Exclusive reporting from Middle East Eye has confirmed that US President Donald Trump has put a planned military offensive against Iran on hold this week, after urgent warnings from key Gulf Arab allies and his own senior administration officials that an attack during the annual Islamic Hajj pilgrimage would trigger widespread regional instability. Two high-ranking Gulf officials, speaking on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on discussing closed-door diplomatic communications, shared details of the pressure campaign that swayed the US president. Their accounts reveal that officials emphasized a strike during the sacred religious period would spark a major political crisis across Gulf Cooperation Council states, leaving hundreds of thousands of pilgrims from across the globe stranded in the middle of their journey. They also warned that an attack timed to coincide with the Hajj, which leads directly into the major Islamic festival of Eid al-Adha, would cause lasting and severe harm to the United States’ already strained reputation across the entire Muslim world. A senior US official with direct knowledge of internal debates within the Trump administration has independently confirmed these discussions took place, adding that the president’s own national security team warned that restarting military hostilities against Iran at this juncture would carry significant long-term reputational damage for Trump himself. The United States previously launched military strikes against Iran during the holy Islamic month of Ramadan, but a strike during the Hajj carries unique logistical and political risks for Saudi Arabia, the host nation that welcomes roughly one million international pilgrims to the annual religious gathering each year. This year’s Hajj is scheduled to open on 24 May and run for six days, with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims already on the ground in Saudi Arabia in preparation for the rituals. Beyond Saudi Arabia, disruptive risks from a US attack would extend to major Gulf air travel hubs in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, as well as the South Asian and East Asian nations that send large contingents of pilgrims to the event. All three officials who spoke to Middle East Eye agree that the pause in military planning is temporary: they widely expect offensive operations to restart in the coming weeks once the Hajj period concludes. The US has a documented recent history of using deceptive signaling and tactical misdirection to lull Iranian leadership into a false sense of security ahead of strikes. The February 2026 attack, which launched the current conflict, came after Washington claimed it was making meaningful progress on diplomatic negotiations with Tehran in Geneva. Earlier this week, Trump publicly acknowledged the delay, confirming on his Truth Social platform that Gulf leaders had directly requested he hold off the planned strike. “I have been asked by the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud, and the President of the United Arab Emirates, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, to hold off on our planned Military attack of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump wrote. He added that the allied leaders “believe a Deal will be made” in lieu of military action. The ongoing conflict between the US, Israel and Iran began on 28 February 2026, when joint US-Israeli strikes launched open hostilities. Iran responded immediately with missile attacks targeting US military bases and allied interests across Gulf states. Tehran has issued clear public warnings that any new strikes against its civilian and energy infrastructure by Washington and Tel Aviv will be met with retaliatory attacks on Gulf state infrastructure, and will draw the conflict beyond the borders of the Middle East. Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Oman have been among the most vocal regional actors pushing to prevent further escalation, as the ongoing Iranian blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — one of the world’s most critical energy chokepoints — has already severely cut into oil and liquefied natural gas exports from these nations. Independent assessments of Washington’s initial February offensive widely judge it to have failed in its core strategic goal: despite the killing of long-time Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the attack did not succeed in toppling the Iranian government. Khamenei’s son and successor, Mojtaba Khamenei, has led Iran through weeks of sustained bombardment, with the regime maintaining control of the country and retaining its large arsenal of ballistic missiles. The Israeli government, which views Iran as its most dangerous regional rival, has continued to lobby Trump aggressively to restart offensive operations, even as internal US intelligence and military assessments flag severe risks to American service members and the global economy. Citing reporting from the *New York Times*, US Pentagon officials have highlighted two major obstacles that threaten the success of any new US offensive: growing shortages of critical military munitions, and major improvements in the sophistication of Iranian air defense tactics that have made US airstrikes far less effective than initial planning anticipated.
作者： admin
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Final case at UN tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda atrocities comes to an end
THE HAGUE, Netherlands – After nearly 30 years of pursuing perpetrators of mass atrocities, two United Nations-backed ad hoc criminal tribunals formed to prosecute crimes committed during the breakup of Yugoslavia and the 1994 Rwandan genocide concluded their final formal proceedings Wednesday, closing a landmark chapter in modern international justice while highlighting growing strains on the global push for accountability for mass violence.
The brief 12-minute closing hearing centered on the case of Félicien Kabuga, an alleged key financier of the Rwandan genocide who died in U.N. custody this past Saturday, six years to the day after he was captured outside Paris following 26 years on the run. Presiding Judge Iain Bonomy framed the session as a “truly historic milestone” that formally wraps up the tribunals’ open cases.
Kabuga, believed to be in his 90s, was deemed unfit to stand trial in 2023 after a medical evaluation confirmed he suffered from severe advanced dementia. After the ruling, no country agreed to accept Kabuga for resettlement, leaving him stuck in the U.N.’s The Hague detention facility until his death. His prolonged legal limbo as a defendant no one would claim has become a symbol of the growing crisis facing modern international justice, according to Lucy Gaynor, a University of Amsterdam historian specializing in global accountability frameworks.
“Countries put limits on what they are willing to do,” Gaynor noted, pointing to growing political pushback against the global justice project that the original ad hoc tribunals helped launch.
The two U.N. tribunals – the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia – were established by the U.N. Security Council in the early 1990s, responding to unprecedented waves of mass ethnic violence that shocked the international community. Between the two bodies, they convicted 155 people for atrocity crimes including genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes, setting new legal precedents for holding senior leaders accountable for mass atrocities and directly paving the way for the creation of the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002.
The ICC, located just two miles from the current office of the tribunals’ residual body, was created to eliminate the need for ad hoc, temporary tribunals for each new conflict by establishing a permanent global court with jurisdiction over humanity’s worst crimes. But the court has faced growing political headwinds in recent years. Under the Donald Trump administration, the U.S. imposed sweeping sanctions on ICC officials after the court opened investigations into alleged war crimes by U.S. personnel in Afghanistan and Israeli officials in Palestinian territories – two countries that are not ICC member states.
Political resistance has also translated into widespread noncompliance with ICC arrest warrants. Multiple nations have refused to execute warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin, issued over allegations of forced deportations of Ukrainian children, and for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, issued over alleged war crimes in Gaza. Just last year, Italy refused to detain a wanted Libyan warlord and instead flew him back to Tripoli on a state aircraft.
For Rwandan genocide survivors, Kabuga’s death without a trial underscores the unmet promises of the global accountability process. Agnes Mukamurenzi, a genocide survivor who knew Kabuga personally, told the Associated Press that she believes he deserved to spend a prolonged life in prison to suffer for his role in the killing of more than 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus. “I wish he lived longer in prison to feel the pain. During the genocide, he played a key role that saw many innocent lives taken,” she said from Kigali. Dr. Philibert Gakwenzire, head of IBUKA, the umbrella organization representing Rwandan genocide survivors, struck a more measured tone, noting that “history is the true judge” even though Kabuga never faced a guilty verdict.
Wednesday’s closing session was held in a repurposed conference room, one floor above the main courtroom that hosted some of the tribunals’ most high-profile cases – including the conviction of Ratko Mladić, the Bosnian Serb military commander nicknamed the “Butcher of Bosnia” for his role in the Srebrenica genocide, and the 2017 incident where Croat commander Slobodan Praljak drank lethal poison in the courtroom immediately after his appeal conviction was upheld.
The residual mechanism that inherited remaining cases and responsibilities from both tribunals after the original bodies closed in 2015 (ICTR) and 2017 (ICTY) has already downsized to a skeleton staff and vacated the main courtroom last year. The body now faces an uncertain future: its official mandate expires in June, and no transition plan has been approved for its core remaining functions, including overseeing detention conditions for 41 convicted war criminals still serving their sentences around the world. There is also no clear plan for preserving the mechanism’s vast archives, which hold millions of pages of documents and thousands of pieces of evidence – including Mladić’s handwritten diaries and copies of the anti-Tutsi incitement newspaper *Kangura*, which Kabuga was accused of funding. The U.S. withdrew from the mechanism earlier this year during Trump’s second term, cutting off millions of dollars in annual funding that the body relied on to carry out its work.
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Israeli minister says Turkey should be treated as ‘enemy state’
Tensions between Israel and Turkey have surged to new heights in recent weeks, following Israel’s interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that departed from Turkish waters, and a provocative statement from a top Israeli cabinet member calling for Ankara to be formally recognized as an enemy state.
Israeli Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar made the remarks in an interview with local outlet Srugim on Monday, tying his comments directly to the Global Sumud Flotilla, a humanitarian mission that set sail from the Turkish port of Marmaris earlier this week to deliver aid to blockaded Gaza. Israeli military forces launched raids to intercept the flotilla shortly after it departed.
“We must begin to treat Turkey as an enemy state,” Zohar stated in the interview. He doubled down on the aggressive rhetoric, warning that if Turkey elects to pursue military conflict with Israel, it will face catastrophic consequences. “If Turkey chooses the path of war with us, it will undoubtedly pay a very heavy price. Israel knows how to defend itself and how to harm those who harm it,” the minister added.
Zohar also repeated an unsubstantiated claim that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has publicly stated his intention to build a military force to conquer Israel. While Erdogan has emerged as one of the most vocal international critics of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, he has never made any such public declaration of intent to wage war against the country. Drawing a comparison to Iran, long framed as Israel’s top regional adversary, Zohar argued that Turkey would face an even worse outcome than Iran if it pursues confrontation. “There were Iranians who thought the same thing, and look where they are now. If the Turks think the same thing, they will be in a much worse situation,” he said.
Zohar’s comments came immediately after Israeli forces intercepted multiple flotilla vessels in international waters following their departure from Turkey. Initial Israeli media reports claimed the flotilla was split into European and Turkish-flagged groups, and that the Israeli military intended to separate vessels by nationality to target Turkish craft. However, mission organizers quickly rejected these claims as deliberate misinformation, noting that none of the vessels in the Global Sumud Flotilla fly the Turkish flag.
“The Israeli military is fabricating an outright lie to isolate specific vessels and invoke past incidents – specifically the 2010 lethal assault on the Mavi Marmara, with which GSF has no affiliation,” organizers said in a statement.
The interception of the aid mission has drawn widespread international condemnation, with Turkey’s foreign ministry issuing a sharp rebuke of Israeli actions. “Israel’s attacks and intimidation policies will in no way prevent the international community’s pursuit of justice and solidarity with the Palestinian people,” the ministry said in an official release.
This latest exchange is part of a steady escalation of tensions between the two regional powers that has been building for months. Israeli politicians from both the ruling coalition and opposition have increasingly framed Turkey as a growing threat, matching the rhetoric long directed at Iran. Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, now a leading opposition lawmaker, labeled Turkey “the next Iran” during a Washington conference in February.
Regional analysts have echoed this framing, noting that growing friction over Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and competing regional influence in Syria has positioned Turkey to replace Iran as Israel’s primary regional rival. Writing in Israeli newspaper Maariv last month, columnist Boaz Golani argued that Iran will eventually be forced out of its role as Israel’s “great enemy”, and that either Turkey or Pakistan is poised to take its place. The escalating rhetoric from senior Israeli officials has reinforced this shifting regional dynamic, raising fears of further confrontation between the two countries in the coming months.
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Jim Furyk and Keegan Bradley added as assistant captains for Presidents Cup
MEDINAH, Illinois — U.S. Presidents Cup skipper Brandt Snedeker has filled two of his assistant captain roles, announcing the appointments of Jim Furyk and Keegan Bradley this Wednesday. The hirings bring veteran leadership and recent top-level captaincy experience to Snedeker’s team ahead of the September tournament at Medinah Country Club.
Furyk, who was named U.S. Ryder Cup captain just last month, holds the distinction of being the most recent winning Presidents Cup team skipper, having led the U.S. to victory at the 2024 edition hosted at Royal Montreal. Bradley, who competed in the 2024 Presidents Cup as a player, served as U.S. Ryder Cup captain at Bethpage Black in 2025, where his team fell to the European side.
In his statement announcing the appointments, Snedeker highlighted the pair’s deep history leading American golf squads and their widespread credibility among tour players of all age groups. “Both guys have incredible experience as leaders representing the United States and they’ve each earned the respect of players across generations,” Snedeker said.
The 45-year-old captain, who just claimed victory at the Myrtle Beach Classic two weeks prior, still has two additional assistant captain positions left to fill before the tournament kicks off. The 12-team match play event is scheduled to run from September 24 to 27 at Medinah’s championship course.
First launched in 1994, the Presidents Cup pits the U.S. team against an International side composed of top players from across the globe, excluding Europe. In the tournament’s 30-plus year history, the U.S. has only suffered one defeat — a 1998 loss that remains the sole blemish on the side’s dominant record in the competition.
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New video captures engine ripping off cargo plane in deadly Kentucky crash
Investigators probing one of the deadliest aviation incidents in recent Kentucky history have made public dramatic new video that captures a critical moment in the disaster: the cargo plane’s engine tearing away from the airframe as the aircraft attempted to climb away from the runway. The crash, which occurred earlier this year, claimed the lives of all 14 people on board, leaving families grieving and aviation safety experts searching for clear answers into what caused the tragedy.
The visual evidence, released as part of the official ongoing inquiry, offers investigators a key new clue to piece together the sequence of events that unfolded on the takeoff roll. The footage clearly documents the structural failure that led to the engine detaching from the wing before the plane went down. Since the crash first happened, investigation teams have been working diligently to recover debris from the crash site, interview witnesses, and analyze all available flight data to determine root causes, from mechanical malfunction to maintenance oversights or other contributing factors.
Aviation safety officials have emphasized that the investigation remains active, and no final conclusions on the cause of the crash have been reached yet. The release of the video marks a key step in keeping the public informed about the progress of the inquiry, as authorities work to uncover the full truth of what led to the fatal accident, and to identify any safety gaps that could be addressed to prevent similar tragedies in the future. For the families of the 14 victims, the new footage comes as a painful reminder of the disaster, even as it brings investigators one step closer to finding answers.
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The deadly plane attack at the centre of Castro’s indictment
More than three decades after a fatal incident that reshaped decades of Cuba-United States relations, US authorities have unveiled criminal charges against former Cuban leader Raúl Castro, centering on the 1996 downing of two civilian aircraft off Florida’s coast that killed all four people on board. The attack, carried out by Cuban military fighter jets, triggered one of the most severe crises between the two nations, a rift whose impacts continue to ripple through bilateral ties to the present day.
The two small Cessna planes targeted in the strike belonged to Brothers to the Rescue, an organization founded by Cuban exiles based in Miami, Florida. The February 24, 1996, incident left all four passengers — three US citizens and one Cuban national — dead instantly when the jets opened fire over the waterway separating Cuba and the US. At the time of the attack, Raúl Castro served as Cuba’s Minister of the Armed Forces, placing him at the center of international condemnation that followed the strike. The incident immediately derailed tentative diplomatic outreach between Havana and the Bill Clinton administration, and prompted the US to ramp up economic sanctions against the government led by Raúl’s older brother, Fidel Castro. Though Raúl Castro formally stepped down from the Cuban presidency and Communist Party leadership in 2021, the 94-year-old still retains significant behind-the-scenes influence on the island, making the timing of the indictment particularly sensitive amid Cuba’s current ongoing crises.
To understand the roots of the 1996 incident, context of Cuba’s 1990s economic collapse is critical. After the Soviet Union, Cuba’s primary economic and political backer, dissolved in 1991, the island entered a devastating period of crisis marked by widespread food shortages, rolling blackouts, and acute fuel scarcity. This hardship drove thousands of Cubans to attempt risky sea crossings to Florida to reunite with family members already settled in the US. “Suddenly, everyone started looking for anything that floated to try to reach Florida,” Cuban historian and former diplomat Juan Antonio Blanco told BBC Mundo of the period — a crisis many observers draw direct parallels to between Cuba’s current economic and energy turmoil.
It was in this context that Brothers to the Rescue was formed in Miami, led by now 85-year-old Cuban exile José Basulto. The group’s original mission was to conduct flights over the Florida Straits to locate makeshift vessels carrying Cuban migrants, share their coordinates with the US Coast Guard for rescue, and drop emergency supplies of food and water to those adrift. Over time, however, the group expanded its activities beyond search and rescue, according to Cuban political scientist Carlos Alzugaray, who spoke to BBC Mundo from Havana. “They stopped doing what they said they wanted to do, which was helping to rescue rafters, and started entering Cuban airspace and dropping leaflets over Havana,” Alzugaray explained. The Cuban government quickly labeled Brothers to the Rescue members as terrorists, repeatedly condemning the air incursions and arguing the group posed a clear threat to national security.
Basulto, who has personally led multiple incursion missions, rejects the terrorism label entirely. He argues the Cuban government’s anger stemmed not from any security threat, but from the content of the leaflets: they carried text from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document banned in Cuba at the time. On the day of the fateful 1996 mission, three Brothers to the Rescue planes took off from Florida for what was intended to be a routine patrol over the straits. Over a six-minute window, Cuban fighter jets intercepted and shot down two of the small aircraft. Basulto, piloting the third plane that escaped the attack, recalled the chaos of the moment: “I looked to the right and saw the smoke in the distance from one of the planes being shot down. I immediately looked at Sylvia Iriondo [a volunteer on the mission] and said to her, ‘we’re next.’” Basulto said his aircraft was the primary target, as he was the group’s founder and leader.
The Cuban projectiles nearly completely destroyed the two downed civilian craft, leaving little physical evidence behind. Basulto maintains both planes were in international waters north of Havana when they were attacked — a claim corroborated by both the International Civil Aviation Organization and the Organization of American States, which formally accused Cuba of violating international law in the strike. The Cuban government has never backed away from its position that the downing occurred within its sovereign airspace.
Blanco, who was serving as a Cuban diplomat in Havana at the time of the incident, has described the strike as a pre-planned ambush orchestrated by Fidel Castro. He claims Fidel Castro had advance intelligence of the mission’s schedule, flight paths, and personnel, thanks to a mole embedded within Brothers to the Rescue. In Blanco’s account, Fidel Castro held ultimate political responsibility for the operation, while Raúl Castro, as armed forces minister, oversaw its execution. A leaked recording, published on Brothers to the Rescue’s website in 2006, allegedly captures Raúl Castro walking Cuban journalists through details of the operation he commanded; while exiled Cuban officials and independent experts have confirmed the recording’s authenticity, BBC Mundo has not independently verified the tape.
Scholars and observers continue to debate the full motivations behind the Cuban government’s decision to shoot down the planes. The official Cuban position frames the strike as a legitimate response to repeated violations of its sovereign airspace by a group it labels a hostile security threat. But many outside analysts argue the decision was rooted in major political calculations. Blanco, who participated in backchannel diplomatic communications between Havana and Washington in the 1990s, argues Fidel Castro orchestrated the attack to derail tentative talks on normalizing bilateral relations that were taking place in the months before the strike, as the Clinton administration explored a potential diplomatic breakthrough ahead of Clinton’s expected second term. Blanco argues Fidel Castro feared that any normalization of ties with Washington would spark pressure for political and economic reform that would undermine his authoritarian grip on power. “Shooting down the planes made it impossible for Clinton to enter into any kind of rapprochement afterwards,” he explained.
In the wake of the attack, the incident triggered the most serious Cuba-US crisis since the end of the Cold War, and set the trajectory of bilateral relations for decades into the 21st century. Clinton condemned the attack “in the strongest terms,” and the United Nations Security Council issued a formal condemnation of the use of lethal force against civilian aircraft in flight. The US responded by significantly expanding economic sanctions on Cuba, a move Havana decried as unprecedented economic and diplomatic aggression. Domestically, the incident also led to a sharp intensification of repressive policies on the island, according to Blanco, who described it as a return to harsh, Stalinist-era governance. Havana has consistently refused to pay compensation to the families of the victims, who ultimately received a $93 million settlement from the US government drawn from frozen Cuban regime assets.
Today, more than 30 years after the downing, the case retains enormous symbolic and political weight, both within Cuba and across the large Cuban exile community in the US. The unsealing of the indictment against Raúl Castro comes as Cuba faces a new wave of overlapping economic and energy crises, spurred by harsh sanctions imposed during the Donald Trump administration and the recent loss of critical support from Venezuela following the ouster of former leader Nicolás Maduro in January, making the new legal action an especially fraced development for the island’s government.
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Holy deception: Rome’s ‘sexy priest’ calendar star never set foot in a seminary
For nearly a quarter century, a striking black-and-white calendar showcasing close-up portraits of handsome young men in priestly collars has held its place as a quirky staple souvenir for visitors to Rome. But a recent bombshell report from leading Italian daily La Repubblica has pulled back the curtain on a decades-long open secret: the overwhelming majority of the men featured in the popular publication are not men of the cloth at all.
The face most closely associated with the calendar, officially titled *Calendario Romano*, belongs to Giovanni Galizia, a 39-year-old flight attendant for a Spanish airline who posed for his iconic cover shot at just 17 years old. Speaking to The Associated Press from his home in Verona earlier this week, Galizia recalled that the 1990s shoot in his native Palermo was nothing more than a casual joke arranged by mutual friends who connected him to the calendar’s creator, photographer Piero Pazzi. The enigmatic Mona Lisa-like smile that has graced countless covers for 23 of the calendar’s 26 years? It was just the awkward grin of a teenager embarrassed by his friends laughing off-camera at his costume.
“It was the smile of an embarrassed kid, because I saw all my friends in front of me laughing out loud because I was dressed like I was a priest,” Galizia explained. The one-off gig left no impact on his life until this week, when La Repubblica’s exposé turned the little-known secret into national news across Italy.
Pazzi, the photographer behind the project, is no stranger to quirky creative ventures: he has previously produced calendars of Venetian gondoliers and founded cat history museums in Budapest and Montenegro. His *Calendario Romano* relies heavily on recycled portraits year after year, with 12 total images featured per edition. Galizia told the AP he only knows one other model featured in the calendar, a French man who also has no ordination. Pazzi acknowledged that only around one-third of the models in the already-released 2027 edition are actual practicing priests, though he declined to share further details.
Both Galizia and Pazzi push back against widespread descriptions of the project as a “sexy priest calendar,” framing it instead as a deliberate artistic exploration of the tension between the sacred and the secular. Galizia argues that modern audiences too often conflate beauty with sensuality in an overly sexualized cultural landscape, noting that the project follows a long tradition of actors and models portraying clergy in film and television without deception. “Of course, it winks a bit at the dynamic between the sacred and the profane, because it is clear that seeing a world that is distant and in some ways so lofty as the ecclesiastical world, with such a fresh-faced young man, creates a kind of dissonance,” he said. Still, he adds, he takes the “sexy” label as a compliment: “because managing to be sexy in a priest’s collar is no small feat.”
The calendar has no official affiliation with the Vatican, which declined to comment for this story, and the project is produced entirely independent of the Holy See, though it does include a page of informational text about the Vatican for tourists. It retails for roughly 8 euros ($9.30) in souvenir shops clustered around Vatican City and Rome’s historic center, where one shop clerk told the AP it sells a handful of copies per day, with total annual sales estimated in the thousands. Pazzi collects royalties for the work, while Galizia — who signed a release form for his photo decades ago — has never sought or received payment for his repeatedly used portrait.
Surprisingly, the project has earned the casual approval of at least one working priest. Father Domenico, a South Korean priest visiting near the Vatican this week, told the AP the calendar is already well known among young people in his home country, who embrace it as lighthearted humor. “They often think priests are stiff and distant,” he explained. “But looking at this calendar, they think priests are more familiar, and priests can be funny. I think in Korea this calendar is very famous, and it is OK.”
For Galizia, the sudden national attention decades after his accidental modeling gig remains just another unexpected joke. The only time his connection to the calendar ever came up before this week was when his cousins gifted a copy to their grandmother, and the whole family spent the moment “dying laughing.” He has never even been recognized on the street for his most famous portrait — until now.
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Irish foreign minister slams treatment of detainees by Israel
A major international diplomatic row has erupted following Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a mission carrying symbolic aid to blockaded Gaza that ended with dozens of activists detained, including more than a dozen Irish citizens. The crisis intensified after Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir shared a video of himself confronting the bound detainees, triggering condemnation from world leaders and even rare public criticism from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The video, posted to Ben-Gvir’s social media account, shows activists kneeling on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs. The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) confirmed that Irish citizen Catriona Graham, one of the detainees, can be heard shouting “free Palestine” at the opening of the footage. Ben-Gvir is seen waving an Israeli flag while taunting the captured activists, a gesture that has drawn widespread global rebuke.
In an unusual break from his normally coalition-aligned position, Netanyahu publicly criticized Ben-Gvir’s conduct, saying the minister’s actions were “not in line with Israel’s values.” The prime minister added that he has ordered relevant government bodies to speed up deportation proceedings for all detained activists, framing them as “provocateurs.”
Irish officials have led international calls for the immediate release of all detainees. Foreign Affairs Minister Helen McEntee confirmed that Ireland’s ambassador to Israel has already secured formal demands for guarantees that all Irish citizens in detention will have access to consular support and their welfare protected. “I have also demanded their immediate release,” McEntee said. Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Ireland’s prime minister, went further, saying he was “appalled at the shocking behaviour” of Ben-Gvir, adding that the Israeli government’s actions in intercepting the flotilla and detaining activists amount to a breach of international law. Martin announced he plans to raise the incident at the European Union level to coordinate a broader bloc response.
Among the 12 detained Irish citizens is Dr. Margaret Connolly, sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly. In total, 430 participants from more than 40 countries joined the GSF mission, which departed Turkey last Thursday with over 50 boats. The flotilla carried only a token amount of humanitarian aid, with its core goal being to draw global attention to the catastrophic living conditions facing Palestinian civilians in war-ravaged Gaza, which has been under heavy Israeli military bombardment and blockade since the October 7 2023 Hamas attacks. Israeli officials have dismissed the mission as a “PR stunt at the service of Hamas.”
The fallout from the incident has spread far beyond Israel and Ireland, with multiple world leaders condemning the treatment of detainees. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the activists’ treatment “intolerable,” noting that multiple Italian citizens are among the detained, and said the actions violate basic human dignity. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot expressed France’s “indignation” at Ben-Gvir’s conduct and demanded a formal explanation from Israeli authorities. Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand described the video footage as “deeply troubling.”
Domestic criticism of Ben-Gvir has also emerged in Israel. Former Israeli minister Alan Shatter, who currently sits on the board of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations, called for Ben-Gvir to be “unceremoniously dismissed from Israel’s cabinet and ministerial office.” Israeli legal rights group Adalah confirmed Wednesday that all activists were being held at Ashdod port after being brought into Israeli territory “entirely against their will.” The group announced its legal team would file challenges to the detentions in court and push for the immediate release of all flotilla participants. A GSF spokesperson has also joined international calls demanding the immediate release of all detained crew members.
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An Israeli soldier posted an image of a Palestinian ‘for sale’. The Palestinian is missing
Nearly 18 months after a 41-year-old Palestinian man with a chronic mental health condition vanished from his home in Gaza, a disturbing deleted social media post from an Israeli soldier has given his family the first clue to his fate — and left them with no clear answers about his whereabouts.
On November 18 of last year, Israeli soldier Harel Amshika shared a nine-image photo carousel to his personal Instagram account, paired with reflective text about his combat deployment in the Gaza Strip.
His years of frontline service “passed quickly, but left a big mark,” Amshika wrote. “Being a warrior in such a time is a privilege… Gratitude for sleepless nights… And a very long war. To friends who became family. To experiences that I never thought I would have, for better or worse.”
Amshika went on to express gratitude to his unit, the Shaked Battalion, which operates under the Israeli military’s Givati Brigade. He also honored fallen soldiers he had served with, specifically highlighting combat medic Ido Zano in his account biography.
Among the photos in the carousel was one particularly graphic image: a Palestinian man, clad in a full white hazmat suit with “B4” handwritten in black marker below his right shoulder, sits bound and blindfolded against a concrete block. The man has no shoes, with both his hands and ankles restrained. A green cloth or tape covers his eyes. Just above him, the lower half of a second bound man, whose hands and feet are secured with plastic zip ties, is visible on a neighboring block.
Over the image, Amshika overlaid a short, chilling caption: “For sale”.
Both the post and Amshika’s original Instagram account have since been taken down, though the soldier has created a new account with a nearly identical username and a one-line biography: “Just for fun”. Archived copies of the post and screengrabs of the dehumanizing photograph have nonetheless spread widely across social media platforms.
According to a new report from the Global Legal Action Network (GLAN), a Gaza-based Palestinian woman named Zahra Shorrab recognized the bound man in the circulated image as her son, Mohammed Shorrab. She confirmed the identification through distinct features including his hands, hair, and feet.
Mohammed, 41, requires ongoing care from his family for his mental health condition. He disappeared on August 20, 2024, after leaving his home to attend evening prayers; his family never saw him again after he stepped out.
For nearly a year and a half, his relatives searched for any trace of Mohammed, with no success. It was only when Zahra encountered the Israeli soldier’s “for sale” post that the family gained any information about what may have happened to him.
In an interview with journalist Ali Alasmer, Zahra Shorrab spoke out about the pain and outrage her family has endured. “Have the Palestinian people become so cheap that they are put up for sale? What is happening to us is cruel… It is unbearable that they are scattering us like this and that a Palestinian is being offered for sale,” she said.
“Do human beings no longer have any worth?” Shorrab asked. “We are human beings. We are people… How can they reduce him to something worthless like that?”
After the identification was confirmed, GLAN partnered with Hamoked, an Israeli human rights organization that provides free legal assistance to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation, to pursue answers on the family’s behalf.
On February 26, Hamoked submitted an official written inquiry to the Israel Prison Service, requesting information about Mohammed’s location and status.
The Israel Prison Service replied that after a full review of its detainee records, no evidence could be found that Mohammed Shorrab had ever been held in any of its facilities.
Yet as GLAN points out, the basic facts of the case remain unambiguous: the photograph exists, the soldier who took it has been publicly named, his military unit has been identified, and the brigade was confirmed to be operating in the area where Mohammed disappeared at the time he went missing.
Middle East Eye reached out to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) with a series of questions about the case, covering both Mohammed Shorrab’s disappearance and Harel Amshika’s social media post.
In an official response, an IDF spokesperson stated: “Based on the examinations conducted thus far, no individual by the name Muhammad Rabee Saed Shorrab was found to be currently held, or to have been held during the war, in an IDF detention facility.
“Regarding the image presented, it is not possible to identify the individual depicted with certainty. The image was taken over two years ago, and the individuals involved have since been discharged and are no longer serving in the military. The image has been removed. Procedures regarding conduct toward detainees were reinforced to the forces throughout the war.”
Middle East Eye also specifically asked whether any disciplinary action had been opened against Amshika in connection with the post. As of the time of this reporting, the IDF has not responded to that question.
The revelation of the photograph comes as United Nations special rapporteurs released a new report this week documenting widespread allegations of torture and cruel treatment of Palestinian detainees. The report includes verified testimony describing abuses ranging from “repeated and serious physical assaults, setting dogs on detainees” to “handcuffing and blindfolding for extended periods, shackling to beds and feeding through straws.”
The UN investigation also documented “the prolonged deprivation of food, sleep deprivation, water and medical attention, prolonged exposure to the cold, being forced to kneel on gravel, deliberate humiliation, blackmailing, electric shocks, being burnt with cigarettes, and being given hallucinogenic pills”, as well as “enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention of essential healthcare workers in Gaza.”
This report is part of Middle East Eye’s independent, on-the-ground coverage of conflict and human rights issues across the Middle East and North Africa.
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Sierra Leone becomes latest African country to receive deportees from US
As U.S. President Donald Trump escalates his nationwide crackdown on unauthorized immigration, Sierra Leone has become the newest African nation to accept deported migrants sent from American territory. A chartered Boeing flight carrying nine West African migrants touched down at Freetown International Airport, located just outside Sierra Leone’s capital, on Wednesday morning, in a move that spotlights the expanding scope of the Trump administration’s third-country deportation policy.
Witnesses from the BBC confirmed the details of the arrival: the group of seven men and two women were visibly dejected upon landing, with one individual physically resisting removal from the aircraft before being forced off by officials. Official breakdowns of the group show five of the deportees are from Ghana, two are from Guinea, and one each hails from Nigeria and Senegal. After exiting the terminal, the group was escorted away from the airport in a marked white van to temporary housing facilities run by private contractor Kenvah Solutions.
Weeks ahead of the arrival, Sierra Leone’s Foreign Minister Timothy Musa Kabba confirmed to Reuters that the country had struck an agreement with Washington to accept up to 300 deportees annually. Under the terms of the deal, however, only migrants who hold citizenship from member states of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), West Africa’s regional economic and political bloc, are eligible to be accepted into the country. ECOWAS free movement rules allow citizens of any member nation to reside in another member state for up to 90 days without a visa, but Kenvah Solutions has stated the deportees will only be permitted to stay at its temporary facilities for a maximum of two weeks, leaving the long-term residency status of the group unclear.
This deportation operation is part of a broader policy launched shortly after Trump took office for a second term in January 2025. Dozens of migrants have already been sent to so-called “third countries” – nations where the deportees did not reside before moving to the United States. To date, the U.S. has already processed third-country deportations to multiple African countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, South Sudan, and Eswatini. Unlike Sierra Leone and Ghana, which have restricted acceptance to ECOWAS citizens, these other nations have received deportees from regions outside Africa, including Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Vietnam.
The financial and human cost of this policy has come under increasing scrutiny from lawmakers and human rights groups. A minority report from the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee estimates that, as of January 2026, the Trump administration has likely spent more than $40 million on third-country deportation operations, though the full total expenditure remains undisclosed. Sierra Leonean authorities have not publicly disclosed any financial compensation or policy concessions they received in exchange for agreeing to accept the deportees.
Human rights advocates have repeatedly condemned the practice, arguing that it violates core international human rights standards and exposes already vulnerable migrants to unnecessary harm. In September last year, Human Rights Watch issued an open call for African nations to reject what it described as “opaque deals,” arguing the agreements are deliberately structured to weaponize human suffering for political and diplomatic gain. Ghana, which has also agreed to accept U.S. deportees, has echoed Sierra Leone’s policy of only accepting ECOWAS citizens, with President John Mahama noting in September that free movement rules already allow West African nationals to enter Ghana without visa requirements.