Key events
Israel will no longer accredit Norwegian diplomats in occupied Palestinian territories in move dubbed ‘extreme’
Israel has given notice it will no longer accredit Norwegian diplomats serving the occupied Palestinian territories, Norway’s foreign ministry said on Thursday, calling it “an extreme act” by the Israeli government.
Norway is now considering its response to the situation, Norwegian foreign minister Espen Barth Eide said in a statement.
“This is an extreme act that primarily affects our ability to help the Palestinian population … Today’s decision will have consequences for our relationship with the Netanyahu government,” he said.
More than 39,699 Palestinians have been killed and 91,722 have been injured in Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since 7 October, according to the latest figures from the Gaza health ministry.
The Associated Press reports that the US ambassador to Japan has decided to skip this year’s atomic bombing memorial service in Nagasaki after Israel was not invited.
The US embassy says ambassador Rahm Emanuel will not attend Friday’s event because it was “politicised” by Nagasaki’s decision to exclude Israel.
It says he will instead honor the victims of the 9 August 1945, atomic bombing at a ceremony at a Buddhist temple in Tokyo. Israel was invited to the memorial service in Hiroshima on Tuesday for the victims of its atomic bombing.
Nagasaki’s mayor said Israel was not invited to his city’s ceremony to avoid possible protests and violence over the war in Gaza. On Thursday, mayor Shiro Suzuki said he stands by his decision.
“9 August is the most important day for Nagasaki City … and we must not let the ceremony be affected,” he said.
Envoys from the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the UK and the EU signed a joint letter expressing their shared concern about Israel’s exclusion, saying that treating the country on the same level as Russia and Belarus – the only other countries not invited – would be misleading.
Here is our write up on comments made by finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, which have been widely condemned.
The EU, France and UK have condemned a senior Israeli minister for suggesting it might be “justified and moral” to starve people in Gaza.
The comments from Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, in which he said “no one in the world will allow us to starve two million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages”, sparked international outrage.
In his speech this week, he went on to say that Israel was “bringing in humanitarian aid because we have no choice. We are in a situation that requires international legitimacy to conduct this war.”
The EU said the deliberate starvation of civilians was a “war crime” and that it expected the Israeli government to “unequivocally distance itself” from the words of the far-right minister.
The World Central Kitchen (WCK), a US-based, non-governmental organisation, said a Palestinian staff member was killed in Gaza on Wednesday, four months after seven staffers were killed by Israeli strikes in an attack that drew widespread condemnation, Reuters reports.
The WCK identified the person as Nadi Sallout, saying in a post on X that he was “an integral member of our warehouse team from the early days of our response in Rafah and a humanitarian at his very core”.
The organisation said it is still learning the details of the incident but that it believes he was off duty at the time. He was killed near Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza, it added.
Three Israeli airstrikes hit a convoy of aid vehicles travelling through Gaza on 1 April, killing seven WCK staff, including citizens of the United States, Australia, Britain and Poland.
Israel denied accusations that it had deliberately targeted the aid workers.
Elias Visontay
Qantas has paused its non-stop flights from Perth to London and rerouted the alternative route to avoid airspace over the Middle East as the region braces for an Iranian attack on Israel.
On Thursday, Qantas confirmed that for the second time this year it has had to pause the QF9 route due to hostilities between Iran and Israel, after it took the same precaution in April.
From Thursday evening, the airline’s Perth to London flights will instead operate via a stop in Singapore to refuel, with the code QF209.
The roughly 17-and-a-half hour flight to London’s Heathrow airport – the only non-stop regularly scheduled commercial flights between Australia and the United Kingdom – are only achievable on the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with a route that skirts Iranian airspace.
“We’re making adjustments to some of our flight paths due to the situation in parts of the Middle East as a precaution,” a Qantas spokesperson said. “We’ll contact customers directly if there’s any change to their booking.”
The return leg, from London to Perth, will continue as a non-stop service. The same aircraft, a Boeing 787-9, can fly to a modified path to avoid flying near Iranian airspace without requiring a refuelling stop. This is because fuel burn and flight times are slightly reduced when flying eastwards due to jetstreams.
Qantas’ precaution follows a raft of other global airlines pausing or rerouting flights near Lebanese, Israeli and Iranian airspace in recent days in anticipation of a flare up in tensions, after Tehran and Hezbollah vowed a response to a raft of recent assassinations.
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live blog.
A number of governments have ordered their airlines to avoid Iranian and Lebanese airspace, amid growing fears of a possible broader conflict in the region after the killing of senior members of militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah last week.
Britain’s advisory to its airlines to avoid Lebanon’s airspace came hours after Egypt instructed all of its airlines to avoid Iran’s airspace for three hours in the early morning on Thursday.
Australia’s Qantas has paused its non-stop flights from Perth to London and rerouted the alternative route to avoid airspace.
US-based United Airlines said on Wednesday its flights to Tel Aviv, which were paused on 31 July due to security concerns, remained suspended, while its rival Delta has paused its flights between New York and Tel Aviv until 31 August.
More on that in a moment, first here’s a summary of the day’s other main events:
-
Israel has vowed to eliminate new Hamas chief Yahya Sinwar, the alleged mastermind of the 7 October attack, whose appointment further inflamed regional tensions as the Gaza war entered its 11th month on Wednesday.
-
Top Muslim diplomats on Wednesday said Israel was “fully responsible” for the killing of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Iran and warned it could destabilise the region. The declaration came at the end of an extraordinary meeting of the Saudi-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) called in part by Iran, which has vowed to retaliate for the attack on Haniyeh, setting the Middle East on edge.
-
The EU, France and UK have condemned a senior Israeli minister for suggesting it might be “justified and moral” to starve people in Gaza. The comments from Israel’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, in which he said “no one in the world will allow us to starve two million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages”, sparked international outrage.
-
The US state department said Israel must fully investigate allegations of sexual abuse against Palestinian detainees by its soldiers. Asked about a video aired by Israel’s Channel 12 that appeared to show soldiers taking a detainee out of sight of surveillance cameras to carry out abuses, spokesperson Matthew Miller said US officials had reviewed the video. “We have seen the video, and reports of sexual abuse of detainees are horrific,” Miller said. “There ought to be zero tolerance for sexual abuse, rape of any detainee, period … If there are detainees who have been sexually assaulted or raped, the government of Israel, the IDF need to fully investigate those actions.”
-
The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders Wednesday for an area in northern Gaza that was heavily bombed at the start of the war, 10 months ago.
