Ukraine’s forces launched successful overnight strikes on Russian airfields and equipment near the cities of Luhansk and Berdiansk in territory controlled by Russian forces, Ukraine’s military said on Tuesday.
“The Armed Forces of Ukraine made well-aimed strikes on enemy airfields and helicopters near the temporarily occupied Luhansk and Berdiansk,” the Ukrainian military’s communication department said on the Telegram messaging app.
Rob Lee, the military analyst, said earlier this year that Russia had “transferred 20 helicopters to the Berdyansk airport”, bringing the total to 27.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-installed official in parts of the Zaporizhzhia region controlled by Moscow in Ukraine’s southeast, said, however, that the strikes on Berdiansk were not successful.
“According to preliminary information, our air defence system successfully intercepted enemy rockets,” Rogov said on the Telegram. “Information about victims and possible damage is being clarified.”
Berdiansk is a port city in Zaporizhzhia on the northern coast of the Sea of Azov, which is connected to the Black Sea.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Moscow.
US President Joe Biden will visit to Israel on Wednesday, in a significant show of US support.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken concluded hours of talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv early on Tuesday by saying that Biden would visit Israel.
“The president will hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people as we continue to work with Congress to meet those needs,” Blinken told reporters.
Biden would meet with Netanyahu, reaffirm Washington’s commitment to Israel’s security, and receive a comprehensive brief on its war aims and strategy, Blinken said.
“(The) president will hear from Israel how it will conduct its operations in a way that minimizes civilian casualties and enables humanitarian assistance to flow to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not benefit Hamas,” Blinken added.
Blinken also said he and Netanyahu had agreed to develop a plan to get humanitarian aid to Gaza civilians. He did not provide details.
US officials said that a new US coordinator on humanitarian aid, David Satterfield, would work with Israel to develop more concrete plans.
A World Health Organization (WHO) official has said that it believes that there have been 2,800 deaths in Gaza, with 11,000 wounded. It says that half are women and children.
Reuters reports WHO said there have been 115 attacks on health facilities in Gaza
Israel’s health ministry has also issued new casualty figures. It states that 4,229 Israelis have been wounded since Hamas launched its attack on 7 October.
The breakdown of injuries has been given as 26 people in critical condition with 312 in serious condition. 725 people are said to be in a moderate condition and 2,817 are classified as mild. 219 people have been hospitalised for anxiety with a further 130 said to be under medical evaluation.
The Israel Defence Forces spokesperson has posted to social media that Israeli tanks are now attacking “the area from which the shooting was carried out at Metula from Lebanon”.
A British teenage girl said to be missing with her sister after the Hamas attacks has been murdered, her family has told the BBC.
They said on Tuesday morning that 13-year-old Yahel was now confirmed as having been killed in the attack.
Her mother, Lianne, was also killed. Her sister, Noiya, 16, and father, Eli, are still missing.
More details soon …
Haaretz is reporting that “two people were wounded and many mortars hit the town” of Metula in northern Israel. The town is adjacent to the UN-drawn blue line which has divided Israel and Lebanon since 2000.
An Israeli military spokesman said on Tuesday that the status of the Gaza Strip after Israel’s planned ground assault would be a “global issue” for discussion by Israel’s politicians and with other countries.
“We’ve had all kinds of end games,” Daniel Hagari told media during a news briefing, in response to a question about whether Israel’s military planned to stay and govern Gaza after its ground invasion.
“The cabinet is also discussing what that could look like … this is also a global issue, what the situation will look like in this region,” he said.
Hagari said the military had “presented an operational plan” to the Israeli cabinet but did not elaborate.
“Gaza borders other countries … so when we say things on the final status, they will combine the orders of the political level and the military,” Reuters reports Hagari said.
Jordan’s King Abdullah on Tuesday warned against trying to push Palestinian refugees into Egypt or Jordan, adding that the humanitarian situation must be dealt with inside Gaza and the West Bank.
“That is a red line, because I think that is the plan by certain of the usual suspects to try and create de facto issues on the ground. No refugees in Jordan, no refugees in Egypt,” Reuters reports the king said at a news conference after a meeting with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, in Berlin.
During a joint press conference, Scholz called for preventing an escalation in the Middle East, and said: “I expressly warn Hezbollah and Iran not to intervene in the conflict.”
On its social media feed the Israel Defence Forces have reported further shooting into Israel from Lebanon.
More details soon …
Israel has a “moral and practical responsibility” to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza, the UK’s development minister has said.
Andrew Mitchell also described the situation in the territory as a “looming humanitarian crisis” as he said “all of us must hope” that the US and the Israelis are able to reach an agreement that paves the way for the opening of the Rafah crossing into Egypt from Gaza.
“If there is a plan, I’m sure that it will be possible for the Egyptians to agree to it opening,” the minister told Times Radio.
He also said that some form of “safe zone” in southern Gaza would be required to deliver the aid that was needed, though he warned that such initiatives had a “chequered past”, recalling Rwanda and Srebrenica.
His comments come 24 hours after the Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, told Sky News in the UK that there is “no humanitarian crisis”.
Asked by the Sky News presenter Kay Burley on whether Israel had a right to “cross any border” and go so far as targeting Hamas leaders who are in Qatar, Mitchell said: “The Hamas leaders are guilty of the most heinous crime and the Israeli government will either hunt them down and bring them to justice or they will be killed during the course of the military action that takes place.”
King Abdullah II of Jordan and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, are giving a joint press conference at the moment. I’ll bring you any key lines that emerge.
Ministry of health officials in Gaza have told Al Jazeera that the overnight death toll now stands at “at least 71 people”, and that people are trapped in rubble after a night of Israeli bombardments on the Gaza Strip.
Al Jazeera reports that the heaviest bombardments occurred in three areas in the south of Gaza: Khan Younis, Rafah and Deir el-Balah, and that many of those killed are families who had evacuated from Gaza City.
The government media office in Gaza told the news outlet:
The losses of the current Israeli aggression exceed all the wars that Gaza has been exposed to in recent years.
The catastrophic humanitarian reality in Gaza is unprecedented. The international community must take serious and immediate steps to stop the crime of ethnic cleansing.
We demand a quick response to distress calls by bringing relief aid to citizens and humanitarian aid to the service sectors.
A spokesperson for the UN’s relief and works agency (UNRWA) told the BBC that “supplies are dwindling” in Gaza, amid fears “waterborne diseases are going to start spreading”.
Asked what her colleagues in southern Gaza are currently able to provide, Juliette Touma, the UNRWA director of communications, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “They continue to provide assistance wherever possible. UNWRA is overwhelmed. We are overwhelmed. Our supplies are dwindling and running out fast.
“Our staff are also very, very tired. They have been impacted themselves by the war. Many of them lost loved ones, we have sadly at UNRWA lost 14 staff members and these numbers continue to increase.”
Asked if they are operating out of facilities that are reasonably safe from Israeli bombardment, she said: “So no place is safe in the Gaza Strip, at the moment as the bombardments continue.”
She said UNRWA teams were operating from an “overcrowded” warehouse in southern Gaza with “hundreds of people sharing one toilet”, adding: “Our own staff have had to ration drinking water to one litre.”
She said: “In some parts of southern Gaza there was running water as of last night but the water situation is a huge concern. Most of Gaza in fact, the vast majority of Gaza, does not have running water. We are fearful that, waterborne diseases are going to start spreading and are going to start spreading soon.”
She said that “UNRWA has not been able to bring in any supplies, including fuel into the Gaza Strip”.
The Israeli airforce has posted on social media to claim that it has killed four people who were approaching the country’s perimieter fence from the direction of Lebanon. It wrote:
The airforce a short time ago thwarted an attempted infiltration by a terrorist squad, which was identified by IDF surveillance approaching the perimeter fence from Lebanese territory and planting a bomb. Four terrorists were eliminated.
It attached a video to the message which it claimed showed the incident. The claims have not been independently verified.
At least 49 Palestinians were killed in an overnight Israeli strike that hit homes in Khan Younis and Rafah, Reuters reports Gaza’s interior ministry said on Tuesday. The claims have not been independently verified.
It is almost 9am in Gaza City and Tel Aviv. Here is where things stand:
US president Joe Biden will visit Israel on Wednesday, in a significant show of US support. The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, concluded hours of talks with the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, in Tel Aviv early on Tuesday by saying that Biden would visit Israel. “The president will hear from Israel what it needs to defend its people as we continue to work with Congress to meet those needs,” Blinken told reporters.
Blinken said the US and Israel had agreed to develop a plan to get humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza without benefiting Hamas. Blinken made the announcement after hours of negotiations with Netanyahu that stretched into the early hours of Tuesday.
600,000 Gazans have been evacuated from the Gaza City area, following warnings from Israel’s military on Friday, according to Israel Defence Forces spokesperson Jonathan Conricus. In a daily update, Conricus said more than 600,000 people had been evacuated from the Gaza City area, but that 100,000 people still had not left. Israel has warned people to leave the Gaza City area ahead of what it says will be “enhanced military operations” in the coming days. Conricus said the operations would start “when the timing suits the goal”.
More than a week on from Hamas’s massacres in Israel, more than 350 bodies of suspected civilian victims still have not been identified, according to Dr Chen Kugel, the director of Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine. Some bodies were burned beyond recognition and others had decayed badly before they were found.
An emergency meeting of the heads of EU member states has been called on Tuesday in an effort to “harmonise” the bloc’s response to the conflict in Israel and Gaza after a week of dysfunction and division.
The IDF said 199 families have now been notified that their loved ones are being held hostage. It is an increase of 40 families, from 155 notified at the time of the last update, he said. He did not say how many hostages this translates to. The increase is not because more hostages have been taken but because new information came to light allowing people to be taken off the list of missing and confirmed as hostages.
Asked whether Biden’s visit will delay ground operations, Conricus said that he does not know, but that he does not think it will. The aim of Biden’s visit is not to “hinder” Israeli operations, he said. “It is to minimise the chances of a regional escalation.” Conricus also said he does not believe there is any plan for Israel to ultimately “hold on to the Gaza Strip”.
The IDF spokesperson was asked during that briefing what there is to stop Hamas fighters going south, too. He said this is “very difficult” and is “one of the downsides” of Israel advertising that it is going to commence enhanced military operations and telling civilians where to go.
Hamas demanded the release of “6,000 male and female prisoners in Israeli prisons” in exchange for hostages it took during its attacks on 7 October. The group’s captives include “high-ranking officers” of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), Khaled Meshaal, the head of Hamas’s diaspora office, said. A Hamas spokesperson said there were “about 200-250” Israeli captives in Gaza, a number higher than the earlier statement from the Israeli military that said it had confirmed 199 hostages.
Hamas released a video on Monday showing a statement from one of the captives seized in last week’s attack. In the footage, the woman, whose injured arm is shown being treated by an unidentified medical worker, asks to be returned to her family as quickly as possible.
Iran warned on Monday of a possible “pre-emptive action” against Israel “in the coming hours”, as Israel readies for a ground offensive on the Gaza Strip. Tehran has repeatedly warned that a ground invasion of the long-blockaded Gaza would be met with a response from other fronts – prompting fears of a wider conflict that could draw in other countries. “The possibility of pre-emptive action by the resistance axis is expected in the coming hours,” Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a live broadcast to state TV, as he referred to his meeting with the Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, on Saturday.
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, on Monday spoke to his Israeli counterpart, Yoav Gallant, and reiterated the US’s commitment to avoiding an escalation of the Israel-Hamas conflict and emphasised civilian safety, the Pentagon said in a readout.
The head of Israel’s Shin Bet domestic intelligence agency took responsibility for the Hamas attacks that killed more than 1,400 people on 7 October. “There will be time for investigations. Now we fight,” the Shin Bet director, Ronen Bar, said in a statement.
More now from Gaza’s main hospital:
For over a decade, the grounds of the hospital have largely been spared from bombardments, apart from a strike that hit Shifa’s outpatient clinic in 2014. Instead, a wide area outside the doors to the emergency room welcomes the television crews, local politicians, healthcare workers and civilians who gather there, amid the sound of ambulance sirens and the constant sight of patients arriving on stretchers.
But this time, despite recent efforts by the International Committee of the Red Cross to renovate Shifa’s emergency room, the current crisis has tested the hospital to its limits.
Last week, Israeli officials ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip, cutting off supplies of water, food, and fuel, meaning Shifa risks losing not just losing mains power to the hospital but also the diesel supplies needed for its backup generators. Days later, the Israeli military issued an evacuation order for all 1.1 million people north of the Gaza River including Gaza City, demanding that they flee south. Shifa hospital, along with several other medical facilities, said evacuating would be impossible. The World Health Organization called the order to evacuate hospitals a “death sentence” for the thousands of sick and injured.
White House officials bristled about whether Biden would ask Netanyahu and Israel officials to show restraint or set any conditions on any new US military aid that could be in the pipeline.
“We are not putting conditions on the military assistance that we are providing to Israel,” Kirby said. “They have a right to defend themselves. They have a right to go after this terrorist threat.”
European Union leaders will hold an emergency summit on Tuesday as concern mounts that the war between Israel and Hamas could fuel tensions in Europe and bring more refugees in search of sanctuary.
AFP: The Israel-Hamas war is set to overshadow the Frankfurt book fair this week after the postponement of a Palestinian author’s award ceremony sparked condemnation from top writers and the withdrawal of several Arab groups.
The world’s biggest publishing trade event begins on Wednesday, just over a week since Hamas launched the deadliest attack in Israel’s history, prompting Israel to respond with a relentless bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip.
Organisers swiftly denounced the Palestinian militants’ “barbaric” assault and rushed to reorganise the schedule, pledging Israeli voices would feature prominently.
The fair “stands with complete solidarity on the side of Israel”, its director, Juergen Boos, said in a statement.
But the run-up to the five-day event has been overshadowed by a backlash after an award ceremony for the Palestinian author Adania Shibli was postponed.
She was due to receive the LiBeraturpreis, a German award, for her book A Minor Detail, based on the real events of a 1949 rape and murder by Israeli soldiers.
It is organised by Litprom, which gives out the honour each year at the fair, but the group said they had decided not to go ahead with the ceremony “due to the war started by Hamas”.
It said in a statement that it was looking for a “suitable format and setting for the event at a later point”, while insisting that “awarding the prize to Adania Shibli was never in question”.
However, in an open letter released on Monday, more than 600 signatories including high-profile authors, publishers and literary agents, condemned the move.
With the stakes so high, member states are increasing their efforts to keep foreign policy coordinated and on track and will meet by video on Friday afternoon to progress plans for humanitarian support and other issues.
Insiders say there would have been no emergency summit were it not for a series of missteps in the last week in Brussels.
There have been criticism of the European Commission president Von der Leyen’s forthright statements on Israel. She repeatedly defended the country’s right to defend itself in the fact of a terrorist attack but it was days before she also called on Israel to respect international law in its defence.
Such an omission caused anger in some countries, while others complained in phone calls to Michel’s team about overreach and the commission’s failure to consult it on such an important foreign policy topic as Israel.
An emergency meeting of the heads of EU member states has been called on Tuesday in an effort to “harmonise” the bloc’s response to the conflict in Israel and Gaza after a week of dysfunction and division.
As fears grow over the risk of a wider war and a humanitarian catastrophe in the region, EU member states admit they have struggled to put on a united front as they did in February 2023 when Russia invaded Ukraine.
The European Council president, Charles Michel, issued a joint statement on Sunday after a weekend of frantic calls to all 27 member states, but after a week of rows over funding for Palestine and Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to Israel, insiders say the lack of coordination in the past week cannot continue.
There are concerns that the conflict in Israel and Gaza will weaken the coalition of support that the EU had built in the global south involving countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. It could also impede efforts to advance the Ukrainian peace process.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in Beijing and is scheduled to hold bilateral talks with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Wednesday.
Ties between Russia and China have deepened in recent years, and Putin and Xi have developed a strong personal friendship. The two men last met in March in Moscow.
Putin’s trip to China during which he will take part in a forum to mark 10 years of the Belt and Road Initiative, is the first time this year that the Russian leader has travelled to a country beyond those that were once part of the former Soviet Union.
“(The) Russian delegation’s presence in Beijing is important for Moscow,” Alicja Bachulska, an expert on Chinese foreign policy at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told the AFP news agency.
“It will legitimise Russia in the international arena by creating a positive image of Putin not being completely isolated in the context of war.”
Here are five things to know:
A deepening friendship …
Xi and Putin forged their friendship when the pair shared cake and vodka shots to mark the Russian leader’s birthday at a summit in Indonesia in 2013.
They have since drawn closer, with Xi accompanying Putin on a high-speed train ride across China to make traditional steamed buns five years later, and the two men eating caviar-topped blini during a river cruise when Xi later visited Russia.
In 2019, the Russian leader threw Xi a birthday party, surprising him with ice cream at a conference in Tajikistan.
On a visit to Moscow the same year, Xi told Russian media: “President Putin is the foreign colleague that I have interacted with most extensively. He is my best friend, and I greatly treasure our friendship.”
Putin arrived at Beijing Capital International Airport on Tuesday morning and will attend the Belt and Road forum [Parker Song/Pool via AFP]
In an interview with Chinese state media ahead of the latest visit, Putin was effusive in his praise for Xi, praising the relevance and significance of Xi’s policies and vision of a multipolar world.
Broadcaster CGTN said that Putin described Xi as a “true world leader”.
The two men were born just a few months apart in the early 1950s.
While Xi was the scion of a family of communist revolutionaries, Putin was born in more humble circumstances before becoming an intelligence officer in the Soviet Union.
Both men found lessons in the collapse of the USSR – for Putin, it was a humiliation and a “major geopolitical disaster” and for Xi, a cautionary tale for China’s own Communist Party.
… and closer bilateral ties
In line with their leaders’ deepening friendship, China and Russia have also moved closer.
Putin was last in Beijing in February 2022, just days before he sent thousands of troops across the border into Ukraine in what he called a “special military operation”.
At that time the two men signed an agreement promising a “no-limits” relationship. By March this year, they were talking of a “new era” of cooperation.
Russia is now China’s second-largest trade partner outside Asia, and trade between the two countries surged 30 percent in the first half of this year, Russian Economy Minister Maxim Reshetnikov said on a visit to China.
Putin praised Xi Jinping in an interview with Chinese state media recorded in the Kremlin ahead of his visit to Beijing [Sergei Bobylyov/Pool via AFP]
Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, said that from China’s view, “Russia is a safe neighbour that is friendly, that is a source of cheap raw materials, that’s a support for Chinese initiatives on the global stage and that’s also a source of military technologies, some of those that China doesn’t have.”
“For Russia, China is its lifeline, economic lifeline in its brutal repression against Ukraine,” Gabuev told The Associated Press news agency.
Israel-Hamas war
Putin comes to Beijing amid expectations that Israel could soon launch a ground invasion of the blockaded Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
The issue was high on the agenda when the Russian and Chinese foreign ministers held talks in Beijing on Monday, with both calling for intensified efforts to avoid a humanitarian disaster.
“It is imperative that a ceasefire be put in place, that the two sides be brought back to the negotiating table, and that an emergency humanitarian channel be established to prevent a further humanitarian disaster,” Wang said at the meeting, according to a Chinese transcript of the meeting.
A Russian-drafted UN Security Council resolution calling for a humanitarian ceasefire failed to get the minimum nine votes needed in the 15-member body on Monday, and Putin and Xi are likely to pick up the baton on the issue.
Putin held multiple calls with leaders in the region on Monday including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.
He told Netanyahu that Moscow wanted to help prevent a humanitarian disaster.
China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported earlier that Zhai Jun, Beijing’s special envoy on the Middle East, will visit the region this week to push for a ceasefire and promote peace talks.
Ukraine war
Even amid the deepening crisis in the Middle East, Russia’s continuing conflict in Ukraine is also likely to feature in the talks between the two men.
Recent reports suggest intense fighting on the eastern front around Avdiivka, as well as in the northeastern Kupiansk-Lyman area.
Beijing has sought to portray itself as a neutral party in the war and in March, about the time of Xi’s visit to Moscow, embarked on a flurry of diplomatic activity to promote its 12-point peace plan.
Those efforts have made little headway and Ukraine’s allies have largely dismissed Beijing’s attempt to position itself as mediator.
Still, on a visit to China that ended at the weekend, European Union policy chief Josep Borrell urged China to do what it could to end the war in Ukraine. Borrell said he had conveyed to the Chinese that the EU considered Russia “a huge threat” to its security and that the group was committed to supporting Ukraine.
The EU is expected to have a summit with China before the end of the year.
Energy
Oil and gas is a key concern for Russia amid international sanctions, and the bosses of Russia’s Gazprom and Rosneft are said to be part of Putin’s delegation to Beijing.
Russia is eager to secure a deal to sell more natural gas to China and plans to build the Power of Siberia-2 pipeline, which would travel through Mongolia and have an annual capacity of 50 billion cubic metres (bcm).
For China, Russia is not only a major source of oil and gas: one of the world’s biggest nuclear powers is also a rich potential source of technology as its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) seeks to modernise its conventional and nuclear forces by 2035.
Russian aviation, rocket and even submarine technology have been shared over recent decades with China, according to a 2022 assessment by the United States.
China and Russia also cooperate closely on civilian nuclear plants.
Belgium and Sweden's Euro 2024 qualifier was abandoned at half-time after two people were shot dead in Brussels before the game.
UEFA confirmed the match had been abandoned after a "suspected terrorist attack".
Belgian authorities have raised the terror alert to its highest level in the capital with Prime Minister Alexander De Croo describing the incident as a "brutal terrorist attack".
Image:The Euro 2024 qualifier between Belgium and Sweden at the King Baudouin Stadium was abandoned at half-time
"Last night three people left for what was supposed to be a wonderful soccer party," De Croo said.
"The perpetrator targeted specifically Swedish supporters who were in Brussels to attend a Red Devils soccer match. Two Swedish compatriots passed away. A third person is recovering from severe injures," De Croo said.
Image:Sweden fans await news after the game is halted
A man, who identified himself as a member of the Islamic State, claimed responsibility in a video posted online.
The shooting took place around 45 minutes before kick-off and three miles (5km) from the stadium. It is unclear if the victims were in Brussels to watch the game but reports said the pair were wearing Swedish football shirts.
Image:Swedish fans at the King Baudouin Stadium react hearing news of the shooting
The score was 1-1 at half-time when the game was suspended and fans were told to remain in the King Baudouin Stadium "until security permits them to leave."
Fans chanted "All together, All together," with thousands from both sides also shouting "Sweden, Sweden!" as they waited inside Belgium's national stadium. The 35,000 supporters were eventually allowed to leave in groups just after midnight local time. The gunman, however, remains on the loose.
Image:Sweden fans console each other at the King Baudouin Stadium
After the game, Sweden coach Janne Andersson confirmed they were told about the incident at half-time and decided not to continue with the match. He said: "Everyone was very sad and all the players agreed not to continue with the match."
Manchester United and Sweden defender Victor Lindelof added: "We discussed the remainder of the match with the team and the Belgians. The conclusion was not to play anymore. The most important thing is that the supporters are safe now."
Image:A map showing the location of the shooting and the King Baudouin Stadium in Brussels
A post from the Swedish FA on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, read: "Keep calm and take care of each other. Our thoughts go out to all the relatives of those affected in Brussels."
The Belgian national FA also wrote: "Our thoughts are with all those affected."
Image:Supporters turned their mobile phone lights on at half-time
'Belgium terror level raised to highest level'
Sky News' Adam Parsons in Brussels:
"This is a city in a state of shock right now. At about quarter past seven here, a man in a hi-vis orange jacket went into a building armed with a Kalashnikov rifle and shot dead two people with at least one other person injured.
Image:A Swedish fan pictured at the King Baudouin Stadium after the abandonment of the game
"The man hasn't been caught yet. The police are still looking for him. The terror level in Belgium has been immediately raised to the highest possible. People are being told to stay at home and France have tightened their border controls out of fear.
"There are videos on social we are not yet able to verify reportedly by this person saying that they claim allegiance to Islamic state and specifically saying they've killed Swedish people."
For most of the 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the Rafah border crossing represents their only potential exit, and the territory’s sole remaining lifeline to the outside world. Egypt controls the crossing under a 2007 agreement with Israel, but supplies coming into Gaza through Rafah require Israeli approval.
At the opposite end of the strip, the Erez crossing in the north leads to an area close to the Israeli town of Ashkelon. There, only a limited number of Palestinians who have hard-to-obtain work permits and those with permission to receive urgent medical care were able to use the tightly controlled crossing into Israeli territory before its destruction during Hamas’s incursion. The Keren Shalom crossing, also in the south of Gaza, was designed to allow only goods to enter, but was curtailed by a 16-year Israeli blockade of the strip.
Rafah is where most Palestinians attempt to acquire permission to exit Gaza if they are able. Most people born in the territory, however, have never left the 365 square kilometres that make up the territory and getting permission to leave is extremely difficult.
The crossing lies at the southern end of Gaza on the border with Egypt’s Sinai peninsula, a broad triangular region made up mainly of desert that has been the site of fighting between the Egyptian military and jihadist militants over the past decade. On the Egyptian side of the crossing is Rafah, an area of city and farmland essentially razed by the Egyptian military in order to prevent civilians and militants returning to the area.
Why has Egypt closed the crossing?
Egypt tightly restricts the opening of the Rafah crossing, and has kept it shut during previous Israeli bombardments of Gaza in 2021, 2014, and 2008. Since a period of heightened conflict between the Egyptian military and jihadists in the Sinai peninsula began in 2013, Egypt has vastly curtailed movement through the crossing, and banned the entry of aid organisations and journalists into northern Sinai. Palestinians accuse Egypt of bolstering Israel’s 16-year blockade by essentially closing their one exit route out of Gaza.
Egyptian officials have so far been unwilling to open the crossing for any movement of people during the latest Israeli assault unless Israel allows aid to enter the strip. The US secretary of state, Anthony Blinken, on Sunday said it would reopen to allow aid in and the evacuation of some foreign passport holders.
Video earlier this week showed aid trucks arriving in the area close to the Rafah crossing before bombardments of the area.
What is Egypt afraid of?
Egyptian officials, including the country’s president, Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, have indicated they are unwilling to allow Palestinians to flee into northern Sinai, fearing it could amount to a permanent resettlement of more than 2 million people whom Israel will not allow to re-enter Gaza.
Sisi alluded to concerns about the consequences of an exodus of Palestinians from Gaza last week, saying that allowing them to settle in the Sinai, even temporarily, would be tantamount to allowing Israel to control an emptied Gaza Strip. “Egypt will not allow the liquidation of the Palestinian question at the expense of other parties,” he said. “There will be no lenience or squandering of Egypt’s national security under any circumstances.”
Others share Sisi’s fears, including Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, who said last weekend that “there will be no migration from Gaza to Egypt”, after Israeli demands that about 1.1 million people flee to the south of the strip, and statements from the Israeli military that Palestinians should simply leave Gaza, despite being unable to. Egypt “welcomes the Palestinian people, but not on the basis of migration or an exodus”, he said.
Fears that Israel or international partners could pressure Egypt into accepting millions of Palestinians settling in the Sinai have abounded for decades in Cairo: Hosni Mubarak strenuously denied reports in 2017 that he had cut a deal with Margaret Thatcher in 1983 to resettle Palestinians exiled in Lebanon in the peninsula, adding that the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, had also proposed the idea in 2010. Several Israeli politicians have proposed the creation of an alternative Palestinian state in the Sinai, an idea Egyptian officials have long rejected.
Could Cairo be convinced to allow Palestinians to cross?
Life in northern Sinai has been desperate for decades, and the region has long complained of being neglected by Cairo amid a shortage of basic infrastructure, energy and even habitable land. There is a vast area close to the border with Gaza that was destroyed, including houses and farmland, in order to create what Egypt described as a “buffer zone”, and the military, which controls the area, has prevented civilians from returning to their homes.
Egypt is also in the throes of a major economic crisis, including the devaluation of its currency, making the prospect of accepting refugees a challenging one. Egypt’s last remaining independent news outlet, Mada Masr, reported however that while Cairo had rejected any suggestion of a mass displacement from Gaza into the Sinai, it was still “coming under pressure from western countries who are also offering economic incentives in an effort to come to a deal”.
Egypt is on the verge of accepting an agreement that would allow foreign and dual nationals to cross from Rafah, it said, as long as humanitarian aid was allowed to enter Gaza. According to six sources who spoke to Mada Masr, there is some “inclination to accept” a large influx of Palestinians into the Sinai within decision-making circles in Egypt if international partners provide economic incentives. Still, the prospect of long-term financial support for Palestinians in Egypt, whether from Cairo or internationally, appears vanishingly remote.
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Australia’s indigenous leaders called for a week of silence after a referendum to recognise the First Peoples in the constitution was decisively rejected by a majority of the population.
More than 60 per cent of Australians voted “No” in the landmark referendum on Saturday, the first in almost a quarter of a century, that asked whether to alter the constitution to recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people through the creation of an indigenous advisory body, the “Voice to Parliament”.
The outcome is seen as a setback for reconciliation efforts with the country’s indigenous community, and also for Australia’s image in the world regarding how it treats First Nations people.
Unlike other nations with similar histories like Canada and New Zealand, Australia has not yet formally recognised or reached a treaty with its indigenous communities.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island people make up 3.8 per cent of the 26 million population and have inhabited Australia for about 60,000 years but are not mentioned in the constitution and by most socio-economic measures are the most disadvantaged people in the country.
“This is a bitter irony. That people who have only been on this continent for 235 years would refuse to recognise those whose home this land has been for 60,000 and more years is beyond reason,” the leaders said in a statement that was released on social media platforms.
The majoprity of Australians voted 'no' in the referendum
Credit: MARTIN KEEP/AFP
The leaders said the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island flag would be lowered to half-mast for the week to acknowledge the referendum result.
“The referendum was a chance for newcomers to show a long-refused grace and gratitude and to acknowledge the brutal dispossession of our people underwrote their every advantage in this country,” the statement said.
Anthony Albanese, the Australian prime minister, staked significant political capital on the Voice referendum, but his critics say it was his biggest misstep since coming to power in May last year.
The opposition leader Peter Dutton said it was a referendum “that Australia did not need to have”, and that it only ended up dividing the nation.
One of the biggest reasons for the referendum loss, however, was the lack of bipartisan support, with leaders of the major conservative parties campaigning for a “No” vote.
No referendum has passed in Australia without bipartisan backing.
“Much will be asked of the role of racism and prejudice against indigenous people in this result,” leaders said in the statement.
“The only thing we ask is that each and every Australian who voted in this election reflects hard on this question.”
