Jonathan Sacerdoti

The government has approved a request from the Metropolitan Police to ban the annual Al-Quds day march in London, which was due to take place this Sunday. The Home Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, said the decision was necessary to prevent ‘serious public disorder’. The Met cited the expected scale of the protest, the likelihood of large counter-demonstrations, and the wider tensions generated by the conflict in the Middle East. Each year the same scenes returned: Hezbollah banners, chants celebrating the ‘resistance’, speakers denouncing Zionism as an open expression of hostility towards Jews The march itself will not take place. A stationary protest may still occur under strict conditions. While this is a significant decision, it is also absurdly late.

The war with Iran entered its second week on Saturday with intense fighting across multiple fronts, as Israeli forces struck deep inside Iran while Tehran retaliated with missiles and drones across the region. Political rhetoric in Washington and Jerusalem meanwhile suggested the conflict could widen further still. The day began with reports of renewed Israeli air operations across Iran. The Israeli military said more than 80 aircraft had taken part in a wave of strikes targeting infrastructure linked to Iran’s missile and military programmes. Israeli officials said the attacks hit a series of facilities including missile storage sites, weapons factories and command compounds used by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Israeli and American military operations against Iranian targets intensified over Thursday, while Iran and its proxy militias across the region sought ways to retaliate across a widening geographic arc. The day began with reports of expanding hostilities around Iran’s borders. Early in the morning, Iranian positions in eastern parts of the country – including areas around Zahedan near the borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan – were reportedly struck, with air-defence systems activated in response. Opposition sources claimed the targets were military facilities in a region with a strong Sunni Baloch population that has long opposed the Iranian regime. At roughly the same time, the conflict appeared to spill into the South Caucasus.

If anti-Israel agitators wish to avoid being described as terrorists, they might begin by ceasing to terrorise ordinary people. The smashing of the Gail’s branch in Archway, north London, red paint flung across its walls, slogans sprayed beside its door, is the latest instalment in a now familiar pattern: vandalism presented as virtue, intimidation dressed up as solidarity. The activists call it protest, but let’s call it by its real name: menace. To vandalise Gail's in the name of Gaza is a deliberate effort to intimidate and must be treated as such The branch’s windows were broken twice within a single week. Slogans reading “Reject corporate Zionism” and “Boycott” were sprayed across the frontage, an anarchist symbol scrawled beside the entrance.

Perhaps the biggest talent of humanity is our gift to adapt to challenging circumstances with creativity and ingenuity. It may also be our biggest fault. Just two days after I stood in the central Gaza Strip, touring the area and seeing the Yellow Line for myself, the IDF yesterday announced another serious breach of the ceasefire. The Yellow Line is a mutually agreed demarcation. Both Israelis and Palestinians are supposed to remain on their respective sides. When I was there last week, officers explained how frequently that boundary is tested. They spoke about sniper fire, explosives planted near positions, and attempts to edge forward under cover. The pattern, they said, is persistent. Israel holds its fire unless a clear threat emerges. Hamas probes.