Category: 2. World

  • Checking in on the ‘seven un-endable wars’ Trump did (not) end

    Checking in on the ‘seven un-endable wars’ Trump did (not) end

    US President Donald Trump all but nominated himself for the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday, claiming in his address to the United Nations that he has “ended seven un-endable wars,” which “were raging, with countless thousands of people being killed.”

    “I ended seven wars, and in all cases, they were raging, with countless thousands of people being killed. This includes Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, the Congo and Rwanda — a vicious, violent war that was — Pakistan and India, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, and Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Trump said in his remarks.

    The two conflicts that Trump has so far put the most efforts into ending – Israel’s war in Gaza and Russia’s war on Ukraine – continue to rage with no signs of easing, despite the myriads of deadlines, threats and promises he has made to get ceasefire agreements.

    But the failure to get a deal in the Middle East and Ukraine has not stopped Trump from boasting about the conflicts he said he ended.

    Trump has repeated this claim since earlier this summer, and the White House provided a list of the seven claimed bilateral agreements last month.

    While he certainly contributed to brokering a couple of agreements between long-standing foes, his role in securing ceasefires in some of the other conflicts he has boasted about ending has been disputed by some of the countries involved.

    And then of course there are the wars that were not happening when he claims to have ended them.

    Armenia and Azerbaijan

    Trump certainly deserves credit for hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the White House in August, where they finalized a peace agreement, which they first announced some five months earlier.

    The two former Soviet republics had been locked in a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh for almost four decades. The breakaway region in the Caucasus Mountains was home to around 120,000 ethnic Armenians and while it is internationally considered as part of Azerbaijan, it was controlled by Armenian separatists since the fall of the Soviet Union.

    That changed in 2023, when a lightning 24-hour assault saw Azerbaijan regain total control of Nagorno-Karabakh, prompting the region’s ethnic Armenian population to flee to Armenia within a week.

    Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev both praised Trump for his role in getting the deal signed – even if he later, while talking about it, confused Armenia for Albania and called Azerbaijan “Aberbaijan.”

    While undoubtedly a step forward, the agreement has not been ratified by either country. Several issues remain to be resolved – most notably, Azerbaijan is demanding that Armenia changes its constitution – a move that would likely be rejected by Armenian voters in a referendum.

    Cambodian and Thai soldiers stand guard near a destroyed building during the ASEAN Interim Observer Team visit to the Chong An Ma area in Ubon Ratchathani.

    Cambodia and Thailand

    The 508-mile (817-kilometer) border between Thailand and Cambodia has been prone to flareups of violence for decades.

    Cambodia has previously sought a ruling from the UN’s International Court of Justice over disputed areas, but Thailand said it does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction and claims that some areas along the border were never fully demarcated.

    The most recent round of violence erupted in July when at least 38 people, mostly civilians, were killed and hundreds of thousands were forced to flee their homes.

    Trump held separate phone calls with the leaders of the two countries, threatening to stop trade negotiations if they didn’t agree to a ceasefire.

    The two sides met in Malaysia within days and agreed to a ceasefire. However, the conflict over the contested border remains unresolved – even though Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet said that he nominated the US president for the Nobel Peace Prize.

    Emergency personnel work at a sire of an Iranian missile attack in Be'er Sheva, Israel, on June 24, 2025.

    Israel and Iran

    When the US president announced a ceasefire between Israel and Iran after 12 days of fighting in June, it looked a bit premature as both countries continued with their final attacks.

    However, the two countries did later endorse the ceasefire.

    The direct confrontation between the long-times foes started when Israel launched surprise attacks on Iranian military and nuclear facilities that killed prominent politicians, military leaders and nuclear scientists. Iran responded with waves of missile and drone strikes against Israeli cities and military sites.

    While Trump made it clear he was initially against Israel attacking Iran directly, the US joined and bombed Iran’s main nuclear facilities with its uniquely powerful “bunker busting” bombs.

    Like with many of the other conflicts he claims to have ended, Trump’s role in bringing the violence to an end is unclear. No peace agreement or a firm deal on the future of Iran’s nuclear program has been reached and both Iran and Israel have threatened each other since then.

    An Indian Border Security Force personnel guard the Wagah border post, about 35kms from Amritsar on May 6, 2025.

    India and Pakistan

    India and Pakistan got embroiled in their most intense conflict in decades in May, after India fired missiles across nine sites in Pakistan in response to a massacre of tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, which India blamed on Pakistan.

    The conflict was raging for several days when, out of the blue, Trump announced on social media that the US had brokered an end to the fighting.

    There are conflicting accounts of how the ceasefire was negotiated. Islamabad praised US involvement and nominated Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize for what it said was “decisive diplomatic intervention.”

    India downplayed Trump’s involvement, saying instead the ceasefire was agreed “directly between the two countries.” India has fiercely resisted any foreign intervention on the issue of Kashmir, the disputed region over which India and Pakistan fought several wars, insisting it’s not up to other countries to get involved.

    A Rwandan border officer stands guard as displaced people wait at the border between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda on May 19, 2025.

    Rwanda and the DRC

    When the representatives of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Rwanda signed a peace agreement brokered by the US in June, it was hailed by Trump as “a Great Day for Africa and, quite frankly, a Great Day for the World!”

    However, there is little to suggest that the conflict – one of the most protracted and complex conflicts in the world – is easing in any way.

    Scores of militia groups that have fought for three decades are still engaging in deadly fighting,

    CNN visited the rebel-held city of Goma, home to more than 2 million people, earlier this month. Local people, aid workers and rebel leaders told CNN the fighting and the hardships caused by it continue.

    The same week, the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) released a fact-finding report on the escalation of hostilities between January and July 2025 in North and South Kivu, the provinces in eastern DR Congo’s where two of its largest cities Goma and Bukavu are located.

    Prime Minister of Ethiopia Abiy Ahmed delivers his remarks during the official inauguration ceremony of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on September 9, 2025.

    Egypt and Ethiopia

    It is unclear how exactly Trump ended this conflict, since Egypt and Ethiopia were not, and are not, actually at war.

    However, the two are locked in a bitter dispute over a massive hydroelectric dam that Ethiopia officially opened earlier this month – and there are worried that this rift could escalate.

    Sitting on a tributary of the Nile, the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, took some 15 years to built and the Ethiopians see it as a key to their future economic prosperity.

    Egypt and Sudan have long opposed the dam, arguing that it would negatively impact the availability of water downstream. Egypt has argued that under a colonial-era treaty signed with Britain, it has the rights to veto any projects on the Nile.

    Serbia and Kosovo

    Another puzzling item on Trump’s list of conflicts he has solved.

    Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008, nine years after NATO launched a bombing campaign against Serbian forces responsible for a brutal crackdown against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.

    Serbia and Kosovo signed an economic normalization agreement during Trump’s first term in 2020, but Serbia continues to view Kosovo as a breakaway state and does not recognize its independence.

    Tensions between the two continue to flare up every few months, with the European Union – which both countries wish to join – playing a key role in mediation.


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  • U.K. Endures a Trump Scolding at U.N., Days After Lavish State Visit – The New York Times

    1. U.K. Endures a Trump Scolding at U.N., Days After Lavish State Visit  The New York Times
    2. Donald Trump tells UN meeting London wants “to go to sharia law”  BBC
    3. London mayor hits back at Trump’s UNGA comments, calls US president ‘racist’ and ‘Islamophobic’  CNN
    4. Donald Trump is ‘racist, sexist and Islamophobic’, says Sadiq Khan amid feud with US president  Sky News
    5. London Mayor Sadiq Khan says Donald Trump ‘has a crush on me’  Metro.co.uk

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  • Trump delivered an embarassing performance at the UN general assembly | Mohamad Bazzi

    Trump delivered an embarassing performance at the UN general assembly | Mohamad Bazzi

    For almost an hour on Tuesday, Donald Trump stood at the podium of the UN general assembly, where presidents, kings and statesmen have delivered some of the most important and moving speeches in modern history. But Trump delivered a long and humiliating rant, filled with personal grievances and attacks on the UN, European leaders, migration policies and clean energy.

    Trump set a low bar with his often rambling and incoherent campaign speeches, but it was still an embarrassing performance for the US president on the global stage. In his past appearances before the general assembly, Trump generally stuck to his prepared remarks and did not hector US allies sitting in the audience. But this was Trump unfiltered and unleashed – as he has been since the start of his second term, with no domestic or international restraint on his power and no need for even the mildest diplomatic niceties.

    Early in his speech, Trump complained that his teleprompter had malfunctioned and that a UN escalator had stalled when he and the first lady, Melania Trump, stepped on it on Tuesday morning. “These are the two things I got from the United Nations: a bad escalator and a bad teleprompter,” Trump joked, drawing laughs from the audience. But it quickly became clear that Trump was nursing a decades-old grudge against the UN: In the early 2000s, he had been denied an opportunity to rebuild the organization’s New York headquarters.

    “Many years ago, a very successful real estate developer in New York, known as Donald J Trump, I bid on the renovation and rebuilding of this very United Nations complex,” Trump told his fellow world leaders – in a digression that would have been ridiculed if any other leader had done it. “I remember it so well. I said at the time that I would do it for $500m, rebuilding everything. It would be beautiful.” Trump went on to muse that he had promised UN officials marble floors and mahogany walls, while other contractors would ultimately deliver terrazzo and plastic, as part of a massive renovation that ended up costing over $2bn.

    Even at the height of his power, Trump can’t resist being an insecure businessman who whines about losing a construction contract more than 20 years ago.

    And that wasn’t the most cringeworthy part of Trump’s performance at the UN. He went on several lengthy tirades against immigration, calling on European countries to emulate US policies and close their borders and expel migrants. He accused the UN of leading a “globalist migration agenda”, and told western leaders that the organization was “funding an assault on your countries”. As he lectured other leaders about how they’re failing, Trump bragged about his own immigration crackdown and foresight as a populist demagogue. “It’s time to end the failed experiment of open borders. You have to end it now … I’m really good at this stuff,” he said, adding nonchalantly: “Your countries are going to hell.”

    As part of his attack on migration, Trump also insulted Sadiq Khan, who was elected London’s mayor in 2016 and became the first Muslim leader of a western capital. “I look at London, where you have a terrible mayor, terrible, terrible mayor, and it’s been changed, it’s been so changed. Now they want to go to sharia law,” Trump said, falsely claiming that Khan wants to place the British capital under Islamic religious law.

    While Trump’s insult seemed ad-libbed, it’s another example of the president using his platform to settle petty political scores. Trump has held a grudge against Khan since late 2015, when Khan (then a member of parliament and candidate for mayor) called Trump’s campaign pledge to ban Muslims from entering the US “divisive and outrageous”. The feud between the two politicians has continued for years. In an article for the Guardian published last week, shortly before Trump’s state visit to the UK, Khan wrote the US president has “perhaps done the most to fan the flames of divisive, far-right politics around the world.”

    As he flew back to the US, Trump said Khan was “among the worst mayors in the world”, and claimed that he had asked UK officials not to invite Khan to a state dinner hosted by King Charles in the president’s honor.

    Unfortunately, the long list of grievances Trump laid out in his UN speech was not limited to politicians and global institutions that he believed had wronged him. Trump spent about a quarter of his speech undermining UN-led efforts to address climate change and ridiculing renewable energy policies. He denied the scientific consensus that humans, through the burning of fossil fuels, are causing global warming, calling it “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”. Trump added that warnings of severe floods, widespread droughts, extreme heat waves and other climate-related disasters “were made by stupid people”.

    Trump also celebrated his decision to withdraw the US from the Paris climate agreement, which committed nearly all countries in the world to reducing greenhouse emissions and limiting global warming below levels that could lead to catastrophe. He denounced renewable energy sources like solar power and wind farms as a “joke” and praised “clean, beautiful coal”.

    By the conclusion of his meandering and unhinged speech, Trump tried to advance a dark narrative: that immigration, along with reliance on clean energy sources, posed an existential threat to western nations. “Immigration and the high cost of so-called green, renewable energy is destroying a large part of the free world and a large part of our planet,” Trump said, warning his fellow leaders that, if they don’t emulate his policies restricting migration and expanding the use of fossil fuels, it would “be the death of western Europe”.

    In the end, Trump wanted what he always craves: attention and adoration – even if he has to unleash fear and chaos to get it.

    • Mohamad Bazzi is director of the Hagop Kevorkian Center for Near Eastern Studies, and a journalism professor, at New York University

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  • Beyond all recognition: inside the 26 September Guardian Weekly | Israel

    Beyond all recognition: inside the 26 September Guardian Weekly | Israel

    The gesture may have been more symbolic than decisive, but the move this week by a cluster of leading nations, including Britain, France, Canada, Australia and Belgium, to recognise Palestinian statehood was still significant.

    As a backdrop to the United Nations general assembly, it was a reminder to Israel of western revulsion at its assault on Gaza, a warning against alleged moves to annex the West Bank, and an attempt to revive serious progress towards a two-state solution.

    Whether it will constrain or antagonise Israel and its key backer the US remains to be seen, with fears that Donald Trump may retaliate by recognising Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

    For our big story this week, Jason Burke and Sufian Taha find cautious optimism in the West Bank town of Ramallah, while Jason also reports on the glacial reaction from within Israel. Patrick Wintour and Archie Bland explain what recognition means in practical terms, and commentator Nesrine Malik argues the case that in relation to Gaza, the time for fine words is long past and the need for western action is upon us.

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    Five essential reads in this week’s edition

    Donald Trump, seen on a stadium screen, speaks at a memorial for conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Glendale, Arizona. Photograph: John Locher/AP

    Spotlight | Rightwing America and the free speech paradox
    Conservatives had long complained of a censorious leftwing “cancel culture”, but in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing seem happy to now reframe that as “consequence culture”. J Oliver Conroy reports

    Science | Why the dodo may not be dead after all
    The flightless bird is a byword for extinction – but now a gene-editing business wants to bring it back to life. Is this a triumph of science, or a moral mis-step? Oliver Milman investigates

    Feature | The world-leading AI scientist who left the US for China
    In 2020, after spending half his life in the US, Song-Chun Zhu took a one-way ticket to China. Now he may hold the key to who wins the global AI race. Chang Che picks up the story

    Opinion | Trump’s UK spectacle exposed a country living in the past
    The grandeur and pageantry surrounding the state visit cannot disguise the fact that Britain has absolutely no vision for its future, argues Simon Jenkins

    Culture | From cake talk to catwalk: why Marie Antoinette is back in fashion
    As a blockbuster London exhibition opens about the last queen of France, Jess Cartner-Morley explains how she became the patron saint of our new gilded age


    What else we’ve been reading

    I loved Mark Lawson’s ramble through 70 years of ITV – the UK’s free-to-air commercial terrestrial channel. While sometimes criticised for its “broad” appeal, the network offered creative freedom and an alternative to the clipped RP accents of the BBC through dramas such as Coronation Street, Prime Suspect and Mr Bates vs the Post Office. As a child, though, I preferred the wrestling match up of Big Daddy v Giant Haystacks on World of Sport. Neil Willis, production editor

    Anyone for dessert? Tim Dowling holds a Sussex pond pudding. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian

    In the light of a recent report suggesting that Britain’s famously stodgy range of classic puddings is in terminal decline, Tim Dowling set out to recreate a selection of them so that you never have to again. Ardent fans of dishes such as jam roly-poly and flummery should look away now. Graham Snowdon, editor


    Other highlights from the Guardian website

    Audio | The downfall of Jair Bolsonaro

    Video | How Bill Gates is playing both sides of the climate crisis

    Gallery | Gulls, golds and Gout Gout: the World Athletics Championships 2025


    Get in touch

    We’d love to hear your thoughts on the magazine: for submissions to our letters page, please email weekly.letters@theguardian.com. For anything else, it’s editorial.feedback@theguardian.com


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  • Secretary-General's remarks to the G77 Foreign Ministers' Meeting [as delivered] – Welcome to the United Nations

    1. Secretary-General’s remarks to the G77 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting [as delivered]  Welcome to the United Nations
    2. Qatar Attends Meeting Of G77 And China  Menafn
    3. UN chief Guterres urges global action to fulfil promises to developing Nations  The Statesman
    4. Dar underscores Global South unity as SDG financing gap soars past $4 trillion  Pakistan Today
    5. Pakistan calls for Global South unity to tackle escalating development, debt, climate crises  Associated Press of Pakistan

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  • Twenty injured in Yemen drone attack on Israel, rescuers and military say

    Twenty injured in Yemen drone attack on Israel, rescuers and military say

    Rescuers say 20 people have been injured in southern Israel after the Israeli military said a drone was launched from Yemen.

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the drone struck the resort town of Eilat on the Red Sea coast, with attempts made to intercept it.

    The Magen David Adom emergency medical service said 20 people were taken to Yoseftal Hospital – two with serious limb injuries.

    Israeli media has described it as a Houthi strike but the Yemeni group has not officially claimed responsibility.

    Israeli TV stations broadcast live footage said to be of the drone strike and the area it hit, which showed billowing smoke rising from the site.

    Footage posted on social media, verified by the BBC, shows a drone in the sky disappearing out of view as it flies down behind buildings. A few moments later, birds scatter as they fly up into the sky.

    “IDF troops, alongside the Israel Police, were dispatched to the area of Eilat after receiving a report of a UAV attack,” the IDF said in a statement.

    It added troops and the police were assisting in evacuating the area and a helicopter had been deployed to evacuate the wounded from the scene.

    The military urged people to stay in protected areas for 10 minutes should they receive an alert.

    The army earlier said air raid sirens had rung through the town.

    The attack, if claimed by the Houthis, would be one of the most serious launched by the group in terms of casualties.

    In July 2024, one person was killed and 10 injured in a Houthi drone attack on Tel Aviv when a drone hit an apartment building near the US embassy branch office.

    Eilat, popular with tourists, has been the location of other recent drone attacks, with one striking the town’s hotel area last week, according to Israeli authorities. No casualties were reported.

    Earlier in September, one person was wounded when a Houthi drone hit Ramon Airport, just north of Eilat.

    The rebel Houthi group has been launching missiles and drones towards Israel as part of what it describes as acts of solidarity with the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

    The Houthis have also been attacking vessels in the Red Sea since the start of the war in Gaza.

    The Iranian-backed rebel group, which considers Israel its enemy, controls Sanaa and the north-west of Yemen, but is not the country’s internationally recognised government.

    Israel has retaliated by bombing Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, including the Red Sea port of Hudaydah.

    Earlier in September, the Houthi-run health ministry said 35 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Sanaa and al-Jawf province.

    And in August, the group said its self-proclaimed Prime Minister Ahmed Ghaleb Nasser al-Rahawi was killed in an Israeli air strike.

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  • Trump's immigration curbs make Indian students rethink the American Dream – Reuters

    1. Trump’s immigration curbs make Indian students rethink the American Dream  Reuters
    2. What to know on Trump’s H-1B visa fee: Who it impacts, when it starts and how it could affect U.S. immigration  NBC News
    3. Trump’s H-1B visa fee hike: Which countries could benefit?  Al Jazeera
    4. Trump administration proposes new H-1B visa process favouring higher-skilled, better-paid workers  Dawn
    5. H-1B visa changes may give Canada an opportunity. Will it seize it?  BBC

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  • Italy condemns ‘attack’ on Gaza aid flotilla and deploys frigate

    Italy condemns ‘attack’ on Gaza aid flotilla and deploys frigate

    Italy’s defence minister has condemned what he said was an overnight drone attack by unidentified perpetrators on a flotilla trying to breach Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza to deliver aid.

    Guido Crosetto also said he had ordered an Italian Navy frigate to head towards the 52 boats in the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), which are mostly off the coast of Crete, to assist Italian citizens on board.

    The GSF said several boats reported explosions and unidentified objects being dropped, as well as drones overhead and communications jamming. It accused Israel of a “dangerous escalation”.

    Israel’s government has not commented. But it has previously said it will not let the flotilla reach its destination.

    The Global Sumud Flotilla’s campaign has caught the imagination in Italy, as several Italian politicians are on board the boats.

    MP Arturo Scotto described “sound bombs, flashbangs”, while MEP Benedetta Scuderi spoke of three hours of incidents that she suggested could have caused serious injury.

    Unverified CCTV video footage released by the GSF showed a man on board a yacht jumping onto the deck following what appeared to be an explosion nearby. An explosion was also visible in a second video that the GSF said was filmed from the vessel Spectre.

    An initial statement from the GSF said at least 13 explosions were heard on and around several boats south of Crete, and that there were reports of objects being dropped on at least 10 boats from drones or other aircraft, causing no damage.

    Later, it said: “The attacks included the deployment of explosive and incendiary devices, deliberate dispersal of chemical substances onto civilian vessels, disabling of emergency communication devices and calculated physical damage designed to render the ships unseaworthy and endanger volunteers aboard.”

    Passengers on the boats said they requested assistance from the Greek coastguard.

    A coastguard source told Greece’s AMNA news agency that a Portuguese vessel from the European Union’s border agency, Frontex, was dispatched to the area but that it found no evidence of material damage to the boats.

    Swedish climate change campaigner Greta Thunberg, who is among the prominent pro-Palestinian activists taking part in the flotilla, called the incident a “scare tactic”.

    “We were aware of the risks of these kind of attacks so that’s not something that is going to stop us,” she said in a livestreamed conversation with Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories.

    “We’re very, very determined to continue our mission.”

    On Monday, the Israeli foreign ministry alleged that the flotilla was “organised by Hamas”.

    “Israel will not allow vessels to enter an active combat zone and will not allow the breach of a lawful naval blockade,” it warned.

    “If the flotilla participants’ genuine wish is to deliver humanitarian aid rather than serve Hamas, Israel calls on the vessels to dock at the Ashkelon Marina and unload the aid there, from where it will be transferred promptly in a co-ordinated manner to the Gaza Strip.”

    The GSF has said its goal is to “break the illegal siege on Gaza by sea, open a humanitarian corridor, and end the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people”.

    Two weeks ago, it reported that two vessels were targeted in separate drone attacks while anchored off Tunisia. Tunisian authorities said they were investigating the claims.

    In June, Thunberg was one of 12 people on board a Gaza-bound aid ship, the Madleen, that was intercepted by Israeli forces about 185km west of Gaza.

    Another vessel carrying 21 people, the Handala, was intercepted about 75km off Gaza in July.

    The GSF’s boats set sail after experts from the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) confirmed that there was a famine in Gaza City and warned that it could spread to central and southern Gaza within weeks.

    Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry has said at least 440 Palestinians have died from the effects of malnutrition since the start of the war, including 162 since the famine declaration.

    A spokesman for UN human rights chief Volker Türk said he had called on Israel to “urgently lift the blockade on Gaza and allow the entry of life-saving material through all means possible”.

    As the occupying power, he added, Israel “must ensure food and medical supplies for the population to the fullest extent of the means available, or facilitate impartial humanitarian relief schemes, delivered rapidly and without hindrance”.

    Israel has insisted it acts in accordance with international law and facilitates the entry of aid.

    It has also disputed the IPC’s findings and the health ministry’s figures, and strongly denied the allegation – most recently made by a UN commission of inquiry – that its forces have committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

    Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government in Italy has until recently been seen as one of Israel’s closest allies in Europe, but Rome’s language on the war in Gaza has quickly hardened, largely because of domestic political pressure.

    Opinion polls indicate a shift in attitudes against Israel, and two days ago unions were able to call out tens of thousands of Italians on to the streets of up to 80 towns and cities in protest.

    Although Italy has not joined the UK and France in recognising a Palestinian state, Meloni has now moved much closer to their positions. She has suggested that she is not opposed to a motion in parliament recognising Palestine, as long as Hamas frees all hostages and that it is excluded from “all government processes”.

    The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

    At least 65,419 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s health ministry.

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  • Trump promises Arab leaders he won’t let Israel annex West Bank, Politico reports – Reuters

    1. Trump promises Arab leaders he won’t let Israel annex West Bank, Politico reports  Reuters
    2. Erdogan says Trump meeting with Arab, Muslim leaders on Gaza was ‘fruitful’  Al Jazeera
    3. Trump presented comprehensive plan to end Gaza war in UN meeting with Muslim leaders  The Times of Israel
    4. Donald Trump Meets Shehbaz Sharif, Arab Leaders On UNGA Sidelines Amid Gaza Crisis  News18
    5. Trump looks to Muslim bloc for Gaza peace deal  Dawn

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  • Hamas reportedly preparing for street-to-street fighting as Israeli forces near Gaza City centre

    Hamas reportedly preparing for street-to-street fighting as Israeli forces near Gaza City centre

    Israeli forces have neared the centre of Gaza City, as Hamas fighters reportedly regroup amid fears of intense street-to-street fighting.

    Thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee the city since Israel launched its ground offensive last week.

    Israel describes the city as the “last stronghold” of Hamas and says its aim is to “eliminate terrorists” and rescue its 48 remaining hostages, 20 of whom are thought to be alive.

    The BBC has verified footage of an Israeli tank at Hamid Junction, around 1.5km (0.9 miles) from the central al-Shifa hospital. Israeli armoured vehicles were also reportedly seen close to the main UN compound in southern Gaza City, about 700m (2297ft) from the centre.

    The BBC has spoken to a Hamas figure who claims the militant group is willing to call thousands of fighters into the city, raising the fear of intense fighting in dense urban areas where thousands of civilians remain.

    He said that Izz al-Din al-Haddad, the group’s military commander, has ordered all available fighters across the Strip to converge on the city, telling them to prepare for a “final, decisive battle”.

    The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) estimated last week that up to 3,000 Hamas fighters were in the city. The Hamas figure claimed they had 5,000 fighters and threatened suicide attacks, though that has not been a tactic Hamas has used widely in this recent conflict. The BBC cannot independently verify these figures and Hamas has not officially commented.

    International journalists have been banned by Israel from entering the Gaza Strip independently since the start of the war nearly two years ago, making verifying claims from both sides difficult. Some journalists have been taken into Gaza by the IDF under controlled access.

    Israel has been trying to destroy the tunnels in Gaza to stop the militants using them for surprise attacks. But the Hamas militant claimed that some remained intact and that the group had learned from Israel’s successes in destroying militant units that have attempted to hold ground in a fight.

    Before he was killed by Israel, the group’s previous military chief, Mohammed Deif, issued orders that the militant group should adopt a move towards guerrilla tactics and ambushes to mitigate their catastrophic losses.

    According to residents in Gaza City, Israel has reacted to this by conducting rapid thrusts into urban areas, before pulling back within hours.

    The Israeli media has also reported that the IDF has used damaged armoured vehicles, packed with explosives, and fitted with remote control capabilities, to attack Hamas positions or destroy buildings being used to hide fighters.

    Small quadcopter drones equipped with loudspeakers have also been deployed by Israel to warn civilians to leave, spreading panic in several districts.

    Thousands of Palestinian families have continued to flee south along the coastal al-Rashid road, the only route currently permitted by the Israeli military. The UN estimated on Tuesday that at least 321,000 people have fled south since mid-August. The IDF puts the total figure at 640,000.

    The journey has become prohibitively expensive, with families paying more than $3,000 (£2,450) for transport, far beyond the means of most Gaza residents. Many have been forced to abandon belongings they could not carry on foot.

    Those remaining in Gaza City – thought to be hundreds of thousands – face the constant threat of bombardment, collapsing hospitals and dwindling food and water. A UN-backed agency confirmed a famine in the area in late August.

    The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

    At least 65,419 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

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