Good morning. Before we get into the news of the day, a bit of housekeeping.
I’ve been away from the newsletter for a few months, but this isn’t the grand return I’m sure you’ve all been eagerly awaiting. Instead, this will be my last First Edition (cue sad music). After three and a half years, I’m moving teams to join the Guardian’s international desk. So, farewell readers! It’s been real and a proper privilege to be the first port of call for many of you each morning. Apologies for the countless times I’m sure you’ve opened your inbox, bleary eyed, to be greeted by some alarming event. You’ll be in excellent hands with my brilliant colleagues Aamna Mohdin and Phoebe Weston over the summer.
Now, back to business, one final time.
Much attention has been focused on the US’s response to Israel’s bombardment and siege of Gaza. Activists, campaigners and human rights groups have been pushing hard for Washington to do more to pressure the Israeli government to comply with international law.
But there’s another major player that could exert real influence: the European Union. The EU was Israel’s biggest trading partner in 2024, accounting for 32% of Israeli exports, and Israel ranks as the EU’s third-largest trading partner in the region, after Morocco and Algeria. Many have argued that this economic leverage gives the EU the means to press Israel to uphold humanitarian law. Yet for the past 21 months, the bloc has been criticised for standing by while accusations of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity have been directed at Israel.
Just last month, the EU released a review that found Israel is breaching its human rights commitments under the terms of their association agreement. Still, there was no move to suspend trade. The decision has been called a “cruel and unlawful betrayal” of Palestinians and European values.
For today’s newsletter, I spoke with secretary general of Amnesty International, Dr Agnès Callamard, about the deep divisions within the EU. That’s right after the headlines.
Five big stories
UK news | The voting age will be lowered to 16 across the UK by the next general election in a major change of the democratic system. The government said the reform would bring in more fairness as 16- and 17-year-olds already work and are able to serve in the military.
US news | Donald Trump said on Thursday he had directed his attorney general, Pam Bondi, to seek the release of grand jury testimony related to Jeffrey Epstein’s sex-trafficking case as he sought to tamp down controversy over a story published by the Wall Street Journal alleging he contributed a sketch of a naked woman to Epstein’s 50th birthday album.
Israel-Gaza | An Israeli strike has hit the only Catholic church in Gaza, killing two people and injuring several others, including the parish priest, who used to receive daily calls from the late Pope Francis.
Labour | Diane Abbott has been suspended from the Labour party for a second time after saying she did not regret her past remarks on racism. In a statement to Newsnight on Thursday evening, Abbott said: “It is obvious this Labour leadership wants me out. My comments in the interview … were factually correct, as any fair-minded person would accept.”
Sudan | Children in Sudan, caught up in what aid organisations have called the world’s largest humanitarian crisis and threatened by rising levels of violence, are increasingly vulnerable to deadly infectious diseases as vaccinations in the country plummet.
In depth: ‘Failure to act breaches the EU’s own rules. It is spitting on your own constitution’
Israel’s full blockade on Gaza imposed earlier this year, along with the expansion of the military campaign, prompted the Netherlands to launch an audit in May to assess Israel’s compliance with the human rights clause of the EU-Israel association agreement.
Last month, much to the frustration of the Israeli government, the EU concluded that Israel had breached its human rights obligations in both Gaza and the West Bank. The bloc’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said that if the situation did not improve, the EU could consider “further measures” in July.
It now appears, however, that this was an empty threat. Earlier this week Kallas said the bloc would keep “options on the table” but will not be imposing any sanctions on Israel.
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What was on the table?
The EU was presented with 10 potential options for sanctioning Israel, ranging from suspending academic cooperation and visa-free travel, to blocking imports from Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories and ending political dialogue with Israel. None received the necessary support.
A full suspension of the association agreement, which underpins economic and political cooperation between the bloc and Israel, would require unanimous approval from all 27 member states. That was always going to be highly unlikely, given the outspoken support for Israel from a number of countries. However, “suspending the trade chapter” of the agreement, which would strip Israeli products of preferential access to the EU market, could be passed by a qualified majority vote. Even that did not pass.
“It’s absolutely clear that the failure to act breaches the EU’s own rules. It is legally bound to promote human rights in its external relations, including trade,” said Callamard. “This goes beyond a lack of political will. It is, in effect, spitting on your own constitution.”
The EU has been hamstrung, in large part, by divisions among its member states. On one side, Belgium, Finland, Ireland, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden have, to varying degrees, pushed for greater pressure on Israel. On the other stand Hungary, Germany and the Czech Republic, Israel’s closest allies in the bloc.
Because consensus is required for many of the most consequential policies, “multilateral institutions are paralysed and failing to grasp the historical significance of what we are confronting,” Callamard said. The tide appears to be turning, however, Brussels correspondent Jennifer Rankin notes in her report, as the Netherlands, the country that pushed for the review into Israel’s trade ties with the EU, has historically been a close ally of Israel.
As the EU continues to trundle on, other avenues for pressuring Israel, whether symbolic or more substantive, are being explored. Ireland, for example, is the first EU member to draft legislation that would ban imports from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
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How much leverage does the EU actually have?
The EU holds substantial economic leverage. The 30-year-old agreement represents a trade relationship worth €68bn between the bloc and Israel. Israel has also secured grants worth €831m as a member of the EU’s flagship science research programme, Horizon, since 2021. Any disruption from the bloc could place serious strain on Israel’s economy, already burdened by the escalating cost of the war in Gaza and the wider region.
“There is a great deal of economic trade involving the occupied territories, so putting an end to trade with the occupied territories and the settlement economy will have a huge impact on the Israeli economy,” Callamard said.
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What is the rest of the world doing?
Many of the world’s most powerful nations have done little to halt the catastrophe in Gaza. In fact, several have continued to support Israel, albeit with increasing caveats as the scale of the horror has become impossible to ignore or deny.
But elsewhere, there has been some movement. The Hague Group, a coalition of countries from the global south that is seeking to hold Israel accountable for abuses in Gaza, was formed by South Africa and Colombia. It now also includes Algeria, Brazil, Spain, Indonesia and Qatar, among others.
Callamard said that while it is encouraging to see these countries take action, they remain in the minority. “The Hague Group is a great initiative, and we have been supporting it from the very first meeting, but it’s not big or strong enough right now to balance out the silence, the cowardice or the complicity of other powerful countries,” she said. “There is no way around it. We absolutely need European countries to act in accordance with their own rules, in accordance with their history and in accordance with international law. Nothing is going to shift if we don’t see that happening.”
What else we’ve been reading
The sex scandal engulfing Thailand’s Buddhist clergy has shocked the country, and raised important questions about money, power and titles, writes Rebecca Ratcliffe and Navaon Siradapuvadol. Aamna
The flood of anti-immigration policies under Donald Trump can be difficult to track, but this brilliant visualisation by Rita Liu and Nina Lakhani powerfully illustrates their impact on one specific industry in the US. Nimo
This extraordinary joint investigation by my colleagues details clearly how revenues from the GBU-39 bomb, which have killed children, generated by the US arm of MBDA flow through the UK – defying the ban on weapons sale to Israel. Aamna
Emine Saner offers a terrifying yet useful rundown of everyday items that are unexpectedly crawling with bacteria (and no, your toilet isn’t one of them). Nimo
The Afghanistan data leak story is mindboggling. But beneath the political scandal lies the betrayal and fear of thousands of human beings. This piece, which centres their voices, is crucial reading. Aamna
Sport
Football | England has reached their sixth consecutive major tournament semi-final with a gut-busting performance in the Women’s Euros, to come from two goals down against Sweden to draw before sealing victory via a penalty shootout.
Golf | The Open 2025 favourite, Rory McIlroy, started with a bungled opening tee shot but escaped with a bogey and showed glimpses of good form at Royal Portrush. As darkness fell, five players topped the pack at four under: Matt Fitzpatrick, Jacob Skov Olesen, Haotong Li, Christiaan Bezuidenhout and Harris English.
Rugby | Marcus Smith has defied the odds to be named on the bench for the British & Irish Lions’ first Test against Australia, while Tom Curry and Sione Tuipulotu have been selected to start in Brisbane on Saturday.
The front pages
The Guardian splashes on “Diane Abbott suspended by Labour for second time,” the Times leads on “Afghan data leak named British spies and soldiers,” and the FT has “Reeves under fire as Britain sheds jobs for a fifth month.” The Telegraph is leading on “Votes at 16 as Starmer panics over Reform,” the i Paper has “UK gives the vote to teens age 16 – with Reform and Corbyn likely to benefit,” the Mirror goes with “16-year-olds to vote in next election” and for the Express, it’s “Labour in for ‘nasty voter surprise’” on the same topic. The Mail splashes on “Police to use facial recognition cameras at Notting Hill Carnival.”
Something for the weekend
Our critics’ roundup of the best things to watch, read, play and listen to right now
TV
Bookish | ★★★★☆
Bookish is a six-part detective drama starring Mark Gatiss as Gabriel Book, a secondhand bookseller in postwar London with a mysterious past and a “letter from Churchill” that lets him assist in police cases. Alongside the weekly mysteries, the series delicately explores Book’s life as a closeted gay man in 1946, adding depth and warmth. Bookish is a fine piece of entertainment: meticulously worked, beautifully paced and decidedly moreish. Lucy Mangan
Film
Friendship | ★★★★☆
Here is a goofy-surreal comedy from first-time feature-maker Andrew DeYoung, starring sketch comic Tim Robinson and Paul Rudd; it is potentially as divisive as a Vimto-Marmite cocktail. This is a shaggy dog tale of ineffable silliness, operating ostensibly on the realist lines of indie US cinema but sauntering sideways from its initial premise, getting further and further from what had appeared to be a real issue: how difficult it is for grown men to make new friends. Peter Bradshaw
Theatre
Sara Pascoe: I Am a Strange Gloop | ★★★★☆
This touring show finds Sara Pascoe staggering shell-shocked from the soft play area to the stage, with battle-hardened tales from motherhood’s frontline. Banished from the centre of her own life, she now endures an existence “that makes The Handmaid’s Tale look progressive”, cleaning up after sons, fielding poos and playing canvas for vomit. There’s also fine material on Sisyphus and capitalism, and a running joke about Paula Radcliffe. Brian Logan
Music
Jim Legxacy: Black British Music | ★★★★★
Black British Music is brighter, poppier, bolder in its stylistic leaps, lurching without warning from idiosyncratic pop R&B to the alt-rock of ’06 Wayne Rooney. It feels like the work of someone who has grown up with the all-you-can-eat buffet of streaming, hurling contrasting ideas in a state of excitement. There are distorted Chemical Brothers-worthy beats, Frank Ocean hints in Legxacy’s vocals, and bedroom pop on Dexters Phone Call. It’s risky, but held together by Legxacy’s melodic production and songwriting. Alexis Petridis
Today in Focus
Why thousands of Afghans were secretly relocated to the UK
A number of Afghans who had worked for British forces and applied for asylum in the UK were informed this week that some of their personal data “may have been compromised” – and that their asylum applications had been leaked. Helen Pidd speaks with Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor, about what is likely the biggest – and most expensive – data leak in British government history, and with former Afghan judge Marzia Babakarkhail about how Afghans fear the data list could endanger their lives.
Cartoon of the day | Ben Jennings
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
It’s no secret that the art world has an elitist air around it. That’s why George the Poet, podcaster and spoken word performer, has teamed up with the Violence Reduction Unit to remove barriers to entry by reinventing classic art in an immersive exhibition. “When it comes to immersive art, there are no barriers to entry,” said George. His hopes are to give more underrepresented groups access to the arts.
The exhibition will be reimagining art cult classics – such as The Scream, The Great Wave, Christ on the Sea of Galilee and The Garden of Earthly Delights – during the summer at Frameless, an immersive art space in London.
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s puzzles are here to keep you entertained throughout the day. Until tomorrow.
