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A former Hamas leader said the group was holding 200 to 250 people captive, but was focused on securing the release of thousands of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. Khaled Meshaal, who now heads Hamas’s diaspora office and still holds an important position in its leadership, said during an interview with Qatar-based Al Araby

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Hospitals in Gaza are likely to run out of fuel within 24 hours, putting the lives of thousands of patients at “immediate risk”, the UN warned as Israel lays siege to the enclave in response

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The US is sending a second aircraft carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean in a bid to ease tensions in the region as Israel prepares a ground offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Tens of thousands of Palestinians fled northern Gaza for a second day ahead of an evacuation deadline, as Israel extended an aerial bombardment and carried out limited raids into the enclave to search for hostages

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. Israel’s military on Friday called for the evacuation of Palestinians from the northern Gaza strip to southern Gaza, in a move the UN said would affect 1.1mn people and could result in a “calamitous situation”.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. US secretary of state Antony Blinken is due to arrive in Israel on Thursday as Washington steps up efforts to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiralling into a regional conflict. His visit comes hours after

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. As much of Israel slept on Saturday, Hamas militants launched an unprecedented, multipronged dawn assault on the country from the Gaza Strip. The Middle East’s most powerful security force was caught off guard. Hundreds are

The Israeli military bombarded targets in the Gaza Strip overnight and said it had secured its breached border barrier with the enclave, three days after an unprecedented incursion by the militant group Hamas into Israel triggered the country’s worst war in decades. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled their homes, according to the UN, after

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter. The Israeli military bombarded more than 200 targets in the Gaza Strip overnight and said it had secured its border with the enclave, three days after an incursion by Hamas triggered the worst war on

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Benjamin Netanyahu warned that Israel faced a “long and difficult war”, as its forces continued to wage gun battles with Palestinian militants on Sunday morning following the unprecedented multipronged attack by Hamas that stunned the

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. Israel declared a “state of alert for war” on Saturday after Hamas launched its biggest attack on the country for years, firing a barrage of rockets and sending militants across the border from the Gaza

Stay informed with free updates Simply sign up to the Metro Bank myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox. A group of Metro Bank bondholders contacted the UK lender’s board on Monday offering a £600mn capital injection, but the company has yet to accept the offer, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Receive free Metro Bank updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Metro Bank news every morning. Metro Bank’s chair and chief executive have been summoned to urgent talks with the UK’s top financial regulators today, after the bank’s share price plunged 28 per cent following reports of a large

Rishi Sunak axed the northern leg of the HS2 high-speed rail line to Manchester, promised sweeping education reforms and announced a smoking crackdown as he told the Conservative party conference he would take “radical” decisions to change Britain. The prime minister argued that £36bn could be saved by scrapping HS2 north of Birmingham, and that

Receive free US Treasury bonds updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest US Treasury bonds news every morning. The yield on 30-year US Treasuries hit a 16-year peak on Tuesday and German and Italian borrowing costs hit their highest levels for more than a decade as the global bond

Receive free Conservative Party UK updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Conservative Party UK news every morning. Jeremy Hunt, UK chancellor, has announced a £1bn plan to squeeze civil service numbers. Hunt told the Conservative party conference in Manchester he would freeze recruitment to the civil service, which

US president Joe Biden said America would “not walk away” from Ukraine after Congress jettisoned $6bn in aid to avert a government shutdown, even as Republicans tied further funding to the contentious issue of border security. “I want to assure our American allies, the American people and the people in Ukraine that you can count

Receive free BP PLC updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest BP PLC news every morning. The allegations that prompted Bernard Looney’s resignation from BP included an accusation that the chief executive promoted women with whom he had undisclosed past relationships, according to people familiar with the matter. The

Receive free Eurozone inflation updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Eurozone inflation news every morning. Eurozone inflation has fallen to its lowest level for almost two years, bolstering hopes that the biggest surge in consumer prices for a generation is fading fast and paving the way for the

Receive free Sovereign bonds updates We’ll send you a myFT Daily Digest email rounding up the latest Sovereign bonds news every morning. European government bond prices dropped sharply on Thursday as investors took fright at Italy’s larger than expected budget deficit and mounting concerns that central banks will keep interest rates high for an extended