Iraq warns of ‘disastrous consequences’ for region after US airstrikes
Iraq has called the US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran-linked targets a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty” that could have ‘“disastrous consequences” for the region, reports Reuters.
Yahya Rasool, a spokesman for Iraq’s prime minister, said:
These airstrikes constitute a violation of Iraqi sovereignty, undermine the efforts of the Iraqi government, and pose a threat that could lead Iraq and the region into disastrous consequences.
Key events
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US military says it destroys six Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles in Yemen
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UN security council to hold emergency meeting over US strikes – reports
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US warned Iraq before strikes, says US official
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Can a new Middle East emerge from the turmoil?
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Jordan involved in US strikes on Iran-backed targets in Iraq, Syria – report
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Summary of the day so far
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‘Hundreds of thousands’ of protesters in London call for a ceasefire in Gaza
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Middle East is ‘a powder keg’ and ‘too many’ are ‘running around with matches’, says Austrian foreign minister
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18 killed in Rafah and Deir Al-Balah by Israeli airstrikes, say Gaza health officials
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US forces shot down Houthi drones over Red Sea on Friday, says US military
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US airstrikes were ‘deliberately designed’ to ‘further inflame the conflict’, says Russian foreign ministry
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Iraq to summon US embassy’s chargé d’affaires after airstrikes, says foreign ministry
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Red Crescent says 11 injured at its Khan Younis HQ as Israeli forces throw smoke bombs
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Palestinian ministry warns of repercussions if Rafah is attacked, reports Al Jazeera
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107 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes in the past 24 hours, says health ministry
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US airstrikes ‘will result only in increased tension’ in the region, says Iran’s foreign ministry
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US airstrikes in Iraq killed 16 including civilians, says Iraqi prime minister’s office
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‘Unprecedented’ destruction in Gaza will ‘take tens of billions of dollars and decades to reverse’, says UN
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Iraq warns of ‘disastrous consequences’ for region after US airstrikes
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UAE allocates $5m to support UNRWA’s Gaza efforts – reports
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US airstrikes fuelling conflict in ‘very dangerous way’, says Syrian foreign ministry
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UK calls US its ‘steadfast’ ally as it supports US ‘right to respond to attacks’
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Syrian military says US occupation of Syrian territory ‘cannot continue’
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Top EU diplomat urges no Middle East escalation after US strikes
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Islamic Resistance in Iraq militants targeted airbase hosting US forces in northern Iraq, says group
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US strikes on Iraq and Syria are result of Iranian proxies ‘playing with fire’, says Polish foreign minister
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Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds force represent a ‘direct threat’ to Iraq and US, says US military
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Attacks reportedly leave 14 dead in ‘pressure cooker’ Rafah
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US strikes Iraq and Syria as Israeli attacks reported in southern Gaza
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Summary
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US imposes sanctions over Iran cyber and missile programs, seizes $108m
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Summary of the day so far
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US will not strike inside Iran, say officials
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White House says there will be ‘additional responses’ after initial strikes
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US strikes ‘hit exactly what we meant to hit’
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Iraqi military warns US strikes could lead to ‘dire consequences’
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Death toll from airstrikes in eastern Syria rises to 18 – reports
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‘This is the start of our response’: Austin says US forces struck seven facilities in Iraq and Syria
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At least 13 killed in airstrikes in eastern Syria – report
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Biden: US response to drone attack to continue ‘at times and places of our choosing’
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US military says it struck ‘more than 85 targets’
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US warned it would carry out ‘multi-tier response’ to Jordan attack
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US launched strikes on dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria, say officials
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US begins to launch strikes in response to Jordan drone attack
A senior Hamas official has confirmed it has received a framework for a ceasefire proposal in the Israel-Gaza war, but said a final agreement has not yet been reached.
Osama Hamdan, at a news conference in Beirut on Saturday, said Hamas had received a “general framework proposal” that was drafted during talks in Paris involving intelligence chiefs from Israel, the US and Egypt, plus the prime minister of Qatar. He said:
We confirm that the leadership discussion and consultation about it is based on the negotiations reaching a complete end to the terrorist aggression against our Palestinian people, and a complete withdrawal of the occupation army from the Gaza Strip.
He said Hamas leaders were reviewing the framework but more time was needed to “announce our position”, adding that the plan was missing some details.
“We will announce our position” soon “based on … our desire to put an end as quickly as possible to the aggression that our people suffer”, he added.
US military says it destroys six Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles in Yemen
The US Central Command has said its forces conducted strikes “in self-defence” against six Houthi anti-ship cruise missiles that were “prepared to launch against ships in the Red Sea”.
A statement posted to social media reads:
U.S. forces identified the cruise missiles in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen and determined they presented an imminent threat to U.S. Navy ships and merchant vessels in the region. This action will protect freedom of navigation and make international waters safer and more secure for U.S. Navy and merchant vessels.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it has struck more than 50 targets in Syria and 3,400 in Lebanon linked to Hezbollah since the outbreak of the Gaza war on 7 October.
IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari, in a briefing on Saturday reported by Reuters, said:
Since the beginning of the war, we have attacked, from the ground and air, more than 50 such targets of Hezbollah spread throughout Syria.
Israeli forces have attacked 34,000 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, including 120 border surveillance outposts, 40 caches of missiles and other weaponry and more than 40 command centres, he said.
He put the number of enemy dead at more than 200. Figures by Agence France-Presse show at least 218 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly Hezbollah fighters but also at least 26 civilians. Hagari said:
Everywhere Hezbollah is, we shall be. We will take action everywhere required in the Middle East.
Here are some of the latest images from the newswires from Rafah in southern Gaza.
UN security council to hold emergency meeting over US strikes – reports
The UN security council will hold an emergency meeting on Monday afternoon on the US strikes in Iraq and Syria, AFP reported, citing diplomatic sources.
The meeting will take place at 4pm Eastern time (2100 GMT) on Monday, according to reports.
The meeting was requested by UN permanent member Russia to discuss “threats to international peace and security from the US strikes”, its UN representative Dmitry Polyansky said.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said earlier today that Moscow condemned the US airstrikes, and believes the situation needs to be considered by the UN security council. She said in a statement:
It is obvious that the airstrikes are deliberately designed to further inflame the conflict. By attacking, almost without pause, the facilities of allegedly pro-Iranian groups in Iraq and Syria, the US are purposefully trying to drive the largest countries in the region into conflict.
The US House of Representatives will vote next week on a standalone bill to provide aid to Israel, House speaker Mike Johnson has announced.
The announcement comes as the Senate prepares to unveil its long-awaited comprehensive package to fund Israel, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific and border security that Johnson has already declared “dead on arrival.”
In a letter to House Republicans on Saturday, Johnson criticised Senate leaders for having “eliminated the ability for swift consideration” of an emergency spending deal by not including the House in the talks. He wrote:
Given the Senate’s failure to move appropriate legislation in a timely fashion, and the perilous circumstances currently facing Israel, the House will … take up and pass a clean, standalone Israel supplemental package.
The bill is set to include $17.6 billion in military aid to Israel “as well as important funding for US forces in the region, Johnson’s office said.
US warned Iraq before strikes, says US official
Iraq received prior warning ahead of last night’s airstrikes, a senior US administration official has said.
As we reported earlier, Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, has denied that the strikes were coordinated by the Baghdad government beforehand with Washington, calling such assertions “lies”.
But a US official has told NBC that the Iraqi government was given short-notice warning that the US would strike. They said:
It wasn’t a huge heads up, but it is not accurate to say they weren’t informed.
The official noted that last night’s strikes were tied directly to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and were in direct response to the killing of the three US service members, unlike the smaller US retaliation following Houthi attacks on international shipping. They added:
What you saw last night and what you are going to see again was not insignificant. There are other things we’re going to do. Some you will see and some you won’t see.
Pope Francis has condemned the “terrible increase in attacks against Jews around the world” and the rise of antisemitism since 7 October.
In a letter addressed to the Jewish population of Israel, made public by the Vatican on Saturday, he wrote that the Catholic church “rejects every form of anti-Judaism and antisemitism, unequivocally condemning manifestations of hatred towards Jews and Judaism as a sin against God.”
The war in Gaza has produced “divisive attitudes in public opinion worldwide and divisive positions, sometimes taking the form of antisemitism and anti-Judaism”, Francis said. He added:
We had hoped that ‘never again’ would be a refrain heard by the new generations, yet now we see that the path ahead requires ever closer collaboration to eradicate these phenomena.
Francis has condemned Hamas’ attack on Israel 7 October, and has on several occasions called for a two-state solution to put an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In his letter, he called for the release of those hostages still being held in Gaza, and said his heart was “torn at the sight of what is happening in the Holy Land”. He said he prayed for peace:
My heart is close to you, to the Holy Land, to all the peoples who inhabit it, Israelis and Palestinians, and I pray that the desire for peace may prevail in all.
Syria’s culture ministry has accused the US of having damaged a historic site in the eastern Deir ez-Zor province during the bombardment late on Friday.
In a statement on social media, the ministry condemned “in the strongest terms the barbaric US bombardment” of Al-Rahba fortress in eastern Syria’s Mayadeen area.
The citadel, located along the Euphrates River, dates to the ninth century, it said.
The “blatant” attack violated “all international norms and charters that call for the protection and respect for cultural property,” the ministry added.
The bombardment caused cracks and fissures in the fortress walls, a pro-government outlet reported antiquities chief Nazir Awad as saying. The full extent of the damage had not yet been assessed, he added.
The head of Turkey’s national intelligence chief (MIT), Ibrahim Kalin, has met the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Qatar, Turkish state media reported.
The pair discussed efforts for a ceasefire in Gaza, the Israeli hostages held in the enclave and the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, according to reports.
Julian Borger
The thinking in the White House is apparently that an offer from Saudi Arabia – to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in return for a substantial step towards Palestinian statehood – would put Benjamin Netanyahu in a bind.
Netanyahu’s far-right coalition would never accept such a deal, but would be robbed of US support if it did not.
To stay in office, and thereby to elude the threat of prison as a result of the criminal corruption charges he faces, the Israeli prime minister would have to dump his coalition partners and go looking for others, according to the plan.
The fall of Netanyahu or his creation of a new governing coalition, would create space for diplomatic progress towards the elusive two-state solution for Israel and an independent Palestine. That in turn would create a happy synergy for Joe Biden in domestic politics by leading Arab-Americans, particularly in the swing state of Michigan, to forgive him for his steadfast support of Israel in its Gaza campaign, thereby helping save his presidency.
Meanwhile, a Saudi-Israeli concordat that achieved Palestinian statehood would reshape the Middle East, primarily at the expense of Iran, which has sought to project itself as a Palestinian champion in a time of occupation and persecution. It underpins Tehran’s projection of influence across the region.
Julian Borger
At the same time as this new diplomatic push was being briefed in Washington, the UK’s foreign secretary, David Cameron, suggested that the both the UK and the UN security council could recognise Palestine sooner rather than later, saying “it can’t come at the start of the process, but it doesn’t have to be the very end of the process”.
It seemed very likely that the former British prime minister’s remarks, delivered on a trip to Lebanon, had been coordinated with Washington to drive home the signal that “plans are in hand” to look for enduring solutions to the underlying Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The US is also reported to be studying options for when its recognition of a Palestinian state would come during the course of an eventual peace process, not necessarily leaving it until the end.
Among the options, according to a report by the Axios news site, are the bilateral recognition of a Palestinian state, forgoing the US veto on the UN security council vote admitting Palestine as a full member state (it has had non-member observer status since a UN general assembly vote in 2012) and, third, encouraging other states to follow Washington’s lead in recognition.
At the same time Saudi Arabia, which has not renounced its interest in normalising relations with Israel throughout the four months of the Gaza war, would offer to establish diplomatic relations with Israel in return for a substantial and “irrevocable” step towards Palestinian statehood.
Can a new Middle East emerge from the turmoil?
Julian Borger
Friday night’s US airstrikes against Iran-backed militias in Syria and Iraq marked a new high tide in the violence that has spread across the region since the start of the Gaza war.
The Biden administration, however, is now seeking to show it has more in its Middle East policy toolkit than precision-guided bombs.
While it was planning the midnight sorties in retaliation for an attack last Sunday on a US base in Jordan, the White House has also been sending signals that it will not let the worsening crisis unfolding in the Middle East go to waste and that it is developing a plan to use the turmoil as an opportunity to transform the region.
The message has been sent out through leaks and briefings to sympathetic columnists before the departure on Sunday of secretary of state Antony Blinken on a trip to the Middle East, his fifth since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on 7 October, which will take him to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Israel and the West Bank.
Blinken’s first four forays achieved little, certainly not for the 2.3 million civilians in Gaza, though the US claimed some credit for the fact that the war did not immediately spread to Lebanon.
This time, according to the lines being put out, the secretary of state is carrying something more substantial in his briefing papers: a “grand bargain” deal involving normalisation of relations between Saudi Arabia and Israel, and substantial movement towards the recognition of a Palestinian state – all incentivised by diplomatic and economic sweeteners from Washington.
Residents of Rafah gathered to assess the damage after an Israeli airstrike that hit a house in the southern Gaza city on Saturday, killing at least a dozen people, according to Palestinian health officials. Video below:
Jordan involved in US strikes on Iran-backed targets in Iraq, Syria – report
The Middle Eastern nation of Jordan is participating in America’s military operation launched late on Friday to attack Iranian-backed targets in Iraq and Syria in response to a drone strike that killed three US troops last weekend, CNN is reporting.
The US cable TV giant cites an unnamed senior US official for its report.
The US army reservists, all from the southern US state of Georgia, were killed at a base in north-east Jordan, bordering both Iraq and Syria last Sunday.
CNN reported that the Jordanian Air Force denied participating and the Jordanian government would not comment on the story.
The outlet further reported that: “While no Jordanian border guard forces were hurt, government communications minister Muhannad Moubaideen on Sunday described the strike as a “terrorist attack” and vowed to confront the threat of terrorism.”
Talking live to CNN’s correspondent in Amman, Jordan, Ben Wedemen, moments ago the anchor asked him for some context on the report. Wedemen noted that Jordan joined the US, UK and others previously in the offensive against the Islamic State (Isis) fundamentalist militant group in the region, with participation by the Jordanian Air Force.
Here are some scenes from Deir al-Balah, about seven miles north of Khan Younis in southern Gaza earlier today.
And more from Rafah, several miles further south on the border with Egypt.
A long wait for a meal for internally-displaced Gazan refugees in Deir al-Balah:
People line up:
Ordinary residents of the southern Gazan cities of Rafah and Deir Al-Balah and hundreds of thousands of refugees there who fled Israeli bombardment further north now fear Israel is going to expand its ground offensive into those last remaining areas where people are taking shelter, Reuters reports.
Rafah is on Gaza’s southern border with Egypt and more than half the enclave’s 2.3 million population have fled there as the Israel Defense Forces press their nearly four-month-old war against the militant Hamas group. Aerial strikes have already been occurring.
Here are some images from there and from just across the border in Egypt:
An injured Palestinian child.
In Rafah itself:
More from Rafah:
This is Joanna Walters in New York, taking over from my colleague in London, Amy Sedghi. We’ll continue to bring you the news live, as it emerges from the Middle East.
Summary of the day so far
It is 6.12pm in Gaza and Tel Aviv, 7.12pm in Damascus and Baghdad and 7.42pm in Tehran. Here are the latest developments:
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US military forces attacked 85 targets in Iraq and Syria in a wide-ranging air assault on sites belonging to Iran-linked militias and Tehran’s Revolutionary Guards, reportedly killing nearly 40 people. The US president, Joe Biden, said Friday’s strikes were launched in retaliation for the drone attack that killed three US soldiers in Jordan and that “if you harm an American, we will respond”. The US Centcom said Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds force represented a ‘direct threat’ to Iraq and the US.
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Iraq has called the US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran-linked targets a “violation of Iraqi sovereignty” that could have ‘“disastrous consequences” for the region. The office of the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani on Saturday denied that they were coordinated by the Baghdad government beforehand with Washington, calling such assertions “lies”.
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Iraqi government spokesperson Bassem al-Awadi said in a statement that US strikes had hit “locations in the Akashat and Al-Qaim regions, including areas where our security forces are stationed”.
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Iraq’s foreign ministry announced on Saturday it would summon the US embassy’s chargé d’affaires – the ambassador being outside the country – to deliver a formal protest over US strikes on “Iraqi military and civilian sites”.
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US airstrikes are fuelling the conflict in ‘very dangerous way’, said the Syrian foreign ministry. “What (the US) committed has served to fuel conflict in the Middle East in a very dangerous way,” Damascus’ foreign ministry said in a statement.
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The Syrian military said on Saturday that the US occupation of Syrian territory “cannot continue” after Washington carried out deadly strikes in retaliation for a drone attack that killed three US soldiers in Jordan. Syria’s defence ministry said the “blatant air aggression” of US forces led to a number of civilians and soldiers being killed, others being wounded and some significant damage to public and private property.
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Iran’s foreign ministry said the US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria against Iran-linked targets “represent another adventurous and strategic mistake by the US” that will “result only in increased tension in instability in the region”.
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The UK called the US its “steadfast” ally on Saturday and said it supports Washington’s right to respond to attacks. “We wouldn’t comment on their operations, but we support their right to respond to attacks,” a British government spokesperson said.
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The EU foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, called on all parties to avoid further escalation in the Middle East after US strikes on Iran-linked groups in Syria and Iraq. Borrell did not address the US strikes directly, but repeated a warning that the Middle East “is a boiler that can explode”.
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Russia condemned the US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, saying “it is obvious that the airstrikes are deliberately designed to further inflame the conflict”. The foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said on Saturday that the situation needs to be considered by the UN security council.
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US strikes on Iraq and Syria are result of Iranian proxies ‘playing with fire’, said the Polish foreign minister. “Iran’s proxies have played with fire for months and years, and it’s now burning them,” Radosław Sikorski told reporters as he arrived for a meeting with his EU counterparts in Brussels.
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Middle East is ‘a powder keg’ and ‘too many’ are ‘running around with matches’, said Alexander Schallenberg, Austria’s foreign minister on Saturday.
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Hamas condemned US “aggression against” Iraq and Syria, describing it as a “dangerous escalation” and “an encroachment on the sovereignty of the two countries”.
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Hezbollah strongly condemned the US airstrikes, calling them a “blatant American aggression against Iraq and Syria”. “What the US has done is a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the two countries, an attack on their security and territorial integrity, and a shameless violation of all international and humanitarian laws,” it said.
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At least 107 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes and 165 were injured in the past 24 hours, according to the latest figures from the Gaza health ministry, which is run by Hamas.
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Palestine’s ministry of foreign affairs and expatriates has warned of the repercussions of a possible Israeli military operation on the city of Rafah. It also criticised the international community, reported Al Jazeera, for its failure to halt the war and ease the humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza.
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14 people were killed in two strikes in Rafah, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Rafah has been described as “a pressure cooker of despair”. An AFP journalist in the city heard powerful explosions shortly after midnight on Saturday.
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Israeli airstrikes killed 18 Palestinians in the Gaza cities of Rafah and Deir Al-Balah, Gaza health officials said on Saturday.
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Israel continued its blistering assault in the Gaza Strip on Saturday as fears grew of a push into Rafah. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the fierce fighting have fled south to Rafah since the outbreak of the war. Witnesses in Rafah told AFP that 12 people were killed in an airstrike on a house.
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In Khan Younis, witnesses told Reuters the Israeli army blew up a residential district near the city centre. In the nearby city of Deir al-Balah, the second major concentration of displaced people, medics said four people were killed in an airstrike on a house earlier on Saturday.
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Although Israel is focusing on its push in the south, witnesses and militants told Reuters that fighting continued in Gaza City. Gaza health officials said two people were killed by sniper fire. Israeli forces carried out arrests in the southern suburb of Tel Al-Hawa.
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The Israeli military said its forces killed dozens of Palestinian gunmen in northern Gaza. “During targeted raids in the northern and central Gaza Strip over the last day, IDF troops killed dozens of terrorists and destroyed numerous anti-tank missile launchers,” the Israel Defense Forces said.
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Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and other smaller militant groups said in a separate statement their fighters engaged in fierce battles with the army in the north and south of Gaza. “The more the occupation forces remain on the ground, the more we will get to them,” one Palestinian militant official said. “A martyr falls, another rises and takes the rifle, and we are ready to fight for many more months,” he told Reuters.
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A constant barrage of airstrikes and tank fire rocked Khan Younis overnight, an AFP journalist said.
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The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza said more than 100 people were killed across the Palestinian territory overnight, mostly women and children. The Israeli army said its forces had killed “dozens of terrorists” in northern and central Gaza over the past 24 hours.
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Eleven people have been injured in the Palestine Red Crescent Society’s (PRCS) headquarters in Khan Younis, due to Israeli forces throwing smoke bombs at displaced people, says the humanitarian organisation.
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The “unprecedented level of destruction” in Gaza “will take tens of billions of dollars and decades to reverse”, said the UN. In its preliminary assessment of the economic impact of the destruction in Gaza and prospects for economic recovery, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) say that even with the end of the military operation and the recent average growth rate of 0.4%, it would take Gaza until 2092 just to restore GDP to 2022 levels.
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The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has allocated $5m to support the efforts of the chief UN coordinator for the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), Sigrid Kaag, towards the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip, reports Reuters, citing the state news agency WAM on Saturday.
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“Hundreds of thousands” of protesters marched in London on Saturday afternoon calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. It is the UK’s first national demonstration since the UN’s international court of justice ordered Israel to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide in Gaza.
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US forces shot down Houthi drones over Red Sea on Friday, says the US military. US Central Command said on Saturday US forces engaged and shot down several unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) over the Red Sea and also destroyed four drones that Houthi forces were preparing to launch from Yemen.
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An Iraqi militia official on Saturday hinted at a desire to de-escalate tensions in the Middle East reports the Associated Press. Hussein al-Mosawi, spokesperson for Harakat al-Nujaba, one of the main Iranian-backed militias in Iraq, in an interview with AP in Baghdad condemned the US strikes. But he then struck a more conciliatory tone, saying that “we do not wish to escalate or widen regional tensions”.
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Islamic Resistance in Iraq militants on Saturday claimed to have targeted al-Harir airbase hosting US forces in northern Iraq but three security forces told Reuters no attack had been detected.
‘Hundreds of thousands’ of protesters in London call for a ceasefire in Gaza
Protesters marched in London on Saturday afternoon calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. According to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which organised the march, “hundreds of thousands” of people had turned out. Photographs and videos posted to X show large crowds with banners, placards and Palestinian flags.
It is the UK’s first national demonstration since the UN’s international court of justice ordered Israel to ensure its forces do not commit acts of genocide in Gaza.
After having told organisers on Wednesday the Metropolitan police would not allow the expected 300,000 demonstrators to end with a rally on Whitehall, where marches have regularly ended, the force made a U-turn on Thursday and said the march could end near Downing Street.
Prior to the start of Saturday’s march, my colleague, Sammy Gecsoyler wrote:
The Met announced on Friday evening that the deputy assistant commissioner Matt Ward had authorised officers to demand the removal of face coverings throughout the borough of Westminster from 10am on Saturday to 1am on Sunday. The measure requires the removal of any item that police believe is being worn to conceal a person’s identity. The force said this did not apply to religious face coverings.
Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), said: “This is another example of the Met trying to create an intimidating environment and making people feel reticent or fearful about coming to a demonstration because it’s going to be a repressive environment. What’s astonishing is despite all of that, people are still turning up in such huge numbers.”