Gaza: At least 80 killed in strikes as Israel warns people to evacuate north
Israel had warned people to evacuate areas in North Gaza, Gaza City and Deir el-Balah.
They were urged to head south but 80 per cent of the strip is now an Israeli-militarized zone or under evacuation orders with new orders in place now for Khan Younis and Rafah.
At least 20 people were killed this afternoon in an Israeli strike on a beachfront Al-Baqa Cafe in Gaza City.
Warning: this report contains disturbing images
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Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Homes burning after mass pillaging and 30,000 trapped in besieged city - as Syria's fragile ceasefire holds
The main road entering the besieged Syrian city of Sweida from the west has changed dramatically over 12 hours. A bulldozer, parked on the side of the road, has been used to create several berms to form a sand barrier around 25km (16 miles) from the city centre. Dozens of Syrian security forces were standing in lines in front of the barricades when we arrived, and there were forces further up the road stopping vehicles from going any further. The Arab tribal fighters we'd seen fighting furiously inside the city the day before were now all camped alongside the road. Some were sleeping on the back of their pick-ups. "We're not giving up," one shouted to us as we walked towards the checkpoint. The ceasefire agreement between Druze leaders who are bunkered down inside the city and the Bedouins - and the tribal fighters who have flocked to join them - has frustrated some. Some of them, waiting with guns slung over their backs, are itching to return to battle. But for now, tribal leaders have instructed them to hold fire. How long that will last is probably key to Syria's future and whether it can be a peaceful one. Khalaf al Modhi, the head of a group of tribes called United Tribes, told the group of fighters: "We are not against the Druze. We are not here to kill the Druze." But he spent many minutes castigating the senior Druze cleric inside Sweida whom many of the tribes see as the agitator behind the violent clashes. Hikmat al Hijiri is head of a Druze faction that is deeply suspicious of the new government led by Ahmed al Sharaa and is resisting ceding power to Damascus. The retreat of the Arab tribes from the city centre means the Druze militia under Hijiri's control are now the ones deciding who goes in or out of the city. About 30,000 mostly Druze people are thought to be trapped inside the city and surrounding towns, with no electricity, little internet and dwindling supplies of food and water. The humanitarian situation is dramatically worsening by the day. But at the time of writing, there were still no agreed safe corridors to bring out those pinned inside. On top of this, there are nearly 130,000 people displaced and forced out of their homes because of the fighting, according to UN estimates. Maintaining the ceasefire is key to ensuring solutions are found to help those suffering, and quickly. It's also the most serious challenge facing the new Syrian leader and his interim government. The level of distrust between the Hijiri-led Druze faction and the new government is strong and deep. So much so that the Druze leaders have refused to accept truckloads of aid organised by any of the government outlets. The new Syrian leader has struggled to convince the country's minorities that their safety under his leadership is assured. Druze civilians and human rights activists reported mass killings and executions of Druze by government troops who were sent in last week to quell the latest clashes between the Druze and Arab Bedouins who have been at odds for many years. Government forces pulled out of the city only after Israel unleashed a spate of airstrikes, saying they were defending the Druze. The bombings killed hundreds of Syrian troops. But with the withdrawal of the government troops, the Arab Bedouin population said the city's Druze militia embarked on a string of revenge atrocities. That in turn led to thousands of tribal fighters massing from around the country to defend their Arab brethren. When we were inside the city, we saw multiple corpses lying on the streets, and many appeared to have been killed with a shot to the head. Homes and businesses are still burning after mass pillaging as fighters retreated. And now, there is a growing humanitarian disaster unfolding.
The National
2 hours ago
- The National
Unions are in grave place and need help from Labour
June 6 was the 25th anniversary of the introduction of the statutory union recognition mechanism. This procedure provides the means by which unions can compel employers by law to recognise them for collective bargaining on behalf of their members' terms and conditions if certain support thresholds are met. The introduction of the statutory union recognition mechanism was the key part of Tony Blair's 'New' Labour 'fairness at work' policy. It was put on the statute book in the form of the Employment Relations Act 1999. READ MORE: 'Beyond shameful': Harvie urges SNP to explain secret talks with Israeli diplomat In both the manifesto, from which Labour won a massive landslide majority of 179 seats, and then in the Fairness at Work White Paper 1998 which preceded the Act, the party pledged to introducing a statutory right to union recognition 'where a majority of the relevant workforce wishes it'. 'Simples', as the catchphrase of the meerkat, Aleksandr Orlov, of the Compare the Meerkat advert has it. Except that nothing is ever that 'simples' with New Labour. The pledge was watered down and qualified in a whole host of ways at the behest of big business. For example, all the votes for union recognition in a ballot of the workforce bargaining group had to also equate to 40% of all those entitled to vote. In other words, non-voters were counted as No voters. Meanwhile, the bargaining unit chosen by the union had to be deemed to be 'compatible with effective management'. In the 25 years since June 6, 2000, just 1473 applications had been made for union recognition, an average of only 60 a year. Many of these were re-applications because some 20% of the applications were withdrawn before being subject to the first part of the adjudication. The reasons were because the unions had made mistakes in their applications or because employers had deliberately recruited more workers in order to reduce the relative level of support for union recognition. And, to boot, only a third of total applications were actually successful in gaining union recognition in the end. It's not rocket science to think that a more complex and challenging procedure with more thresholds to be passed has something to do with these poor outcomes. READ MORE: How long before the 'rebel' Labour MPs jump ship to Corbyn's party? It's also not rocket science to think that the statutory union recognition mechanism is an inversion of the 'fairness not favours' promise Blair made. Under pressure from the right-wing media like the Daily Mail not to cave in to the unions – as if that was ever likely – Blair promised 'fairness not favours', hence, the nomenclature of 'fairness at work'. But the favours were given to big business, and fairness was not given to the unions and their members. Not doing the Labour thing is what Labour do, as Gerry Hassan put it in the Sunday National at the end of March this year. Karl Marx's remark that 'history repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce' is extremely apposite when it comes to Keir Starmer's Employment Rights Bill. It is the flagship piece of legislation emanating from Labour's New Deal for Working People. The bill is expected to go on the statute book in the autumn after gaining Royal Assent but many of its measures will no be implemented until the autumn of 2026. Again very 'New' Labour. Where the tragedy of the Employment Relations Act 1999 becomes the farce of the soon-to-be Employment Rights Act 2025 is precisely on the issue of union recognition. Significant reforms to union recognition and collective bargaining are set out in the legislation but the crucial weakness is that Labour is not also providing a robust right for unions to have access to workers for recruiting and organising. It simply gives them the right to ask a government body, the Central Arbitration Committee, for this access, but this government body has no powers of enforcement of access rights over employers. The most it can do is fine employers. READ MORE: Westminster will never feel any heat from the FM's hot air and bluff This then undermines the significant improvements being made to the right to union recognition through lowering the levels of worker support needed to gain it from an employer. In other words, the legislation gives with one hand but takes away with the other. Unions are in a grave position at the moment. The latest data, for 2024, shows that union density – the proportion of all workers in a union – has now fallen to an all-time low of 22%. In the private sector, which is much bigger than the public sector, density is just 12%. Unions need to be shown favours in order to allow them to perform their historic role of creating fairness in the economy. Labour has shown itself again not to be the party capable of doing that. Gregor Gall is a visiting professor of industrial relations at the University of Leeds and author of the 'Mick Lynch: The making of a working-class hero' (Manchester University Press, 2024).
Sky News
6 hours ago
- Sky News
Homes still burning after mass pillaging and 30,000 trapped in besieged city - as Syria's fragile ceasefire holds
The main road entering the besieged Syrian city of Sweida from the west has changed dramatically over 12 hours. A bulldozer, parked on the side of the road, has been used to create several berms to form a sand barrier around 25km (16 miles) from the city centre. Dozens of Syrian security forces were standing in lines in front of the barricades when we arrived, and there were forces further up the road stopping vehicles from going any further. The Arab tribal fighters we'd seen fighting furiously inside the city the day before were now all camped alongside the road. Some were sleeping on the back of their pick-ups. "We're not giving up," one shouted to us as we walked towards the checkpoint. The ceasefire agreement between Druze leaders who are bunkered down inside the city and the Bedouins - and the tribal fighters who have flocked to join them - has frustrated some. Some of them, waiting with guns slung over their backs, are itching to return to battle. But for now, tribal leaders have instructed them to hold fire. How long that will last is probably key to Syria's future and whether it can be a peaceful one. Khalaf al Modhi, the head of a group of tribes called United Tribes, told the group of fighters: "We are not against the Druze. We are not here to kill the Druze." But he spent many minutes castigating the senior Druze cleric inside Sweida whom many of the tribes see as the agitator behind the violent clashes. Hikmat al Hijiri is head of a Druze faction that is deeply suspicious of the new government led by Ahmed al Sharaa and is resisting ceding power to Damascus. The retreat of the Arab tribes from the city centre means the Druze militia under Hijiri's control are now the ones deciding who goes in or out of the city. About 30,000 mostly Druze people are thought to be trapped inside the city and surrounding towns, with no electricity, little internet and dwindling supplies of food and water. The humanitarian situation is dramatically worsening by the day. But at the time of writing, there were still no agreed safe corridors to bring out those pinned inside. On top of this, there are nearly 130,000 people displaced and forced out of their homes because of the fighting, according to UN estimates. Maintaining the ceasefire is key to ensuring solutions are found to help those suffering, and quickly. It's also the most serious challenge facing the new Syrian leader and his interim government. The level of distrust between the Hijiri-led Druze faction and the new government is strong and deep. So much so that the Druze leaders have refused to accept truckloads of aid organised by any of the government outlets. The new Syrian leader has struggled to convince the country's minorities that their safety under his leadership is assured. Druze civilians and human rights activists reported mass killings and executions of Druze by government troops who were sent in last week to quell the latest clashes between the Druze and Arab Bedouins who have been at odds for many years. Government forces pulled out of the city only after Israel unleashed a spate of airstrikes, saying they were defending the Druze. The bombings killed hundreds of Syrian troops. But with the withdrawal of the government troops, the Arab Bedouin population said the city's Druze militia embarked on a string of revenge atrocities. That in turn led to thousands of tribal fighters massing from around the country to defend their Arab brethren. When we were inside the city, we saw multiple corpses lying on the streets, and many appeared to have been killed with a shot to the head. Homes and businesses are still burning after mass pillaging as fighters retreated. And now, there is a growing humanitarian disaster unfolding.
