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  • ‘We have special forces’: Netanyahu unbothered by global threats of arrest

    ‘We have special forces’: Netanyahu unbothered by global threats of arrest

    In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, a long-time personal associate of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli leader brushed off concerns over the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) November 21, 2024 arrest warrant targeting him, stating that Israeli special operations forces would prevent any attempted detainment if he travels to a state that recognizes the court’s authority.

    When Hannity asked whether the warrant could complicate international travel for Netanyahu amid medical emergencies or official trips, the prime minister acknowledged the scenario had crossed his mind, but noted his own military background and the capabilities of Israeli special units. After Hannity highlighted the strength of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Netanyahu joked that the military would be given a new mission to secure his safety.

    The interview came as Netanyahu traveled from Israel to Washington D.C. aboard the official Israeli government jet ‘Wing of Zion’ for talks with U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House. Flight tracking data confirmed the jet transited the airspace of four ICC member states—Greece, Italy, France, and Canada—all signatories to the Rome Statute that established the Hague-based court. This transit prompted widespread criticism from global observers, who accused the four governments of facilitating travel for an internationally wanted suspect.

    The ICC’s arrest warrant cites reasonable grounds to conclude Netanyahu bears criminal responsibility for multiple war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza, including the use of starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts. Netanyahu dismissed the court as a corrupt, unelected international bureaucracy, warning that the body could eventually target American leaders and service members just as it targeted him, given that the U.S. does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction, just as Israel does not.

    The prime minister also confirmed he intends to travel to New York City for the United Nations General Assembly in September regardless of any potential legal action New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani may pursue. Mamdani has called on the U.S. federal government to arrest Netanyahu based on the ICC warrant, a move that has led Israeli officials to accuse him of antisemitism. Netanyahu labeled the mayor a hate-spewing official who is stoking division against Jewish New Yorkers, drawing a parallel to rising antisemitism in 1930s Europe. Mamdani has repeatedly pushed back on these claims, reaffirming his commitment to protecting the safety and rights of all Jewish residents of New York.

    Following his Tuesday White House meeting with Trump, which lasted just under 90 minutes, Netanyahu called the gathering one of the best meetings the two leaders have ever held. However, he clarified to Israeli reporters that the meeting included multiple senior officials, rather than the private one-on-one session many observers had expected. This arrangement has fueled speculation that Trump’s senior advisers sought to limit Netanyahu’s ability to sway the president unilaterally on key policy issues. Netanyahu rejected suggestions of a rift in the U.S.-Israel alliance, telling Hannity that critics looking for fractures would instead find a ‘wall of granite’ holding the partnership together.

    Despite Netanyahu’s framing of the alliance as rock-solid, Trump has publicly expressed frustration with the Israeli leader in recent weeks. Earlier on Tuesday, Trump told Fox News that Netanyahu has pushed him to maintain aggressive action against Iran, a course the U.S. president may no longer favor.

    Netanyahu acknowledged that both the U.S. and Israel share the core goal of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons that could threaten American interests, global stability, and Israeli sovereignty, noting that this goal could be achieved through either diplomatic or military channels. But the prime minister made clear he remains deeply skeptical of diplomatic outreach to Iran, a stance that has already put him at odds with the Trump administration.

    Shortly after the U.S. and Iran signed a joint memorandum of understanding in June, which included a requirement for Israel to end hostilities against the Iranian-allied militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel escalated its offensive across southern Lebanon, pushing attacks as far north as the Lebanese capital Beirut. Trump publicly criticized the escalation, saying Israeli strikes were disproportionate and causing excessive civilian casualties.

    Pressed on whether moderate Iranian factions could successfully negotiate a diplomatic solution, Netanyahu repeated his skepticism, arguing that Iranian factional divides are rooted less in ideology than in differing assessments of Western and Israeli resolve. He emphasized that the only path to a successful outcome, whether diplomatic or military, rests on shared U.S.-Israel resolve to block Iran’s nuclear program.

    The trip comes amid lingering tensions from the joint U.S.-Israel war against Iran launched on February 28. Before the war began, the entire U.S. intelligence community under the Trump administration assessed that Iran posed no imminent threat to the U.S. or its allies. This assessment led to the immediate resignation of Joe Kent, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, within hours of the first offensive missile strikes.

  • Photo of Israeli soldiers posing next to blindfolded Palestinian fuels anger online

    Photo of Israeli soldiers posing next to blindfolded Palestinian fuels anger online

    A photograph showing two female Israeli soldiers posing beside a bound, blindfolded Palestinian young man has ignited widespread public fury across social media platforms after it spread virally online last week.

    The image was originally published this Tuesday as part of a photo carousel on the personal Instagram account of Nikol Stelmashvski, an Israeli woman who had just completed her term of mandatory military service. In the photo, the two uniformed soldiers are seen smiling for the camera while standing next to the unidentified Palestinian, who sits on the ground with his head bowed. No clear details have been released about the exact date or location where the photo was captured.

    Stelmashvski’s caption, written in Hebrew, framed the post as a reflection on wrapping up her military service, reading: “Two years and eight months, four wars… Thousands of memories, a million and one experiences. And here came the end of a chapter of my life that I will never forget.”

    By Wednesday, amid a flood of angry and critical comments from users across the globe, the controversial photograph was removed from the Instagram carousel, and the account was switched to private status within a few hours of the backlash beginning. Even after the original post was taken down, hundreds of screengrabs of the image had already been saved and shared across alternative platforms, allowing the photo to continue circulating widely online.

    Palestinian academic and prominent human rights advocate Ramy Abdu condemned the image in a post on X, writing: “Turning his humiliation into a moment of celebration.” Other social media users drew comparisons to the 2004 Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal in Iraq, noting that global audiences were similarly horrified by images of Iraqi detainees being dehumanized by U.S. soldiers. One user, journalist Mohammad Alsaafin, wrote: “IDF revel in depravity and no one is holding Israel to account.” He added that the image required no contextual labels “and everyone will immediately know where it was taken and what country these women are from.”

    This viral incident is not an isolated case, experts and activists note: since the outbreak of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, Israeli soldiers have repeatedly shared graphic content online depicting actions that human rights groups say may constitute war crimes. The range of content shared by active and recently discharged soldiers includes footage of troops celebrating as they destroy civilian infrastructure, including private family homes, community mosques, and university buildings. In one notable earlier incident, a soldier posted a photo that used a blindfolded Palestinian man as a prop to advertise the soldier’s private commercial business. Other images that have circulated show soldiers posing with stacks of cash looted from Palestinian homes in Gaza, and wearing women’s underwear stolen from displaced civilians’ residences.

    Just one month prior to this latest controversy, an Israeli soldier sparked widespread backlash after posting a photo of a blindfolded, partially undressed Palestinian man lying in a stress position on a cot, his hands zip-tied behind his back and bound to a metal rod. The soldier’s caption simply read “Good morning” in Hebrew. That image, which was reposted by Palestinian activists, drew global condemnation and renewed calls for formal accountability for crimes against Palestinian detainees.

    In response to this week’s viral photo, the Israel Defense Forces released a brief statement acknowledging that it had “identified the incident” and launched an internal command investigation. The statement added that “those involved will be dealt with in accordance with the findings that emerge.” However, data from independent war monitoring organization Action on Armed Violence casts doubt on the likelihood of meaningful consequences: an AOAV investigation published last year found that nearly 90 percent of all Israeli military investigations into allegations of soldier abuse against Palestinians launched since October 2023 have either been closed without action or concluded with no actionable findings.

  • ‘Blood everywhere’ – Clancy’s ex-husband testifies in children murder trial

    ‘Blood everywhere’ – Clancy’s ex-husband testifies in children murder trial

    A Massachusetts murder trial that has gripped the nation has seen harrowing firsthand testimony from Patrick Clancy, the ex-husband of Lindsay Clancy, the woman accused of murdering their three young children in January 2023. Patrick Clancy recounted the chilling sequence of events on January 24 that ended in the deaths of 5-year-old Cora, 3-year-old Dawson, and 8-month-old Callan, describing a quiet and off-kilter atmosphere that immediately set off alarm bells when he returned home with takeout food.

    After checking most rooms of the Duxbury family home, including a quick pass through the basement, Clancy found the second-floor bedroom door locked. When he gained entry, the first thing he saw was blood spread across the space — a sight that confirmed his worst fears. He testified that prosecutors’ photos of the scene correctly showed no blood on the walls or bedding, a small detail that prosecution has emphasized as part of their narrative.

    Rushing from the blood-stained bedroom, Clancy ran outside to find his wife Lindsay on the grass. She had jumped from the second-story window in an apparent suicide attempt, and he found her with deep lacerations across her wrists and a red ligature mark around her neck. After calling 911 emergency services, Clancy told the court Lindsay revealed the children were being held in the basement. Sprinting to the space, he found each child, one by one, each with a fitness band wrapped around their neck, all unresponsive. Clancy described frantically switching between the three young victims, administering CPR until first responders arrived to take over.

    Lindsay Clancy, who faces three counts of first-degree murder, has pleaded not guilty to the charges. Her legal team does not dispute she killed the children, but argues she was suffering severe postpartum psychosis at the time of the killings and was not in control of her actions. Patrick Clancy told the court that roughly a week after the tragedy, Lindsay told him she had heard a male voice commanding her to harm the children, adding he had no knowledge of psychosis as a condition prior to this incident.

    Lindsay Clancy, who was left paralyzed from the fall during her suicide attempt, has attended every day of the trial from her wheelchair. She reacted visibly to her ex-husband’s testimony on Wednesday: court footage showed her squeezing her lawyer’s hand, turning her face away from the gallery to wipe away tears. When prosecution played the 911 call Patrick Clancy made the day of the killings and entered the children’s bloodied pajamas as evidence, Lindsay Clancy broke down into audible sobs, forcing the judge to call a recess.

    Prosecutors are building a case that the killings were a premeditated, calculated act, and have cross-examined Patrick Clancy extensively on small details of his account, including the severity of his ex-wife’s cuts when he found her. Clancy confirmed he told first responders he did not believe it was necessary to apply pressure to the wounds, a detail prosecutors have highlighted to support their argument.

    The trial is expected to run for several more weeks, with additional witnesses scheduled to take the stand. If convicted, Lindsay Clancy will face a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

    This story contains discussion of suicide and fatal violence that may be distressing to readers. People experiencing suicidal thoughts or emotional crisis can access support through Befrienders Worldwide at www.befrienders.org, with UK-specific resources listed at bbc.co.uk/actionline.

  • Hundreds of migrants are swimming from Morocco to the Spanish territory of Ceuta

    Hundreds of migrants are swimming from Morocco to the Spanish territory of Ceuta

    CEUTA, Spain — The small Spanish autonomous territory of Ceuta, nestled on Morocco’s northern coast, is grappling with an extraordinary crisis of irregular migration, as hundreds of migrants have taken to swimming across the short strait separating Morocco from the enclave, stretching local border security and reception infrastructure to its breaking point, local government officials confirmed Wednesday.

    While summer months typically bring an uptick in maritime migration attempts due to calm, favorable weather conditions, Ceuta’s leadership says the current volume of people attempting the dangerous swim is far outside normal patterns. Over the past several days alone, more than 1,500 migrants — including both adults and unaccompanied minors — have successfully reached Ceuta’s shores via the crossing, Juan Jesús Vivas, the president of Ceuta’s regional government, told reporters. The territory’s dedicated migrant reception centers are already completely overwhelmed and operating far beyond their designed capacity, he added, with hundreds of new arrivals forced to sleep outside the facility’s walls.

    Vivas also noted the deadly risks inherent in this crossing attempt: over the past year alone, at least 60 bodies of migrants who died attempting the journey have been recovered from the surrounding waters.

    Spain’s national interior ministry, which holds federal oversight of border management and irregular migration tracking, declined to immediately confirm the total number of crossings or successful arrivals, instead directing media requests to the ministry’s upcoming bimonthly migration report, scheduled for public release on August 3. Speaking in an interview with Spanish broadcaster laSexta, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska acknowledged the crisis qualifies as an “extraordinary, exceptional situation,” but stressed that authorities are responding with all permanent resources already deployed to the enclave. Spain’s Civil Guard, national Maritime Rescue Service, and the Red Cross have all been mobilized to intercept swimmers in open water and transport them to shore for processing.

    Local and migrant rights activists report the vast majority of those attempting the crossing are Moroccan nationals, with a smaller contingent of Algerian migrants who had previously been residing in Morocco while organizing their journey to the European Union.

    To date, there is no clear consensus on what has driven this sudden massive surge in crossings. Vivas pointed to a recent ruling from the Spanish Supreme Court, issued earlier this month, that bars authorities from immediately turning back sea arrivals without first conducting formal due process — a different standard than that applied to migrants who cross the land border by scaling Ceuta’s perimeter fence. But that explanation is disputed by independent migrant rights advocates.

    Omar Naji, president of the Moroccan Association of Human Rights in Eastern Morocco, argues that most migrants planning the crossing would not have been aware of the nuanced legal ruling, making it an unlikely trigger for the surge. Naji instead drew a parallel to the 2021 Ceuta border crisis, when more than 8,000 migrants entered the enclave over just 48 hours. That event came shortly after a high-level diplomatic meeting between Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, mirroring the timing of the current surge.

    The 2021 crisis was widely linked to a diplomatic dispute between Spain and Morocco: at that time, Morocco was accused of intentionally relaxing its border controls to allow mass crossings after Spain allowed Brahim Ghali, leader of the Polisario Front — the pro-independence movement seeking sovereignty for the disputed territory of Western Sahara — to enter Spain for medical treatment. That incident triggered a major diplomatic rift between Madrid and Rabat that lasted for months.

    This week, however, Grande-Marlaska struck a positive note regarding relations with Morocco, saying Moroccan authorities are actively cooperating with Spanish efforts to manage the crisis. “Our relationship with the kingdom is close and based on loyalty,” he told laSexta, adding that “they are also limiting irregular departures” from their coast.

    Reporting from Casablanca, Morocco, contributed by AP journalist Akram Oubachir.

  • Netanyahu and Lindsey Graham conspired to use sex claims against Khan to delay warrants

    Netanyahu and Lindsey Graham conspired to use sex claims against Khan to delay warrants

    Freshly revealed secret recordings have pulled back the curtain on a coordinated plot between late U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to weaponize unproven sexual misconduct allegations against then-International Criminal Court Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan, in a bid to block the court from issuing long-awaited arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his senior cabinet over alleged Gaza war crimes.

    The explosive disclosure, first reported this week by The New York Times, draws from three years of audio recordings captured by British documentary filmmaker Alex Holder, who tracked Graham’s political ties to former U.S. President Donald Trump and Netanyahu. The exchanges offer the clearest evidence to date of a sustained, high-level intimidation campaign targeting the ICC over its Palestine investigation — a campaign that Middle East Eye first documented in depth last year.

    The plot came to light weeks after Graham’s passing earlier this month, and just days after ICC member states voted to remove Khan from his post as chief prosecutor last Friday at a secret ballot held at U.N. headquarters in New York. Eighty-two of the court’s 125 member states supported the dismissal, overriding a unanimous prior ruling from an independent judicial panel that cleared Khan of all wrongdoing in March. That panel, appointed by the ICC’s governing Assembly of State Parties (ASP) bureau, found the U.N. investigation’s findings failed to prove any misconduct or breach of professional duty on Khan’s part.

    The first recorded conversation between Graham and Netanyahu took place on October 29, 2024 — five months after Khan submitted applications for arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas officials, and just weeks before ICC judges were set to announce their decision on the warrants. During the call, Netanyahu flagged the pending sexual allegations against Khan, arguing that the “great cloud” of the claims could be leveraged to delay the court’s ruling on the arrest warrants.

    Netanyahu suggested that Graham lead a bipartisan group of U.S. senators in sending an official letter to the ICC, demanding a full review of the entire prosecution process before any warrants were issued, arguing the “stain” of the allegations had to be addressed first. Graham immediately agreed, saying he would work to secure signatures from Democratic senators as well to broaden the letter’s political weight.

    In a follow-up call the same day, Graham told Netanyahu the effort had secured backing from two high-profile Democratic senators: Richard Blumenthal and Ben Cardin. “We got them both,” Graham said, asking Netanyahu to share the text he wanted included in the letter. The senator even joked that Netanyahu should “pay me for all this. I should get tons of shekels,” adding that “it would take more than dinner” and asking the prime minister to personally call the two Democrats to thank them for their support, while also tying the cooperation to ongoing efforts to advance Saudi-Israeli normalization. The letter, signed by Graham, Blumenthal, Cardin and other senators, was sent on November 1, 2024. Neither Blumenthal nor Cardin has responded to requests for comment from The New York Times on their involvement.

    Despite the pressure campaign, ICC judges moved forward with issuing the arrest warrants on November 21, 2024. Netanyahu and other senior Israeli officials subsequently responded by claiming Khan had pushed for the warrants specifically to distract from the misconduct allegations against him — a claim contradicted by a 2023 Middle East Eye investigation that confirmed Khan notified U.S. officials of his plan to apply for the warrants weeks before he was even made aware of the sexual allegations.

    This was not the first time Graham leveraged his position to pressure Khan over the ICC’s Palestine investigation. In a May 2024 conference call with Khan, senior ICC officials, and a bipartisan group of senators, Graham openly threatened the prosecutor, saying “if you proceed with the warrants you may as well shoot the hostages yourself” and that the U.S. would impose sanctions on him. He also infamously argued the ICC was “made for Africa and thugs like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, not democracies like Israel,” a remark that was later confirmed by British barrister Andrew Cayley, who led the ICC’s Palestine investigation, who told The Observer Graham was “screaming at us” during the exchange. Graham later defended the pressure campaign in a public statement, claiming the public misconduct allegations against Khan had cast a “moral cloud” over the warrant application, and argued the senators only urged Khan to respect the principle of complementarity and negotiate in good faith with Israeli officials before issuing any rulings against Israel.

    The vote to remove Khan last Friday capped an 18-month disciplinary process that Palestinian rights advocates, former ICC judges, and Khan’s own legal team have universally condemned as overtly politicized. After the independent judicial panel cleared Khan, a bloc of largely Western and European ASP bureau members pushed forward with dismissal, ignoring the panel’s findings and relying instead on the original U.N. investigation report. The bureau concluded Khan had engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship with the complainant, arguing the power imbalance between his position as chief prosecutor and the complainant made any such relationship inherently improper. Khan has repeatedly denied all allegations, including that any sexual relationship occurred; the complainant’s original account centered on claims of non-consensual misconduct.

    Many independent observers have drawn a direct line between Khan’s removal and the long-running campaign to kill the Netanyahu arrest warrant. “Khan’s removal lines up neatly with the fight to neutralise Netanyahu’s arrest warrant. Coincidence is a luxury intl law can no longer afford,” Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, wrote on X shortly after the vote.

    Netanyahu himself openly celebrated the decision, revealing in a social media post that he had spoken with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio about delivering “the coup de grace” to the ICC. He reaffirmed U.S. and Israeli commitment to confronting the court, claiming it “undermines justice, attacks democratic and sovereign nations, and seeks to subordinate their security to the decisions of unaccountable and corrupt officials in The Hague.”

    Israeli media, citing anonymous senior government officials, has also confirmed that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar established a dedicated interagency task force to lobby ICC member states directly to vote for Khan’s removal. This campaign fits into a broader pattern of pressure: last year, the U.S. imposed harsh sanctions on Khan, his two deputy prosecutors, and multiple ICC judges over the Palestine investigation. Rubio reiterated Washington’s hardline stance earlier this month, saying the U.S. would “dismantle the ICC – brick by brick, if necessary.”

  • Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr condemns attacks by pro-Iranian factions on Saudi Arabia

    Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr condemns attacks by pro-Iranian factions on Saudi Arabia

    Tensions across the Middle East have spiked once again, with influential Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stepping forward to issue a urgent public call for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its affiliated armed factions to halt cross-border attacks launched from Iraqi territory.

    In a post shared on the social platform X, Sadr warned that these unauthorized operations risk dragging Iraq, a country already grappling with decades of unresolved instability, into a devastating new regional conflict. He stressed that rogue militias operating outside state control must not give neighboring Gulf nations any justification to launch military strikes on Iraqi soil, which he described as a sacred homeland for the Iraqi people.

    Sadr also urged all regional factions to avoid falling prey to what he framed as “the schemes of the Zionist-American enemy,” which he accused of inciting inter-Arab and inter-Muslim conflict to advance foreign interests. Echoing his long-standing nationalist stance, he emphasized that the Iraqi public has an overwhelming need for peace, and repeated his call for a region fully free of foreign military bases and external colonial domination.

    Sadr’s comments come in immediate response to a recent joint air strike operation carried out by the United States and Saudi Arabia targeting pro-Iranian armed groups inside Iraq. Two unnamed members of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) told AFP that at least 10 PMF fighters were killed in the coordinated strikes that hit multiple locations across the country. Following the strikes, Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaydi called an emergency high-level security meeting to address the escalating security crisis.

    Separately, Iranian state media reported that an anonymous Iranian military source has denied all accusations that Iran was involved in recent projectile attacks launched from third countries against targets inside Saudi Arabia.

    A key contextual note for Sadr’s intervention is the cleric’s complex political standing: while he has collaborated closely with Iran in the past, he has long maintained a fiercely independent political streak, prioritizing Iraqi national interests over Iran’s broader regional geopolitical agenda.

    Today, Iraq finds itself once again caught in the middle of escalating tensions between the US, Israel and Iran, a standoff that has plunged the entire Gulf region into renewed chaos. Though Iraq shares a common Shia religious identity with Iran, the country has still not fully recovered from the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, leaving behind a decades-long legacy of sectarian division and political fragility. Iraq is home to a wide network of Shia armed factions, most of which maintain close ties to Iran and work within the framework of the Iraqi central government — but not all factions align completely with Tehran’s foreign policy priorities, creating a tense internal political balancing act for Baghdad.

  • ‘The war caused this’: Miscarriages soar in Gaza amid Israeli bombing and siege

    ‘The war caused this’: Miscarriages soar in Gaza amid Israeli bombing and siege

    Seven years of waiting for a child ended in heartbreak for 34-year-old displaced Palestinian Sahar al-Majdalawi, one of thousands of pregnant women in Gaza whose pregnancies have been lost amid the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe triggered by the Israeli military campaign launched in October 2023.

    Just one month after confirming her first pregnancy, al-Majdalawi was crippled by unrelenting abdominal cramps so severe they mirrored active labor pains. Fearing for the life of her unborn child, she and her husband set out on foot in the dark for the nearest functioning medical facility: Israeli bombardment had flattened key infrastructure, left all roads impassable and paralyzed public transport across the Gaza Strip, leaving no other option for evacuation. After walking for hours under the cover of night, the couple finally reached Al-Awda Hospital in the central Gaza Nuseirat refugee camp.

    “We had to walk so far because there was no transport despite my pain. The whole time, I was begging God to keep my baby safe,” al-Majdalawi recounted to Middle East Eye in an interview.

    An ultrasound delivered the devastating news she had dreaded. “They said: ‘The foetus is still in your womb, but there is no heartbeat,’” she said. “At that moment, it felt as though my own heart stopped beating. I realised I had lost the dream I had waited years to fulfil.”

    al-Majdalawi’s tragedy is far from an isolated case in Gaza, where ongoing conflict has gutted healthcare systems, erased food security and pushed public health to a breaking point. Official and international data confirms a catastrophic surge in pregnancy complications, led by a skyrocketing miscarriage rate that has overwhelmed already depleted medical services.

    According to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, at the peak of active hostilities, miscarriage rates jumped 300 percent above pre-October 2023 levels. Current data places the miscarriage rate at 460 per 1,000 births, a stark jump from just 140 per 1,000 births recorded across Gaza in 2022. Palestinian Ministry of Health figures document 3,958 confirmed miscarriages in the first six months of 2026 alone — a figure senior obstetrics and gynaecology consultant Dr. Adnan Radi, head of the ministry’s advisory committee, calls “shocking.”

    Dr. Radi emphasizes that even these staggering official numbers underestimate the full scale of the crisis. “Official statistics, whether from international organisations or the Ministry of Health, undercount the true scale, but there is an undeniable and sharp surge in miscarriages during the war years,” he explained. Hundreds of additional cases go unrecorded, he noted, because most women cannot travel through war-damaged territory to reach care, and systematic data collection across Gaza’s sprawling, overcrowded tent camps for displaced people has become effectively impossible. “Although an exact number is hard to pin down, there is a consensus that miscarriage rates have multiplied. The Ministry of Health indicated the rate could be as high as 70 percent of total births in certain areas, which is a tragedy.”

    While there is no single standalone cause for the surge, medical experts uniformly link the crisis directly to the cascading consequences of war. Dr. Radi points to severe anaemia as a primary driver: an estimated 70 percent of all pregnant women in Gaza currently live with the condition, worsened by widespread acute malnutrition across the enclave.

    Last week, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) issued a grim warning that 67 percent of Gaza’s population — roughly 1.14 million people — will face critical or catastrophic levels of acute food insecurity through the end of December. The body estimates that nearly 25,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women will require life-saving nutritional intervention in the next year.

    Beyond hunger, Dr. Radi cites widespread infectious disease, contaminated drinking water, catastrophic breakdowns in sanitation, and constant exposure to toxic dust from the thousands of tonnes of explosives dropped by Israeli military forces as key contributing factors. “Although comprehensive studies are lacking, there is a clear link between environmental toxicity, malnutrition, anaemia and the rise in miscarriages and premature births,” he said. He added that toxic residues from bombardment may alter the genetic makeup of Gaza’s population, leaving a generational public health crisis that will persist long after active fighting ends.

    For al-Majdalawi, no clear medical explanation for her miscarriage was available at the overstretched hospital, but she holds no uncertainty about its root cause. “Deep down, I know the war caused this. I was displaced countless times, my body was completely exhausted, and I suffered five injuries in separate air strikes,” she said. “I endured famine in northern Gaza, lost weight, and my health deteriorated. On top of that came the psychological torment of losing our home when our neighbourhood was bombed.”

    Today, al-Majdalawi and her husband live in a flimsy tent in the Nuseirat refugee camp, their original home in Jabalia destroyed in Israeli airstrikes and the area now off-limits, lying close to the Israeli military’s designated “Yellow Line” security boundary. She is one of nearly 2 million displaced Palestinians in Gaza, all struggling to survive in overcrowded, unsanitary tent settlements that offer none of the basic conditions needed for a healthy pregnancy.

    “My husband did everything he could to make life in the tent easier so my pregnancy would go smoothly, but there is only so much anyone can do,” al-Majdalawi said. “Imagine sleeping on a paper-thin mattress on uneven ground inside a flimsy tent baking in the summer heat. Sometimes I feel my heart will stop because of how hot it gets. My back aches constantly.”

    Even after the October ceasefire, constant fear remains a daily reality. Intermittent Israeli bombardment and repeated evacuation orders keep Gaza’s civilian population in a state of chronic stress. “Not a day passes without the thunder of bombardment or the buzz of the quadcopter drones overhead. Sometimes they even open fire. It keeps me in a constant state of psychological distress,” al-Majdalawi said.

    Access to nutrient-dense food was another insurmountable barrier during her pregnancy. World Bank data puts unemployment in Gaza above 80 percent, with poverty approaching 100 percent. Nearly all families rely exclusively on limited food aid, which mostly consists of shelf-stable staples such as rice, beans, lentils, pasta and canned meat. “My husband lost his job because of the war, so we depend on charity kitchens for free meals. Buying fruit, vegetables or fresh meat regularly is impossible without money,” al-Majdalawi added.

    Rising miscarriages are just one dimension of the full-blown crisis unfolding in Gaza’s remaining maternity wards. Physicians across the enclave are also reporting unprecedented spikes in premature births and severe congenital birth defects, with almost no resources to treat vulnerable newborns.

    “We have seen a sharp increase in premature births before 26 weeks of pregnancy,” Dr. Radi said. “In recent months, we have observed a drastic increase in severe foetal abnormalities. In previous years, seeing a baby born without limbs or feet was an extremely rare occurrence. Now, it has become a recurring phenomenon in delivery wards.”

    The surge in high-risk births comes as Gaza’s hospitals face a catastrophic shortage of neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) beds and equipment, drastically reducing the survival odds for premature and low-weight infants. In February, UNICEF reported that nearly one in five newborns in Gaza required intensive care or thermal incubation due to a combination of maternal malnutrition, chronic maternal stress and a near-total lack of accessible prenatal care.

    As frontline doctors fight to save as many mothers and infants as possible with depleted resources, al-Majdalawi remains in her tent, grappling with grief and a persistent, crippling fear that the conflict will rob her of the chance to have a healthy child. “I don’t know when the day will come when I can hold my baby in my arms without the terrifying fear of losing them or seeing them born with deformities,” she said.

  • US interest rates held for fifth time in a row

    US interest rates held for fifth time in a row

    After months of careful economic monitoring and deliberation, the United States Federal Reserve has announced it will maintain current interest rates for the fifth consecutive time, locking the benchmark borrowing cost between 3.5% and 3.75%. This outcome was widely predicted by financial analysts and market observers, aligning with widespread expectations that policymakers would hold rates steady to continue assessing ongoing economic trends.

    The Fed’s decision to keep rates unchanged this meeting builds on a policy stance that has remained consistent throughout all of 2026. The central bank’s choice to pause rate adjustments comes on the heels of a reported slowdown in inflation last month – the key metric measuring the pace of rising consumer prices that has been the central focus of the Fed’s monetary policy for nearly three years.

    Higher interest rates create a tangible ripple effect across household finances and the broader economy. For consumers seeking out personal loans, home mortgages, or carrying balances on credit cards, elevated rates mean steeper borrowing costs that can curb discretionary spending and large purchases. On the flip side, savers benefit from higher interest rates, as deposit institutions typically pass along increased rates to deliver stronger returns on savings accounts and certificates of deposit.

    While the recent cooling of inflation is widely viewed as a positive development for the economy, key risks still remain that have given policymakers reason to hold off on any rate cuts for the time being. Inflation still sits above the Federal Reserve’s long-term target of 2%, meaning the central bank has not yet hit its core policy goal. Adding to this uncertainty is the ongoing military conflict in the Middle East, which carries persistent risk of disruption to global oil supplies. Any spike in oil prices would likely push up broader consumer prices across sectors, erasing recent progress on cooling inflation and forcing a shift in monetary policy. The Fed has opted to keep rates steady to retain flexibility amid these ongoing global economic risks, waiting for clearer signals that inflation is on a sustained path toward its 2% target before adjusting policy.

  • Israeli defence minister boasts that US warplanes used Israeli bases to attack Iran

    Israeli defence minister boasts that US warplanes used Israeli bases to attack Iran

    In a surprising public confirmation that lays bare the deepening coordination between Washington and Jerusalem in escalating Middle East hostilities, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has revealed that United States Air Force fighter jets and bombers launched attacks against Iran from Israeli military bases in recent weeks. The revelation publicly confirms what many regional analysts have long suspected: that Israel is serving as a critical launchpad for the Biden administration’s expanding military campaign across the region.

    Katz made the remarks during an interview Tuesday with right-wing Israeli broadcaster Channel 14, noting that “The Iranians know” the American aircraft departed from Israeli territory to carry out the strikes. In a combative address, Katz also declared that “The arrogant empire that threatened to destroy Israel has collapsed,” before issuing a stark new threat to the Iranian government.

    “We announced in the clearest terms that if Israel is fired upon, we will attack with all our might. We are prepared to strike Iran,” Katz said, adding that “We know how to manage things, and we are prepared” to handle any escalating retaliation from Tehran. His comments came just days after Israeli air defense systems intercepted at least three unmanned aerial vehicles near the country’s Jordanian border over Monday and Tuesday, a minor escalation that has stoked fears of broader conflict.

    What makes this confirmation particularly notable is the carefully calibrated role Israel has taken in the latest round of US-Iran hostilities. Unlike the initial phase of conflict that began back in February, Israeli forces have not taken an active part in the recent wave of US and Gulf ally strikes targeting Iranian assets across the region. For its part, Iran has also intentionally centered its retaliatory attacks on US interests in the Gulf, avoiding direct strikes on Israeli targets to this point.

    This dynamic has drawn attention from critics of the expanding conflict, who argue that Israeli leadership has intentionally pushed the United States to carry the brunt of military action against Iran. Prominent American commentator and journalist Tucker Carlson has been one of the most high-profile voices making this argument, and the sentiment is openly shared by senior members of the current Israeli government.

    Influence Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a key figure in the country’s hardline ruling coalition, openly acknowledged the strategic calculation on Tuesday in comments reported by Israeli public broadcaster Kan news. Smotrich described the restarted US military campaign against Iran as the perfect outcome for Israel, so long as Israeli citizens do not have to join the fighting directly.

    “Israel has no interest in joining the campaign – the current situation is the best for us,” Smotrich stated.

  • Public inquiry into Creeslough explosion could be set up, say families

    Public inquiry into Creeslough explosion could be set up, say families

    Nearly four years after the devastating 2022 Creeslough service station explosion that claimed 10 lives, families of the victims have secured a key commitment from Ireland’s national government: if ongoing official investigations fail to deliver the transparent answers they demand, a full statutory public inquiry will be considered to unpack the disaster.

    The fatal blast tore through a village service station in County Donegal on 7 October 2022, leaving a tight-knit rural community shattered. The 10 victims ranged in age from 5 to adulthood, all hailing from Creeslough and its surrounding areas: Robert Garwe, his 5-year-old daughter Shauna Flanagan-Garwe, 14-year-old Leona Harper, Hugh Kelly, Jessica Gallagher, Martin McGill, James O’Flaherty, Martina Martin, and Catherine O’Donnell and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan. To date, no official cause has been confirmed, and no individuals have been formally charged in connection with the disaster, despite multiple arrests during the investigation.

    A high-stakes meeting between Taoiseach Micheál Martin and victim families at Dublin’s Government Buildings has brought new momentum to calls for full accountability. Donna Harper, whose daughter Leona died in the blast, spoke publicly after the meeting about the government’s commitment. She explained that Martin has expressed caution about disrupting the ongoing active police probe, but confirmed the administration would be open to launching a statutory inquiry if existing investigations do not resolve the families’ outstanding questions. Harper called the outcome one she was “very happy” with.

    Anthony Gallagher, another victim’s father who lost his daughter in the explosion, echoed the families’ core demand: full transparency. “Everybody needs to know what happened and why it happened and to be sure it never, ever happens again,” he noted, adding that the taoiseach did not rule out a full public inquiry.

    A government spokesperson characterized the discussion as “open and constructive”, saying that Martin “listened to the personal testimonies of the families and articulated his deepest sympathies for their loss and the trauma that they have suffered. He understands their need for justice and for answers and reiterated the importance of allowing the investigation that is currently underway to come to a conclusion.” The spokesperson also confirmed that the official incident report from the Health and Safety Authority, one of the multiple agencies contributing to the probe, is expected to be finalized in the near term.

    The current investigation is led by local officers of An Garda Síochána (the Irish national police service) in the Donegal Division, with backing from the Garda National Bureau of Criminal Investigation and other regulatory bodies including the Health and Safety Authority and the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities. Just months ago, in April 2026, Garda investigators submitted a second evidential file containing formal investigative recommendations to the Director of Public Prosecutions, supplementing an initial file sent to prosecutors in September 2025. Police have confirmed that families have been kept updated on all procedural developments, and dedicated liaison officers continue to provide support to grieving relatives.

    This meeting marks the latest chapter in a years-long fight for clarity from Creeslough families. In 2024, Donegal County Council passed a formal motion calling on the national government to launch a public inquiry into the blast. A year later, relatives successfully blocked a planning application to build a new service station, shop and post office on the site of the 2022 explosion. Their legal team argued the development was deeply inappropriate while the criminal investigation remained active, and Ireland’s national planning body, An Coimisiún Pleanála, ultimately sided with the families and rejected the planning permission.