Politics

The biggest losers of the election appear to be the Greens, who have seen their support plummet by a quarter compared to five years ago. However, the Greens, with their 53 seats, could play an important role by strengthening centrist majorities as an alternative to far-right parties. Final data from all 27 EU countries is expected to be made public early Monday morning. The results appear to have largely maintained the balance of power in the European Parliament, which approves legislation, the bloc's budget and its top leaders, including the president of the powerful European Commission, the EU's executive branch. The first test for the weak centrist majority will be the approval of the new president of the European Commission, expected in July. Von der Leyen, who was approved for her p...

For months, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has refused to offer a timeline for ending the war against Hamas in Gaza, a reticence that his critics see as a political tactic. But he was put in difficulty by President Biden's announcement outlining a proposed truce. Netanyahu, a conservative, has long juggled competing personal, political and national interests. Now he appears to face a difficult choice between the survival of his tough, uncompromising government and the return home of hostages held in Gaza, as he sets himself and Israel on a new course away from growing international isolation. The prime minister's critics have painted him as indecisive and say there are two Netanyahus. One, they say, functions pragmatically in the small war cabinet he has formed with some cen...

De Waal of Carnegie Europe said that while Georgia wants to stay out of the conflict in Ukraine, it “sees the war blowing more in Russia's direction. It is leaning more towards Russia as it seeks to remain non-aligned.” The Georgian government, while officially aspiring to join the European Union, a goal widely supported by the population, has used the fear of Russian retaliation to justify its refusal to join the European sanctions against Moscow. The ruling Georgian Dream party, Turmanidze said, would never say it was siding with Russia against Ukraine because “it would be political suicide,” given public hostility towards Moscow. But it has adopted measures, particularly a controversial foreign influence law that sparked weeks of street protests, that “are Russian-style,” he added. M...

“We need revenge,” said one protester, Noam Goldstein, 15, a high school student from a small Israeli settlement near the West Bank Palestinian city of Hebron. “They committed attacks against us, so we must be avenged. That doesn't mean we have to kill every last one of them." But he added: “I want all this land to be ours.” After Israel's founding in 1948, Jerusalem was divided in two: Israel controlled the city's western neighborhoods, while Jordan controlled the largely Palestinian east Jerusalem. During the 1967 Middle East War, Israel captured East Jerusalem and later annexed it, a move not recognized by most countries, which still consider it occupied territory. Tensions inflamed by the annual demonstration to commemorate the seizure of power helped spark an 11-day confl...

During The Times' visit to Al Aqsa, doctors were seen pushing through crowds of panicked people to try to reach operating rooms, delayed by the mass of people. Amid the confusion, Ms. Huster said, doctors sometimes rushed fatally injured people into operating rooms, wasting vital time for those who still had a chance of survival. Ms. Huster said most of the people she had treated in recent days were women and children. Early Thursday afternoon, after burying a friend he had pulled from the rubble of the school complex, Mr. Abu Ammar once again found himself in hospital. This time he was accompanied by his friend's brother, who he was trying to cram into a corridor near the entrance. The brother's face was cut by shrapnel and he had a deep gash in his right leg. But he wasn't the only on...