Yemen’s Houthi rebels said on Wednesday that they would continue targeting Israeli ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden despite a ceasefire deal with the United States. “The waterways are safe for all international ships except Israeli ones,” Abdulmalik Alejri, a member of the Houthi political bureau, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). Senior Hamas official Bassem Naim said on Wednesday that the group insists on a “comprehensive agreement” to end the war with Israel in Gaza, now in its 19th month. Naim told Agence France-Presse (AFP): There are desperate attempts ahead of [US president Donald] Trump’s visit to the region, through the crime of starvation, the ongoing genocide and threats of expanding military operations, to force through a partial deal that would return some Israeli captives in exchange for a limited number of days of food and water – without any guarantees from any party to actually end the war. Iran is aghast at reports from the US that Donald Trump is planning for the US to offer Saudi Arabia to change the name of the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Arabia, a move that would cause deep offence in Iran and have large diplomatic repercussions. There has been a decades long dispute between Arab states and Iran about the appropriate terminology for the stretch of water, but historically dating back to the Greeks it has been called the Persian Gulf. Intermediaries are trying to persuade Trump of the diplomatic folly of the move just as Iranian diplomats are trying to convince hardliners in Iran that Trump is serious about negotiating a balanced nuclear deal with Iran. He would make the announcement as a gift to Saudi Arabia as part of his three day tour in the Gulf. One source said: It is the height of stupidity, but we are trying to tell the Iranians that Trump will be there for four years, but the Persian Gulf will be there for thousands of years. The source added that Trump believes the move might be enough to persuade Arab states of the value of normalisation of relations with Israel, one of the great second term goals of Trump diplomacy. Trump has already renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Protesters have interrupted the opening minutes of Barclays’ annual general meeting (AGM) on Wednesday, reports the PA news agency. The disruption broke out at the beginning of the shareholder meeting in London, with groups of people being pulled out by security at the request of the bank’s chair. One protester said that Barclays “provides loans worth billions to armed companies”, while people outside gathered to shout “free Palestine” and “stop arming Israel”. Another was shouting “Barclays funds Shell; Barclays funds hell” before being removed by security. Barclays’ chair, Nigel Higgins, responded that the bank would be “more than willing to answer questions on the topic during the Q&A” session, according to the PA news agency. The UN’s human rights chief told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Wednesday that Israel’s plan for an expanded offensive in the Gaza Strip represented “a very dangerous moment” for civilians there. “What we see is only more destruction, more hatred, more dehumanisation,” said Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, during a visit to Copenhagen for a UN meeting. “It’s a very dangerous moment for civilians,” he added, criticising the Israeli plan for an expanded offensive in the Gaza Strip. On Monday, Israel announced an expanded military campaign, which an Israeli official said would entail the “conquest” of the Palestinian territory. On Tuesday, Israel’s finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said this meant that the Gaza Strip would be “entirely destroyed”. Several countries and world leaders have already condemned the plan, and Türk said the parties needed to “come to a place of reason and peace, and not just of continuous fighting and war”. The war needed to end, he said, there needed to be a ceasefire, a political solution with all the hostages “released unconditionally and immediately”. Hamas has said that ceasefire talks are pointless at this stage, reports AFP. The blockade imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip “needs to be lifted immediately”, Türk told AFP. “Humanitarian assistance needs to come in. That’s an obligation, that’s an obligation under international law,” he added. Türk argued that the current situation worldwide underlined the need to reaffirm the principles of international cooperation. The UN security council “is not functioning well” to address “the big crisis of our time”, he added. “With what is happening at the moment, in this current geopolitical moment, it is all the more important to come back to the principles, the values, to the norms, to the institutions, because they have served humanity well for 80 years,” said Türk. “And if we lose them, we lose a lot of what has been actually possible by way of progress, human progress, development, and also when it comes to humanitarian action and human rights,” he added. He hoped “that the world comes together again, shows the political leadership … including the most powerful countries around the world, that they act in favour of peace and not in favour of war”. Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa is to meet French leader Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday, marking his first visit to Europe since overthrowing longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, despite alarm over deadly clashes that have shadowed the new authorities’ first months in power. Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports that the visit comes with al-Sharaa and his fellow top officials, who have roots in the al-Qaida jihadist network, under pressure from Europe to show they are serious about protecting human rights as Damascus seeks the full lifting of Assad-era sanctions. Sectarian clashes in March, in which more than 1,700 people were killed, mostly among the Alawite minority, drew international condemnation and doubts over Syria’s new path. By welcoming Sharaa, Macron hopes to help the authorities on the way to “a free, stable, sovereign Syria that respects all components of Syrian society,” a French presidential official, asking not to be named, told AFP. The official said France was aware of “the past” of certain Syrian leaders and was demanding that there be “no complacency” with “terrorist movements” operating in Syria. “If we are inviting him [Sharaa] here, it is precisely to ask him to go further in the fight against impunity,” foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot told broadcaster TF1. More than a dozen senior Conservative MPs and peers have written to the prime minister calling for the UK to immediately recognise Palestine as a state, breaking ranks with their own party to do so. Seven MPs and six members of the House of Lords have signed the letter to Keir Starmer urging him to defy the Israeli government and give formal recognition to Palestine in advance of key UN talks next month. The letter, which has been seen by the Guardian, was written in late March soon after Israel broke its peace agreement with Hamas, diminishing hopes of an eventual two-state solution. On Monday, the Israeli cabinet went one step further, approving a plan to “conquer” the Gaza Strip and occupy most if not all of it. In the letter, which was organised by the former minister Kit Malthouse, the group writes: For decades, the Palestinian people have endured occupation, displacement and systemic restrictions on their basic freedoms. Recognising Palestine would affirm our nation’s commitment to upholding the principles of justice, self-determination and equal rights. It would send a clear message that Britain stands against indefinite occupation and supports the Palestinian people’s legitimate aspirations. The letter continues: Recognition should not be treated as a distant bargaining chip but as a necessary step to reinforce international law and diplomacy. Prime minister, we stand ready to offer our public support for this decision. This is an opportunity for Britain to show leadership, to be on the right side of history and to uphold the principles we claim to champion. More than 140 UN member states have already recognised Palestine – it is time for the United Kingdom to do the same. Some global airlines have again halted their flights to and from Tel Aviv after a missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels towards Israel on Sunday landed near the country’s main international airport. Foreign airlines had begun to resume flights to Israel after a ceasefire deal with Palestinian militant group Hamas in January. Many carriers had halted them for much of the last year and a half since the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023. KLM, Ryanair, Wizz Air, United Airlines, Air India and the Lufthansa group are among the airlines that have cancelled flights after Sunday’s attack, according to Reuters. An Israeli drone strike on a car in southern Lebanon killed an official with the Palestinian militant group Hamas early on Wednesday, authorities said, reports the Associated Press (AP). Hamas said in a statement that Khaled Ahmad al-Ahmad, who was a member of its military wing, was killed while he was on his way to a mosque to attend dawn prayers. The Israeli military confirmed that it had targeted al-Ahmad, saying he was a commander with Hamas in south Lebanon and was behind several attacks against Israel. Since Hamas’s attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, Israel’s military has targeted members of the group in Lebanon, where Hamas has a military presence. The group has also carried out rocket attacks from Lebanon since the Israel-Hamas war began, and in recent weeks Lebanese authorities detained several men linked to Hamas on suspicion of firing rockets toward Israel. According to the AP, Lebanese authorities warned Hamas last week that it would face the “harshest measures,” if it carried out any attacks from Lebanon. The Dutch government, seen as one of Israel’s most loyal allies in the European Union, is calling for an urgent review of the EU Israel association agreement, the basis for the EU-Israeli free trade agreement, the Dutch foreign minister Caspar Veldkamp told the Guardian. Veldkamp described the Israeli ban on the supply of aid into Gaza as “catastrophic, truly dismal” and in clear breach of international humanitarian law. He has written to the head of the European Union foreign service Kaja Kallas requesting an urgent review, saying he believes Israel is now in breach of the association agreement. Veldkamp, a former Dutch ambassador to Israel, said he expects the issue to be discussed at a two day informal EU foreign ministers meeting in Poland starting Wednesday. The EU is Israel’s largest trade partner. The Dutch government has in the past led moves to block discussion of the association agreement’s suspension, a lever most persistently advocated by Ireland and Spain. Explaining his position Veldkamp said: You cannot starve the people of the Gaza Strip. It is against international law. It’s morally wrong. It’s dangerous. I don’t think it’s in Israel’s own interest. Chances for a ceasefire appeared “very, very slim,” he said, making the situation “unbearable”. Israel’s hostages coordinator on Wednesday said the number of living captives held in Gaza since Hamas’s October 2023 attack remained unchanged, contradicting US president Donald Trump’s announcement that three more had died, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). “The terrorist organisation Hamas is currently holding 59 hostages. 24 of them are on the list of living hostages. 35 of them are on the list of hostages whose deaths have been officially confirmed,” Hostages and Missing Persons coordinator Gal Hirsch wrote on X. On Tuesday, Trump said that three more hostages held by Hamas in Gaza had died. “We want to try and get as many hostages saved as possible,” he said. “This is a terrible situation.” The Israeli military, in its most recent update, said that out of the 251 people abducted by militants on 7 October 2023, 58 are still held in Gaza including 34 believed to be dead. Hamas is also holding the remains of an Israeli soldier killed in a previous war in Gaza in 2014. Trump, who heads next week to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, has repeatedly demanded the return of the hostages. Israeli strikes on a school housing displaced families in northern Gaza killed 13 Palestinians on Wednesday, local health authorities said, as Israeli forces continued to demolish homes and buildings in Rafah in the south of the territory. According to Reuters, medics said two strikes targeted the Karama school in Tuffah, a suburb of Gaza City. Among those killed was a local journalist, Nour Abdu, Palestinian media said. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli army. The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said the death of Abdu on Wednesday raised to 213 the number of Palestinian journalists killed by Israeli fire since the war began. Two Israeli airstrikes on another school, housing displaced people in central Gaza, killed at least 29 people, including women and children, on Tuesday, local health authorities said. The Israeli military said it struck “terrorists” operating from a command centre in the compound, reports Reuters. Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, said on Wednesday their fighters had detonated a pre-planted minefield targeting an Israeli armoured force east of Khan Younis. They said they inflicted casualties, followed by mortar shelling of the area. In the nearby area of Rafah, near the border with Egypt, residents and Hamas sources said Israeli forces, who have taken control of the city, continued to blow up and demolish houses and buildings. Israeli troops have already taken over an area amounting to around a third of Gaza, displacing the population and building watchtowers and surveillance posts on cleared ground the military has described as security zones. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday an expanded offensive against Hamas would be “intensive” after his security cabinet approved plans that may include seizing the entire Gaza Strip and controlling aid. Israeli officials have said Rafah could be used as a potential new humanitarian zone. UK firms have exported thousands of military items including munitions to Israel despite the government suspending key arms export licences to the country in September, new analysis of trade data shows. The research also raises questions over whether the UK continued to sell F-35 parts directly to Israel in breach of an undertaking only to sell them to the US manufacturers Lockheed Martin as a way of ensuring the fighter jet’s global supply chain was not disrupted, something the government said was essential for national security and Nato. The findings have led the former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell to call for a full investigation, adding it was a resigning matter if the foreign secretary, David Lammy, was shown to have misled parliament in breach of the ministerial code when he told MPs in September that much of what the UK sends to Israel was “defensive in nature”. McDonnell said: The government has shrouded its arms supplies to Israel in secrecy. They must finally come clean in response to this extremely concerning evidence and halt all British arms exports to Israel to ensure no British-made weapons are used in Netanyahu’s new and terrifying plans to annex the Gaza Strip and ethnically cleanse the land. The research – conducted jointly by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Progressive International and Workers for a Free Palestine – uses Israeli tax authority import data to try to uncover what the continuance of the 200 arms export licences has allowed Israel to import. It covers the first seven months of the Labour ban to March. Israeli military on Wednesday reported that it had intercepted an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) launched from the east. Sirens were sounded as part of standard protocol, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said, reports Reuters. A ceasefire deal between Yemen’s Houthis and the United States does not include operations against Israel “in any way, shape or form,” the group’s chief negotiator Mohammed Abdulsalam told Reuters on Wednesday. Israel’s attack on the airport in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital Sana’a destroyed terminal buildings and caused $500m in damage, its director told Houthi media on Wednesday, reports Agence France-Presse (AFP). He said earlier in a statement on X that the airport was suspending all flights until further notice after sustaining “severe damage” in the Israeli strikes. The strikes came after a Houthi missile gouged a crater near Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport on Sunday. “Around $500m in losses were caused by the Israeli aggression on Sana’a airport,” its general director Khaled alShaief told the rebels’ al-Masirah television. “The enemy destroyed the terminals at Sana’a airport, including all equipment and devices,” he said, adding that a warehouse was also “completely levelled”. Yemenia Airways lost three planes, he said, adding that six planes in total had been destroyed. “There are alternatives to temporarily reopen the airport, and we need a long time to rehabilitate it and restore operations,” he said. On Tuesday, the Houthi rebels and the United States agreed a ceasefire that would ensure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea, mediator Oman said. But the deal that was announced does not mention Israel, with the rebels vowing to respond to Tuesday’s strikes. Houthi rebels have been attacking Israel and merchant shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden since late 2023, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians as the Gaza war rages. The Yemeni rebels had paused their attacks during a recent two-month ceasefire in the Gaza war. In March, they threatened to resume attacks on shipping over Israel’s aid blockade on the Gaza Strip, triggering a response from the US military, which began attacking the rebels with near-daily airstrikes. Medical officials in Gaza report rising cases of acute malnutrition, and community kitchens that served 1m meals a day are shutting down for lack of basic essentials. Aid agencies say they have distributed all remaining stocks of food. Dozens of bakeries that supplied vital free bread closed last month. “By the time a famine is declared, it will be too late. The crime wave is because you have 2 million or more desperate, traumatised people packed together with virtually no policing,” said one humanitarian official in Gaza. Gaza City has been worst hit by the crime wave, though some incidents have been reported elsewhere in the territory. One group of armed men broke into two or three bakeries in Gaza City last week, hoping to find flour, then targeted a soup kitchen when they found nothing. In another incident, thieves took a community kitchen’s last stocks as well as all its pots and pans. In a third theft, staff at a distribution site run by an NGO were held at knifepoint as it was looted, while the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (Unrwa) said it had to evacuate staff on Wednesday after thousands of Palestinians breached its Gaza City field office and took medications. Louise Wateridge, a senior emergency officer at Unrwa, called the looting “the direct result of unbearable and prolonged deprivation”. Witnesses described clashes between armed thieves and security guards in recent days. Anas Raafat, a 25-year-old lawyer in Gaza City, said he and his family had been woken when armed gangs attacked a warehouse of a humanitarian aid organisation nearby. “By a miracle, none of my family members were injured. We lay flat on the ground for over two hours during the gunfire,” he said. You can read more of the reporting by Jason Burke in Tel Aviv and Malak A Tantesh in Gaza here: Israel’s aid plan, combined with plans for moving much of the Gaza Strip’s population to the south, has reinforced fears that the overall intention is full occupation, reports Reuters. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Tuesday the plan was “the opposite of what is needed” and other agencies also questioned the plan, which they have only been briefed on verbally, according to two aid officials. “It is totally wrong that a party to the conflict – in this case Israel – should be in control of lifesaving aid for civilians,” Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council said on the social media platform X. “This new Israeli aid plan is both totally insufficient to meet the needs in Gaza, and a complete breach of all humanitarian principles,” he said. Aid agencies have criticised Israeli plans to take over distribution of humanitarian aid in Gaza and use private companies to get food to Palestinians after two months in which the military has prevented supplies from entering the territory. It comes as Gaza has been hit by a wave of looting and theft as increasingly desperate Palestinians struggle to get food while criminal gangs exploit a breakdown in law and order. Aid officials and witnesses in the devastated territory describe armed men attacking humanitarian warehouses, firefights over remaining food stores and a spate of stealing of supplies vital for survival, such as solar chargers, batteries, phones and cooking pots. Gaza is on the brink of catastrophe after two months of a total blockade by Israel, aid workers say, with many families down to one meal a day. Spoiled flour is being sold for 30 or 40 times its usual price and no fuel is available other than wood or discarded plastic. Israel has provided few details about its Gaza aid distribution plans, announced on Monday as part of an expanded operation that it says could include seizing the entire Gaza Strip. For the moment, the blockade will continue until a large-scale evacuation of the population from northern and central areas to the south, where there will be a specially designated area cleared near the southern city of Rafah, Israeli officials have said. More on this story in a moment, but first, here are some other key developments: Medical officials in Gaza report rising cases of acute malnutrition, and community kitchens that served 1m meals a day are shutting down for lack of basic essentials. Aid agencies say they have distributed all remaining stocks of food. Dozens of bakeries that supplied vital free bread closed last month. An Israeli government minister has vowed that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” as a result of an Israeli military victory, and that its Palestinian population will “leave in great numbers to third countries”, raising fears of ethnic cleansing in the occupied territory. The declaration on Tuesday by the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, came a day after Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which an Israeli official said would entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories”. The US will halt its bombing campaign against Yemen’s Houthis after the Iran-aligned group agreed to stop targeting shipping in the Red Sea. The halt – announced by the US president, Donald Trump, during an Oval Office meeting with Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, came on a day in which Israel claimed its jets had fully disabled Yemen’s main airport, including three civilian aircraft on the ground, in retaliation for a missile strike on Sunday that hit within the perimeter of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport. Israel’s attack on the airport in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital Sana’a destroyed terminal buildings and caused $500m in damage, its director told Houthi media on Wednesday. He said earlier in a statement on X that the airport was suspending all flights until further notice after sustaining “severe damage” in the Israeli strikes. UK firms have exported thousands of military items including munitions to Israel despite the government suspending key arms export licences to the country in September, new analysis of trade data shows. The research also raises questions over whether the UK continued to sell F-35 parts directly to Israel in breach of an undertaking only to sell them to the US manufacturers Lockheed Martin as a way of ensuring the fighter jet’s global supply chain was not disrupted, something the government said was essential for national security and Nato. More than a dozen senior Conservative MPs and peers have written to the prime minister calling for the UK to immediately recognise Palestine as a state, breaking ranks with their own party to do so. Seven MPs and six members of the House of Lords have signed the letter to Keir Starmer urging him to defy the Israeli government and give formal recognition to Palestine in advance of key UN talks next month. Sudan’s security and defence council has declared that it will break diplomatic relations with the United Arab Emirates over its alleged backing of the paramilitary Sudanese Rapid Support Forces. During a televised speech on Tuesday, Sudan’s defence minister, Yassin Ibrahim, said Sudan was “severing diplomatic relations with the UAE” and recalling its ambassador, claiming the Gulf nation had breached Sudan’s sovereignty through its RSF “proxy”, which has been fighting the army in a bloody civil war since April 2023.
Author: Amy Sedghi