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Putin has said the Avangard hypersonic system is a response to a new generation of weapons developed by the US.

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In Gaza, a child is killed every 10 minutes. Since October 7, Israel has killed more than 4,000 children. Now, premature babies at Gaza’s al-Shifa Hospital are dying because the institution is out of power after over a month of Israel’s siege, and so is unable to operate incubators.

Israel knows it risks losing international support for its ongoing slaughter of children. Western allies like French President Emmanuel Macron and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who have until now been steadfast in supporting Israel, have in the past week publicly asked the Israeli government to stop killing children, even if Macron has since softened his tone.

As a result, Israel’s propaganda and disinformation machine is finding new ways to justify the killing of children and the bombing of medical facilities.

Usually, Israel’s first response to accusations of atrocities is denial. When that fails, the second strategy is to blame Hamas or other Palestinian armed groups for Palestinian deaths.

It hasn’t given up on those strategies, but is also trying to directly link Palestinian children to Hamas, and thereby seek to portray them – and the places where they are sheltering – as legitimate targets.

Blaming Hamas

On November 11, the official Arabic account run by Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted a video of a nurse, apparently agitated, talking about Hamas overrunning the al-Shifa Hospital, and taking all the fuel and morphine. She claimed that because Hamas had stolen morphine, she couldn’t use it on a five-year-old with a fracture.

The video, which was retweeted thousands of times, was a clear fake. No staff in the vicinity appear to recognise the individual featured, casting doubt on her identity and role. Robert Mackey, a journalist with the research agency Forensic Architecture, spoke to three Doctors Without Borders staff members working at the al-Shifa Hospital, none of whom recognised her.

The video was almost comic in its absurdity. The nurse spoke with a non-Palestinian accent, and her dialogue seemed to perfectly echo Israeli military talking points about Hamas stealing all the fuel from hospitals.

Moreover, the strategic placement of a Palestinian Health Ministry logo was a contrived attempt to mislead or create a ‘honeytrap’ for open-source intelligence. Adding to the suspicion were the stock audio-sounding bombing effects, and her immaculately clean white coat and perfect makeup, all of which seemed out of place in a supposedly dire setting.

The purpose of the video was clear, to blame Hamas for the suffering of children and legitimise the Israeli military’s claims that Hamas is using civilians and children as human shields.

Eventually, as the Israeli government was called out over the video, the Foreign Ministry quietly deleted its post – without any explanation.

But spreading disinformation and then deleting it has become routine, raising the question: Why is the Israeli military’s propaganda so sloppy? After all, doesn’t Israel risk losing credibility this way?

No, because the benefits outweigh the costs. The old adage, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes”, tells us most of what we need to know about propaganda. The key is not truthfulness, but rather speed and primacy.

Controlling the narrative means getting information out faster than your enemy, and making that information sensational – regardless of whether it is factual. One study showed that 86 percent of people do not fact-check news they see on social media.

Once something false goes viral, the people who see it are unlikely to see the fact-checked version. The audience for such videos aren’t astute fact-checkers. In Israel’s case, large numbers of the audience are English-speaking, Western viewers who won’t catch fake accents and have no reason to believe such information is false.

It’s important to remember, propaganda does not need to be sophisticated to be effective – just fast and sensationalist. Social media is perfect for this.

Hate-filled, Mein Kampf-reading children

Beyond blaming Hamas, a more sinister stage in the legitimisation of Israel’s killing of children is emerging – the attempt to smear Palestinian children as recipients of evil, anti-Semitic Hamas propaganda. That Palestinian children are only trained to become ‘terrorists’.

On November 5, Israel’s official Arabic account tweeted a cartoon showing that Israel brings its babies up with ‘love’, while Hamas fills babies in Gaza with ‘hate’.

Then, on Monday, the official Foreign Ministry-run Israel account claimed on X  that the Israeli military had found a copy of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ in a child’s room in Gaza. Pristine, with perfect notes and highlights, the ‘finding’ of the book was an attempt to bolster the narrative that Palestinian children are being filled with hate, are beyond redemption and are thus valid targets for killing.

Mein Kampf represents the epitome of anti-Semitism. It is Hitler’s autobiography. The significance of this will not be lost on many in the West, often the intended audiences for Israeli propaganda. The use of Mein Kampf, a copy of which was brandished theatrically by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, demonstrates that Israel is trying to portray older Palestinian children as brainwashed anti-Semites – it’s a simple tool to push that narrative.

Bunker under a children’s hospital

On Monday night, Israel doubled down on its attempts to legitimise its attacks on children. The Israeli military posted a video of its spokesperson Daniel Hagari walking around an alleged Hamas bunker beneath the Rantisi Children’s Hospital in Gaza. In one of the scenes, Hagari is kneeling by guns, grenades and other weapons, in the background, a painting of a tree seemingly created by children.

In another video, also purportedly from the Rantisi hospital basement, Hagari draws attention to a chair and the remnants of a rope that he claims were used to tie hostages. Then, he points to a baby bottle lying above a World Health Organization-marked electrical junction box.

The juxtaposition of childlike innocence in the form of the painting or the bottle with guns serves to legitimise Israel’s narrative of Hamas as inhuman ‘terrorists’ who use children and hospitals as human shields or captives. That in turn is used to justify Israel’s strikes on civilian targets – even if the lives of children are at risk, and even if a UN organisation is involved.

However, the video is clearly a propaganda stunt. Hagari points at a handwritten table written in Arabic pinned to the wall. Hagari then says the list names Hamas fighters. “This is a guardian list where every terrorist writes his name, and every terrorist has his own shift guarding the people that were here”.

The only problem is the list said no such thing. It was a list of the days of the week.

Why is Israel doing this?

Over the weekend, Israel offered al-Shifa Hospital a meagre amount of fuel, after enforcing a total blockade on the Gaza Strip since October 7 that has crippled medical facilities.

The hospital’s director, Muhammad Abu Salmiya, said of the attempt to supply some fuel, that “Israel wants to show the world that it is not killing babies”.

But now that Israel can no longer deny that it is killing Palestinian babies, it is trying to legitimise their murder. In his work on ‘image restoration theory’, William Benoit calls this ‘reducing offensiveness’. Put simply, you blame the victim, or make the victim seem deserving of their suffering.

As the death toll rises, so do the outlandish attempts to shift blame on innocent victims.

But no amount of manufactured videos or planted “evidence” can obscure the truth. Children are dying by the hundreds in Gaza, their blood spilled by Israel’s bombs, bullets and siege.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Israel knows it’s losing global support over its slaughter of children. Enter social media disinformation.

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Israeli troops again entered the al-Shifa Hospital en masse on Thursday, for the second time in as many days.

Their searches so far appear to have failed to uncover the alleged Hamas underground command centre that the Israeli side adamantly insists lies below the medical facilities.

Hamas, the hospital staff and several international organisations that had access to the hospital all assert that there are no military installations or soldiers at al-Shifa. They have said it only houses exhausted doctors and overworked nurses tending to the swelling numbers of patients in ever more difficult conditions, exacerbated by hundreds of terrified Palestinians who escaped from the destruction of their homes to the relative safety of the compound.

One of Israel’s main claims, obviously intended to justify the attacks against Gaza hospital compounds, was that Hamas had nullified the protected status of medical facilities, using them for military purposes, thus giving Israel the right to attack and enter hospitals, all while blaming the Palestinian armed group.

The Israeli army went to great lengths to “prove” their allegations but the results so far don’t back those up. Earlier this week reporters from a US TV station embedded with the invading forces were taken to al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital by none other than its chief spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. The news team was shown a few Kalashnikovs and a motorcycle, of all things. Hagari bent over backwards trying to convince the media and the world that those were proof of his side’s allegations.

His claims were mirrored at al-Shifa by his subordinate, Lt Col Jonathan Conricus, who presented as “evidence of terrorist activities” half a dozen AK assault rifles with magazines removed, a laptop and, in a Monty Pythonesque moment, two cans of WD40 anti-rust spray.

Anyone who spent time in the Middle East or in any war knows that the venerable Kalashnikovs are present virtually everywhere. It is normal, and legal, for hospitals to have armed guards to protect them from criminals, looters and anyone wanting to misuse them.

But apart from the ignorance of these claims and the huge discrepancy between demonstrating a few guns and claiming a main command centre from where Hamas conducted its operations, the location where those guns were allegedly found is curious: the gloating Conricus was adamant that they were hidden in the MRI room.

Anyone who has been examined by an MRI machine knows that they have had to remove every metallic object.

I asked a radiology specialist whether it would be possible to hide guns in that room. The response: “The moment the machine was turned on, it would pull the guns and attach them to itself.” The MRI machine cannot function with rifles on it. Asking someone to believe that any hospital in Gaza would relinquish one of its main diagnostic machines to hide a grab bag with a few guns is simply absurd.

The Israeli army has been successful in taking the ground in Gaza, at least on the fringes of the city proper with a few incursions deeper into the urban areas, like the advance to al-Shifa, with fairly low numbers of casualties and limited material losses.

But it has failed to uncover – and show – any underground command centres or major tunnels. It was seen and filmed going down a few shafts, unopposed, but it did not appear to have gone underground in earnest.

Failing to produce the underground command centre, late on Thursday, the Israeli army showed a hole in the ground claiming it to be the entrance of a Hamas military tunnel. Until the media is allowed to enter and check for itself, it will have to balance that claim against the counter-suggestion that it is an access point for an underground electrical cable.

I have no doubt that there are Hamas underground bunkers, communications nodes, power stations, storage facilities and – command centres.

If you take your cause underground, as Hamas obviously has, dedicating substantial resources and huge efforts to building the network, then you do construct an integrated network. Anything short of building several command facilities deep underground would be amateurish and outright foolish.

Every expert must be certain that such a “beating heart of Hamas”, as the Israeli army called it, is indeed ticking somewhere under Gaza. But apparently, maybe even certainly, not under al-Shifa Hospital.

As the aerial bombardment continues, many observers have failed to notice that apart from the raids on the hospitals, there has been very little movement on the ground for almost a week now. Big Israeli columns are dug in awaiting orders, but nothing indicates when they might advance further, nor in what direction and by what means.

For its part, Hamas has also been very quiet. It had put up some resistance to the initial Israeli advance, but kept it limited to opportunistic attacks that were intended more to probe the enemy and show the flag than to really stop the army before it got to the city. Its Qassam Brigades seem set to remain low-key, knowing that sooner or later the Israeli army will have to move under the ground to find and destroy the tunnels and command centres. They cannot win by remaining on the ground.

So, what happens next?

If the fighting is to continue, Israel will have to move first. Hamas can wait longer than the Israeli army. The Palestinians can let the Israelis simmer in their own stew, knowing that the displeasure at the failure to produce tangible results will further strengthen the voices of protest and opposition to the continuation of war.

There are signs that the army is aware of the need to show some success to the domestic public in Israel and is resorting to classic public relations stunts.

On Wednesday evening the 35th Paratroopers Brigade awarded the maroon berets to new recruits inside Gaza territory. There is hardly any military justification in choosing to hold the ceremony amid destroyed and depopulated buildings.

But someone in the Israeli army obviously hopes that the sentiment aroused by the symbolic raising of Israeli flags on occupied Palestinian territory – and several more flags were raised among the Gaza rubble on Thursday – might buy them some time before the public starts asking the unpopular question: “Are we beating Hamas?”

Israel has yet to offer evidence that Hamas is using a network of tunnels below the hospital as a command centre.

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Demonstrators the world over have rallied in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, condemning the high rate of civilian casualties in Israeli attacks and calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Protests were held on Thursday across Spain and in Mexico City, Rotterdam, New York, Rabat and elsewhere.

People also showed solidarity with the Palestinian people and called for a ceasefire during various 2026 FIFA World Cup qualifiers across Asia.

Students across Spain held a second strike following similar action last month. University and high school students gathered in 38 cities, including Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Malaga, Bilbao, Zaragoza and Madrid.

Calls for a ceasefire to protect civilians in Gaza have grown more than a month into the war, which started after Palestinian group Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7.

Israel responded to Hamas’s attack with air strikes and a ground invasion of northern Gaza, vowing to remove Hamas from power and crush its military capabilities.

At least 11,500 Palestinians have been killed, two-thirds of them women and minors, according to Palestinian health authorities. Another 2,700 have been reported missing, believed to be buried under rubble.

Internet and telephone services collapsed across the Gaza Strip on Thursday over a lack of fuel, triggering a blackout of communications that could be long term.

Israel has signalled its offensive against Hamas could next target the south, where most of the enclave’s two-million-strong population has taken refuge.

Protesters show solidarity with Palestine and demand an end to the war.

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Medan, Indonesia – Indonesia is facing a renewed refugee crisis after the arrival of three boats in as many days with nearly 600 Rohingya people on board.

Two of the boats, the first with 146 passengers and the second with 194, were able to land on beaches in Pidie on Aceh’s east coast on Tuesday and Wednesday, with refugees including women and children pictured collapsed on the sand after reportedly spending a month at sea.

On Thursday, a third boat carrying some 249 people was met with resistance from locals in Bireuen who refused to allow it to land and pushed the vessel back out to sea.

When the boat tried to land a second time – a little further south at Muara Batu – and refugees staggered onto the beach, they were lined up and escorted back, according to witnesses on the ground. Fishermen at the beach handed some of the refugees packets of food and bottles of water, but the situation continued to escalate late into the evening.

In video footage sent to Al Jazeera by aid workers on the beach, hundreds of refugees then jumped off the boat and swam ashore, staging a sit-in on the sand.

Late in the evening, under the cover of darkness, more footage showed emaciated people, some who could barely walk, being dragged into the sea by residents and forcibly returned to their boat. Refugees on the beach, including children, prayed and cried as they begged to be allowed to remain in Aceh, which lies on the tip of Sumatra island and is Indonesia’s most western province.

The situation appeared more volatile than in previous years, with refugees and residents shouting at each other, and refugees clinging to each other in an effort to avoid being marched into the water.

The people of Aceh have previously welcomed refugees, who are taken to a temporary camp before they are usually moved to other parts of Indonesia, but tensions have been escalating in recent years as more and more Rohingya have arrived.

Azharul Husna, the coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS) in Aceh, said that the area had seen about 30 boat arrivals between 2009 and 2023, but the frequency had increased since the February 2021 military coup in Myanmar.

“Previously, we would see one arrival a year, or two arrivals a year, but now we are seeing four or five boats arriving annually,” she said.

The Rohingya were given some food and water but told they had to get back on their boat [Amanda Jufrian / AFP]

Arrivals typically peak from November to February, Husna said, as many refugees try to flee during the monsoon season when winds pick up and carry boats more quickly across the Andaman Sea from Bangladesh, where hundreds of thousands have been living in squalid camps since a 2017 military crackdown in Myanmar.

However, the monsoon season also brings heavy rain and storm swells, making sea crossings perilous, especially for people travelling in barely seaworthy boats.

It is rare to see so many arrivals in such a short space of time at the start of what is known as the sailing season, and refugee experts predict more boats could arrive in the coming months, given the difficult conditions in Bangladesh and the worsening crisis in Myanmar.

In a statement sent to Al Jazeera, KontraS Aceh said that one of the issues was that the government had no comprehensive plan to deal with the refugees, despite a 2016 presidential decree that states that the government will collaborate with institutions such as the United Nations and other international organisations to handle arrivals.

Article 9 of the Indonesian presidential decree explicitly states that refugees who are found in an emergency situation at sea should be given emergency aid and allowed to land on Indonesian soil if they are in danger.

Indonesia is not a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention or the ensuing 1967 Protocol.

“When the government is silent and lets this problem drag on, this kind of rejection happens and it is very troubling,” KontraS Aceh’s Husna said.

“When the government just shuts its eyes to what is happening, especially allowing refugees to be returned to the ocean, it clearly demonstrates a lack of empathy and the country’s commitment to upholding human rights is questioned.”

KontraS Aceh said it urged the government to help the refugees and immediately ratify the 1951 Refugee Convention.

While other countries in the region have pushed refugees back out to sea Acehnese have generally been more welcoming [Amanda Jufrian/AFP]

Meanwhile, Lilianne Fan, the co-founder of the humanitarian organisation, Geutanyoe Foundation, told Al Jazeera that it was “sad to see the refusal for disembarkation in Aceh and the harsh treatment of Rohingya refugees by locals who have a tradition of welcoming anyone in need of help”.

According to the principle of non-refoulement, countries are forbidden from returning refugees or asylum seekers to a country where they would be in danger of persecution, although Fan told Al Jazeera that this would not apply in this case, as the refugees were not being forced to return to Myanmar.

She added that the pushback from locals in recent years was perhaps understandable, because some people had been prosecuted and imprisoned after being accused of human trafficking after helping refugees on to dry land.

“It is not very surprising given that there has been very little support for Acehnese communities and local governments for a proper refugee shelter after many years of taking refugees in with open arms,” she said. “There has also been a feeling that they have been punished for helping, as many have been accused of abetting smuggling networks.”

In a statement on Thursday, Indonesia’s foreign ministry said that it had no obligation or capacity to accommodate refugees or provide a permanent solution for their resettlement.

“Temporary shelters that have been provided all this time [by Indonesia] were for humanitarian reasons,” Lalu Muhamad Iqbal, a ministry spokesperson, said. “Ironically, many countries that are signatories to the refugee convention have closed their doors and used a push-back approach to refugees.”

Thailand and Malaysia, a popular destination for the Rohingya, have previously pushed back boats of refugees, but neither country is a signatory to the UN refugee convention.

Arrivals from the first two boats were allowed to land and taken to temporary shelters [Chaideer Mahyuddin/AFP]

In Europe, however, where many countries are signatories, governments are trying to prevent people from crossing the Mediterranean or the English Channel in small boats, while Australia has long maintained a policy of refusing those who arrive by boat the chance to settle in the country.

“In Indonesia’s experience in handling refugees, we have found that Indonesia’s kindness in providing temporary shelter has been exploited by human trafficking networks,” the spokesman added.

Aid workers on the ground in Aceh told Al Jazeera that they were still trying to confirm the location and status of the third boat.

Tensions have been rising in the province of Aceh after the arrival of three boats in just three days.

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The head of the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency has warned of a “deliberate attempt to strangle” its operations in the Gaza Strip and said it risks shutting down all its humanitarian work because of a lack of fuel.

Israel has refused to allow fuel shipments to the enclave it has besieged, arguing they would be used by the Palestinian group Hamas for military purposes.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) supports more than 800,000 displaced people in Gaza. It was at risk of having to suspend its operations entirely, according to its commissioner-general, Philippe Lazzarini.

“I do believe there is a deliberate attempt to strangle our operation and paralyse the UNRWA operation,” Lazzarini said on Thursday at a news conference in Geneva.

“For weeks on end, we have pleaded, warning about the impact of the lack of fuel,” he said, adding that in the past few weeks, the agency was able to tap into the remaining fuel reserves in the territory.

“But now we are running out,” he said. “We run the risk of having to suspend the entire humanitarian operation.”

Israel cut off fuel shipments into the Gaza Strip as part of a “complete siege” on the area after Hamas fighters from Gaza launched an attack on southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.

Since the attack, Israel has bombarded the Palestinian territory, launched a ground offensive and severely restricted supplies of water, food and electricity. More than 11,600 people have been killed in the Israeli assault, according to Palestinian authorities, including more than 4,700 children.

The first fuel truck to enter Gaza since Israel imposed the siege arrived on Wednesday.

UNRWA said it had received 23,000 litres (6,075 gallons) of fuel. However, Israeli authorities have restricted its use exclusively for the transport of aid delivered from Egypt.

Lazzarini said 160,000 litres (42,000 gallons) a day are needed just to run basic humanitarian operations.

“I do believe that it is outrageous that humanitarian agencies have been reduced to begging for fuel,” he told reporters.

Lazzarini said humanitarian conditions have now severely deteriorated as 70 percent of the population in southern Gaza has no access to clean water, and raw sewage has started flowing onto the streets.

Fuel is needed to operate water desalination plants, the sewage pumping system and bakeries.

(Al Jazeera)

Earlier on Thursday, Palestinian telecommunications companies Jawwal and Paltel announced their network went out of service in Gaza as “all energy sources sustaining it” were depleted, plunging the enclave into a near-total communications blackout and seriously hampering the work of first responders and emergency services.

“It can provoke or accelerate [the breakdown of the] last remaining civil order we have in the Gaza Strip,” Lazzarini said of the blackout, calling the scale of loss and destruction in Gaza “just staggering”.

UNRWA said the telecommunications outage “makes it impossible to manage or coordinate humanitarian aid convoys”. It said its cross-border aid operation at the Rafah crossing with Egypt – the only one open for aid deliveries – would be suspended on Friday.

Lazzarini said fuel was being used as a “weapon of war”.

“Today what we are saying is if the fuel does not come in, people will start to die because of the lack of fuel,” he said.

UNRWA chief warns agency may have to suspend all of its humanitarian activities due to lack of fuel.

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UK’s Tyson Fury will fight Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh in first undisputed heavyweight title fight since 1999.

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The Turkish parliament’s foreign affairs commission has delayed a vote on Sweden’s NATO membership bid in a further setback to the Nordic country’s hopes of joining the Western alliance after 18 months of waiting.

Chairman Fuat Oktay said the commission will hold further talks and may bring the bill back on its agenda next week – but he did not set a clear timeline.

“For all of our lawmakers to approve Sweden’s NATO membership, they need to be fully convinced. We will discuss all of these in our [next] commission meeting [on the issue],” Oktay told reporters after hours of debate on Thursday.

The commission, which is controlled by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – can pass bills by a simple majority. It may invite the Swedish ambassador to brief lawmakers if needed and if parliament’s regulations allow, Oktay said.

Erdogan said this month that he would try to facilitate the ratification process, but added Sweden had not taken enough action on Kurdish armed groups.

For ratification, the bill needs to be approved by the commission before being put to a full parliament vote, which could come days or weeks later.

Erdogan would then sign it into law to conclude the process, the length of which has frustrated Ankara’s allies and tested its Western ties.

Sweden and Finland requested to join NATO in May last year following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In order to join the alliance, a candidate must be approved by all current members. While Finland’s accession was approved in April, Turkey and Hungary have yet to approve Sweden’s application for membership.

Turkey has demanded that Sweden take more steps to rein in local members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), considered a “terrorist” group by Ankara, the European Union and the United States.

In response, Stockholm introduced a new “anti-terrorism” bill that makes membership of a “terrorist” organisation illegal, while also lifting arms export restrictions on Turkey. It says that it has upheld its part of a deal signed last year.

Lawmakers not convinced

Despite comments by Deputy Foreign Minister Burak Akcapar outlining the measures taken by Sweden, lawmakers from both the ruling AK Party and the opposition voiced reservations and, in a rare move, delayed the vote.

“I value NATO’s enlargement. However, we must remove some of the controversies in our minds. Sweden has become a safe haven, or a heaven, for some terrorist organisations,” said Ali Sahin, a lawmaker from the AK Party. “We find the steps Sweden has taken until now valuable, but we don’t find them sufficient.”

NATO members Finland, Canada and the Netherlands also took steps to relax arms-export policies towards Turkey during the process, while the White House said it would move ahead with the transfer of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey in consultation with the US Congress.

While there is no clear timeframe on approving the purchase request for the F-16s, Ankara has linked the issue to Sweden’s bid. On Thursday, Oktay repeated Erdogan’s view that “if they have a Congress, we have a parliament”.

Some analysts say Turkey’s parliament could fully ratify the bid by the time of a NATO foreign ministers meeting in Brussels on November 28-29.

The delay comes as Ankara has been at odds with its Western allies over the conflict in Gaza, while its tough diplomacy over the war in Ukraine has also irked some allies. Ankara maintains good relations with Moscow and Kyiv, opposing Russia’s invasion but also the Western sanctions on Russia.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this month that he would try to facilitate the ratification process, but added Sweden had not taken enough action on Kurdish militants [File: Leonhard Foeger/Reuters]

US ‘confident’ Sweden will join

While NATO member Hungary has also not ratified Sweden’s membership, Turkey is seen as the main roadblock to Sweden’s accession.

Later on Thursday, the US ambassador to Hungary said he had been assured by the Hungarian government that Budapest would not be the last to ratify Sweden’s bid, adding he was “confident” Stockholm would soon be a NATO member.

“I have been repeatedly assured at the senior-most levels of this government that Hungary will not be last to ratify Sweden’s accession to NATO,” Ambassador David Pressman said.

 Foreign affairs commission delays vote on Sweden’s NATO application after lawmakers express reservations.

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Since Israel began its bombardment of the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, violence has also surged in the occupied West Bank to unprecedented levels.

More than 2,000 Palestinians have been arrested and almost 200 have been killed in the last month alone. Scores more have been arrested, beaten and tortured, fueling concerns that this could erupt into a second front as Israel pushes on in their stated objective to access and control Palestinian territory.

Constant overnight raids carried out by Israeli military forces have seen families throughout the occupied West Bank forcibly removed from their homes. Within this complex mosaic of hillside cities, farms, Israeli settlements and army checkpoints that split up Palestinian communities, settlers have become empowered to act with even further impunity.

The shooting, killing and intimidation of Palestinians in the streets and in their homes is nothing new. They have been under threat and pressure of military and settler violence for years. The legal phrase that describes these actions is “creating a coercive environment” so that the Palestinians will leave of their own volition — and eventually collapse under this ongoing pressure.

The fact that the occupied West Bank is not controlled by Hamas means the Israeli-stated goal of getting rid of those “terrorists” fails to justify their actions. And this has not stopped them from increasing their military presence throughout the occupied areas.

This film delves into the current situation in the occupied West Bank as experienced by Palestinians, with a range of views from Palestinians and Israelis. It explores how life there, already difficult for Palestinians, is becoming unbearable as well as what is really at stake here for Israel and what long-term plans for the West Bank may be.

Shared stories of violence and forcible displacement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank as the war in Gaza rages.

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Australia win by three wickets in a tense chase of 213 to book a date with the unbeaten hosts in Ahmedabad on Sunday.

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