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Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community pledged to resist government moves to call up seminary students for military service on Thursday, as demonstrators took to the streets to protest the arrest of two objectors.”The authorities will face a united global ultra-Orthodox Judaism fighting for its soul,” the spiritual leader of ultra-Orthodox Jews of European descent, Rabbi Dov Landau, told the community’s leading newspaper Yated Neeman under the front-page headline “War”.The exemption of many ultra-Orthodox men from the military service performed by other Jews has long been a contentious issue in Israel but it has become more so as the Gaza war has dragged on, putting a strain on army reservists. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has depended on the support of two ultra-Orthodox parties for its majority in parliament.But its failure to pass new legislation to give full-time seminary students continued exemption from military service has tested that support.  Both ultra-Orthodox parties have withdrawn their ministers from the government, while one has also stopped supporting it in parliament.The ultra-Orthodox community represents 14 percent of Israel’s Jewish population, about 1.3 million people, and around 66,000 men of military age previously benefited each year from exemptions.The Israeli army announced in early July that tens of thousands of conscription orders would be sent out to ultra-Orthodox Jews.Earlier this week, authorities arrested two brothers, both full-time seminary students, after they failed to heed their call-up papers.In Jerusalem on Thursday evening, ultra-Orthodox Jewish demonstrators gathered to protest the arrests, with police later using water canon to disperse the crowd.mib-hba-ds-glp/ami

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday Israel plans to take full control of Gaza but does not intend to govern it, as he convened his security cabinet to discuss updated plans 22 months into the war.The cabinet meeting comes as Netanyahu faces mounting pressure at home and abroad for a truce deal to pull Gaza’s more than two million people back from the brink of famine and to spare hostages held by Palestinian militants.With tensions rising, Netanyahu took to the airwaves telling US network Fox News the government intends to seize complete control of the Gaza Strip, where the military has been fighting Hamas since the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack.Asked if Israel will take control of “all of Gaza”, Netanyahu said: “We intend to.”He was expected to seek the cabinet’s approval for an expanded offensive, which could see ground troops operate in densely populated areas where hostages are believed to be held, Israeli media reported.Netanyahu told Fox News “we don’t want to keep” the Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied in 1967 but withdrew troops and settlers in 2005.”We want to have a security perimeter. We don’t want to govern it,” Netanyahu said.”We want to hand it over to Arab forces that will govern it properly without threatening us and giving Gazans a good life. That’s not possible with Hamas.”The reported plans to expand the war have sparked growing concern in Israel about what it means for the remaining hostages.As the cabinet meeting kicked off, hundreds rallied near the prime minister’s office in Jerusalem, calling for a deal to free the hostages.”The only way to bring the hostages home is to halt the war and end the suffering of the hostages and all those living through this terrible conflict,” said protester Sharon Kangasa-Cohen.- ‘More destruction’ -Hamas in a statement said that “Netanyahu’s plans to escalate the aggression confirm beyond any doubt his desire to get rid of the captives and sacrifice them in pursuit of his personal interests and extremist ideological agenda.”Earlier Thursday, relatives of hostages set sail from the port of Ashkelon seeking to approach the Gaza Strip where their loved ones have endured 22 months of captivity.Out of 251 hostages captured during Hamas’s 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the military says are dead.Ahead of Thursday’s meeting, rumours have been rife in the Israeli press about disagreements between the cabinet and Israel’s military chief Eyal Zamir, who is said to oppose plans to fully reoccupy Gaza.On Wednesday, Defence Minister Israel Katz had weighed in on social media saying the military must ultimately respect any policies adopted by the government.In a statement released by the military Thursday, Zamir underscored his independence, vowing to “continue to express our position without fear”.”We are dealing with matters of life and death… and we do so while looking directly into the eyes of our soldiers and citizens,” Zamir said.In Gaza, meanwhile, fears grew over what an expansion of Israeli operations would entail.”Ground operations mean more destruction and death,” said Ahmad Salem, 45.- ‘Unrealistic costs’ -International concern has been growing over the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, where a UN-backed assessment warned that famine was unfolding.The World Health Organization said at least 99 people have died from malnutrition in the Gaza Strip this year, with the figure likely an underestimate.Displaced Gazan Mahmoud Wafi said that the prices of available food remained high and erratic.”We hope that food will be made available again in normal quantities and at reasonable prices, because we can no longer afford these extremely high and unrealistic costs,” the 38-year-old told AFP.In late July, Israel partially eased restrictions on aid entering Gaza, but the United Nations says the amount allowed into the territory remains insufficient.Amjad Al-Shawa, head of the Palestinian NGO Network in the Gaza Strip, told AFP that lengthy inspection procedures at entry points meant few trucks could come in.”What is currently entering the Gaza Strip are very limited numbers of trucks — between 70 to 80 per day — carrying only specific types of goods,” he said.The United Nations estimates that Gaza needs at least 600 trucks of aid per day to meet its residents’ basic needs.Amid the shortages, bloodshed continued with Gaza’s civil defence agency saying Israeli attacks across the territory on Thursday killed at least 35 people.Israel’s offensive has killed at least 61,258 Palestinians, according to Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry.The 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Hundreds of demonstrators including Israelis released from captivity in Gaza rallied on Thursday in Jerusalem as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened his cabinet to review new plans for the war.Waving Israeli flags and holding portraits of hostages still held by Palestinian militants in Gaza, the protesters gathered outside Netanyahu’s office under the slogan “We will bring them back” and called for an end to the war.Sharon Cunio, whose husband David is still held in Gaza since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that triggered the war, and Arbel Yehud were among the former hostages who attended the rally.Yehud’s partner Ariel — David Cunio’s brother — is also still in captivity, one of 49 hostages in Gaza including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.In Jerusalem, Cunio and Yehud held a banner with photos of their partners that read: “Bring back our loved ones.”Nearby, the Israeli cabinet met to discuss the ongoing military campaign in Gaza.”The only way to bring the hostages home is to halt the war and end the suffering of the hostages and all those living through this terrible conflict — including Gaza residents, soldiers, families, and all of us,” protester Sharon Kangasa-Cohen, a historian, told AFP.”If they retake Gaza or decide to reoccupy it militarily, the hostages’ lives will be in even greater danger, and Israeli society as a whole will be threatened,” she said.Pepe Alalu, a former deputy mayor of Jerusalem and a well-known figure of the city’s left wing, said he came to the protest because “I simply couldn’t stay away.””We have to save the hostages,” he said, adding that in his view, “Israel has lost its moral compass.”

Mourners attended on Thursday the funeral of Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen in the occupied West Bank whose body was handed over by Israel more than a week after a settler killed him.”He was killed by a hateful settler, his body was held for 11 days, and more than 20 people from the village were arrested” following the late July incident in the southern West Bank, said the slain activist’s brother, Aziz Hathaleen.The settler accused of the fatal shooting “was released at that very moment”, Aziz told AFP in the family’s hometown of Umm al-Khair, where Palestinians gathered to bury his brother’s body despite Israeli restrictions.Awdah Hathaleen, 31, was linked to Oscar-winning documentary film “No Other Land”, which focuses on the efforts of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta — a string of hamlets including Umm al-Khair — to prevent Israeli forces from destroying their homes.He was killed on July 28, with residents identifying the man holding the gun in a video of the incident as Yinon Levy, a settler sanctioned by the Britain, who was briefly detained but released the next day.Umm al-Khair resident Ibrahim Hathaleen told AFP that “we were prevented from receiving the martyr’s body” for days after his death, and Aziz said Israel had given the family several conditions to allow the funeral.The activist’s brother argued that the Israeli moves were meant to prevent a large gathering that would draw attention to his work opposing Israeli settlement in Masafer Yatta.”The first condition was that he not be buried in the area at all, and the second was that no mourning tent be set up”, said Ibrahim, who is also related to Awdah Hathaleen.An AFP journalist in Umm al-Khair said the Israeli army had set up checkpoints around the village and prevented some Palestinians and foreign activists from reaching the funeral site.About 100 mourners still managed to attend the funeral, many of them in tears, kissing Awdah’s body before joining prayers at a local mosque, the AFP journalist reported.Masafer Yatta, where he lived, is an area on the hills south of the Palestinian city of Hebron which has been declared a military zone by Israel.The fight of the area’s Palestinian residents against Israeli settlement expansion and violence from troops and settlers was the subject of “No Other Land”, which won Best Documentary at the Oscars in March.Shortly after Hathaleen’s killing, the film’s co-director Yuval Abraham posted a video of the incident on Instagram showing a man — identified as Levy — brandishing a gun and arguing with a group of people.Violence in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967, has surged throughout the Gaza war that began in October 2023.At least 968 Palestinians, including militants but also civilians, have been killed by Israeli soldiers or settlers since the Gaza war broke out.At least 36 Israelis, including civilians and soldiers, have been killed there in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military operations over the same period, according to official Israeli data.

A Chicago man arrested for the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers in the US capital Washington could potentially face the death penalty if convicted of murder and hate crime charges, officials said Thursday.US Attorney General Pam Bondi will ultimately decide whether to seek the death penalty for Elias Rodriguez, the suspect in the May 21 attack, federal prosecutor Jeanine Pirro told reporters.Rodriguez, 31, was arrested immediately after the shooting of Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and his fiancee, Sarah Milgrim, 26, outside the Capital Jewish Museum.Pirro said that in addition to two counts of first-degree murder, a grand jury has charged Rodriguez with hate crimes “because of his bias against the people of Israel.””We have a problem with anti-Semitism in this country,” Pirro said. “It’s a problem and we’re not going to tolerate it.”Rodriguez allegedly shouted “Free Palestine” as he was taken away by police after the shooting and told officers “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”FBI agent Reid Davis said Rodriguez is believed to have acted alone.”Based on his writings and communications, we believe he was a lone wolf actor motivated by anti-Zionist and pro-Palestinian ideology with the goal of conducting a mass shooting to call attention to his political agenda,” Davis said.Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen, was a researcher at the Israeli embassy, while Milgrim, an American, worked for its public diplomacy department. The couple were engaged to be married.

The United Arab Emirates rejected on Thursday an announcement from Sudan’s armed forces saying they had destroyed an Emirati plane ferrying Colombian mercenaries into the country to back paramilitary rivals.Sudan has been locked in a war between its army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces since April 2023, with the military long accusing Abu Dhabi of supporting the RSF — an allegation it denies.On Wednesday, army-aligned state TV said Sudan’s air force struck an Emirati plane as it landed at an RSF-controlled airport in the war-torn Darfur region, killing 40 Colombian soldiers for hire.A UAE official told AFP that the “unfounded allegations” were “entirely false” and not supported by any evidence.The official dismissed the latest claims as part of Sudan’s “ongoing campaign of disinformation and deflection”.A Sudanese military source, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, had said the plane “was bombed and completely destroyed” at Darfur’s Nyala airport.Colombian President Gustavo Petro said his government was trying to find out how many Colombians died in the attack, adding: “We will see if we can bring their bodies back.”Sudan had accused the UAE earlier this week of hiring Colombian mercenaries to fight against the army on behalf of the RSF.State TV said the plane had taken off from an airbase in the Gulf, carrying dozens of foreign fighters and military equipment intended for the RSF, which controls nearly all of Darfur.Nyala airport has recently come under repeated air strikes by the Sudanese army.- Foreign fighters at displacement camp -The army, led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has accused the UAE of supplying advanced weaponry, including drones, to the RSF via the airport.Abu Dhabi denies the accusations, despite numerous reports of its involvement from UN experts, US political officials and international organisations.Reports of Colombian fighters in Darfur date back to late 2024 and have been deemed credible by UN experts.In recent days, a pro-army coalition in Darfur known as the Joint Forces reported the presence of more than 80 Colombian mercenaries involved in RSF operations in El-Fasher, the besieged capital of North Darfur state.Some of the foreign fighters, the group said, were killed during the RSF’s latest failed assault on the city.Recent videos published by the army show mercenaries at a location that a spokesman identified as the Zamzam displacement camp near El-Fasher.”Civilians in areas near Zamzam have reported their belongings and vehicles stolen by mercenaries,” camp spokesman Mohamed Khamis Douda told AFP via satellite connection to circumvent a communications blackout.AFP could not independently verify the videos.- External actors -In May, Sudan’s army-aligned government officially declared the UAE an “aggressor state”, severing all diplomatic relations.The UAE responded by stating that the internationally-recognised Sudanese government “does not represent the legitimate government” of the country.On Wednesday, Sudan’s civil aviation authority claimed the UAE had imposed a ban on Sudanese planes from landing at Emirati airports and blocked a Sudanese airliner from taking off from Abu Dhabi. The UAE has not publicly responded to the reported flight ban.Last month, the latest US attempt to chart a way out of the conflict broke down as Egypt and the UAE, seen as key external players, disagreed on the role the warring parties would play in a potential peace process.Sudan’s newly appointed Prime Minister Kamil Idris travelled to Cairo on Thursday — his first official foreign trip since taking office.In a joint press conference with his Egyptian counterpart, Idris said there was “consensus” between the two countries on key regional and international issues.President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who also met Idris, reiterated Egypt’s “steadfast support for the unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Sudan”.Sudan is now effectively split, with the army in control of the north, east and centre, and the RSF dominating nearly all of Darfur in the west as well as parts of the south.Both sides have faced claims of war crimes during the conflict, which has killed tens of thousands and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.

“When will this nightmare end?” wonders Amal Hamada, a 20-year-old displaced woman who, like most Gazans, feels powerless before the threat of full Israeli occupation after 22 months of war.Rumours that the Israeli government might decide on a full occupation of the Palestinian territory spread from Israel to war-torn Gaza before any official announcement, sowing fear and despair.Like nearly all Gazans, Hamada has been displaced several times by the war, and ended up in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza, where the Israeli military carried out operations last month for the first time in the war.”We’ve lived through many wars before, but nothing like this one. This war is long and exhausting, from one displacement to another. We are worn out,” the woman told AFP.Like her, Ahmad Salem, 45, wonders how things can get worse in a territory that already faces chronic food shortages, mass displacement and daily air strikes.”We already live each day in anxiety and fear of the unknown. Talk of an expansion of Israeli ground operations means more destruction and more death,” Salem told AFP.”There is no safe space in Gaza. If Israel expands its ground operations again, we’ll be the first victims,” he said from a camp west of Gaza City where he had found shelter.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to chair a meeting of his security cabinet later on Thursday to seek approval to expand military operations in Gaza, including in densely populated areas.- ‘Just animals’ -“We read and hear everything in the news… and none of it is in our favour,” said 40-year-old Sanaa Abdullah from Gaza City.”Israel doesn’t want to stop. The bombardment continues, the number of martyrs and wounded keeps rising, famine and malnutrition are getting worse, and people are dying of hunger”, she said.”What more could possibly happen to us?”Precisely 22 months into the devastating war sparked by Hamas’s October 2023 attack, Gaza is on the verge of “generalised famine”, the United Nations has said.Its 2.4 million residents are fully dependent on humanitarian aid, and live under the daily threat of air strikes.The Israeli army announced in mid-July that it controlled 75 percent of Gaza, including a broad strip the whole length of the Israeli border and three main military corridors that cut across the territory from east to west.The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says that more than 87 percent of the Gaza Strip is under unrevoked evacuation orders or designated as an Israeli military zone.The remaining areas are the most densely populated. The city of Khan Yunis in the south, Gaza City in the north, and Deir el-Balah and its adjacent refugee camps in the centre.”Now they speak of plans to expand their operations as if we are not even human, just animals or numbers,” Abdullah laments.”A new ground invasion means new displacement, new fear and we won’t even find a place to hide”, she told AFP.”What will happen if they start another ground operation? Only God is with us.”A widening of the war “would risk catastrophic consequences for millions of Palestinians and could further endanger the lives of the remaining hostages in Gaza”, senior UN official Miroslav Jenca told the Security Council on Tuesday. The October 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, the majority of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 61,258 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Gaza health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.

With food scarce and aid hard and sometimes deadly to come by, Gaza farmer Ibrahim Abu Jabal is growing vegetables in the harsh conditions of a sprawling displacement camp to sustain his family.Abu Jabal, 39, has turned a small patch of soil near the family’s tent in Gaza City into a vegetable garden, where he tends to rows of tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, surrounded by tens of thousands of other Palestinians displaced by the Israel-Hamas war.”Our bodies need tomatoes, cucumbers,” he told AFP.”And these products are expensive here. Not just expensive — they’re not even available. There are no tomatoes, and even if there were, we wouldn’t have the money to buy them.”The displaced farmer has cultivated the sandy plot of 120 square meters (about 1,300 square feet), using seeds from dried vegetables and relying on an erratic water supply.”Due to the situation we’re going through… and the soaring prices of vegetables, I had to return to my old profession,” said Abu Jabal.He said he had prepared the plot “so I can start planting again, just so my children and I can survive another day, or a little longer.”Water in Gaza, much like food, is in precariously low supply, and to keep his garden green, Abu Jalal usually has to carry large jugs he fills from a nearby pipe where water flows only one hour a day.Israel is under growing pressure to bring an end to the war in Gaza, where UN warnings that famine was unfolding have heightened global concern for the territory’s more than two million Palestinian inhabitants living through a humanitarian crisis.- Aid access ‘blocked’ -The Israeli offensive, triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, has killed at least 61,258 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, which are considered reliable by the United Nations.The Hamas attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, the majority of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Israel in late May began easing a complete aid blockade that had lasted more than two months, but only a trickle of food and other basic supplies has entered Gaza since then.Before the war, agriculture accounted for around 10 percent of the Gaza Strip’s economy, with about a quarter of the population at least partially supported by agriculture and fishing.But on Wednesday the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said that just 1.5 percent of the territory’s farmland remained accessible and undamaged, citing the latest satellite data.”People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods,” the agency’s Director-General Qu Dongyu said.Hungry Gazans have increasingly been forced to brave chaotic scenes at a handful of distribution points managed by the Israel- and US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.On July 22, the UN rights office said Israeli forces had killed more than 1,000 Palestinians trying to get food aid in Gaza since the GHF started operations in May — nearly three-quarters of them in the vicinity of GHF sites.Abu Jabal said his nine-year-old daughter had been injured near a charity kitchen.Referring to the GHF operation, he said that “the American aid does not satisfy people’s hunger.””For someone who has nine children like me, what can a single box of aid really do?”