Israel

The Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis is a moderate man and chooses his words carefully. So his statement about David Lammy’s suspension of 30 export licences to Israel was striking in its tone, if not surprising in its content. The Foreign Secretary’s timing did feel a bit rum ‘It beggars belief that the British government, a close strategic ally of Israel, has announced a partial suspension of arms licences, at a time when Israel is fighting a war for its very survival on seven fronts forced upon it on the 7th October, and at the very moment when six hostages murdered in cold blood by cruel terrorists were being buried by

The latest information seeping out from the negotiations for an end to the war in Gaza suggest that agreement between the sides remains out of reach. According to a report by Axios today, Hamas yesterday rejected an updated US proposal, claiming that the new formula aligned with attempts by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to raise ‘new conditions and demands with the aim of undermining the mediators’ efforts and prolonging the war’. While one should not rule out the possibility that we are the recipients of a messaging strategy designed to secure further concessions in the negotiations, it does appear that the talks are floundering on substantive gaps between the

An Israeli airstrike on a school in Gaza in the early hours of this morning has once again triggered an information battle in the narrative of the war. Shortly after the strike, the Hamas-controlled government and media-affiliated service reported that there were 100 dead, including women and children. According to Israeli sources, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) took measures to minimise civilian casualties, including using precision weapons to strike the building, which had been used as a shelter. The IDF says that according to evidence obtained from the scene, both the number of casualties and the scale of destruction had been exaggerated. Today’s targets were Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic

It was never just about Gaza. Since October, the Middle East has been in a regional war that, over the next few weeks, is likely to break into the open. After Israel’s airstrike on Beirut and assassination of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran last week, Iran is promising a different approach. Following the killing of Qassem Soleimani in 2020, and the Israeli attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, they promised enteqam: revenge. Today, they say mojazat – punishment, or khun-khahi: literally ‘a desire for blood’. Israel has three outstanding blood debts accumulated over the past few weeks from across the self-styled ‘Axis of Resistance’. It bombed Hodeidah, the Houthi-controlled port in Yemen,

This piece was originally published in a different form on 16 July. If the Pimpernel was damned and elusive, he had nothing on Mohammed ‘the guest’ al-Masri, the head of Hamas’s military wing. The ‘guest’ moniker – ‘Deif’ in Arabic – was gained by decades of moving from house to house nightly to avoid assassination. Despite reportedly losing an eye and a leg in attacks, he continued to evade the missiles as if charmed. The 58-year-old shadow was by far the longest-surviving senior leader of Hamas. This morning, one day after the sensational assassination of Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, the IDF has finally confirmed his death. On 10.29 a.m. on Saturday 13 July, the

Israel is the only meaningful democracy in the Middle East. This is as true today as it was last week. But the shameful scenes of far-right violence in response to the arrest of a group of soldiers is a gift to those who wish to undo it. On Monday, dozens of hardline activists tried to disrupt the arrest of nine reservists detained as part of an investigation into ‘suspected substantial abuse of a Palestinian detainee’. They were accompanied by far-right politicians, who barged into an army base and occupied it for several hours. A firebrand like Ben-Gvir is clearly the last thing Israel needs at a time like this When

On 27 July, 12 children from the Druze community of the Golan Heights were slaughtered when an Iranian Falaq 1 missile hit a soccer field in the town of Majdal Shams. The office of Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a terse statement on the same day vowing that the country would ‘not allow the murderous attack to simply pass on by, and that Hezbollah will pay a heavy price for this that it has not paid until this point’. This incident was the single bloodiest attack on an Israeli target since the massacres of 7 October. It represented a severe escalation in the conflict which has been under way

Operation Long Arm, the code name for Israel’s counter-terror strikes in Yemen, sends a message almost as forceful as the payload of its F-15s. Iran may have an extensive network of proxies through which to attack Israel but the IDF will go whatever distance necessary to defend itself. In this instance 1,200 miles to Al Hudaydah, a port city controlled by Ansar Allah, more commonly known as the Houthis, where a fuel depot was turned into a fireball on Saturday. If Operation Long Arm disrupts the Houthis’ activities significantly, the world will owe a debt to Israel, not that it is likely to be acknowledged It marks the first time

In the imagination of the world, there could be nobody more Jewish than the ultra-Orthodox. With their black hats, sidecurls and frock coats, they are taken as the very epitome of the culture. That is why their radical fringes are appropriated by Israelophobes seeking a cover for their bigotry, as if suffering a cartoonish Jewish ally is a price worth paying to evade charges of antisemitism. Tens of thousands of young men devote their lives to taxpayer-funded study while their secular compatriots place their lives on the line This week, pictures of such apparently devout Jews clashing with Israeli police were seized upon as another opportunity to delegitimise the state

Another week, another confirmation that when it comes to jihadism, the Biden administration’s foreign policy occupies the nexus between incompetence and moral vacancy. We’ve observed the President’s strategic genius when it comes to the Taliban (withdraw), Iran’s nuclear ambitions (appease) and Hamas (thus far but no further). Now we are seeing it when it comes to Hezbollah. With the conflict in Gaza winding down, Israel is being forced to turn its mind to its restive northern border. Over the last eight months, with the eyes of the world fixed firmly on Palestine, the parallel war – for that is what it has been – with the Lebanese militia Hezbollah has

Benny Gantz, leader of the Israeli Resilience party and a member of the war cabinet, has resigned from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. Gantz, a moderate who joined the cabinet days into the war against Hamas, has repeatedly expressed his frustration with the prime minister over a lack of a plan for Gaza. Gantz positioned himself as a ‘patriot’, in contrast to Netanyahu, whom he accused of operating based on narrow political interests ‘Netanyahu is preventing us from progressing towards a true victory,’ Gantz said in a TV address on Sunday night. ‘For this reason we are leaving the emergency government today, with a heavy heart, yet wholeheartedly.’ Gantz also called on

Aleading member of Israel’s wartime cabinet has threatened to resign should Benjamin Netanyahu fail to present a strategy for ending the war in Gaza. The liberal politician Benny Gantz, who would win an election were one held now, has given a public ultimatum. He will collapse Netanyahu’s fragile coalition if no peace plan is delivered by Saturday. Netanyahu might believe he’s a Churchill; most Israelis consider him a Chamberlain Meanwhile, the largest protest since 7 October took place last weekend when 120,000 Israelis marched in Tel Aviv. Families of the 120 hostages held in Gaza (at least a third of whom are presumed dead) have joined the growing demonstrations against

Why have all eyes been on Rafah? We have been led to believe that the intense focus on a town the size of Rochdale in southern Gaza derives from purely humanitarian concerns, as if any Israeli operation there would trigger a civilian catastrophe on the scale of Rwanda or Darfur. Take a closer look, though, and this narrative quickly falls apart. The Israeli operation taking place as I write is remarkable. According to Colonel Richard Kemp, the former commander of British forces who is closely following the conflict in Gaza, the current casualty ratio in Rafah is about one civilian for every ten combatants killed, which is several orders of

On Sunday, 45 Palestinians were killed after an Israeli airstrike on two Hamas commanders in the Rafah area set off a secondary explosion of ammunition, triggering a fire. Nevertheless, the IDF’s Rafah operation is continuing apace. A number of Merkava 4 tanks of the 401st armoured brigade were sighted near the al-Awda mosque close to the centre of Rafah city on Tuesday. The presence of the tanks has not been confirmed by the IDF but if accurate, it represents the furthest penetration by Israel into the heart of Rafah’s urban area to date. Israeli infantry and armoured forces of the 162nd division, meanwhile, continue to push along the Philadelphi Corridor adjoining the border with