Israeli court halts subsidies for ultra-Orthodox, raises uproar over compulsory military service
Military service exemptions – coupled with government stipends many seminary students receive through age 26 – have infuriated much of the general public. These longstanding tensions have grown during nearly six months of war in which over 500 Israeli soldiers have been killed.
Biden recognises ‘pain’ of Arab Americans over Gaza war hours after signing off on additional bombs and warplanes for Israel
Arab-Americans have asked Biden to meet their demands or risk losing their support in November’s election. Arab and Muslim Americans are unlikely to back Biden’s rival, Republican former President Donald Trump, but observers note they could sit out the election and deny Biden crucial votes. They had overwhelmingly supported Biden in 2020.
Israel ramps up airstrikes in Syria, kills Hezbollah commander in heaviest raid on Iran proxies
Tehran and its proxies have entrenched themselves across Syria, including around Aleppo and the capital Damascus. The Israeli military said on Friday it had killed Ali Abed Akhsan Naim, deputy commander of Hezbollah’s rocket and missiles unit, in an airstrike in the area of Bazouriye in Lebanon.
Irony of South Africans fighting for Israel in Gaza as case filed by Pretoria against Israel continues at world court
In 2009, the Palestinian Solidarity Alliance handed a list of 73 South Africans of Jewish descent who had fought for the Israeli military in 2008 and 2009 to the National Prosecuting Authority. The authority declined to prosecute.
Review panel finds UNRWA has mechanisms and procedures that ensure compliance with principle of neutrality
The review group will now develop concrete and realistic recommendations on how to address these critical areas to strengthen and improve the agency.
Pirates arrested off Somali coast shipped to India for trial and sentencing, Indian official says
India has deployed at least a dozen warships in the Gulf of Aden and the northern Arabian Sea since December, which enables it to assist vessels east of the Red Sea, where the navies of several countries, including the United States, are trying to secure shipping routes under attack from Yemen’s Houthi militants.
Starving children fill hospital wards as famine looms in Gaza and puts 1.1 million lives at risk
The UN children’s agency UNICEF said on Friday that nearly 1 in 3 children under two years old in northern Gaza suffer from acute malnutrition, twice as many as in January.
Israel urges UN court to reject South Africa’s request for more emergency orders in genocide case
Israel fervently denies that its military campaign in Gaza amounts to a breach of the Genocide Convention. It acknowledged in its written response to South Africa’s request that there are “also tragic and agonising civilian casualties in this war. These realities are the painful result of intensive armed hostilities that Israel did not start and did not want.”
Gaza in the toss of man-made food crisis, 300,000 at risk of death, says UN-backed monitor
In all, 1.1 million Gazans, around half the population, were experiencing “catastrophic” shortages of food, the worst category, with around 300,000 in the areas now facing the prospect of famine-scale death rates.
UNICEF estimates over 13,000 children have been killed in Gaza in Israel offensive
Israel’s military assault on Hamas-governed Gaza has displaced nearly its entire 2.3 million-person population, caused a starvation crisis, flattened most of the enclave, and killed over 31,000 people, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It has also led to accusations of genocide being probed in the World Court.
