Closing summary
Israel will call up around 60,000 reservists before a planned offensive to take Gaza City but most forces that would operate in the Gaza Strip’s largest urban centre would be active duty soldiers, an Israeli military official said on Wednesday. The call-up notices could be sent in the coming days, with reservists to report for duty in September, the military official said.
The mayor of the nearby Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, Guy Yifrach, confirmed that Israel has approved a major settlement project on Wednesday in an area of the occupied West Bank that the international community has warned threatens the viability of a future Palestinian state.
Israel’s approval of a key settlement project in the West Bank undermines the chances of a two-state solution, the Palestinian Authority (PA) has said in a statement. The approval of the project in the area known as E1 “fragments… geographic and demographic unity, entrenching the division of the occupied West Bank into isolated areas and cantons that are disconnected from one another, turning them into something akin to real prisons,” the PA’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
International aid groups say they have not yet been able to deliver shelter materials to Gaza despite Israeli authorities saying they have lifted restrictions on such supplies, and warn that further delays could cause more Palestinian deaths.
Some 154 pallets of humanitarian aid have been airdropped in the Gaza Strip today, according to the IDF. Aircraft from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Singapore and Indonesia dropped the pallets, containing several hundred kilograms of food, according to The Times of Israel.
Israel is “killing all prospects” for peace in the Middle East, Jordan’s foreign minister has said amid escalating international outrage over Israel’s plans for a new large-scale offensive in Gaza City and plans to massively expand Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Ayman Safadi made his remarks during a visit to Moscow on the same day that the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, approved a plan to conquer Gaza City, an urban area home to hundreds of thousands of people in the north of the Palestinian territory.
President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday imposed sanctions on two judges and two prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, as Washington kept up its pressure on the war tribunal over its targeting of Israeli leaders. Washington designated Nicolas Yann Guillou of France, Nazhat Shameem Khan of Fiji, Mame Mandiaye Niang of Senegal, and Kimberly Prost of Canada, according to the US Treasury and State Department, Reuters reported.
A fire broke out near Iran’s Tabriz airport on Wednesday, with heavy smoke hanging in the city’s sky, Iran’s Fars news agency reported, adding operations to control the fire are ongoing.
Syria’s foreign minister met Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer in Paris on Tuesday to discuss security arrangements in southern Syria, two Syrian sources familiar with the meeting said. Syrian and Israeli officials have been conducting US-mediated talks on de-escalating conflict in southern Syria.
French president Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that Israel’s “military offensive” to conquer Gaza City “can only lead to a complete disaster for both peoples,” after Israel’s defence minister authorised the call-up of around 60,000 reservists. Israel’s plan “will drag the region into a permanent war,” the French president posted on social media, reiterating his call for an “international stabilisation mission”.
Iran “cannot completely cut cooperation” with the UN nuclear watchdog but the return of its inspectors is up to the country’s security chiefs, foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said Wednesday. The remarks come nearly two months after Iran suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency following its 12-day war with Israel in June.
Prime minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday that he treats leaders of other countries with respect after his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu attacked him over his decision to recognise a Palestinian state. “I don’t take these things personally, I engage with people diplomatically. He has had similar things to say about other leaders,” Albanese said during a media briefing.
A 58% majority of Americans believe that every country in the United Nations should recognise Palestine as a nation, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, as Israel and Hamas considered a possible truce in the nearly two-year-long war. 33% of respondents did not agree that UN members should recognise a Palestinian state and 9% did not answer.
German prosecutors have charged a Russian national they suspect of planning an attack on the Israeli embassy in Berlin and of trying to join militant organisation Islamic State, they said on Wednesday. Prosecutors believe the accused, identified only as Akhmad E. in line with German privacy rules, obtained instructions from the Internet on how to make explosives but the plan failed as he could not get the components he needed.
Some 154 pallets of humanitarian aid have been airdropped in the Gaza Strip today, according to the IDF.
Aircraft from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Singapore and Indonesia dropped the pallets, containing several hundred kilograms of food, according to The Times of Israel.
