Jonathan Rugman , Foreign Affairs Correspondent

The former Conservative party leader Michael Howard, has confronted Israel’s prime minister over the killing of hundreds of Palestinian protestors by Israeli troops using live ammunition – demanding ‘why did you have to kill them’. Benjamin Netanyahu – who’s been in Europe to talk about the Iran nuclear deal – claimed Israel had tried to minimise casualties, blaming Hamas for…

“Betrayal of the treacherous is loyalty in the eyes of God. I betrayed a bunch of criminals, it’s as simple as that” – the words of one of MI6’s most important spies in the war on terror, Aimen Dean. He worked with Al Qaeda’s master bombmaker in a training camp in Afghanistan in the nineties.…

Hamas official Ghazi Hamad discusses Gaza.

Palestinian authorities reported that two more people died under the fire of the Israeli military on the Gaza border with Israel, bringing the total number of fatalities to 62 since yesterday. Many more remain critically injured in hospital. There is mounting international condemnation of Israel’s use of force, with the United Nations calling it an…

Over 50 people were killed – several of them children – and many hundreds injured, as Palestinian protesters were met with live rounds fired by Israeli troops.

It’s likely to be an incendiary week in Gaza. Hamas has been organising demonstrations on its border with Israel for nearly two months. More protests are likely tomorrow and on Tuesday to mark what the Palestinians call Nakba, or the Day of Catastrophe, when they fled or were forced from their homes as the state…

Tensions on the Gaza-Israel border are high ahead of a planned major demonstration next week to mark what Palestinians refer to as “the Nakba” or “catastrophe” – a reference to Israel’s establishment in 1948 and what happened to the Palestinians who lived on that land. Today, Gaza health officials said one Palestinian has been killed…

In Gaza, over 40 Palestinians have been killed and thousands injured by Israeli gunfire in the last few weeks as protesters demanded the right to return to the lands many were forced to leave 70 years ago. The UN says Gaza will be “unliveable” by 2020, or sooner. And such are the declining levels of…

Britain has urged the United States not to abandon the nuclear deal with Iran, after Israel released documents claiming Tehran had lied “big time” about its nuclear weapons programme. Boris Johnson said the deal was still vitally important to keep Iran’s activities in check. But Donald Trump has signalled he could walk away from the…

Cuba’s new president Miguel Diaz-Canel has pledged to continue the socialist revolution led by his predecessors, as he became the country’s first leader who isn’t from the Castro family for almost 60 years. 86 year old Raoul Castro will remain head of the Communist party – but he hinted today that Diaz Canel could take…

On the international stage, the war of words continued, with the US accusing Russia of blocking inspectors from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons from gaining access to the site of the Douma attack. The Russians denied the charge, blaming the US-led missile strikes and the UN as the cause of the delay.…

Israel has declared that soldiers heard in video footage cheering as a sniper shot a Palestinian near the Gaza border will be disciplined, although their preliminary inquiry has cleared the sniper himself, saying he had acted appropriately. The Israeli army says the incident happened in December, adding that the unapproved filming was not “the level of…

Israeli fighter jets struck a target in the Gaza Strip today after it was claimed explosives had been found near the border. Thousands of Palestinians have been protesting along the border in the run-up to the anniversary of Israel’s foundation 70 years ago.

Hundreds of people have been to the funeral of a prominent Palestinian journalist who was killed while covering mass protests along the Israeli border. He was one of ten people who died during yesterday’s actions, as Israeli troops opened fire on crowds they claimed were trying to storm the border fence. From Jerusalem, our Foreign…

Four Palestinian protesters have been killed and at least 200 injured, according to medics in Gaza, as thousands of protesters gathered along the Israel-Gaza border. They set fire to tyres to create a smokescreen to block the view of Israel Defence Force snipers, who say troops only opened fire when people attempted to breach the…