Israel

I have visited Israel three times in the past year. The first trip was in the spring, just as the anti-government protests – triggered by Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempts to control the Supreme Court – were beginning. The day before we travelled, protestors forced Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion airport to close, and a general strike was announced. Every Saturday night, out went the protestors – mostly liberal and secular, but not entirely, so widespread is frustration with the government. ‘You could not be seen sitting and drinking wine on a Saturday night’, Moran Alon, the owner of the Nilus bar in Tel Aviv told me. ‘People would wonder: why aren’t you at

The language in the government and parliament over Israel has changed a lot this week. Ministers are no longer mounting the full throttle defence of Israel or offering regular reminders to the Commons of what happened on 7 October. Lord Cameron’s evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday was just one example of that: the Foreign Secretary said that ‘of course’ he was ‘worried that Israel has taken action that might be in breach of international law’. He also repeated the line that ‘too many civilians have died’, and reminded Israel that it needed to do more to avert a famine in Gaza. Similarly, when Rishi Sunak was asked about

On his fourth visit to Israel this week since its war with Hamas started, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken delivered a message of strong support for the country, but also some criticism. He arrived in Israel yesterday having already been to Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, Turkey and Greece. Next on his agenda are visits to the Palestinian Authority and Egypt. Blinken’s Middle Eastern tour aims to create a more peaceful and stable region to enhance Israeli security – a particularly monumental task. The Biden administration wants to prevent the war between Israel and Hamas from expanding onto new fronts. They have been anxiously following developments on the border

Two days after the Israel Defence Forces announced that it had dismantled Hamas’s ‘military framework’ in the northern Gaza Strip, a new front in the war could now begin after the IDF took out a senior Hezbollah commander. Wissam al-Tawil, the deputy head of a unit within the group’s elite Radwan force, was killed this morning in an Israeli air strike on his car in southern Lebanon. ‘This is a very painful strike,’ one unnamed security source told Reuters. ‘Things will flare up now,’ another security source added. Since 7 October, more than 130 Hezbollah fighters have been killed in skirmishes between the group and Israel (another 19 died in Syria). Some

Saleh al-Arouri may have been a senior member of the Palestinian group Hamas, but the drone strike that brought his story to an early close took place last night in Beirut, Lebanon. Pictures from the scene show a devastatingly precise hit, which also reportedly eliminated senior members of other factions. The leaders of Hezbollah, the Lebanese terror group founded by Iran, will not have been surprised that Israel’s reach extends so easily into their country. Likewise, it will have been no surprise to Israel that al-Arouri and other Hamas officials were to be found in Beirut. Along with Qatar and Turkey, Lebanon has long been one of Hamas’s main bases

Israel’s supreme court has overturned a law passed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government last year that would have limited the power of the Israeli courts. This legislation, known as ‘the reasonableness bill’ was meant to put a stop to the courts’ ability to cancel decisions made by the government if they were deemed to be ‘extremely unreasonable’. Yesterday, judges threw out the law, claiming that the government lacked the authority to implement it. The law was part of a package of judicial reforms initiated by Netanyahu’s far-right government; many in Israel argued that the reforms would weaken the courts and undermine Israeli democratic institutions. From the moment it was introduced, the

Hamas leaders based in Qatar have been holding talks with Palestinian officials from Fatah, the political organisation that dominates the Palestinian Authority (PA) which governs the West Bank. The once rival organisations are in discussions about forming an alliance for governing Gaza after the war with Israel. For the Palestinian Authority, this is an opportunity to return to Gaza nearly 18 years after the organisation lost the legislative elections to Hamas in 2006. The PA has been deeply unpopular among Palestinians for some time. A poll conducted in Gaza and the West Bank at the end of November found that support for Hamas tripled since the start of the war,

Thousands of protestors have taken to the streets of Tel Aviv following the killing of three young Israeli hostages by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) in a friendly fire incident in Gaza. The demonstrators, who set up tents on Friday morning in front of the Kirya military base where the Israeli cabinet holds its meetings, are calling on the government to reach a deal with Hamas to secure the release of the remaining hostages. They have vowed to remain there until a deal is reached, with some saying they will stay until all the hostages have been returned. There is wide public support for prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to strike a deal to bring the hostages home; only a small group on the far-right object

Tzipi Hotovely has committed the gravest sin in diplomacy: speaking candidly. In an interview with Sky News, Israel’s ambassador to the Court of St James’s rejected the creation of a Palestinian Arab state. Hotovely told a plainly horrified Mark Austin there could ‘absolutely not’ be a Palestinian state now, saying: ‘It’s about time for the world to realise that the Oslo paradigm failed on 7 October.’ She added: ‘Israel knows today and the world should know now that the Palestinians never wanted to have a state next to Israel. They want to have a state from the river to the sea. They are saying it loud and clear.’  The 7 October attack did not end

President Isaac ‘Bougie’ Herzog is Israeli aristocracy. His father, Chaim Herzog, was the sixth president, serving between 1983 and 1993; his grandfather Yitzhak Herzog was chief rabbi; his maternal uncle was Abba Eban, the most famous of the country’s foreign ministers. After leading the Israeli Labor party and the parliamentary opposition in the Knesset between 2013 and 2017, Isaac became Israel’s 11th president in July 2021. He is the first to be born in Israel since the Declaration of Independence 75 years ago. My first question rather asks itself: how is the war going? ‘Depends on what you mean by war,’ Herzog quickly replies, before turning the discussion away from

The conflict in Gaza could be about to reach a defining moment. After weeks of air strikes, artillery bombardments and drone attacks, the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) appear to have the Hamas leadership and those remaining fighters still loyal to the group’s murderous ideals trapped in ever-shrinking pockets of land. Intense street fighting is now taking place between Israeli troops and Hamas gunmen in the southern city of Khan Yunis, believed to be the last stronghold of the terrorist group. In the north, Hamas’s general headquarters, located within the Jabaliya refugee camp, has been occupied after a three day operation involving a naval commando unit and elements of the Israeli army’s

Israel knows that airstrikes alone cannot help it to win its war against Hamas. To handicap its enemy, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) must kill or capture the group’s leaders, both in Gaza – where they are hiding out in intricate tunnel complexes – and elsewhere, in other countries in the Middle East, including Qatar. But the cost of such dangerous operations will be high – and could easily backfire. For now, the priority for Israel is targeting Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip. On the hitlist is Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s leader in Gaza; Mohammed Deif, the head of Hamas’s military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades; and Deif’s second-in-command,

Isn’t it remarkable how similar anti-Zionism is to anti-Semitism? The latest proof of an intimate link between these two ideologies comes from Philadelphia. There, last night, a baying mob gathered outside a Jewish-owned restaurant to accuse the owners of being complicit in ‘genocide’. Guys, the 1930s called, they want their bigotry back. Last night’s protest was a genuinely vile affair. Actually, ‘protest’ is far too grand a name for this kind of gathering. It was more like a mini-pogrom, the noisy harassment of a restaurant for its sin of being founded by a Jew. The restaurant is called Goldie. It is owned by Mike Solomonov, an Israeli-born, Pittsburgh-raised, award-winning chef. ‘Goldie, Goldie, you

Hamas’s refusal to negotiate the return of the remaining women still in captivity and an early morning missile attack on Israel brought the ceasefire to an abrupt end on Friday. The Israeli government would have continued to put up with minor infractions by Hamas, and carried on with the deal, despite their repeated violations. However, Hamas’s insistence on drastically changing the terms of the agreement pushed Israel to resume assaults in a sign to Hamas that it refuses to be pushed around. Hamas needed the ceasefire, but miscalculated – thinking that it could push the envelope even more without consequence. It went too far. Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has been

Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas – which has allowed for the release of dozens of hostages – looks set to continue. But make no mistake: this war is far from over. Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas, a mission that he will not back down from any time soon. The fight against an estimated 30,000 Hamas soldiers will be a long and difficult one. While Israel’s firepower vastly outmatches that of Hamas, defeating an insurgent army will prove a difficult endeavour for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Israel could find itself in a situation comparable to Ukraine – another country with state-of-the-art weaponry that struggles to deliver