<![CDATA[EL PAÍS]]>https://english.elpais.comSun, 05 Apr 2026 11:17:07 +0000en1hourly1<![CDATA[United States rescues pilot of first plane shot down by Iran in war]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-03/united-states-rescues-pilot-of-first-plane-shot-down-by-iran-in-war.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-04-03/united-states-rescues-pilot-of-first-plane-shot-down-by-iran-in-war.htmlFri, 03 Apr 2026 19:49:35 +0000The United States received its most compelling warning yet on Friday that the war against Iran, despite President Donald Trump’s promises, is far from over and that Tehran remains a dangerous adversary. The Islamic Republic shot down a U.S. F-15 fighter jet with two crew members on board over its territory on Friday. One of the crew members was rescued a few hours later by U.S. helicopters, according to media in Washington and Israel. The whereabouts of the second crew member are still unknown. This is the first time Iran has shot down a U.S. military aircraft over its airspace in nearly five weeks of the conflict. According to The New York Times, a second U.S. aircraft also crashed on Friday in the Persian Gulf region.

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]]>Jaime de León<![CDATA[Western Sahara conflict underpins Morocco and Algeria’s ‘selective silence’ on attack against Iran ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-13/western-sahara-conflict-underpins-morocco-and-algerias-selective-silence-on-attack-against-iran.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-13/western-sahara-conflict-underpins-morocco-and-algerias-selective-silence-on-attack-against-iran.htmlFri, 13 Mar 2026 10:48:30 +0000Morocco and Algeria are observing the U.S. and Israeli attacks against Iran through the lens of the Western Sahara conflict. Washington’s latest attempt to resolve the long-running dispute over the former Spanish colony, through a round of direct dialogue launched last month in Madrid, is conditioning Rabat and Algiers’ response to the escalating conflict engulfing the Middle East.

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]]>JALAL MORCHIDI<![CDATA[Spells, orgies and cocaine: Morocco shocked by case of psychiatrist accused of drugging and raping his patients]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-03/spells-orgies-and-cocaine-morocco-shocked-by-case-of-psychiatrist-accused-of-drugging-and-raping-his-patients.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2026-03-03/spells-orgies-and-cocaine-morocco-shocked-by-case-of-psychiatrist-accused-of-drugging-and-raping-his-patients.htmlTue, 03 Mar 2026 15:02:16 +0000Magic spells, orgies, cocaine and heroin use, human trafficking... The trial of a psychiatrist in the city of Fez who was accused of drugging and raping 10 women who had come to his office for treatment has shocked Moroccan society. The trial, held in a court in the religious capital of the country, concluded on Monday night with a 20-year prison sentence for the doctor, after the victims presented a detailed account of the horrors they endured.

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]]>Massimo Borchi<![CDATA[Morocco begins using ankle monitors to curb prison overcrowding]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-09-02/morocco-begins-using-ankle-monitors-to-curb-prison-overcrowding.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-09-02/morocco-begins-using-ankle-monitors-to-curb-prison-overcrowding.htmlTue, 02 Sep 2025 17:44:51 +0000Morocco’s prisons are overflowing, despite the ongoing construction of new facilities, with more than 100,000 inmates at the end of 2024 and an occupancy rate of 160%, forcing up to three prisoners to share a space designed for one. To alleviate this inhumane overcrowding — and simultaneously reduce the prison budget — the North African country has just introduced a system of alternative sentences to imprisonment. These include electronic monitoring devices, community service, and fines in exchange for days in prison for minor offenses, for which tens of thousands of Moroccans end up behind bars each year.

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]]>JALAL MORCHIDI<![CDATA[The gang rape of a minor at a crowded festival shocks Morocco]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-08-20/the-gang-rape-of-a-minor-at-a-crowded-festival-shocks-morocco.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-08-20/the-gang-rape-of-a-minor-at-a-crowded-festival-shocks-morocco.htmlWed, 20 Aug 2025 07:27:17 +0000Mohamed (a fictitious name) is 13 years old and lives in a town in the province of Youssoufia, 200 miles south of Rabat, in the deep interior of Morocco. Orphaned of his father, he makes a living by selling bags and parking cars at markets to help his mother, who is disabled and undergoing psychiatric treatment. Life has not smiled on Mohamed — nor on the thousands of street children in the Maghreb country who often cling to the underside of an international truck bound for a ferry to Europe, or swim through storms toward the breakwaters of the Spanish exclave cities of Ceuta and Melilla.

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]]>Raquel Maria Carbonell Pagola<![CDATA[US exploring an economic solution to Western Sahara conflict after 50 years of stalemate]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-08-05/us-exploring-an-economic-solution-to-western-sahara-conflict-after-50-years-of-stalemate.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-08-05/us-exploring-an-economic-solution-to-western-sahara-conflict-after-50-years-of-stalemate.htmlTue, 05 Aug 2025 15:12:49 +0000King Mohammed VI of Morocco had an unusual outstretched-hand message for Algeria in his recent speech to the nation on Throne Day, when he called for negotiations towards a solution “without victors or vanquished” in the long-running conflict over Western Sahara, a disputed territory in northwestern Africa.

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]]>Raquel Maria Carbonell Pagola<![CDATA[Israeli troops deploy to Morocco during largest US military exercise in Africa amid Gaza offensive]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-23/israeli-troops-deploy-to-morocco-during-largest-us-military-exercise-in-africa-amid-gaza-offensive.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-05-23/israeli-troops-deploy-to-morocco-during-largest-us-military-exercise-in-africa-amid-gaza-offensive.htmlFri, 23 May 2025 09:28:15 +0000The military dock at the port of Agadir (340 miles south of Rabat). On Tuesday morning, the spring sun is already causing dozens of Moroccan and American soldiers to sweat as they toil in the shadow of the hill of the ancient citadel, marked in giant letters with the motto of the Sharifian kingdom: “God, Homeland, and King.” With well-rehearsed military choreography, commandos in rubber boats, masked bomb disposal experts, and soldiers in radiation protection suits roam the land and sea, while a Super Puma helicopter descends overhead to evacuate suspected victims, and recruits in bloody bandages and makeup moan in a mournful performance.

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]]>Fuerzas Armadas de Marruecos<![CDATA[Turkey stakes its claim in Syria]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-01-02/turkey-stakes-its-claim-in-syria.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2025-01-02/turkey-stakes-its-claim-in-syria.htmlThu, 02 Jan 2025 18:37:09 +0000Just four days after President Bashar al-Assad fled Syria on the night of December 8, the country’s new strongman, Islamist leader Ahmed al-Sharaa — also known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Julani — was driving through central Damascus with Ibrahim Kalin, head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MIT), in the passenger seat. Six days later, the Turkish flag was raised again at the embassy in the Syrian capital, which had been closed for 12 years. And just two weeks after the regime’s collapse, Ankara’s top diplomat, Hakan Fidan, became the first foreign minister to visit al-Sharaa, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who was seen wearing a suit and tie for the first time. It was all part of a carefully crafted image of a moderate ruler for the head of the militia who, just a month ago, in a lightning 12-day offensive, forced Assad to flee to Moscow after a quarter of a century in power.

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]]><![CDATA[Syria’s reconstruction put to the test in Homs, the martyr city ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-23/syrias-reconstruction-put-to-the-test-in-homs-the-martyr-city.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-23/syrias-reconstruction-put-to-the-test-in-homs-the-martyr-city.htmlMon, 23 Dec 2024 15:49:24 +0000Not even the tombstones in the cemeteries are still standing in Bab Amro, the stronghold of the insurgency against Bashar al-Assad in Homs. It could be the Ohio of Syria, the average province shared by Sunni Muslims (70% of the population), Shiite Alawites (20%) and Christians (10%) for centuries, but the industrial capital of the Arab country has become a martyr city, a symbol of the barbarity with which the regime punished its own people. “I had to look for food in the garbage for three years so as not to die of starvation, like other residents,” says Abdul al-Mulhen, 70, of the long siege to which the army subjected Bab Amro until 2015, under artillery fire and barrel bombs dropped from helicopters. “Without food or medicine, we were in a hell in which it was better to die,” recalls this retired state official, by the warmth of a barrel where a little firewood burns at the minibus stop. Among the rubble, skeletons of buildings stand out, where those who never left Bab Amro, like Al-Mulhen, barely survive.

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]]>Álvaro García<![CDATA[Syrian Christians after the fall of the regime: ‘We don’t want to be second-class citizens’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-20/syrian-christians-after-the-fall-of-the-regime-we-dont-want-to-be-second-class-citizens.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-20/syrian-christians-after-the-fall-of-the-regime-we-dont-want-to-be-second-class-citizens.htmlFri, 20 Dec 2024 13:01:16 +0000Monsignor Denys Antoine Shahda was watching the 2014 World Cup final in Brazil when a shell hit the archbishop’s residence in Aleppo. Lying on the ground, he began to scream, but no one was listening. The Aziziye neighborhood was plunged into darkness by fighting between various rebel militias and the regime of Bashar al-Assad, the streets blocked by concrete blocks to slow down the attacks. “No ambulance came. We were very scared,” he recalls.

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]]>Álvaro García<![CDATA[Survivors of the Douma ghetto: ‘Syria will not forget the crimes of Bashar al-Assad’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-19/survivors-of-the-douma-ghetto-syria-will-not-forget-the-crimes-of-bashar-al-assad.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-19/survivors-of-the-douma-ghetto-syria-will-not-forget-the-crimes-of-bashar-al-assad.htmlThu, 19 Dec 2024 12:54:28 +0000Just 15 kilometers (9.3 miles) from the center of Damascus, in 2011 Douma was, before the Syrian civil war began, a prosperous peripheral city whose 150,000 inhabitants felt confident, despite their traditional religiosity, in the face of the secularism and modernity of the capital. Now only a third of them remain there. The signs of destruction in the square of the central mosque, where opposition groups met to organize the fight against the regime, now bear witness to the fate of Damascus’ main insurgent enclave. Its civilian population suffered a five-year siege by famine, some of the worst chemical attacks of the conflict, and a brutal repression that emptied their homes and razed their streets, turning the city into a ghetto of suffering.

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]]>Álvaro García<![CDATA[Syria re-emerges united in Daraa, the cradle of the revolution against Assad]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-16/syria-re-emerges-united-in-daraa-the-cradle-of-the-revolution-against-assad.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-12-16/syria-re-emerges-united-in-daraa-the-cradle-of-the-revolution-against-assad.htmlMon, 16 Dec 2024 15:16:31 +0000The central street of Bosra, a desolate cemetery of concrete skeletons, separates the eastern districts of Daraa, a stronghold of the Syrian opposition, from the commercial and administrative centre controlled by regime forces until a week ago. Close to the Jordanian border, the capital of southern Syria and birthplace of the revolution against Bashar al-Assad in 2011 remained in the hands of insurgent militias for seven years, and even briefly took up arms in 2021. Destruction, abandonment, and misery are the price it has paid for its rebellion.

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]]>Álvaro García<![CDATA[The Pablo Escobar of the Sahara reveals corruption within Morocco’s ruling class ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-02-27/the-pablo-escobar-of-the-sahara-reveals-corruption-within-moroccos-ruling-class.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-02-27/the-pablo-escobar-of-the-sahara-reveals-corruption-within-moroccos-ruling-class.htmlTue, 27 Feb 2024 15:14:08 +0000In an official survey, 72% of Moroccan citizens recognize that there’s corruption in the country. However, despite recognition of the problem, it’s less common for cases of fraud among the ruling class to be aired in the press, in full view of public opinion.

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]]>Mint Images/ Art Wolfe<![CDATA[The lives destroyed by the Israeli offensive in Gaza]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-25/the-lives-destroyed-by-the-israeli-offensive-in-gaza.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-25/the-lives-destroyed-by-the-israeli-offensive-in-gaza.htmlThu, 25 Jan 2024 15:54:52 +0000Kayed Hammad has moved houses with his family 14 times since the start of the Gaza war. The elderly Redwan couple was killed with one of their children and a caregiver in a house in an affluent part of Gaza City that they never imagined would be bombed. Abed Mustafa fights a daily battle in Rafah to obtain food and water for his family, and to charge his cell phone. S. A. (who prefers to remain anonymous) shares an apartment with 13 other people after fleeing with her mother. They managed to stay alive, but their house and all their memories were destroyed by Israeli strikes.

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]]><![CDATA[UNICEF official in Palestine: ‘There are one million children in Gaza traumatized by the war’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-30/unicef-official-in-palestine-there-are-one-million-children-in-gaza-traumatized-by-the-war.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-30/unicef-official-in-palestine-there-are-one-million-children-in-gaza-traumatized-by-the-war.htmlTue, 30 Jan 2024 12:13:44 +0000From Rafah, at the southern end of the Gaza Strip on the border with Egypt, Jonathan Crickx describes a sea of improvised tents, where 1.3 million Palestinians are crowded amid the sound of Israeli bombings coming from the city of Khan Younis, around three miles to the north. In a conversation interrupted by continuous phone line outages, the head of rights advocacy and communications for UNICEF in Palestine notes that the population has quintupled in the south of the coastal enclave due to the massive displacement forced by the war. “Every day more and more arrive here, where they can barely be offered a little food and some water to survive, between 1.5 and two liters per head per day for drinking, cooking, and washing,” warns the Belgium-born humanitarian worker, who cut his teeth in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

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]]><![CDATA[Concern in Israel over imminent UN court decision on Gaza genocide accusation]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-25/concern-in-israel-over-imminent-un-court-decision-on-gaza-genocide-accusation.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-25/concern-in-israel-over-imminent-un-court-decision-on-gaza-genocide-accusation.htmlThu, 25 Jan 2024 17:28:47 +0000Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urgently convened a crisis cabinet on Thursday to anticipate possible scenarios before the preliminary decision by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), scheduled for Friday, regarding the accusation by South Africa against Israel of genocidal intent in Gaza. The response by the United Nations’ highest court could lead to the imposition of precautionary measures such as a stay on the offensive that the army unleashed three months ago in the Gaza Strip, with a death toll of more than 25,000, following the October 7 attack by Hamas militias that caused 1,200 deaths in Israeli territory. The cabinet meeting was attended by senior state officials such as Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and Justice Minister Yariv Levin, in a sign of concern about the consequences of the upcoming decision in The Hague.

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]]>KOEN VAN WEEL<![CDATA[Israel weighs Gaza ceasefire amid pressure from hostages’ families]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-25/israel-weighs-gaza-ceasefire-amid-pressure-from-hostages-families.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-25/israel-weighs-gaza-ceasefire-amid-pressure-from-hostages-families.htmlThu, 25 Jan 2024 11:04:47 +0000Israel’s dual objective of defeating Hamas for good and freeing the Israeli hostages has run up against the harsh reality of the conflict in Gaza, where — after more than 100 days — there is still no sign of the “total military victory” vowed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Gadi Eisenkot, the former head of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), who is a member of the government’s emergency war Cabinet and whose son died last month fighting in Gaza, warned that only negotiation, after ending the hostilities, will secure the release of the hostages.

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]]>AMMAR AWAD<![CDATA[Gaza war turns the West Bank into an economic time bomb]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-23/gaza-war-turns-the-west-bank-into-an-economic-time-bomb.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-23/gaza-war-turns-the-west-bank-into-an-economic-time-bomb.htmlTue, 23 Jan 2024 14:27:37 +0000Traveling the 12 miles that separate Jerusalem from Ramallah can take more than two hours amid the chaotic traffic jams on the only road to the Palestinian administrative capital that Israel has left open. “The blockade of our economy did not begin on October 7 [when Hamas launched its attack from Gaza], but it has worsened since then,” says Atef Alawneh, former deputy finance minister and university professor, at the headquarters of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute.

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]]>MARCO LONGARI<![CDATA[Israel launches large-scale attack on Gaza after announcing end of operations in south]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-17/israel-launches-large-scale-attack-on-gaza-after-announcing-end-of-operations-in-south.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-17/israel-launches-large-scale-attack-on-gaza-after-announcing-end-of-operations-in-south.htmlWed, 17 Jan 2024 10:56:05 +0000On Tuesday, the Israeli army launched one of its largest attacks in Gaza since the beginning of the year, when it reported an end to military activity in the north of the enclave. A few hours before the attack, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had announced that military actions in the center and south of Gaza would also be coming to an end. At the start of the invasion, on October 27, the retired IDF general said that Israel would end operations in Gaza within three months — a deadline that has now arrived. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who has linked his political survival to a total victory against Hamas — believes that the conflict could go on for “several more months.” In view of this, Netanyahu and his far-right coalition approved an extra €15 billion ($16.3 billion) for the war in Gaza.

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]]>-<![CDATA[Gaza war reaches 100 days without Israel eliminating Hamas or freeing the hostages]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-15/gaza-war-reaches-100-days-without-israel-eliminating-hamas-or-freeing-the-hostages.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-15/gaza-war-reaches-100-days-without-israel-eliminating-hamas-or-freeing-the-hostages.htmlMon, 15 Jan 2024 12:51:02 +0000The winter rains falling on the Middle East on Sunday drenched the refugee camps containing hundreds of thousands of displaced people in southern Gaza, as well as tens of thousands of demonstrators in Tel Aviv demanding the release of over 100 hostages held captive in the enclave since the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7, 2023. The war is now in its 100th day, nearly 24,000 Palestinians have been killed and 7,000 are missing, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has not achieved its goals of bringing the captives home and eradicating the Palestinian militia, which it is still fighting in the center and south of the coastal enclave. Two societies are now surviving in a state of post-traumatic stress amid a conflict with no end in sight. The entire Gazan population, crowded according to the United Nations in a devastated territory alien to the human condition. And at least a third of Israelis, according to a study that also shows the population’s support for the continuation of hostilities in Gaza.

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]]>ALEXANDRE MENEGHINI<![CDATA[Israel rejects Qatari plan to free hostages in exchange for allowing Hamas leaders to go into exile]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-11/israel-rejects-qatari-plan-to-free-hostages-in-exchange-for-allowing-hamas-leaders-to-go-into-exile.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-11/israel-rejects-qatari-plan-to-free-hostages-in-exchange-for-allowing-hamas-leaders-to-go-into-exile.htmlThu, 11 Jan 2024 20:46:04 +0000The Israeli Security Cabinet presiding over the war in the Gaza Strip has rejected a proposal from Qatar, which is acting as a mediator in this conflict. The plan calls for freeing all hostages captured in Israel on October 7, in exchange for a cessation of hostilities and allowing the leaders of Hamas — the Islamist movement that has controlled the Gaza Strip for the past 17 years — to go into exile. In a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday night, government ministers, senior military and intelligence officials discarded the Qatari plan for imposing the “unacceptable condition” of withdrawing troops and ending the fighting, according to reports in the Israeli press on Thursday.

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]]>Tyrone Siu<![CDATA[Israel intensifies its attacks on Gaza despite Blinken’s call to reduce civilian casualties]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-10/israel-intensifies-its-attacks-on-gaza-despite-blinkens-call-to-reduce-civilian-casualties.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-10/israel-intensifies-its-attacks-on-gaza-despite-blinkens-call-to-reduce-civilian-casualties.htmlWed, 10 Jan 2024 21:48:11 +0000He said it on Tuesday in Tel Aviv in front of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and reiterated it on Wednesday in Ramallah, the administrative capital of the Palestinian Authority (PA), before Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. After nearly three months of Israeli bombardments, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is calling on Israel to avoid further harming the civilian population during its attack on the Gaza Strip. He is also urging that the delivery of humanitarian aid be sped up to tend to the enclave’s desperate population. Israeli troops, however, have intensified operations in the center and south of the Gaza Strip, despite the fact that Israel’s Defense Ministry announced last week that the war would enter a new phase focused on strategic targets instead of massive, indiscriminate attacks.

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]]>Evelyn Hockstein<![CDATA[The Gaza war is not Netflix]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-10/the-gaza-war-is-not-netflix.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-10/the-gaza-war-is-not-netflix.htmlWed, 10 Jan 2024 10:46:00 +0000“I’m a little tired, but I’m fine, working for everyone’s safety,” he said, smiling and wearing a field uniform, speaking to the Israeli Channel 12 television reporter who was interviewing him Monday in the Gaza Strip. Shortly afterward, reservist Idan Amedi, 35, was airlifted with serious shrapnel wounds after a clash with Hamas militiamen to Tel Aviv’s Sheba hospital, Israel’s largest and best-equipped medical center. A celebrated singer in his homeland, Amedi is also a globally recognized actor as a cast member of the Netflix-distributed series Fauda. Intubated and anesthetized, Amedi’s condition was considered stable Tuesday by doctors — who do not fear for his life according to his relatives — after hours of surgery to remove pieces of shrapnel from various parts of his body.

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]]><![CDATA[Blinken arrives in Israel on mission to contain war as Gaza deaths and Lebanon attacks continue to rise ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-09/blinken-arrives-in-israel-on-mission-to-contain-war-as-gaza-deaths-and-lebanon-attacks-continue-to-rise.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-09/blinken-arrives-in-israel-on-mission-to-contain-war-as-gaza-deaths-and-lebanon-attacks-continue-to-rise.htmlTue, 09 Jan 2024 09:11:03 +0000U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Israel on Monday night with the arduous mission of containing the war in Gaza: both the rising death toll, which now exceeds 23,000 after three months of conflict (1% of the Gazan population), and the hostilities that are spreading throughout the region. Upon landing at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, he was greeted by the news that nearly 250 Palestinians had been killed in attacks in the previous 24 hours, the highest number in a week. There were also news of Israel’s intensified bombardment in southern Lebanon against Hezbollah targets, in which at least eight Shiite militiamen have been killed since Saturday, including Wissam al-Tawil, commander of the elite Radwan Force responsible for launching rockets into northern Israel.

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]]>EVELYN HOCKSTEIN<![CDATA[Israel says Hamas armed wing ‘dismantled’ in northern Gaza as focus switches to ‘specific targets’ in the center and south ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-08/israel-says-hamas-armed-wing-dismantled-in-northern-gaza-as-focus-switches-to-specific-targets-in-the-center-and-south.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-08/israel-says-hamas-armed-wing-dismantled-in-northern-gaza-as-focus-switches-to-specific-targets-in-the-center-and-south.htmlMon, 08 Jan 2024 11:10:55 +0000While U.S. and European Union diplomatic chiefs are working to contain the spread of the Gaza war in the Middle East, Israel is sending mixed signals about the future of the conflict. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Sunday at the start of the weekly government meeting, on the eve of the arrival in Israel of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, that “the war must not be stopped until we achieve all of its goals: eliminating Hamas, returning all of our hostages and ensuring that Gaza will never again constitute a threat to Israel. I say this to both our enemies and our friends.”

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]]>JACK GUEZ<![CDATA[Danger of Gaza war spillover peaks in Middle East after three months of fighting]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-07/danger-of-gaza-war-spillover-peaks-in-middle-east-after-three-months-of-fighting.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-07/danger-of-gaza-war-spillover-peaks-in-middle-east-after-three-months-of-fighting.htmlSun, 07 Jan 2024 10:46:41 +0000The war in the Gaza Strip has reached a dangerous peak of regional expansion that threatens to spread hostilities throughout the Middle East. Three months have passed since the start of the conflict, marked by the death of more than 22,000 Palestinians and 1,200 Israelis, as well as the destruction of Gaza and the displacement of 90% of its 2.3 million inhabitants. Now, there are fears the conflict could spread to southern Lebanon after the assassination of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Aruri on Tuesday, and the closure of the strategic Red Sea route due to the attacks by Yemen’s Houthis on merchant ships.

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]]>AMIR COHEN<![CDATA[Israel plans a post-war Gaza with Palestinian administration but under military control]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-05/israel-plans-a-post-war-gaza-with-palestinian-administration-but-under-military-control.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2024-01-05/israel-plans-a-post-war-gaza-with-palestinian-administration-but-under-military-control.htmlFri, 05 Jan 2024 18:39:05 +0000Almost three months have passed since the outbreak of the bloodiest war in the Holy Land in half a century. Israel is already preparing for the day after the conflict, as it continues to systematically bombard the Gaza Strip and deploy troops to the Lebanese border. The Palestinian coastal enclave has been devastated, with more than 22,000 dead, but the Hamas militia, which triggered the conflict by killing 1,200 people in Israel, has not been eradicated. The only one of its leaders eliminated since Oct. 7, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed Tuesday in a drone operation in Beirut.

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]]>MOHAMMED SALEM<![CDATA[Siege by Israeli army forces excavation of mass grave in Gaza’s main hospital]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-15/siege-by-israeli-army-forces-excavation-of-mass-grave-in-gazas-main-hospital.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-15/siege-by-israeli-army-forces-excavation-of-mass-grave-in-gazas-main-hospital.htmlWed, 15 Nov 2023 10:22:16 +0000The siege to which Israeli forces have subjected Gaza’s main hospital since last Friday has forced Palestinians to dig a mass grave in the Al Shifa health complex in the capital of the enclave, where dozens of corpses were at risk of decomposition, including those of seven premature babies disconnected from incubators due to the lack of power. Hospital officials claim to have buried between 120 and 180 bodies, according to various testimonies cited by international news agencies. The hospital lacks food, water and electricity. Alongside some 650 patients, including 36 premature babies who cannot be evacuated, there are some 7,000 civilians displaced from their homes by the fighting and seeking refuge in the vicinity of the complex. Doctors Without Borders described the situation at Al Shifa as “inhumane,” on social media.

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]]>Yasser Qudih<![CDATA[Israel faces new fronts of attack in its war against Hamas]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-12/israel-faces-new-fronts-of-attack-in-its-war-against-hamas.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-12/israel-faces-new-fronts-of-attack-in-its-war-against-hamas.htmlSun, 12 Nov 2023 10:36:39 +0000The fear that the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza would spread across the region has become in part a reality. Five weeks after Hamas launched its attack on October 7, Israel is facing new fronts of attack beyond the Palestinian enclave, but within Israel’s borders. Benny Gantz, Israel’s former minister of defense and a current member of the emergency government, admitted that his country is now in a “multi-front war.”

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]]>JALAA MAREY<![CDATA[Israeli army attacks hospitals and a school in northern Gaza]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-10/israeli-army-attacks-hospitals-and-a-school-in-northern-gaza.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-10/israeli-army-attacks-hospitals-and-a-school-in-northern-gaza.htmlFri, 10 Nov 2023 21:49:36 +0000Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza already exceeded the duration of the one it waged in 2006 against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. But the consequences of the current conflict are much more devastating: more than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the health authorities in the Palestinian enclave, which Hamas has controlled for 17 years. This Friday, Israeli tanks surrounded hospitals in northern Gaza and opened fire against the Al-Shifa medical complex, the territory’s biggest health center and under which — in a web of underground tunnels — the armed wing of Hamas houses its military command center, according to Israel. Hamas claims that at least 13 people were killed in the hospital attack, a figure that the World Health Organization (WHO) has not been able to confirm. Israel flatly denies this, instead assuring that it is protecting the civilian population and that its operations are directed against militiamen hiding in residential areas. Two other hospitals were also hit by airstrikes on Friday, and a health official said that at least 25 people were killed in a strike on a school in the Strip. In this climate of escalating civilian casualties, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned — for the first time since the conflict began — that “far too many Palestinians have been killed.”

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]]>KHODER AL-ZAANOUN<![CDATA[Extremist parties threaten to push Netanyahu’s government further to the right in the middle of the war]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-06/extremist-parties-threaten-to-push-netanyahus-government-further-to-the-right-in-the-middle-of-the-war.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-06/extremist-parties-threaten-to-push-netanyahus-government-further-to-the-right-in-the-middle-of-the-war.htmlMon, 06 Nov 2023 23:51:50 +0000At the end of last year, Benjamin Netanyahu secured his appointment as Israel’s prime minister, which incidentally protects him from prosecution in the three corruption cases for which he is being tried, but he had to pay the price of incorporating extreme Jewish right-wing forces into the executive power, which until then had been excluded from the parliamentary framework. Its members are not part of the security cabinet, the ministerial Sanhedrin that makes decisions in time of war, but its fanatical proclamations threaten to open a new front in Netanyahu’s political rearguard. As the worst armed conflict in Israel for half a century reaches its one-month milestone, the maneuvers of some extremist ministers threaten to push Netanyahu’s government — which is already considered the most conservative in the entire history of Israel — further to the right.

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]]>RANEEN SAWAFTA<![CDATA[The last resident in Nirim holds out under Gaza rockets in a ghost kibbutz]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-06/the-last-resident-in-nirim-holds-out-under-gaza-rockets-in-a-ghost-kibbutz.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-06/the-last-resident-in-nirim-holds-out-under-gaza-rockets-in-a-ghost-kibbutz.htmlMon, 06 Nov 2023 11:45:15 +0000“If it weren’t for the cows, I would have left too,” admits Marcelo Wasser. “We have lost our personal security. The army came very late,” he recalls, in reference to the morning of October 7, when 50 Hamas militants attacked the kibbutz of Nirim, killing five and kidnapping four others. Dressed at all times in a protective anti-shrapnel vest, Wasser is the only one of the kibbutz’s 500 inhabitants who have stayed to run the dairy farm. The 65-year-old cares for more than 600 Holstein cows and about 350 calves. Nirim, located 84 miles south of Tel Aviv, is now a war zone, a closed military perimeter with tanks and artillery lined up at its entrances.

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]]>Edward Kaprov<![CDATA[War in Gaza puts daily life on hold in Israel]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-05/war-in-gaza-puts-daily-life-on-hold-in-israel.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-05/war-in-gaza-puts-daily-life-on-hold-in-israel.htmlSun, 05 Nov 2023 15:08:56 +0000“I’m desperate. I don’t know how we’re going to get out of this war,” bemoans Gideon Bor — a 79-year-old archetype of the Ashkenazi (Jews of European origin) elite who forged the state of Israel — on Thursday afternoon in the forecourt of Tel Aviv’s Museum of Contemporary Art. “The images coming out of Gaza are terrible,” admits this retired civil engineer and constructor who fought in previous conflicts. “But what else can we do after the massacre committed by Hamas on October 7?” he argues with a mantra that is repeated by most Israelis in the face of civilian massacres such as the one at Gaza’s Al Shifa hospital.

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]]>Álvaro García<![CDATA[The double martyrdom of Jabaliya]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-02/the-double-martyrdom-of-jabalia.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-02/the-double-martyrdom-of-jabalia.htmlThu, 02 Nov 2023 13:26:18 +0000To reach Gaza City from the Erez crossing — the only pedestrian land crossing with Israel, which has been closed for more than three weeks — it was customary in peacetime to drive through Jabaliya, a former refugee camp erected in 1948. Over the years, it grew into a 0.6 square mile slum that was home to around 115,000 people at the beginning of the war. When crossing Jabaliya, on the northern outskirts of Gaza’s capital, the characteristic Middle Eastern haphazard street pattern contrasted with the modern city and its straight avenues. Now it has suffered a double martyrdom. In just 24 hours, between Tuesday and Wednesday, Israeli bombardments struck Jabaliya twice in succession, a continuation of open war in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have launched 11,000 air strikes over the last 25 days against a coastal enclave where nearly 9,000 Palestinians have lost their lives.

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]]>Anadolu Agency<![CDATA[Israel claims to have cut off access from north to south of Gaza Strip after surrounding the capital]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-01/israel-claims-to-have-cut-off-access-from-north-to-south-of-gaza-strip-after-surrounding-the-capital.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-01/israel-claims-to-have-cut-off-access-from-north-to-south-of-gaza-strip-after-surrounding-the-capital.htmlWed, 01 Nov 2023 17:13:10 +0000The war in Gaza will be “long and difficult,” as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated this Wednesday, following the death of at least 16 soldiers in the enclave, but it seems to be progressing faster than expected, according to military leaders’ statements to defense analysts working for the Israeli media. In the midst of the confusion caused by the so-called “fog of war,” aimed at confusing the enemy, Israeli troops have reportedly already cut off access between the north and south of the Palestinian coastal territory after surrounding the capital, Gaza City, with tanks and infantry forces. Since October 7, when Hamas militias killed 1,400 Israelis and kidnapped 220 people, the Israeli Armed Forces have attacked 11,000 targets in the Gaza Strip. Since then, the Gaza Ministry of Health has reported nearly 8,800 deaths, almost 3,650 of them children and teenagers.

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]]>ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES<![CDATA[The Red Sea paradise for the 60,000 Israelis forced to flee Hamas war]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-01/the-red-sea-paradise-for-the-60000-israelis-forced-to-flee-hamas-war.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-11-01/the-red-sea-paradise-for-the-60000-israelis-forced-to-flee-hamas-war.htmlWed, 01 Nov 2023 12:14:32 +0000“We will spend months here. Only God knows when we will return home, to the Netiv Haashara kibbutz [cooperative farm], right on the border with northern Gaza,” says Yair Shtoa, as he leans on a sun lounger at the pool of the Royal Garden hotel in Eilat, a tourist city on the Israeli coast of the Red Sea. The 48-year-old truck driver says he is fed up with living in a five-star hotel by the beach: “We want to return as soon as possible.” The Israeli government is paying around €200 ($210) per day per adult for this accommodation and full board. Shtoa, meanwhile, continues to receive his full salary.

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]]>Álvaro García<![CDATA[Israeli army expands ground offensive in Gaza after attacking 450 Hamas positions in one day]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-30/israeli-army-expands-ground-offensive-in-gaza-after-attacking-450-hamas-positions-in-one-day.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-30/israeli-army-expands-ground-offensive-in-gaza-after-attacking-450-hamas-positions-in-one-day.htmlMon, 30 Oct 2023 09:55:32 +0000Israel’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip entered its second day on Sunday with a reinforcement of troops and tank units operating inside the Palestinian enclave, according to a spokesman of the Israeli Armed Forces. Hamas claims that the Israeli advance has met stiff resistance in the north of the enclave, where the Islamist group said they have destroyed two tanks and fought “violent clashes” following the “incursion of the occupying forces,” according to a statement quoted by Agence France Presse.

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]]>HANNIBAL HANSCHKE<![CDATA[Netanyahu assumes he will be held accountable after the war for failures that allowed the Hamas attack]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-25/netanyahu-assumes-he-will-be-held-accountable-after-the-war-for-failures-that-allowed-the-hamas-attack.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-25/netanyahu-assumes-he-will-be-held-accountable-after-the-war-for-failures-that-allowed-the-hamas-attack.htmlWed, 25 Oct 2023 22:56:28 +0000Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Wednesday in a televised message to the nation that Israel is preparing a ground invasion of Gaza, although without specifying a date. Netanyahu assured that the decision as to when the armed forces will enter the Strip will be made by the government. “The timing of the military operation will be decided by consensus by the war cabinet,” he said. Nearly 20 days into the state of war with the Hamas militia, the Israeli army maintains an imposing deployment ready for immediate action on the border of the Palestinian Strip, without yet launching the announced invasion to eradicate the Islamist movement that killed 1,400 Israelis and kidnapped 220 others on October 7, in the deadliest attack suffered by the Jewish State in its 75 years of existence. In this way, Netanyahu responds to reports of alleged U.S. pressure to delay the ground invasion of Gaza.

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]]>HANNIBAL HANSCHKE<![CDATA[UN leader reiterates message on Gaza occupation despite Israel’s call for him to step down]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-25/israel-calls-for-resignation-of-un-chief-and-blocks-visas-for-its-officials.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-25/israel-calls-for-resignation-of-un-chief-and-blocks-visas-for-its-officials.htmlWed, 25 Oct 2023 16:46:01 +0000The conflict in Gaza is inflaming relations between the United Nations and Israel. The country’s authorities announced Wednesday that they will refuse visas to representatives of the international organization in retaliation for remarks made the day before by U.N. Secretary General António Guterres. Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Gilad Erdan, and Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen called for Guterres’ resignation after he proclaimed on Tuesday that Hamas attacks did not happen “in a vacuum” but after Palestinians have been “subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation.”

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]]>EDUARDO MUNOZ<![CDATA[Caught in the crossfire in a ghost town in northern Israel]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-24/caught-in-the-crossfire-in-a-ghost-town-in-northern-israel.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-24/caught-in-the-crossfire-in-a-ghost-town-in-northern-israel.htmlTue, 24 Oct 2023 09:26:54 +0000The drums of war sounded on Monday in the Galilee Panhandle, the territory located in the far north of the state of Israel and sandwiched in between the Lebanese border and the Golan Heights, the plateau occupied by the army since 1967. “It looks like a Katiusha [the rockets used by the Lebanese party-militia Hezbollah],” said Aviva Rihan-Whitman, 52, a councilor in the town of Kiryat Shmona, as she ran to take shelter under the concrete porch of the municipal civic center. “Ah no! These are our guys,” she added a moment later, smiling confidently while the sharp sound of artillery echoed like a kettledrum among the hills.

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]]>Edward Kaprov<![CDATA[Palestinians in Gaza experience largest exodus since the Nakba 75 years ago]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-22/palestinians-in-gaza-experience-largest-exodus-since-the-nakba-75-years-ago.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-22/palestinians-in-gaza-experience-largest-exodus-since-the-nakba-75-years-ago.htmlSun, 22 Oct 2023 14:32:47 +0000The Nakba (“catastrophe” in Arabic) — with the keys to the homes abruptly abandoned 75 years ago, the processions of more than 700,000 refugees besieged by Israeli troops — is as integral, if not more so, to Palestinian identity than the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem. The forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of civilians from the northern Gaza Strip, in the wake of the ultimatum issued on October 13 by the Israeli army, has brought back to the Palestinians the memory of the debasement and uprooting catastrophe, in an exodus of biblical dimension that is still felt as a collective trauma.

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]]>Hatem Moussa<![CDATA[Israel intensifies bombing of Gaza and hits the West Bank and southern Lebanon]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-22/israel-intensifies-bombing-of-gaza-and-hits-the-west-bank-and-southern-lebanon.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-22/israel-intensifies-bombing-of-gaza-and-hits-the-west-bank-and-southern-lebanon.htmlSun, 22 Oct 2023 14:19:44 +0000Israel has been intensifying its air strikes in the northern Gaza Strip since the end of the Jewish Sabbath, following the deployment of troops, artillery and tanks that are now just awaiting the order to advance into the enclave. The Israeli army appears to be scrupulously carrying out its three-phase plan to invade Gaza and destroy Hamas and its militias. On Sunday, General Daniel Hagari, the spokesperson of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), once again urged the Palestinian population to move to the south of the Gaza Strip. Since the ultimatum was issued 13 days ago, more than 700,000 inhabitants of northern Gaza have fled south. The Israeli army also bombed a mosque in Jenin (West Bank) and continues to engage in exchanges of fire with the Hezbollah militia in southern Lebanon.

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]]>Hatem Moussa<![CDATA[Egypt and Jordan reject the forced displacement into their territories of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-20/egypt-and-jordan-reject-the-forced-displacement-into-their-territories-of-thousands-of-palestinians-from-gaza.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-20/egypt-and-jordan-reject-the-forced-displacement-into-their-territories-of-thousands-of-palestinians-from-gaza.htmlFri, 20 Oct 2023 11:08:46 +0000The President of Egypt, Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, and King Abdullah II of Jordan presented a united front Thursday in Cairo to reject the “policies of collective punishment” against the Palestinians of Gaza. Both leaders considered the possible forced displacement of thousands of inhabitants of the Strip to their territories as a serious threat to regional security. The Jordanian monarch and the Egyptian leader had cancelled their scheduled meeting in Amman Wednesday with U.S. President Joe Biden and of the head of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, following the massacre at the al-Ahli hospital in Gaza on Tuesday.

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]]>ALI MOUSTAFA<![CDATA[The ‘Gaza metro,’ Hamas’ secret weapon against an Israeli invasion]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-19/the-gaza-metro-hamas-secret-weapon-against-an-israeli-invasion.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-19/the-gaza-metro-hamas-secret-weapon-against-an-israeli-invasion.htmlThu, 19 Oct 2023 16:08:47 +0000The sandy soil of Gaza is Israel’s worst enemy. It has been dug almost by hand, away from prying eyes, for more than three decades, to carve one of the largest networks of tunnels and passageways on the planet in one of its tiniest territories. The General Staff of the Israel Defense Forces has dubbed it the “Gaza metro” — a strategic network of dozens of kilometers of subterranean galleries for military use, considered to be Hamas’ secret weapon in the face of an Israeli invasion. Unlike the smuggling tunnels on the border with Egypt, or the attack passages dug under the border with Israel, no one has lived to tell the tale of having seen Gaza’s so-called metro.

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]]>SOPA Images<![CDATA[A massacre without a clear perpetrator: What the world knows (and what it doesn’t) about the attack on the Gaza hospital]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-19/a-massacre-without-a-clear-perpetrator-what-the-world-knows-and-what-it-doesnt-about-the-attack-on-the-gaza-hospital.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-19/a-massacre-without-a-clear-perpetrator-what-the-world-knows-and-what-it-doesnt-about-the-attack-on-the-gaza-hospital.htmlThu, 19 Oct 2023 10:35:57 +0000The tragedy of Tuesday night’s explosion at the al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City has caused an extreme twist in the war that the Israeli army has been waging against militias in the Gaza Strip since the surprise Hamas attack launched against Israel on October 7. Israeli military spokesmen have blamed Islamic Jihad for the launching of a rocket that struck the hospital, killing at least 500 people according to initial estimates by the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, which later lowered the figure slightly: a spokesman for the ministry put the toll at 471. Some analysts believe that the final number of victims will be considerably lower. To this end, they have provided videos of the explosion, audio recordings among Palestinian militiamen, as well as graphics and visual analysis. On the same day as the explosion at the hospital, Israel had bombed a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) school in the Al Maghazi refugee camp, killing six civilians.

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]]>MOHAMMED SABER<![CDATA[Mohamed Deif and Yahya Sinwar, the masterminds of the Hamas attack who top Israel’s most wanted list]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-18/mohamed-deif-and-yahya-sinwar-the-masterminds-of-the-hamas-attack-who-top-israels-most-wanted-list.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-18/mohamed-deif-and-yahya-sinwar-the-masterminds-of-the-hamas-attack-who-top-israels-most-wanted-list.htmlWed, 18 Oct 2023 11:56:02 +0000There will be no prisoners among the Hamas leadership. Israel’s intelligence services have been attempting for 11 days to hunt down the leaders of the Islamist movement, who a military spokesman has described as “dead men walking.” Mohamed Deif — the faceless military commander of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, hidden in the shadows and who has escaped death a dozen times, most recently in 2021 — is considered the mastermind of the surprise attack launched on October 7, the deadliest since the 1973 Yom Kippur war between Israel and an Arab coalition led by Egypt and Syria. Israeli intelligence also wants the head of Yahya Sinwar, the political leader of Hamas in the Gaza strip, who spent 23 years in Israeli prisons. From his exile in Qatar, the chairman of the Hamas Political Bureau, Ismail Haniyeh, knows that he is also in the crosshairs.

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]]>Yousef Masoud<![CDATA[Ami Ayalon, former military chief: ‘A lot of people are going to die in Gaza: Israeli soldiers and many more Palestinians, but we have no other choice’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-16/ami-ayalon-former-military-chief-a-lot-of-people-are-going-to-die-in-gaza-israeli-soldiers-and-many-more-palestinians-but-we-have-no-other-choice.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-16/ami-ayalon-former-military-chief-a-lot-of-people-are-going-to-die-in-gaza-israeli-soldiers-and-many-more-palestinians-but-we-have-no-other-choice.htmlMon, 16 Oct 2023 13:32:00 +0000Israel’s doves, the champions of peace with the Palestinians, speak the same language as the hawks, those who reject a two-state solution. The attack unleashed by Hamas on October 7, which claimed the lives of more than a thousand people and resulted in the kidnapping of nearly 200, has roused all Israeli Jews, 80% of the country’s population, in the face of what they believe to be a common threat. This is also the case among the so-called Guardians, former senior commanders of the security forces who advocate democratic values and the creation of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders. Ami Ayalon, a 78-year-old former chief general of the elite naval commandos, former head of Shin Bet, the internal security service, and former Labor minister, was the epitome of the retired leftist military figure who dreams of an Israel at peace after a lifetime of warfare against enemies. But the rumblings of war have now roused him.

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]]><![CDATA[Netanyahu fights his last political battle in Gaza]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-15/netanyahu-fights-his-last-political-battle-in-gaza.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-15/netanyahu-fights-his-last-political-battle-in-gaza.htmlSun, 15 Oct 2023 11:34:26 +0000Now 73 years old and facing an indictment for corruption, Benjamin Netanyahu returned to the residence of the Prime Minister of Israel on Balfour Street in Jerusalem late last year, the only place where he can seek refuge from serving a prison sentence if convicted. “Everything but the cell” could well have been his motto when he spent a year and a half in the opposition. After being ousted from power in June 2021 with the votes of two of his conservative political protegees in 2023, at the head of the most conservative government in the history of the State of Israel, he has faced a protest movement with few precedents against the judicial reform he has imposed, again in an attempt to avoid prison.

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]]><![CDATA[Israel extends deadline for civilians to flee northern Gaza ahead of expected land offensive]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-14/gaza-running-out-of-time-after-israeli-ultimatum-to-evacuate-a-million-people.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-14/gaza-running-out-of-time-after-israeli-ultimatum-to-evacuate-a-million-people.htmlSat, 14 Oct 2023 14:34:53 +0000Gaza is running out of time. Tens of thousands of civilians were fleeing into southern Gaza on Saturday because of the ultimatum issued the day before by Israel, according to data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA). The Israeli army placed the number in the hundreds of thousands and insisted that civilians could safely make their way south on the two major parallel roads until the 4 p.m. deadline issued by the Israeli military, which on Sunday was extended to 1 p.m. local time.

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]]>AHMED ZAKOT<![CDATA[Hamas war turns Israel’s bustling hubs into ghost cities]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-13/hamas-war-turns-israels-bustling-hubs-into-ghost-cities.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-13/hamas-war-turns-israels-bustling-hubs-into-ghost-cities.htmlFri, 13 Oct 2023 13:00:37 +0000The face of Israel has changed due to the state of war following the attack launched last Saturday by Hamas on the outskirts of the Gaza Strip. With more than 1,300 dead, the vast majority of them Jews, it is being described as the most tragic attack since the Holocaust. The usually bustling streets of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa —densely populated areas — appear deserted, evoking the desolate landscape of the first weeks of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. With schools, factories, offices and businesses closed, commercial activity has collapsed in vibrant spots as Jaffa Street in Jerusalem, which still retains the colonial charm of the era of the British mandate over Palestine (between 1922 and 1948).

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]]>AHMAD GHARABLI<![CDATA[Israel warns over 1 million people in northern Gaza to evacuate south]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-13/israel-warns-over-1-million-people-in-northern-gaza-to-evacuate-south.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-13/israel-warns-over-1-million-people-in-northern-gaza-to-evacuate-south.htmlFri, 13 Oct 2023 08:55:50 +0000The Israeli military has warned that the more than 1.1 million residents of the northern portion of the Gaza Strip must evacuate to the south within 24 hours, said the United Nations in the early hours of Friday. The U.N. has been informed by Israeli liaison officers that half the population of the Palestinian enclave, where 2.3 million people live in overcrowded conditions in a 25-mile (40-kilometer) long strip of land, must be moved southwards immediately. The Israeli military’s warning also instructs Gazans not to approach the separation fence with Israel.

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]]>MOHAMMED SALEM<![CDATA[Elite Hamas unit that led massacre hit as Israel prepares Gaza invasion]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-12/elite-hamas-unit-that-led-massacre-hit-as-israel-prepares-gaza-invasion.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-12/elite-hamas-unit-that-led-massacre-hit-as-israel-prepares-gaza-invasion.htmlFri, 13 Oct 2023 07:43:11 +0000The Israeli war machine has been set in motion toward Gaza, intent on revenge. After devastating the periphery of the Palestinian strip with wave upon wave of aerial bombardments, at dawn this Thursday the army struck the bases of Hamas’ elite military unit, the Nujba force. Members of the unit led the attack last Saturday that claimed the lives of more than 1,200 Israelis and ended with more than a hundred civilians taken hostage.

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]]>Ashraf Amra<![CDATA[Netanyahu forms national unity government before ordering Gaza invasion]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-11/netanyahu-forms-national-unity-government-before-ordering-gaza-invasion.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-11/netanyahu-forms-national-unity-government-before-ordering-gaza-invasion.htmlWed, 11 Oct 2023 19:31:48 +0000Israel faces its bloodiest war in 50 years, since the Yom Kippur conflict it almost lost, with a national unity government as of Wednesday. After remaining hidden behind the releases of his press service in the first days after the unexpected Hamas offensive, the conservative Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stopped dragging his feet and fulfilled the tradition of forming broad-based governments in time of war in the Jewish state.

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]]>AMOS BEN-GERSHOM/GPO HANDOUT<![CDATA[Israel redoubles its guard in the north due to the risk of a Hezbollah offensive]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-11/israel-redoubles-its-guard-in-the-north-due-to-the-risk-of-a-hezbollah-offensive.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-11/israel-redoubles-its-guard-in-the-north-due-to-the-risk-of-a-hezbollah-offensive.htmlWed, 11 Oct 2023 08:28:15 +0000While the war against Hamas in Gaza is on track to become the bloodiest conflict in half a century in Israel, the escalation of clashes along the border with Lebanon is threatening to open a new front against the pro-Iranian Hezbollah militia. The extension of hostilities from south to north is no small risk. The Lebanese guerrilla, which was almost in a stalemate in the battle it fought in 2006 against the Israeli Army, has tens of thousands of militants hardened during a decade of war in Syria and more than 200,000 rockets aimed at the Jewish state.

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]]>Edward Kaprov<![CDATA[Shlomo Ben Ami: ‘Hamas’ infamy will remain for many years like a wall between Israelis and Palestinians’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-10/shlomo-ben-ami-hamas-infamy-will-remain-for-many-years-like-a-wall-between-israelis-and-palestinians.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-10/shlomo-ben-ami-hamas-infamy-will-remain-for-many-years-like-a-wall-between-israelis-and-palestinians.htmlTue, 10 Oct 2023 10:04:00 +0000At 80 years old, Shlomo Ben Ami is as indignant as a twenty-something when he underscores the arrogance of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a trigger for the cycle of revenge and violence between Israelis and Palestinians that his country is now experiencing. “It had not been seen since 1948,” laments this historian trained at the University of Oxford who was Israel’s first ambassador to Spain and the last minister of foreign affairs of a Labor government before the Second Intifada (2000-2005) ruined the hopes of the Oslo Accords.

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]]>Eyal Warshavsky<![CDATA[Israel orders complete siege of Gaza to suffocate Hamas after 16-year blockade]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-10/israel-orders-complete-siege-of-gaza-to-suffocate-hamas-after-16-year-blockade.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-10/israel-orders-complete-siege-of-gaza-to-suffocate-hamas-after-16-year-blockade.htmlTue, 10 Oct 2023 08:35:35 +0000The land and sea blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza since 2007, when the Islamic resistance movement Hamas took power in the Palestinian strip, left its more than two million inhabitants trapped in a tiny territory declared “uninhabitable” by the United Nations. Now, the horror they have suffered for three days of open war between the Israeli Army and the Palestinian militias in the enclave threatens to become pure hell after the order of “complete siege” given on Monday by Israel’s defense minister, former general Yoav Gallant. The move to block the supply of food and water and, in particular, electricity and fuel, seeks to suffocate Hamas’ rearguard, while Israeli artillery and aircraft continue to crush its bases in retaliation for the massive surprise attack it launched on Saturday, when Hamas militants captured more than 150 hostages.

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]]>MOHAMMED SALEM<![CDATA[Sukkot war ends Hamas’s aspirations for pragmatism]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-07/sukkot-war-ends-hamass-aspirations-for-pragmatism.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-10-07/sukkot-war-ends-hamass-aspirations-for-pragmatism.htmlSat, 07 Oct 2023 19:43:02 +0000A little over a year ago, Basem Naim, a former Palestinian minister and director of Hamas’s international relations, told EL PAÍS in Gaza, where the Islamists have been the de facto government for over five decades, that the decision to refrain from escalating war between the Israeli Armed Forces and the (pro-Iranian) Islamic Jihad militias marked a turning point in his organization. The previous year, Hamas had fought its fourth open war with Israel, following the ones in 2008-2009, 2012 and especially 2014.

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]]>Hatem Ali<![CDATA[Mohammed VI, a silent king with far-reaching powers]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-18/mohamed-vi-a-silent-king-with-far-reaching-powers.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-18/mohamed-vi-a-silent-king-with-far-reaching-powers.htmlMon, 18 Sep 2023 17:56:10 +0000Mohamed VI was in his mansion near the Eiffel Tower in Paris, where he had arrived a week earlier on a private visit, the first he had made this year to the French capital, when a cataclysm shook the High Atlas at eleven minutes past eleven on the night of September 8. A few hours after the 6.8 magnitude earthquake that devastated dozens of villages in the foothills of the mountain range — in one of the most impoverished areas of Morocco south of the flourishing tourist city of Marrakech — the death toll stood in the hundreds. Today it is around 3,000.

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]]><![CDATA[King’s absence slows down response to the biggest earthquake in Morocco’s history]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-13/kings-absence-slows-down-response-to-the-biggest-earthquake-in-moroccos-history.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-13/kings-absence-slows-down-response-to-the-biggest-earthquake-in-moroccos-history.htmlWed, 13 Sep 2023 09:01:24 +0000The hyper-centralized power apparatus in Morocco — which converges at the apex on King Mohammed VI, a constitutional sovereign who nevertheless enjoys very broad powers — is hampering the country’s response to its most devastating earthquake on record, one that has killed nearly 3,000 people and injured over 5,000 in the impoverished Atlas region to the south. The government seems to be without initiative, awaiting instructions from a monarch who has only appeared in public twice — on Saturday afternoon, upon his return to Rabat from a private trip to Paris, and late on Tuesday in Marrakech.

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]]>MOHAMED MESSARA<![CDATA[Marrakech, a UNESCO city of heritage, but also of words and history]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-11/marrakech-a-unesco-city-of-heritage-but-also-of-words-and-history.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-11/marrakech-a-unesco-city-of-heritage-but-also-of-words-and-history.htmlMon, 11 Sep 2023 10:41:24 +0000Marrakech’s historic center, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, suffered the consequences of the biggest earthquake ever recorded in Morocco, which struck late on September 8 and resulted in over 2,000 deaths. Dozens of buildings in the Medina collapsed and a minaret in the emblematic Jemaa el-Fnaa square collapsed. The damage was particularly intense in the Mellah, the old Jewish quarter, which was covered with rubble at midnight on Friday, shortly after the seismic shock. But UNESCO’s World Heritage declaration does not only extend to the buildings and streets of the Moroccan city, but to something beyond bricks and mortar, a custom that gathers centuries of language and history: the oral tradition of storytellers, which is also in danger, overwhelmed by mass tourism.

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]]>YOAN VALAT<![CDATA[In Morocco, civil society bears burden of aid after the earthquake: ‘We don’t know how to care for the wounded’]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-11/in-morocco-civil-society-bears-burden-of-aid-after-the-earthquake-we-dont-know-how-to-care-for-the-wounded.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-11/in-morocco-civil-society-bears-burden-of-aid-after-the-earthquake-we-dont-know-how-to-care-for-the-wounded.htmlMon, 11 Sep 2023 10:08:47 +0000Dozens of ambulances rush, sirens blaring, along the road that connects Amizmiz, in the foothills of the Atlas Mountains, with Marrakech. Throughout its 27 miles (45 kilometers), there are endless caravans of private vehicles transporting humanitarian aid for the victims of the earthquake that struck southern Morocco around midnight on Friday, killing over 2,100 people, injuring another 2,400 and leaving tens of thousands homeless. Convoys of Armed Forces vehicles transporting heavy machinery also make their way through the winding roads of the valleys, while the Gendarmerie clears the routes that were blocked off by the landslides.

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]]>Jalid Kani<![CDATA[Powerful quake in Morocco kills more than 2,000 people and damages historic buildings in Marrakech]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-09/powerful-quake-in-morocco-kills-more-than-600-people-and-damages-historic-buildings-in-marrakech.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-09-09/powerful-quake-in-morocco-kills-more-than-600-people-and-damages-historic-buildings-in-marrakech.htmlSat, 09 Sep 2023 08:14:28 +0000A magnitude 6.8 earthquake shook Morocco late Friday night, causing more than 2,000 deaths, according to the latest figures from the Ministry of the Interior. Buildings collapsed in the provinces and cities of Al Haouz, Marrakech, Taroudant, Chichaoua, and Ouarzazate, which were the worst-affected by the earthquake. The epicenter was located in Ighil, around 45 miles southwest of Marrakech and at a depth of 18 kilometers (11 miles). The injured are being treated in hospitals, according to the Ministry of the Interior, and the emergency services are searching for survivors among the rubble. The Moroccan authorities have called on citizens to remain calm and have mobilized security and civil protection forces in the affected provinces, as well as resources to inspect and assess the damage.

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]]>AL MAGHRIBI AL YOUM<![CDATA[Morocco underpins diplomatic recognition of Western Sahara with Israel ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-19/morocco-underpins-diplomatic-recognition-of-western-sahara-with-israel.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-19/morocco-underpins-diplomatic-recognition-of-western-sahara-with-israel.htmlWed, 19 Jul 2023 14:59:40 +0000Israel’s recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara has given Rabat a new diplomatic boost to shore up its administrative control over the former Spanish colony, which is considered a “non-self-governing territory” by the United Nations. The normalization of relations between the two countries was forged two and a half years ago, sponsored by the United States, through the catalyst of a formal declaration of Morocco’s authority over the Sahara. Since then, in the last days of the Republican presidency of Donald Trump, 28 African, Arab, and Latin American countries have opened consulates in Laâyoune and Dakhla, and more than a dozen European states, including Spain, Germany, and the Netherlands, are looking favorably on Morocco’s proposal for autonomy for the Saharawi territory (of which it controls 80%), as opposed to the case for independence put forward by the Polisario Front (which controls the remaining 20%, according to the United Nations).

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]]>M. Silvestre<![CDATA[Mohamed VI lightens his official agenda as he approaches 60 years of age]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-09/mohamed-vi-lightens-his-official-agenda-as-he-approaches-60-years-of-age.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-09/mohamed-vi-lightens-his-official-agenda-as-he-approaches-60-years-of-age.htmlSun, 09 Jul 2023 22:10:00 +0000After having increased his attendance at official acts upon his return to Morocco in March, at the end of a three-month vacation in Gabon, King Mohamed VI has once again tempered his public presence. Last Thursday, the monarch of the Alaouite dynasty fulfilled the tradition of presiding over the religious celebration of Eid el Adha, among the main ones in Islam, in the Hassan II mosque in Tetouan, as well as the ritual of the sacrifice of the first lamb in the kingdom.

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]]>MAP<![CDATA[Israel and Morocco: Diplomacy for territories]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-14/israel-and-morocco-diplomacy-for-territories.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-14/israel-and-morocco-diplomacy-for-territories.htmlFri, 14 Jul 2023 11:58:38 +0000Israel has a diplomatic liaison office in Rabat, but not a full-fledged embassy. Since March, Morocco has postponed convening the second Negev summit — the meeting of four Arab countries that recognize the Jewish State within the framework of the Abraham Accords — and postponed it again in late June. Bilateral relations, which resumed in December 2020 aided by former U.S. president Donald Trump during his last months in the White House, have advanced briskly in terms of security and defense, economy and trade, tourism and culture. But the government in Rabat is still waiting for the Israeli executive to take the decisive step of recognizing Morocco’s sovereignty over Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony and a disputed territory where the Polisario Front proclaimed the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic in 1976.

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]]>STR<![CDATA[Tunisia banishes scores of sub-Saharan Africans to the desert after an outbreak of racial violence]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-07/tunisia-banishes-scores-of-sub-saharan-africans-to-the-desert-after-an-outbreak-of-racial-violence.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-07-07/tunisia-banishes-scores-of-sub-saharan-africans-to-the-desert-after-an-outbreak-of-racial-violence.htmlFri, 07 Jul 2023 23:46:25 +0000Bottled-up pressure in Sfax (located 270 kilometers [about 168 miles] south of Tunisia’s capital), the epicenter of irregular migration in the central Mediterranean, erupted with tinges of discrimination against thousands of sub-Saharan Africans. The Tunisian authorities expelled dozens of West African migrants from the port city to a desert area on the border with Libya following a wave of violence in which a Tunisian national was stabbed to death on Monday, local human rights NGOs reported on Wednesday night. Many of the more than 10,000 sub-Saharan Africans waiting in Sfax to board a boat for the Italian coast have regrouped at the railway station to try to escape a city taken over by security forces amid a climate of increasing harassment of black Africans.

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]]>HOUSSEM ZOUARI<![CDATA[Trapped in Tunisia: The deadly coast of clandestine immigration to Europe]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-04/trapped-in-tunisia-the-deadly-coast-of-clandestine-immigration-to-europe.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-06-04/trapped-in-tunisia-the-deadly-coast-of-clandestine-immigration-to-europe.htmlSun, 04 Jun 2023 23:20:34 +0000They try to walk like shadows, trying to be invisible, through a street market in Sfax, the commercial capital of Tunisia.

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]]><![CDATA[Morocco balances new alliance with Israel with traditional support for Palestinians ]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-13/morocco-balances-new-alliance-with-israel-with-traditional-support-for-palestinians.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2023-04-13/morocco-balances-new-alliance-with-israel-with-traditional-support-for-palestinians.htmlThu, 13 Apr 2023 13:46:37 +0000As tensions flare up in the Holy Land once again, Morocco finds itself torn between consolidating its new alliance with Israel, which has given Rabat a position of strength in the dispute over Western Sahara, and maintaining its traditional Arab support for the Palestinian cause in Jerusalem, which King Mohammed VI himself advances as chairman of the Al-Quds Committee of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

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]]><![CDATA[Pegasus, the secretive surveillance system at the service of Israel’s interests]]>https://english.elpais.com/international/2022-05-10/pegasus-the-secretive-surveillance-system-at-the-service-of-israels-interests.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/international/2022-05-10/pegasus-the-secretive-surveillance-system-at-the-service-of-israels-interests.htmlTue, 10 May 2022 16:10:18 +0000When the Mossad or the Shin Bet, Israel’s foreign and national intelligence agencies, do not want to leave clues, they turn to NSO, a company known for marketing a spyware known as Pegasus. The company is in the eye of the storm over claims that clients who bought Pegasus (in theory, only governments can purchase the program) spied on political opponents, diplomats and journalists in several parts of the world.

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]]><![CDATA[Spain seeks to improve relations with Israel after years of diplomatic distance ]]>https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-12-09/spain-seeks-to-improve-relations-with-israel-after-years-of-diplomatic-distance.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2020-12-09/spain-seeks-to-improve-relations-with-israel-after-years-of-diplomatic-distance.htmlWed, 09 Dec 2020 11:00:53 +0000It took Spain four decades to establish relations with the State of Israel, which was created in 1948, and nearly six years to end its recent protracted diplomatic distance with the country. After this long period of frosty relations, Arancha González Laya on Wednesday will become the first Spanish foreign affairs minister to officially visit Israel since 2015.

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]]><![CDATA[New fragments of Dead Sea Scrolls found for the first time in 60 years]]>https://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-03-19/new-fragments-of-dead-sea-scrolls-found-for-the-first-time-in-60-years.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/usa/2021-03-19/new-fragments-of-dead-sea-scrolls-found-for-the-first-time-in-60-years.htmlFri, 19 Mar 2021 10:55:04 +0000Israeli archeologists’ presentation this week of dozens of Dead Sea Scroll fragments is the first of its kind in six decades. The researchers also found a 6,000-year-old naturally mummified skeleton of a child and an intact woven basket thought to be 10,500 years old.

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]]>MENAHEM KAHANA<![CDATA[Spain at last welcomes back the Sephardim]]>https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/22/inenglish/1453467510_159674.htmlhttps://english.elpais.com/elpais/2016/01/22/inenglish/1453467510_159674.htmlFri, 22 Jan 2016 16:58:08 +0000“My friends have criticized me for having accepted a decoration that carries the name of a queen who forced our descendants to leave their home or convert to Christianity,” joked Azulay after the ceremony was over. “But I accepted because this symbolizes a new Spain, in the same way that this event symbolizes Sephardic Jews’ reunion with our origins.”

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]]>A. S.