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A sharp escalation of Israeli military operations across Gaza over the past 24 hours has left five Palestinians dead, according to official updates from the Palestinian Ministry of Health, deepening an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis in the besieged enclave.

The latest wave of violence unfolded in rapid succession on Tuesday morning, when at least seven separate airstrikes struck a district west of Gaza City in just 10 minutes. One of the strikes claimed the life of a Palestinian child. Simultaneously, Israeli ground forces opened fire in the central Gaza town of Deir el-Balah, killing a second child in that incident.

Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera reported widespread chaos across Gaza City in the wake of the intensified strikes, with witnesses counting 10 consecutive explosions in al-Kateeba, one of the most densely populated residential neighborhoods in the city. Palestinian journalist Abdulrahman Ismail, reporting from the ground on the social platform X, confirmed that the targeting was concentrated in an area located just meters from a field hospital, surrounded by thousands of temporary tents housing internally displaced Palestinians who have fled previous rounds of fighting.

Ismail detailed that after the initial airstrikes, Israeli quadcopter drones surrounded the entire zone, opening fire and dropping ordnance on any person seen moving in the area, while sounds of active ground clashes echoed from surrounding areas. He added that Israeli drones quickly spread across the full expanse of Gaza City, with witnesses reporting smoke billowing over the Al-Shati refugee camp. The on-the-ground reporting notes that the current operational pattern bears a deeply unsettling similarity to past missions carried out by Israeli special forces inside Gaza, though the full details of the current operation have not yet been confirmed. Ismail also emphasized that hundreds of civilian residents remain trapped in the targeted area, with no safe route to evacuate.

Mai Elawawda, communications officer for Medical Aid for Palestine based in Gaza, described the unrelenting pressure on civilian populations in the enclave. “Israeli military attacks have not stopped all week,” she said. “We are all constantly stressed that anywhere can be evacuated or attacked by Israeli forces at any moment.”

Since the current conflict began in October 2023, more than 73,400 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli operations in Gaza, according to local health authorities. As the crisis enters its eleventh month, international aid organizations are sounding the alarm that the approaching winter rainy season will push the already broken humanitarian system to a breaking point. The vast majority of Gaza’s civilian population now lives in severely overcrowded tent camps, built amid rubble-strewn landscapes and surrounded by overflowing, untreated sewage that creates persistent public health hazards.

The World Health Organization (WHO) reinforced these warnings in a briefing Tuesday, confirming that water access and quality for Gaza’s population has deteriorated sharply over recent months, while cases of waterborne diarrheal disease have spiked dramatically. “Whilst we fail to provide people with the minimum quantities of water, water quality and water contamination remains a major issue,” explained Reinhilde Van de Weerdt, WHO’s representative to the Palestinian territories, during a press briefing in Geneva.

Joint data collected by the United Nations, European Union and World Bank shows that Israeli military operations have damaged or destroyed nearly 90 percent of all existing water and sanitation infrastructure across Gaza. Van de Weerdt shared new analysis of more than 6,700 water samples collected between January and August 2024, which found that microbiological contamination of drinking water has nearly tripled over the course of the year. Contamination rates rose from less than 6 percent in January to more than 18 percent by August, putting hundreds of thousands of residents at direct risk of life-threatening illness.

Two prominent advocacy organizations, the Labour Muslim Network (LMN) — an internal group affiliated with the UK’s Labour Party — and the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), have released a formal legal briefing calling on Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s new administration to move quickly with sweeping measures to address Israel’s controversial E1 settlement development initiative. The policy-focused briefing, titled “Priority Measures for UK Policy on Palestine”, arrives ahead of an expected announcement from the Downing Street government this month outlining a new package of policy responses to Israeli settlement activity, which has drawn widespread global condemnation for its violations of international law.
Last month, UK Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband confirmed the government would roll out targeted measures against Israel over the E1 project, which is being developed east of Jerusalem. If completed, the development would physically bisect the occupied West Bank, eliminating any geographic continuity for a future contiguous Palestinian state. In comments shared with independent outlet Middle East Eye (MEE), LMN warned that the Israeli government’s E1 plan poses an existential threat to the possibility of a sovereign, viable Palestinian state.
The organization emphasized that illegal expansion of Israeli settlements, escalating violence and intimidation by Israeli settlers against Palestinian communities, and the forced displacement of Palestinian families from their land in the West Bank are accelerating at an unprecedented rate. “The UK government and the international community as a whole must act urgently and comprehensively in response to this destructive proposal before potentially irreversible damage is done,” the group added.
MEE’s prior reporting from last month revealed that Burnham’s administration is preparing to unveil a suite of new policies on Israel as early as September, with one of the most high-profile proposals being a full import ban on goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements. Multiple sources familiar with internal government discussions note that Miliband has been a leading advocate for stronger action, holding extensive consultations with civil society organizations to shape the upcoming policy package.
The push for tough measures has sparked pushback, however, from pro-Israel lobbying groups that are actively pressuring the government to water down its proposals and abandon plans for a full ban on settlement-produced food imports. In the new briefing, the two advocacy groups outline a clear legal foundation for their demands, noting that international humanitarian law — which binds the UK as a signatory to core international treaties — clearly establishes that settlements in occupied Palestinian territory are illegal. Under Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, the UK is obligated not only to uphold international humanitarian law itself, but to ensure other parties respect it in all circumstances, the briefing argues.
To meet this legal obligation, the briefing calls on the UK government to adopt a firm, actionable policy framework to address Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise. Key recommendations include a complete ban on economic and financial activity by British citizens and businesses in illegal settlements, as well as a prohibition on any activities that support the broader illegal settlement economy.
Internal divides within the Labour Party have come to the fore over the issue. Earlier this month, Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), a pro-Israel internal lobby group that counts more than 70 sitting Members of Parliament among its affiliates, published its own report that effectively justifies the presence of some illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land and urged the government to reject an import ban on settlement goods.
Despite LFI’s lobbying, Burnham faces substantial pressure from Labour backbenchers to implement a full trade ban with illegal settlements. Public opinion among Labour’s own membership is overwhelmingly in favor of action: polling conducted earlier this year found that 87% of registered Labour members support a trade ban on settlement goods, with just 6% opposing the measure.
Beyond the trade ban, the LMN-ICJP briefing puts forward additional policy recommendations. It calls on the UK Foreign Office to release regular public reports to Parliament on the status of religious sites across occupied Palestinian territories, documenting violations, access restrictions, and intimidation targeting worshippers and clergy of all faiths. The briefing argues that documenting the gradual erosion of the historic status quo at Jerusalem’s holy sites and the targeting of Muslim and Christian Palestinian communities will help hold violators accountable and inform future policy and sanction decisions. It also urges the UK to push for a new United Nations Security Council resolution that would deploy international observers to monitor religious rights violations and protect the status quo at Jerusalem’s sacred sites.
Another critical policy area under review by the Burnham administration is UK arms sales to Israel. In September 2024, shortly after taking office, the previous Starmer government suspended roughly 30 arms export licenses for UK-produced military hardware, after an assessment found a clear risk that the equipment could be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. At that time, licenses for direct exports of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel were suspended, but a key exemption was made for components sent to a global F-35 spare parts pool that can eventually end up in Israeli aircraft. UK-made components make up 15% of every F-35 jet, one of the world’s most advanced combat aircraft, which Israel relied on heavily for its military campaigns in Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran.
The new briefing argues that as a signatory to the Arms Trade Treaty, the UK is legally required to close this loophole. It calls on the government to suspend all remaining arms export licenses to Israel, including licenses for F-35 components entering the global supply chain when those UK-origin parts could ultimately be used to support Israeli military operations.

Nearly one week after catastrophic flash floods swept through Nepal and neighboring Tibet, Nepali army officials have confirmed that one unidentified British national was among 119 people pulled to safety from flood-ravaged regions. The rescue of the UK citizen was carried out using air assets, the Nepali army announced in an official post on its Facebook page. Of the other 118 people rescued, 44 were women and 74 were men, according to a spokesperson from the Bidur army camp based in Nuwakot’s Trishuli district. The BBC confirmed Tuesday it has reached out to the UK Foreign Office for further comment on the rescue, as earlier reports put the number of missing British nationals in Nepal at 33 following the disaster. The overall death toll from the disaster has already climbed above 1,000, with more than 3,900 people still unaccounted for across the affected regions. Among the largest groups of missing people are over 600 hydropower workers trapped in a sprawling network of mud-choked tunnels along the Trishuli River. Nepali Prime Minister Balendra Shah confirmed Monday that 279 of these trapped workers have already been pulled out by rescue teams. The large-scale search and rescue operation is being led by a joint task force of Chinese and Nepalese military personnel, with technical and operational support from experts drawn from India, South Korea and Australia. Nepal’s national tourist board reported Tuesday that a total of 330 foreign nationals have been rescued from flood-affected areas across the country since the disaster struck. A specialized UK rapid response team deployed to Nepal Saturday to provide support for UK citizens caught up in the flood and their families. Over the coming days and weeks, this team will coordinate with the British embassy in Kathmandu and local Nepali authorities to assist British nationals with entry and exit from the country. The deployment comes after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer (corrected from misattribution in original input) announced the UK government would provide £5 million in humanitarian aid to support Nepal’s flood response, describing the disaster as an “unimaginably distressing and devastating situation” that demanded a swift international response. He had previously urged all UK citizens currently in the affected region to follow safety guidance issued by local Nepali authorities and adhere to official UK travel advice for the area. The disaster was triggered early on the morning of Wednesday, when sudden flash floods hit the district of Rasuwa, located just north of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu. Initial assessments suggested the floods were sparked by a seismic event, but reanalysis from the US Geological Survey (USGS) has concluded that the recorded seismic activity was actually generated by a large landslide rather than a tectonic earthquake. USGS confirmed that the 5.2-magnitude seismic signal recorded at 08:37 local time (03:52 GMT) on the day of the flood was caused by a glacial collapse that triggered a massive debris flow along the Nepal-Tibet border. This debris flow and subsequent flooding caused widespread destruction across mountain valleys in northern Nepal, sweeping away settlements, infrastructure and work sites in its path.

Fresh regional tensions have flared across the Middle East after U.S. forces carried out a deadly airstrike on Iran’s Larak Island over the weekend, marking the first direct American military action on Iranian territory since July and stoking widespread fears of a wider regional escalation. In the aftermath of the strike that claimed the lives of multiple Iranian soldiers and civilians, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has extended a conditional offer of de-escalation to U.S. President Donald Trump, balancing a firm warning of retaliation against future aggression with an opening for diplomatic progress.

Speaking to reporters on Monday ahead of his departure for Bishkek to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, Pezeshkian made clear Iran’s core position: the country has no intention of initiating open conflict, but will not remain passive in the face of hostile action. Cited by Iran’s state-run Fars News Agency, the president emphasized that any new attack on Iranian soil would be met with a forceful, decisive response from Tehran. At the same time, he outlined a clear path to de-escalation, confirming that Iran would immediately take reciprocal steps to meet Washington halfway if the U.S. honors its obligations under the interim nuclear and diplomatic agreement signed by the two parties in June.

“I state explicitly that if the United States returns to its commitments under the aforementioned memorandum of understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take reciprocal action,” Pezeshkian said in remarks published on the official website of the Iranian presidency.

The Sunday strike on Larak Island, confirmed by Iran’s national broadcaster IRIB, triggered an immediate formal complaint from Tehran to the United Nations. In a letter submitted to UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Monday by Gholamhossein Darzi, Iran’s deputy permanent representative to the world body, Tehran denounced the attack as a blatant breach of Iran’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Darzi further accused the U.S. and other parties involved in the strike of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity as part of ongoing hostilities against Iran, noting that while Iran had exercised deliberate restraint up to this point, its military would not hesitate to defend the country’s territory and people with full force in response to any future attacks.

Beyond the military and diplomatic fallout, the escalating tensions have already rippled through global energy markets, given that the strategic Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of global oil supplies transit, sits just off Iran’s coast. Earlier escalations already forced shipping disruptions after Iran temporarily restricted access to the waterway, causing significant damage to global economic stability. Early ship-tracking data compiled by analytics firm Kpler shows that shipping traffic through the strait held relatively steady on Monday, with five commercial commodity vessels recorded transiting the waterway: four entered the route, one exited, including an empty handy-sized gas carrier that took the Iranian shipping lane and three loaded dry bulk carriers.

On the domestic economic front, Iranian officials moved quickly this week to calm market jitters amid heightened U.S. sanctions pressure. Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati announced Tuesday that Iran maintains adequate foreign currency reserves to weather the current pressure, pushing back against claims of imminent economic collapse. “I am telling the president of the United States: Iran has (foreign) currency and it has enough,” Hemmati said. The governor confirmed the central bank stands ready to inject up to $2 billion into the foreign exchange market to stabilize recent volatility, adding that the institution continues to collect all outstanding foreign currency receivables and holds both domestic reserves and additional contingency resources.

Addressing the Iranian public directly, Hemmati acknowledged that current economic conditions and everyday livelihood challenges have grown significantly difficult, but dismissed narratives of an imminent economic breakdown as baseless psychological warfare. “These claims are just psychological warfare and the dust will settle soon,” he stressed.

Last week, catastrophic flash floods swept through river valleys across Nepal, triggering a deadly collapse at a hydropower construction tunnel along the Trishuli River that left hundreds of workers missing and thousands dead. In harrowing first-person interviews with the BBC, surviving workers have shared their accounts of the terrifying moments that unfolded when river water breached the tunnel they were building.

Pemba Dundu Tamang, one of the workers who narrowly escaped the rushing floodwaters, was part of a 30-person crew pouring concrete lining inside the tunnel when the disaster struck. The first sign of trouble, he recalled, was an unexpected, violent gust of wind that ripped through the tunnel, sending splintered plywood flying through the air and shaking loose large construction equipment. Outside the tunnel mouth, nearby riverside homes had already been torn from their foundations and swept away by the surging water.

“I ran toward the tunnel entrance,” Tamang described. “The water was chasing behind me and I was running ahead of it.” For 20 minutes, he fled uphill, with the deluge nipping at his heels, until he emerged from the tunnel disoriented and numb with shock. By the time he reached safety, the devastating reality of what he had lost began to sink in.

Tamang lost six members of his family—including his mother, older brother, sister-in-law, and three young nieces and nephews—who were staying at their riverside home when the flood hit. Only his wife, son, and one nephew survived the disaster. His colleague Itha Ghale suffered an equal loss, losing eight family members including his mother and eldest daughter; only Ghale, his wife, and three sons survived. “I feel life is meaningless now. Surviving feels miserable. I do not know where to eat or where to go,” Tamang said. “The dead are at peace. It is those of us who survived who suffer.”

Beyond the personal toll on these workers, the disaster has brought widespread devastation across Nepal. Official counts put the national death toll at more than 1,000, with roughly 4,000 people still unaccounted for. Hundreds of the missing are hydropower workers like Tamang, who were employed across a sprawling network of construction tunnels for hydropower projects running along the Trishuli River, which generates over 99% of Nepal’s total electricity supply.

Tamang and Ghale were working on the Upper Trishuli 3B Hydropower Project, a major facility scheduled to come online in 2027 that was designed to reuse water from an upstream plant to add additional capacity to Nepal’s national energy grid. Around 50 to 60 workers escaped the tunnel with Tamang, but dozens more remain trapped inside, he said.

Nepal’s military has launched a large-scale search-and-rescue operation across the affected region, with crews pumping air into submerged and blocked tunnels to sustain any potential survivors still trapped. Soldiers have also been assigned to recover bodies and implement public health measures to prevent the spread of waterborne disease in the flood aftermath. “We are focused on search-and-rescue efforts at the tunnels, our work is continuing,” Nepal Army spokesman Raja Ram Basnet told AFP.

International teams of specialists from China, India, and Nepal are also on-site, operating heavy excavators and clearing tonnes of debris to reach trapped workers at multiple hydropower construction sites. Tamang, who took shelter in the nearby village of Shanti Bazar for two days before military rescuers reached him, says he holds out hope for the colleagues still trapped. “There are probably still some survivors inside. I would be happy if they were rescued quickly,” he said. “I know many people who are still trapped there.”

The disaster has also sparked new discussion about disaster preparedness in Nepal’s mountainous, flood-prone river valleys. A new analysis by an international coalition of mountain hazard experts—including researchers from the Asian Mountain Academic Alliance, the Stimson Centre, and China’s Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment—found clear warning signs of impending instability in the upstream glacier in the days before the flood triggered the disaster.

Satellite imagery captured before the event showed the glacier surface was accelerating, meltwater had changed to a sediment-heavy brown colour, and a large crack was forming in the surrounding rock—all clear indicators that a collapse and downstream flood was imminent. While the avalanche that triggered the flood moved too quickly to warn communities immediately upstream, experts say a functioning early warning system would have given 10 minutes or more of warning to downstream communities and construction sites—time that could have saved hundreds of lives. Tamang echoed this assessment, saying more lives could have been saved if adequate emergency resources had been in place before the flood hit.

As the search continues for missing workers and flood victims, survivors like Tamang are left grappling with the loss of their families and uncertain futures. Many, including Tamang, fear that if the damaged hydropower projects are shuttered indefinitely, they will be left without work and unable to feed their surviving families. “If things continue like this, we will go hungry,” Tamang said. “Sometimes I feel it would have been better not to survive.”