William Bell of Christian Aid on a decades-old cycle of violence and the UN commission of inquiry’s report that said Israel and Hamas have both committed war crimes since 7 October

The UN commission of inquiry’s report should shock us all to our very core (Israel and Hamas have both committed war crimes since 7 October, says UN body, 12 June). It describes in graphic detail the contempt with which Israeli and Palestinian military forces treat innocent civilians.

Sexual violence, collective punishment, starvation, humiliation, extermination and more are highlighted in a catalogue of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Of course, words of denial and accusations of bias are issued in protest. But the truth is that civilians have routinely been targeted in this decades-old cycle of violence.

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© Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty Images

It represented a forum he could conveniently castigate when things went wrong. Now the blame can only go in one direction

There is very little drama in Netanyahu’s decision, or rather bland and laconic statement that he is dissolving the “war cabinet” that he himself formed on 11 October 2023. Constitutionally and in terms of affecting policy, the decision is a Seinfeld decision: it’s about nothing. The constitutionally authoritative body – the one with real power – is the security cabinet. The war cabinet was a convenient and circumstantial political invention. But Netanyahu rival Benny Gantz’s recent withdrawal from the government made the forum redundant in terms of policymaking, and politically explosive, since the extreme rightwing ministers now demanded to join.

The dissolution of the war cabinet looks like an important development. It isn’t. Had Winston Churchill dissolved his war cabinet in January 1941, eight months after he assembled it in May 1940, that would have been significant. This is not the same. Churchill’s war cabinet, as Neville Chamberlain’s before him in 1939, or even David Lloyd George’s war cabinet during the first world war in 1917, then called the war policy committee, had clearly defined constitutional and statutory powers and authority. The war cabinet that Netanyahu formed in the panic, disarray and disorientation that ensued in the days after 7 October patently lacked those constitutional powers.

Alon Pinkas served as Israel’s consul general in New York from 2000 to 2004. He is now a columnist for Haaretz

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© Photograph: Amos Ben Gershom/Israel Gpo/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

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© Photograph: Amos Ben Gershom/Israel Gpo/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

Move is apparent rebuff to far right and attempt to tighten grip on decision-making over Hamas and Hezbollah

Benjamin Netanyahu has dissolved the Israeli war cabinet that had been overseeing the conflict in Gaza, rebuffing his far-right allies who had been seeking seats, and apparently moving to solidify his grasp on decision-making over the fighting with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah across the Lebanese border.

The prime minister announced the move to ministers, saying the war cabinet had been established as part of an agreement in which the moderate politician Benny Gantz and his National Unity party joined an emergency coalition last year.

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© Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

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© Photograph: Joshua Roberts/Reuters

US adviser Amos Hochstein heading to Israel to help defuse tensions along ‘Blue Line’ between Israel and Lebanon, says White House official

Palestinian news agency Wafa reports that “two people were killed and at least 13 others were injured, including women and children” as a result of an Israeli attack on a house in the north of the Gaza Strip.

It has not been possible for journalists to independently verify casualty figures being issued during the conflict.

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© Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Bashar Taleb/AFP/Getty Images

From ancient Greece to modern Russia, sanctions are now the go-to option for policy-makers – so why do they so rarely achieve their aims?

In the year 432BCE, the Athenian empire sought to teach its smaller neighbour, Megara, a punitive lesson after various acts of defiance. Instead of going to war, which would break the peace with Sparta, Athens took the novel path of blocking the Megarians from using all the ports in the region.

It was known as the Megarian decree, and it was arguably the first recorded case of economic sanctions. It was also a failure, at least when it came to fending off a conflict. The Peloponnesian war, pitting Athens against Sparta, erupted a year later, and some ancient historians believe it was triggered by the Megarian sanctions.

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© Photograph: Stéphanie Lecocq/EPA

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© Photograph: Stéphanie Lecocq/EPA

Israel’s prime minister is said to have called the decision ‘unacceptable’ after Itamar Ben-Gvir said whoever decided it was a ‘fool’

• Read all our coverage of the Israel-Gaza war

Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly criticised plans announced by the military to hold daily tactical pauses in fighting along one of the main roads into Gaza to facilitate the delivery of aid

On Sunday the military announced a daily pause that would begin in the Rafah area at 8am and remain in effect until 7pm along the main Salah al-Din road, to allow aid trucks to transit between the Kerem Shalom crossing from Israel, adding that the pause would take place every day until further notice.

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© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

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© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

Israel presents itself as an LGBT haven in the region, but for Palestinians it offers neither refuge nor solidarity

When Daoud, a veteran queer activist, recently walked past rainbow flags hung for Pride month in the old port city of Jaffa, a historic centre of Palestinian culture, he was overcome by a wave of revulsion.

The most famous symbol of LGBTQ+ liberation has been so co-opted by the Israeli state that to a gay Palestinian like him it now serves only as a reminder of the horror unfolding just 60 miles south.

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© Photograph: @stateofisrael/instagram

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© Photograph: @stateofisrael/instagram

Eleven-hour window to allow in aid via Kerem Shalom crossing will take place every day until further notice, military says

The Israeli army has said it will observe a limited daily “tactical pause” along one of the main roads in the Gaza Strip to allow delivery of increased quantities of humanitarian aid, as UN agencies have suspended deliveries from a US-built pier.

The Israel Defense Forces, however, added that the pause should not be seen as a “cessation of hostilities in the southern Gaza Strip”.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Israel’s conflicts with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon are destined to grind on indefinitely

In 2019, Aviv Kochavi, then the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) chief of staff, delivered a bullish speech. The IDF, he proclaimed, is “all about victory”.

Assessing that the primary threats to Israel’s security were from nonstate actors such as Hamas and Hezbollah, Kochavi would the following year usher in a new operational doctrine titled “decisive victory”.

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© Photograph: Rabih Daher/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Rabih Daher/AFP/Getty Images

The Italian prime minister also stated the EU will not directly contribute to a $50bn loan to Ukraine agreed at the summit

Israel is falling into a trap laid by Hamas in its war in Gaza, Giorgia Meloni said at a press conference closing the G7 summit in Bari that affirmed her role as a leading figure in Europe. The Italian prime minister also stated that the EU will not directly contribute to a $50bn loan to Ukraine agreed by the G7 leaders.

And she underlined her status by declaring that she will start talks on Monday about the allocation of top jobs in the EU on the basis that Europe has to accept the verdict of the people reflected in the results of last week’s European parliament elections.

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© Photograph: Francesco Fotia/REX/Shutterstock

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© Photograph: Francesco Fotia/REX/Shutterstock

Deaths will likely fuel calls for ceasefire and heighten Israeli public anger over military exemptions for ultra-Orthodox

Eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in a blast that engulfed their armoured vehicle in southern Gaza, in the biggest loss of life for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in a single incident since January.

The deaths came amid continuing fighting around Rafah in which at least 19 Palestinians were killed in Israeli strikes.

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© Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images

War in Gaza, protests in Buenos Aires, a thunderstorm in Omaha and high temperatures in Athens: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

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© Photograph: Chris Machian/AP

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© Photograph: Chris Machian/AP

US says Tsav 9 activists have blockaded key crossing, set trucks on fire and injured drivers as hunger spreads inside Gaza

• Israel-Gaza war – live updates

The US state department has imposed sanctions on Tsav 9, “a violent, extremist Israeli group”, for blocking convoys taking humanitarian aid to Gaza, and attacking trucks.

The US said Tsav 9 activists began blockading a key crossing, Kerem Shalom, at the start of the year, and later set trucks on fire and injured drivers and Israel Defense Forces soldiers, as hunger spread inside Gaza.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Osama Hamdan’s comments signal group’s position on ceasefire proposal remains largely unchanged

• Israel-Gaza war – live updates

A senior Hamas official has said the group does not know how many of the Israeli hostages it is holding in Gaza are still alive, as Israeli and Hamas sources set out positions that could undermine the possibility of an imminent ceasefire deal.

The Lebanon-based Hamas official Osama Hamdan said in an interview with CNN that “no one has any idea” how many of the remaining 120 hostages captured on 7 October last year were still alive, amid Israeli estimates that at least a third had died in captivity or were killed when seized.

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© Photograph: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images

If it’s true that more than 100 women and children died in the IDF’s rescue of four hostages, Israel violated international law

The enormous loss of Palestinian life attendant to the Israeli military’s 8 June rescue of four hostages held by Hamas cries out for investigation. Hamas’s abduction and detention of these four civilians was a clear war crime, but that does not exempt the Israeli military from the duty to comply with international humanitarian law in the rescue operation. The available evidence suggests that Israel fell short in several deadly respects.

The Gaza health ministry, whose numbers have generally proved reliable, says that at least 274 Palestinians were killed in the operation and more than 600 wounded. The ministry does not distinguish combatants from civilians, but it reports that the dead included 64 children and 57 women, or 44% of the total. Given that many of the men who were killed in the course of the operation were in a nearby market, we must assume that a good proportion of them were civilians as well. That is a horrible civilian toll.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

UN relief agency says authorities are hampering operations by failing to grant requests for access permits

The UN’s relief agency for Palestinians, the largest aid organisation operating in Gaza, has said Israeli authorities are frequently preventing it from delivering aid and hampering its operations in the territory.

“We are getting very few positive responses to our requests for aid delivery and permits to move around Gaza,” said Tamara Alrifai, the director of external relations for Unrwa.

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Anadolu/Getty Images

Parallel reports describe serious crimes during Hamas attack and Israel’s subsequent offensive in Gaza

A UN investigation has accused Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity on and since 7 October, the date of Hamas’s surprise attack on Israel.

The allegations were contained in two parallel reports prepared by a commission of inquiry formed in 2021 by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate human rights violations in Israel and the Palestinian territories, chaired by the former UN human rights chief Navi Pillay.

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© Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images

Acts including Speed, Scowl and Ithaca voice opposition to Barclaycard sponsorship over financial services provided to defence companies

Multiple bands have pulled out of Download festival over Barclaycard being used as its official payment partner, in protest against Barclays providing financial services to defence companies supplying Israel.

Download, the UK’s biggest rock, metal and punk festival which takes place from 14 to 16 June, lists Barclaycard as one of its official sponsors alongside Liquid Death, Red Bull and others.

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© Photograph: David Dillon

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© Photograph: David Dillon

Attack in apparent retaliation for killing of Taleb Abdallah, Lebanese group’s most senior official to die in hostilities

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has launched its biggest salvo of rockets at Israel since the war in Gaza began in retaliation for the killing of a senior field commander, bringing the two sides closer to all-out conflict.

An Israeli airstrike on the village of Jouaiya in southern Lebanon late on Tuesday night killed three Hezbollah operatives as well as Taleb Abdallah, the most senior commander to be killed since hostilities began eight months ago.

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© Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA

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© Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA

The UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) report covers the period from 7 October to 31 December 2023

Israel’s military has issued a statement saying that it continues to operate in the central Gaza Strip and in the Rafah area. It claims it is carrying out “intelligence-based, targeted operations” and to have “eliminated a number of armed terrorist cells in close-quarters encounters.”

It says that “Over the past day, the Israeli air force struck and dismantled over 30 terror targets throughout the Gaza Strip, including military structures.”

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© Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images

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© Photograph: Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images

We are editors at Harvard and Columbia journals and saw bureaucracy weaponized to suppress a human-rights lawyer’s writing on Israel

On a normal day, the Columbia Law Review’s website is not a feast for the eyes. What it lacks in visual appeal, it makes up for with a panoply of articles and student notes addressing a range of legal issues. But for much of last week, the website displayed just a single line: “Website is under maintenance.”

One would be forgiven for envisioning a shiny new website on the horizon. But these four words were a lie. There was no maintenance.

Erika Lopez is a recent graduate of Columbia Law School, where she was an editor and DEI chair of the Columbia Law Review

Tascha Shahriari-Parsa is a recent graduate of Harvard Law School, where he was an editor and online chair of the Harvard Law Review

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© Photograph: Charles Krupa/AP

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© Photograph: Charles Krupa/AP

More ‘grave violations’ committed in occupied territories and Israel than anywhere else in world, report says

More grave violations against children were committed in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel than anywhere else in the world last year, according to a UN report due to be published this week.

The report on children and armed conflict, which has been seen by the Guardian, verified more cases of war crimes against children in the occupied territories and Israel than anywhere else, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, Nigeria and Sudan.

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© Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

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© Photograph: Mohammed Salem/Reuters

Ministers have rejected calls to suspend arms exports to Israel despite claims they break international humanitarian law

The UK has issued more than 100 arms export licences to Israel between the Hamas attack on 7 October and 31 May, according to government figures.

Thirty-seven of the 108 licences were described as military and 63 as non-military, but this might include telecommunications equipment for use by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). A further eight open licences were granted.

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© Photograph: Israel Defense Forces/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

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© Photograph: Israel Defense Forces/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

US secretary of state hails ‘hopeful sign’ of endorsement although plan has not been formally accepted by either party to conflict

• Israel-Gaza war – live updates

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said endorsement of the UN security council’s ceasefire resolution by Hamas officials was a “hopeful sign”, but the group’s leadership in Gaza needed to sign off on the deal.

Blinken, who is in Israel as part of his eighth regional trip since the war began, said the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had “reaffirmed his commitment” to the ceasefire plan outlined by the US, although it has not been formally accepted by either party to the conflict.

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© Photograph: Jack Guez/AP

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© Photograph: Jack Guez/AP

Senior Hamas official says it will accept the UN security council resolution calling for Hamas to agree to a three-phase hostage-for-ceasefire proposal

Israel’s military has said it has intercepted some of a barrage of about 50 projectiles fired towards to Golan Heights from the direction of Lebanon. In a statement the IDF said:

Following the sirens that sounded in northern Israel a short while ago, approximately 50 projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon into the area of the central Golan Heights. The IDF aerial defense array successfully intercepted a number of the projectiles. The rest of the launches fell in open areas. No injuries were reported.

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© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

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© Photograph: Marko Đurica/Reuters

Only Russia abstains in vote on plan calling for hostage and prisoner swap in six-week ceasefire leading to wider deal

The UN security council has adopted a resolution calling for Hamas to agree to a three-phase hostage-for-ceasefire proposal outlined by Joe Biden, the first time the body has endorsed a comprehensive peace deal to end the Gaza war.

A Hamas statement said the group welcomed the resolution, though it was not immediately clear if that meant the leadership in Gaza accepted the ceasefire plan.

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© Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters

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© Photograph: Eduardo Muñoz/Reuters

Bezalel Smotrich calls deal with Hamas ‘collective suicide’ as PM grapples with fallout from Benny Gantz resignation

The prospect of a hostage deal between Israel and Hamas appears to be rapidly receding after the far-right Israeli cabinet member Bezalel Smotrich – on whom Benjamin Netanyahu is now reliant after the resignations of more moderate ministers at the weekend – said he would oppose a deal.

Smotrich’s comments, during a Knesset committee meeting, came amid the fallout from the resignation of the former army chief of staff Benny Gantz from the war cabinet. Gantz quit on the same weekend that Israel rescued four Israeli hostages held in Gaza in an operation that Gaza’s health ministry said killed more than 270 Palestinians and injured hundreds more.

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© Photograph: Maya Alleruzzo/AP

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© Photograph: Maya Alleruzzo/AP

Antony Blinken also visiting Middle East this week in push to nail down support for deal to end hostilities

The US is to try to shore up support for its proposed Gaza ceasefire deal by asking the 15-strong UN security council in New York to back a resolution supporting the deal.

Washington is struggling to gain the unequivocal backing of Israel or Hamas for a three-stage deal proposed by the US president, Joe Biden, that would lead to the release of all the remaining hostages in return for Israel accepting steps towards a permanent ceasefire and the eventual withdrawal of its forces from Gaza – two key Hamas demands.

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© Photograph: Abed Khaled/Reuters

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© Photograph: Abed Khaled/Reuters

The actor takes on an unfamiliar role – as herself – in her daughter Lina Soualem’s film documenting four generations of Palestinian women

Hiam Abbass felt “suffocated” growing up as a Palestinian woman in what had recently become the state of Israel. She was unable to travel to other Arab countries where her own relatives had been forced to live after being expelled during the Nakba of 1948. Feeling at odds with the rest of the world drove her into the arts,
and she enrolled at a photography school in Haifa. Working as a photographer for El-Hakawati theater in Jerusalem was her first step towards acting professionally. “Build a career is not even really the right term,” she says. “What it meant was just to exist, to be what you want to be, without having to give answers at every second of the day to hundreds and hundreds of people.”

Today, Abbass is arguably the world’s most celebrated Palestinian actor. Most recently known for her roles in Succession and Ramy, she has performed for decades in French, English and Arabic across television and cinema.

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© Photograph: Norman Wong

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© Photograph: Norman Wong

Repairs complete but security concerns after Israeli operation to free hostages mean food has not yet been distributed

Humanitarian assistance has begun to come ashore in Gaza from a US-made pier once more, two weeks after the short-lived sea corridor was suspended due to storm damage, but security concerns after one of the bloodiest days of the war meant the aid was not distributed.

The head of the World Food Programme (WFP), Cindy McCain, said the food distribution from the pier had been “paused” because she was “concerned about the safety of our people”. An Israeli military operation on Saturday freed four hostages but killed 274 Palestinians and left one Israeli commando dead. McCain told CBS’s Face the Nation programme that two of WFP’s warehouses in Gaza had also been rocketed and a staffer injured.

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© Photograph: AP

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© Photograph: AP

Nuseirat market was crowded with civilians when a hostage rescue vehicle got stuck, and the bombing began

• Outrage over ‘massacre’ in Gaza as Israel rescued four hostages

The market in Nuseirat was busy on Saturday morning. Among the crowds were Asia El-Nemer, looking for a pharmacy that still had stock of her sister’s medication, and Ansam Haroun, hoping to find new clothes to lift her daughters’ spirits on the forthcoming Eid al-Adha holiday.

This part of central Gaza had emptied at the start of the year when Israeli troops first moved through, destroying Haroun’s house in an airstrike, but filled up again from May as more than a million people fled north to escape another operation in Rafah.

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© Photograph: Abed Khaled/Reuters

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© Photograph: Abed Khaled/Reuters

Guardian: Mass casualty incidents caused by the Israeli military offensive in southern Gaza are becoming normalised in the west and leading to a sense of fatalism inside Gaza itself, according to Sam Rose, the director of planning for the Palestinian relief agency UNRWA (after its school in Nuseirat was bombed by Israeli forces) || Democracy Now: "Apocalyptic": 40 Killed in Israeli Airstrike on U.N. School Sheltering Displaced Palestinians in Gaza || BBC: US urges Israel to be transparent over Gaza school strike || Sky News UK: Experts told Sky News the [bomb] fragment [at Gaza school strike] can be identified as part of an American-made GBU-39 bomb; NPR: Israel used a U.S.-made bomb in a deadly U.N. school strike in Gaza [ground reporting that concurs] || MEMO (reporting of a Yedioth Ahronoth article): UN adds Israel to blacklist for harming children in conflict zones || ICYMI: Aharon Barak steps down as Israel's nominated judge to the ICJ case; Israel's Attorney-General urges Netanyahu to form commission of inquiry to provide legal cover from international judicial investigations such as through the ICC; Which ten countries have joined South Africa's case against Israel at the ICJ?

This is the fresh thread for the coverage of the violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The previous thread (worth a check of the last 50 comments or so for there continues to be fresh news).

Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs ordered the operation, which used fake social media accounts urging U.S. lawmakers to fund Israel’s military, according to officials and documents about the effort.

© Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York Times, Kenny Holston/The New York Times

Iran and an Israeli company also exploited the tools in online influence efforts, but none gained much traction, an OpenAI report said.

© Jason Henry for The New York Times

"You should help us and let us take care of you. You don't want to be getting into things that could compromise your security or that of your family." An investigation by the Guardian and the Israeli-based magazines +972 and Local Call details an almost decade-long secret "war" against the International Criminal Court.

There has been 1 arrest since counterprotesters violently attacked the UCLA pro-Palestinian encampment on April 30. Archive.is. UCLA Chancellor Gene Block testified before the House committee on the protests, where he admitted that he thought he should have removed the encampment sooner to prevent violence. Other universities also participated in the hearing, where the focus was mostly on how/whether the protests were antisemitic and should have been shut down earlier. Over 1000 people walked out of the Harvard commencement to protest Harvard denying 13 student protesters from participating. Encampments and student protests have spread to Australia, England, Germany, Italy, and more.

Billionaires sharing a WhatsApp chat group apparently urged New York City Mayor Eric Adams to crack down on Columbia's student encampments. Archive.is. Sonoma State University President Mike Lee announced his retirement after being placed on leave for "insubordination" due to committing to supporting student protesters demand to boycott and divest from Israel. Archive.is Trinity College in Ireland has agreed to divest from Israel. United Auto Workers Local 4811, which represents 48,000 graduate teaching assistants, researchers and others at 10 UC campuses, started its academic strike on May 20 at UCSC; the strike is expected to spread to other UCs. Previously.

South Africa's case against Israel over allegations of genocide before the international court of justice has raised a central question of international law: what is genocide and how do you prove it? It is one of three genocide cases being considered by the UN's world court, but since the genocide convention was approved in 1948, only three instances have been legally recognised as genocide. Josh Toussaint-Strauss looks back on these historical cases to find out why the crime is so much harder to prove than other atrocities, and what bearing this has on South Africa's case against Israel and future cases

• What is the genocide convention and how might it apply to the UK and Israel?

• ‘Famine is setting in’: UN court orders Israel to unblock Gaza food aid

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© Photograph: Guardian Design

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© Photograph: Guardian Design