Category: 2. Middle East

A US consulting firm accused of helping model plans for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza is now under formal scrutiny by a UK parliamentary committee.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG), one of the world’s most powerful management consultancies, has been asked to explain its role in a controversial postwar redevelopment scheme for Gaza that included cost estimates for the mass relocation of Palestinians. 

Liam Byrne MP, chair of the Business and Trade…

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez accused Israel on Wednesday of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, stating that Europe is not doing enough to stop it.

Speaking before the Spanish parliament, Sánchez compared the actions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to those of Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. 

He said: “No one that tramples on the EU’s founding principles – or that uses hunger and war to annihilate a…

Ten people have been rescued after Yemen’s Huthis sank a cargo ship, an EU naval force said Thursday, with three killed and 12 missing in one of the rebel group’s deadliest Red Sea attacks.

Three Filipino crew and a Greek member of the Eternity C ship’s onboard security team were plucked from the sea overnight, “bringing the total number of those rescued to 10”, the European Union’s Operation Aspides naval task force posted on X.

On Wednesday, the Iran-backed Huthis said they had “rescued” an…

Ten people have been rescued after Yemen’s Huthis sank a cargo ship, an EU naval force said Thursday, with three killed and 12 missing in one of the rebel group’s deadliest Red Sea attacks.

Three Filipino crew and a Greek member of the Eternity C ship’s onboard security team were plucked from the sea overnight, “bringing the total number of those rescued to 10”, the European Union’s Operation Aspides force posted on X.

On Wednesday, the Iran-backed Huthis said they had “rescued” an unspecified…

Hamas on Thursday said it opposes any ceasefire deal that includes a large Israeli military presence in Gaza, after offering to release some hostages and as the civil defence reported scores of civilians killed across the Palestinian territory.

The Islamist militant group said late Wednesday that it had agreed to release 10 people seized in its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war.

Both sides have been holding indirect talks in Qatar to agree a temporary halt in the conflict…

Israel is ready to negotiate a lasting deal to end the war with Hamas in Gaza when a temporary halt to hostilities begins in the Palestinian territory, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday.

But Netanyahu said the Islamist militant group needs first to give up its weapons and its capacity to govern, warning that failure to reach a deal on Israel’s terms would plunge the territory into further conflict.

Netanyahu’s comments came in a video message from Washington, where efforts to…

Unprecedented criticism has surfaced within Israel against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as analysts describe the war in Gaza as Israel’s own “Vietnam phase” — a deadly trap marked by heavy losses and an unending drain on resources — with warnings that a full military occupation of the Strip could prove an even “bigger mistake” than the one made by the United States in Vietnam.

In a strongly worded opinion published in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israeli…

The halt to US foreign aid is a “ticking time bomb” that could reverse decades of hard-fought gains in the fight against AIDS, the United Nations warned Thursday.

Around 31.6 million people were on antiretroviral drugs in 2024 and deaths from AIDS-related illnesses had more than halved since 2010 to 630,000 that year, the UNAIDS agency said in a new report.

But now infections were likely to shoot up as funding cuts have shuttered prevention and treatment programmes, it said.

The United States…

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, announced on Wednesday that it killed an Israeli soldier in the city of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, after field conditions prevented his capture.

According to Anadolu Agency’s correspondent, Tel Aviv has acknowledged the soldier’s death. This marks the first such incident in 14 months and comes as part of intensified operations by Palestinian factions in response to what they describe as Israel’s ongoing…