Good afternoon. Israel’s prime minister has vowed to retaliate after Iran launched a barrage of missiles at Jerusalem and other cities. The unprecedented salvo of more than 180 ballistic missiles, most of which were intercepted, came less than 24 hours after Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the largest ground incursion of southern Lebanon in a generation. The Lebanese prime minister said “about 1 million” people – about one-fifth of the country’s population – have been displaced so far. Meanwhile in Gaza, local media reported at least nine Palestinians were killed and 20 injured in an Israeli air strike on a school that was housing displaced people.
In Sydney, police have cited crowd size and “the recent addition of over a dozen planter boxes” in a push to ban pro-Palestine rallies planned for this weekend. The letter to organisers did not mention the potential presence of images such as the Hezbollah flag, which a 19-year-old woman has been charged with displaying at last weekend’s protest. A spokesperson for the Palestine Action Group said raising the planter boxes was an “obvious red herring” and the move to ban the rallies was “a political attack on our right to protest”.
