We’re closing this live blog.
You can read all our coverage of the Israel-Gaza war here and all our coverage of Israel’s war on Lebanon here.
Updated
Israeli strike kills 6, including 4 medics, in southern Lebanon - health ministry
An Israeli strike killed six people, including four medics, in the village of Arab Salim in southern Lebanon on Thursday, Reuters is reporting, citing the Lebanese health ministry.
In figures reported before the latest Israeli strikes, the ministry said 21 people were killed in Israeli attacks on the country on Wednesday, bringing the total killed since October last year to at least 3,386.
Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive voice in the US Senate, has denounced the Biden administration’s failure to punish Israel over the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and endorsed a joint resolution of disapproval in Congress.
“On October 13, the Biden administration told Prime Minister Netanyahu that his government had 30 days to increase humanitarian aid into Gaza or face the consequences under US law, which would include cutting off military assistance,” the Massachusetts senator said in a statement shared with the Guardian.
“Thirty days later, the Biden administration acknowledged that Israel’s actions had not significantly expanded food, water and basic necessities for desperate Palestinian civilians. Despite Netanyahu’s failure to meet the United States’ demands, the Biden administration has taken no action to restrict the flow of offensive weapons.”
The amount of aid reaching the territory has dropped to the lowest level in 11 months, official Israeli figures show. Despite an ultimatum last month that gave Israel an ultimatum of 30 days to improve conditions or risk losing military support, the US state department announced it would not take any punitive action, insisting that Israel was making limited progress and was not blocking aid and therefore not violating US law.
US submits draft truce proposal to Lebanon – report
The US ambassador to Lebanon, Lisa Johnson, submitted a draft truce proposal to Lebanon’s speaker of parliament, Nabih Berri, to halt fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, Reuters is reporting, citing sources.
Johnson met with Berri, a Hezbollah ally and the typical diplomatic conduit for the group, on Thursday to submit the US’s first written proposal in at least several weeks, two senior Lebanese political sources told the news agency.
“It is a draft to get observations from the Lebanese side,” one source said. There were no details on the contents of the proposal.
Updated
The US said it disagrees with a UN committee’s finding that Israeli warfare methods were consistent with “genocide” and allegations by Human Rights Watch of “crimes against humanity” in Gaza.
The UN special committee’s report, which accused Israel of using starvation as a war tactic, “is something we would unequivocally disagree with”, US state department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters on Thursday.
“We think that that kind of phrasing and those kind of accusations are certainly unfounded,” he added.
On the report by Human Rights Watch which said it has evidence that suggests “the war crime of forcible transfer” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, Patel said forced displacement “would be a red line” for the US.
“It is wholly consistent and acceptable to ask civilians to evacuate a certain area while they are conducting certain military operations, and then for them to be able to go home,” Patel said, adding that the US has not seen “any kind of specific force displacement”.
Updated
Israel says HRW claims of war crimes 'completely false'
Israel has denied allegations by Human Rights Watch that it is committing war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip.
In a report published on Thursday, the rights group said it had collected evidence that suggested Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the “deliberate and massive forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, describing it as “a grave breach of the Geneva conventions and a crime under the Rome statute of the international criminal court”.
Israel’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Oren Marmorstein, posted in a statement to X:
Time and again, Human Rights Watch’s rhetoric regarding Israel’s conduct in Gaza is completely false and detached from reality.
He claimed Israel’s efforts are “directed solely at dismantling Hamas’s terror capabilities and not at the people of Gaza” and that Israel “remains fully committed to facilitating the continuous flow of humanitarian aid to Gaza.
“Israel will continue to operate in accordance with the law of armed conflict,” he added.
Updated
Israel’s military said it had struck more than 300 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in the last week.
IDF spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said in a news conference that targets included weapons depots, commander centers, according to Israeli media reports.
He said: “We have identified that there are rockets and other weapons, that Hezbollah is launching at Israel, that were manufactured in Syria, and were transferred to Hezbollah from Syria.”
He said the IDF would strike “all attempts to transfer weapons from Syria to Hezbollah and strike any infrastructure we identify in Syria that is being used to manufacture weapons for Hezbollah”.
Updated
During their meeting at the White House yesterday, Joe Biden asked Donald Trump to work with him on a ceasefire deal that would see the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza, Axios reports.
The Biden administration has tried to negotiate such an agreement, as well as another deal to end Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, for months, with no luck. His time as president is running out, and the conflicts will become Trump’s problem once he takes office.
Here’s more, from Axios:
Biden wants to use the two months he has left in office to break the prolonged deadlock in the negotiations over a Gaza deal. Trump, on the other hand, would likely be happy to reach Inauguration Day with one less crisis on his plate.
Biden also met yesterday with the families of the American hostages who are held in Gaza, two sources with knowledge of the meeting told Axios.
One source said the families stressed that the hostages are running out of time and expressed concern for their lives.
Biden told the families that he and Trump agreed that the hostage issue is urgent and that they want to try and solve it before Jan. 20, the other source said.
An Israeli attack has targeted a bridge in the area of Qusayr in Syria near the border with northern Lebanon, Syria’s state news agency Sana reported on Thursday.
The reported attack came hours after Syrian state news reported several people were killed and others injured when two residential buildings in the suburbs of Damascus were hit.
Citing SANA, Reuters reports that one building in the earlier attack was located in Damascus suburb of Mazzeh and the other in Qudsaya, west of the capital.
Israeli army radio said the targets of the attack in Damascus were assets and the headquarters of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israeli territory that sparked the Gaza war.
Summary of the day so far
It has just gone 8pm in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza City, 9pm in Damascus, and 9.30pm in Tehran.
These are today’s latest development:
Fifteen people have been killed and others injured in Israeli attacks that targeted two residential buildings in suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, Syrian state news agency Sana said.
Israel’s military has claimed that in the last 48 hours it has struck what it termed 30 “terror targets” in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh. Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesperson has again issued orders for residents to evacuate specific locations in southern Beirut. In addition Several blocks of flats have been destroyed by Israeli strikes in Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon. Israel claims to be targeting Hezbollah facilities.
Police in Paris are braced for potential violence before Thursday’s France-Israel football match, with police deploying one officer for every five ticket holders at the Stade de France. Speaking to broadcaster BFMTV a few hours before the match, French president, Emmanuel Macron, said “we will not give in to antisemitism”.
Families of Israeli hostages taken captive to Gaza by Hamas urged US president Joe Biden and president-elect Donald Trump on Thursday to work on a deal to free those still being held before winter. A delegation of former hostages and hostages’ relatives were visiting Rome for meetings including with the local Jewish community and Pope Francis.
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) said on Thursday that two or three unknown people fired approximately 30 shots in the direction of peacekeepers, who fired back and moved to safety. No one was hurt and an investigation was launched, Unifil added in a statement.
Twenty-one people were killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon on Wednesday, bringing the total killed since October last year to at least 3,386, with 14,417 injured, the Lebanese health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
UN undersecretary general for peace operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said the UN remains committed to keeping Unifil in place in all of its positions in southern Lebanon despite intense battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants. Unifil forces “continue to be deployed in all the positions, and we think it is very important to preserve that presence everywhere,” LaCroix said.
In operational updates posted to its official Telegram channel, the IDF has claimed that in the past week it has killed “over 200” Hezbollah operatives and destroyed 140 rocket launchers in its attacks on southern Lebanon.
Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the “deliberate and massive forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which says the policy amounts to crimes against humanity.
International Atomic Energy Agency director general, Rafael Grossi, has been in Tehran, and said that Iran’s nuclear installations should “not be attacked”. The UN’s atomic energy chief has said it is important to make progress with Iran in order to avoid the possibility of war.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, said the country was not prepared to negotiate about its nuclear programme while it was “under pressure and intimidation”. The head of Iran’s programme, Mohammad Eslami, issued a warning saying “any interventionist resolution in the nuclear affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran will definitely be met with immediate countermeasures”. The west has accused Iran of enriching uranium for military purposes, which it denies.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Esmaeil Baqaei, has condemned remarks by Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich about Israeli intentions to fully and permanently annex the occupied West Bank.
More than a year of clashes that recently escalated into war have cost Lebanon more than $5bn in economic losses and damaged nearly 100,000 homes, the World Bank said on Thursday. The report provided estimates for damage between 8 October 2023 and 27 October 2024, saying “the conflict has caused $5.1bn in economic losses”, with damage to physical structures amounting to “at least $3.4bn” on top of that.
According to a report on Wednesday in the leftwing Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli forces in Gaza are clearing large areas with the apparent intention to remain inside the territory until at least the end of 2025.
The Washington Post has suggested that Israel is working to time any ceasefire deal with Lebanon so that it appears as a “gift” to incoming US president Donald Trump when he takes office.
The US government issued fresh “counter-terrorism” sanctions on Thursday related to Syria’s Al-Qatirji company, according to the treasury department’s website. The sanctions targeted 26 individuals, companies and vessels associated with the Syrian company, the treasury department’s website showed.
Chris Sidoti, Australia’s former human rights commissioner, told a UN press briefing that the ongoing bombardment of Gaza was sowing the seeds for generations of conflict, every day of violence making peace harder to achieve.
Families of Israeli hostages still in Gaza call on Trump and Biden to work together
Families of Israeli hostages taken captive to Gaza by Islamist group Hamas urged US president Joe Biden and president-elect Donald Trump on Thursday to work on a deal to free those still being held before winter, reports Reuters.
A delegation of former hostages and hostages’ relatives were visiting Rome for meetings including with the local Jewish community and Pope Francis.
Reuters reports that during a press conference, they told reporters a deal was swiftly needed to bring back all the hostages still being held after the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel, and said Biden and Trump should work together.
“We hope Biden and Trump work together now to get the hostages back, before the winter … it has been so tough for them, they cannot be expected to wait another winter,” said Sharon Lifshitz. Lifshitz’s mother, Yocheved, was freed in October last year while her father, Oded, is still captive.
“This is not about the left and right, all people should come together,” she said.
According to Reuters, Norberto Louis Har, who was freed in February by the Israeli armed forces, told reporters he did not care about the political camps but only that those still held were released.
Updated
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil) said on Thursday that two or three unknown people fired approximately 30 shots in the direction of peacekeepers, who fired back and moved to safety, reports Reuters.
No one was hurt and an investigation was launched, Unifil added in a statement.
'We will not give in to antisemitism’, says Macron before France-Israel match
French president, Emmanuel Macron, said “we will not give in to antisemitism” ahead of Israel’s Nations League football match against France in Paris later on Thursday, reports Agence France-Pesse (AFP).
Speaking to broadcaster BFMTV a few hours before the match, which he will attend, Macron said:
We will not give in to antisemitism anywhere, and violence – including in the French Republic – will never prevail, nor will intimidation.”
AFP reports that the Paris police chief, Laurent Nuñez, has described the match at the Stade de France as “high risk” and Israel has urged its citizens to avoid the fixture. The authorities fear it could become another flashpoint after last week’s violence in the Netherlands.
French prime minister, Michel Barnier, will also attend the match, as well as former presidents François Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy.
Macron’s presence at the match is aimed at drawing a line after “controversies and misunderstandings” in recent relations between France and Israel, a member of his team said, reports AFP.
The security context has clearly affected the attendance, with only about 13,000 spectators expected at the game in a venue that holds up to 80,000, French interior minister, Bruno Retailleau, has said.
Israeli attacks kill 21 in Lebanon on Wednesday, health ministry says
Twenty-one people were killed in Israeli attacks on Lebanon on Wednesday, bringing the total killed since October last year to at least 3,386, with 14,417 injured, the Lebanese health ministry said in a statement on Thursday.
According to a breaking news alert on Reuters, the Lebanese health ministry have said that Israeli attacks in Lebanon on Wednesday killed 21 people.
More details to follow …
The US government issued fresh “counter-terrorism” sanctions on Thursday related to Syria’s Al-Qatirji company, according to the treasury department’s website, reports Reuters.
The sanctions targeted 26 individuals, companies and vessels associated with the Syrian company, the treasury department’s website showed.
United Nations undersecretary general for peace operations, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, said the UN remains committed to keeping its peacekeeping force, known as Unifil, in place in all of its positions in southern Lebanon despite intense battles between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants, reports the Associated Press (AP).
Unifil has continued to monitor the escalating conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah across the boundary known as the Blue Line despite Israeli calls for peacekeepers to pull back five kilometers (three miles) from the border. Unifil has accused Israel of deliberately destroying observation equipment, and 13 peacekeepers have been injured in the fighting, reports the AP.
Lacroix visited some of the wounded peacekeepers during his trip to Lebanon on Thursday.
Unifil forces “continue to be deployed in all the positions, and we think it is very important to preserve that presence everywhere,” LaCroix said. He added that had Unifil vacated its positions, they might have been taken over by one of the warring parties.
“We have a responsibility to make sure that the UN continues to be seen as neutral and impartial,” he said.
Human Rights Watch accuses Israel of war crimes in Gaza Strip
Human Rights Watch said in a report released on Thursday that Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip, including massive forced displacements that amount to ethnic cleansing, reports the Associated Press (AP).
A new report released by the New York-based rights group said people have been killed while evacuating under Israeli orders and in Israeli-designated humanitarian zones, where hundreds of thousands are crammed into squalid tent camps.
The report said the widespread, deliberate demolition of homes and civilian infrastructure in Gaza – some of them to carve a new road bisecting the territory and establish a buffer zone along Israel’s border – was likely to “permanently displace” many Palestinians.
“Such actions of the Israeli authorities amount to ethnic cleansing,” Human Rights Watch said. The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the report.
More than a year of clashes that recently escalated into war have cost Lebanon more than $5bn in economic losses and damaged nearly 100,000 homes, the World Bank said on Thursday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Since 23 September, Israel has ramped up its air campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops after almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges initiated by Hezbollah over the Gaza war.
The World Bank report provided estimates for damage between 8 October 2023 and 27 October 2024, saying “the conflict has caused $5.1bn in economic losses”, with damage to physical structures amounting to “at least $3.4bn” on top of that, reports AFP.
The losses are “largely concentrated in the commerce and tourism and hospitality sectors … as well as in the agriculture sector”, the report said.
“The final cost of damage and losses for Lebanon associated with the conflict is expected to significantly exceed those presented in this assessment,” the report said.
The conflict has also “damaged an estimated 99,209 housing units” – mainly in Lebanon’s war-torn south near the border with Israel – totalling $2.8bn in damages, it said.
Eighty-one percent of damaged and destroyed houses are located in the Tyre, Nabatiyeh, Saida, Bint Jbeil and Marjayoun districts.
The World Bank estimates that the conflict cut Lebanon’s real GDP growth for 2024 by at least 6.6%, reporta AFP
Lebanon had already been reeling since 2019 from an intense economic crisis that pushed most of the population into poverty.
“This compounds five years of sustained sharp economic contraction in Lebanon that has exceeded 34% of real GDP, losing the equivalent of 15 years of economic growth,” the World Bank said.
Updated
Australia's Chris Sidoti fears war in Gaza could sow seeds for generations of conflict
“Kids aren’t terrorists,” Chris Sidoti told the handful of journalists assembled in the quiet of the UN’s New York headquarters.
Thousands of kilometres from the conflict in Gaza he was documenting, Sidoti felt compelled to repeat it: “Kids aren’t terrorists.”
“On 7 October, 38 Israeli children were killed, one of them under the age of two years. Since then, at least … 13,319 children have been killed in Gaza, of whom 786 were under the age of one. In addition, 165 children have been killed in the West Bank,” he said.
It’s a statistic that, to me, says everything.”
Sidoti, Australia’s former human rights commissioner, told Guardian Australia in a subsequent interview this week that he feared an already intolerable conflict would only worsen:
People are still being killed, in particular, kids are still being killed in very large numbers, and the likelihood is it will get worse before it gets better.”
Sidoti was in New York to present a report by the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel. He is one of the commission’s three members.
He told the UN press briefing the ongoing bombardment of Gaza was sowing the seeds for generations of conflict, every day of violence making peace harder to achieve.
When the current Israeli prime minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu talks about finishing off Hamas, I wonder about what the 1 million children in Gaza will be doing in 20 years’ time. The conflict in Gaza is an Israeli terrorism creation factory and there is no sign of it finishing.”
He said the spiralling cycle of violence could not be arrested by more violence.
There is no end in sight. To help these kids, to help Israel, it’s got to stop. Then, there is a possibility, but until it stops, there is no chance.”
Updated
Summary of the day …
It is approaching 5pm in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza City, 6pm in Damascus, and 6.30pm in Tehran. Here are the headlines …
15 people have been killed and others injured in Israeli attacks that targeted two residential buildings in suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, Syrian state news agency Sana said
Israel’s military has claimed that in the last 48 hours it has struck what it termed 30 “terror targets” in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh. Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesperson has again issued orders for residents to evacuate specific locations in southern Beirut. In addition Several blocks of flats have been destroyed by Israeli strikes in Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon. Israel claims to be targeting Hezbollah facilities
In operational updates posted to its official Telegram channel, the IDF has claimed that in the past week it has killed “over 200” Hezbollah operatives and destroyed 140 rocket launchers in its attacks on southern Lebanon
Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the “deliberate and massive forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which says the policy amounts to crimes against humanity
International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi has been in Tehran, and said that Iran’s nuclear installations should “not be attacked”. The UN’s atomic energy chief has said it is important to make progress with Iran in order to avoid the possibility of war
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said the country was not prepared to negotiate about its nuclear programme while it was “under pressure and intimidation”. The head of Iran’s programme, Mohammad Eslami, issued a warning saying “Any interventionist resolution in the nuclear affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran will definitely be met with immediate countermeasures”. The west has accused Iran of enriching uranium for military purposes, which Iran denies
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baqaei has condemned remarks by Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich about Israeli intentions to fully and permanently annex the occupied West Bank
According to a report Wednesday in the leftwing Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli forces in Gaza are clearing large areas with the apparent intention to remain inside the territory until at least the end of 2025
Overnight the Washington Post has suggested that Israel is working to time any ceasefire deal with Lebanon so that it appears as a “gift” to incoming US president Donald Trump when he takes office
Police in Paris are braced for potential violence before Thursday’s France-Israel football match, with police deploying one officer for every five ticket holders at the Stade de France
Sirens are sounding again in the western Galilee area of Israel. Israel’s military reports that in the last 30 minutes “approximately five projectiles” were fired at the Haifa area, on Israel’s coast. There are no reports of any injuries.
Syrian state media has given a death toll of 15 people killed in an Israeli attack on Damascus.
Energy minister Eli Cohen, in an interview with Reuters, has expressed the view that Israel is “closer to an arrangement than we have been since the start of the war” over fighting in Lebanon.
It somewhat contradicts statements earlier in the week by new defense minister Israel Katz who promised there would be “no ceasefire” and “no respite” in the fighting, and that Israel would not “take its foot off the pedal.”
Reuters quotes Cohen saying on Thursday “We will be less forgiving than in the past over attempts to create strongholds in territory near Israel. That’s how we will be, and so that is certainly how we will act.”
Earlier this week Hezbollah said it had not been involved in any direct talks. Lebanon’s speaker, Nabih Berri, who negotiates on behalf of Hezbollah, said on Tuesday that “There is no sane person who thinks that we will agree to a settlement or solution that achieves the interest of Israel at the expense of Lebanon and its sovereignty.”
An overnight report in the Washington Post suggested an Israeli official had told it that any deal would be timed so that it appeared as a gift to Donald Trump as he takes over the US presidency.
Israel’s war aim is to return the tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes in northern Israel, and to push Hezbollah back to the line of the Litani river, in accordance with UN security council resolution 1701.
The Litani river is about 18 miles (29km) north of where the UN-drawn blue line currently separates Israel and Lebanon.
Qatar recently announced that it would stop mediating between Hamas and Israel over combat and hostages in Gaza as it believed neither party was acting in good faith in the negotiations.
In a statement on its official Telegram channel, Israel’s military has said that as of 3pm local time (1pm GMT), “approximately 25 projectiles” had been fired from Lebanon into Israel. It blamed them on Hezbollah. There were no reports of any casualties.
Iran’s president Masoud Pezeshkian has said Tehran is prepared to cooperate with the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA to clear up “alleged ambiguities about the peaceful nuclear activity of our country”, Iranian state media reported.
France deploys thousands of police for Israel match after Amsterdam violence
Police in Paris are braced for potential violence before Thursday’s France-Israel football match, with police deploying one officer for every five ticket holders at the Stade de France.
The match has been designated “high risk” after the hooliganism and antisemitism in Amsterdam last week when the Israeli team Maccabi Tel Aviv played Ajax.
Concerns over Thursday’s game were further raised after riot police clashed with pro-Palestinian protesters on Wednesday night outside a gala event in Paris where funds were being raised for the Israeli military.
Israel’s controversial far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, had been due to speak but subsequently cancelled.
Police pushed against dozens of protesters waving Palestinian flags and lighting flares near Saint-Lazare station, with reports suggesting that teargas had been deployed as officers struggled to contain the crowds.
The Uefa Nations League tie between France and Israel, which is due to start at 8.45pm local time (7.45pm UK), is not expected to attract a large crowd, with fewer than 20,000 tickets sold for the 80,000 capacity stadium. Only about 150 Israeli fans are expected.
Despite the low attendance, about 4,000 police officers are expected on the streets along with another 1,500 on public transport routes.
A pro-Palestinian demonstration has been organised at Saint-Denis plaza at 6pm local time to protest against the staging of the match at a time of war in the Middle East.
More on that attack in Damascus. These images have now appeared on the news wires:
People killed in Israeli attack on Damascus, Syrian media says
Several people have been killed and others injured in Israeli attacks that targeted two residential buildings in suburbs of the Syrian capital Damascus on Thursday, Syrian state news agency SANA said.
Citing SANA, Reuters reports that one building was located in Damascus suburb of Mazzeh and the other in Qudsaya, west of the capital.
Israeli army radio said the targets of the attack in Damascus were assets and the headquarters of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad.
Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria for years but has ramped up such raids since last year’s Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian group Hamas on Israeli territory that sparked the Gaza war.
Updated
Dutch authorities have said they are investigating reports of police violence against pro-Palestinian protesters after a banned rally on Wednesday evening had been broken up.
Amsterdam police said on X that they were aware of online footage, which seemed to show police officers beating protesters who had already been released after being taken away from the site of the protest.
A total of 281 protesters were detained as they rallied in central Amsterdam on Wednesday in defiance of a ban imposed after violence stemming from a football match between Ajax and the Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv last week.
Detained protesters were put on buses and driven to a location on the outskirts of the city, where they were released.
Read more here: Dutch authorities investigate alleged police violence after pro-Palestinian protest
Iranian news agency Tasnim reports that Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei has condemned remarks by Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich about Israeli intentions to fully and permanently annex the occupied West Bank.
It reports that Baqaei said the comments were a “clear sign of the racist and expansionist nature and the aggressive approach of a regime that was created and expanded based on grabbing Palestinian territories” and “part of the Israeli genocide and its policy of wiping out Palestine, which have been implemented in the most brutal way possible over the past year.”
Earlier in the week the finance minister Smotrich had welcomed the election of Donald Trump in the US, complaining that Joe Biden’s administration had “unfortunately chosen to intervene in Israeli democracy”, and that the incoming administration would be an “important opportunity” to “apply Israeli sovereignty to the settlements in Judea and Samaria,” a term used for the West Bank by some Israelis.
Israel: 30 'terror targets' struck in the Dahieh area in Beirut in last 48 hours
In a statement on its official Telegram channel, Israel’s military has claimed that in the last 48 hours it has struck what it termed 30 “terror targets” in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahieh.
Considered to be a Hezbollah stronghold, the IDF said in its message it had struck at “weapons storage facilities, command centres, and additional terrorist infrastructure sites.”
The statement continued:
These strikes were a part of the IDF’s ongoing efforts to dismantle and degrade Hezbollah’s military capabilities, and the IDF is continuing to strike Hezbollah terrorist infrastructure sites in the Dahieh area.
Reporting from Beirut for the Guardian, on Tuesday William Christou noted that among the places targeted by the strikes were a ten-story block of flats, a chicken restaurant and a medical complex.
Lebanese authorities have put the number of people killed by Israeli airstrikes in recent weeks at over 3,000, with more than 14,000 injured. The casualties came on top of those inflicted by exploding pagers and walkie-talkies in Lebanon in an attack aimed at Hezbollah which Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he personally had ordered.
Israel claims to take mitigating precautions to avoid civilian casualties, ordering residents of neighbouring Lebanon out of their homes before it carries out what it claims are “intelligence-based strikes”.
Authorities in Lebanon have said about 1.2 million people have been displaced from their homes by fighting in southern Lebanon and the aerial bombardment.
Northern Israel has also come under near constant fire from Hezbollah, forcing tens of thousands of people there to evacuate their homes.
In the last few minutes warning sirens have again sounded in the western Galilee area of Israel.
There are reports of an Israeli attack on Damascus in Syria.
More details soon …
Summary of the day so far …
It is approaching 2pm in Beirut, Tel Aviv and Gaza City, and 3.30pm in Tehran. Here are the headlines …
Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the “deliberate and massive forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which says the policy amounts to crimes against humanity
Israel’s Arabic-language mnilitary spokesperson has again issued orders for residents to evacuate specific locations in southern Beirut, which has been subject to multiple strikes by Israeli forces on Thursday. Israel claims to be targeting Hezbollah facilities. Several blocks of flats have been destroyed by Israeli strikes in Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon
Hezbollah has claimed to have attacked Israeli troops inside the south-east of Lebanon between Houla and Markaba with a volley of rockets. The claims have not been independently verified
Overnight the IDF announced that six Israeli soldiers had been killed inside Lebanon. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict
In operational updates posted to its official Telegram channel, the IDF has claimed that in the past week it has killed “over 200” Hezbollah operatives and destroyed 140 rocket launchers in its attacks on southern Lebanon
International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi has been in Tehran, and said that Iran’s nuclear installations should “not be attacked”. The UN’s atomic energy chief has said it is important to make progress with Iran in order to avoid the possibility of war
Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said the country was not prepared to negotiate about its nuclear programme while it was “under pressure and intimidation”. The head of Iran’s programme, Mohammad Eslami, issued a warning saying “Any interventionist resolution in the nuclear affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran will definitely be met with immediate countermeasures”. The west has accused Iran of enriching uranium for military purposes, which Iran denies
The foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority has suggested Israeli ministers have been outlining their ambitions to fully and permanently annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a test of international reaction to the policy
According to a report Wednesday in the leftwing Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli forces in Gaza are clearing large areas with the apparent intention to remain inside the territory until at least the end of 2025
Overnight the Washington Post has suggested that Israel is working to time any ceasefire deal with Lebanon so that it appears as a “gift” to incoming US president Donald Trump when he takes office. The report says an Isreali official told the paper “There is an understanding that Israel would gift something to Trump … that in January there will be an understanding about Lebanon”
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani arrived in Ankara to meet Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Earlier this week Erdoğan said Turkey had broken off all ties with Israel over its actions in Gaza. Qatar has recently announced it would step back from its attempts to mediate between Israel and Hamas. It said it had concluded the two sides were no longer negotiating in good faith
Arwa Damon, who is in the central Gaza Strip for the International Network for Aid, Relief and Assistance organisation, has told Al Jazeera that the situation in Gaza is “an impossible situation.”
Speaking from Deir el-Balah she told the network:
The bombing is relentless, there has been no adequate humanitarian assistance, and there isn’t sufficient medical care either. Part of the reluctance to leave the north is fear of the road. People are afraid to be targeted as they are leaving. There are families that are being separated.
Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani arrived in Ankara on Thursday, Reuters reports, where he will meet with Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
Earlier this week the Turkish president stated that his nation had cut off all ties with Israel over its actions in Gaza.
Qatar has recently announced it would step back from its attempts to mediate between Israel and Hamas. It said it had concluded the two sides were no longer negotiating in good faith.
In a statement today the foreign ministry of the Palestinian Authority has suggested that Israeli ministers have been outlining their ambition to fully and permanently annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank as a test of international reaction.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports the ministry’s spokesperson said:
The Israeli government began to issue a torrent of statements and positions regarding its expansionist colonial ambitions and projects calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank or parts of it, as trial balloons to examine international reactions and the positions of countries in this regard, in an attempt to create a climate conducive to committing this heinous crime.
The ministry accused Israel of a “war of extermination, displacement and liquidation of the Palestinian cause … undermining any opportunity to implement the two-state solution.”
It accused Israel of “escalating its illegal unilateral measures on the ground, from seizing lands, demolishing homes, [and] paving more colonial roads,” and accused Israel of planning to displace approximately 1,500 citizens by demolishing a neighbourhood in Silwan in Israeli-occupied East Jerusalem.
International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi has been in Tehran, and as part of his press conference earlier he said that Iran’s nuclear installations should “not be attacked.”
The facilities have been oft-mooted targets during the exchanges of fire between Iran and Israel during 2024, and the last attack on Iran by Israel was believed to have targeted air defences which in theory could protect Iran’s nuclear programme.
Israel’s recently appointed defense minister, Israel Kataz, this week pointedly said that Iran’s nuclear facilites were “more exposed than ever.”
Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the newswires from the region.
In the UK, Hamish Falconer, who is the under-secretary of state for the Middle East in the Labour government, has added his voice to condemnation of comments by Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich concerning Israeli plans to fully and permanently annexe the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.
Smotrich, after the election of Donald Trump in the US, declared 2025 to be a “year of sovereignty” for the occupied West Bank, which he habitually calls Judea and Samaria.
Falconer said “I condemn minister Smotrich’s comments proposing annexation of land in the West Bank. Annexation only undermines the prospects for peace, would lead to greater instability and would be illegal under international law. The Israeli government must reject this.”
Smotrich, who has made similar assertions over the years and has described it as his life’s mission to thwart the creation of a Palestinian state, has faced no sanction from prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the comments.
Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that in Jalud village, south of Nablus, Israeli settlers have attacked and stolen some of the olive crop. Wafa notes there have been more than 250 attacks of this nature since the beginning of the 2024 olive harvest season. It reports that in today’s incident the settlers fired on Palestinians, and were, it says, “under the protection of the occupation forces.”
Al Jazeera reports that two more people have been killed by Israeli strikes on Gaza. The news network reports that “the attack, in Beit Lahiya, which hit a house, also wounded several people.”
Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has banned Al Jazeera from operating inside Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
In the wake of a new report by Human Rights Watch which accuses Israel of crimes against humanity over its policy of forcing the displacement of people in Gaza, people working for ActionAid Palestine have been talking of their experiences of being forcibly moved around the Gaza Strip by Israel’s military action.
Asmaa, 40, works for an organisation helping women and girls in the territory, and says:
The war has numerous negative effects on women’s lives. I lost the safety I used to feel. I lost everything imaginable, from my house to my safety, privacy, and dignity. The war took away the house we spent so much time building. Our memories, hopes, and aspirations. These were all stolen from us.
Fatma, a project officer with ActionAid, has been displaced multiple times herself, saying:
[My family and I] have been trapped in a constant cycle of displacement and loss. We have been forced to flee again and again, moving from the north to the south, seeking and searching for safety, survival and security. The devastation we have endured, seeing the same heartbreak in other families, has been overwhelming.
IAEA's Grossi: concrete results needed over Iran nuclear programme to avoid 'conflict and ultimately war'
The UN’s atomic energy chief has said it is important to make progress with Iran in order to aovid the possibility of war.
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, was speaking in Tehran at a press conference, after a visit aimed at improving the inspection regime for Iran’s nuclear facilities.
AFP quotes him saying:
It is indispensable to get, at this point in time, to some concrete, tangible, visible results that will indicate that this joint work is improving the situation … and in a general sense is moving us away from conflict and ultimately war.
Earlier, Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araqchi said the country was not prepared to negotiate while it was “under pressure and intimidation.”
Iran has been accused by the west of using its nuclear programme in an attempt to make weapons. Iran has argued it is a peaceful civilian energy programme.
The head of Iran’s programme, Mohammad Eslami, speaking alongside Grossi, also issued a warning, saying:
Any interventionist resolution in the nuclear affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran will definitely be met with immediate countermeasures.
Israel’s Arabic-language mnilitary spokesperson has again issued orders for residents to evacuate specific locations in southern Beirut ahead of an imminent Israeli attack.
Israel claims to be targeting Hezbollah facilities. The city has already been struck several times today.
Lebanon’s National News Agency reports that Israel has struck twice at Deir el Zahrani in the south of the country, after munitions failed to explode in the initial attack. The NNA published a picture of an Israeli weapon lying unexploded in the road.
Palestinian media sources are reporting that Hezbollah has claimed to have attacked Israeli troops inside the south-east of Lebanon between Houla and Markaba with a volley of rockets. The claims have not been independently verified.
Several blocks of flats have been destroyed by Israeli strikes in Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, AFP reports, citing Lebanese media. The town is close to the UN-drawn blue line that separates Israel and Lebanon. Israel says it has been targeting Hezbollah facilities in the area.
Iran foreign minister: Tehren will not enter nuclear negotiations 'under pressure and intimidation'
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, has posted a readout to social media after meeting with the head of the UN’s nuclear agency, the IAEA.
In the messages, Araqchi said he and Rafael Grossi had “important and straightforward talks” but stressed that Tehran was not willing to entertain negotiations “under pressure and intimidation.”
As a committed member of NPT [the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons] we continue our full cooperation with the IAEA.
Differences can be resolved through cooperation and dialogue.
We agreed to proceed with courage and good will.
Iran has never left the negotiation table on its peaceful nuclear programme. The ball is in the EU/E3 court.
Willing to negotiate based on our national interest and our inalienable rights, but NOT ready to negotiate under pressure and intimidation.
The last part could be read as a warning to incoming US president Donald Trump, who unilaterally pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear agreement and reimposed sanctions.
Iran has always maintained its nuclear programme is an entirely peaceful civilian one, an assertion that has been doubted by some western observers, in particular the US and Israel, who have accused Tehran of seeking nuclear weapons. Israel has never officially declared it has a nuclear weapons capability, but is widely believed to do so.
Israel’s military has reported warning sirens sounding again in northern Israel.
Overnight the IDF announced that six soldiers had been killed in clashes with Hezbollah inside southern Lebanon.
The Times of Israel reports “it was one of the heaviest single-day losses in the operation that began in late September,” and that “according to an initial IDF probe, the soldiers were killed in an exchange of fire with at least four Hezbollah operatives inside a building in a village in southern Lebanon.”
Lebanese authorities have put the death toll in the country since Israel stepped up its airstrikes at over 3,000 people, with more than 14,000 people wounded. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
According to a report yesterday in the leftwing Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Israeli forces in Gaza are clearing large areas with the apparent intention to remain inside the territory until at least the end of 2025.
The newspaper reported that a “combat graph for 2025” distributed in recent weeks to Israeli soldiers and commanders in Gaza describes “exposing large areas” in the coastal strip: destroying existing buildings and infrastructure in addition to the construction of roads and preparations for building more permanent military facilities.
Overnight the Washington Post has suggested that Israel is working to time any ceasefire deal with Lebanon so that it appears as a “gift” to incoming US president Donald Trump when he takes office.
The report says an Isreali official told the paper “There is an understanding that Israel would gift something to Trump … that in January there will be an understanding about Lebanon.”
There have been contradictory noises from Israeli ministers about the prospects for a settlement on Israel’s northern front in recent days. Foreign minister Gideon Saar said “certain progress” had been made on a deal, but defense minister Israel Katz said there would be “no ceasefire” and “no respite” in Lebanon, and that Israel “will not take our foot off the pedal” in its fight against Hezbollah.
At least one member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has said they will collapse the coalition if a peace deal was signed with Hezbollah. Hezbollah has said it has had no direct participation in talks.
Reuters has a quick snap, citing local medics, that three people have been killed by an Israeli strike on Gaza City, with ten others wounded.
More details soon …
Lebanon’s National News Agency reports an Israeli strike on Nabatieh in the south of the country.
Here are some of the latest pictures sent over the newswires from Beirut in Lebanon, which has again been the target of Israeli strikes.
Israel’s military has issued a further set of orders for people in the southern suburbs of Beirut to evacuate. Lebanese media reports there have been at least three strikes on the Choueifat area, which is a suburb in the south-east of Lebanon’s capital, close to the international airport.
More details soon …
Israel claims to have killed 'over 200' Hezbollah operatives in past week
In operational updates posted to its official Telegram channel, Israel has claimed that in the past week it has killed “over 200” Hezbollah operatives and destroyed 140 rocket launchers in its attacks on southern Lebanon.
Authorities in Lebanon have put the death toll from recent Israeli strikes at over 3,000, with more than 14,000 people injured. It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify the casualty figures being issued during the conflict.
It its statement, the IDF said of its attacks on Lebanon “These strikes further degrade Hezbollah’s capability to carry out terror attacks from southern Lebanon against Israeli civilians on the northern border. The IDF will continue to operate to thwart any danger or threat against the State of Israel.”
Tens of thousands of Israelis have been forced to flee their homes in the north of the country, and Benjamin Netanyahu has set their safe return as one of Israel’s war aims.
Israel’s military also states that it continues to operate in the Beit Lahia and Jabaliya areas of the Gaza Strip where, it says, “troops located a large amount of weapons and eliminated dozens of terrorists from the air and ground.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Israel accused of crimes against humanity over forced displacement in Gaza
Israel is using evacuation orders to pursue the “deliberate and massive forced displacement” of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, according to a report by Human Rights Watch, which says the policy amounts to crimes against humanity.
The US-based group added it had collected evidence that suggested “the war crime of forcible transfer [of the civilian population]”, describing it as “a grave breach of the Geneva conventions and a crime under the Rome statute of the international criminal court”.
The report was published amid mounting evidence that Israel is accelerating its efforts to cut the Gaza Strip in two with a buffer zone and is building new infrastructure to support a prolonged military presence, with an increased pace of demolitions and destruction.
Residents in northern Gaza said Israeli forces were besieging displaced families and the remaining population, which some estimated at a few thousand, ordering them to head south through a checkpoint separating two towns and a refugee camp from Gaza City.
Men were held for questioning, while women and children were allowed to continue towards Gaza City, residents and Palestinian medics said.
Calling for Israel’s policy of forced displacement to be investigated by the international criminal court, Human Rights Watch also urged targeted sanctions against Israel including the cessation of arms sales.
Read more here: Israel accused of crimes against humanity over forced displacement in Gaza
Welcome and opening summary …
Welcome to the Guardian’s ongoing coverage of the crisis in the Middle East. Here are the headlines …
Israel’s military has claimed that in the last week it has killed “over 200” Hezbollah members and dismantled 140 rocket launchers in southern Lebanon. The claims have not been independently verified
Human Rights Watch said in a report released Thursday that Israel’s repeated evacuation orders in Gaza amount to the “war crime of forcible transfer”, and to “ethnic cleansing” in parts of the Palestinian territory
International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi met Iran’s top diplomat Thursday during a visit to Tehran. Later, Grossi is expected to meet president Masoud Pezeshkian in their first meeting since his election earlier this year, and to hold a press conference
Australia has backed a UN resolution to recognise the “permanent sovereignty” of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, marking a major departure from its previous position
Ice-cream brand Ben & Jerry’s said in a lawsuit filed Wednesday that parent company Unilever has silenced its attempts to express support for Palestinian refugees