London (AFP) – Pop star Dua Lipa joined some 300 UK celebrities in signing an open letter Thursday urging Britain to halt arms sales to Israel, after similar pleas from lawyers and writers.

Actors, musicians, activists and other public figures wrote the letter calling on Prime Minister Keir Starmer to "end the UK's complicity in the horrors in Gaza".

British-Albanian pop sensation Dua Lipa has been vocal about the war in Gaza and last year criticised Israel's offensive as a "genocide".

Israel has repeatedly denied allegations of genocide and says its campaign intends to crush Hamas following the deadly October 2023 attack by the Palestinian militants.

Other signatories include actors Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton and Riz Ahmed, and musicians Paloma Faith, Annie Lennox and Massive Attack.

"You can't call it 'intolerable' and keep sending arms," read the letter to Labour leader Starmer organised by Choose Love, a UK-based humanitarian aid and refugee advocacy charity.

Sports broadcaster Gary Lineker, who stepped down from his role at the BBC after a social media post that contained anti-Semitic imagery, also signed the letter.

Signatories urged the UK to ensure "full humanitarian access across Gaza", broker an "immediate and permanent ceasefire", and "immediately suspend" all arms sales to Israel.

"The children of Gaza cannot wait another minute. Prime Minister, what will you choose? Complicity in war crimes, or the courage to act?", the letter continued.

Earlier this month, Starmer slammed Israel's "egregious" renewed military offensive in Gaza and promised to take "further concrete actions" if it did not stop -- without detailing what the actions could be.

Last September the UK government suspended 30 out of 350 arms export licenses to Israel, saying there was a "clear risk" they could be used to breach humanitarian law.

Global outrage has grown after Israel ended a ceasefire in March and stepped up military operations this month, killing thousands of people in a span of two months according to figures by the Hamas-run health ministry.

The humanitarian situation has also sparked alarm and fears of starvation after a two-month blockade on aid entering the devastated territory.

Over 800 UK lawyers including Supreme Court justices, and some 380 British and Irish writers warned of Israel committing a "genocide" in Gaza in open letters this week.

Washington (AFP) – Harvard University has been flooded with requests from foreign students to transfer to other institutions as US President Donald Trump's administration seeks to ban it from hosting international scholars, a staff member said Wednesday.

"Too many international students to count have inquired about the possibility of transferring to another institution," Maureen Martin, director of immigration services, wrote in a court filing.

Trump has upended the United States' reputation among foreign students, who number around one million, as he presses a campaign against US universities he sees as obstructing his "Make America Great Again" populist agenda.

He has blocked Harvard from hosting international scholars in a maneuver being challenged legally, targeted non-citizen campus activists for deportation, and most recently suspended student visa processing across the board.

The president's crackdown has prompted "profound fear, concern, and confusion" among students and staff at the elite university, which has been "inundated with questions from current international students and scholars about their status and options", Martin wrote.

More than 27 percent of Harvard's enrollment was made up of foreign students in the 2024-25 academic year, according to university data.

"Many international students and scholars are reporting significant emotional distress that is affecting their mental health and making it difficult to focus on their studies," Martin wrote in the filing.

Some were afraid to attend their graduation ceremonies this week or had canceled travel plans for fear of being refused re-entry into the United States, she added.

She said that a handful of domestic students at Harvard had also "expressed serious interest" in transferring elsewhere because they did not want to attend a university with no international students.

A judge last week suspended the government's move to block Harvard from enrolling and hosting foreign students after the Ivy League school sued, calling the action unconstitutional.

A hearing into the case was scheduled for Thursday.

At least 10 foreign students or scholars at Harvard had their visa applications refused immediately after the block on foreign students was announced, including students whose visa applications had already been approved, Martin wrote.

"My current understanding is that the visa applications that were refused or revoked following the Revocation Notice have not yet been approved or reinstated," despite a judge suspending the move, she said.

Jerusalem (AFP) – Israel announced on Thursday the creation of 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, risking further strain on relations with the international community already taxed by the war in Gaza.

Israeli settlements in the West Bank are regularly condemned by the United Nations as illegal under international law, and are seen as one of the main obstacles to a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

The decision to establish more, taken by the country's security cabinet, announced by far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, himself a settler, and Defence Minister Israel Katz, who is in charge of managing the communities.

"We have made a historic decision for the development of settlements: 22 new communities in Judea and Samaria, renewing settlement in the north of Samaria, and reinforcing the eastern axis of the State of Israel," Smotrich said on X, using the Israeli term for the West Bank, which it has occupied since 1967.

"Next step: sovereignty!" he added.

Katz said the initiative "changes the face of the region and shapes the future of settlement for years to come".

In a statement on Telegram, the right-wing Likud party of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the move a "once-in-a-generation decision", saying the initiative had been led by Smotrich and Katz.

"The decision also includes the establishment of four communities along the eastern border with Jordan, as part of strengthening Israel's eastern backbone, national security and strategic grip on the area," it said.

The party published a map showing the 22 sites spread across the territory.

Two of the settlements, Homesh and Sa-Nur are particularly symbolic. Located in the north of the West Bank, they are actually re-settlements, having been evacuated in 2005 as part of Israel's disengagement from Gaza, promoted by then-prime minister Ariel Sharon.

Current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government, formed in December 2022 with the support of far-right and ultra-Orthodox parties, is the most right-wing in Israel's history.

Human rights groups and anti-settlement NGOs say a slide towards at least de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank has gathered pace, particularly since the start of the Gaza war, [...].

"The Israeli government no longer pretends otherwise: the annexation of the occupied territories and expansion of settlements is its central goal," the Peace Now group said in a statement, adding the move "will dramatically reshape the West Bank and further entrench the occupation".

In his announcement, Smotrich offered a preemptive defence of the move, saying: "We have not taken a foreign land, but the heritage of our ancestors."

Some European governments have moved to sanction individual settlers, as did the United States under former president Joe Biden, though those measures were lifted by current President Donald Trump.

Thursday's announcement comes ahead of an international conference to be led by France and Saudi Arabia at UN headquarters in New York next month, which is meant to resurrect the idea of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Supporters of the blueprint, which was the basis of successive rounds of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, say the prospects for a viable, contiguous Palestinian state alongside Israel are being undermined by the proliferation of settlements.

The announcement also comes after US envoy Steve Witkoff said Wednesday he had "very good feelings" about the prospects for a Gaza ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, adding that he expected to send out a new proposal imminently.

Washington (AFP) – A US federal court on Wednesday blocked most of Donald Trump's sweeping import tariffs from going into effect, ruling that the president had overstepped his authority with the across-the-board global levies.

The opinion marks a significant setback to the Republican leader as he bids to redraw the US trading relationship with the world by forcing governments to the negotiating table through tough new tariffs.

Trump's global trade war has roiled financial markets with a stop-start rollout of levies that are aimed at punishing economies that sell more to the United States than they buy.

Trump argued that the resulting trade deficits and the threat posed by the influx of drugs constituted a "national emergency" that justified widespread tariffs.

But the three-judge Court of International Trade effectively called a ceasefire, barring most of the restrictions that the president has announced since taking office in January.

The White House slammed the ruling, arguing that "unelected judges" have no right to weigh in on Trump's handling of the issue.

"President Trump pledged to put America first, and the administration is committed to using every lever of executive power to address this crisis and restore American greatness," said Trump's spokesman Kush Desai.

Attorneys for the Trump administration promptly filed to appeal the ruling Wednesday.

One of Trump's closest White House aides, Stephen Miller, was less diplomatic as he took to social media to decry a "judicial coup" that he said was "out of control."

Trump unveiled sweeping import duties on most trading partners on April 2, at a baseline 10 percent, plus steeper levies on dozens of economies, including China and the European Union.

The ruling also quashes duties that Trump imposed on Canada, Mexico and China separately using emergency powers.

Some of the turmoil was calmed after he paused the larger tariffs for 90 days and suspended other duties, pending negotiations with individual countries and blocs.

Citing "uncertainties" related to Trump's tariff threats, South Korea's central bank on Thursday cut its benchmark interest rate and lowered its growth forecast.

The federal trade court was ruling in two separate cases -- brought by businesses and a coalition of state governments -- arguing that the president had violated Congress's power of the purse.

"The question in the two cases before the court is whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 ("IEEPA") delegates these powers to the president in the form of authority to impose unlimited tariffs on goods from nearly every country in the world," the three-judge panel wrote in an unsigned opinion.

"The court does not read IEEPA to confer such unbounded authority and sets aside the challenged tariffs imposed thereunder."

The court, which adjudicates civil cases arising from trade disputes, said that any interpretation of the IEEPA that "delegates unlimited tariff authority is unconstitutional," according to court documents.

The IEEPA authorizes the president to impose necessary economic sanctions during an emergency "to combat an unusual and extraordinary threat," the bench said.

The ruling gave the White House 10 days to complete the bureaucratic process of halting the tariffs.

Gregory W. Meeks, the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the ruling confirmed that "these tariffs are an illegal abuse of executive power."

"Trump's declaration of a bogus national emergency to justify his global trade war was an absurd and unlawful use of IEEPA," he added.

The Justice Department has defended Trump's trade strategy in court, insisting that the judiciary has very limited authority over his actions and sparking criticism that the White House was attempting to usurp the power of the other branches of government.

Trump has claimed that Americans will reap the benefits of his trade posture, pointing to early successes in deals struck with Britain and with China, the world's second-largest economy.

But analysts warn that the cost of the tariffs will likely be passed on to US consumers, raising inflation and potentially leading the US central bank to hold interest rates higher for longer, further impacting financial markets.

Ottawa (AFP) – More than 17,000 people in Canada's western Manitoba province were being evacuated on Wednesday as the region experienced its worst start to a wildfire season in years.

"The Manitoba government has declared a province-wide state of emergency due to the wildfire situation," Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew told a news conference.

"This is the largest evacuation Manitoba will have seen in most people's living memory," he said.

Kinew said he asked Prime Minister Mark Carney to send in the Canadian military to help with the evacuations and firefighting.

Military aircraft, Kinew said, would be deployed "imminently" to help move people out of endangered remote northern communities to safety, along with additional firefighting resources.

The evacuations include the town of Flin Flon, where 5,000 residents were told earlier to get ready to flee on a moment's notice as a major wildfire bore down on the mining town named after a fictional character in a 1905 paperback novel.

Residents of several other remote towns and Indigenous communities have also now been told to leave.

Most of the evacuees are expected to be transported to the Manitoba capital of Winnipeg.

Evacuee Sheryl Matheson told AFP the wildfires had surrounded her small town of Sherridon, northeast of Flin Flon.

"It's been overwhelming," said the owner of a fishing lodge. "It was very smokey. You could see the fires four or five kilometers away and moving fast."

"The flames were shooting over 121 feet high and firefighters couldn't get close enough to the fire to do anything."

Elsaida Alerta told public broadcaster CBC she was having "major anxiety" as she and her family readied to leave Flin Flon, where she has lived for three years.

"Especially for somebody that lived in a big city (previously), that never had to evacuate, this is definitely nerve-wracking," she said.

The only highway out of Flin Flon still open was jammed with traffic and local petrol stations had run out of gasoline, she said.

"We basically gathered all our essential things, important documents, medications and, you know, things that our animals will need," she said.

"We're just gonna make our way and hope for the best."

Premier Kinew said the widespread nature of the fires was cause for alarm.

"For the first time, it's not a fire in one region, we have fires in every region. That is a sign of a changing climate that we are going to have to adapt to," Kinew said.

Twenty-two wildfires were active in the province.

Nearly 200,000 hectares of forests have been scorched in just the past month, or triple the annual average over the previous five years, Kirstin Hayward of the Manitoba wildfire service said.

"Manitoba has the highest fire activity in Canada so far this year, due in part to a prolonged period of warm and dry conditions," she said.

Climate change has increased the impact of extreme weather events in Canada.

About 1,000 residents of Lynn Lake and Marcel Colomb First Nation in Manitoba and 4,000 people from the northern village of Pelican Narrows and other communities in neighboring Saskatchewan had already been evacuated earlier in the week.

A firefighter was also severely injured when he was struck by a falling tree while battling blazes. He was being treated in hospital, Kinew said.

The Manitoba premier said emergency shelters were being set up and companies and communities across the province were being asked to "open your doors" to displaced residents.

Earlier this month, two residents of the small community of Lac du Bonnet died after being trapped in a major wildfire northeast of Winnipeg.

In 2023, the worst wildfire season in the country's history, the only recorded deaths were among firefighters.

There are currently 134 active fires across Canada, including in British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Half are considered out of control.

The former president of the Democratic Republic of Congo Joseph Kabila has arrived in the rebel-held city of Goma in the east of the country for talks with locals, according to sources close to him, after declaring he wanted to help end the crisis in the war-ravaged region.

Kabila has been holding meetings with his staff in Goma for three days, according to his associates and the Congo River Alliance/March 23 Movement rebel coalition (AFC-M23), and plans to begin what he calls consultations.

While government spokesman Patrick Muyaya has accused Kabila of wanting to wage war, the former president's supporters insist he is not in Goma to lead the AFC-M23.

Kabila's immunity as former president has recently been lifted, and the Senate has authorised his prosecution for treason and participation in an insurrection, among other charges.

Kikaya Bin Karubi, a former ambassador and former minister, and a close collaborator of Kabila's, told Patient Ligodi of RFI's Africa service that Kabila "is ready to work with anyone who passionately loves [Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC]".

"So, if the AFC-M23 proves that it passionately loves [DRC], as President Kabila wishes, why not speak to them? The AFC-M23 wants to put an end to the dictatorship and this is one of the objectives, one of the first conditions for the situation to return to normal in the DRC," he added.

Three people also told new agency Reuters that Kabila would begin holding consultations on Wednesday with citizens in Goma.

The city fell under the control of M23 in January, in an advance that saw the group seize more ground than ever before.

Corneille Nangaa, leader of the rebel alliance that includes M23, has also confirmed on social media that Kabila is in Goma. People close to Kabila said he had arrived in the city on Sunday night.

Kabila himself has not spoken or posted on his whereabouts, and no images of him have been published from Goma.

The DRC's government had refrained from commenting on rumours of Kabila's presence in Goma, but on Tuesday the minister of communication and media, and government spokesperson, Patrick Muyaya, said in a briefing aired on state television on Tuesday that Kabila was "positioning himself as the rebel leader", along with Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

"We must tell our compatriots who are in Goma or who are in other parts of the country under occupation the message: get ready, we are going to war," Muyaya told RFI.

The former governor of North Kivu and minister of foreign trade, Julien Paluku, also told RFI that Kabila "should not have ended up in Goma" and accused him of having been "subjected to Rwandan pressure" during the 18 years he was in power.

Kabila has denied the accusations coming from Kinshasa that he supports the M23 insurgency.

Kabila came to power in 2001 after his father's assassination, then clung to office following DRC's disputed 2018 election for almost two years through an awkward power-sharing deal with President Felix Tshisekedi.

In January 2019, he agreed to step down following protests and external pressure and has been out of the country since late 2023, mostly in South Africa.

"The reasons that pushed the M23 to take up arms in 2012 are not the same as those that push it to take up arms today," Bin Karubi told RFI. "Today, the M23 is allied with Mr. Tshisekedi's government."

The visit could complicate the United States-backed bid to end the rebellion by the Rwandan-backed M23 armed group in eastern DRC, where valuable minerals are being eyed by US President Donald Trump's administration.

The United Nations and Western governments say Rwanda has provided arms and troops to M23. Rwanda denies backing M23 and says its military has acted in self-defence against DRC's army and a militia founded by perpetrators of Rwanda's 1994 genocide.

(with Reuters)

Lisbon (AFP) – Portugal's far-right Chega party won second place in the country's snap elections last week, according to final results published on Wednesday.

Chega, which means "Enough", and the left-wing Socialists had been level on 58 seats after the provisional results from the May 18 poll, but the far-right party won two of the previously unannounced four overseas constituencies, taking its tally to 60.

The results make Chega the official opposition just six years after its creation.

The centre-right Democratic Alliance claimed the other two overseas seats taking its total to 91, still far from the 116 seats needed to form a majority government. The Social Democratic Party of outgoing prime minister Luis Montenegro is the main part of the alliance.

"It is a big victory," said Chega founder and leader Andre Ventura, claiming that it "marks a profound change in the Portuguese political system".

The anti-immigration party had 50 seats in the last parliament.

Montenegro is expected to try to form a minority government after the latest election and he has said he will not deal with Chega. But Ventura called on Montenegro to "break" with the Socialists.

President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa was to hold new talks with the leaders of the three main parties on Thursday and could name a new prime minister during the day.

"Portugal is moving in line with the European trend" for a "protest vote", said Paula Espirito Santo at Lisbon University's Higher Institute of Social and Political Sciences.

The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251.

Hamas still holds 58 hostages, about a third of them believed to be alive.

Washington (AFP) – The United States said Wednesday it will refuse visas to foreign officials who block Americans' social media posts, as President Donald Trump's administration wages a new battle over free expression.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio -- who has controversially rescinded visas for activists who criticize Israel and ramped up screening of foreign students' social media -- said he was acting against "flagrant censorship actions" overseas against US tech firms.

He did not publicly name any official who would be denied a visa under the new policy. But last week he suggested to lawmakers that he was planning sanctions against a Brazilian Supreme Court judge, Alexandre de Moraes, who has battled X owner and Trump ally Elon Musk over alleged disinformation.

The administration of Trump -- himself a prolific and often confrontational social media user -- has also sharply criticized Germany and Britain for restricting what the US allies' governments term hate and abusive speech.

Rubio said the United States will begin to restrict visas to foreign nationals who are responsible for "censorship of protected expression in the United States."

"It is unacceptable for foreign officials to issue or threaten arrest warrants on US citizens or US residents for social media posts on American platforms while physically present on US soil," Rubio said in a statement.

"It is similarly unacceptable for foreign officials to demand that American tech platforms adopt global content moderation policies or engage in censorship activity that reaches beyond their authority and into the United States," he said.

"We will not tolerate encroachments upon American sovereignty, especially when such encroachments undermine the exercise of our fundamental right to free speech."

Rubio has said he has revoked the US visas for thousands of people, largely students who have protested against Israel's offensive in Gaza.

Among the most visible cases has been Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish doctoral student at Tufts University who had written an opinion piece in a student newspaper criticizing the school's position on Gaza.

Masked agents arrested her on a Massachusetts street and took her away. A judge recently ordered her release.

Rubio on Tuesday suspended further appointments for students seeking visas to the United States until the State Department drafts new guidelines on enhanced screening of applicants' social media postings.

Social media regulation has become a rallying cry for many on the American right since Trump was suspended from Twitter, now X, and Facebook on safety grounds after his supporters attacked the US Capitol following his defeat in the 2020 election to Joe Biden.

In Brazil, where supporters of Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro similarly stormed the presidential palace, Congress and Supreme Court in 2023 after Bolsonaro's election loss, Moraes has said he is seeking to protect democracy through his judicial power.

Moraes temporarily blocked X across Brazil until it complied with his order to remove accounts accused of spreading disinformation.

More recently he ordered a suspension of Rumble, a video-sharing platform popular with conservative and far-right voices over its refusal to block the account of a user based in the United States who was wanted for spreading disinformation.

Germany -- whose foreign minister met Wednesday with Rubio -- restricts online hate speech and misinformation, saying it has learned a lesson from its Nazi past and will ostracize extremists.

US Vice President JD Vance in a speech in Munich in February denounced Germany for shunning the far-right, noting the popularity of its anti-immigrant message.

In an essay Tuesday, a State Department official pointed to social media regulations and said Europeans were following a "similar strategy of censorship, demonization and bureaucratic weaponization" as witnessed against Trump and his supporters.

"What this reveals is that the global liberal project is not enabling the flourishing of democracy," wrote Samuel Samson, a senior advisor for the State Department's human rights office.

"Rather, it is trampling democracy, and Western heritage along with it, in the name of a decadent governing class afraid of its own people."

Washington (AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Wednesday he had told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hold off from striking Iran as he voiced optimism about nuclear talks his administration is holding with Tehran.

Iran said that it may consider allowing Americans to inspect its facilities as part of the United Nations nuclear watchdog if a deal is reached.

Trump, asked if he had told Netanyahu in a call next week not to take any action that could disrupt the diplomacy, said: "Well, I'd like to be honest, yes I did."

Pressed on what he told the Israeli premier, Trump replied: "I just said I don't think it's appropriate, we're having very good discussions with them."

He added: "I told him this would be inappropriate to do right now because we're very close to a solution.

"I think they want to make a deal, and if we can make a deal, save a lot of lives."

Tehran and Washington have in recent weeks held five rounds of talks focused on the issue -- their highest-level contact since Trump in 2018 withdrew from a previous deal negotiated by former president Barack Obama.

Trump on a visit to Qatar earlier in May voiced optimism at reaching a new agreement with Iran that avoids military conflict.

Israel sees cleric-ruled Iran, which supports Hamas militants in Gaza, as its top enemy. Israel has repeatedly threatened strikes on its nuclear facilities, after pummelling Iranian air defenses in rare direct combat.

Iran denies Western charges that it is seeking a nuclear weapon, insisting its program is solely for peaceful, civilian purposes.

Trump, withdrawing from the Obama-era deal in 2018, imposed sweeping sanctions that include pressuring all countries not to buy Iranian oil.

"Countries that were hostile to us and behaved unprincipledly over the years -- we have always tried not to accept inspectors from those countries," Iran's nuclear chief Mohammad Eslami told reporters, referring to staff from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Tehran "will reconsider accepting American inspectors through the agency" if "an agreement is reached, and Iran's demands are taken into account," he said.

President Masoud Pezeshkian, currently on an official visit to Oman, thanked the Gulf state for its mediation efforts between the longtime adversaries, which have had no formal diplomatic ties since 1979.

Iranian Foreign Minister and top negotiator Abbas Araghchi, who is accompanying Pezeshkian in Oman, said that "the date for the new round of negotiations will probably be clarified within the next few days."

While welcoming the negotiations, Iranian officials have repeatedly declared uranium enrichment "non-negotiable." Trump administration officials have publicly insisted that Iran not be allowed to enrich any uranium -- even at low levels for civilian purposes, as allowed under Obama's 2015 deal.

"The continuation of enrichment in Iran is an inseparable part of the country's nuclear industry and a fundamental principle for the Islamic Republic of Iran," Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei told reporters.

"Any proposal or initiative that contradicts this principle or undermines this right is unacceptable."

Iran currently enriches uranium up to 60 percent -- the highest level of any non-nuclear weapons state. That rate is still below the 90 percent threshold required for a nuclear weapon, but far above the 3.67 percent limit set under the 2015 deal.

https://archive.ph/7KQ9P

Paris (AFP) – French activists dyed a Paris fountain red Wednesday to symbolise what they called the "bloodbath" of Palestinians in Gaza.

Activists from Oxfam and Amnesty International poured dye into the Fontaine des Innocents in the heart of the French capital, while others held placards saying "Cease fire" and "Gaza: stop the bloodbath".

"This operation aims to denounce France's slow response to an absolute humanitarian emergency facing the people of Gaza today," the activists, which included the French branch of Greenpeace, said in a joint statement.

"France cannot limit itself to mere verbal condemnations," said former minister Cecile Duflot, executive director of Oxfam France.

Clemence Lagouardat, who helped coordinate Oxfam's humanitarian response in Gaza, denounced the Israeli blockade of the besieged territory.

"The people in Gaza need everything, it's a matter of survival," she told AFP.

"There is a genocide going on and political inaction is becoming a kind of complicity in this genocide," said Jean-Francois Julliard, head of Greenpeace France.

"We call on (President) Emmanuel Macron to act with courage, clarity and determination to put an end to this bloodshed."

The activists urged states "with influence over Israel" to press for an immediate and lasting ceasefire, an arms embargo on Israel, the revision of a cooperation agreement between the EU and Israel and other measures.

Rami Abu Jamous is keeping a diary for Orient XXI. The founder of Gaza Press, an agency which helped and interpreted for western correspondents, he was obliged by the Israeli army to leave his Gaza City apartment with his wife Sabah, her children, and their two and a half year-old son, Walid, in October 2023. Having taken refuge since then in Rafah, they are now trapped in that destitute and overcrowded enclave like so many other families. [...]

Monday 28 April 2025

I don’t read Hebrew but I do look at sites which translate the Israeli media. That’s where I found this information: Israeli army chiefs say the military are exhausted by 19 months of war in Gaza.

My first reaction was to laugh. So the executioner is tired from all the killing ? But are these soldiers aware of what they’re doing ? I try and imagine the suffering of the poor military: air force pilots exhausted by dropping all those tons of bombs which destroy houses in one, along with entire families. Or the girls who operate the killer drones whose fingers are tired from pushing the button to fire on tents and schools, like some video game. I say “girls” because they are nearly always women. It seems they’re more precise than men. Then there are the surveillance drone operators, whose eyes have grown weary from spying on us. And the tank drivers whose hands have grown fatigued from releasing shells that destroy entire neighbourhoods.

Poor soldiers, exhausted from bombing us, watching us, punishing us. If the executioner is so tired, what is the victim supposed to say ?

What do the tens of thousands of people forced to move for the nth time from one place to the next have to say ? Or those living in tents in horrific conditions ? Or those who’ve been without food or drink for more than two months ? Or those bombed night and day ? Or the women and children queuing up in hope of a plate of lentils or rice handed out by aid workers ? Or the women queuing to go to the toilet ? Or the men who spend their days trying to find a small job or some help or something to stoke a fire ? And what about those who have lost their families, their children, their homes, their business ? And what should amputees say, or the disfigured, or those who have lost their sight ?

What do those living through all this suffering, with the ceaseless noise of the drones, have to say ? Or those unable to find any safe place to escape to ? Until now, the occupation army would say: “For your safety, move to the humanitarian zones.” There are no humanitarian zones, and the Israelis have finally abandoned that fiction. So what should sick people say, or the wounded waiting to be seen or for medical treatment abroad because there’s no means to treat them here ? Or those with cancer, kidney infections, diabetes, with no treatment available here ? What should doctors working almost 24 hours a day in accident and emergency say ? Especially when they have to triage the endless stream of sick people, choosing those with a chance of surviving ? That’s the worst thing for any doctor. And what should nurses say, faced with the worst atrocities perpetrated by the (now tired) executioner, the daily sight of mangled, headless bodies of children ?

I remember the testimony of a French emergency doctor, Raphaël Pitti, who spent several months in Gaza. He was used to war zones, having worked in different conflicts. He said he had never experienced the like of what he saw in Gaza and thought he could never live through something like that a second time. In a state of psychological exhaustion, he could not understand how the world said nothing, to the point of doubting the rest of humanity.

We, Gazans, are now beyond exhaustion. No one can bear what we are living, between death and non-life. The worst for us is not being able to protect our families. It’s seeing someone close to us, or one of our children, wounded, without being able to treat them. The worst is seeing your child suffer, without painkillers or anaesthetics.

So I think about these “exhausted” soldiers. If I understand correctly – I don’t know the Israeli system in detail – they spend two or three months on the ground before getting time off. they aren’t stuck there for 19 months. And they don’t go hungry or thirsty. When a unit leaves a place, they leave behind their empty water bottles and food packaging.

When they finish their job of “protecting Israel” which consists of killing as many people in Gaza as possible, these soldiers return quietly home. They eat and drink well, they go out and above all they travel. They have a change of air to get over feeling psychologically unwell. We, meanwhile, are living through a genocide. A physical, psychological, media, military genocide. It is taking place before the eyes of the entire world, yet no one does a thing. I wonder what it would be like if everyone wasn’t seeing and knowing about it. For the massacres go on and the Israelis continue to film each other. Recently, I saw a photo of some soldiers burning down a villa that belonged to one of my friends. The photo caption read, “In three months we’ll be in Thailand.” For, having ransacked, destroyed and burnt down our houses, these poor soldiers need a change of air: they’re tired out by all the killing and destruction.

Lorenzo Tondo in Jerusalem
Wed 28 May 2025 06.37 EDT

"Witnesses said Israeli forces started shooting after crowds of Palestinians broke through the fences on Tuesday around the distribution site, as an Israeli military helicopter fired flares and bursts of gunfire were heard in the distance. In one video, a large crowd of panicked civilians, including women and children, can be seen running away from the distribution site, trampling the fencing."

The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, was preparing to request arrest warrants for two far-right Israeli government ministers before going on leave over a sexual assault allegations probe against him, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The paper cited current and former officials as having said that the cases against Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, focused “on their roles in expanding” illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

A decision on whether to pursue the cases “falls to Khan’s two deputies, and it is unclear how they plan to proceed,” the report noted.

Some official and legal experts, however, “doubt the court would move ahead without a chief prosecutor on the job, given the political risks such a prosecution could bring.”

Why is everything like this now?

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London (AFP) – Ministers of the OPEC+ oil alliance, led by Saudi Arabia and Russia, discussed production on Wednesday as another hike looms despite falling prices.

The 22-nation group began a series of cuts in 2022 to prop up crude prices, but Saudi Arabia, Russia and six other members surprised markets recently by sharply raising output for May and June.

The move has put pressure on prices, which have also fallen as investors worry that US President Donald Trump's tariff onslaught will cause an economic slump and weigh on demand.

Analysts say the hikes have likely been aimed at punishing OPEC members that have failed to meet their quotas, but it also follows pressure from Trump to lower prices.

OPEC+ ministers in their online meeting Wednesday reaffirmed the alliance's collective policy, according to a joint statement.

But a decision to accelerate output hikes in July is expected to be made by its leading members -- known as the "V8" or "voluntary eight" -- at a meeting on Saturday.

Such a decision, however, is not expected to have a major effect on oil prices, which have hovered around a relatively low $60-$65 per barrel.

"This potential hike seems largely priced in already (by the markets)," said Ole Hvalbye, commodities analyst at SEB research group.

"We expect market reactions to remain relatively muted," Hvalbye said.

At a meeting in December, OPEC+ decided to wait until late 2026 to reverse collective cuts of some two million barrels per day (bpd), as well as additional cuts by some member countries of 1.65 million bpd.

But the V8 separately decided to reopen the valves this year, reducing further cuts they made and raising output from April by 137,000 bpd and at an accelerated pace by 411,000 bpd in May and June.

"There are rumours that the group will move ahead with another triple hike (another 411,000 barrels) in July" at its meeting on Saturday, said analysts at Norwegian financial services group DNB.

Analysts see several possible motivations for the production hikes.

The move is seen as Saudi Arabia and others penalising members for not keeping to their quotas under the cuts first agreed in 2022.

Kazakhstan, which is seen as one of the main laggards, "continues to produce roughly 350,000 barrels above its quota," said Arne Lohmann Rasmussen, an analyst at Global Risk Management.

Analysts also note that the production increases came after Trump called on OPEC to slash prices -- meaning to increase output -- in order to contain US inflation.

A third reason could be an attempt by Saudi Arabia to drive prices down to add pressure on the US shale business and increase its market share.

The next OPEC+ ministerial meeting is set for 30 November 2025.

London (AFP) – Nearly 380 writers from the UK and Ireland, including Zadie Smith and Ian McEwan, penned an open letter Wednesday denouncing what they called Israel's "genocide" in Gaza and urging a ceasefire.

The letter called on "our nations and the peoples of the world to join us in ending our collective silence and inaction in the face of horror," they wrote in a letter published on the Medium website.

"The use of the words 'genocide' or 'acts of genocide' to describe what is happening in Gaza is no longer debated by international legal experts or human rights organisations," the letter continued.

Israel has repeatedly denied all accusations of genocide in its campaign to crush Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

The letter comes a day after 300 French-language writers, including Nobel Literature prize winners Annie Ernaux and Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio, signed a similar statement condemning "genocide".

"Palestinians are not the abstract victims of an abstract war. Too often, words have been used to justify the unjustifiable, deny the undeniable, defend the indefensible," the British and Irish writers said.

The writers, including novelist Elif Shafak and playwright Hanif Kureishi as well as the Scottish and Welsh writers PEN clubs, called for a ceasefire, the "immediate distribution of food and medical aid" in Gaza and sanctions on Israel.

International condemnation has grown over Israel's humanitarian aid blockade and relentless strikes after it ended a ceasefire in March and intensified military operations this month.

"This is not only about our common humanity and all human rights; this is about our moral fitness as the writers of our time," the writers said.

On Monday over 800 UK-based legal experts, including former Supreme Court justices, wrote to Prime Minister Keir Starmer saying: "Genocide is being perpetrated in Gaza or, at a minimum, there is a serious risk of genocide occurring.

"Serious violations of international law are being committed and are further threatened by Israel," the lawyers said, adding the UK is "legally obliged to take all reasonable steps within their power to prevent and punish genocide."

At least 47 people were injured, most of them by gunfire from Israeli forces, when large crowds surged toward a newly opened aid distribution center in Gaza, a UN human rights official said Wednesday.

Ajith Sunghay, the head of the UN human rights office in the occupied Palestinian territories, told an Association of Accredited Correspondents at the United Nations (ACANU) media briefing in Geneva that "most of those injured are due to gunshots," and those injuries were "caused due to shooting by the IDF (Israeli army)."

On Tuesday, starving Gazans stormed a US-backed aid distribution facility, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the southern city of Rafah, local authorities said.

It said Israeli forces opened fire after thousands of starving Palestinians rushed into the aid distribution facility.