Day: June 3, 2025

In today’s newsletter: The problems and proposed solutions of a major new strategic defence review pitched as a blueprint to modernise the military

Good morning. The government’s strategic defence review was launched on Monday and billed as a blueprint to modernise the military so that, in the words of Keir Starmer, the UK is “safer and stronger, a battle-ready, armour-clad nation with the strongest alliances and the most advanced capabilities”.

Reviews like this one come along every decade or so – but the context now appears more urgent than at any time since the end of the cold war. In the place of the old consensus that the UK simply needed to be ready for (deeply questionable) deployments to places such as Iraq and Afghanistan is a view that the threats now are much closer to home, and much closer to existential. “UK armed forces have begun the necessary process of change in response to this new reality,” the review said. “But progress has not been fast or radical enough.”

Israel-Gaza war | A series of recent deadly airstrikes on school buildings sheltering displaced people in Gaza were part of a deliberate Israeli military bombing strategy, the Guardian has learned. The strikes followed a loosening of controls on actions targeting Hamas operatives at sites with large numbers of civilians present, sources said.

Health | The proportion of people surviving cancer in the UK has doubled since the 1970s amid a “golden age” of progress in diagnosis and treatment, a report says. Half of those diagnosed will now survive for 10 years or more, up from 24%, according to the first study of 50 years of data on cancer mortality and cases.

US news | Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, has been charged with a federal hate crime and multiple other offences after he allegedly used a makeshift flamethrower and incendiary devices to burn people in Boulder, Colorado who were raising awareness about Israeli hostages in Gaza.

Iran | Tehran is on the brink of rejecting US proposals on the future of its nuclear programme after a US draft insisted on the suspension of enrichment of uranium inside the country. The US proposal also offered no clear route map for lifting sanctions.

Scotland | A Scottish Labour councillor has defected to Reform UK on the eve of a pivotal Holyrood byelection, as the rightwing populist party’s leader, Nigel Farage, defended a controversial advert attacking Anas Sarwar that has prompted accusations of racism.

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Israel’s military said troops opened fire at ‘suspects’ half a kilometre from the aid distribution site and the incident was under investigation

At least 15 people were killed by Israeli fire as they waited for aid distribution in Gaza, local officials and some media reported on Tuesday.

“At least 15 people were killed and dozens wounded … when Israeli forces opened fire with tanks and drones on thousands of civilians who had gathered since dawn near the Al-Alam roundabout in the Al-Mawasi area, northwest of Rafah,” civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told AFP.

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