Israel-Lebanon live: Hezbollah drone attack kills 4 Israeli soldiers as US to deploy Thaad missile system

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday urged other members of the European Union to respond to Madrid and Ireland’s request to suspend the bloc’s free trade agreement with Israel over its actions in Gaza and Lebanon.

For months, both Spain and Ireland have been in talks with other EU countries who want a review of the EU-Israel Association Agreement on the basis that Israel may be breaching the agreement’s human rights clause.

Palestinian medics said on Monday that at least 10 people were killed and at least 30 injured in Israeli airstrikes on a food distribution center in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, with casualties including women and children.

Two events took place last weekend in Germany. At a conference in Berlin called The Big Chill, a group of thinkers and activists denounced what they called “anticipatory obedience” in which Germans, including Jews, had been “muted, de-platformed and stigmatised” for criticising Israel’s response to the atrocities of 7 October 2023.

At the same time, in a small town called Zeitz in eastern Germany, 10 “stumbling stones”, small memorial brass plates denoting the homes of Jews taken to be exterminated in concentration camps, were ripped up. “Whoever did this wants to tear the Holocaust out of our memory,” a leading local politician, Götz Ulrich, declared.

The sad fact is both sets of assertions are largely true. And yet, it was a weekend like any other and neither event received particular coverage.

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Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi yesterday said that the Middle East faces “dangerous challenges” as Tehran anticipates an Israeli strike.

“Iran does not seek war, but we are prepared for war,” Mr Araghchi said at a news conference in Baghdad after meeting with his Iraqi counterpart.

Meanwhile, Iraqi foreign minister Fouad Hussein said Israel was forbidden from using Iraq’s airspace in any possible strike against Iran.

Baghdad’s top diplomat said an outbreak of regional war will create not only a global crisis but also fertile ground for the re-emergence of extremist groups like the Islamic State.“We are trying to keep the conflict away from the region and Iraq,” he said.

US defence secretary Lloyd Austin, in a call with his Israeli counterpart, stressed the importance of Israel taking all necessary measures to ensure the safety and security of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces, the Pentagon said.

Mr Austin, in the call with Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant, also reinforced the need to pivot from military operations in Lebanon to a diplomatic pathway to provide security for civilians as soon as feasible.

He said that steps must be taken soon to address the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza, Pentagon spokesperson Major General Patrick Ryder said in the statement.