Dec. 14 – Israelis and Palestinians appeared to inch closer to a ceasefire deal this week, after signaling a willingness to hammer out an agreement for the first time in 12 months.
The two countries have been locked in military conflict since Oct. 7 last year, when Hamas attacked Israel and killed more than 1,200 people. Israel vowed to put an end to Hamas and other Iran-backed proxy groups in the region and responded with a military offensive which has killed more than 44,000 people in the region.
The ceasefire deal is likely to be limited in scope, and could according to Israeli officials only include demands to release a handful of hostages and a short pause in the fighting.
Two men from Romania have been arrested and charged with the stabbing of journalist Pouria Zeraati, following the attack in London earlier this year.
Zeraati, who works for opposition newspaper Iran International and hosts a show which is often deeply critical of the theocracy, was stabbed in the leg outside his home in Wimbledon on March 29, leading to suspicions that the attack had been planned by Iranian officials.
The arrests were welcomed by the journalism community in London, several of whom continue to cover developments in Iran.
And the International Bar Association called on states to issue sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after Iran’s government passed increasingly draconian forced hijab legislation, targeting women and girls in the country.
The Bar Association said the new legislation was a “state-sponsored system of violence and domination, systematically stripping women of their dignity, freedom and right to live as equals in their own country,” and that it was a “brutal manifestation of gender apartheid, and a criminalization of women’s autonomy.”
