1. After days of fresh violence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and Israel, the UN security council met in a specially convened session where attendees called for a ceasefire and for both sides to respect international humanitarian law.

Among many targets leveled by Israeli Airstrikes over the last week, one included a building housing various international media outlets such as the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera. As a result, a Paris-based media watchdog, Reporters Without Borders, has asked the international criminal court to investigate Israel’s bombing of the building as a possible war crime.

2. A report recently published by 9 Human Rights organisations under the ‘Protecting Rights at Borders Initiative’ suggests that EU States have been informally cooperating to deny refugees asylum rights. The report was released at a time when the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights, Dunja Mijatović singled out Greece on the practice of pushing back migrants at the land and sea borders it shares with Turkey.

3. A new law pushed through parliament and passed in Australia allows refugees to be detained indefinitely and allows the government to withdraw a person’s refugee status recognition – declaring they can be returned to the country they fled. More than 30 legal academics and refugee law practitioners have signed a joint statement to government arguing that the new law “increases the risk that refugees and others in need of protection will be detained indefinitely and without adequate judicial review.” The statement also stresses that “this is contrary to international law and inconsistent with the practices of other democratic countries”.