Rights groups say the planned 1.4km route, which ends at compound run by far-right settler group Elad, will displace Palestinians and reshape the cultural landscape

A fifth foreign company has pulled out of a plan to build a cable car from West to East Jerusalem that threatens to involve the seizure of land and property rights from dozens of Palestinian families along its route, but local authorities insist the scheme is proceeding as planned.

The project appeared to have stalled for four years until late September, just weeks before Israel’s 27 October elections, when the Jerusalem Development Authority (JDA) issued a notice of intent to award a contract without a public tender to ROPES, a cable car engineering consultancy based in South Tyrol, Italy.

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© Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images

Here’s what we need to do to stand up for international law

Many applauded when Navi Pillay was awarded the Nobel peace prize. The South African human rights lawyer had chaired the UN commission of inquiry that found Israel to have committed genocide in Gaza and served for five years as a judge on the international criminal court (ICC).

Donald Trump responded a few hours later by imposing sanctions on the ICC. He chose a moment for celebrating the rule of law to try to undermine it.

Kenneth Roth is a Guardian US columnist, a senior fellow at Yale University and a former executive director of Human Rights Watch. He is the author of Righting Wrongs: Three Decades on the Front Lines Battling Abusive Governments

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© Photograph: Finn Gomez/Getty Images

© Photograph: Finn Gomez/Getty Images

© Photograph: Finn Gomez/Getty Images

Move comes after US photojournalist and group of European diplomats and Palestinians were assaulted in separate attacks

Israeli police have detained 10 people in a rare raid against settlers, after a weekend of extreme violence in the occupied West Bank including an attack on US photojournalist Heidi Levine, which she described as an “attempted lynching”.

She was knocked down, kicked and beaten by a group of masked Israeli men as she covered the olive harvest in a Palestinian village on Friday. The militants broke four vertebrae and a rip, ripped open her finger so it required surgery and left her with lacerations across her body.

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© Photograph: Debbie Hill/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Debbie Hill/UPI/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Debbie Hill/UPI/Shutterstock

New video footage of Israeli settler assault on European delegation as Netanyahu attempts to raise doubt

Hours after Israeli militants attacked a delegation of European diplomats, French clerics and a visiting mayor in the occupied West Bank, Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, responded by questioning the delegation’s account of the assault.

“Serious accusations require serious evidence” was the all-caps headline of a social media post from the office of the prime minister. As news of the attack spread globally there was no pledge to find those accountable and bring them to justice.

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© Photograph: UGC/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: UGC/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: UGC/AFP/Getty Images

Capt Smit Machchhar said he screamed for help as he reached to open the cockpit door on flight FZ1073

The captain of a flydubai flight who was attacked by a co-pilot who intended to crash the plane has described ⁠blocking axe blows to his head and screaming for help as he reached to open the cockpit door.

Capt Smit ⁠Machchhar has been hailed ⁠as a ​hero for his role in averting disaster on the flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv last month, helping to thwart what the UAE ⁠attorney general has said was an attempted suicide attack by the co-pilot who had intended to crash the plane into Ben Gurion airport.

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© Photograph: Israel's Foreign Ministry/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Israel's Foreign Ministry/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Israel's Foreign Ministry/AFP/Getty Images

Mike Huckabee calls for arrest and prosecution of those responsible as Heidi Levine, 63, recovers in hospital in Israel

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has denounced the settler attack that left the Washington Post photojournalist Heidi Levine badly beaten and needing surgery as a “despicable act of terror” and called for the arrest and prosecution of those responsible.

Levine, 63, an award-winning journalist who lives in Israel, was set upon last Friday by masked Israeli settlers who used clubs and other weapons to attack Palestinian people attempting to harvest their olives in occupied West Bank towns.

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© Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP

© Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP

© Photograph: Ariel Schalit/AP

Green leader in England and Wales calls ‘debates about words’ unhelpful and denies recent motion was controversial

Zack Polanski has said Zionism in its current form is racist, that no country has a right to exist, and that the Green party motion on the issue was not controversial.

The leader of the Green party in England and Wales gave an unapologetic interview to the BBC on Sunday two weeks after his party approved a motion equating Zionism with racism.

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© Photograph: Jeff Overs/PA

© Photograph: Jeff Overs/PA

© Photograph: Jeff Overs/PA

Whether or not Netanyahu can hold on to power, Israelis are expected to vote in a more rightwing Knesset

Four decades ago, when the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane won a single seat in Israel’s Knesset, other legislators passed a law to prevent him running again, left the chamber when he rose to speak and worked together to block discussion of his ethnonationalist proposals.

These ranged from mass expulsions of Palestinians to apartheid provisions such as segregated beaches and the criminalisation of sex between Jews and gentiles.

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© Photograph: Ilia Yefimovich/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ilia Yefimovich/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ilia Yefimovich/AFP/Getty Images

Film’s executive producer talks about first time he watched film detailing Israel’s mass killing of civilians in Gaza

The director Jonathan Glazer said he was “shocked into silence” the first time he watched NAZA, an award-winning documentary about Israel’s systems of mass killing in the war on Gaza.

Glazer appeared on a panel at NAZA’s UK premiere in London on Thursday night alongside key figures behind the documentary, including its Israeli co-directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.

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© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

© Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian

French mayor and archbishop also attacked during violent attempt to stop Palestinians harvesting olives

Israeli settler militants have attacked European diplomats, a French mayor and the archbishop of Cambrai in Taybeh, in the occupied West Bank, injuring three people and damaging a car, in the latest violent attempt to prevent Palestinians from harvesting olives on their own land.

Bernard Baudoux, mayor of Aulnoye-Aymeries, was wearing his red, white and blue sash of office and attempting to enter a vehicle with diplomatic plates when he was assaulted and knocked to the ground on Saturday.

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© Photograph: Amit Orfali/Reuters

© Photograph: Amit Orfali/Reuters

© Photograph: Amit Orfali/Reuters

Settlers hurl rocks at Palestinians and beat photographer Heidi Levine as part of yearly attacks to disrupt harvest

Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinians across the occupied West Bank in a coordinated movement to disrupt the annual olive harvest, burning cars and trees and injuring Palestinians and a Washington Post photographer.

Masked settlers wielding clubs and other weapons attacked people attempting to harvest their olives in West Bank towns on Friday. Palestinian authorities said they recorded attacks in eight villages, and injuries among at least 20 people.

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© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

Film interviewing military insiders about mass killing of civilians in Gaza wins widespread praise around the world

Critics around the world have hailed the award-winning documentary NAZA as a “brilliant and harrowing” film that is “impossible to ignore”.

NAZA, which is produced by the Guardian and details Israel’s mass killing of civilians in Gaza, was released in UK cinemas this week and will be shown in more than 50 countries. As well as its global cinema releases, NAZA will be available free on the Guardian’s website from late November.

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© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

The film’s testimonies from Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers expose years of baseless propaganda. Don’t take my word – take theirs

I watched the extraordinary new Guardian-produced documentary from Oscar-winning Israeli film-makers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor the other night, and I have struggled to stop thinking about it ever since. The film’s title comes from a Hebrew military term for collateral damage, and it consists of eye-opening interviews with two dozen Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers sitting in darkness, often on the rooftops of Tel Aviv, their voices “digitally altered to disguise their identities”.

At one point, Abraham asks one of the soldiers a remarkably blunt question.

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© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

Oscar-winning filmmakers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor discuss their new documentary, NAZA, which exposes the AI systems that the Israeli military uses to rain down strikes on Gaza, causing the mass killing of civilians. Based on the testimony of 24 military insiders, the documentary caused uproar in Israel, with the government threatening to strip the filmmakers of their citizenship. The Guardian's Annie Kelly talks to the directors about how the film was made, and the price they paid for speaking out

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© Photograph: The Guardian

© Photograph: The Guardian

© Photograph: The Guardian

Though Burnham and Badenoch may still need the votes of Green and Reform supporters, both leaders have drawn clear lines in the sand

Ask a straight question, get a straight answer. It’s how politics is supposed to work but almost never does, which is why on the rare occasions it happens the result can be faintly chaotic. What did Andy Burnham mean when he said – in response to a question from the Tory MP Harriett Baldwin – that Labour couldn’t partner with the Green party while it remains wedded to the “Zionism is racism” motion its members have just endorsed? Were Green MPs now barred from a future coalition government? If so, what about councils where they are currently sharing power with Labour?

Though Burnham was only confirming what ministers have been arguing privately for days, at first nobody seemed to know: tellingly, it took almost 24 hours for the Labour party chair, Bridget Phillipson, to confirm that unless local Green groups disowned that idea sharpish, “Labour will bring any such local arrangement to an end”. So much for cuddly cross-party Andy, who always seemed so relaxed about rainbow coalitions. Now elected Greens in places such as Sheffield or Lewes must choose between power and members’ wrath, a useful rehearsal for what a hung parliament might feel like.

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© Illustration: Thomas Pullin/The Guardian

© Illustration: Thomas Pullin/The Guardian

© Illustration: Thomas Pullin/The Guardian

Discover-Tech’s Controlium software lets clients mass-profile internet users then covertly hack targets, say researchers at University of Toronto

An Israeli advertising agency has been serving millions of online adverts that allow “zero-click” spyware to be used against targets, researchers at a Canadian university have said.

Citizen Lab, a digital investigations research unit at the University of Toronto, said it believed dozens of devices at the Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera had been compromised by spyware delivered through ads run by Discover-Tech, which describes itself as a specialised digital advertising agency.

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© Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy

© Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy

© Photograph: Sergio Azenha/Alamy

The ‘menschy’ former general contrasts with the current PM when it comes to style and character – yet on key policy points retains a studied ambiguity

He has been called the man who is everything the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is not.

Gadi Eisenkot, a former general and the main opposition candidate in Israel’s elections this month, is unpolished where Netanyahu is slick.

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© Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP

© Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP

© Photograph: Oded Balilty/AP

Exclusive: Israel has not permitted US-led project to house 150 international troops to move forward

Israel is refusing to allow a key military outpost project for Donald Trump’s Board of Peace to proceed in Gaza, the Guardian has learned.

In early August, the Board of Peace, the international organization authorized in 2025 by the UN and chaired by the US president, issued its first construction contract for Gaza: Louisiana-based Arkel International would construct a military outpost for 150 international troops that would be the vanguard of an international stabilization force.

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© Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: Fabrice Coffrini/AFP/Getty Images

Global human rights commitments adopted by government extend reach to enablers of unlawful activity

The UK is expanding its sanctions powers to freeze assets and target entities enabling illegal Israeli settlements, obstructing humanitarian aid or unlawfully holding prisoners.

The statutory instrument introducing the global human rights and international humanitarian law sanctions adds three new grounds to the 2020 regime: serious violations of international humanitarian law, obstruction of humanitarian assistance and serious violations of the right to liberty and security of person.

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© Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA

© Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA

© Photograph: Atef Safadi/EPA

He’s been linked to someone called “The Hawk.” He named his company “This Isn’t a Dentist’s Office.” The feds say he hacked American environmentalists.

© Mark Harris

Israeli PM calls for criminal investigation into soldiers and officers interviewed in Guardian-produced documentary

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has ordered the country’s attorney general and the head of the Shin Bet security service to reveal the identities of soldiers and officers interviewed in the investigative documentary NAZA and prosecute them for causing “harm to Israel’s diplomatic and security interests”.

The award-winning documentary, directed by the Oscar-winning film-makers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor and produced by the Guardian, details Israel’s mass killing of civilians in Gaza. The film is in cinemas, including in the UK and the US, and will be shown in more than 50 countries.

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© Photograph: The Guardian

© Photograph: The Guardian

© Photograph: The Guardian

Using archive material of destroyed houses, terrorised children and dead bodies, Kamal Aljafari adds humanity to the reels by overlaying poems by Palestinian authors

In Arabic, “fidai” means someone willing to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. Borrowing this word, which is at times used in a military context, for his collage film, Palestinian film-maker Kamal Aljafari stages a potent uprising of images against the tide of propaganda and historical erasure. Much of the film draws on archive materials once housed in the Palestine Research Centre in Beirut. In 1982, during the Lebanese civil war, Israeli forces raided the centre and seized the archive. Most of these documents on Palestinian history – books, newspapers, audiovisual artefacts – are believed to still be in the hands of the Israeli army.

Obtained through clandestine means, the footage that resurfaces in Aljafari’s film bears the physical traces of political suppression. The images are scratched, grainy and pixelated, yet through the power of montage they evoke startling visual parallels that point to the relentless violence endured by Palestinians through the decades. Black-and-white film taken during the British mandate show soldiers patrolling the streets and inflicting violence upon the Indigenous population; similar acts then committed by Israeli forces. In place of a chronological order, the editing builds a sense of continuity through recurring images. Time and time again, we see torn-down houses, terrorised children and the bodies of Palestinians murdered by occupation forces.

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© Photograph: Courtesy of True Story

© Photograph: Courtesy of True Story

© Photograph: Courtesy of True Story

Rapid growth means structures need to change and give leaders greater control, Polanski says in Guardian article

• Zack Polanski: How we’re transforming British politics

Zack Polanski has signalled a potential overhaul of the Green party’s cherished grassroots democracy, calling for leaders to have greater control over strategic direction after a divisive vote equating Zionism with racism.

The Green party leader has also questioned whether political parties should seek to define what members believe, in his strongest criticism yet of a motion that has provoked bitter divisions, international condemnation and calls for his resignation.

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© Photograph: James Veysey/Shutterstock

© Photograph: James Veysey/Shutterstock

© Photograph: James Veysey/Shutterstock

We must now have unity and a discussion about party democracy. And let me be clear: as leader, I will never tolerate antisemitism

When I stood for leader of the Greens in 2025, our party was at a crossroads. The transformative leadership of Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsay had taken us to an electoral success we’d never seen before. I knew we had even greater potential – and that the country was crying out for the bold politics we could offer.

We have seen unprecedented wins this year – from our first ever parliamentary byelection win to our landslide council and mayoral victories in former Labour strongholds.

Zack Polanski is the leader of the Green party of England and Wales and a member of the London assembly

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Photograph: Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images

© Photograph: Alishia Abodunde/Getty Images

Twenty arrested in first march since Ed Miliband declared UK’s position was that Israel’s occupation of West Bank was unlawful

Thousands of people have gathered in central London to express their support for Palestinians after three years of “genocide” carried out against them by Israel.

The demonstrators, many wearing keffiyehs and holding Palestine flags, gathered on the Embankment at midday on Saturday. Some carried placards reading “End the genocide” and “Free Palestine” as they marched towards parliament. A bride and groom appeared to be among those in attendance and a two-minute silence was held to reflect on the lives lost in Gaza.

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© Photograph: Alberto Pezzali/AP

© Photograph: Alberto Pezzali/AP

© Photograph: Alberto Pezzali/AP

A whirlpool of violence has engulfed everywhere from Lebanon to Yemen. Meanwhile, the west has destroyed any political authority it once had

There was a world before 7 October, 2023, and now there is a world after. For Gaza, for Israel, for the wider Middle East, and for everyone else too. Not all hinge points in history are obvious at the time. Three years on from the day it began, and precisely one year since a supposed ceasefire was agreed, this one is now impossible to ignore.

The before-and-after pictures tell part of the story. An update to Google Maps, released last week, underscores just what three years of relentless Israeli military onslaught has done to Gaza. Satellite images show how entire towns have been reduced to rubble. Mosques and hospitals, visible three years ago, have now disappeared. Meanwhile the once-empty shoreline is now crammed with tents. This is what it looks like when an attempt has been made to destroy a people.

Steve Bloomfield is the former international editor of the Observer

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© Photograph: Tariq Mohammad/APAImages/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tariq Mohammad/APAImages/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Tariq Mohammad/APAImages/Shutterstock

Are we really living through ‘end times fascism’? The authors Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor think so.

In a new series from the Guardian, the pair speak to Radical Thinking with Aditya Chakrabortty in an extended interview. From Trump 2.0 and the rise of the tech billionaire to Gaza and the ongoing climate emergency, Klein and Taylor argue we are not just lurching from crisis to crisis, but are in a new and dangerous moment in history. However, they haven’t given up hope of a fightback.

Radical Thinking will be published every Saturday in the Politics Weekly feed

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© Photograph: The Guardian

© Photograph: The Guardian

© Photograph: The Guardian

Hammam al-Hammami is believed to have been targeting the passenger terminal at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv

The co-pilot who tried to seize control of a passenger jet flying from Dubai to Tel Aviv last week was planning to launch a suicide attack targeting the passenger terminal at Israel’s international airport, prosecutors in the United Arab Emirates said on Friday.

Hammam al-Hammami attacked the plane’s Indian pilot with an emergency axe, but failed to prevent his badly injured colleague from opening the cockpit’s security door to allow passengers to overpower his assailant.

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© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

A byelection win is a fillip for Andy Burnham and shows Zack Polanski must confront the failures damaging his party’s credibility and appeal

By holding Holborn and St Pancras, Andy Burnham’s Labour has shown it can attract liberal and left-leaning voters. The seat has substantial numbers of young adults, students, professionals and Muslims – offering fertile ground for the Greens’ ecopopulism. However, Labour prevailed. Having won leave-voting Makerfield in June, Mr Burnham can now claim an appeal that bridges Labour’s divided electorate. It’s worth noting that turnout in London was low and Labour’s vote share fell 3.7 points. But that compares with an average 19.3-point fall in four byelections under Mr Burnham’s predecessor. The new leader clearly has bought Labour breathing space and checked the Green advance.

The Greens more than tripled their vote share in the constituency to 33%. But they were beaten. Labour’s Sagal Abdi-Wali took 45% in Sir Keir Starmer’s former seat, leaving Zack Polanski’s ambition of entering parliament unfulfilled. For a party that began the year promising to turn voters’ hunger for change into a serious challenge to Labour, this was a sobering moment. The passing of a motion declaring “Zionism is racism” at its conference probably cost the party support – though the result in central London alone cannot definitively say that. There is a separate question of leadership. Mr Polanski now says he would have voted against the motion. Why, then, did he not make his opposition clear when it mattered last weekend?

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© Photograph: Toby Shepheard/Reuters

© Photograph: Toby Shepheard/Reuters

© Photograph: Toby Shepheard/Reuters

Readers respond to articles on the Green party’s motion

As ever, Jonathan Freedland is on the money in his article (The Green party’s anti-Zionism motion is yet another attempt to tell Jews how we should think, 3 October). As a non-religious Jew-ish Londoner, I am appalled at the passing of the motion to declare Zionism as a form of racism, and I am seriously considering leaving the Green party as a result.

While I condemn the Israeli government’s actions against the Palestinian people, and I am not a Zionist myself, Zionism as defined by the motion is only one political interpretation and completely ignores ancient religious and cultural definitions held by many Jews who also condemn the current Israeli government.

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© Photograph: Gary Roberts/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gary Roberts/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

© Photograph: Gary Roberts/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images

It’s easier to blame brutes and sadists for extreme violence. But as we see in the documentary, modern genocides are fueled by people who are uncomfortably recognizable

Werner Best, a senior SS official and jurist who helped organize the Nazi death squads that murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews, is also known for his statement: “We must destroy the enemy without hating him.” He belonged to a younger generation of Nazi technocrats, who despised the foul-mouthed, beer-bellied, brown-shirted “old fighters” of the Nazi party in the 1920s, and believed in organizing genocide neatly and dispassionately. After the fall of the regime, Best escaped justice for the rest of his long life, dying peacefully in Germany in 1989. His chilling statement came to my mind while I was watching the film NAZA.

I grew up in Tel Aviv and have visited there often in recent years. That is why the interviews with 24 Israeli soldiers and intelligence officers, which make up this documentary, felt strangely familiar. The conversations are conducted at night on rooftops, and the camera scans the cityscape, lingering on apartment windows as their inhabitants watch TV and make dinner. The landscape was intimately recognizable, and I felt a natural affinity with those people living their lives. I also recognized the way the interviewees talked – their speech patterns and choice of words. They reminded me of my son, who served more than a decade ago in the intelligence unit many of them might have belonged to.

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© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

While Israel’s actions against Palestinians intensify public anger, the bloc remains paralysed along familiar fault lines

When the British government announced sweeping sanctions on trade with illegal Israeli settlements and condemned “ethnic cleansing” in the West Bank by state-backed “settler terrorists”, some EU diplomats hoped this dramatic shift in UK government policy towards Israel would have a galvanising effect on the rest of Europe. So far, it has not.

Although France and Canada joined the UK in pledging to ban goods from illegal settlements and impose sanctions on “those who facilitate them or profit from them”, there has not yet been a wider ripple effect.

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© Photograph: snapshot-photography/F Boillot/Shutterstock

© Photograph: snapshot-photography/F Boillot/Shutterstock

© Photograph: snapshot-photography/F Boillot/Shutterstock

Decision by Royal College of Pharmacy to end sponsorship comes after concerns over Teva Pharmaceuticals’ ‘activities’

A second major UK health body has cut ties with an Israeli drug firm after coming under pressure from pro-Palestine campaigners.

The Royal College of Pharmacy has dropped Teva UK, the British arm of the global medicines producer Teva Pharmaceuticals, as a sponsor of and exhibitor at its annual conference next month.

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© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

Embassies post links to hastily produced online film echoing style of real Guardian documentary about mass killings of Gaza civilians

The Israeli government is promoting an online film project that mimics the style of NAZA, the award-winning documentary that details Israel’s mass killings of civilians in Gaza, in an attempt to counter the real film’s findings.

The real documentary, directed by the Oscar-winning film-makers Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, and produced by the Guardian, is in cinemas and will be shown in more than 50 countries.

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© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

© Photograph: NAZA/The Guardian

Consulate targeted in sanctions spat has unusual diplomatic status that clashes with Israel’s ambitions to fully annex the city

Israel’s attempt to close the British consulate general in Jerusalem was primarily designed to deter London from imposing sanctions on settlements in occupied Palestine. But it also served the current government’s ambitions to fully annex Jerusalem as a national capital, diplomatic and legal experts said.

The UK mission to the city has an unusual diplomatic status, which dates back to before the founding of the state of Israel, rooted in a vision of Jerusalem as a neutral enclave under international control.

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© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

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© Illustration: Ben Jennings

© Illustration: Ben Jennings

© Illustration: Ben Jennings

Foreign secretary says former consulate general will remain independent, operational ⁠and serving Palestinian people

The foreign secretary, ⁠Ed Miliband, has said Britain’s consulate general ⁠building in ⁠East Jerusalem ​will not be closing but will ⁠be known as a UK mission, remaining independent, operational ⁠and serving Palestinian people.

Israel had ​ordered the ‌British consulate ‌in East Jerusalem to close ‌on Thursday over the UK’s plans to impose sanctions on settlements in the West Bank.

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© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

© Photograph: Ammar Awad/Reuters

People tell of lives changed beyond recognition after the 7 October attacks by Hamas three years ago and the subsequent Israeli offensive

Ahmed Ishtaiwi has six chairs. They are cheap and plastic and battered, but they are among the 43-year-old driver and mechanic’s most valuable possessions.

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© Photograph: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu/Getty Images

© Photograph: Ali Jadallah/Anadolu/Getty Images

Organisations honour those who died three years ago as Andy Burnham says government stands with British Jews

British Jewish organisations gathered in central London on Wednesday for a vigil honouring victims of the 7 October attacks in Israel, after a day of tributes from politicians and community leaders.

The vigil took place at Richmond Terrace, opposite Downing Street. The Board of Deputies of British Jews said: “Three years ago, Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel, murdering 1,200 men, women and children, injuring thousands and taking 251 people captive. May their memories for ever remain a blessing.”

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© Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

© Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

© Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian

On the eve of the byelection, Polanski’s pledge is to keep the government ‘in check’. It may not be enough to stop a drift back to the political margins

Only a few months ago, in the spring, there was a sense of giddy possibility about the Greens. Zack Polanski’s radical new leadership felt fresh and dynamic, especially compared with those of the other parties. Former Labour supporters, in particular, were switching to the Greens in huge numbers, Green candidates were winning across the country, and the party was second behind Reform UK in some national polls.

Like Reform, the Green party presented itself as a revolt against a failed status quo. Unlike Reform, the Greens’ urgent stance on the climate crisis gave them a potent moral authority: even many people who did not support them believed that the Greens were right about the most universal issue.

Andy Beckett is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

© Photograph: Vuk Valcic/ZUMA Press Wire/Shutterstock

1,200 died in attack that led to launch of devastating war in Gaza

• ‘All I want to do is cry’: trauma of 7 October survivors three years after the attacks

The Israeli military said it launched several security operations across the West Bank overnight, arresting dozens of people suspected of being involved in terrorism, including expressing support for the 7 October attack, the Israeli military said.

A young man was shot and wounded by Israeli soldiers during one of the campaigns in Jenin, according to Wafa, the Palestinian news agency.

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© Photograph: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

© Photograph: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

© Photograph: Ohad Zwigenberg/AP

Britain cannot call itself a diverse democracy when communities are living with such fear. A line must be drawn. Let it be now

On another anniversary of the 7 October attacks, the lasting impact on Britain’s Jews is found in the essential daily decisions we now have to make. Beyond the simple fear that you or your children might get killed the next time you go to synagogue or visit your local kosher shop, Jews are hiding the fact they are Jewish.

This has gone beyond the choice of whether to wear your Star of David necklace inside or outside your shirt. It is found in the job applicants who remove their Jewish community volunteering from their CV; the people who use false names when ordering an Uber; the parents who move their children from mainstream schools to Jewish ones.

Dave Rich is director of policy at the Community Security Trust. His new book, From Be’eri to Bondi: Global Antisemitism After October 7, is published by Routledge

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

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© Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

© Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

© Photograph: PA Images/Alamy

Hamam al-Hammami spent 175 days in New Zealand until May 2019, as Australian Jewish group calls for full investigation into his time in Melbourne

New Zealand authorities have launched their own investigation into the flydubai co-pilot who allegedly tried to hijack an Israel-bound plane, after police confirmed he underwent flight training there about a year after he abandoned a degree in Australia.

Disaster was narrowly averted on 30 September when passengers and crew intervened to stop the alleged attempt of the co-pilot, Hamam al-Hammami, 29, to take control of a flight to Tel Aviv with 182 people onboard.

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© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

© Photograph: Abir Sultan/EPA

A toxic debate over anti-Zionism leaves the Green leader looking like a passenger in the movement that carried him to the top

When Donald Trump calls someone a socialist he is not using the word in the same way that, say, Zohran Mamdani does. The mayor of New York espouses democratic socialism as a mission of equitable distribution of wealth and opportunity. The US president says socialism only pretends to be democratic “because it sounds so nice”; that “it’s really communism you’re talking about” and that people such as Mamdani pose “the biggest threat to our nation … since its founding”.

People who despise an idea, seeing it as the manifestation of everything wicked, cannot be expected to define it accurately. As with the radical right and socialism, so it is with the left and Zionism.

Rafael Behr is a Guardian columnist

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© Photograph: Neil Terry/Story Picture Agency

© Photograph: Neil Terry/Story Picture Agency

© Photograph: Neil Terry/Story Picture Agency

Jaafar Ashtiyeh was covering violence against olive farmers when settlers set upon him with the butts of their rifles

Armed Israeli settlers beat a photographer in the presence of Israeli soldiers, hospitalising him, as he covered worsening settler violence against olive farmers in the occupied West Bank.

Jaafar Ashtiyeh, a 58-year-old veteran photographer for Agence France-Presse in Palestine, was assaulted by a group of settlers, who beat him with the butts of their rifles, despite him being marked as press. He was assaulted in view of about a dozen armed Israeli soldiers.

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© Photograph: John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images

© Photograph: John Wessels/AFP/Getty Images

Israeli communities shattered by Hamas massacres are torn between rebuilding their lives and remembering lost friends and relatives

Keith Siegel spent many of his long hours in Hamas captivity in Gaza etching everything that happened after 7 October 2023 into his memory. For 484 days, he recited to himself every place he was held, the dates he was moved and every attack or humiliation he endured or witnessed.

He aimed to store intelligence that could help Israeli forces free other hostages if he was released, to keep track of time as the days slid by and be able to tell his family what happened to him. Now his body is free, but he cannot loosen those memories.

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© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

© Photograph: Quique Kierszenbaum/The Guardian

Zack Polanski must defend Palestinian freedom while reassuring Jewish members and showing that his party can handle disagreements

Last year, the UN general assembly endorsed the New York Declaration supporting two states in the Holy Land by 142 votes to 10. Those voting against included the US and Israel. The wider international diplomatic consensus rests on a 2002 UN security council resolution, which explicitly affirmed a two-state vision for Israel and Palestine. Saudi Arabia’s then crown prince said peace required “two equal parties” and could not survive “oppression and humiliation”. His words remain as relevant now as then.

The Green party has now rejected that two-state framework in favour of a one-state solution. The Guardian strongly disagrees with this move. Peace needs to acknowledge reality: the latest polls in Gaza and the West Bank suggest that a majority support a two-state formula based on the 1967 borders compared with just 10% who back a single democratic state with equal rights. The European Greens also disagree with the new direction of their English and Welsh sister party. The EU-wide representatives argue that the policy is incompatible with previously agreed positions. Europe’s Greens – which include the centrist German party – condemn “the genocide against Palestinians” and call for sanctions against Israel’s government.

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© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

© Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

Journalist Amal Khalil was killed in April in what colleagues described as a sustained attack by Israeli forces. Rescuers attempted to dig her out of the rubble of a building that had been targeted by Israeli forces, who had also prevented them from providing life-saving assistance.

Beirut-based Guardian correspondent Will Christou explains how investigations by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International and Legal Agenda show that Israel deliberately and directly attacked Khalil and her colleague Zeinab Faraj, with apparent knowledge that they were journalists. The organisations called for the attacks to be investigated as war crimes, while HRW called for states to halt arms sales to Israel and put targeted sanctions on Israeli officials responsible for ongoing crimes.

Deliberately attacking journalists is a war crime. Israel has killed at least 15 journalists in Lebanon and 210 in Gaza since 2023, according to the UN human rights office.

Israel said it 'regrets any harm caused to journalists', and that they were killed 'as part of a series of events' during which two Hezbollah military operatives were killed

• Israeli strike that killed journalist in Lebanon was war crime, say rights groups

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© Photograph: Guardian

© Photograph: Guardian

© Photograph: Guardian

According to Liberal Current's poll conducted together with the Center for Strategic Politics the question "Should the next Democratic administration pursue criminal prosecution of [M]embers of the Trump and Biden administrations for actions taken related to Israel's genocide in Gaza" has a 57% support among Democrats. (data source) That's good news, as we have some new stuff in the accountability department.

The Officials:

Drop the Genocide 20

These are the top 20 officials most responsible for promoting, lying about, and covering up the Gaza genocide in the Biden White House. The purpose of the #DroptheGenocide20 pledge is to demand these officials be removed from future Democratic administrations, think tanks, and academic and liberal spaces.

Statement on Genocidal Incitement by Israel's Minister of National Security (Lemkin Institute)

The Lemkin Institute strongly condemns the recent inhumane statements of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, in which he called for the deliberate killing of "30 to 40" Palestinians every night in Gaza, even if they pose no immediate danger, because, according to him, "[t]here are people there who are not worthy of life. They shouldn't live. They're not even people." We will be very clear: This statement, which has garnered some outrage in Europe, is an unambiguous declaration of genocidal intent and incitement to genocide.

Israel will 'finish the job' in Gaza and seek Palestinians' migration — defense minister (Jerusalem Post)

Defense Minister Israel Katz says it is only a matter of time before the country resumes full-scale war in Gaza and moves to encourage the emigration of its two million Palestinians.

UK Lawyers for Israel calls to proscribe Doctors Without Borders as terror group

UKLFI appears 128 times in the European Legal Support Centre's Britain Index of Repression database, which documents what it describes as the systematic repression of Palestine solidarity activism across Britain. The centre argued that UKLFI has helped to create a "chilling environment" in which individuals and organisations withdraw or modify lawful Palestine-related activity due to fears of legal escalation.

The Media

Adam H. Johnson: How to Sell a Genocide - The Media's Complicity in the Destruction of Gaza (Pluto Press)

How to Sell a Genocide is a thorough indictment of US corporate media's role in enabling—and, at times, directly inciting—one of the most devastating campaigns of mass killing in modern memory. Johnson unpacks how major news outlets like The New York Times, CNN, and MSNBC systematically sanitized Israel's war crimes, hid the US's central role, and dehumanized the Palestinian people.

Radio War Nerd EP 621 — US Media Complicity in the Gaza Genocide, feat. Adam Johnson + Guest co-host Aamer

The passage of another death penalty law shows the one issue Israelis can unite behind: death for Palestinians

After passing two death penalty laws in six weeks, Israel is investing hundreds of millions of dollars to try to execute Palestinians on live TV. Unanimous support for the laws shows that Israeli society can unite around "death to Palestinians."

The Sources

Gaza is Too Graphic For Community Standards

On January 30, 2025, I uploaded a video to Instagram I filmed in Gaza showing a mother sitting beside the bodies of her children after an airstrike. She was not screaming. She was silent in a way that felt heavier than any sound. Within minutes, the post disappeared from both Instagram and Facebook. The notification read: "This content violates Community Standards on graphic violence." There was no context in the message, no acknowledgment of where the video came from, and no distinction between documentation and harm. Only erasure. And then, silence.

Archive Genocide — War Crimes Archive

We archive what others erase. Permanently. We are a group of researchers dedicated to archiving war crimes footage from Gaza and the West Bank. Our team submits all evidence to the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Hind Rajab Foundation, and the South African legal team at the ICJ. If you'd like to contribute or join the effort, connect with us on Twitter or Telegram. (Warning - Graphic footage! - the same data is available as a graph for exploring connections.)

The countries, along with Israeli firms, combined Chinese open-source A.I. models and A.I. agents for the campaigns, foreshadowing future online manipulation.

© Brian Stauffer