Ten things we learned this week

Ebola is taking hold in western Africa

The ebola virus. Photograph: Frederick A Murphy/EPA

It has been spreading through Guinea, getting very little international media attention, since February. But now that the estimated death toll has reached 672 and the disease has spread to the neighbouring countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone, Ebola is being deemed an international threat. On 20 July a Liberian civil servant collapsed after getting off a plane in Nigeria’s capital Lagos, the most populous city on the continent. He was rushed to hospital where he died of what was later confirmed to be Ebola. On Wednesday, foreign secretary Philip Hammond called an emergency Cobra meeting to discuss threat of the outbreak to Britain. The upshot? Britain has the expertise and resources to fend off the disease.

The death toll in Gaza has topped 1,400

Palestinians inspect their destroyed homes in Gaza. Photograph: Landov/Barcroft Media

The death toll in Gaza and Israeli military losses are now greater than in both previous rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas. On Thursday Palestinian officials in Gaza said that the four-week operation had left around 8,200 people wounded and local non-governmental organisations said that up to 80% of Palestinian casualties were civilians. Three Israeli civilians and 56 soldiers have been killed so far.

On Friday, at 8am local time, a 72-hour ceasefire was agreed between Israel and Hamas before being broken hours later.

Most Russians think the Ukrainians downed MH17

Russian president Vladimir Putin has placed blame on the Ukrainian government. Photograph: Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images

According to a poll conducted by the Levada Centre, an independent Russian research organisation, 82% of Russians surveyed blamed Ukrainian forces for the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 on 17 July, killing all 298 people on board. Of 1,501 respondents surveyed in Russia’s six biggest cities, 46% said they believed a Ukrainian surface-to-air missile was responsible, and 36% said a Ukrainian warplane had shot it down. Only 3% believed the rebels in eastern Ukraine were responsible for shooting down the plane. Sixteen per cent said they didn’t know.

“A different reality has been created on television, where there are different theories, different history, different images, which equate the Ukrainian forces with fascists,” said Denis Volkok, a sociologist at the Levada Centre.

Cameron needs to be more careful with his PR stunts

David Cameron and Theresa May visit a house that has just been raided in Slough. Photograph: Oli Scarff/PA

David Cameron was criticised for taking part in a PR stunt involving posing for pictures in the home of people detained in Slough for suspected immigration offences. The aim of the exercise was to demonstrate the government’s tough approach to illegal immigrants, but the photographs of Cameron and Theresa May laughing in the kitchen of four Albanian men who had just been arrested was labelled tasteless by some.

“Who gave Mr Cameron permission to look round these premises? Being prime minister doesn’t give you the right to enter private property willy-nilly,” said Shami Chakrabarti, the director of Liberty.

BBC Trust chairman is a political role

Sebastian Coe has removed himself from the running to be the chairman of the BBC Trust. Photograph: Philip Toscano/PA

The Conservatives were understandably miffed when their preferred candidate for chairman of the BBC Trust Lord Coe dropped out of the running. Coe told the Daily Mail that he’d withdrawn his name from consideration because of the time commitments the job would entail and his need to focus on the upcoming election for the presidency of the International Association of Athletics Federations.

Cameron and George Osborne were understood to be in full support of Coe’s application – so much so that they changed the job specifications to suit him, reducing the number of hours it entailed.

Spain’s former king Juan Carlos isn’t totally immune from prosecution

Juan Carlos during his last audience as king. Photograph: Michael Murdock/Corbis

Spain‘s supreme court is considering whether it will hear a paternity suit lodged by a Spanish waiter against the former king, Juan Carlos. When Carlos handed the throne to his son Felipe in June he lost the legal immunity he enjoyed during his 39-year reign.

Alberto Solà Jiménez, 58, who was adopted as a child, claims that his biological mother, who was part of a prominent Catalan banking family, had a relationship with Juan Carlos before he became king.

Shortly after Juan Carlos’s abdication, the Spanish government rushed through a law that would give the former king a certain degree of immunity from legal proceedings, although not from cases taken to the high court. It had been suggested that this was partly due to the threat of paternity suits filed by Solà Jiménez and a Belgian, Ingrid Jeanne Satiau, who also claims that Juan Carlos is her father.

Bolt might think the Commonwealth Games are ‘a bit shit’

Usain Bolt. Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA

The second week of the Commonwealth Games has widely been seen as a success. But star attraction Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt was apparently less enthusiastic. Bolt allegedly told Times journalist Katie Gibbons that the event was “a bit shit”.



The fastest sprinter in history was quoted as saying that he was “not really” having fun and that the Olympics was a “much better” tournament. Bolt took to Twitter to dispute the claims made by Gibbons, tweeting “I’m waking up to this nonsense. journalist please don’t create lies to make headlines.”

— Usain St. Leo Bolt (@usainbolt) July 30, 2014

I'm waking up to this nonsense..journalist please don't create lies to make headlines

The Times’s Scottish editor, Angus Macleod, stood by his reporter on Twitter: “He was simply asked if he was enjoying Glasgow. And I trust my reporter.”

Life is about to get harder for naughty drunks

Boris Johnson holds a sobriety tag. Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA

In a 12-month trial scheme, launched by London mayor Boris Johnson, persistent offenders of alcohol-related crimes will be fitted with tags that monitor the levels of alcohol in their system. The “sobriety tags” will measure a person’s perspiration every half an hour to make sure he or she is alcohol free. It is estimated that up to 150 tags will be issued once the new scheme is trialled in four London boroughs: Croydon, Lambeth, Southwark and Sutton.



“I pledged to tackle this booze culture by making the case to government for new powers to allow mandatory alcohol testing as an additional enforcement option for the courts,” said Johnson. “This is an approach that has seen impressive results in the US.”

Laughter is the best medicine

Turkish women have been posting selfies of themselves laughing on social media. Photograph: /Getty creative

When addressing celebratory crowds in the city of Bursa to celebrate the end of Ramadan, the Turkish deputy prime minister decided to focus on the cheery topic of “moral corruption in Turkey”. “A woman should be chaste,” he said. “She should know the difference between public and private. She should not laugh in public.”



Social media users were quick to respond, with many Turkish women posting photos of themselves laughing in defiance. The hash tag #kahkaha, which means “laughter” in Turkish, proliferated on the social network soon after the controversial comments were made.

Argentina is defaulting on its debts, again

People walk in front of the Argentine economy ministry. Photograph: Victor R. Caivano/AP

After two days of failed talks in New York, it was announced on Wednesday that Argentina would be defaulting on its debts for the second time in the last 13 years. The financially troubled nation is defaulting on $1.3b and the news caused the Meveral, Argentina’s national stock market, to plummet on Thursday.



Argentina’s economy mnister Axel Kicillof delivered an address on the night of the failed talks, going on to describe “vulture funds” who were demanding a full payout that they could simply not afford at the present time.

Gaza ceasefire collapses as fighting breaks out after two hours

The humanitarian truce in Gaza has collapsed after two hours with fierce fighting in the south of the enclave, the capture by Hamas of an Israeli soldier and a formal Israeli announcement that it would resume its military operation.

Israeli tank fire on the southern town of Rafah was reported to have killed at least 40 Palestinians on Friday, turning what was intended to be the first day of calm into one of the deadliest days in Gaza so far. Hamas launched rockets towards Israel, while fierce small-arms fire and artillery shelling erupted at Beit Hanoun and Gaza’s northern end.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) later said it feared one of its soldiers may have been abducted in an early morning attack by Palestinian militants at a tunnel near Gaza. Israel Radio named him as Second Lieutenant Hadar Goldin, 23, from Kfar Saba. A senior Hamas member, Musa Abu Marzouk, said the soldier was an officer taken prisoner near Rafah before the ceasefire came into effect.

Palestinian fishermen who had ventured tentatively out into the Mediterranean earlier in the morning rushed to get back to port, while air raid sirens could be heard along the neighbouring Israeli coast.

Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that Israel’s military coordinator in the Palestinian territories told the UN envoy, Robert Serry, that as far as Israel was concerned the ceasefire – announced on Thursday night after lengthy behind-the-scenes negotiations – was over. Israel claimed that the truce was first broken by an ambush by Palestinian militants on Israeli forces near Rafah.

Gaza conflict

The ferocious outbreak of hostilities crushed hopes of an enduring truce even as US negotiators were on the way to Cairo for Egypt-brokered talks that were supposed to turn the ceasefire into a broader peace agreement. A Palestinian delegation named by the president, Mahmoud Abbas, but including Hamas members, was supposed to travel there on Friday, with Israeli negotiators flying after the Sabbath on Saturday night. It was not clear whether either side would still make the journey in the hope of salvaging something from the diplomatic effort of the past two weeks involving the US, Turkey and Qatar.

Both Israel and Hamas had earlier confirmed their agreement to the truce. In a brief statement issued about an hour before the ceasefire was due to begin, the Israeli government said: “In accordance with the authority granted by the security cabinet to the prime minister and the minister of defence, Israel has accepted the UN/US proposal for a 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire beginning 8am Friday.”

A Hamas spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri, said the group would abide by the ceasefire, Reuters reported. “Acknowledging a call by the United Nations and in consideration of the situation of our people, resistance factions agreed to a 72-hour humanitarian and mutual calm that begins at 8am on Friday as long as the other side abides by it,” he said. “All the Palestinian factions are united behind the issue in this regard.”

The ceasefire broke down after fishermen in Gaza City had spent only a few minutes at sea for the first time since the war began. City inhabitants had tentatively left their homes, some for the first time for days, and queues formed for taxis. Most of those on the streets were hoping to return to homes they had not seen for weeks or to salvage belongings. Grocery shops rapidly opened, selling basic foodstuffs.

But as the shells began to fall again, the fishermen returned and children raced off the beach.

In the two hours the ceasefire lasted, while the majority of Gaza residents had allowed themselves some faint hopes for the future, others had remained defiant.

Samira Attar, 27, sitting in a donkey cart with her husband, five children and three mattresses, said she was heading back to her house in Atatra, in the north of the strip. “I am going back to my house for the first time for 17 days. I hope this ceasefire will hold for the whole 72 hours and longer, God willing. We don’t need more bloodshed, or more devastation. I’d like to see Israel to be defeated and broken but the circumstances were very difficult,” Attar said.

Smoke rises following what witnesses said were Israeli air strikes in Rafah. Photograph: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters

Harth Nassr, 34, a restaurant worker from Beit Hanoun, a heavily hit village in the north-east of the Gaza Strip, said he too was optimistic.

“I think it will hold this time. Everybody is tired of this war,” Nassr said.

Nassr’s home was destroyed after he evacuated following a warning from Israeli forces to leave the area. “I left my house 10 days ago. I went there only once in the last 10 days and found the whole building, all three storeys, destroyed. I’m going back today to see if I can get any of my belongings,” Nassr said.

Fighting had continued until the last moment before the ceasefire began on Friday morning. Gaza came under heavy shelling and artillery fire overnight, and sirens warning of rocket attacks sounded in southern Israel. Palestinian sources said 17 people, including 10 members of one family, had been killed in Khan Younis in the early hours of Friday. The Palestinian death toll on Friday morning stood at more than 1,400, most of them civilians.

The IDF said five of its soldiers were killed in a mortar attack on the Gaza border, bringing the total number of military casualties to 61. Three civilians were also killed by rocket fire in Israel.

Some had doubted that the war was over. Isham Abu Ramadan, 42, a construction worker who said his house was destroyed in an air strike earlier this month, said he was not optimistic.

“We have long experience of Israel. They break the ceasefire all the time. They want to hit us more. They want more massacres. Israel doesn’t want to end the war and they don’t want a peace settlement. I don’t want a ceasefire. I want the resistance to fire until the end when Israel is defeated and asks for a truce,” Ramadan said.

Meanwhile, Israeli security forces were on high alert in East Jerusalem and the West Bank after Palestinian leaders called for a “day of rage” on Friday. Several protest marches were expected to begin after noon prayers.

Access to the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s old city was restricted to men over 50, women and children.

Last Friday, seven Palestinians had been killed in clashes with security forces during protests over the war, raising concerns over the use of live fire by the IDF.

In a joint statement on Thursday evening the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and the US secretary of state, John Kerry, had said the ceasefire would give “innocent civilians a much-needed reprieve from violence”. The pause would allow Gaza’s civilians to “bury the dead, care for the injured, and restock food supplies”, they had said. Repairs would also be made to water and power infrastructure damaged in the 24 days of conflict, which has killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians.

Timeline

However, “forces on the ground will remain in place”, meaning Israel had succeeded in its insistence that its troops continue to search for and destroy Hamas tunnels during any humanitarian pause.

“We urge all parties to act with restraint until this humanitarian ceasefire begins, and to fully abide by their commitments during the ceasefire,” the two top diplomats had said.

“This ceasefire is critical to giving innocent civilians a much-needed reprieve from violence,” the statement had continued. “During this period, civilians in Gaza will receive urgently needed humanitarian relief, and the opportunity to carry out vital functions, including burying the dead, taking care of the injured, and restocking food supplies. Overdue repairs on essential water and energy infrastructure could also continue during this period.”

Ban and Kerry, who have been at the forefront of efforts to seek an end to the conflict, said the UN’s representative in Jerusalem, special coordinator Robert Serry, had received “assurances that all parties have agreed to an unconditional humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza”.

The US-UN statement had added: “Israeli and Palestinian delegations will immediately be going to Cairo for negotiations with the government of Egypt, at the invitation of Egypt, aimed at reaching a durable ceasefire. The parties will be able to raise all issues of concern in these negotiations.”

The ceasefire had been first announced in New Delhi during a diplomatic visit by Kerry. It followed mounting international outrage over the shelling earlier this week by Israeli forces of a UN school sheltering thousands of Palestinian families who had fled their homes after being warned by Israel to evacuate ahead of bombing. At least 15 people, including sleeping children, were killed, and hundreds injured.

Ban condemned the attack as “outrageous and unjustifiable” and President Barack Obama’s press secretary, delivering an unusually forthright response, called the attack “totally unacceptable” and “totally indefensible”.

Previous unilateral ceasefires had been short-lived, with each side blaming the other for violations. This was the first time that both parties had agreed to a pause during which further negotiations would begin.

The Egyptian government made a similar proposal more than two weeks ago, which Israel agreed to, but Hamas rejected.

The composition of the delegations to attend talks in Cairo was worked on into the night. Diplomatic sources indicated that Abbas would help decide the team representing the Palestinian side, but was not expected to attend the negotiations.

Egypt was expected to take a central role in facilitating the talks, which were to begin as soon as the parties arrived in Cairo.

The US was also sending a small delegation, including Bill Burns, deputy secretary of state, and Frank Lowenstein, Kerry’s special envoy for Middle East.

There were no immediate plans for Kerry, whose recent attempt to forge a ceasefire collapsed amid acrimony last weekend, to attend the talks, although a western diplomat said his attendance remained a possibility.

“This is a lull of opportunity,” Kerry had told reporters in New Delhi, according to Reuters. “It is imperative people make the best effort to try to find common ground.”

How can journalists be objective when writing about dead children? | Giles Fraser

It’s a controversy as old as the fifth century BC. “Man is the measure of all things,” said Protagoras. No, replied Plato. Nothing imperfect can be the measure of anything. And there we have the essence of a philosophical squabble about the possibility of human objectivity that is as alive in modern newsrooms as it was in the Athenian agora. For when a visibly shaken Jon Snow stepped out from behind the supposed neutrality of his newsreader’s desk to present a piece to camera on his recent trip to Gaza, it felt like he was crossing a journalistic fourth wall, thus allowing the audience to recognise his anger, his passion and his opinion.

“I can’t get these images out of my mind,” said Snow, describing a small girl he met in hospital, “terribly crippled by shrapnel that had penetrated her spine.” Was that objective, some asked?

Well, I admit it: I have been losing my cool. During the week, I decided that it didn’t make sense for me to write about Gaza any more. I was no longer interested in sitting calmly at my desk turning out more apparently ordered sentences, purporting to run smoothly from one solid proposition to another. At times, I feel shut down by the sheer horror of it all, encased in some bitter despondency, unable properly to process the frustration.

And then, by contrast, I worry that I am going to blurt out something that I will come to regret. Maybe I did that in this column last week, floating the possibility of what I called “just terrorism”. My friend, UN spokesman Chris Gunness, broke down during an Al-Jazeera interview. He managed the words “the injustice of it all is enough to make any heart burst” before he sank sobbing into his hands, unable to say any more.

On yesterday morning, the Guardian’s leader-writing team were talking together, entirely calmly and sensibly, about the way forward: we discussed Binyamin Netanyahu’s inaction, lost opportunities for peace, the problem of attack tunnels. But my mind wandered off and the conversation became distant chatter. All this being cool about it didn’t work for me. I think of the remains of that two-year-old boy that our Jerusalem correspondent Peter Beaumont was presented with in a plastic bag. And the kids packed into that UN school, sleeping on mattresses, expecting that a blue flag would keep them safe. My focal point wouldn’t extend past that horror. I see it up close and personal.

Mourners attend the funeral ceremony of siblings killed in Israeli airstrike in Gaza Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

I know that traditional journalism prides itself on maintaining a strict firewall between objective and subjective, between news and comment. The New York Times, for instance, has a separate management structure for each for precisely this reason. But isn’t this just a convenient fiction? I want the paper to write, in big bold capital letters: we hate this fucking stupid pointless war. “Reason is a slave to the passions,” as David Hume famously once put it.

I know, I know: this sort of emotion is not going to solve anything. But in the midst of unimaginable suffering, the idea of calm objectivity feels like a desperate attempt to maintain some thin veneer of civilisation protecting us from the total futility of it all. And when Netanyahu’s spokesman, Mark Regev, comes on the radio, intoning that false, calm sympathy straight out of the PR handbook, I want to scream. And the double frustration is that screaming is generally understood to be what you do when you have lost the argument. Whereas I can’t shake the feeling that, in these circumstances, screaming is the most rational thing to do.

Being calmly rational about dead children feels like a very particular form of madness. Whatever else journalistic objectivity is, it surely cannot be the elimination of human emotion. If we don’t recognise that, we are not describing the full picture.

Twitter: @giles_fraser

Gaza crisis: Palestinians killed after ceasefire begins - live updates

Fishermen in Gaza City set out to sea for the first time since the war began as inhabitants tentatively left their homes, some for the first time for days. Queues formed for taxis. Most of those immediately on the streets were hoping to return to homes they had not seen for weeks, or salvage belongings. Grocery shops rapidly opened, selling basic foodstuffs.

While most seemed optimistic and pleased that the ceasfire had been declared others remained defiant. Rocket fire from Hamas also continued until the ceasefire came into effect.

Samira Attar, 27, a housewife, sitting in a donkey cart with her husband and five children and three mattresses, said she was heading back to her house in Atattraa, in the north of the strip.

“I am going back to my house for the first time for 17 days. I hope this ceasefire will hold for the whole 72 hours and longer, God willing. We don’t need more bloodshed, or more devastation. I’d like to see Israel to be defeated and broken but the circumstances were very difficult,” Attar said.

Harth Nassr, 34, a restaurant worker from Beit Hanoun, a heavily-hit village in the north east of the Gaza Strip, said he too was optimistic. “I think it will hold this time. Everybody is tired of this war,” he said.

Nassr’s home was destroyed after he evacuated following a warning from Israeli forces to leave the area.

“I left my house ten days ago. I went there only once in the last ten days and found the whole building, all three storeys, destroyed. I’m going back today to see if I can get any of my belongings.”

However, others doubted that the war, in which 59 Israelis and more than 1,440 Palestinians, largely civilians, have died, was over.

Isham Abu Ramadan, 42, said he was not optimistic: “We have long experience of Israel. They break the ceasefire all the time. They want to hit us more. They want more massacres.

“Israel doesn’t want to end the war as well as they don’t want a peace settlement. I don’t want a ceasefire. I want the resistance to fire until the end when Israel is defeated and asks for a truce,” Ramadan, a construction worker who said his house was destroyed in an air strike earlier this month, told the Guardian.

Jewish Board of Deputies accuses Fairfax of racism over Gaza cartoon

The New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies has accused the Sydney Morning Herald of racial vilification and demanded an apology for publishing what they say is an offensive cartoon of an old man observing the conflict in Gaza.

The cartoon by Glen Le Lievre has been described by Jewish leaders as “a grotesque stereotype of a Jew using a remote-control device to blow up houses and people in Gaza”.

Vic Alhadeff, the chief executive of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, told Guardian Australia he had written to the paper because he objected to the cartoon which was used to illustrate a column by Mike Carlton last Saturday.

“The effect is to portray the Jewish people as being collectively guilty of the tragedy in Gaza and wilfully and intentionally causing civilian deaths there,” Alhadeff said on Friday. “We believe this constitutes racial vilification, as well as inciting third parties to hatred of Jews.”

The Australian Jewish News reported that the board of deputies had threatened legal action, but Alhadeff said that was premature and he was waiting for a response from the newspaper before considering what action to take.

The editor-in-chief of the Herald, Darren Goodsir, is understood to have written to all the Jewish groups and individuals who had complained, saying the paper is committed to calling out examples of racial prejudice and bigotry.

“I very much regret the distress the cartoon has caused, but I want to assure you that there was no intention to invoke any disturbing stereotypes - nor to incite any racial hatred,” Goodsir wrote to one complainant.

“While we vigorously defend free speech, and a robust exchange of ideas and opinions - be they in words or images - I would never condone any submission that purposely impugned any individual, or community.”

Goodsir says the cartoon was directly modelled on a number of photographs published on major news sites during the past week of men, seated in armchairs and lounges, observing the shelling of Gaza from the hills of Sderot.

“One of these photographs depicted an old man, sitting alone, observing the conflict – and this is what particularly influenced the drawing.

“Not only did Mr Le Lievre use an actual image as the source for his cartoon, he adopted the same distinctive style he has developed over the years in which most old people have very pronounced features, including eyes, faces and noses. He has not diverted from his overall drawing style in this instance. He usually draws old people this way.”

In an editorial titled Media Disgrace published on Friday, the Australian Jewish News criticised sections of the Australian media for their coverage of the conflict and called on readers to boycott the Herald.

“Shame on 60 Minutes. Even greater shame on Fairfax. If you haven’t done so already, consider cancelling your Fairfax subscriptions today.”

Javier Bardem clarifies position on Israel and Gaza with 'plea for peace'

Javier Bardem, who has called for peace in Gaza. Photograph: Pål Hansen for the Guardian

The Spanish actor Javier Bardem has released a statement clarifying his position on the current Gaza conflict, after he co-signed an open letter in the Spanish press condemning Israel's actions, which called on the EU to "condemn the bombing by land, sea and air against the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip."

He also wrote his own thoughts in the newspaper El Diario, saying: "I cannot understand this barbarism, even more brutal and incomprehensible considering all of the horrible things the Jewish people have gone through in the past."

In his new statement, headlined 'Plea for Peace', Bardem writes:

My signature was solely meant as a plea for peace. Destruction and hatred only generate more hatred and destruction.

While I was critical of the Israeli military response, I have great respect for the people of Israel and deep compassion for their losses. I am now being labeled by some as anti-Semitic, as is my wife [Penélope Cruz] - which is the antithesis of who we are as human beings. We detest anti-Semitism as much as we detest the horrible and painful consequences of war.

I was raised to be against any act of violence, and the consequent suffering of humanity for it, regardless of religions, ethnicities and borders. Too many innocent Palestinian mothers have lost their children to this conflict. Too many innocent Israeli mothers share the same grief. There should not be any political reason that can justify such enormous pain on both sides. It's my hope that leaders involved in this complicated struggle will heed the call of United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, 'In the name of humanity, the violence must stop.'

Palestinians and Israelis in the region deserve to have their safety and human rights recognized and respected so in the near future they may find peace and co-existence, for themselves and their innocent children. So generations to come could bring hope, forgiveness and compassion for each other. This is the most basic and necessary way to peace for all of us.

It follows a statement by Bardem's wife Penélope Cruz, who also restated her feelings about Israel' actions. "I wish for unity, and peace," she wrote. "I believe in a civilization that can be capable of bringing the courage to have a world where humans can live side by side."

Anthony Albanese says Israel's Gaza assault is 'completely unacceptable'

Labor heavyweight Anthony Albanese has veered off his party’s script on the conflict in Gaza, declaring the “collective punishment” being endured by the people of Gaza “completely unacceptable”.

The Labor leadership has been trying to hold a centrist position on the conflict, apportioning blame between both Israel and Hamas and calling for UN intervention to achieve a ceasefire.

But Albanese, Labor’s transport spokesman, leftwing factional leader
and one-time leadership contender, used a breakfast television appearance on Friday to point the finger squarely at Israel.

“What we saw this week, the bombing of a school where people essentially had gone to seek refuge,” he said on the Nine Network. “That is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for Hamas to fire rockets into Israel, but the collective punishment is against all the rules of engagement and Israel must stop these actions. At the moment we are seeing a child killed every hour in Gaza.”

A number of leftwing Labor MPs have departed from the careful diplomatic formulation crafted over the past 24 hours by Bill Shorten and his deputy leader, Tanya Plibersek, and signed a statement calling “on all Australian politicians to condemn the ongoing Israeli military bombardment and invasion of Gaza”.

The separate statement, also signed by a number of Greens parliamentarians and the former prime minister Malcolm Fraser, says the conflict is lopsided.

“The rockets fired from Gaza are not in any way justified and insofar as they threaten and harm civilians are illegal under international law. However, these imprecise rockets cannot be compared with the broad-scale bombing of Gaza by Israel which has one of the world’s largest military forces,” it says.

The breakaway statement is consistent with the views expressed by Albanese on Friday morning.

The differences in tone and language reflect ongoing arguments within Labor about how to position the party’s policy concerning Australia’s relationship with Israel.

Many of those internal tensions were highlighted in the recent memoir published by the former foreign minister Bob Carr, which was critical of the influence of the “Israel lobby”.

Several senior figures in the NSW branch of the ALP believe Labor needs to take a step back from an overtly pro-Israel policy. Views in the Victorian branch are quite different.

Tony Abbott, meanwhile, welcomed news of the 72-hour ceasefire in Gaza, but continued his mildly pro-Israel stance, again pointing the finger of blame at Hamas for provoking the conflict.

The prime minister had called for a ceasefire in the conflict on Thursday, arguing that too many innocent people were dying in the bombardment.

On Friday, Abbott welcomed news of the 72-hour pause in hostilities. But he was again pressed by reporters for a response to accusations that the Israelis bombed a UN school, killing more than a dozen sleeping women and children.

When asked about the school bombing by reporters on Thursday, the prime minister reasoned that the Israeli government’s decision-making was not perfect, but that it had a right to defend its borders.

Abbott delivered much the same formulation on Friday.

Asked whether he deplored actions such as the school bombing that resulted in the indiscriminate death of civilians, Abbott first blamed Hamas, saying: “I deplore the indiscriminate rain of missiles from Gaza on to Israel.”

“I deplore any actions which result in civilian deaths and obviously we’ve seen far too much of that over the last few weeks,” he said.