Israel's War on Gaza Live: Israel pounds Rafah in overnight strikes
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Suddenly, western politicians from US President Joe Biden to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have become ardent champions of "restraint" – in a very last-minute scramble to avoid regional conflagration.
Iran launched a salvo of drones and missiles at Israel at the weekend in what amounted a largely symbolic show of strength. Many appear to have been shot down, either by Israel’s layers of US-funded interception systems or by US, British and Jordanian fighter jets. No one was killed.
It was the first direct attack by a state on Israel since Iraq fired Scud missiles during the Gulf war of 1991.
The United Nations Security Council was hurriedly pressed into session on Sunday, with Washington and its allies calling for a de-escalation of tensions that could all too easily lead to the outbreak of war across the Middle East and beyond.
"Neither the region nor the world can afford more war," the UN’s secretary general, Antonio Guterres, told the meeting. "Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate."
Opinion by Jonathan Cook.
READ MORE: The West now wants 'restraint'- after months of fuelling a genocide in Gaza
Low-cost airline EasyJet announced on Tuesday that it would be cancelling scheduled flights to Israel until the end of October, citing the ongoing situation in the country.
"As a result of the ongoing and developing situation in Israel, EasyJet has made a decision to suspend its flights to Tel Aviv for the rest of the summer season – until October 27," the company said.
The airline had previously said on Monday that it was suspending its flights to the country for a week following Iran's weekend attack on Israel.
UN legal experts said in a report that Israeli military personnel and civilian officials responsible for the country's deadly strike on Iran's consulate in Syria may have "committed crimes under an international counter-terrorism treaty of 1971, the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes against Internationally Protected Persons."
"All countries are prohibited from arbitrarily depriving individuals of their right to life in military operations abroad, including when countering terrorism," they said. "Killings in foreign territory are arbitrary when they are not authorised under international law."
"Israel’s attack consequently violated the prohibition on the use of armed force against another state under Article 2(4) of the Charter," they added. "Illegal force was used not only against Iran’s armed forces but also against Syrian territory. Israel’s attack was partly launched from the Golan Heights, which is illegally annexed Syrian territory."
The experts also said that Iran's retaliatory attack was "a prohibited use of force under international law."
They argue that since Israel's attack ended on 1 April, Iran did not have the right to self-defence as the latter is "only lawful where is it necessary to stop a continuing armed attack."
"For the same reason, Israel’s initial right of self-defence against the unlawful Iranian armed attack on 13 April no longer persists since the attack has been successfully repelled," they added.
The Israeli army said it has wrapped up a series of drills, both in ground combat and cyberscape, simulating a war in northern Israel.
One of the drills simulated "a variety of scenarios in Lebanon and Syria simultaneously."
Forty six people were killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza in the past 24 hours, according to Gaza's health ministry. This brings the total to 33,843 since the war began on 7 October.
An additional 110 were wounded, bringing the total to 76,575.
Jordan's involvement in intercepting Iranian projectiles bound for Israel over the weekend has sparked questions about its security relationship with Israel, in a country with the highest population of Palestinian refugees.
Amman joined Israel, the US, UK and France in shooting down around 300 drones and missiles on Saturday night, in the first direct Iranian attack targeting Israeli territory.
The operation was in response to Israeli strikes on the Iranian consular building in Syria earlier this month that killed seven members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Jordan reportedly intercepted missiles near the Jordan Valley and along the border with Syria. It marked a rare occasion of an Arab country appearing to directly come to the defence of Israel.
Jordan was quick to state that it was defending itself, not Israel.
READ MORE: Jordan faces scrutiny over Israel military ties after downing missiles
Israeli forces are reportedly besieging a school sheltering displaced people in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza at the moment.
Local media reports that Israeli tanks fired at the displaced people inside.
Speaking on the phone to Qatar's Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called his country's weekend attack on Israel a success, and threatened to deliver an even more "painful" blow in case of any future threats to Iran and its interests.
"We now categorically declare that the smallest action against Iranian interests will certainly be met with a severe, widespread and painful response against all its perpetrators," he said.
The Times of Israel reports that Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz wrote to 32 countries urging them to sanction Iran's missile programme and to designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organisation following Iran's weekend retaliatory attack on Israel.
"Iran must pay a price," he wrote on X.
Informed sources told Al Arabiya that Saudi Arabia was not involved in intercepting Iranian drones and missiles during the Islamic Republic's recent attack on Israel.
The clarification follows reports in Israeli media that quote unnamed Saudi sources saying the kingdom took part in the defensive alliance against the Iranian attack.
Good morning Middle East Eye readers,
Here are the latest updates:
- The Wafa news agency says that Israeli attacks killed four, including a child, in Rafah, southern Gaza, while several were killed in an airstrike on a mosque in northern Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp
- Palestinian armed groups reportedly conducted an attack on Israeli forces near Jabalia on Monday, where Israel is apparently attempting to create a "buffer zone"
- Two other Palestinians were killed in Nablus, occupied West Bank, succumbing to their wounds following an Israeli settler attack on the city
- US officials told NBC they believe Israel's response to Iran's weekend attack may not be direct, and target Iranian proxies instead
- Iran's foreign minister reportedly told his Chinese counterpart that his country is willing to exercise restraint against Israel
Good evening Middle East Eye readers,
Gaza's health ministry said that 68 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 33,797 killed since 7 October.
76,465 people have been wounded since the start of the war, 94 of them in the past 24 hours.
Israeli settlers shot and killed three Palestinians on Monday in the Nablus province of the occupied West Bank, Salah Bani Jaber, the mayor of Aqraba, told Reuters.
In other developments:
- Iran resumed operations at Tehran's Imam Khomeini international airport and the Mehrabad airport.
- Israeli authorities release Palestinian after amputating his leg in custody.
- UN experts deplored Israel's reported use of AI and relative military directives in the Gaza Strip "leading to an unprecedented toll on the civilian population, housing, vital services and infrastructure."
- A mass grave was discovered at al-Shifa Medical Complex after a deadly Israeli assault last month left the Gaza City hospital in ruins.
- President Joe Biden reaffirmed Washington's dedication to Israeli security prior to a meeting with Iraq's prime minister.
- The White House labelled Iran's extensive aerial assault on Israel as a "spectacular and embarrassing failure" on Monday after US forces aided in intercepting the majority of the missiles and drones launched by Tehran.
- Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's office announced on Monday that he had a telephone conversation with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani regarding heightened efforts within the Muslim world to halt Israel's attacks.
- According to an internal memo obtained by The Intercept, The New York Times instructed journalists reporting on Israel's war on the Gaza Strip to limit the use of the terms "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" and to refrain from using the phrase "occupied territory" when referring to Palestinian land.
- Iraqi Airways has announced the resumption of flights between Iraq and Iran beginning on Tuesday, the Iraqi state news agency reported on Monday.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Iran poses a threat to global peace, emphasising the need for the international community to stand together against the Islamic republic's aggression.
"The international community must continue to stand united in resisting this Iranian aggression, which threatens world peace," he said in a statement released by his office on X, after Iran carried out a direct attack on Israel over the weekend using hundreds of drones and missiles.
Israeli settlers shot and killed three Palestinians on Monday in the Nablus province of the occupied West Bank, Salah Bani Jaber, the mayor of Aqraba, told Reuters.
"About 50 settlers, a large number of them armed, attacked the residents of Khirbet al-Tawil village, east of Aqraba, in the province of Nablus," Jaber said.
"There were Israeli soldiers at the scene who stood idly by watching the settlers," he said.
Gaza's health ministry said that 68 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks on the enclave in the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 33,797 killed since 7 October.
Since the start of the war, 76,465 people have been wounded, 94 of them in the past 24 hours.
According to an internal memo obtained by The Intercept, The New York Times instructed journalists reporting on Israel's war on the Gaza Strip to limit the use of the terms "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" and to refrain from using the phrase "occupied territory" when referring to Palestinian land.
The memo also tells reporters to refrain from using the word Palestine "except in very rare cases" and to avoid the term "refugee camps" when describing areas in Gaza historically settled by internally displaced Palestinians who fled from other parts of Palestine during previous conflicts, The Intercept reported.
Penned by Times standards editor Susan Wessling, international editor Philip Pan, and their deputies, the memo "offers guidance about some terms and other issues we have grappled with since the start of the conflict in October.”
Although presented as a guideline for upholding objective journalistic standards in covering the war in Gaza, some Times employees told The Intercept that certain elements of the document indicate the newspaper's inclination to favour Israeli narratives.
