Global Pulse

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  • After Israel killed her three sons, she found hope in a newborn. Then he was killed too

    After Israel killed her three sons, she found hope in a newborn. Then he was killed too

    Deep in the al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, 15-month-old Zaid Nofal lay sleeping in the sweltering pre-dawn darkness of a Gaza summer. Without a blanket to combat the oppressive heat, the toddler had been left by an open window to catch what little breeze stirred the humid air at 3 a.m. That quiet, ordinary moment was shattered in an instant when an Israeli airstrike slammed into the family’s home, burying Zaid beneath the crumbled concrete of what had just been a place of refuge.

    Just meters from the collapsed rubble, Zaid’s 38-year-old mother Fatima Nofal stood frozen in disbelief, her clothes stained with blood and dust as neighbors screamed around her. For the Palestinian mother, this was not an entirely new horror. Zaid was the fourth son she had lost to Israeli violence, three older boys having been killed in a separate attack just two years prior. This home, partially destroyed in earlier conflict, had only just been rebuilt after a ceasefire was announced in October 2025.

    “I still haven’t processed what happened. I remain in a state of profound shock,” Nofal told Middle East Eye in an interview from hospital, where she is recovering from burns to her feet. “All I remember is waking up just minutes before the strike. I moved to another spot because of the severe heat, leaving my little Zaid by the window so the breeze could help him sleep.”

    Wounded in the blast, Nofal refused to evacuate before rescuers found her son. Neighbors poured in to help, slowly shifting piles of concrete and debris to reach the trapped toddler. When they finally pulled Zaid out, wrapped in a thin blanket, he was already dead. The attack reopened old wounds that had barely begun to scab over: the trauma of October 13, 2023, when an earlier Israeli airstrike took the lives of her three other sons.

    That strike came early in the war that has ravaged Gaza since October 2023. Back then, Nofal and her family had fled their original home in al-Bureij, convinced they would find safety in the al-Sawarha area of the coastal town al-Zawaida, far from the border. “We realised the gravity of the situation and decided to flee because we thought it would be safer than staying near the border,” she recalled. “But we never imagined that the place we went to for safety would become where I’d witness the killing of my three sons and most of my husband’s family.”

    That attack killed 16-year-old Amin, 11-year-old Hamza, and Ahmed, her newborn son who was just 22 days old. Nofal and her two young daughters were wounded, their home destroyed, forcing them into the cycle of repeated displacement that has defined life for nearly every Palestinian in Gaza over the past two years.

    Ten months after she buried her three older boys, a glimmer of hope cut through the darkness: Nofal discovered she was pregnant. When she learned she was carrying another boy, her quiet hope grew into profound joy. Zaid was born on April 16, 2025, born into a war that never ended, but for his family he was more than a baby — he was a chance to fill the gaping hole left by the children they had lost.

    “Zaid’s birth was the most significant event in our lives during the war,” Nofal said. “His arrival brought immense joy to the whole family; everyone celebrated him as a small miracle that came to light up our lives after long months and nights of pain and tears.” When relatives suggested naming him after one of his late brothers, Nofal refused. “I wanted him to have his own name and his own destiny,” she explained.

    In the 15 months of his short life, Zaid became the beating heart of the home. His two sisters adored him, never wanting to be apart. “Whenever I took him to the clinic for vaccinations or check-ups, his sisters would wait for him on the stairs. They could not bear being away from him, even for a few hours,” Nofal said.

    The latest airstrike that killed Zaid also left Nofal’s family fractured once more. Her eldest daughter Baraa suffered minor injuries, but 15-month-old Lina, her youngest daughter, is still hospitalized with head trauma. “When I visited her, the first thing she asked about was Zaid. I could not bring myself to tell her the truth while she was still wounded. I told her he was fine and waiting for her,” Nofal said, her voice heavy with unspoken grief. “I don’t know how I will tell her the truth when she is discharged.”

    Nofal’s grief is compounded by the stolen childhood Zaid never got to live. “On the day he was killed, he was restless in the afternoon and wanted to go outside. I told his sisters how much I wished I could take him out, but there are no places left for children to play,” she said. “He spent his whole life indoors. Even his cousins had been killed in Israeli air strikes, so he had no one to play with.”

    Zaid’s death is far from an isolated tragedy. Despite a ceasefire agreement reached in October 2025 that was meant to end the two-year war in Gaza, Israel has continued to carry out near-daily airstrikes across the besieged enclave. Official counts put the death toll from Israeli strikes at more than 1,200 people since the ceasefire took effect 10 months ago, with a total of more than 73,000 Palestinians killed since the war began in October 2023.

    Children have borne the brunt of this ongoing violence. The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported in June that roughly 260 children have been killed in Gaza since the ceasefire began — an average of one child killed every day. UNICEF spokesperson James Elder called the situation a “cruel and deadly illusion of a ceasefire.”

    On the same day Zaid was killed, another child lost her life in a separate Israeli strike: nine-year-old Ratil al-Abadla died when a bomb hit her uncle’s tent in al-Mawasi, where she had traveled just two days earlier for a brief break from the horrors of war. A video of her father, Abdullah al-Abadla, holding her small body and asking what his daughter had done to deserve such a fate spread rapidly across social media, a searing reminder of the pain shared by thousands of Gaza families.

    The United Nations’ independent commission of inquiry has already confirmed it found clear evidence that Israeli forces have deliberately targeted Palestinian children, noting that these actions form part of the pattern of conduct that led the commission to conclude Israel has committed acts of genocide in Gaza.

    For Nofal, however, no official report or global condemnation can bring back her four sons. As she divides her time between recovering from her own injuries and sitting by her injured daughter’s hospital bed, she now faces two new overwhelming struggles: finding a new place to call home after her house was destroyed once more, and finding the words to tell Lina that her baby brother will never come home.

    “Israel is intent on killing us, and it needs no justification to do so,” Nofal said. “The fire is burning in my chest, and I do not know who will extinguish it.”

  • Japan ends rescue operation at a mall that collapsed after a strong quake

    Japan ends rescue operation at a mall that collapsed after a strong quake

    On Saturday, Japanese emergency authorities concluded a five-day large-scale search-and-rescue mission at the site of a collapsed regional shopping mall in Kumamoto Prefecture, four days after a powerful 7.1 magnitude earthquake struck Japan’s southern main island of Kyushu, leaving at least 34 people dead across the affected region. The Aeon Mall in the town of Kashima was counted among the disaster’s most heavily damaged locations: a post-quake explosion, which mall operator Aeon suspects was triggered by a gas leak, caused the structure’s second floor and multiple exterior walls to collapse. In the immediate aftermath of the tremor, roughly 3,000 visiting shoppers were safely evacuated to an adjacent parking lot, but a number of staff members remained inside the building to secure the facility, leaving them trapped when the structure gave way.

    Over the course of the five-day operation, rescue teams pulled five survivors from the tangled rubble of the mall and recovered the remains of seven employees who did not survive the collapse. With all unaccounted-for people at the site now identified and located, officials called off active search efforts at the mall on Saturday. However, search operations across the wider Kumamoto Prefecture remain ongoing, as the total number of missing people across the region has not yet been confirmed. More than 5,000 personnel, including Japan Self-Defense Force troops, local police officers, specialized rescue workers and canine search teams, have been deployed to the affected area to continue looking for survivors.

    At a separate high-impact site in Yatsushiro City, a large industrial chimney at the Nippon Paper Industries factory collapsed during the quake, trapping 11 on-site workers. Local officials confirmed Saturday that nine of those trapped workers have been found dead, while the remaining two were rescued and are receiving medical care. Across Kumamoto Prefecture, the earthquake has left 103 people with documented injuries, and authorities are currently investigating whether two additional deaths can be linked to the seismic event.

    In addition to the human toll and structural damage, the prefecture is now facing a growing public health crisis driven by two overlapping crises: widespread disruptions to critical infrastructure and a record-breaking heatwave. As of Saturday, nearly 70,000 households across Kumamoto remain without access to clean potable water, and supplies of vehicle and generator fuel are running critically low, even as temperatures in Kumamoto City hit an extreme 36.6 degrees Celsius (97.8 degrees Fahrenheit) on Saturday. The sweltering conditions have raised urgent concerns about heat exhaustion and other heat-related illnesses among displaced residents.

    More than 9,000 people are currently staying in overcrowded emergency evacuation shelters, which have been set up in repurposed community centers, school gymnasiums and public school classrooms. Many other displaced residents have chosen to sleep in their vehicles parked at municipal parking lots and public parks, or camp outside their damaged homes, in order to access greater privacy than crowded shelters can offer.

    Longstanding criticism from disaster response experts has highlighted the dangers of overcrowded shelter conditions in Japan, noting that insufficient sanitation and a lack of personal space increase psychological stress for survivors and raise the risk of secondary public health outbreaks after a disaster. In response to these ongoing challenges, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi reaffirmed the national government’s commitment to supporting response and recovery efforts during a Saturday meeting of the government’s disaster task force, urging rescue teams to leave no one unaccounted for across the affected region.

    Takaichi added that relief supplies including bottled water, non-perishable food, portable toilets, mobile air conditioning units and privacy partitions are already being distributed to evacuation centers across the prefecture to improve living conditions for displaced residents. “The government is determined to do everything we can to support affected communities,” she stated.

    As of Saturday, Kumamoto Prefecture has recorded more than 1,500 reports of power outages across the region, though the local Kyushu Electric Power Company said it had no immediate confirmation of widespread ongoing outages. Preliminary structural assessments from the Kumamoto prefectural government confirm that at least 180 homes have been completely destroyed by the quake, and nearly 3,500 additional buildings have sustained damage — a figure that has nearly doubled since Friday’s update — with 20 of those structures classified as severely damaged.

  • ‘We cried instead of celebrating’: War and loss shadow Gaza’s top students

    ‘We cried instead of celebrating’: War and loss shadow Gaza’s top students

    For generations of Palestinian students, the General Secondary Education Certificate exam – widely known as Tawjihi – stands as a defining milestone. Traditionally, it brings closure to 12 years of schooling, opens the door to university, and is marked by joyous celebrations of hard-won achievement and hopeful plans for the future. But nearly three years into Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, this pivotal academic moment carries a drastically different weight for thousands of young Gazans. For these students, just surviving long enough to sit the exams and receive their results has become an extraordinary accomplishment.

    One story that has captured widespread attention is that of Saba Rabah, a 2024 Tawjihi graduate who claimed the top score across Palestine’s scientific stream, with a nearly perfect 99.9 percent average. The result fulfilled a childhood dream Rabah had nurtured for years – but the celebratory moment was deeply shadowed by the loss of her father, killed in an Israeli airstrike on the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza earlier this year. The final selfie the pair shared, taken during Eid al-Fitr in April 2024, remains one of Rabah’s most cherished possessions.

    From childhood, Rabah’s parents pushed her to excel academically and supported her ambition to attend medical school. “In my last conversation with my father, he told me he dreamed I would rank among the top students in the scientific stream and study medicine, just as I had always hoped,” Rabah told Middle East Eye. “He said he wanted to spend his retirement in my future clinic.”

    Rabah’s path to the top score was littered with obstacles no student should ever face. Like thousands of Tawjihi candidates across Gaza, she pursued her studies in conditions that turned the most basic educational tasks into daily battles for survival. Just days before her final exams, an Israeli strike damaged her family’s rented displacement shelter, leaving only one room intact. That small space served as kitchen, bedroom, living area, and study space all at once.

    “No words can describe the suffering of studying while starving or while fleeing,” Rabah said. She recalled repeated episodes of displacement, where she was forced to choose between carrying her textbooks, her mother’s life-saving heart and blood pressure medication, or assisting her 25-year-old quadriplegic brother Saeed. Basic educational supplies have become unattainable luxuries in blockaded Gaza: no new textbooks have entered the territory in three years, making even second-hand copies rare, and a pack of 200 A4 sheets now costs roughly $150, out of reach for most families. Unreliable electricity and spotty internet access have further complicated efforts to study remotely.

    Through the hardest moments, Rabah held onto her father’s dream, with her mother and siblings reminding her of what he had wanted for her. “Every family in Gaza has experienced grief. We have lost fathers, mothers, siblings and sometimes entire families,” she said. “We didn’t choose to live through this violence, but we keep trying to live and hold on to the small moments because that is our right. The only solution is for the Israeli war to stop. We don’t want to lose any more of our loved ones. We want to study like everyone else. We want to live in dignity.”

    Rabah’s story is far from unique. Thousands of Tawjihi students across Gaza navigated repeated bombardment, displacement, injury, and grief to sit for their exams this year. Among them is Maram Muqit, a northern Gaza student who took her exams just four months after an Israeli bullet became lodged in her spinal cord, leaving her partially paralyzed.

    Muqit was injured while walking back to her family’s displacement tent from a math class, her mother Naheel explained. “Doctors told us she might never walk again if she remains in Gaza because of the lack of medical supplies,” Naheel said. Before she was wounded, Muqit had attended two makeshift schools, despite the constant danger of traveling across northern Gaza. Her parents begged her to stay home for safety, but she refused to miss any chance to learn. When internet was available, she downloaded YouTube lessons and studied materials shared by her teachers on WhatsApp.

    Before the current conflict, Muqit and her family lived in Beit Lahia, but their home was destroyed in the first month of Israeli attacks. They have been displaced multiple times since, and now live in a tent in the al-Atatra neighborhood in northern Gaza. Muqit is currently undergoing rehabilitation at al-Wafa Hospital, where she balanced intensive therapy with exam preparation. Despite the exhaustion of balancing treatment and studying, she earned an outstanding 96.6 percent on her Tawjihi exams.

    “When the results came out, we cried instead of celebrating. Her father and I tried to help her stand, but she still couldn’t keep her balance,” Naheel said. The hospital later allowed Muqit to spend a day with her family at the displacement camp, where relatives and friends held a small celebration. When she returned to the hospital, staff and fellow patients celebrated her achievement, bringing her small gifts to mark the milestone.

    Even with her strong score, Muqit’s future remains uncertain. She has long dreamed of studying dentistry, but fears her injury and disability will block her from pursuing the career she has wanted since childhood. “I am happy I achieved the grades I needed. But I am sad that I may never walk again,” she said. “I hope I can get an electric wheelchair, travel abroad for treatment and go to university.”

    For other high-achieving students, the joy of a strong Tawjihi result never came at all. Among the nearly 19,000 Palestinian students killed by Israeli forces since October 2023, per Palestinian Ministry of Education data, is Yahya Nasman. Nasman scored a 96.6 percent on his 2024 Tawjihi exams – but he and five members of his family were killed in an Israeli airstrike on their Gaza City home just one week before results were announced in July.

    Two days before the attack, Nasman’s uncle Waleed hosted Yahya and another family member for a small post-exam meal. Waleed said his nephew had spent the year balancing studying with the daily work of helping his family survive the war: fetching clean water, collecting firewood, and securing basic supplies. Over pizza, Yahya spoke confidently about his plans: he was sure he would earn high marks, he told his uncle, and he wanted to study architectural engineering so he could help rebuild the thousands of homes destroyed across Gaza.

    Waleed remembered his nephew as the most caring member of the family, always the first to step in to help anyone in need before returning straight to his studies. The day before the strike, Yahya brought his six-year-old sister Arwa to play with Waleed’s daughters – a meeting Waleed never imagined would be their last. The next day, 12-year-old Ayham, Yahya’s brother, returned to the family home to find it reduced to rubble. He ran to alert relatives, who rushed to the site hoping to find survivors.

    “My brother, his wife and their three children, including Yahya, were killed instantly,” Waleed said. “The force of the explosion threw parts of their bodies hundreds of metres down the street. I collected the remains of my nephews and nieces from the road and the displacement camps before burying them.” Five days after the attack, the family learned Yahya had earned one of the highest Tawjihi scores in Gaza. What should have been a joyous celebration became one more moment of grief. “Yahya was one of thousands of students who tried to build a future despite everything happening around them,” Waleed said. “We want people around the world to help stop the attacks on Gaza. Every day more people are killed.”

    Official data from the Palestinian Ministry of Education underscores the catastrophic toll the conflict has taken on Gaza’s education sector. Since October 2023, Israeli forces have wounded at least 28,293 students, killed nearly 19,000 students and roughly 800 teachers and education workers, and damaged or destroyed 279 schools, leaving Gaza’s entire education system in ruins. Even after a tentative ceasefire agreement was reached in October, Israel has continued near-daily airstrikes across the strip, killing at least 1,200 people since the truce took effect. Total Palestinian fatalities from Israeli attacks since October 2023 now exceed 73,000, according to local officials.

  • Iceland seizes Paul Watson Foundation’s anti-whaling ship and detains its crew

    Iceland seizes Paul Watson Foundation’s anti-whaling ship and detains its crew

    In a high-stakes confrontation between Icelandic law enforcement and anti-whaling campaigners, Icelandic coast guard units and police special forces have seized a protest vessel operated by an organization founded by veteran anti-whaling activist Paul Watson, detaining all 21 members of its crew, Icelandic officials confirmed Saturday.

    The incident traces back to Thursday evening, when the crew of the Icelandic commercial whaling ship Hvalur 9 placed an emergency distress call, reporting that their safety was threatened by the protest vessel Bandero, which is owned and operated by the Captain Paul Watson Foundation. According to the Icelandic Coast Guard’s official account, the Bandero repeatedly defied direct orders from coast guard officials: first to exit Icelandic territorial waters, and later to cut its engines.

    Around midnight on Thursday, armed joint units of the Icelandic Coast Guard and the elite Viking Squad police special force boarded the Bandero and took the entire crew into custody. Notably, Paul Watson, the 75-year-old founder of the foundation that owns the vessel, was not on board during the operation. In an official statement released after the seizure, the Captain Paul Watson Foundation confirmed the action and reported that detained crew members are being held aboard the vessel with all their personal communication devices confiscated.

    By Friday, the Bandero had been escorted into Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital port, and Icelandic police have assumed lead responsibility for the ongoing investigation. Iceland’s national public broadcaster RÚV has reported that law enforcement intends to request deportation for all 21 detained crew members, alongside a permanent ban on their re-entry to Iceland.

    Iceland stands as one of only three nations alongside Norway and Japan that continue to permit large-scale commercial whaling, setting annual hunting quotas for fin and minke whales within its exclusive economic zone. While the country exports the vast majority of its whale meat to Japan, demand for the product has dropped sharply since 2019, when Japan withdrew from the International Whaling Commission and restarted its own commercial whaling operations. Domestically, commercial whaling has grown increasingly divisive in Iceland, as local consumption of whale meat has fallen to near-negligible levels in recent years.

    This latest encounter adds another chapter to Paul Watson’s decades-long, high-profile campaign against commercial whaling. A Canada-born activist, Watson stepped down as head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, the pioneering anti-whaling group he co-founded, in 2022 to launch the Captain Paul Watson Foundation. Watson’s confrontational direct-action tactics, which have included high-seas standoffs with whaling vessels, earned him global celebrity support and a starring role in the popular reality television series *Whale Wars*, but have also repeatedly landed him in legal custody.

    Earlier this year, Watson spent five months imprisoned in Greenland following his arrest on a Japanese extradition warrant stemming from a 2010 incident where he was accused of obstructing a Japanese whaling vessel. Upon his release in December 2024, Watson publicly stated he would avoid travel to nations where he faced arrest risk, telling reporters: “I have to make sure that I don’t land in Iceland or another country where Interpol might try to have me arrested again.”

    Watson was first placed on Interpol’s “red notice” most-wanted list in 2012, and was only removed from the roster earlier this year in 2025. Watson’s uncompromising, direct-action approach has long created divisions within the global conservation movement, and fishing and marine shipping firms have repeatedly accused his activists of endangering crew lives and vessel safety. Earlier this year, the Bandero was involved in a collision with a Norwegian-owned industrial krill trawler operating in Antarctica; the trawler’s owner called the incident a deliberate attack that put their crew at risk and could have triggered a major environmental catastrophe in the sensitive Antarctic ecosystem.

  • Mountaineer Nirmal Purja killed in Pakistan avalanche, his company says

    Mountaineer Nirmal Purja killed in Pakistan avalanche, his company says

    A devastating avalanche on Pakistan’s remote Broad Peak has claimed the lives of 10 climbers, including world-famous Nepali-born mountaineer Nirmal Purja, whose groundbreaking high-altitude achievements were catapulted to global attention by a hit 2021 Netflix documentary. The tragedy was officially confirmed by Purja’s mountaineering guiding company, Elite Expeditions, which announced the heartbreaking news in a social media post Thursday, expressing profound grief over the loss of the entire expedition team.

    Purja, 43, a former British Special Boat Service soldier who redefined high-altitude mountaineering limits in 2019 by climbing all 14 of the world’s 8,000-meter-plus peaks in just six months and six days — a record that stood as a testament to human endurance — was leading the multinational expedition when the avalanche struck the 8,047-meter (26,400-foot) Karakoram range peak, one of the most challenging and dangerous summits on Earth.

    Prior to the official confirmation of Purja’s death, Pakistani rescue authorities had already recovered the bodies of three members of the 10-person team: American climber Mallory Geis, Omani climber Nadhira Ahmed Abdullah Al Harthy, and Nepali climber Pur Bahadur Gurung. Nepal’s Prime Minister Balendra Shah later issued an official statement confirming the total fatality count, which includes six Nepali climbers and four foreign nationals, and expressed the nation’s shock over the accident. “The tragic death of six Nepalese and four other foreign climbers, including world record holder Nirmal Purja, in the Karakoram mountain range of Pakistan, has shocked us,” Shah wrote on social media, adding that “the history of their courage, dedication, and contributions will always remain inspiring.”

    Pakistani rescue teams had launched an urgent search and recovery operation immediately after the avalanche was reported, navigating harsh, high-altitude conditions to reach the disaster site on the world’s 12th highest mountain. Broad Peak has long held a reputation as one of mountaineering’s most dangerous tests: while the first successful ascent was completed by an Austrian expedition in 1957, dozens of climbers have lost their lives on its slopes in the decades since. One of its deadliest seasons on record was 2013, when at least six climbers died in separate incidents on the peak.

    Purja, who joined the British Army in 2003 before moving to the elite Royal Navy Special Boat Service in 2009, became a household name globally after Netflix released *14 Peaks: Nothing Is Impossible*, the 2021 documentary that chronicled his history-making 2019 expedition to scale all 14 of the world’s highest peaks. The documentary introduced his extraordinary story of endurance to millions, cementing his legacy as one of the most iconic mountaineers of the 21st century.

    This is an ongoing breaking news story, and updates with additional details are expected to be released as more information becomes available from rescue officials and expedition authorities.

  • Hundreds of thousands line Amsterdam canals for the annual Pride boat parade

    Hundreds of thousands line Amsterdam canals for the annual Pride boat parade

    On a recent Saturday in the Dutch capital, hundreds of thousands of spectators packed the banks of Amsterdam’s iconic canals to cheer on the city’s legendary annual Pride canal boat parade, the centerpiece of this year’s combined World Pride celebration. The high-spirited event unfolded just seven days after a deadly extremist attack targeting a Pride gathering in Berlin left one attendee dead and 29 others wounded, prompting stepped-up security measures across major European Pride events this year.

    Among the 80 vibrantly decorated vessels taking part in the floating procession, one boat carried openly gay Dutch Deputy Prime Minister Rob Jetten. Clad in a crisp white button-down, a black life vest and a gold statement necklace, Jetten waved steadily to cheering crowds lining the waterway as pulsing techno music echoed from speakers along the parade route, joining participants in marking the global LGBTQ+ rights celebration.

    The Berlin attack, which authorities have classified as an Islamic extremist act, unfolded when 30-year-old suspect Abdul Ballout allegedly drove a van into a crowd gathered near the city’s Pride event last Saturday, before attacking additional people with a machete. The following day, Ballout was shot and killed by police during an arrest confrontation in a Berlin suburb. German prosecutors later confirmed the suspect had a documented history of attempting to travel to join the militant Islamic State group.

    In response to the attack, Amsterdam officials moved quickly to implement enhanced security protocols for the city’s World Pride events, while aiming to minimize disruption to attendees. As the parade kicked off, uniformed officers patrolled the canals aboard marked motorboats, and a police helicopter maintained a constant overhead patrol. The caution extended across Germany as well: the same day as Amsterdam’s parade, Hamburg held one of Germany’s largest annual Pride processions with doubled police staffing compared to 2023, with organizers projecting a turnout of roughly 250,000 attendees.

    For many visitors and participants, the decision to attend the Amsterdam event in the wake of violence was an intentional act of solidarity. Rod Lugtenburg, a 55-year-old tourist from Toronto who traveled specifically for World Pride, stood on Amsterdam’s historic Skinny Bridge wearing a rainbow-adorned maple leaf T-shirt as the boats passed. “For me, it’s about acceptance, being able to be who you are,” he said. “I have Dutch heritage and I have always loved the fact that the Dutch have been leading the way” in advancing acceptance and legal protections for the LGBTQ+ community, he added, noting “And Canada is right behind them, so I’m very proud.”

    Despite the Netherlands’ long-held global reputation as a leading haven of tolerance for LGBTQ+ people, the joyful celebration unfolded against a troubling backdrop: a steady rise in reported verbal and physical attacks targeting community members across the country. Just one day before the parade, an Amsterdam court convicted a man of using hate speech at a local preliminary Pride event earlier that week, sentencing him to 40 hours of community service.

    Participants in the parade spanned public and private groups, including official vessels from Dutch government ministries, national military and law enforcement agencies, alongside dozens of LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations and social clubs. The nation’s oldest LGBTQ+ rights group, COC Netherlands, marked its 80th anniversary of activism with a parade boat that carried a policy manifesto calling for continued progress on LGBTQ+ human rights across the country. The boat also featured a large portrait of Marsha P. Johnson, the iconic trans activist who played a central role in the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in New York City — the rebellion that ignited the modern global movement for queer equality.

    This report included contributions from Associated Press correspondent Geir Moulson in Berlin.

  • Hamburg Pride underway with increased security a week after a fatal attack in Berlin

    Hamburg Pride underway with increased security a week after a fatal attack in Berlin

    Just seven days after a deadly extremist attack shook the LGBTQ+ community near Berlin’s annual Pride celebration, one of Germany’s largest annual LGBTQ+ advocacy events — Hamburg’s Christopher Street Day (CSD) Pride parade — kicked off on Saturday with a dramatically expanded security presence to protect attendees.

    Organizers projected that roughly 250,000 participants and spectators would line the route through the center of Germany’s second-largest city, where dozens of parade floats made their way through downtown streets. Ahead of the event, Hamburg’s police chief confirmed that the number of officers deployed to secure the parade would be double the staffing level that was used for the 2024 event, a direct response to last week’s violence in the capital.

    This year’s Hamburg Pride carries the unifying rallying motto: “Queer in solidarity. Take a stand — for a future without fear.” In a moving show of solidarity with the Berlin community, organizers added a last-minute parade float representing Berlin Pride to the procession. Attendees on the Berlin float were asked to wear dark clothing as a quiet mark of respect for the victims of last week’s attack.

    Speaking to German broadcaster RTL television, Hamburg’s Deputy Mayor Katharina Fegebank addressed widespread anxiety that has rippled through both Germany’s queer community and broader society following the violence. “After the brutal attack on the CSD in Berlin, many are unsure in the queer community but also in society whether here and today is the right place,” Fegebank said. “I say, now more than ever.”

    The attack that prompted the heightened security unfolded on the evening of July 25, just hundreds of meters from the closing party of Berlin’s Pride celebration. A driver drove a rented van into a crowd of people before attacking additional bystanders with a machete-style weapon. The violence left one woman dead and multiple others injured, several of them critically. The 21-year-old identified as suspect Abdul Ballout, who was born in Germany to a family of Lebanese descent, was shot and killed during a confrontation with responding police officers the following day.

    Investigators later recovered a pre-recorded video in which a man matching Ballout’s description claims responsibility for the attack and pledges allegiance to the extremist group Islamic State. Prosecutors confirmed that Ballout traveled to Lebanon in 2025, with the explicit intention of crossing into Syria to join Islamic State ranks, and had already made contact with multiple individuals suspected of being members of the group before he returned to Germany to carry out the attack.

  • August’s total solar eclipse will sweep over Spain, Iceland and Greenland

    August’s total solar eclipse will sweep over Spain, Iceland and Greenland

    After more than a century without a total solar eclipse crossing its mainland, Spain is poised to welcome a breathtaking celestial event on August 12, capped by an even longer dramatic astronomical showcase next summer. To amplify the spectacle, the once-in-a-generation eclipse will coincide with two other extraordinary sky phenomena: a six-planet alignment and the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower, creating a rare triple treat for stargazers across the Northern Hemisphere.

    When the sun, moon, and Earth fall into perfect straight-line alignment on August 12, daytime darkness will descend across parts of the Iberian Peninsula, Greenland, and Iceland near the hour of sunset. The moon’s dark, sun-blocking shadow, called the umbra, will begin its journey near the North Pole and track southward across 8,260 kilometers (5,130 miles) of mostly open Atlantic Ocean, taking 90 minutes to complete its path. The longest period of totality, clocking in at 2 minutes 18 seconds, will occur off Iceland’s west coast. By the time the umbra reaches coastal Portugal and mainland Spain, where crowds of astronomy enthusiasts are already gathering, totality will narrow to just around one minute before the eclipse concludes in the Mediterranean Sea. This event acts as a preview for an even longer total solar eclipse coming in 2027, which will offer up to six and a half minutes of totality as it crosses from southern Spain through North Africa and into the Middle East.

    While only viewers along the narrow path of totality will get to experience the full, jaw-dropping effect of the total eclipse, hundreds of millions of people across a vastly larger geographic area will be able to view a striking partial eclipse. The partial shadow of the moon will reach as far north as Alaska and Siberia, covering most of Canada, the northern United States, nearly all of Europe, and large swathes of West Africa. The degree of coverage decreases the further a viewer is from the path of totality: Dublin will see 94% of the sun blocked, Oslo will see 83%, Montreal 18%, New York 9%, and just 2% coverage will be visible in Norfolk, Virginia. Astronomers stress that proper eye protection via certified special eclipse glasses is non-negotiable for any viewing of a partial eclipse, even when only a tiny fraction of the sun is visible.

    The celestial magic does not end with the eclipse. Before dawn on August 12, six planets will align into a visible arc stretching across the pre-sky, and after nightfall, the annual Perseid meteor shower will reach its peak under a dark new moon. Forecasters note that bright streaking meteors could even pass through the frame of totality, with bright planets and distant stars visible in the darkened sky during the event.

    Eclipse-chasing enthusiasts from around the world are already planning their viewing spots, and many are chasing extra rare phenomena alongside the main event. Michael Zeiler, a veteran eclipse mapmaker who is attending his 13th total solar eclipse, will be positioned on a cruise ship in a Greenland fjord serving as a guest lecturer. He plans to point a video camera north to capture the northern lights if they appear during totality, calling a large solar outburst that triggers auroras the “icing on the cake” for his experience. Zeiler notes that his excitement stems from chasing these extremely rare celestial events.

    Major scientific organizations from across the globe are also leaning into the moment, planning public watch parties, live broadcasts, and cutting-edge research. The European Space Agency (ESA) will host a public celebration in Leon, Spain, and stream live coverage from the Astrophysical Observatory of Javalambre, with NASA, the Italy-based Virtual Telescope Project, and other groups also offering global live coverage. ESA Science Director Carole Mundell emphasized that the eclipse is more than just a scientific event or an astronomical alignment: it is a shared human experience that connects all people to the broader cosmos. Two of ESA’s space telescopes will observe the eclipsed sun and its faint outer atmosphere, the corona. While the agency’s Proba-3 mission — a pair of satellites that create artificial solar eclipses for research — will be in the wrong orbital position to observe the natural eclipse from Earth, it will attempt to capture before-and-after imagery of the sun for comparison.

    U.S. university research teams supported by NASA are also conducting atmospheric studies, launching more than 60 high-altitude balloons from sites in Spain and Iceland to measure changes in Earth’s atmosphere during the brief period of cooling and darkness caused by the eclipse. Project lead Angela Des Jardins of Montana State University noted that even just a few minutes of totality is enough to cause measurable atmospheric changes from the moon’s cold shadow. On a NASA high-altitude research plane, Southwest Research Institute scientist Amir Caspi will chase the eclipse’s shadow at 740 kph (460 mph), extending the total eclipse observation time to nearly three minutes for his team. Four specialized cameras will capture the corona across nine different wavelengths, with Caspi expecting to collect thousands of high-quality scientific images during the 180 seconds of extended observation. Even though the natural eclipse is short, Caspi emphasized that the data gathered will be incredibly valuable for solar research.

    For astronomy fans in Spain, this event is just the first of a rare run of celestial shows. In 2027, an exceptionally long total solar eclipse will cross the southern tip of Spain on August 2, offering up to 6 minutes 23 seconds of totality before tracking across Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Somalia. Then in January 2028, an annular “ring of fire” eclipse will complete a unique three-eclipse sequence for the country, what ESA’s Mundell calls a “lucky coincidence.”

    This rarity of this week’s event makes it all the more special: mainland Spain’s last full total solar eclipse occurred in 1912, just two days before the sinking of the Titanic. That 1912 event was a rare hybrid eclipse that shifted between annular and total, offering only a few seconds of totality for most of the mainland, leading many astronomers to date the last major total eclipse to 1905. For Andrei Zhukov of the Royal Observatory of Belgium, who has led more than 60 simulated artificial total eclipses as part of the Proba-3 mission over the past two years, any eclipse — natural or artificial — is a cause for excitement. “We’re looking forward to more eclipses, natural or artificial,” Zhukov said.

    This report was produced by The Associated Press Health and Science Department, which receives educational funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP retains full editorial control over all content.

  • Europe’s wildfire crisis shifts as some 200,000 French return but new blazes force thousands to flee

    Europe’s wildfire crisis shifts as some 200,000 French return but new blazes force thousands to flee

    As climate change continues to push Europe’s temperatures well above global averages, a patchwork of progress and crisis has emerged across the continent’s wildfire response: while firefighters successfully corralled a massive blaze in southwestern France’s Gironde region that triggered France’s largest ever peacetime evacuation, fast-flaring new fires have displaced thousands more in southern France and coastal Greece.

    After days of intense containment work, firefighters announced Saturday that the Gironde wildfire, which has already consumed 420 square kilometers of pine forest west of Bordeaux — an area four times the size of Paris — had been held within its existing perimeter, allowing roughly 198,000 evacuated residents and tourists to return to their properties. The blaze is not yet fully extinguished, however: active burning sectors and deep-buried hot spots remain across 240 kilometers of fire edge, and crews have spent nights conducting controlled tactical burns to clear remaining fuel and prevent the fire from spreading beyond containment lines.

    The popular, upscale Cap Ferret peninsula remains under full evacuation order, a precautionary measure driven by its limited road infrastructure. Officials warn that a flare-up of a nearby hot spot could quickly cut off escape routes, trapping anyone who returns. “Today, the fire is still not fixed. It is contained,” Lieutenant Colonel Eric Pitault explained to reporters on Saturday. The ecological toll of the blaze has already extended far beyond human settlements: Allain Bougrain-Dubourg, president of France’s League for the Protection of Birds, estimates millions of wild animals have been displaced or killed by the fire.

    Just hundreds of kilometers away in France’s Mediterranean Var department, a blaze that officials had already declared fully extinguished earlier this week roared back to life on Friday, spreading across 10 square kilometers of dry brush in just six hours — a pace Var’s prefecture described as “faster than a horse at full gallop.” The sudden resurgence, which Var Prefect Simon Babre called “defies understanding,” consumed an additional 1,250 hectares of land in a matter of hours, erasing days of hard-won progress in a single afternoon. As of Saturday, defensive lines protecting at-risk communities held and no additional land had burned, but the fire remains active. Some 2,500 people are still displaced, and 1,300 firefighters remain deployed to the site. Across France Saturday, 20 departments were under orange heat warnings, most concentrated in the east and southeast, with temperatures forecast to hit 35 to 39 Celsius near the Mediterranean, and eight departments categorized as facing high wildfire risk.

    Across the Ionian Sea in Greece, strong gale-force winds have driven a fast-moving wildfire through the popular coastal resort of Porto Germeno, located on the Gulf of Corinth between Athens and Thebes. The blaze ignited Friday near the village of Agios Vasileios, and winds reaching speeds of 55 miles per hour pushed flames through dry vegetation quickly, forcing around 300 people to be evacuated by sea, with additional evacuation orders issued Saturday. Wildfire meteorologist Theodore Giannaros of the National Observatory of Athens called the level of damage “inconceivable,” and estimated 40 to 50 square kilometers of land has already burned, though official figures have not yet been released by Greek authorities.

    Officials have reinforced response efforts, bringing total deployment to 420 firefighters, 20 specialized forest fire teams, 19 fixed-wing aircraft and 11 helicopters. Multiple homes have been confirmed destroyed, but full damage assessments are still underway. Strong winds continue to complicate response efforts, making it too dangerous for aircraft to conduct water drops in high-risk areas. Greece’s fire service reported crews battled 73 separate blazes across the country on Friday alone, and the Athens region and parts of Evia island were placed under the highest possible wildfire alert level Saturday.

    Across the Iberian peninsula, the scale of displacement is even larger: at the peak of this summer’s fire season, wildfires in France and Spain combined have forced more than 330,000 people to flee their homes and vacation sites, stretching firefighting, aerial and emergency response resources thin across multiple simultaneous crises. Climate scientists have repeatedly warned that this season’s extreme wildfire activity is directly tied to human-caused climate change: data from the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service confirms Europe is warming faster than any other continent on Earth, with temperatures rising more than twice the global average since the 1980s. Rising regional temperatures and prolonged multi-year drought have left vegetation parched across the Mediterranean, creating ideal conditions for fires to spread faster and burn with far greater intensity than historical averages.

  • Spain attacks ‘selfish’ response of some EU countries to Ceuta migrant crossings

    Spain attacks ‘selfish’ response of some EU countries to Ceuta migrant crossings

    A sudden mass influx of roughly 60,000 migrants into the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta has sparked deep political rifts across the European Union, with Madrid publicly condemning the harsh, unilateral actions of several member states as selfish, polarizing and unlawful. The crisis, which unfolded on July 30 when thousands of migrants crossed into Ceuta from Morocco, has already claimed at least 67 lives, Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska confirmed Saturday. By the time of his announcement, local authorities had nearly resolved the on-the-ground emergency, with almost all of the migrants escorted back across the border and daily life in Ceuta resuming, including the reopening of local businesses. In response to the crisis, Spain has also begun deploying an inflatable maritime barrier to block future unauthorized crossings and reinforced security at its second North African enclave, Melilla, which saw smaller-scale crossing attempts.

    Within 48 hours of the initial surge, the Spanish government announced it had fully resecured the Ceuta border and prevented any unapproved movement of migrants toward continental Europe, a fact later confirmed by EU officials who noted no irregular arrivals had reached mainland EU territory. Despite this rapid containment, several EU member states moved quickly to implement punitive measures against Spain. Italy, led by Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, announced a 30-day temporary suspension of its participation in the EU’s Schengen open border arrangement with Spain, labeling the scenes of the migrant influx “shocking” and framing uncontrolled migration as a threat to European national security. Finland and Denmark quickly threw their support behind Italy’s action, with Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš going a step further to call for a full temporary suspension of Spain’s Schengen membership. Other states, including France and Portugal, moved to tighten internal border checks with Spain in response to the crisis.

    Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has pushed back fiercely against these actions in an open letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, pointing out that Ceuta has never been part of the Schengen open border area, making the unilateral border suspensions legally unfounded. Sánchez accused the dissenting governments of acting out of prejudice, misinformation, domestic political opportunism and ignorance, rather than a commitment to European collective responsibility. “While most member states have extended support and solidarity to Spain during this crisis, others have chosen to launch unprovoked attacks,” he wrote, adding that “the European Union cannot afford this kind of selfish, polarising and unlawful reaction.” The Spanish prime minister called for an urgent meeting of EU interior ministers to reaffirm a core principle of the bloc: security of the EU’s external borders is a shared responsibility of all member states, not just the frontline states that share direct land or sea borders with third countries.

    The call for coordinated talks has gained broad traction across the bloc, with 22 of the EU’s 27 member states signing an open letter calling for emergency video conference talks to address the crisis. The group welcomed the ongoing cooperation between Spain and Morocco to facilitate the swift return of migrants, and argued that coordinated action is needed to mobilize existing EU funding and support instruments to help Spain maintain full border control and prevent future uncontrolled crossings. Von der Leyen has echoed criticism of the crisis, stating publicly that images from Ceuta were “unacceptable” and that “we cannot allow anyone to come to our Union without abiding by our rules.” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz also supported Spain’s border security efforts while demanding Morocco immediately take responsibility for accepting returned irregular migrants.

    Outside the EU, the crisis drew sharp comment from the United States, where the State Department framed the incident as a direct consequence of Spain’s liberal immigration policies. Former President Donald Trump labeled the situation a “catastrophe”, falsely claiming it amounted to an “invasion” of hundreds of thousands of people, even though the actual number of arrivals was roughly 60,000, almost all of whom have been returned.

    Spanish authorities have laid blame for the crisis on human trafficking gangs, who exploited a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling to encourage mass crossings. In June 2026, the court ruled that migrants intercepted at sea attempting to reach Ceuta and Melilla could not be summarily returned to Morocco without full due process. Traffickers spread misleading interpretations of this ruling across social media, sparking the coordinated mass surge, Sánchez explained. He added that Moroccan authorities have been cooperating closely with Spain to resolve the crisis, despite longstanding diplomatic tensions over the two enclaves.

    Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s two North African enclaves, form the only land border between the EU and Africa, making them a persistent flashpoint for irregular migration attempts by people seeking entry to the bloc. Migrants often cross by swimming several kilometers from Moroccan territory into Ceuta, and surges are common during the summer months, with crossings frequently organized via social media. The 2026 surge is by far the largest on record, dwarfing the 8,000 arrivals that sparked a 2021 diplomatic crisis between Spain and Morocco.

    Underlying demographic and economic pressures in Morocco have also contributed to the continued push for migration: the country faces persistent high youth unemployment, and saw widespread anti-government protests led by Gen Z activists in 2025, with demonstrators demanding better economic opportunities and improved public services. The current crisis also comes amid longstanding tensions over Spanish migration policy: earlier in 2026, the Spanish government approved a major regularization program granting legal status to 500,000 undocumented migrants already residing in Spain, allowing them to integrate into the formal workforce. Meloni, the right-wing Italian prime minister, criticized the policy at the time, claiming it would create spillover impacts for Spain’s neighboring countries. Just one month before the Ceuta crisis, the European Parliament approved a new set of stricter EU-wide migration rules granting broader powers to authorities to return irregular arrivals to their origin countries.