new missile order will not only further destabilize the Middle East but also place the United States on a trajectory where the costs far outweigh the benefits.

Hundreds of Palestinians have fled Gaza City, piling their few remaining possessions onto pick-up trucks and donkey carts as Israel’s deadly bombings and forced displacement campaign intensifies in the area.

Families fleeing the Israeli military’s relentless bombardment have begun setting up makeshift tents amid miserable conditions in an area west of central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, to the south of Gaza City near Deir el-Balah.

Most of them have been forced to leave their homes more than once.

“We are thrown in the streets, like what would I say? Like dogs? We are not like dogs. Dogs are [treated] better than us,” Mohammed Maarouf, 50, told The Associated Press news agency, standing in front of his tent.

Maarouf and his family of nine had already been displaced from the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. “We have no homes. We are on the streets,” he said.

Ahmad Saadeh, originally from Beit Hanoon, also in Gaza’s north, told AP that Palestinians were suffering from hunger, sickness and a lack of shelter in the coastal enclave, where famine was confirmed earlier this month.

“We suffer from many things,” he said. “We suffer that our children are ill.”

Israeli forces have carried out a sustained bombardment on Gaza City since early August as part of a deepening push to seize the city and displace about one million Palestinians living there.

On Friday, the Israeli military said it had begun the “initial stages” of its offensive, declaring the largest urban centre in the territory a “combat zone”.

The new operation could forcibly displace one million Palestinians to concentration zones in southern Gaza, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned.

At least 71 Palestinians were killed in Israeli attacks across Gaza on Saturday, hospital sources told Al Jazeera.

Of that, 41 people were killed in Gaza City alone, including at least 11 Palestinians who were killed while queueing for bread from ovens serving communities of displaced people.

At least seven Palestinians also were killed in a series of Israeli attacks on a residential apartment block in a densely populated area of the city. Rescuers were seen digging through the rubble to retrieve bodies and try to find any survivors.

“The Israeli army has been intensifying its attacks across Gaza City. Homes and community centres have been reduced to rubble, eroding the foundations of civilian life in the area,” Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud reported.

“This is happening while people are going through famine, enforced starvation and dehydration. Things are leading to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis.”

The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Saturday also questioned Israel’s plans for a forced mass expulsion.

“It is impossible that a mass evacuation of Gaza City could ever be done in a way that is safe and dignified under the current conditions,” ICRC President Mirjana Spoljaric Egger said in a statement, describing the plan as “not only unfeasible but incomprehensible”.

Yet while Israel’s push to seize Gaza City has drawn international condemnation, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has shown no signs of halting the military offensive.

Gideon Levy, a columnist with Israeli news outlet Haaretz, told Al Jazeera that Israel’s overarching plan for Gaza amounts to ethnic cleansing.

“The plan is to push all the inhabitants of Gaza out of their houses, then lock them in those concentration camps and then give them two choices, either to live in those camps forever or to leave the Gaza Strip,” Levy said.

Describing the Israeli government’s policy as “outrageous”, Levy added that Israel will only halt its offensive if US President Donald Trump decides that “enough is enough” and applies pressure on the country.

The US has provided Israel with billions of dollars in military assistance since its war on Gaza began in October 2023. Washington has also shielded its top ally from calls for accountability at the UN and other international arenas.

In February, Trump suggested removing all Palestinians from Gaza – a plan that would amount to ethnic cleansing, a crime against humanity.

Revolutionary guards say suspects apprehended in northeastern Iran as materials for making weapons are also seized.

Iran has arrested eight people suspected of attempting to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures during the country’s 12-day war with Israel and the United States to the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, according to its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The IRGC released a statement on Saturday alleging that the suspects had received specialised training from Mossad via online platforms.

It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.

The news comes as state media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the June conflict, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.

Following an Israeli military bombardment that began on June 13, killing top military officials and scientists as well as hundreds of civilians, Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities.

The US also carried out extensive strikes on Israel’s behalf on Iranian nuclear sites during the conflict, the worst blow to the Islamic republic since its 1980s war with Iraq.

During the 12-day war, Iranian security forces began a campaign of widespread arrests accompanied by an intensified street presence based around checkpoints and “public reports”.

Iranian citizens were called upon to report on any individuals they thought were acting suspiciously during the war that ended in a US and Qatar-brokered ceasefire.

Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist who was killed in Israeli air strikes.

Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.

The Israel-US-Iran conflict has also led to an accelerated rate of deportations for Afghan refugees and migrants believed to be illegally in Iran, with aid agencies reporting that local authorities have also accused some Afghan nationals of spying for Israel.

“Law enforcement rounded up 2,774 illegal migrants and discovered 30 special security cases by examining their phones. [A total of] 261 suspects of espionage and 172 people accused of unauthorised filming were also arrested,” police spokesperson Saeed Montazerolmahdi said earlier this month.

Montazerolmahdi did not specify how many of those arrested had since been released.

He added that Iran’s police handled more than 5,700 cases of cybercrimes such as online fraud and unauthorised withdrawals during the war, which he said had turned “cyberspace into an important battlefront”.

Hamas condemns far-right Israeli Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s remarks as ‘an official call to exterminate’ Palestinians.

Far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has called for Israel to annex the Gaza Strip if Hamas refuses to disarm, the latest push by an Israeli official to forcibly displace Palestinians and take complete control of the coastal enclave.

During a news conference on Thursday, Smotrich said if Hamas does not agree to surrender, disarm and release Israeli captives, Israel should annex a section of Gaza each week for four weeks.

He said Palestinians would first be told to move south in Gaza, followed by Israel imposing a siege on the territory’s north and centre regions, and ending with annexation.

“This can be achieved in three to four months,” said Smotrich, describing the measures as part of a plan to “win in Gaza by the end of the year”.

The far-right minister’s annexation push comes as the Israeli army has advanced deeper into Gaza City in an effort to seize the city and forcibly displace about one million Palestinians living there.

Israel’s intensified attacks on Gaza City have been widely condemned, with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warning last week that the campaign would cause “massive death and destruction”.

Meanwhile, Gaza City and the surrounding areas continue to experience famine as Israel continues to block food, water and other humanitarian aid from entering the Strip.

“Famine is no longer a looming possibility; it’s a present-day catastrophe,” Guterres said on Thursday.

“People are dying of hunger. Families are being torn apart by displacement and despair. Pregnant women are facing unimaginable risks, and the systems that sustain life – food, water, healthcare – have been systematically dismantled.”

Israel and its Western allies have long been pushing for Hamas to lay down its weapons, insisting that the Palestinian group cannot be involved in any future governance of Gaza.

Hamas rejected Smotrich’s remarks on Thursday, saying they represent “an official call to exterminate our people” as well as “an official admission of the use of starvation and siege against innocent civilians as a weapon”.

“Smotrich’s statement is not an isolated extremist opinion, but rather a declared government policy that has been implemented for nearly 23 months” of Israel’s war on Palestinians in the enclave, Hamas said in a statement.

“These statements expose the reality of the occupation to the world and confirm that what is happening in Gaza is not a ‘military battle’ but rather a project of genocide and mass displacement,” the group added, urging the international community to hold Israeli leaders accountable.

During his news conference, Smotrich called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to adopt his annexation plan “in full immediately”.

Netanyahu did not comment publicly on Smotrich’s remarks. But the Israeli leader has alluded to a plan for Israel to “take control of all Gaza” and send troops to reoccupy the entire enclave.

Israel’s military has for weeks been issuing forcible evacuation notices to Palestinians in so-called “combat zones” to relocate to southern Gaza.

Smotrich, a major backer of Israel’s settler movement who himself lives in an illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank, has expressed support for re-establishing illegal settlements in the Gaza Strip that were dismantled in 2005.

He and other far-right members of Netanyahu’s governing coalition also have voiced staunch opposition to efforts to reach a deal to end Israel’s war on Gaza, threatening to topple the government if an agreement is reached.

BRITAIN must ramp up missile defences – like Israel’s Iron Dome – or risk its nuclear bases being obliterated in the first hours of a war with Russia.

Moscow would target RAF jets and Royal Navy nuclear submarines if it launched a surprise attack, a report by the Rusi think tank has warned.

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A pre-emptive strike could “cripple” Britain’s nuclear deterrent and conventional military power – as most of the UK’s best weapons are “concentrated on just a few sites”.

The report warned a single Russian Yasen-class submarine could launch 40 cruise missiles from the Norwegian Sea with “relatively low warning”.

Yet the UK lacks both the radars to detect them “skimming over the sea” – or the weapons to shoot them down.

The report’s author Sidharth Kaushal said the immediate threat comes from sub-sonic Russian cruise missiles which can be launched from planes and submarines.

By 2035 the main risk will come from intermediate range ballistic missiles, like the Oreshnik blasted at Ukraine last year.

By 2040 the UK will need to defend against “hypersonic glide vehicles” which can travel at 20 times the speed of sound.

He also warned short range drones could be smuggled close to targets and launched from sea containers – like Ukraine’s Operation Spiders Web – or launched by Spetznaz special forces.

Kaushal said calls for a British Iron Dome were warranted by Russia’s focus on “long-range conventional precision strike” weapons.

He said: “The initial priority is the expansion of its capacity for the defence of critical military installations against what is primarily a cruise missile threat.”

The report urged Keir Starmer to buy space based sensors and long range radars that can see 3000km away, the equivalent of Lands End to Moscow.

He said “long-range precision strikes” was central to Kremlin military doctrine.

He said: “The destruction of aircraft on the ground is particularly salient. The destruction of nuclear attack submarines that carry submarine-launched cruise missiles is also described as a priority.”

Russian targets would likely the Royal Navy Bases at Devonport and Clyde and RAF Marham in Norfolk, where the nuclear capable fleet of F-35 stealth jets is based.

It comes after RAF war games showed Britain would be overwhelmed if it faced a Russian missile attack like the first night of the war in Ukraine.

Air Commodore Blythe Crawford said: “It was not a pretty picture.”

The drills suggested bases would be blown to smithereens and £100 million fighter jets could get blitzed before they could hide.

Air Cdre Crawford, who was head the RAF’s Air and Space Warfare Centre at the time, said it showed the UK “home base” was no longer safe.

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The drills used a £36 million wargaming system to test the UK’s responses to “hundreds of different types of munitions” attacking from multiple different directions.

It exposed multiple vulnerabilities including a chronic shortage of airfields and a lack of hardened shelters for protect and hide jets on the ground.

The government sold off scores of airfields and watered-down the RAF’s powers to commandeer civilian runways.

The Armed Forces rely on RAF Typhoons, which scramble from RAF Lossiemouth, to shoot down incoming drones and cruise missiles.

The only British missiles that could intercept Russian ballistic missiles are based onboard the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers.

Air Cdr Crawford warned Britain had got lax by standing at the edge of Europe and “feeling as though the rest of the continent stood between us and the enemy”.

He said: “Ukraine has made us all sit up.” The government announced last week it was buying six more launchers to for its Sky Sabre air defence systems.

The weapons, used by the Royal Artillery, can shoot down targets the size of a tennis ball at two times the speed of sound.

An independent commission of inquiry investigating violations of international law in the occupied Palestinian territory has warned it cannot continue its work.

Severe funding shortages are derailing the body established by the United Nations’ Human Rights Council in 2021.

The United States withdrew from the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year. Still, it continues to owe about $1.5bn in outstanding fees to the UN.

What, then, is the impact on this commission in the face of rapidly increasing Israeli settler violence and the illegal expansion of settlements in the occupied West Bank?

Presenter:

James Bays

Guests:

Andrew Gilmour – Former UN assistant secretary-general for human rights

Sari Bashi – Human rights lawyer and founder of Gisha, an Israeli human rights organisation

William Schabas – Professor of international law at Middlesex University and a former chairperson of the Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza Conflict

Israel made the claim after Australia’s PM said Iran directed two attacks on a Jewish community, which Tehran denies.

Australia has dismissed a claim that Israeli interventions prompted the government of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese to expel Iran’s ambassador to Canberra, after the premier blamed Tehran for directing anti-Semitic attacks in Sydney and Melbourne.

“Complete nonsense,” Australian Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke told ABC Radio on Wednesday, when asked about Israel claiming credit for Australia’s decision to order Tehran’s ambassador, Ahmad Sadeghi, to leave the country.

Albanese said on Tuesday that Australia had reached “the deeply disturbing conclusion” through “credible intelligence” that found Iran’s government had “directed” at least two attacks against Australia’s Jewish community.

Responding to a question from the ABC about Australia’s allegations against Iran, Israeli government spokesperson David Mencer had commended Australia for taking “threats seriously” against the Jewish community, which he said had come after a “forthright intervention” from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mencer said Netanyahu had “made very forthright comments about the [Australian] prime minister himself”, which spurred Albanese to action.

“He made those comments because he did not believe that the actions of the Australian government had gone anywhere near far enough to address the issues of anti-Semitism,” Mencer added.

The ABC included Mencer’s comments in an article titled: “Israeli government claims credit for pushing Albanese to expel Iranian diplomats.”

Netanyahu last week accused Albanese of being “a weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”, days after Albanese announced Australia would move to formally recognise a Palestinian state in September.

Iran said it “absolutely rejected” Australia’s accusations regarding the attacks and noted that the claims had come after Australia had directed “limited criticism” at Israel.

“It seems that this action is taken in order to compensate for the limited criticism the Australian side has directed at the Zionist regime [Israel],” Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said.

“Any inappropriate and unjustified action on a diplomatic level will have a reciprocal reaction,” Baghaei said.

Ilana Lenk, the spokesperson and head of public diplomacy at Israel’s embassy in Canberra, shared Australian newspaper front pages with headlines including, ‘Iran attacks us’ and ‘Iran targets Bondi deli’, in a post on social media.

“We warned Iran wouldn’t stop with Israel or the Jewish people. The West is next isn’t just a slogan, and today Australia sees it,” she wrote.

In a statement, the Jewish Council of Australia said it was “shocked to learn of the Iranian government involvement in coordinating antisemitic attacks”.

“The fact that a foreign government appears to be responsible shows how irresponsible it was for the attacks to be used to demonise the Palestine solidarity protest movement ,” the council said in a statement.

“We call on politicians and the media to exercise caution and to avoid politicisation of these attacks in a way that could further harm the Jewish community,” the statement added.

A European Union spokesperson said Israel’s attack on Gaza’s Nasser Hospital, which killed journalists and rescuers, was ‘completely unacceptable,’ and urged the protection of civilians and journalists under international law.

Israeli leader claims Australian prime minister’s legacy ‘tarnished’ by decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stepped up his government’s bitter diplomatic dispute with Australia, claiming that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s legacy has been irrevocably blackened by his “weakness” towards Hamas.

In an interview with Sky News Australia scheduled to air on Thursday night, Netanyahu said Albanese’s record would “forever be tarnished” by his decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

“When the worst terrorist organisation on earth, these savages who murdered women, raped them, beheaded men, burnt babies alive in front of their parents, took hundreds of hostages, when these people congratulate the Prime Minister of Australia, you know something is wrong,” Netanyahu said in the interview, portions of which were posted online by Sky News before the broadcast.

Netanyahu’s accusation appeared to refer to a disputed statement that appeared last week in the Sydney Morning Herald, in which Hamas cofounder Sheikh Hassan Yousef was quoted praising Albanese for his “political courage”.

Following the report, Hamas publicly denied that any statement had been issued by Yousef. The Palestinian armed group, which governs Gaza, said Yousef had been in Israeli custody for nearly two years without means of communicating with the outside world.

Netanyahu’s broadside against Albanese follows an extraordinary missive earlier this week in which he claimed the Australian leader would be remembered by history as a “weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews”.

On Wednesday, Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke hit back at the Israeli leader, saying strength was “not measured by how many people you can blow up or how many children you can leave hungry”, though Albanese attempted to play down the spat by saying he did not take it personally.

Relations between Australia and Israel, traditionally close allies, have sunk to their lowest ebb in decades following Canberra’s decision to recognise Palestine.

On Monday, Australia said it had cancelled a visa for Simcha Rothman, a far-right member of Netanyahu’s governing coalition, amid concerns that a speaking tour he had scheduled in the country aimed to “spread division”.

Hours after that decision, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Gideon Saar said he had revoked the visas of Australian diplomats to the Palestinian Authority.

Expressing dismay at the tensions, the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said on Wednesday that it had written to both prime ministers to urge them to address their differences “in the usual way through diplomacy rather than public posturing”.

“The sum total of human wisdom would not have been diminished in the slightest if none of these public comments had been made,” the peak body for Jewish Australians said in its letter to Albanese.

“The Australian Jewish community will not be left to deal with the fallout of a spat between two leaders who are playing to their respective domestic audiences.”

Israel has come under mounting international pressure, including from some of its closest allies, over the scale of human suffering being inflicted by its war in Gaza.

More than 62,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel since it launched its war on Gaza following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attacks, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Hamas killed about 1,200 people and took 251 people captive during its incursion into southern Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

The Israeli military, which styles itself as the “most moral army in the world”, may be routinely committing war crimes, according to analysts in Israel and doctors who have worked in Gaza.

While killings, beatings and the arbitrary arrest of Palestinians are not new to the Israeli army, a long process of dehumanisation, the infiltration of far-right ideologies in the army and a lack of accountability have led to a scenario where Israeli soldiers can do as they please without even needing an operational reason, analysts said.

“As far as I can see, this is a new phenomenon,” Erella Grassiani of the University of Amsterdam, who has written on what she referred to as the moral “numbing” of Israeli soldiers during the second Intifada of 2000.

“It’s not as if Israeli soldiers haven’t beaten and arrested children for throwing stones before, but this is new,” she said.

“Previously, there were some kind of rules of engagement, even if they were loosely followed, but they were there. What we’re seeing now is completely different,” she said.

War as sport

Accusations of casual brutality by Israeli soldiers in Gaza, and the occupied West Bank, are longstanding.

Israeli soldiers have posted social media videos of themselves wearing the dresses of women whose homes they have raided, or playing with their underwear.

And there are accounts of soldiers shooting civilians for “target practice” or simply to stave off boredom.

In early August, the BBC investigated the cases of Israeli soldiers killing children in Gaza. Of the 160 cases examined, 95 children had been shot in the head or the chest – shots that could not be claimed as “intended to wound only”.

In addition to killing children, there are accounts suggesting that Israeli soldiers have been using the civilians who gather around aid distribution sites run by the self-styled GHF for target practice.

“The GHF sites are set up as death traps,” British surgeon Nick Maynard, who returned in July from his third trip to Gaza since the war began, told Al Jazeera.

“They’re compounds containing enough food for a family to eat for a few days, but not for all of the thousands of people they keep waiting outside. They then open the gates and let the chaos, fighting and even rioting happen, which they then use as a justification to fire into the crowd,” he said.

The nature of the shooting became clear to the doctors and emergency room medics at nearby Nasser Hospital, where Maynard was working.

“I was operating on a 12-year-old boy, who later died,” Maynard said.

“He’d been shot at one of the GHF sites. I had a conversation about it with a colleague in the Emergency Room later, who told me that he and other medics had seen repeated and strong patterns of wound grouping,” he explained.

Wound grouping refers to the phenomenon where several patients present with an injury to the same part of their body. The following day, many patients come in with a wound on a different part of the body, suggesting to Maynard that Israeli snipers were either playing or using civilians to improve their aim, as he told Sky News previously.

No accountability, no control

An investigation by the Israeli magazine +972 in July 2024 painted a bleak picture of Israeli soldiers with no restrictions on their ability to shoot at civilians in Gaza.

“There was total freedom,” a soldier who served in Gaza for months told +972. “If there is [even] a feeling of threat, there is no need to explain – you just shoot … it is permissible to shoot at their centre of mass [their body], not into the air”, the anonymous soldier continued.

“It’s permissible to shoot everyone, a young girl, an old woman.”

Of the 52 probes that the Israeli army said it carried out into crimes it has been accused of committing in Gaza or the West Bank between October 2023 and June 2025, 88 percent were stalled or were closed with no action taken, according to a study by Action on Armed Violence (AOAV).

Only one had resulted in a prison sentence against the accused.

According to AOAV, the 52 cases they examined involved the killing of 1,303 people, the wounding of 1,880 people and the reported torture of two more.

Even when there was footage of an incident, such as what appeared to be the gang rape of a Palestinian prisoner at the Sde Teiman Israeli prison facility, public pressure, including from members of the Israeli cabinet, led to the accused’s eventual release.

Accusations that the Israeli army routinely tortures Palestinians date back to at least 1967, when the Red Crescent documented the systematic torture of prisoners in Nablus Prison in the West Bank.

There has also been an increase in the dehumanising language used to refer to Palestinians that researchers now say is commonplace within the army.

As far back as 1967, Israeli figures such as David Hacohen, one-time Israeli ambassador to Burma, now Myanmar,, were recorded denying that Palestinians were even human.

In 1985, a survey of 520 books in Hebrew children’s literature found that 86 depicted Palestinians as “inhuman, war lovers, devious monsters, bloodthirsty dogs, preying wolves, or vipers”.

Twenty years later, when many of those now deployed to Gaza were likely at school, 10 percent of a sample batch of Israeli children who were asked to draw Palestinians depicted them as animals.

“The dehumanisation of Palestinians is a process that goes back decades,” Grassiani of the University of Amsterdam said. “But I’d say it’s now complete.

“We’ve seen incredibly cruel acts from the first day to now, with Israeli soldiers seeking revenge for [the Hamas-led attack of] October 7,” she said.

“It’s like a snowball running down a hill to which there’s no bottom,” Haim Bresheeth, author of An Army Like No Other, a book about the Israeli military.

“Every year, the violence is ratcheted up,” he said. “The idea of using civilians as target practice is the logical outcome.

“It’s a new sport, a blood sport, and these sports always develop from the bottom up,” he said of Israel’s infantry.

“It’s twisted, murderous, and it’s sick.”

US special envoy Tom Barrack has asked Israel to withdraw from the Lebanese territory after Beirut approved a plan to disarm the Hezbollah group by the end of the year, in exchange for an end to Israeli military attacks on its territory.

“There’s always a step-by-step approach, but I think the Lebanese government has done their part. They’ve taken the first step. Now what we need is Israel to comply with that equal handshake,” Barrack told reporters on Monday, in Lebanon’s capital of Beirut, after meeting Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.

The US-backed plan sets out a four-phase roadmap for the Hezbollah group to hand in their arsenal as Israel’s military halts ground, air and sea operations and withdraws troops from Lebanon’s south.

Lebanon’s cabinet approved the plan on August 7 despite Hezbollah’s outright refusal to disarm, raising fears that Israel could intensify attacks on Lebanon, even while it carries out near-daily violations of the November truce it signed with Hezbollah to end its war.

Israel has continued these attacks against Lebanon even in the weeks since the cabinet approved the plan.

Barrack described the cabinet’s decision as a “Lebanese decision that requires Israel’s cooperation” and said the US was “in the process of now discussing with Israel what their position is” but provided no further details.

Asked by reporters about whether he expected to see Israel fully withdraw from Lebanese territory, the US envoy said “that’s exactly the next step” needed.

“There is cooperation from all sides. We are not here to intimidate anyone. The positive outcomes will benefit Hezbollah, Lebanon, and Israel alike,” he said.

‘An economic proposal’

The US envoy also said Washington would seek an economic proposal for post-war reconstruction in the country, after months of shuttle diplomacy between the US and Lebanon.

Barrack voiced optimism after Monday’s meeting, stating: “A return to prosperity and peace is within reach. I believe we will witness progress in several areas in the coming weeks.”

“This is the first visit of the American envoy to Lebanon after the Lebanese cabinet mandated the Lebanese army to assess how to disarm Hezbollah,” said Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Beirut.

“However, there are a lot of concerns with respect to how this process is going to happen, given the fact that Hezbollah refused.”

On Friday, Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem raised the spectre of civil war, warning there would be “no life” in Lebanon should the state attempt to confront or eliminate the group.

In a written statement after his meeting with Barrack, Aoun said “other parties” now needed to commit to the roadmap’s contents.

Barrack is also set to meet with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Speaker Nabih Berri, who often negotiates on behalf of Hezbollah with Washington.

A ‘return to prosperity and peace’?

Under phase one of the US-backed plan, the Lebanese government is to issue a decision committing to Hezbollah’s full disarmament by the end of the year – which it now has – and Israel will cease military operations in Lebanese territory.

In phase two, Lebanon would begin implementing the disarmament plan within 60 days, and the government would approve troop deployments to the south. Then, Israel would begin withdrawing from the south and releasing Lebanese prisoners.

In phase three, which should happen within 90 days of that, Israel is to withdraw from the last two of the five disputed border positions, and money would be secured for Lebanon’s reconstruction.

In phase four, Hezbollah’s remaining heavy weapons are to be dismantled, and Lebanon’s allies will organise a conference to support the country’s economic recovery.

Hezbollah emerged badly weakened from last year’s 14-month war with Israel, during which longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah was assassinated in a huge Israeli strike on Beirut. Before the war, Hezbollah was believed to be better armed than the Lebanese military.

The group has long maintained it needs to keep its arsenal to defend Lebanon from attacks, but critics accused it of using its weapons for political leverage.

Hezbollah has said it refuses to discuss its arsenal until Israel ends its attacks and withdraws troops from southern Lebanon. Aoun and Salam both want to disarm Hezbollah and have also demanded Israel halt its attacks and withdraw from the country.

Just on Monday, Israeli attacks blew up a house in the town of Meiss el-Jabal, a sound bomb went off in the border town of Dahra, and drones could be overheard in the towns of Wadi Zefta, al-Numairiyeh and Wadi Kafra, Lebanon’s National News Agency reported.

Aoun said he wants to increase funding for Lebanon’s military and raise money from international donors for post-war reconstruction. The World Bank estimates that the war caused $11bn in damage and economic losses. The country has also faced a crippling economic crisis since 2019.

Palestinian officials have condemned Israeli threats against imprisoned leader Marwan Barghouti, as an ”unprecedented provocation.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was filmed making the comments after what was described as “a raid” on Barghouti’s prison cell.

Footage shows far-right minister taunting 66-year-old Palestinian leader during jail visit.

Palestinian officials have condemned far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s taunting visit to the jail cell of long-imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti.

Footage of the visit shared on social media on Thursday showed the minister making threatening remarks to the 66-year-old.

In the footage, Ben-Gvir is seen telling Barghouti, who has been in prison since 2002, including years in solitary confinement: “You won’t win. Whoever messes with the nation of Israel, whoever murders our children and women – we will wipe them out.”

“You should know this, [this happened] throughout history,” Ben-Gvir added.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the incident “in the strongest terms”.

In a statement on Thursday, the ministry said Ben-Gvir’s actions were “an unprecedented provocation and organised state terrorism, falling within the framework of the crimes of genocide, displacement, and annexation faced by the prisoners and our people”.

It added that the Palestinian Authority will take the threat seriously and will follow up with the International Committee of the Red Cross, relevant states, the international community, and its specialised organisations and councils.

Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, said he and other Palestinian prisoners are subjected to inhumane treatment behind bars.

“They are still, Marwan, chasing you and pursuing you even in the solitary cell you’ve been living in for two years, and the struggle of the occupation and its figures with you continues. The shackles are on your hands, but I know your spirit and determination, and I know you will remain free, free, free,” she wrote in a statement on Facebook.

“I know that the only thing that can shake you is what you hear about your people’s pain, and the only thing that crushes and wounds you is the failure to protect our sons and daughters. You are of the people; wherever you are among the people, you are one of them and part of them.”

‘Shocking’

Israel’s Channel 12 broadcast a video clip of Ben-Gvir’s visit at Ganot Prison in central Israel. The channel reported that the minister’s visit was intended to oversee stricter conditions for Palestinian prisoners.

The video marks the first time for years that footage of Barghouti has been published. His family and rights groups said he has been in solitary confinement since Israel launched its war on Gaza in October 2023 after Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel.

Relatives of Barghouti who viewed the footage told Al Jazeera Arabic there was a “shocking” appearance in his features, apparently from “exhaustion and hunger”, and expressed fear that he would die in custody.

In October, the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society accused Israeli prison staff of “brutally assaulting” and injuring Barghouti while he was being held in solitary confinement.

The claims that he has several times been beaten by prison staff have been denied by the Israel Prisons Service.

The Fatah leader was sentenced to five life sentences plus 40 years for his alleged role in planning attacks that caused the deaths of five civilians during the second Intifada.

Mass outcry from aid groups as Israel continues to block millions of dollars in aid supplies to starving Palestinians.

More than 100 aid groups have accused Israel of obstructing life-saving aid from entering Gaza, resulting in vast quantities of relief supplies remaining stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt as more Palestinians starve.

Aid trucks have massed on Gaza’s borders amid Israel’s blockade of the famine-stricken territory, and new rules are being used by Israel to deny the entry of food, medicine, water and temporary shelters, the groups said in a joint statement released on Thursday.

“Despite claims by Israeli authorities that there is no limit on humanitarian aid entering Gaza, most major international NGOs [nongovernmental organisations] have been unable to deliver a single truck of life-saving supplies since 2 March,” the groups said.

“Instead of clearing the growing backlog of goods, Israeli authorities have rejected requests from dozens of NGOs to bring in life-saving goods, citing that these organisations are ‘not authorised to deliver aid’,” the groups, which include Doctors Without Borders (known by their French acronym, MSF) and Oxfam, said.

Relief organisations that have worked in Gaza for decades are now told by Israel that they are not “authorised” to deliver aid due to new “registration rules”, which include so-called “security” vetting.

Hospitals in Gaza are now without basic supplies as a result, and children, the elderly and those with disabilities are “dying from hunger and preventable illnesses”, the statement continued.

Bushra Khalidi, Oxfam policy lead, said her organisation has more than $2.5m worth of humanitarian aid supplies that “have been rejected from entering Gaza by Israel”.

MSF’s emergency coordinator in Gaza, Aitor Zabalgogeazkoa, said the restrictions on aid are part of Israel’s militarised distribution of relief supplies, spearheaded by the notorious GHF.

“The militarised food distribution scheme has weaponised starvation and curated suffering. Distributions at GHF sites have resulted in extreme levels of violence and killings, primarily of young Palestinian men, but also of women and children, who have gone to the sites in the hope of receiving food,” Zabalgogeazkoa said.

At least 859 Palestinians have been killed attempting to access aid supplies around GHF distribution sites since May.

The more than 100 relief organisations that signed the statement have called for pressure to be exerted on Israel to end its “weaponisation of aid”, for Israel to end its “bureaucratic obstruction” and for unconditional delivery of life-saving humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Israel’s Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli, who had a role in the new rules imposed on aid groups, told the AFP news agency that registration of humanitarian groups could be rejected if Israeli authorities deem that its activities deny the democratic character of Israel or ” promote delegitimisation campaigns”, such as the movement to boycott Israel over its war on Gaza.

The joint outcry by aid groups comes as Israeli forces launch a new operation to take over Gaza City, which will displace more than a million people and force them to move south to concentration zones.

Israel’s operation to occupy Gaza City has triggered international outrage, with the United Nations and world leaders warning of devastating humanitarian consequences for the war-shattered territory.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese reveals details of phone conversation with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said that Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, is “in denial” about the suffering inflicted on Gaza, and the international community is now saying, “Enough is enough”.

A day after announcing that Australia will recognise Palestinian statehood at the United Nations next month, Albanese said that frustration with the Israeli government amid the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza had contributed to Australia’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

“[Netanyahu] again reiterated to me what he has said publicly as well, which is to be in denial about the consequences that are occurring for innocent people,” Albanese said in an interview with state broadcaster ABC on Tuesday.

Albanese said he spoke with Netanyahu last week to inform him of Australia’s decision to join France, Canada and the United Kingdom in recognising a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly meeting in September.

Netanyahu, he said, continued to make the same arguments he made last year regarding the conduct of Israel’s war on Gaza, which has now killed more than 61,500 Palestinians since October 2023.

“That if we just have more military action in Gaza, somehow that will produce a different outcome,” Albanese said, recounting his call with the Israeli leader, according to ABC News.

Announcing Australia’s decision to recognise Palestinian statehood on Monday, Albanese said that “the risk of trying is nothing compared to the danger of letting this moment pass us by”.

“The toll of the status quo is growing by the day, and it could be measured in innocent lives,” Albanese said, adding the decision was made as part of a “coordinated global effort” on the two-state solution, which he had discussed with the leaders of the UK, France, New Zealand and Japan.

pic.twitter.com/9VkQU0LcwV

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) August 11, 2025

“A two-state solution is humanity’s best hope to break the cycle of violence in the Middle East and to bring an end to the conflict, suffering and starvation in Gaza,” he said.

“It seems to me very clearly… we need a political solution, not a military one,” he said.

Albanese had said just last month that he would not be drawn on a timeline for recognition of a Palestinian state, and has previously been wary of a public opinion backlash in Australia, which has significant Jewish and Muslim minorities.

But the public mood has shifted sharply in Australia against Israel’s war on Gaza.

Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched across Sydney’s Harbour Bridge this month, calling for aid deliveries to be allowed to enter Gaza as the humanitarian crisis worsens and Israel’s military continues to block relief efforts.

Israel also plans to take military control of Gaza City, risking the lives of more than a million Palestinians and instigating what a senior UN official said would be “another calamity”, as deaths from starvation and malnutrition continue to grow across the enclave.

“This decision is driven by popular sentiment in Australia, which has shifted in recent months, with a majority of Australians wanting to see an imminent end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza,” Jessica Genauer, a senior lecturer in international relations at Flinders University, told the Reuters news agency.