A Turkish attempt to force kebab shops in the EU to adhere to strict rules on how to make a doner kebab has been withdrawn.

If the bid for a “Traditional Speciality Guaranteed” label had succeeded, restrictions would have been imposed on the types of ingredients that could be used.

Germany’s kebab industry would have particularly skewered, as the quintessential high street doner has evolved over the decades to be rather different than the original from Turkey.

Turkish authorities argued the doner should be viewed a national dish that spread to Europe through the migration of Turks. But German officials said its take on the kebab had become part of its own national cuisine.

The traditional way of cooking meat on a vertical rotisserie goes back to the 16th Century, according to Turkey’s International Doner Federation (Udofed), and the name doner is related to that cooking technique.

It asked the EU to impose uniform rules across the bloc requiring that:

• the meat would come from a cow aged over 16 months, lamb aged at least six months, or chicken thighs and breasts
• veal and turkey meat would be banned
• meat would have to be sliced to a thickness of 3-5mm
• the type of knife would be regulated and marinades would be subject to rules too

The German variant of a kebab often uses veal in a flatbread packed with vegetables including red cabbage, pickles, red onions and topped with sauces – and so could be viewed as a European take on the Turkish classic.

The Turkish federation failed to consult Germany’s kebab industry, which hit back with the support of the government in Berlin.

The German food and agriculture ministry told the BBC last year that it had taken note of the Turkish bid “with some astonishment”.

Former German food and agriculture minister Cem Özdemir, a veteran politician of Turkish origin, said it was up to everyone to decide how a doner should be eaten in his country, and that there was no need for guidelines from Ankara.

“The doner belongs to Germany,” he insisted.

If Udofed had followed through with its bid, then a European industry dominated by the Turkish diaspora would have been affected.

In Germany alone there are more than 1.5 million Turkish citizens, and almost as many of Turkish descent.

About 60,000 people are employed in the industry, producing about 400 tonnes of kebab a day, according to the Association of Turkish Doner Manufacturers in Europe (ATDID).

Annual sales of kebabs generate some €3.5bn (£3bn) across Europe, including €2.4bn in Germany alone, it says.

The Turkish federation told the European Commission it had withdrawn its bid on 23 September.

Its application it had attracted a large number of objections.

An attempt to find a compromise failed. An EU official told BBC Turkish that the bid was heading towards rejection anyway.

The Israeli military has razed block after block of Gaza City as part of a new ground offensive in what was once the territory’s largest urban center.

Israel’s war against Hamas, which began two years ago, has leveled wide swathes of the Gaza Strip, including the city of Rafah in the south and the town of Beit Hanoun in the north. But the military did not carry out such widespread demolitions in previous Gaza City operations.

This time is different.

Though much of the city is still standing, satellite images show Israeli forces are destroying whole areas as they sweep into Gaza City, including the Zeitoun neighborhood and an area near Sheikh Radwan, where the military has demolished dozens of structures this month.

Previously, Israeli troops advanced through Gaza City and then withdrew – only to return later to fight what they said was a renewed Hamas insurgency. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said this time around was different because the military would hold areas it seized.

“We capture territory and we hold it. We clean it out and we move forward,” he said in an interview this month with Channel 14, a right-wing Israeli television station.

Mr. Netanyahu says the offensive aims to decisively rout Hamas from one of its last strongholds in the Gaza Strip. But even many Israelis are skeptical that this strategy will succeed now, as Hamas has proven resilient in the face of nearly two years of devastating war.

The Israeli ground offensive has forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to flee their homes in Gaza City, crowding into swelling tent camps in central and southern Gaza.

This has exacerbated what was already a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, with rampant hunger, mass displacement and a collapse of health care, schools and infrastructure. Many war-weary Gaza City residents say they simply cannot or will not be displaced again, and many have no homes to return to.

While closing in on Gaza City, Israel has used existing buildings as bases, only to later destroy them with explosives before moving onward, according to satellite images and videos verified by The New York Times.

One video shows the military destroying Al-Furqan school in the city, which it had earlier used as a military position.

In addition to carrying out demolitions, the Israeli military has also kept up airstrikes across Gaza City, striking hundreds of targets since mid-September.

In a satellite image from Sept. 18, the latest high-resolution image available from Planet Labs, a commercial satellite company, fewer tents could be seen compared with a time before Israel announced the launch of its Gaza City ground offensive two days earlier. Still, hundreds of tents were visible, many within around a mile of Israeli military vehicles.

Mustafa Siyam, 44, said he finally fled the city’s northern Shati neighborhood on Wednesday as Israeli forces drew nearer and the sound of explosions became incessant. He walked south for hours on foot with his wife and three children to reach central Gaza.

Mr. Siyam’s home was still standing before the current Israeli offensive. That might not be the case by the time he returns.

“It feels like the war has no goal or meaning, except to destroy as much of Gaza’s foundations as possible,” he said.

Israeli military officials have told reporters there is no policy to raze civilian neighborhoods wholesale. They say they are attacking sites used by Hamas, blowing up underground tunnels and other military targets.

But Israeli leaders have suggested it could go further than that.

Israel Katz, the defense minister, threatened in August that Gaza City would become “like Rafah and Beit Hanoun,” two cities that have been almost entirely destroyed in the war, unless Hamas laid down its arms and released the remaining hostages.

Eli Cohen, another minister in the high-level security cabinet, echoed the threat in a television interview, telling Channel 14 that “Gaza City itself should be exactly like Rafah, which we turned into a city of ruins.”

The scheme, which government says will curb undocumented immigration, has drawn criticism from across the political spectrum.

The United Kingdom has announced plans to introduce a digital ID scheme in a bid to curb undocumented immigration.

Announced by the government on Friday, the scheme will see the digital ID of British citizens and residents held on phones. The government said there will be no requirement for individuals to carry their ID or be asked to produce it, but that it will be “mandatory” for workers.

The UK has long resisted the idea of Identity cards, which were abolished after World War II, but Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government is under pressure to tackle immigration that populist forces claim is uncontrolled.

The free digital ID would include a person’s name, date of birth, and photo, as well as information on their nationality and residency status.

It will be “mandatory as a means of proving your right to work”, a government statement said.

“This will stop those with no right to be here from being able to find work, curbing their prospect of earning money, one of the key ‘pull factors’ for people who come to the UK illegally,” it added.

The digital ID will also make it simpler to apply for services like driving licences, childcare and welfare, while streamlining access to tax records, the statement said.

“Digital ID is an enormous opportunity for the UK… It will also offer ordinary citizens countless benefits,” Starmer said. “It will make it tougher to work illegally in this country, making our borders more secure.”

‘Digitally excluded’

The plans, which the government had previously said it was considering, drew criticism from across the political spectrum.

The centrist Liberal Democrats said they would not support mandatory digital ID where people are “forced to turn over their private data just to go about their daily lives”.

Liberal Democrats cannot support mandatory digital IDs. People shouldn’t be criminalised just because they don’t want to hand over their private data. pic.twitter.com/mEzV7s9vUf

— Liberal Democrats (@LibDems) September 25, 2025

Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition Conservative Party, wrote on X that her party “will oppose any push by this organisation or the government to impose mandatory ID cards on law-abiding citizens”.

“We will not support any system that is mandatory for British people or excludes those of us who choose not to use it from any of the rights of our citizenship,” she added.

The far-right Reform UK party called the plans a “cynical ploy” designed to “fool” voters into thinking something is being done about immigration.

It also sought to tap into longstanding British suspicions regarding national ID schemes, which are common in most of Europe.

“It will make no difference to illegal immigration, but it will be used to control and penalise the rest of us,” said Reform leader Nigel Farage.

I am firmly opposed to @Keir_Starmer’s digital ID cards.

It will make no difference to illegal immigration, but it will be used to control and penalise the rest of us.

The state should never have this much power.

— Nigel Farage MP (@Nigel_Farage) September 25, 2025

In the 2000s, the Labour Party, then led by Tony Blair, attempted to introduce an identity card, but the plan was eventually dropped by Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown, after opposition called it an infringement of civil liberties.

However, with populist narratives regarding immigration now rife, the government appears to be betting that such concerns will override the longstanding opposition.

The timing of the announcement appears no coincidence, coming as Labour prepares to hold its annual conference.

A petition demanding that ID cards not be introduced had collected 575,000 signatures by early Friday, but recent polling suggests majority support for the move.

The former UK Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair has been involved in discussions about running a transitional authority in Gaza if there is a ceasefire, the BBC understands.

Sir Tony, who took the UK into the Iraq War in 2003, has been in high-level planning talks with all parties to end the war and on the post-conflict future for the Palestinian territory, it is understood.

At the heart of the latest proposal – discussed by US President Donald Trump and Arab leaders at the UN this week – is the idea of Gaza being run by a transitional body with UN backing and Gulf support, before being handed back to Palestinian control.

One proposal said to have gained support in Washington is for Sir Tony to lead that authority, although his office has said only that he would not support anything that displaced the people of Gaza.

Sir Tony joined a White House meeting with Trump in August to discuss plans for post-war Gaza, which the US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff described as “very comprehensive” – though little else was disclosed about the meeting.

The former prime minister served as Middle East envoy for the Quartet of international powers (the US, EU, Russia and the UN) for a few years after leaving office in 2007. He focused on bringing economic development to Palestine and creating the conditions for a two state-solution.

As PM, he took the decision to commit British forces to the 2003 Iraq War that was heavily criticised in the official inquiry into the conflict, which found he had acted on flawed intelligence without certainty about the production of weapons of mass destruction there.

Reports of discussions about his involvement in a transitional authority for Gaza come after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Thursday that he was ready to work with Trump and other world leaders to implement a two-state peace plan.

Abbas stressed his rejection of a future governing role for Hamas in Gaza and demanded it disarm.

Earlier this week, the UK formally recognised the state of Palestine alongside Canada and Australia. More countries followed this example, including France and Denmark, while Israel and the US criticised the move as a reward for Hamas.

Sir Keir emphasised the diplomatic move means Hamas can have “no future, no role in government, no role in security” and was the “exact opposite of their hateful vision”.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 65,419 people have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. A UN commission of inquiry has said Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, which Israel denies.