Global Pulse

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  • Blast targeting train kills at least 20 in Pakistan

    Blast targeting train kills at least 20 in Pakistan

    On a Sunday morning in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s restive western province of Balochistan, a powerful explosion targeted a shuttle train carrying military personnel and their families, leaving at least 20 people dead and 70 more injured, according to official and witness accounts. The blast struck as the train passed through Chaman Phatak station, triggering significant structural damage to the rail cars: railway sources confirmed to BBC Urdu that three passenger coaches and the train’s engine derailed, while two additional cars overturned completely.

    Most of the passengers on the service were service members and their relatives traveling home for the Eid holiday, making the attack an even deadlier disruption to long-awaited family gatherings. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a separatist militant group active in the region, has claimed responsibility for the incident, stating it was carried out as a suicide bombing. Pakistani government officials have not yet verified the militant group’s claim as of the latest updates.

    Graphic photos from the attack site show charred, twisted remains of train carriages, damaged nearby civilian vehicles, and visible structural damage to a neighboring building from the force of the blast. Local resident Naseer Ahmed described the shock of the explosion to the BBC, noting that his entire family was asleep at the time of the Sunday morning blast, and the force was powerful enough to shatter all the glass windows in his home.

    Both a senior Balochistan police officer and a civil administration official confirmed the current death toll of 20 to BBC Urdu, and warned that the number of fatalities could climb as first responders continue to clear debris and assess the extent of casualties. Emergency protocols have been activated at all local hospitals treating victims, to speed up care and mobilize additional medical resources for the injured.

    Additional official details clarify that the shuttle had been traveling from a nearby military encampment toward Quetta’s main railway station, where passengers were set to board a connecting train to Peshawar before heading to their hometowns across the country for the holiday. This attack is not an isolated incident: the BLA has a documented history of targeting rail infrastructure in Balochistan, having carried out multiple attacks on the Jaffar Express, a major intercity train route, over the past two years. Most recently, in March 2025, BLA militants hijacked the same train and held multiple passengers hostage while it traveled toward Peshawar.

    The separatist group has long framed its armed campaign around claims that the Pakistani federal government extracts and exploits Balochistan’s rich natural mineral resources without sharing economic benefits with the local population. Geopolitically, Balochistan is Pakistan’s largest province by area, covering roughly 44% of the country’s total landmass, with a population of just 5% of Pakistan’s 240 million total residents. It shares unstable border regions with both Iran and Afghanistan, and also holds a portion of Pakistan’s Arabian Sea coastline, giving it significant strategic importance for the country.

    Tensions and violent clashes between BLA fighters and Pakistani security forces have surged in recent months: in early February 2026, coordinated attacks across Quetta and other areas of the province left 31 civilians dead. Following Sunday’s attack, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif issued a strong condemnation of the bombing, saying that “such cowardly acts of terrorism cannot weaken the resolve of the people of Pakistan.” He added that “the entire nation stands in solidarity with the people of Balochistan in this hour of grief.”

  • A powerful bomb has exploded near railway track in southwest Pakistan, killing at least 19 people

    A powerful bomb has exploded near railway track in southwest Pakistan, killing at least 19 people

    On Sunday, a devastating suicide vehicle bombing targeting a passing passenger train near a railway track in Quetta, a southwestern city of Pakistan, has left at least 19 people dead and more than 70 others injured, official sources confirmed to the Associated Press.

    Online footage of the incident shows the extreme force of the detonation flipped two train carriages off the track and ignited a large blaze, with plumes of thick black smoke billowing into the sky over the area. According to witnesses and social media imagery circulating after the attack, the explosion went off in a zone routinely used by Pakistani security forces for deployments. The blast inflicted severe structural damage on multiple nearby buildings and wrecked more than 10 civilian vehicles parked along adjacent roads.

    Local medical facilities confirmed they have received all wounded casualties, with 20 patients currently listed in critical condition. Three anonymous security officials, granted anonymity to speak freely to press, told AP that all remains of the deceased have been transferred to city hospitals for identification and processing.

    The Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), an outlawed separatist militant group fighting to secede from Pakistan’s federal government, released a statement to journalists claiming credit for the attack. The organization stated the train was targeted because it was carrying Pakistani security personnel.

    Quetta is the capital of Pakistan’s restive Balochistan province, a resource-rich region holding large reserves of oil and critical minerals that has dealt with a persistent low-level separatist insurgency for decades. Militant groups operating in the province have repeatedly carried out attacks targeting security personnel, government infrastructure, and civilian populations both within Balochistan and across other parts of Pakistan.

    Provincial and national leaders across Pakistan have issued unanimous condemnations of the attack. “We strongly condemn the targeting of innocent civilians and are deeply saddened by the loss of precious human lives. Terrorist elements deserve no leniency,” said Shahid Rind, spokesperson for the Balochistan provincial government. Rind added that a full medical emergency has been activated across all Quetta hospitals to respond to the mass casualty event, and a formal investigation into the attack is already underway.

    Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif labeled the bombing a “cowardly act of terrorism” in a public post on X, extending his official condolences to the families of those killed. Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti also issued a condemnation, noting that the attack killed and injured innocent civilians including women and children, and vowed counter-terrorism forces would hunt down all perpetrators responsible.

    Bugti and Pakistan’s federal government in Islamabad regularly refer to the BLA using the term “Fitna al-Hindustan”, claiming the group receives material backing from the Indian government. India has consistently denied all such allegations. Long-running bilateral tensions have defined relations between Pakistan and India, with the two countries having fought two of their three full wars over the disputed Kashmir region, which both nations claim as sovereign territory in its entirety.

    While Pakistani federal authorities have repeatedly stated they have largely suppressed the separatist insurgency in Balochistan, violent attacks continue to occur on a regular basis. Earlier in 2024, a separate suicide bombing at a Balochistan train station killed 26 people, including 10 active-duty soldiers.

  • One dead, multiple injured after Russia launches wave of strikes on Ukraine

    One dead, multiple injured after Russia launches wave of strikes on Ukraine

    A devastating large-scale assault combining missile and drone attacks launched by Russia against Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv has left one civilian dead and 21 other people wounded, according to local officials. Blasts echoed across every district of the city early Sunday, leaving widespread destruction that damaged civilian infrastructure including private residential buildings and a local school.

    Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced via the messaging platform Telegram that a 15-year-old boy was counted among the injured, with 13 patients transferred to local medical facilities. Three of those hospitalized remain in critical condition as of Sunday morning. The overnight assault, which targeted more than 40 separate locations across Kyiv, sent debris crashing into populated areas that ignited destructive blazes at apartment blocks, storage warehouses, a neighborhood supermarket and a large shopping center, Klitschko added.

    The attack comes directly after Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly promised retaliation for what he called a deadly Ukrainian strike on a student dormitory in the occupied eastern Ukrainian town of Starobilsk last Friday, an incident that Russia claims killed 18 people. Ukraine’s General Staff has confirmed it conducted a military strike in the Starobilsk area overnight Friday, but explicitly states the target was a deployed Russian military unit, not civilian student housing.

    Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, confirmed in an early post-strike Telegram update that the capital had sustained a massive ballistic missile attack, warning that additional Russian launches could still be imminent. The single confirmed fatality occurred when a nine-story residential building in Kyiv’s central Shevchenko district was directly hit, sparking an uncontrolled blaze that broke out across the building’s top floors. In the same district, a strike near a school’s air raid shelter blocked the entrance with fallen rubble, trapping multiple people inside the facility.

    Emergency response teams have been deployed across the capital to respond to dozens of damaged sites, working to extinguish ongoing fires, clear blocked routes and debris, and provide emergency medical care to those wounded. “Cleanup operations to remediate the aftermath of the shelling are still underway,” Tkachenko said, noting that official details on temporary aid distribution centers would be released shortly. The attack did not come as a complete surprise: one day prior, on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that intelligence shared from Ukrainian, European and U.S. sources indicated Russia was preparing to launch a major combined strike across Ukrainian territory, with Kyiv as a primary target.

    In his warning, Zelenskyy specifically highlighted that Russia could potentially deploy the new Oreshnik missile in the assault, a weapon that is reported to travel at over 10 times the speed of sound and is currently believed to be impossible for existing Ukrainian air defense systems to intercept.

  • Russia pounds Kyiv with missiles and drones, shaking city center and injuring 10

    Russia pounds Kyiv with missiles and drones, shaking city center and injuring 10

    Overnight Sunday, the Ukrainian capital Kyiv came under a sustained, large-scale Russian attack combining cruise missiles and attack drones, triggering widespread panic and damaging multiple civilian and state sites across the city center, local Ukrainian officials confirmed on the record. Based on preliminary casualty counts released by municipal authorities, at least 10 people were wounded in the strikes, which sent plumes of smoke rising over multiple districts and kept the entire city on high alert through the pre-dawn hours.

    Reporters with the Associated Press, who were on the ground in Kyiv, documented multiple powerful detonations concentrated near central Kyiv, in close proximity to key government administrative buildings. As of sunrise on Sunday, the assault was still ongoing, with Ukrainian air defense officials warning that additional incoming projectiles were expected to reach the capital imminently.

    Tymur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, announced via a Telegram public post that visible damage to infrastructure had been confirmed across at least nine of the capital’s districts, with multiple residential apartment buildings among the impacted sites. Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko added that a school building in the city’s central Shevchenko district suffered structural damage during the attack, at a time when local civilians were sheltering inside the facility to avoid incoming strikes. Beyond public and residential sites, local officials also confirmed that multiple supermarkets and logistics warehouses scattered across Kyiv suffered damage from shrapnel, blast waves, and direct hits.

    Mykola Kalashnyk, governor of Kyiv Oblast, added that residential and civilian communities across the wider regional area outside the capital city limits also recorded damage from the overnight assault.

    The attack comes just after Ukrainian leadership issued explicit warnings about a potential new Russian strike using the advanced hypersonic Oreshnik ballistic missile. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy noted that he based the warning on intelligence shared by the United States and other Western allied partners, and Ukraine’s Air Force followed the president’s statement with an official advisory of a possible Oreshnik launch. As of Sunday morning, it remains unconfirmed whether the Oreshnik system was actually deployed in the overnight attack on Kyiv.

    Russia first deployed the multiple-warhead Oreshnik missile against Ukrainian infrastructure in the city of Dnipro in November 2024, with a second strike using the weapon carried out in Ukraine’s western Lviv region this past January. Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly emphasized the capabilities of the new system, whose name translates to “hazelnut tree” in Russian. He claims the missile travels at Mach 10—10 times the speed of sound— and can penetrate reinforced underground bunkers three, four, or more levels below the surface. Putin has described the weapon as moving like a meteorite, noting that it is impervious to all existing Western and Ukrainian missile defense systems. He added that even a small number of Oreshnik missiles armed with conventional warheads can generate destructive power on par with a nuclear strike, according to his public comments on the weapons system.

  • Missile strikes pound Kyiv after Russia vows retaliation

    Missile strikes pound Kyiv after Russia vows retaliation

    In an early Sunday attack that followed explicit Russian threats of retaliation for a deadly Ukrainian drone strike on Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, a large-scale ballistic missile barrage slammed into Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, leaving at least five people wounded, local officials confirmed.

    AFP correspondents on the ground reported hearing multiple loud explosions across the city, which rattled a residential structure located close to Kyiv’s government district. Dozens of panicked residents rushed to take shelter in underground metro stations in the city’s central core as the attack unfolded.

    Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, announced the mass attack via his official Telegram channel, confirming that blasts had impacted at least four districts across the capital: Shevchenkivsky, Dniprovsky, and Podilsky. Initial assessments documented multiple blazes and structural damage to civilian residential buildings. As the attack continued, Tkachenko warned that additional drone strikes were still ongoing and the threat of more ballistic missile launches remained active, urging all residents to remain in secured shelters.

    Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko later confirmed the casualty count, noting that five people had been hurt, with one person admitted to a local hospital for treatment. Klitschko added that response teams had been deployed to Podilsky district in northwest Kyiv, where missile debris fell on a non-residential plot of land, while a separate fire broke out adjacent to a residential building in Shevchenkivsky district.

    The Sunday strike came as no surprise to Ukrainian and international authorities, who had explicitly warned of imminent large-scale Russian retaliation in the 24 hours leading up to the attack. The escalation followed a major Ukrainian drone barrage launched overnight between Thursday and Friday against Starobilsk, a city held by Russian forces in the occupied Lugansk region. Russian officials claimed the strike hit a college dormitory, pushing the confirmed death toll to 18 with an additional 42 people wounded after rescuers pulled two more bodies from the rubble on Saturday. Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-appointed governor of occupied Lugansk, reported that most of the fatalities were young women born between 2003 and 2008.

    Ukrainian officials have rejected Russia’s claims of targeting civilians, asserting that the strike was focused exclusively on a Russian military drone unit based in the Starobilsk area.

    Within days of the strike, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs vowed that those responsible would face “inevitable and severe punishment”, setting off warnings from Ukrainian leadership. On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy posted a public alert on social media noting that intelligence showed clear preparations for a combined large-scale strike across Ukrainian territory, with a specific focus on Kyiv that could include deployment of the Oreshnik, Russia’s nuclear-capable hypersonic missile. The United States Embassy in Kyiv echoed the warning hours later, confirming it had received credible intelligence of a potentially major air attack that could strike at any point within the following 24 hours.

    The United Nations issued a statement Friday condemning all attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure regardless of location, though the organization added it could not independently verify casualty and targeting details due to restricted access to occupied Ukrainian territories.

    This latest exchange of heavy strikes fits within a broader pattern of escalating cross-border attacks that has defined the 4-year full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Kyiv has significantly expanded its domestic drone production capabilities in recent months, allowing it to step up strikes against both Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory and undisputed Russian soil, targeting military positions, energy infrastructure, and logistics hubs. For its part, Russia has launched near-daily mass missile and drone barrages across Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, causing widespread damage to civilian infrastructure and thousands of civilian casualties. Like Ukraine, Russia denies intentionally targeting civilian populations.

    Starobilsk, the site of last week’s fatal drone strike, sits roughly 40 miles from the active front line in eastern Ukraine and was captured by Russian forces in the early weeks of the 2022 full-scale invasion.

    International diplomatic efforts to end the conflict, led by the United States, have stalled in recent months as U.S. political and military attention has been diverted to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, leaving little momentum for new peace negotiations.

  • Rosenberg: Luhansk strike sparks Russian accusations and vow to retaliate

    Rosenberg: Luhansk strike sparks Russian accusations and vow to retaliate

    A devastating incident that reduced a five-story college building in Starobilsk to mounds of rubble has plunged the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict into a new phase of escalating tensions, triggering mutual accusations between Moscow and Kyiv, an urgent emergency gathering of the UN Security Council, and open threats of harsh retaliation from the Kremlin.

    Starobilsk sits within the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine, an area that has been under Russian military occupation since Moscow launched its full-scale incursion in 2022, and that Russia controversially claims to have formally annexed. Early Friday, the structure that collapsed housed the Starobilsk Professional College, a branch of Luhansk Pedagogical University, leaving a scene of widespread destruction visible in footage broadcast on Russian state television. Rescue crews could be seen working methodically through piles of concrete and twisted metal to pull survivors and victims from the wreckage.

    Russian authorities have publicly blamed Ukraine for the carnage, framing the event as a deliberate drone strike targeting the college’s student dormitory. As of the latest official updates from Moscow, the death toll has climbed to 21, with 42 additional people sustaining injuries of varying severity. Russian state media has shared firsthand accounts from survivors, including 21-year-old Olga Kovaleva, who was trapped under fallen debris for hours before being pulled out alive and transported to a local hospital for treatment. The outlet also published a full list of the deceased students, alongside their dates of birth, to confirm the identities of those killed.

    Russian President Vladimir Putin has labeled the incident a “terrorist strike”, rejecting any suggestion that the building was hit accidentally by Russian air defense or electronic warfare systems. “There had been no military facilities, intelligence service facilities or related services in the vicinity,” Putin stated, arguing this eliminates any plausible defense of unintended collateral damage from Russian operations. He has since formally ordered Russia’s Ministry of Defence to draft a comprehensive set of retaliatory measures in response to what Moscow calls an unacceptable attack on civilian targets.

    Kyiv has pushed back entirely against Russia’s narrative. In an official statement released by the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, the military confirmed it did conduct a targeted strike near Starobilsk overnight between May 21 and 22, but clarified that the attack hit a Russian military unit stationed in the area, not a civilian college dormitory. To date, Ukraine has not acknowledged any civilian casualties from the strike.

    Within hours of the incident, Russia submitted an official request to the United Nations for an emergency meeting of the Security Council to address the attack. At the session, Russian Ambassador to the UN Vasily Nebenyza presented graphic photos of the destroyed college to council members, arguing that the strike “constitutes a war crime” under the standards of international humanitarian law.

    Not all council members backed Russia’s framing of the event, however. Denmark’s representative to the UN pushed back against Russia’s call for condemnation, pointing to the widespread destruction and civilian casualties that Russia’s own military campaign has inflicted across Ukraine since 2022. “If we were to apply the same logic behind Russia’s call for today’s meeting, we would need twice-daily emergency Security Council meetings — including on the weekends — to only scratch the surface of the terror, death and destruction inflicted across Ukraine by Russia,” the Danish representative noted.

    The incident has also emboldened hawkish, pro-Kremlin voices to push for aggressive retaliation that extends beyond Ukrainian territory. Sergey Karaganov, honorary chairman of the presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, told Russian state outlet Vesti that Moscow should not limit its response to targets inside Ukraine. “We need to start punishing Europe for things like this, including with strikes,” Karaganov said. “Symbolic [strikes] to start with. Then, perhaps, less symbolic ones.”

    By late Saturday, Russian emergency officials confirmed that search and rescue operations at the site had been fully completed, bringing an official end to efforts to recover additional victims or survivors from the rubble.

  • France bans Ben Gvir after flotilla activists abuse video

    France bans Ben Gvir after flotilla activists abuse video

    A diplomatic storm has erupted across Europe after a widely circulated video exposed Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the mistreatment of detained activists from a Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla, prompting France to issue an entry ban on the senior official and throw its support behind EU-level sanctions.\n\nFrench Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot announced the measure Saturday in a post on X, framing the entry ban as a direct response to Ben Gvir’s “unacceptable conduct towards French and European citizens” during last week’s Israeli raid on the aid flotilla, which took place in international waters. Barrot clarified that while Paris does not endorse the activists’ mission to deliver humanitarian aid to blockaded Gaza, the harsh treatment the detainees received crosses a fundamental line. “We cannot tolerate French nationals being threatened, intimidated or subjected to violence in this way, especially by a public official,” he wrote. He added that Ben Gvir’s actions during the raid are only the latest in “a long series of shocking statements and actions, as well as incitement to hatred and violence against Palestinians.” Barrot also confirmed France backs an Italian call for the European Union to impose formal sanctions on the minister.\n\nThe incident that triggered the international backlash stems from last week’s Israeli naval intercept of the flotilla, which was carrying hundreds of activists attempting to deliver much-needed humanitarian aid to Gaza. Ben Gvir personally released a video of his presence during the detention of the activists, a move that made the incident unavoidable on the global diplomatic stage. The footage shows Ben Gvir waving an Israeli flag and taunting the detainees while Israeli security forces force hundreds of handcuffed activists to kneel with their faces to the ground.\n\nThe video has sparked widespread global condemnation, with multiple European governments summoning Israeli ambassadors to protest the treatment of their citizens. British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper called the captured scenes “totally disgraceful,” while Turkish officials accused Israel of demonstrating a “violent and barbaric mindset.”\n\nIn the aftermath of the raid, Israeli authorities detained more than 430 activists before deporting nearly all of them by Thursday, with only one Israeli citizen held. Multiple released activists have since come forward with detailed allegations of severe abuse, including torture and sexual assault, while in Israeli custody.\n\nItalian journalist Alessandro Mantovani, one of the deported activists, described his experience to reporters at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport: “We were taken to Ben Gurion airport in handcuffs and with chains on our feet and put on a flight to Athens.” He added that Israeli soldiers “beat us up… They kicked us and punched us and shouted ‘Welcome to Israel’.”\n\nMiriam Azem, a representative of the Israeli human rights organization Adalah, reported that one detainee “was forced to strip naked and run while guards were laughing.” Another female activist described being bound so tightly with handcuffs that she lost feeling in her hands, and recalled that Israeli soldiers “laughed all the time. Super sadistic. They took off my shirt, took pictures. Mistreated us all night long.”\n\nDr. Margaret Connolly, sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly and one of the detained activists, drew a sharp parallel while speaking to Ireland’s RTE Radio, saying the experience gave activists “a feeling of what the Jews felt like during the Second World War,” and that Israel was “now acting like a Nazi state.”

  • ‘I feel like I lost my life’: Gaza amputees fight for mobility amid shortages

    ‘I feel like I lost my life’: Gaza amputees fight for mobility amid shortages

    It was just after 10 p.m. on November 19, 2023, when 24-year-old Rozan Kheira was jolted awake from sleep by the roar of explosions, frantic screams, and widespread panic that tore through her family’s Gaza City home. An Israeli air strike had reduced the building around her to rubble before she could even register what was happening.

    When Kheira tried to scramble out of bed, her legs gave out immediately. She pushed herself up a second time, only to collapse again. Glancing down, she discovered a pool of blood spreading across the floor beneath her; her foot had been severed in the blast, held to her leg only by a thin strip of skin.

    “I had just woken up and couldn’t comprehend what was happening,” Kheira recalled in an interview with Middle East Eye. “At that moment, I forgot we were even at war.” Stuck frozen in shock, she waited helpless until her brother carried her out of the destroyed home. That single night would forever alter the trajectory of her life.

    In the wake of Israel’s military campaign that has destroyed Gaza’s hospitals, killed thousands of medical workers, and enforced a total blockade on fuel and life-saving medicine entering the enclave, injuries that would be easily treatable in any other context have become permanent, life-altering disabilities — and in thousands of cases, fatal. Kheira was rushed to Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, where after hours of uncontrolled bleeding, surgeons were forced to fully amputate her leg.

    In the two years since the strike, Kheira has lived her life confined to a wheelchair, repeatedly displaced by advancing ground operations and unable to access even the most basic medical care. “I was in excruciating pain, and painkillers were unavailable in northern Gaza because of the Israeli siege,” she said. Even after the October ceasefire, which the international community heralded as a step toward easing humanitarian conditions for Gaza’s 2.2 million residents, little has changed for injured civilians like Kheira.

    Desperate to regain even a measure of independence, Kheira began a months-long search for a properly fitted prosthetic limb. When her family was forced to flee to Khan Younis in southern Gaza last June, she received her first prosthetic — but the device quickly proved unusable. “The prosthetic leg was extremely heavy, weighing five kilograms. It didn’t match my body and made my suffering worse instead of easing it,” she explained. After the ceasefire allowed her to return to Gaza City, the Artificial Limbs and Polio Centre fitted her with a second device, which was also far too heavy for her to use.

    Undeterred, Kheira set out on foot to Hamad Hospital for Rehabilitation and Prosthetics in northern Gaza’s Sudaniya district, a journey of more than six kilometers she completed on a single leg because no transport was available to her. After multiple medical assessments, she finally received a third prosthetic. Still, her struggles are far from over: the device only meets 30 percent of her medical needs, but it is the only option available to her amid Gaza’s catastrophic shortage of medical equipment. Doctors have warned her against walking on the ill-fitted limb, but Kheira has no other choice.

    Even the ongoing rehabilitation and maintenance she requires to use the prosthetic adds to her daily hardship. “I need weekly maintenance at Hamad Hospital, which means long walks on one leg just to get there,” she said. “There are no vehicles, not even donkey carts. Transport is scarce and extremely expensive.” This mobility crisis is not unique to Kheira: ongoing Israeli restrictions on fuel entering Gaza — a direct violation of the ceasefire agreement — combined with the destruction of 70 percent of Gaza’s civilian transport infrastructure, have left the entire enclave unable to move freely, cutting injured civilians off from life-saving care.

    The U.S.-backed October ceasefire was intended to end Israel’s military campaign and blockade, and allow unimpeded access for aid, medicine, and rehabilitation supplies to enter Gaza. But in practice, Israel has largely maintained its total blockade, permitting only a tiny fraction of the required aid into the territory, leaving fuel, food, and medical supplies at critically low levels. Air strikes and artillery shelling have also continued across the enclave, killing more than 800 people since the ceasefire was announced. In total, Israeli forces have killed more than 72,700 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, and wounded more than 172,000 others.

    According to data from the World Health Organization, roughly 43,000 Palestinians have sustained permanent, life-altering injuries during the current conflict, including around 10,000 children. While a small fraction of these injured people, like Kheira, have managed to secure basic, ill-fitted prosthetics, thousands more with upper-limb injuries have been left with no access to any assistive device at all.

    One of those people is 32-year-old Abdelsalam al-Bardawil, who lost his left hand in an Israeli strike that destroyed his Gaza City home, killing his mother and brother and injuring the rest of his family. “My hand could have been saved, but because hospitals were out of service, it was amputated,” al-Bardawil told Middle East Eye. “I didn’t receive physical therapy, and painkillers weren’t available. I remember jumping from the intense pain.”

    After being displaced to Deir al-Balah in southern Gaza, al-Bardawil traveled to the Jordanian Field Hospital in Khan Younis, where he was fitted with a prosthetic hand. But he was forced to remove it shortly after, because the device was heavy, rigid, and purely cosmetic, completely unable to assist him with daily tasks. He later reached out to the Red Crescent in Deir al-Balah and other humanitarian organizations, but received the same answer every time: no upper-limb prosthetics are available in Gaza.

    Unable to work or provide for himself, al-Bardawil now relies entirely on humanitarian aid to survive. “What saddens me most is my inability to work,” he said. “It forces me to depend on assistance.” He also struggles to access mental health care and pain treatment, with transport shortages making even routine clinic visits nearly impossible. “The problem isn’t just therapy,” he said. “I can’t reach clinics for medication or depression treatment.” The loss of his mother, who he turned to for help without shame, has left even small daily tasks a source of embarrassment and struggle. “The only person I could ask for help without shame was my mother,” he said. “Now I feel embarrassed asking my sister or relatives.”

    Al-Bardawil has received an official referral for life-saving treatment outside of Gaza, but like thousands of other injured Palestinians, he remains trapped on a waiting list, blocked by frequent closures and strict Israeli restrictions at Gaza’s border crossings. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, more than 20,000 patients are currently waiting for approval to leave Gaza for treatment abroad, with access repeatedly delayed or blocked entirely by Israeli officials.

    While Gaza’s local hospitals and rehabilitation centers have attempted to ramp up domestic production of prosthetics to meet the growing need, officials say they are completely overwhelmed by the unprecedented scale of casualties. Hosni Muhanna, media officer at the Gaza Municipality’s Artificial Limbs and Polio Centre, told Middle East Eye that registered amputations have reached roughly 6,000 since the start of the war, per joint data from the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

    “This unprecedented figure reflects the massive scale of the humanitarian and health catastrophe,” Muhanna said. The centre relies on a small local workshop to produce prosthetics in-house, but a total ban on essential raw materials entering Gaza has crippled production capacity, particularly for upper-limb devices. “The ban on essential supplies since the start of the war has crippled production, particularly for upper-limb prosthetics, as raw materials have not been allowed in,” he explained.

    The blockade has created acute shortages of every type of prosthetic component and assistive device, leaving long waiting lists that grow longer every day as new amputations are recorded amid ongoing attacks. “Fitting a limb requires medical assessment, physiotherapy to prepare the muscles, and a full rehabilitation programme to train patients and restore independence,” Muhanna said. But many patients cannot complete these critical steps due to repeated displacement, transport shortages, and the total destruction of Gaza’s health infrastructure.

    Back at his displacement camp in Deir al-Balah, al-Bardawil continues to wait for a call that will allow him to leave Gaza for the treatment he needs to rebuild his life. “I feel like my life is completely on hold,” he said. “I didn’t just lose my hand. I feel like I lost my life.”

  • Ukrainian strike on college in Russian-occupied town kills 18: officials

    Ukrainian strike on college in Russian-occupied town kills 18: officials

    A deadly Ukrainian strike on a college campus in the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian town of Starobilsk has driven the conflict to a new peak of tension, with the death toll rising to 18 and Moscow promising a sharp military response even as Kyiv warned of an imminent large-scale Russian missile attack across Ukrainian territory.

    The overnight assault between Thursday and Friday, one of the deadliest Ukrainian drone barrages launched against Russian-held territory in months, left 42 others injured and multiple people still trapped beneath the rubble of the building, Russian emergency officials confirmed Saturday. In an update Saturday, the ministry announced that two additional bodies had been recovered from the collapsed structure, bringing total casualties to 60, with 18 fatalities.

    Footage released by the Russian emergency services shows dozens of rescue workers combing through mounds of concrete and twisted steel that was once a section of the five-story college dormitory building, now reduced to a pile of rubble. According to Leonid Pasechnik, the Moscow-appointed governor of the occupied Lugansk region, the vast majority of those killed or listed as missing are young women born between 2003 and 2008. In a statement posted to Telegram, Pasechnik expressed collective grief, saying “The region and the entire country share the fate of these people and the pain of their families.” In the post-Soviet space, a college refers to a vocational education institution that typically serves students between the ages of 15 and 22.

    Starobilsk sits roughly 65 kilometers from the active front line in eastern Ukraine, and was seized by Russian forces in the early weeks of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Today, nearly the entire Lugansk region falls under Russian occupation, with Moscow formally claiming the territory as part of the Russian Federation.

    Ukrainian officials have repeatedly denied intentionally targeting civilian sites, asserting that the strike hit a Russian military drone unit that was stationed in the Starobilsk area. Despite this denial, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered the country’s armed forces to prepare a formal response to the attack. Russia’s foreign ministry has also declared that those responsible for the strike will face “inevitable and severe punishment.”

    The United Nations issued a formal response to the strike Friday, stating it “strongly condemns any attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, wherever they occur,” while noting that it cannot independently verify casualty details due to restricted access to the occupied territory.

    As tensions escalated Saturday, both Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the United States Embassy in Kyiv issued urgent warnings of an impending large-scale Russian air attack in the coming 24 hours. “We are seeing signs of preparation for a combined strike on Ukrainian territory, including Kyiv, involving various types of weaponry,” Zelensky wrote in a social media post, specifically naming the Oreshnik, Russia’s new nuclear-capable medium-range missile, as a potential weapon to be used in the assault. The US Embassy confirmed the warning in a public notice on its website, noting that it had received intelligence of a “potentially significant air attack that may occur at any time over the next 24 hours.” In an appeal to the international community, Zelensky called for increased diplomatic pressure on Moscow, saying “Pressure must be put on Moscow so that it does not expand the war.”

    The fatal college strike comes amid a steady escalation of cross-border drone warfare between the two nations. Ukraine regularly carries out drone strikes on Russian-controlled areas of its territory, framing the attacks as retaliation for ongoing Russian bombardments of Ukrainian civilian and infrastructure sites. In recent months, Kyiv has expanded its drone capabilities and increased the frequency of strikes deep within conventional Russian territory, targeting residential areas as well as critical oil export infrastructure.

    For its part, Moscow has launched mass missile and drone barrages across Ukraine almost every day since the full-scale invasion began in 2022. These strikes have repeatedly hit civilian infrastructure and caused widespread civilian casualties. Both sides have consistently denied intentionally targeting civilian populations.

    Since the full-scale conflict began in 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine has recorded more than 60,000 total civilian casualties across the country. The conflict, the bloodiest in Europe since World War II, has devastated large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine and forced more than 14 million people to flee their homes, according to UN data. Recent US-led diplomatic efforts to broker a negotiated end to the war through trilateral talks have stalled in recent months, as international attention and diplomatic resources have shifted to the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

  • South African Gaza flotilla activists allege they were shocked with electricity in Israeli detention

    South African Gaza flotilla activists allege they were shocked with electricity in Israeli detention

    JOHANNESBURG — After returning to their home countries over the weekend, dozens of international activists who participated in the Global Sumud Flotilla, a mission to break Israel’s years-long blockade on the Gaza Strip and deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians, have come forward with detailed, harrowing allegations of systemic abuse, beatings and torture at the hands of Israeli soldiers during their detention.

    The 50-vessel flotilla was intercepted by Israeli forces this past Monday while sailing in international waters, approximately 400 kilometers off Israel’s Mediterranean coast. All activists on board were taken into custody and transferred to Israel’s K’tziot Prison, where they were held for several days before being released.

    Multiple activists have shared consistent accounts of cruel treatment behind bars. Several detainees reported being subjected to electric shock during interrogations focused on their roles in the aid mission. Faizel Moosa, a South African activist and a former anti-apartheid campaigner who endured state detention during the fight against white minority rule, said the abuse he experienced at the hands of Israeli soldiers was far worse than any mistreatment he faced under apartheid.

    “We were denied access to clean water for extended periods. The food we were given was unfit for human consumption. We were blocked from using toilets for many hours, and when we protested the inhumane conditions, Israeli forces opened fire on us with rubber bullets,” Moosa explained. “Having lived through detention under the apartheid regime, this treatment was far worse. That tells you everything about what Palestinians endure at the hands of Israel every single day.”

    Moosa added that abuse was harsher for activists confirmed to be South African, a reference to South Africa’s landmark case against Israel at the International Court of Justice, where Pretoria has accused Israel of committing acts of genocide in Gaza. The South African delegation’s legal arguments have drawn global attention and broad support from the international community.

    Dr. Margaret Connolly, a member of the flotilla’s 15-person Irish contingent and sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly, described conditions in the detention facility as openly dehumanizing, saying she had never experienced fear like it in her life. She told reporters after arriving home to a cheering welcome in Dublin Saturday that some detainees were beaten with rifle butts, while dozens of detainees had their clothing seized and were denied blankets in cold cells, forcing them to huddle together to avoid hypothermia.

    Connolly added that Israeli forces confiscated her full medical kit upon intake, preventing her from providing necessary care to injured detainees. When makeshift bandages crafted from bread bags and torn shirt sleeves were created to treat wounds, those were also confiscated by guards. “They intentionally wanted us to suffer,” she said, noting that many of the shouting guards carried American accents and repeatedly taunted detainees, saying “You should have thought of this before you came.”

    Connolly also criticized her own government’s policy toward Israel, calling out Dublin’s refusal to implement economic sanctions against the country over its military campaign in Gaza.

    Three Chilean activists from the flotilla also returned home Saturday, and they echoed the allegations of abuse while also condemning their own government for failing to act to secure their timely release. Víctor Chanfreau, Claudio Caiozzi and Carolina Eltit were greeted by hundreds of pro-Palestinian supporters waving Palestinian flags at Santiago’s international airport. Eltit described being beaten and held in catastrophic conditions: “We had no toilet paper, one single bathroom for 190 detained people, we were left lying tied hand and foot directly in the burning sun.”

    Chanfreau accused the Chilean Foreign Ministry of “negligence” in its diplomatic efforts to secure the group’s release, saying “The Chilean government acted terribly, and this is no surprise.”

    South African activist Qutb Hendricks called on Pretoria to ramp up diplomatic and economic pressure on Israel, urging the government to ban all coal exports and other commercial trade with the country in response to the abuse.

    Israeli officials have forcefully rejected all allegations of mistreatment, calling the claims “false and entirely without factual basis.” As of Saturday evening, the Israeli government had not issued any further response to the detailed accusations released by the returning activists.