Israel-Palestine conflict

More than 3,500 children below the age of five years “face imminent death by starvation”, Gaza’s Government Media Office (GMO) has said, adding that some 70,000 children are being hospitalised in the enclave due to severe malnutrition amid more than two months of total Israeli blockade.

“Under this systematic blockade, more than 3,500 children under the age of five face imminent death by starvation, while approximately 290,000 children are on the brink of death,” the GMO statement on Telegram said on Sunday.

“At a time when 1.1 million children daily lack the minimum nutritional requirements for survival, this crime is being perpetrated by the ‘Israeli’ occupation using starvation as a weapon, amid shameful international silence,” it added.

At least 57 Palestinians have starved to death, causing global outrage, but that has failed to convince Israel to allow entry of aid into the enclave of 2.3 million people.

A shortage of food and supplies has driven the territory towards starvation, according to aid agencies. Supplies to treat and prevent malnutrition are depleted and quickly running out as documented cases of malnutrition rise.

The price of what little food is still available in the market is unaffordable for most in Gaza, where the United Nations says more than 80 percent of the population relies on aid.

Aid groups and rights campaigners have accused Israel of using starvation as a weapon of war.

Israel, for its part, insists the blockade is necessary to pressure Hamas to release the captives it still holds. Of the 59 captives still in Gaza, 24 are believed to be alive.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 52,495 Palestinians and wounded 118,366, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The GMO updated the death toll to more than 61,700, saying thousands of people missing under the rubble are presumed dead.

Videos show the moment Israel bombed tents sheltering forcibly displaced Palestinians at Gaza’s Al-Rahb Camp, west of Khan Younis. Civil defence teams rescued children and recovered bodies from rubble and fire after further Israeli strikes.

Thousands of Israelis have gathered outside the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv, urging the government to prioritise the release of captives still held in Gaza instead of escalating military operations in the Palestinian territory.

The demonstration on Saturday was held as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government authorised the mobilisation of up to 60,000 reserve troops, signalling plans to intensify its assault on the besieged Palestinian enclave.

One protester held aloft a placard castigating Netanyahu that read, “our tyrant is a liar, because of him the state is on fire”.

Government officials claim an expanded military offensive on Gaza will pressure Hamas into releasing the 59 remaining captives, but critics argue it further endangers their lives. Ending the fleeting ceasefire, which saw Palestinian prisoners exchanged for Israeli captives earlier this year, has not led to any more releases.

A video circulated by Hamas on Saturday purported to show one of the Israeli captives, whom local media identified as Maxim Herkin. In the four-minute video posted online, Herkin is seen being rescued by Hamas members after an Israeli attack struck a tunnel, burying and injuring the Israeli captive.

Families of the captives released a statement saying they spent the Sabbath gripped by “excruciating anxiety” after news of the government’s planned escalation and the effect it could have on those still held in Gaza.

The Bring Them Home Campaign, a group representing the relatives, condemned the move as reckless.

“Israel is on its way to sinking into the Gaza mud in the name of the illusion that it is possible to achieve any victory without returning our brothers and sisters from captivity,” the group said in a post on X. “Expanding the fighting will endanger the kidnapped, the living and the dead alike.”

They urged Netanyahu to abandon the offensive and instead reach an agreement that would secure the captives’ return. “Stop this mistake,” the group said.

‘Protests not enough to influence Netanyahu’

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Israeli journalist Gideon Levy said the protest movement remains consistent, but lacks the momentum to challenge Netanyahu’s coalition. “It’s the same old protest, very courageous and devoted, but not big enough to influence Netanyahu,” Levy said.

He noted that a large segment of Israeli society continues to support the war effort, even amid rising frustration from the captives’ families, and that “when [Israelis] are called to war, they will obey.”

Netanyahu, speaking Thursday at a public event in Jerusalem, seemed to suggest that defeating Hamas remains Israel’s top priority instead of the release of captives. “We want to bring all our hostages home,” he said. “The war has a supreme goal, and the supreme goal is victory over our enemies, and this we will achieve.”

Captives’ families have accused Netanyahu of undermining previous attempts to reach a truce and swap deal. Some believe his refusal to compromise reflects political motives, aimed at ensuring the survival of his far-right coalition government, rather than genuine concern for the captives.

Prime minister of Yemen’s internationally recognised government has resigned amid political turmoil.

Israel has intercepted a missile fired from Yemen, the third such attack by Houthi forces in a 24-hour span, as the United States continues daily attacks on the country.

The Israeli army confirmed on Saturday it had activated air raid sirens across parts of the country following the missile launch.

No injuries or major damage were reported. Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree claimed responsibility for the attack, calling it a response to Israeli operations in Gaza.

The Houthis have increasingly targeted Israel and shipping routes in the Red Sea, stating that their actions are acts of solidarity with Palestinians as Israel continues its assault on Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The Houthis did not carry out attacks during the Gaza ceasefire earlier this year until Israel blocked all aid into the besieged enclave in early March and followed that with a full resumption of the war.

In the meantime, Houthi-affiliated Al Masirah TV reported on Saturday that the US launched two air raids on Yemen’s Kamaran Island and as-Salif district in the port city of Hodeidah.

The new attacks come a day after the same news outlet reported seven US attacks on the Ras Isa oil port in as-Salif district in Hodeidah. Last month, a US strike on the same port killed at least 80 people and wounded 150 in one of the deadliest attacks on the country by US forces.

The US has also ramped up its air campaign in Yemen, launching its most extensive military operations in the Middle East since President Donald Trump assumed office in January.

US forces claim to have struck Houthi positions, however, there have been numerous civilian casualties.

The high civilian toll from US strikes is drawing increasing alarm. The UK-based monitor Airwars reported that between 27 and 55 civilians were killed in March alone. April’s deaths are expected to be higher.

Houthi sources say at least 68 African migrants died in a single overnight strike on Monday, with additional casualties reported around the capital.

Yemen’s prime minister resigns

As the conflict intensifies, political instability is growing within Yemen.

Ahmed Awad bin Mubarak, the prime minister of the internationally recognised government, announced his resignation on Saturday, citing persistent challenges, including his inability to reshuffle the cabinet.

Government insiders said a power struggle with Presidential Council leader Rashad al-Alimi triggered Mubarak’s departure.

Within hours of the announcement, the presidential council named Finance Minister Salem Saleh bin Braik as prime minister, according to the state-run SABA news agency. The council also named bin Mubarak as an adviser to the ruling body, without addressing his claims.

Mubarak’s political career has been closely linked to the long-running war in Yemen. He rose to prominence after being abducted by Houthi fighters in 2015 while serving as chief of staff to then-president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Much of the international community does not recognise the Houthis, also known as Ansar Allah (supporters of God), even though the armed Iran-aligned group controls most parts of Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa, and some of the western and northern areas close to Saudi Arabia.

As trucks carrying vital supplies pile up at border with Egypt, hungry children look through rubbish for food.

At least 57 Palestinians have starved to death in Gaza as Israel’s punishing blockade of food, water, and other critical aid to the besieged enclave stretches into its third month amid relentless bombardment.

Gaza’s Government Media Office said on Saturday that most of the victims were children, as well as the sick and elderly, condemning the “continued use of food by the Israeli occupation as a weapon of war” and urging the international community to exert pressure on Israel to reopen the borders and allow in aid.

Gaza has been under total Israeli blockade since March 2, video obtained by Al Jazeera Arabic showing large numbers of trucks carrying vital supplies piling up on the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip on Saturday, the queue extending south beyond the city of Arish, located approximately 45 kilometres (28 miles) from Rafah border crossing.

Al Jazeera’s team identified one of the latest victims on Saturday, a baby girl called Janan Saleh al-Sakafi, who died of malnutrition and dehydration in the Rantisi Hospital, west of Gaza City. More than 9,000 children have been admitted to hospital for treatment for acute malnutrition since the start of the year, according to the United Nations.

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud said he had witnessed heartbreaking scenes of children rifling through rubbish, “looking for whatever is left of canned food products”. The enclave, he added, had reached a “critical” point with international organisations out of supplies and community kitchens unable to prepare meals for displaced people.

“Finding a single meal has become an impossible quest,” Ahmad al-Najjar, a displaced Palestinian in Gaza City, told Al Jazeera. “People here have witnessed one charity after another declaring they’re out of supplies, that they’re shutting down their operations because they’re in no position to … offer the population the needed relief.”

“It’s frustrating and infuriating to have trucks piling up on the other side of the fence be denied entrance while the people, even children, are in dire conditions.”

Hospitals face ‘acute shortages’

Suhaib al-Hams, the director of the Kuwaiti Hospital in Rafah, said in a statement that medical services were experiencing “acute shortages in more than 75 percent of essential medicines”, with only around a week of supplies left.

He warned that most of the enclave’s medical services will stop without “immediate intervention” to reopen borders and allow medical and humanitarian aid through. He added that patients, who are “slowly dying every day without treatment”, needed to be evacuated urgently.

The continued blockade is the longest such closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced, and has come as Israeli forces continue bombarding the territory, killing at least 70 Palestinians and wounding 275 others over the two days spanning Thursday to Saturday morning, according to the Health Ministry.

On Saturday, two women were killed in an Israeli air raid on a house in the town of al-Fakhari near Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis, according to reports from Al Jazeera Arabic.

Separately, a fisherman was killed and another injured by an Israeli naval attack off the coast of Gaza City.

Later in the day, two Palestinians were killed in an Israeli drone attack on southern Gaza’s al-Mawasi area, once an Israeli-designated “safe zone”.

Israel’s war on Gaza has killed at least 52,495 people and wounded 118,366 since October 7, 2023, according to the Health Ministry. Thousands more missing under the rubble are presumed dead.

In the Nasser Medical Complex in Gaza’s Khan Younis, a volunteer doctor breaks down as he speaks of the things he has seen during his mission here.

It is impossible to get over the scenes of starving, shocked, and injured children, thoracic surgeon Ehab Massad says.

“The sight of a child standing at the door, bewildered because they have lost their entire family in a bombing, I could never forget that, ever,” he adds in a faltering voice as tears fill his eyes.

‘It will never feel like enough’

Massad is a member of a medical mission by the Rahma Worldwide organisation, one of four doctors working in Qatar to have joined.

“I feel like no matter what we do for [the people of Gaza], it will never feel like enough,” he says.

“[However] the helpless feeling of being outside Gaza and watching the news is gone now; at least I feel like I’m doing my part.”

It’s a feeling echoed by the three other doctors to whom Al Jazeera spoke. Orthopaedic surgeon Anas Hijjawi described a long line of doctors who had signed up for medical missions to Gaza, some of whom had to wait up to five months for a spot on a mission to open up.

Dr Diyaa Rachdan, an ophthalmic surgeon, struggles to keep his voice steady as he tells Al Jazeera that Tuesday was the last day of the mission and the doctors would be heading back to their respective hospitals the next day.

“But I am hoping that there will be more, longer trips to Gaza in the future,” he adds.

Their work in Gaza is not easy, but that is not the reason these doctors are sad to be leaving their mission behind. On the contrary, every day is a struggle as they try to cope with a volume of deaths, illnesses and injuries they simply do not have the equipment to address.

Israel has often prevented the entry of hospital supplies into Gaza during the course of its nearly 19-month-long war on the besieged enclave. Medical missions are not allowed to bring anything in with them.

So, the doctors struggle on with the equipment they can find, sometimes reusing “disposable” medical implements over and over, despite the danger that poses, because there is simply no other choice, Dr Rachdan says.

At the back of their minds, several doctors tell Al Jazeera, is always the thought that people in Gaza die of wounds and illnesses that would be easily treated in any other hospital that has adequate supplies.

“Sometimes we can’t cover a patient or take precautions to preserve the sterility of an operating room,” Dr Hijjawi says.

“Sometimes I don’t have the right size metal plates or screws that I need to mend a limb. I’ve had to use the wrong size item … just to get them better enough that they could, some day, travel for more treatment.”

The things that happen to people in war

While doctors coming into Gaza have often followed developments there closely before arrival, nothing, they tell Al Jazeera, could have prepared them for the level of destruction the people of Gaza have to cope with.

“Words can’t describe the pain people are in here, or the level of exhaustion of the medical teams. They’ve been working nearly around the clock for a year and a half now, despite their own personal pain and tragedies,” says the fourth Qatar-based volunteer, urology consultant Mohammad Almanaseer.

There’s a tentativeness in Dr Almanaseer’s voice as he speaks of the case that has impacted him the most deeply, the story of a little boy of about two years old who was brought into the emergency room after Israel had bombed him and his family.

“The usual resuscitation attempts were made with him, but he needed immediate surgery. I was in the operating room, assisting the paediatric surgeon, but it became clear to us that the child probably wouldn’t survive.”

The child died the next morning.

“He was the same age as my son, and even had the same name. Kinan, little Kinan, may God receive you and your mother, who was killed in the same bombing, by his side.”

Injuries as extreme and urgent as Kinan’s are what the medical teams deal with day in and day out, resulting in a large swath of patients who need less urgent care and who keep getting pushed down the list.

Like the patients who have been waiting for months or years for cataract surgery, some of whom were helped by Dr Rachdan during this mission.

The people of Gaza have been forced to carry on throughout the genocidal war on their existence. This strength has inspired a sort of bewildered regard among the visiting volunteer doctors.

Dr Hijjawi tells of an afternoon chat with an operating room nurse who was explaining how he struggles to get to work every day and how he says a final farewell to his wife and children every day, because he never knows what may happen to any of them.

“Then, we heard ambulances coming in,” Dr Hijjawi continues, “and we went to muster in the emergency room. Suddenly, the OR nurse came running past us, desperately asking for an ambulance to go to his house with him because he had heard it had been bombed.

“It took some time … but they finally went out and came back with his parents, who had been killed, and the rest of his family, who had injuries among them. And, you know what? Just two days after this happened to him, he’s here, he’s upstairs working.”

The silence of the shocked

All four doctors seem to have a soft spot for their paediatric patients. It is the children’s pain that affects them the most, and it is their suffering that they will take away with them in their memories.

Al Jazeera follows Dr Almanaseer on his rounds as he visits a young girl in intensive care. She is recovering from severe burns on much of her face and body. In quiet tones, she asks him about whether she will be left with big scars from the burns.

The doctor answers her quietly and seriously, taking time to talk to her until it seems like she’s reassured for today.

Dr Hijjawi is also on his rounds, speaking to a little girl, gently examining her leg and asking her to “lift both feet off the bed for me”. Then he asks a little boy to wiggle his toes so he can check on how he’s healing.

Next is a young girl lying under a recovery blanket in a room on her own. Her right arm is bandaged, which is what he’s there to look at.

He squats on the floor near her bed and moves her arm, then each of her fingers. He’s concerned because she seems to have lost sensation in two fingers and feels the problem will have to be explored surgically, as he tells a concerned relative.

The children are quiet, wide-eyed, doing as they’re told and not saying much else.

“There’s so much they’re dealing with,’ Hijjawi says. “Being in the hospital is scary, but on top of that, so many of them are just lying there waiting, hoping, for someone to visit them – a parent or grandparent or sibling. Some of them don’t know who’s left alive from their family outside the hospital walls.

“Add all that to their physical pain, yes, they are very quiet for very long periods, or their minds seem to wander,” he says quietly.

Dr Rachdan is holding fast to one memory of Gaza’s children that he seems to want to preserve as he gets ready to leave: “One thing that I don’t think I will ever forget is the sight of the children in Gaza who continue playing, despite the destruction.

“They make paper aeroplanes, play ball, despite the tragedy they are surrounded by. I will always remember that.”

On May 2, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) concluded public hearings into what Israel’s obligations are regarding allowing United Nations agencies and other relief groups to work in the Palestinian territory it occupies.

A panel of judges has heard oral arguments from 40 countries since Monday, including China, France, Indonesia, Pakistan, Russia and the United Kingdom.

The court will likely deliberate for months before making a ruling, requested of it in December by the UN General Assembly.

Many of the participating states rebuked Israel for acutely restricting humanitarian aid into Gaza since launching a genocidal war on the enclave on October 7, 2023.

Israel has cut off all aid – food or medicine – entirely for the last two months, accelerating the starvation and medical crises.

Here are the key takeaways from the hearings:

Starvation threatens the Palestinians as a people

There was broad consensus that Israel, as an occupying power, would be obliged to allow aid organisations to deliver assistance to the people it occupies, particularly in Gaza, which Israel is also bombing.

Israel has weakened human rights norms through its violations in Gaza, Juliette McIntyre, a legal scholar at the University of South Australia, argued.

She pointed out that nearly all the states speaking at the hearings affirmed that the ability of Palestinians to receive humanitarian relief is necessary for their survival, to guard their right to eventual self-determination and safeguard the entire UN system and the treaties underpinning it.

Put bluntly, she said most states agree that Israel should not be allowed to starve civilians it occupies nor impede the relief work of UN agencies.

“Every state, except for two, agrees that Israel is an occupier and it owes certain obligations,” she told Al Jazeera.

What did Israel say?

Israel submitted written statements which called the hearings a “circus” and accused the court of anti-Semitism.

On top of that, it claimed that it has no obligation to work with what it described as compromised UN organs or aid groups and that its sovereign right to “defend itself” takes priority over its responsibility to deliver aid to the people it occupies.

This is not the first time Israel has refused to attend ICJ sessions leading to an advisory opinion.

The US statement

The US defended Israel, said Heidi Matthews, assistant professor of law at York University, Canada.

She added that the US tried to deny the severity of the situation and shield Israel from accountability by deliberately not speaking about the facts on the ground.

According to Matthews, while the US mainly said the ICJ should advise Israel to uphold its legal obligations under international law, it did not provide details of Israel’s conduct or call for Israel to take concrete steps to mitigate the humanitarian crisis it created.

“This kind of highly formalist and factually empty approach to law is characteristic of one form of fascist engagement with legal argument,” Matthews told Al Jazeera.

The US also tried to “spook” the court by bringing up Israel’s unsupported allegations that the UN relief agency for Palestinians (UNRWA) had been infiltrated by Hamas, said Adel Haque, a legal scholar at Rutgers University.

In October 2024, Israel banned UNRWA, which aids the Palestinians made refugees by the Zionist ethnic cleansing that made way for the declaration of Israel as a state in 1948.

The US is betting that the court can be swayed, Haque said, and so it is trying to encourage a more “general” advisory opinion.

“Basically, if the advisory opinion is made at such a high level of generality, then it wouldn’t say anything about Israel’s conduct at all,” he told Al Jazeera.

More than two million Palestinians in Gaza are starving as they face genocidal levels of violence at Israel’s hands.

ICJ cases as a substitute for action?

While ICJ advisory opinions reaffirm international laws and norms, its non-binding opinions cannot change facts on the ground, and some countries may be seeking ICJ opinions rather than take concrete, coordinated action against Israel, said Haque.

“Many [European states] have come before the ICJ in these hearings to say Israel is not fulfilling its obligations. But the question, now, is what are these states going to do about it?” he told Al Jazeera.

He noted the UK had used the recent hearings to denounce Israel’s obstruction of aid and to speak about its decision to halt arms sales to Israel, not enough of an action, he added.

France also spoke about the need for Israel to quickly facilitate aid into Gaza.

But the statements appear to be attempts to substitute for Europe’s collective failure to take urgent action against Israel for its conduct in Gaza, said Haque.

“The onus is on states to decide what they are going to do about [Israel’s actions] and not to wait for the court to rule on what they already know,” Haque added.

When and how will the ICJ rule?

The ICJ is not expected to issue an advisory opinion for months.

The non-binding advisory opinion will likely not compel Israel or member states to change course, according to legal scholars.

Israel has ignored an earlier binding provisional measures by the ICJ ordering it to scale up humanitarian aid and end acts of genocide in Gaza as a result of a genocide case brought against Israel by South Africa in December 2023.

No state has taken any action against Israel for failing to implement the provisional measures.

McIntyre believes the court will eventually issue a narrow ruling that outlines Israel’s responsibilities to facilitate aid and cooperate with UNRWA.

By the time the court issues its opinion, tens of thousands of Palestinians may have already starved to death, or been ethnically cleansed by Israel.

“The advisory opinion won’t solve the problem on the ground and genuine action [by states] needs to be taken,” warned McIntyre.

UNICEF says children face ‘growing risk of starvation, illness and death’ as Israel bars food and other aid deliveries.

Thousands of Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip are facing an increased threat of starvation, the United Nations has warned, as Israel’s continued blockade of food, water and other critical supplies to the besieged and bombarded coastal territory enters its third month.

The UN’s child rights agency (UNICEF) said on Friday that more than 9,000 children had been admitted for treatment for acute malnutrition since the start of the year.

But the situation has worsened since Israel imposed a total blockade on the Palestinian enclave in early March.

“For two months, children in the Gaza Strip have faced relentless bombardments while being deprived of essential goods, services and lifesaving care,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement.

“With each passing day of the aid blockade, they face the growing risk of starvation, illness and death – nothing can justify this.”

Israel has blocked all humanitarian assistance from reaching Palestinians in Gaza since March 2, spurring international condemnation.

The UN’s World Food Programme said last week that its food supplies had been “depleted” amid the siege, warning that community kitchens upon which thousands of Palestinians rely would be forced to close.

“We don’t ask if food is nutritious or not, if it’s fresh or good; that’s a luxury, we just want to fill the stomachs of our children,” a displaced Palestinian parent recently told Amnesty International about the crisis. “I don’t want my child to die hungry.”

The Israeli government has said its blockade is intended to put pressure on Palestinian group Hamas to release captives held in Gaza. But it has not led to any more releases since the fleeting ceasefire earlier this year, which saw Palestinian prisoners exchanged for Israeli captives.

Meanwhile, Hamas official Abdel Rahman Shadid on Friday accused Israel of using starvation as a “deliberate weapon of war” against Palestinians.

“Children are dying from the lack of milk, not just from bombs,” Shadid said in a statement published on the group’s Telegram channel.

Legal experts and human rights groups have noted that, as an occupying power, Israel has an obligation under international law to provide food and other assistance to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

They have condemned the blockade as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians of all ages are experiencing high levels of food insecurity in Gaza, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system, a global hunger watchdog.

Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs Network, told Al Jazeera that the situation is worsening quickly as health facilities lack the supplies needed to treat children grappling with malnutrition.

“We have no food supplies or supplementary materials or medications for these children,” Shawa told Al Jazeera from Gaza City. “There is high concern that we will witness more casualties in the coming few days,” he added.

At Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, in northern Gaza, Dr Ahmed Abu Nasir said the situation has become worse than ever due to the blockade.

“Children are in their growing stage and badly need certain nutrients, including proteins and fats,” the paediatrician told Al Jazeera. “These are not available in the Gaza Strip, particularly in the north.”

More than 52,400 Palestinians have been killed since Israel’s war on Gaza began in October 2023, according to figures from the Gaza Health Ministry.

The death of six-year-old Wadee Alfayoumi, a Palestinian American, has shone a light on instances of anti-Arab hate.

A United States man has been sentenced to 53 years in prison for the fatal stabbing of a six-year-old Palestinian American boy, after being found guilty of hate crime charges and murder.

Judge Amy Bertani-Tomczak announced the sentence on Friday in the case of 73-year-old Illinois landlord Joseph Czuba.

On October 14, 2023, just days after the start of Israel’s war in Gaza, Czuba attacked two of his tenants, Hanan Shaheen and her young son Wadee Alfayoumi.

Police say Czuba arrived at their door angry about the war and proceeded to force his way inside, strangling Shaheen and holding her down before pulling out a military-style knife.

Shaheen suffered more than a dozen stab wounds before escaping to a bathroom to call 911 for help. Alfayoumi, meanwhile, was stabbed 26 times. He did not survive.

Czuba’s trial featured audio from Shaheen’s panicked 911 call, as well as testimony from the mother herself. Speaking from the witness stand in English and Arabic, she described Czuba becoming increasingly paranoid and Islamophobic as the war progressed.

For nearly two years before the attack, the family had rented a pair of bedrooms in Czuba’s house in Plainville, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.

But after the war began on October 7, Shaheen recalled Czuba telling her to move out of her lodgings because Muslims were not welcome.

Then, during the attack, she once again heard him citing her Muslim faith. “He told me ‘You, as a Muslim, must die,’” said Shaheen.

The incident was one of the highest-profile acts of anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and anti-Muslim violence in the US after the war in Gaza broke out.

But advocates say it is part of a trend of anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic hate that has swept the country in recent months.

After the attack, police found Czuba sitting on the ground outside of the home, his hands and body bloody. Czuba pleaded not guilty, and his defence team has sought to vacate his conviction on the grounds that the prosecution played to the jury’s emotions.

Some of the images of the crime scene were so graphic that the judge ordered the court’s television screens to be turned away from the audience. Jury members heard Shaheen telling 911 operators in fear, “The landlord is killing me and my baby!”

During his opening statements, Michael Fitzgerald, the assistant state’s attorney for Will County, described Alfayoumi’s final moments as full of horror.

“He could not escape,” Fitzgerald said. “If it wasn’t enough that this defendant killed that little boy, he left the knife in the little boy’s body.”

In February, the jury took less than 90 minutes to return a guilty verdict.

On Friday, Judge Bertani-Tomczak rejected the defence’s bid to overturn the conviction. In announcing the sentence, she called Czuba’s actions “brutal” and “heinous”.

She said a 30-year prison sentence was given for Alfayoumi’s murder, plus another 20 years for the attack on his mother and three years for committing a hate crime.

Alfayoumi’s great-uncle, Mahmoud Yousef, was the only family member to speak at the sentencing hearing. He said no amount of prison time could ever make up for the loss his family has suffered.

He also explained that Alfayoumi had seen Czuba as a grandfather figure, and he questioned what “fake news” about the war in Gaza could have prompted such violence.

“Some people are bringing this war to this country,” Yousef said. “We cannot do that. We can’t bring the war here. We cannot bring hatred to this country.”

In March, the Council on American-Islamic Relations issued a report saying it had received 8,658 complaints of anti-Muslim and anti-Arab incidents in the last year alone, a 7.6 percent rise.

It was the highest tally the group had recorded since it began collecting data in 1996.

The group says it attacked an Israeli military base with a hypersonic missile.

Yemen’s Houthis have claimed responsibility for launching two missiles towards northern Israel, targeting the Ramat David military airbase and the Tel Aviv area, as the group continues its military pressure in solidarity with Palestinians under Israeli fire.

The Israeli military said on Friday it intercepted the first missile and launched another interceptor at the second, which was also fired from Yemen.

Alarms were triggered in several locations, though authorities reported no casualties or damage. The military added that the outcome of the second interception was still under review.

Yahya Saree, spokesperson for the Houthis – also known as Ansar Allah – confirmed the group had carried a “military operation” against a key Israeli military target.

Saree said hypersonic missiles were used and had successfully hit their intended destination.

The Israeli army responded that “interception attempts were made” without providing further details.

The Houthi group has repeatedly said its attacks on Israel as well as United States and British ships in the Red Sea and Bab al-Mandeb Strait will only cease if Israel agrees to a permanent Gaza truce.

The Houthis did not carry out attacks during the Gaza ceasefire earlier this year until Israel blocked all aid into the besieged enclave in early March and followed that with a full resumption of the war.

Growing civilian death toll

The attacks come as the US escalates its military operations in Yemen.

Since March, the US has launched large-scale attacks not only on infrastructure but increasingly on individuals linked to the Houthi leadership.

Civilian casualties are mounting, with UK-based monitor Airwars estimating between 27 and 55 civilians were killed in March alone, and suggesting April’s toll is even higher.

One of the deadliest US strikes in April hit Ras Isa port in Hodeidah, killing at least 80 people and wounding more than 150.

On Monday at least 68 people were killed in the overnight strike on detained African migrants, and eight people were killed around the capital, Houthi media reported.

Rights advocates have been alarmed about the growing civilian death toll. Three US Democratic senators recently wrote to Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, demanding an accounting for civilian lives lost.

“Strikes pose a growing risk to the civilian population in Yemen,” United Nations spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Monday. “We continue to call on all parties to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians.”

Aid workers trying to deliver supplies to Gaza were left stranded on a burning ship in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea after they say it was attacked by drones. The ship was part of an attempt to challenge Israel’s two-month blockade of Gaza.

Leader Nigel Farage, a Trump ally, hopes to position anti-immigration party as significant political force in UK.

The radical-right Reform UK party has made gains in local and by-elections, seeking to establish itself as a significant political force.

The anti-immigration party won a fifth parliamentary seat, gained its first mayoralty, and took a number of seats on local councils, results on Friday showed. Reform hopes to ride growing support to unbalance the United Kingdom’s political system, which is traditionally dominated by the governing Labour Party and opposition Conservatives.

“It’s been a huge night for Reform,” said Reform leader Nigel Farage after the party was declared winner of the seat of Runcorn and Helsby.

The victory in northwest England, previously a Labour stronghold, came by just six votes.

Reform also prevailed in a mayoral race in Greater Lincolnshire and picked up dozens of council seats from Labour and the Conservatives in the first polls since general elections last year.

The results appear to underline the fracturing of the UK’s political landscape.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer led Labour to one of the largest parliamentary majorities in British history in last year’s election but has gone on to suffer the fastest decline in popularity of any newly elected government.

Brexit champion Farage, a populist who has allied himself in the past with United States President Donald Trump, noted that the win in Runcorn and Helsby, which Labour won in last year’s national election with a majority of almost 15,000 votes, showed that the ruling party’s vote had “collapsed”.

Labour has lost support as the government has raised taxes, cut benefits for the elderly and proposed sweeping welfare reforms, alienating the left-wing party’s traditional voter base and driving some into the arms of Reform.

‘Soft-touch Britain’

In Greater Lincolnshire, newly elected mayor Andrea Jenkyns, a former Conservative minister who defected to Reform after losing her seat last year, became the party’s most powerful elected politician yet, with responsibility for an area covering about a million people.

In her victory speech, Jenkyns pledged to bring an end to “soft-touch Britain” and said asylum seekers should be held in tents, not in hotels as they often are in the country.

“The rebuilding begins here … we’re going to have a Britain where we put British people first,” she said.

Reform UK is the latest in a series of parties led by Farage, a veteran hard-right politician who was crucial in taking the UK out of the European Union through a 2016 referendum. A divisive figure, he has said many migrants come to the UK from cultures “alien to ours”.

Reform, which has pledged to “stop the boats” of irregular migrants crossing the English Channel, is hoping that winning mayoralties and gaining councillors would help it build its grassroots activism before the next general election – likely in 2029.

The party hopes to scoop up hundreds of municipal seats in the elections that are deciding 1,641 seats on 23 local councils and six mayoralties, as well as the parliamentary seat.

Ballots in most of those contests are being counted on Friday and results should be announced in the afternoon.

ICRC says Israel has ‘obligation’ to meet the needs of Palestinians struggling to survive.

The humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of “total collapse”, with Palestinians facing a “daily struggle to survive” amid Israel’s war and blockade of the enclave, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

The ICRC issued the warning on Friday, adding to the urgent pleas from international aid institutions for a deal that would see Israel agree to a ceasefire and the reopening of humanitarian corridors in exchange for the release of captives by Hamas.

Without an immediate resumption of aid deliveries, the Red Cross “will not have access to the food, medicines, and life-saving supplies needed to sustain many of its programmes in Gaza”, the ICRC said in a statement.

Israel strictly controls all inflows of international aid which is vital for the 2.3 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, amid bombardment that has displaced the majority, devastated the enclave and killed more than 52,000.

Israel closed access for aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, two weeks before the collapse of the ceasefire that had started in January and ran for about six weeks.

The ICRC warned that if the blockade continues, its humanitarian operations in Gaza, particularly the distribution of food, “will only be able to operate for a few more weeks”.

Under international humanitarian law, it added, Israel has an “obligation to use all means available” to ensure that the needs of Palestinian civilians under its control are met.

“Civilians in Gaza are facing an overwhelming daily struggle to survive the dangers of hostilities, cope with relentless displacement, and endure the consequences of being deprived of urgent humanitarian assistance,” Pascal Hundt, ICRC deputy chief of operations, said.

“This situation must not – and cannot – be allowed to escalate further.”

The United Nations has repeatedly warned of humanitarian catastrophe, with famine looming as the blockade continues.

On Friday, Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for the Palestinian refugees (UNWRA), said the Israeli siege is collectively punishing children, women, older people and men in Gaza.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, Amjad Shawwa of the Palestinian NGOs Network warned that the situation in Gaza is worsening quickly for the tens of thousands of children, and that many would likely die due to malnutrition.

On Friday, Israel continued its bombardment of the enclave. Medical sources told Al Jazeera that 22 Palestinians had been killed in Israeli air raids since dawn, with attacks on the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza and the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in the northwest of Gaza City.

Israeli air attacks on the Gaza Strip have killed at least 29 people, Gaza’s civil defence agency said, as the United Nations demanded that Israel lift its blockade of the Palestinian territory and allow humanitarian aid to enter.

At least eight people were killed in an Israeli attack that hit the Abu Sahlul family home in Khan Younis refugee camp in southern Gaza, according to civil defence official Mohammed el-Mougher.

Four others were killed in an air strike in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City, east of Shaaf, and at least 17 more were killed in other assaults across the enclave on Thursday, including a strike on a tent housing displaced civilians near Deir el-Balah.

Witnesses told the AFP news agency about a trail of devastation in Khan Younis. “We came here and found all these houses destroyed, and children, women and young people all bombed to pieces,” said Ahmed Abu Zarqa. “Enough, we’re tired. We don’t know what to do with our lives any more. We’d rather die than live this kind of life.”

‘Aid should never be a bargaining chip’

The bombardment comes amid dire warnings about the humanitarian situation in the besieged territory, which has been under a total Israeli blockade for two months.

Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, said the conditions being imposed by Israel on Palestinians in Gaza are “increasingly incompatible with their continued existence as a group”. He warned that starvation as a method of warfare could amount to a war crime.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza has reached a catastrophic level, with Palestinians teetering on the edge of mass starvation, according to Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum reporting from the ground.

“Parents have literally started to skip meals and children are now eating spoiled food. Canned food has become a luxury,” he said. Aid-supported bakeries have shut down due to severe shortages, while the World Food Programme has reportedly run out of stock, leaving soup kitchens overwhelmed and barely operational.

“Locals are calling for safe, sustained humanitarian corridors, but say meaningful aid can only enter when Israel permits it,” he added. With the blockade now in its second month, many in Gaza feel they are not just enduring a humanitarian emergency but “an engineered misery” that has unleashed famine on a devastating scale.

Tom Fletcher, the UN’s humanitarian chief, echoed those concerns on Thursday. “Aid, and the civilian lives it saves, should never be a bargaining chip,” he said.

“Blocking aid kills. It inflicts cruel collective punishment.” He criticised an Israeli proposal for private distribution of aid in Gaza, calling it insufficient and not aligned with basic humanitarian principles.

“To the Israeli authorities, and those who can still reason with them, we say again: lift this brutal blockade. Let humanitarians save lives,” he said.

UN agencies, including UNRWA, said more than 3,000 aid trucks are stuck at the Gaza border, unable to deliver essential supplies. Some one million children are said to be at risk. “The siege must be lifted,” UNRWA said in a post on X.

Qatar slams Israel at ICJ

Israel’s obligations to provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank are also the subject of a weeklong hearing at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), following a request for an advisory opinion from the UN General Assembly last year.

In the fourth day of hearings on Thursday, Qatar’s ambassador to the Netherlands, Mutlaq al-Qahtani, told the court Israel has continued its “genocidal war against the Palestinian people” and increased settlement efforts in the occupied West Bank.

Palestinians in Gaza continue to face “famine-like conditions” as Israel continues to block “any delivery of life-saving aid”, said Mutlaq al-Qahtani

Israel has jeopardised the existence of the UN agency for Palestine refugees, UNRWA, which is the “backbone” of humanitarian and development assistance in the occupied territory, added the Qatari diplomat.

US President Donald Trump overseeing ‘troubling deterioration’ in press freedom in US, Reporters Without Borders says.

Palestine has become the world’s most dangerous state for journalists amid Israel’s war on Gaza, with dozens of reporters likely killed specifically due to their work, a media freedom watchdog has said.

Israeli forces killed nearly 200 journalists in the first 18 months of the war, at least 42 of whom were slain while doing their job, Reporters Without Borders said on Friday as it released its World Press Freedom Index 2025.

“Trapped in the enclave, journalists in Gaza have no shelter and lack everything, including food and water,” said the Paris-based group, which is also known by its French acronym RSF.

“In the West Bank, journalists are routinely harassed and attacked by both settlers and Israeli forces, but repression reached new heights with a wave of arrests after 7 October, when impunity for crimes committed against journalists became a new rule.”

Journalists suspected of collaborating with Israel are also hampered in their work by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, while a cybercrime law adopted by the Palestinian Authority limits freedom of expression and freedom of the press, RSF said in its report.

Palestine ranked 163rd for press freedom in the latest index, a drop of six places from 2024.

Of 180 jurisdictions, 112 saw declines in press freedom, with the average score globally falling to a record low of 55 points, according to the report.

The United States dropped two places to a record low of 57, with the watchdog accusing US President Donald Trump of overseeing a “troubling deterioration in press freedom”.

“President Donald Trump was elected to a second term after a campaign in which he denigrated the press on a daily basis and made explicit threats to weaponize the federal government against the media,” RSF said.

“His early moves in his second mandate to politicise the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), ban The Associated Press from the White House, or dismantle the US Agency for Global Media, for example, have jeopardised the country’s news outlets and indicate that he intends to follow through on his threats, setting up a potential crisis for American journalism.”

Israel dropped 11 places to 112th, with Reporters Without Borders pointing to growing restrictions on press freedom, media plurality and editorial independence since the start of the war in Gaza.

“Since 2021, only journalists working for Channel 14, a media outlet that covers Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a favourable light, have been granted interviews with the country’s leader, who accuses the Israeli press of conspiring against him,” the group said.

“In 2024, the Minister of Communication called on the government to boycott Haaretz, one of the few newspapers to criticise Netanyahu’s policies, including the massacre of civilians in Gaza – a topic that is largely suppressed.”

Eritrea was the lowest-ranked jurisdiction, just behind North Korea and China.

Norway was ranked first for press freedom, followed by Estonia, the Netherlands and Sweden.

“I wish I could go back to how I was,” Rashaf, a 12-year-old starving girl from Gaza, released a video pleading to be taken abroad for medical treatment. Israel’s total blockade of the enclave has caused a hunger crisis.

Alexandria, Virginia – “Free him now. Free him now.”

Those words rang outside a federal courthouse near Washington, DC, on Thursday, as lawyers argued over the case of Badar Khan Suri, who has been detained by the United States government over his support for Palestinian rights.

Dozens of activists had gathered to show solidarity with Khan Suri, a postdoctoral scholar at Georgetown University. He was arrested in March as part of President Donald Trump’s campaign to punish and deport non-citizens accused of fuelling “anti-Semitism” and “illegal protests” on college campuses.

Speaking to the crowd in Alexandria, Virginia, Mapheze Saleh – Khan Suri’s Palestinian American wife – highlighted the impact of his detention on their three children. She said they just wanted their father back.

“Why is this happening to him? Why is the Trump administration persecuting him?” Saleh said. “Because he fell in love and married to a Palestinian, because he dared to express his belief in non-violence and because he spoke out bravely against the genocide of my people in Gaza.”

Before his detention, Khan Suri was in the US on an academic visa, conducting research on peace-building in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the US government has accused Khan Suri, an Indian national, of violating the terms of his visa by “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media”. It has not offered proof of either assertion.

Outside the courthouse on Thursday, Amanda Eisenhour, an activist from Alexandria, said Khan Suri’s case represents the intersection of issues including free speech, constitutional rights and the “tyranny” of the US immigration system.

“It’s also about Palestine,” Eisenhour told Al Jazeera. “I want to make sure that’s always part of the conversation. Dr Khan Suri is a political prisoner because of his association, because of his marriage to somebody who’s Palestinian. We’re now a country that holds political prisoners, and we have to be ready to fight against that.”

As the legal hearing unfolded, activists outside chanted for Khan Suri’s freedom and Palestinian rights under a statue of a blindfolded woman holding scales, symbolising justice without bias.

One protester held up a sign, “Mob bosses disappear people.” Another placard proclaimed, “Due process now.”

A case in Virginia, a client in Texas

In the courtroom, lawyers for both sides questioned the geographical divide between where the hearing was taking place – and where Khan Suri is held presently.

After his arrest in Virginia, immigration officials quickly moved Khan Suri from a local detention centre to one in Louisiana and then in Texas.

Critics say the government has transferred individuals slated for deportation to faraway states to keep them away from their families and legal teams. They also point out that states like Louisiana and Texas are more likely to have conservative-leaning courts.

On Thursday, Khan Suri’s lawyers argued for the scholar to be moved back to his home state of Virginia, where his case is currently unfolding.

“We hope the court sees through these unlawful government tactics, keeps Dr Suri’s case here in Virginia, orders that he be released or, at minimum, orders that he be returned to Virginia, where he’ll be close to his legal counsel and to his family,” said Samah Sisay, staff lawyer at the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is involved in the case.

But the Trump administration made an opposing request, pushing for the court case to be transferred to Texas.

Ultimately, Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles demanded answers about why Khan Suri was moved so swiftly out of Virginia. She gave the government’s lawyers 24 hours to respond.

The Georgetown scholar’s lawyers have reason to be optimistic about the outcome. Federal district courts have asserted jurisdiction in similar cases, and on Wednesday, a judge in Vermont ordered the release of Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who is also facing deportation.

‘That’s not the America we want to be’

Since Trump began his second term in January, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has suggested that he revoked the visas of hundreds of foreign students who engaged in protests or criticism of Israel.

But the push to deport Khan Suri has been one of the most prominent cases.

To justify removing Khan Suri and other student activists, Rubio has cited the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, a Cold War-era law. One rarely used provision allows the secretary of state to deport non-citizens who pose “potentially serious adverse foreign consequences” for the US.

The Trump administration has not charged Khan Suri with a crime. But officials have accused him of “connections to a known or suspected terrorist”: his father-in-law.

“Suri was married to the daughter of a senior advisor for to [sic] Hamas terrorist group,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a social media post.

But Khan Suri’s supporters point out that his father-in-law, Ahmed Yousef, has not been associated with Hamas for years and has even criticised the group on multiple occasions.

Yousef had served more than a decade ago as an adviser to former Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a Hamas leader who was killed by Israel in Iran last year.

Regardless, legal experts say familial ties are not a criminal offence or grounds for deportation.

Hassan Ahmad, a Virginia-based lawyer representing Khan Suri, said the allegation about the Georgetown scholar’s father-in-law sets the case apart from the push to deport other pro-Palestine students.

“We’re talking not just about the First Amendment, freedom of speech. We’re talking about the constitutional freedom of association as well,” Ahmad said.

“And that’s something that distinguishes Dr Suri’s case, in that here they’re going after him based on not anything that he said or retweeted or forwarded or liked or spoke to anyone [about], but based only on his association. That’s not the America we want to be.”

Eden Heilman, the legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Virginia, which is helping to represent Khan Suri, also said deporting someone based on their personal connections is a “very scary premise”.

“If that’s what the government has done, which they are alleging they are doing with Dr Suri, we are in an unprecedented time in terms of our constitutional threats,” Heilman told reporters on Thursday.

Moreover, social media accounts that appear to belong to Khan Suri do not show any direct support for Hamas or hostility towards the Jewish people. Instead, the scholar has used his social media presence to decry Israeli atrocities in Gaza and highlight apparent war crimes against Palestinians.

“Israel is bombing hospitals in Gaza to turn the land inhabitable, in order to build the case for making Palestinians in Gaza think of migrating to the Sinai desert,” Khan Suri wrote in October 2023.

In recent months, Trump has called for the removal of all Palestinians from Gaza, a plan that rights advocates say amounts to ethnic cleansing.

A ‘Kafkaesque’ situation

Democratic Congressman Don Beyer, who represents a district in northern Virginia where Khan Suri lived, attended Thursday’s hearing to show support.

“I’ll be doing everything I can to help Dr Khan [Suri] and his family, and I encourage each one of us to do all that we can to tell these stories, to help educate the American people about what’s happening in this threat to our Constitution, to our rights,” Beyer said in a video message on Thursday.

“It is Kafkaesque that somebody can be kidnapped without reason, without acknowledgement, without logic, without charges and taken off to be locked in a prison in Texas, not knowing what happens next.”

Anita Martineau, a Northern Virginia resident, told Al Jazeera people should not be “kidnapped” for their speech. She attended a protest outside the hearing, holding a poster that read, “Bring Khan Suri back now.”

“It’s absolutely unconstitutional, and it needs to stop,” Martineau said. “American people and anyone in this country, whether they’re citizens or residents, they all need to stand up. We need to speak with one voice.”

Melissa Petisa, an activist with the group Alexandria for Palestinian Human Rights, also called for Khan Suri to be “released immediately”. She added that Trump is targeting students as a tactic to distract from the escalating carnage in Gaza.

“We’re here because we want to show solidarity with Dr Suri,” Petisa told Al Jazeera. “We’re also here because we’re showing solidarity with Palestine.”

Fault Lines wins in News & Documentary category while Close Up wins in Interactive & Immersive category.

Al Jazeera Media Network has been honoured with two prestigious Peabody Awards, one of the most esteemed accolades in broadcast storytelling.

The awards recognise the Al Jazeera English Fault Lines documentary The Night Won’t End in the News & Documentary category, and the Al Jazeera English Digital film One Day in Gaza from the series Close Up, in the Interactive & Immersive category.

The 85th annual Peabody award winners were announced on May 1, 2025, in advance of its annual ceremony in Los Angeles on June 1, 2025.

The awards honour intelligent, powerful and moving stories told in broadcast and digital media.

Al Jazeera English’s Fault Lines documentary The Night Won’t End uncovers the tragic human cost of war. It depicts the realities of the unrelenting Israeli bombing campaign on Gaza, the unsafe “safe zones,” and arbitrary executions through the eyes of three families during the initial 15 months of the war.

The film investigates the death of five-year-old Hind Rajab, who was waiting to be rescued from a car where her family members had already been shot dead. Two medics dispatched to rescue her were also killed, as verified by a forensic watchdog agency.

Laila Al-Arian, executive producer of Fault Lines, stated, “No single piece can fully capture the scale of the atrocities in Gaza, but we aimed through investigative journalism and on-the-ground storytelling to offer a glimpse of what life has been like. We are honoured by this recognition because it helps bring more attention to a continuing story the world needs to see. Though we filmed this over a year ago, the horrors we documented remain a daily reality for more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.”

To date, The Night Won’t End has garnered multiple awards, including in the coveted International Current Affairs category at the Royal Television Society Awards in the United Kingdom, the Overseas Press Club prize for best TV, video or documentary about international affairs, and the long-form award from the Centre for Information Resilience Open-Source Film Awards.

The One Day in Gaza film from the series Close Up is a compilation of videos recorded by 10 individuals in Gaza, who were asked to document moments throughout their day, thereby helping viewers understand the immense hardships and constant dangers faced by Palestinians living under the constant bombardment in Gaza.

Juan Carlos Van Meek, director of digital innovation and programming, expressed his gratitude for awarding the team the Peabody Award, stating, “I am immensely proud of our team’s relentless efforts in amplifying the humanity of Palestinians living in Gaza under constant bombardment. Through the brave voices of people on the ground, we have captivated millions of viewers and helped sustain global attention on the ongoing genocide, ensuring their stories are not forgotten.”

The recognition of these documentaries underscores Al Jazeera’s commitment to highlighting the profound human experiences amid conflict.

As the situation in Gaza continues to unfold, The Network remains dedicated to shedding light on the stories that matter, ensuring that the voices of those affected are heard on a global platform.

French police and May Day demonstrators violently clashed in Paris on Thursday as more than 100,000 people gathered in the capital to march in support of international peace, social justice, and resistance to the growing influence of the far right.