Marieha Hussain had denied her placard depicting Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman was racially abusive
A teacher who held a placard depicting Rishi Sunak and Suella Braverman as coconuts has been found not guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence.
Marieha Hussain, 37, had denied the prosecution’s allegation that the placard she held at a pro-Palestine protest was “racially abusive”.
Continue reading...Philippe Lazzarini says closure would have ‘devastating consequences’ and calls for investigation into deadly strike
A campaign is under way to drive the UN relief agency for Palestinians, Unrwa, out of existence, its commissioner general has said, days after 18 people were killed when Israeli jets bombed an Unrwa school in Gaza.
Philippe Lazzarini said in an interview that the Israeli government was seeking to close down the agency, having failed to persuade western donors to stop funding it on the grounds of allegations about links between Unrwa staff and Hamas.
Continue reading...Second autopsy to be performed on Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi before funeral in her family’s home town
The body of the slain Turkish-American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi has landed in Istanbul to continue to its final resting place in her family’s home town on the Aegean coast, with the coffin carried by a procession of Turkish honour guard soldiers.
An autopsy report conducted in the Israeli-occupied West Bank town of Nablus lists Eygi’s cause of death as a brain haemorrhage after a bullet penetrated her skull, as the 26-year-old attended a pro-Palestine protest in nearby Beita.
Continue reading...Document detailing ‘deterioration’ under Kais Saied will fuel concerns about bloc’s migration deal with his country
The EU fears its credibility is at stake as it seeks to weigh growing concerns about the crushing of dissent in Tunisia while preserving a controversial migration deal with the north African country, according to a leaked document.
An internal report drafted by the EU’s diplomatic service (EEAS), seen by the Guardian, details “a clear deterioration of the political climate and a shrinking civic space” under the Tunisian president, Kais Saied, who has suspended parliament and concentrated power in his hands since starting his term of office in 2019.
Continue reading...Protests in West Bank village had subsided half an hour before IDF shot Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, says report
Israeli security forces mischaracterised the events that led up to the fatal shooting of a Turkish-American protester in the West Bank, according to an investigation by the Washington Post.
The Israel Defense Forces claimed that their soldiers were targeting the leader of a violent protest when they shot Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old member of the International Solidarity Movement who had come from her native Washington state to Israel to protest against settlements in the West Bank.
Continue reading...Yossi Sariel takes responsibility for military surveillance unit’s role in intelligence failures before Hamas-led assault
The commander of Israel’s military surveillance agency, Unit 8200, has announced his resignation, publicly accepting responsibility for failings that contributed to the deadly 7 October attacks.
Yossi Sariel said on Tuesday that he had informed his superiors of his intention to step down after the completion of an initial investigation into Unit 8200’s role in failures surrounding the Hamas-led assault last year.
Continue reading...Medical supplies, toothbrushes and shampoo also remain stuck in backlog of lorries unable to enter from Egypt
Relief groups have said more than 1 million people in Gaza will not have enough food this month, while trucks loaded with fresh vegetables or meat spoil waiting to cross Israeli checkpoints, and thousands of aid packages of food, medical supplies and even toothbrushes and shampoo remain stuck in a backlog of lorries unable to enter from Egypt.
“We estimate that over a million Gazans will go without food in September,” said Sam Rose, a senior deputy director of UN’s relief agency for Palestinians (Unrwa), in Gaza. “Over half the medicines in our health centres are running low, as is chlorine for water purification and other basic supplies.”
Continue reading...This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Israel-Gaza war coverage here
Syrian media is reporting that in addition to killing two people in a drone strike on a vehicle inside Syria, Israeli forces have also shelled the Syrian town of Al-Rafid in the south-east of the country, close to territory controlled by Israel.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza has said that Israeli attacks have killed at least 34 people and injured 96 over the past 24 hours in the territory.
Continue reading...Israeli military launches inquiry into claims that stories may have been planted as part of disinformation campaign
The Israel Defense Forces have launched an investigation into claims in the Israeli media that the London-based Jewish Chronicle published stories based on “fabricated intelligence” relating to Hamas, amid claims that they may have been planted as part of a disinformation campaign.
Among the most controversial claims published by the Jewish Chronicle, the world’s oldest Jewish newspaper, was the suggestion last week that the Hamas leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, might be preparing to flee to Iran with Israeli hostages, a suggestion that has also been made by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Continue reading...Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi was killed while protesting against West Bank settlements, though a witness says she posed no threat
For her 26th birthday in July, human rights activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi gathered friends for a bonfire at one of her favorite places, a sandy beach in Seattle where green-and-white ferries cruise across the dark, flat water and ospreys fish overhead.
On Wednesday night, hundreds of people gathered on the same beach in grief, love and anger to mourn her. Eygi was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers last Friday in the occupied West Bank, where she had gone to protest and bear witness to Palestinian suffering.
Continue reading...Unrwa says attack on school sheltering refugees in Nuseirat led to highest death toll among its staff in a single incident
Israel has bombed a UN school sheltering displaced people in central Gaza, killing at least 18 people, including the shelter manager and five other Unrwa staff.
The al-Jaouni school in Nuseirat is home to about 12,000 displaced people, mostly women and children, the UN said. It has been hit five times since the start of the war in Gaza.
Continue reading...But US president has still not called for an independent inquiry into the death of protester Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi
Joe Biden has described the Israel Defense Force’s fatal shooting of the Turkish American protester Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi as “totally unacceptable” in his first extensive comments on her death.
In a statement on Wednesday, Biden said that Israel had “acknowledged responsibility” for Eygi’s death, but he stopped short of backing the demands put out by Eygi’s family and other human rights advocates for an independent inquiry into the fatal shooting of the American activist at a protest in the West Bank town of Beita last week.
Continue reading...Cindy and Craig Corrie say they fear Eygi’s death at West Bank protest will go unpunished like their daughter’s
When Cindy and Craig Corrie heard about the death of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, the American-Turkish woman killed at a protest in the occupied West Bank last week, it reopened a 21-year-old wound. “You feel the ripping apart again of your own family when you know that’s happening to another family. There’s a hole there that’s never going to be filled for each of these families,” Craig Corrie said.
In 2003, their daughter Rachel was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer during a protest in Rafah against the demolitions of homes in Gaza. This week, the couple have joined a chorus of human rights advocates calling for an independent investigation into Eygi’s death, saying that they feared her case would go unpunished like their daughter’s.
Continue reading...Footage that seems to show fighters glorifying abuse of prisoners with ‘little fear of consequences’ could be used in war crimes prosecutions
Footage of rebel fighters in Sudan appearing to glorify the burning of homes and the torture of prisoners could be used by international courts to pursue war crime prosecutions, observers have told the Guardian.
Fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group, have been accused of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Sudan for the past year as they try to take control of the country.
Continue reading...Report reveals how US Christians, Catholic schools and Islamists fight sex education, LGBTQ+ and equal rights
Extreme religious groups and political parties are targeting schools around the world as part of a coordinated and well-funded attack on gender equality, according to a new report.
Well-known conservative organisations aim to restrict girls’ access to education, change what is on the curriculum, and influence educational laws and policies, according to Whose Hands on our Education, a report by the Overseas Development Institute.
Continue reading...Secretary of state and defence secretary decry fatal shooting of Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi in West Bank
The family of the American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi said on Tuesday that neither the White House nor Joe Biden had called to offer condolences.
Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who is also a Turkish national, was shot dead last Friday at a protest march in Beita, a village near Nablus where Palestinians have been repeatedly attacked by far-right Jewish settlers.
Continue reading...Despite desire to improve relations with Europe, the president has put Iran back on the sanctions treadmill
Iran’s decision to sell Russia short-range missiles supplementing Moscow’s existing supplies appears, on the surface, to be a political reversal for Masoud Pezeshkian, Iran’s new reformist president.
He was elected on a promise to lift sanctions and develop more balanced relations with the east and west, especially Europe. The bulk of his diplomatic appointments, including the retention of the former foreign minister Javad Zarif as an adviser, underscored that intention, and already a lively debate had started in Tehran about the extent to which Iran and Russia’s interests truly aligned.
Continue reading...Former Great Ormond Street hospital surgeon Yaser Jabbar removed as speaker at orthopaedics event
A doctor who is being investigated for allegedly harming hundreds of children has been removed as a featured speaker from a health conference.
Great Ormond Street children’s hospital in London has launched an urgent review of the care of 721 children who are thought to have received botched treatment from one of its former consultant orthopaedic surgeons, Yaser Jabbar.
Continue reading...World body says two workers detained for questioning, live shots fired and vehicles damaged at checkpoint
Israeli soldiers halted a UN convoy involved in the recent polio vaccination drive in Gaza and detained two staff members for questioning, in an incident during which live shots were fired and vehicles damaged by a bulldozer, the UN has said.
Details of the incident, which occurred at the Al Rashid checkpoint, were revealed in a statement by the office of the UN humanitarian coordinator for Palestine, Muhannad Hadi, who said the lives of UN staff in the vehicles had been endangered.
Continue reading...At least 19 people killed as missiles hit overcrowded area in attack that Israel says targeted a Hamas command centre
Israeli airstrikes on al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone” in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 19 people and injured a further 60, according to witnesses and medical officials in the blockaded Palestinian territory.
At least four missiles hit the overcrowded supposed “safe zone” on the coast in the early hours of Tuesday, causing dozens of tents to catch fire and leaving craters as deep as 9 metres, the civil emergency service said. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are sheltering in Mawasi, where conditions are dire, after being ordered to move there by the Israeli military.
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