International Glance
Why does the PM insist on blowing up any deal that comes close?” despaired the mother of a hostage held in Gaza, following Israel’s airstrike in Qatar on Tuesday. For anyone who doubted Benjamin Netanyahu’s commitment to the forever war he unleashed after 7 October, the attempt to wipe out Hamas’s ceasefire negotiation team in Doha offered grim confirmation that peace – and the return of Israeli hostages – is low on Mr Netanyahu’s list of current priorities.
Just how close Hamas’s leadership was to endorsing ceasefire proposals backed by Donald Trump – which were being discussed in the capital of an established US ally – is unclear. However, Mr Netanyahu’s strike has ensured that its negotiators will not agree to sit round a table again anytime soon.
Israel swiftly stated that the attack was in response to the Hamas-claimed shooting in Jerusalem on Monday, in which six people died. But it also occurred as the Israeli military ordered the complete evacuation of Gaza City, ahead of a full-scale invasion that will bring further death and destruction to a starving, traumatised population.
It could not be plainer that ending the suffering is not compatible with the goals of Mr Netanyahu, and the far-right allies on which his government depends. But faced with such contemptuous intransigence – and growing evidence that those goals include establishing a “Greater Israel” stretching beyond 1967 borders – the west’s response is pusillanimous and painfully inadequate.
Brazil's Supreme Court has reached a majority vote to convict former President Jair Bolsonaro, with three of the five justices on the panel voting to find him guilty of attempting a coup to stay in power after losing the 2022 election.
Qatar has slammed Israel's attack targeting Hamas leaders on its soil as an act of "state terrorism" after an upscale suburb in its capital, Doha, was rocked with explosions that killed six people and dashed hopes of a ceasefire in Gaza, where the Gulf Arab state is a mediator.
The firm guarding sites where aid is distributed in Gaza has been using members of a US biker gang with a history of hostility to Islam to run its armed security, a BBC investigation has found.
International aid initiative Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) has said one of its boats was attacked by a drone at Tunisia’s Sidi Bou Said port, the second such reported strike in two days.
