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Meeting on Gaza scheduled as US expects to ‘settle this before the end of this year’
US special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday that president Donald Trump would chair a meeting on Gaza at the White House on Wednesday and added that Washington expected Israel’s war in the Palestinian territory to be settled by the end of the year, Reuters reports.
The US state department separately said secretary of state Marco Rubio will meet Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar in Washington on Wednesday, which is expected to take place at 3.15pm ET (7.15pm UK time).
When asked on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” show if there is a postwar plan for Gaza, Witkoff said:
Yes, we’ve got a large meeting in the White House tomorrow, chaired by the president, and it’s a very comprehensive plan we’re putting together on the next day.
He did not elaborate further and did not list the meeting’s participants.
When asked should Israel be doing anything differently to end the war and secure the release of the hostages, Witkoff said:
We think that we’re going to settle this one way or another, certainly before the end of this year.
Witkoff said Israel was open to continuing discussions with Palestinian militant group Hamas. He said Hamas had signaled it was open to a settlement.
Key events
Al Jazeera reports that the prime minister of Belgium has begun a meeting with his deputies on the topic of recognising the state of Palestine.
Bart De Wever said in a statement yesterday that it does not make sense to recognise the Palestinian state unless certain conditions are satisfied.
These include the disarming of Hamas, release of hostages and security guarantees for Israel, the outlet reports.
Below are some of the latest photos of the Middle East coming to us through the wires:
London’s Metropolitan police have charged a total of 67 people with showing support for the banned group Palestine Action, the force announced on Tuesday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
The accused will appear in court across several dates in October, and face a possible maximum sentence of six months’ imprisonment if found guilty, the Met said.
The UK government proscribed Palestine Action as a terror group in July after acts of vandalism at a Royal Air Force base.
Rights groups have condemned the ban as legal overreach and a threat to free speech.
More than 700 people have been arrested, mostly at demonstrations, since the group was outlawed under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The Met said in its statement that charges had been laid against 64 people relating to protests held in central London on two dates last month.
That was in addition to charges brought against three other people announced earlier this month.
On Monday, acclaimed screenwriter Paul Laverty was arrested on suspicion of supporting Palestine Action during a protest in Edinburgh, Scottish police said.
Last week, Irish author Sally Rooney vowed to give fees generated by two BBC adaptations of her books to Palestine Action.
Israel seizes nearly $450,000 of ‘terror funds’ from currency exchange raid
Israeli police said on Wednesday that security forces seized roughly 1.5 million shekels ($447,000) of “terror funds” during a raid in the occupied West Bank a day earlier, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
Israeli forces targeted a currency exchange in Ramallah on Tuesday, leaving dozens of Palestinians wounded, according to the Red Crescent.
Israel carries out frequent raids across the West Bank, where tensions have remained high throughout the Gaza war, but incursions into central Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority, are relatively rare.
A statement from a police spokesperson on Wednesday said Israeli border police and the military “raided a money exchange business in the heart of Ramallah that was used to transfer funds to the Hamas terror organisation”.
The statement said:
Forces seized significant sums of money in both foreign and local currencies, with a total value of approximately 1,528,832 shekels, including US dollars, Jordanian dinars, euros, and other foreign currencies.
Nine wanted suspects accused of involvement in terror activity were arrested and taken, together with the seized evidence, for investigation.
Previous Israeli operations, earlier this year and in December 2023, have similarly targeted currency exchange offices in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Israeli troops or settlers in the occupied West Bank have killed at least 972 Palestinians, including militants and civilians, since the beginning of the Gaza war, according to an AFP tally based on Palestinian Authority figures.
In the same period, at least 36 Israelis, both civilians and security forces, have been killed in attacks or during military operations in the territory, according to Israeli figures.
The Guardian has published the below editorial on the questions that Israel and its allies must answer in response to the attack on N***er hospital on Monday.
Tragedy has piled on tragedy in Gaza. Yet Israel’s attack on N***er hospital – the only functioning public hospital left in the south – still stood out. One strike was followed within minutes by another, hitting those who had raced to help the wounded. Monday’s attack was multiple egregious acts in one: hitting a hospital, injured civilians, rescue workers and journalists.
With events caught on video, Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “tragic mishap” instead of blaming Hamas for the deaths or smearing the dead. (The military, which has a record of misleading claims following incidents, later alleged a camera had been “positioned by Hamas” at the site.) Can anyone believe that this was all an error, when such “double tap” strikes are becoming routine, and when those killed this time are so typical of those killed throughout this war?
“Israel values the work of journalists, medical staff, and all civilians,” the Israeli prime minister continued. Why, then, have more journalists died in Gaza in the last two years than globally in the previous three? Why has Israel killed hundreds of medical workers, spurring calls for a new crime of healthocide? Why are so many doctors detained? Why, judging from the Israeli military’s own data, do civilians account for an astonishing 83% of the dead?
Palestinians are dying, too, in the human-made famine caused by Israel’s obstruction of aid. A quarter of a million are already starving, on the judgment of a UN-backed body known for the caution of its ***yses. How many more must die?
How can Palestinians have a future without their land? How can they defend their society when those at its heart, embodying its knowledge and culture, including doctors and journalists, are eliminated? How can they look to tomorrow when their children cannot go to school and their universities are destroyed?
You can read the full article here: The Guardian view on Gaza: the questions that Israel and its allies must answer
Australia’s intelligence agency traced the funding of hooded criminals who allegedly set fire to a Melbourne synagogue, linking the antisemitic attack to Iran, officials said, even as those charged with the crime were likely unaware Tehran was their puppet master, Reuters reports.
A 20-year-old local man, Younes Ali Younes, appeared in Melbourne’s magistrates court on Wednesday charged with the 6 December arson attack on the Ad*** Israel synagogue and theft of a car.
He did not enter a plea and did not seek bail. His lawyer declined to comment to Reuters.
A day earlier, prime minister Anthony Albanese said Australia’s intelligence agencies had shown the attack, and another in Sydney last year, were directed by the Iranian government, and expelled Tehran’s amb***ador, becoming the latest western government to accuse Iran of carrying out hostile covert activities on its soil.
Australia’s spy chief Mike Burgess said a series of “cut outs”, an intelligence term for intermediaries, were used to conceal Iran’s involvement in the attacks, and warned that it may have orchestrated others.
Security forces “have done rather extraordinary work to trace the source of the funding of these criminal elements who’ve been used as tools of the Iranian regime,” Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Tuesday.
The investigation worked backwards through payments made onshore and offshore to “petty and sometimes not so petty criminals”, he said in parliament on Wednesday.
Albanese was briefed by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation on Monday on evidence of a “supply chain” that he said linked the attacks to offshore individuals and Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Iranian forces have killed 13 militants in a raid in the restive south-east, state media reported on Wednesday, adding they were members of a group suspected of a recent deadly attack on police, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
“So far, 13 terrorists have been killed and a number of others arrested” in Sistan-Balochistan province, the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement carried by state television.
It said operations were carried out in the cities of Iranshahr, Khash and Saravan.
The broadcaster said that some of those killed were suspected of being behind an ambush reported on Friday that killed five policemen in Iranshahr.
My colleagues Malak A Tantesh and William Christou have written the below article on the five Palestinian journalists who were killed in an Israeli double-tap strike on N***er hospital in southern Gaza on Monday.
Israel struck a building at the hospital, killing Reuters journalist Hussam al-Masri and others. Then, after journalists and rescue workers ran to the scene to help their colleagues, a second bomb hit the same spot 15 minutes later.
The five journalists join their now more than 247 Palestinian colleagues killed in Gaza over the last 22 months, according to UN statistics.
This is the deadliest conflict for journalists recorded, killing more journalists than both world wars, the Vietnam war, the Yugoslavia wars and the US war in Afghanistan combined.
The strike on N***er hospital was captured by a live broadcast and showed unarmed medics and journalists holding up their hands to shield themselves moments before they were killed.
The images of their deaths have provoked outrage across the globe and calls to protect Palestinian journalists while they are doing their jobs.
You can read the full article here: ‘He loved his work deeply’: the five Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza airstrike
Meeting on Gaza scheduled as US expects to ‘settle this before the end of this year’
US special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday that president Donald Trump would chair a meeting on Gaza at the White House on Wednesday and added that Washington expected Israel’s war in the Palestinian territory to be settled by the end of the year, Reuters reports.
The US state department separately said secretary of state Marco Rubio will meet Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar in Washington on Wednesday, which is expected to take place at 3.15pm ET (7.15pm UK time).
When asked on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” show if there is a postwar plan for Gaza, Witkoff said:
Yes, we’ve got a large meeting in the White House tomorrow, chaired by the president, and it’s a very comprehensive plan we’re putting together on the next day.
He did not elaborate further and did not list the meeting’s participants.
When asked should Israel be doing anything differently to end the war and secure the release of the hostages, Witkoff said:
We think that we’re going to settle this one way or another, certainly before the end of this year.
Witkoff said Israel was open to continuing discussions with Palestinian militant group Hamas. He said Hamas had signaled it was open to a settlement.
Opening summary
Good morning and welcome back to the Guardian’s coverage of the Middle East.
US special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday that president Donald Trump would chair a meeting on Gaza at the White House on Wednesday and added that Washington expected Israel’s war in the Palestinian territory to be settled by the end of the year.
The US state department separately said secretary of state Marco Rubio will meet Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar in Washington on Wednesday, which is expected to take place at 3.15pm ET (7.15pm UK time).
When asked on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” show if Israel be doing anything differently to end the war and secure the release of the hostages, Witkoff said: “We think that we’re going to settle this one way or another, certainly before the end of this year.”
Witkoff said Israel was open to continuing discussions with Palestinian militant group Hamas. He said Hamas had signaled it was open to a settlement.
Trump stunned the world earlier this year when he suggested the United States should take control of the Gaza Strip, clear out its 2 million inhabitants and build seaside real estate.
The president had promised a swift end to the war in Gaza during the 2024 US election campaign and after taking office in January, but almost seven months into his term, that stated goal remains elusive.
Trump’s term began with a ceasefire which lasted two months and ended when Israeli strikes killed about 400 Palestinians on 18 March. In recent weeks, images of starving Palestinians in Gaza, including children, have shocked the world and fuelled criticism of Israel over the worsening conditions.
Hamas on Tuesday rejected an Israeli statement saying a strike on a Gaza hospital that killed several journalists was aimed at a camera operated by the militant group, calling the accusation “baseless”. The Israeli military on Tuesday said its forces were targeting a camera operated by Hamas in two strikes that killed five journalists at a hospital a day earlier, triggering a wave of international condemnation. Monday’s strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis killed at least 20 people, including the five reporters who worked for Al Jazeera, the Associated Press and Reuters, among other outlets.
Hamas denied on Tuesday that any of the Palestinians killed in Israel’s attack on Gaza’s N***er hospital on Monday were militants. Earlier, Israel said it had killed six militants in the attack but it was investigating how civilians, including five journalists, were killed. “We can confirm that the Reuters and AP journalists were not a target of the strike,” military spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Nadav Shoshani told Reuters on Tuesday.
The UN has demanded that Israel’s investigations into unlawful killings in Gaza, including its “double tap” bombing of N***er hospital, yield results and ensure accountability. “There needs to be justice,” Thameen Al-Kheetan, the spokesperson for the UN’s human rights office, told reporters on Tuesday in Geneva. He added that the number of journalists killed in Gaza raised many questions about the targeting of media workers.
Tens of thousands of people took part in demonstrations across Israel on Tuesday, blocking highways on a “day of disruption” that aimed to push Benjamin Netanyahu into agreeing a deal to end the war and calling off plans to attack Gaza City. Relatives of hostages led the biggest march and rally in Tel Aviv, while in Jerusalem hundreds of people gathered outside the prime minister’s office as the security cabinet met to discuss the war. There were dozens of other protests around the country, including on the main highway to the northern city of Haifa and inside Ben Gurion airport.
Israeli forces raided the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday, targeting a currency exchange and, according to the Red Crescent, leaving dozens of Palestinians wounded. Israel carries out frequent raids across the West Bank, where tensions have remained high throughout the Gaza war, but incursions into central Ramallah – seat of the Palestinian Authority – are relatively rare.
The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog has said a team of its inspectors are “back in Iran,” the first to enter since Israeli and US strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities this year. Iran suspended cooperation with the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency after a 12-day war with Israel in June, with Tehran pointing to the IAEA’s failure to condemn Israeli and US strikes on its nuclear facilities.
Iran held talks on Tuesday with European powers, seeking to avert a sanctions snapback which they have threatened to impose under the moribund 2015 nuclear deal. Kazem Gharibabadi, an Iranian deputy foreign minister who attended the talks with Britain, France and Germany in Geneva, said in a post on X it was “high time” for the European trio “to make the right choice and give diplomacy time and space”.
French president Emmanuel Macron strongly rejected Benjamin Netanyahu’s recent criticism over rising antisemitism in France and warned the issue should not be “weaponised”, in a letter to the Israeli leader published on Tuesday. Rows have broken out about an increase in antisemitic acts and hate crimes in France as international tensions mount over the conflict in Gaza.
US envoy Tom Barrack said on Tuesday that Washington would support the extension of the mandate of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon for one more year. A planned vote at the UN security council on the future of the UNIFIL peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, whose mandate ends on Sunday, has been postponed amid US and Israeli opposition to the draft text, several diplomatic sources told AFP.
Journalists in Lebanon have demanded an apology from a senior US envoy after he told them to “act civilized” and not be “animalistic”. As reporters shouted questions after the US delegation’s meeting with the Lebanese president, Joseph Aoun, on Tuesday, Tom Barrack, the US amb***ador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, stepped up to the podium in the packed room and said: “We’re going to have a different set of rules … please be quiet for a moment. The moment that this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we’re gone.”
A man charged with setting fire to a Melbourne synagogue appeared in court on Wednesday over an attack Australia says was orchestrated by Iran and has led to the expulsion of Tehran’s amb***ador. Australia said on Tuesday Iran sought to disguise its involvement in two 2024 attacks, at the Ad*** Israel Synagogue in Melbourne and on a kosher restaurant in Sydney, by using criminals and members of organised crime gangs.
Australia on Wednesday dismissed suggestions by Israel that its interventions prompted Canberra to expel Iran’s amb***ador as it blamed Tehran for directing at least two antisemitic arson attacks in the country’s biggest cities, Sydney and Melbourne. “Complete nonsense,” Home Affairs minister Tony Burke told ABC Radio, when asked about Israel claiming credit for Australia’s decision to order Tehran’s amb***ador Ahmad Sadeghi to leave the country.
Six Syrian soldiers were killed in Israeli drone strikes in the Damascus countryside, state-run El Ekhbariya TV reported early on Wednesday. Syria and Israel are engaged in US-mediated talks on easing tensions in southern Syria, with Damascus seeking a security deal that could open the door to wider political negotiations.
The Israeli military said on Wednesday it intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, where Houthi rebels have regularly launched attacks they say are in response to Israel’s offensive in Gaza. “Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile that was launched from Yemen was intercepted by the IAF,” Israel’s army said on Telegram, referring to the air force.
