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  • Air India crash families’ year-long battle to identify remains of victims

    Air India crash families’ year-long battle to identify remains of victims

    June 12 marks one year since one of the deadliest aviation disasters in India’s history, when an Air India passenger flight crashed just 32 seconds after taking off from Ahmedabad, Gujarat, killing 260 people — 241 on board the aircraft and 19 more on the ground. Only one passenger survived the catastrophic impact, which left emergency response teams and forensic experts facing an unprecedented challenge to identify the hundreds of victims.

    Among those killed were London residents Ashok and Shobhana Patel, who were heading home after their trip. Their son Miten Patel, who traveled to Ahmedabad just hours after the crash with his brother to deliver his parents’ dental records, still carries the trauma of the chaotic aftermath. With no other commercial options available, the pair flew Air India to reach the city, and Miten credits his parents’ decision to teach him the local Gujarati language for helping him navigate the overwhelming logistics of recovering his parents’ remains.

    It took more than a week for the Patels’ remains to be repatriated to the United Kingdom, but the ordeal was far from over. Four days after the remains arrived in London, local police contacted Miten to request an urgent evening meeting, refusing to share details over the phone. Further imaging revealed that Shobhana Patel’s casket held mixed remains: alongside her body were additional skeletal fragments belonging to an unrelated unidentified man. UK authorities asked Miten to keep the error secret for weeks, but he pushed to meet with the coroner directly to demand separation of the remains. The family was forced to wait another full month to hold a joint cremation for both of his parents, delaying Ashok’s final rites to allow the separation and reprocessing to be completed.

    Today, almost 12 months after the crash, the unidentified man found in Shobhana Patel’s casket remains unrecognized. UK Coroner Fiona Wilcox confirmed during a hearing this week that palm prints and DNA samples have been sent to Indian authorities for matching, but no confirmation of identity has been received to date. She noted that opening an inquest almost a year after a death is an extraordinary step, adding that she remains hopeful the man’s identity will be confirmed.

    The Patel family is not alone in their suffering. At least one other family affected by the crash has reported a major identification error: Amanda Donaghey returned to the UK last year believing she was bringing home the remains of her 39-year-old son Fiongal Greenlaw-Meek, only to discover she had been given the body of 70-year-old Indian woman Vasuben Narendrasinh Raj. Wilcox confirmed this week that authorities have only recently connected with Raj’s son, and Donaghey is still waiting to recover her son’s remains.

    Forensic experts who responded to the crash say the scale of the disaster created unavoidable challenges for victim identification. The aircraft broke apart on impact after crashing into a block of medical student accommodation, scattering wreckage and human remains across 37,000 square meters — an area roughly equal to five full-sized football pitches. Ninety percent of victims suffered severe charring from the post-crash fire, with extreme thermal damage destroying fingerprints, facial features and other common visual identifiers. Forensic teams spent months working through the rubble in 40-degree-plus Celsius heat, surrounded by decomposing remains, a working environment many describe as permanently traumatic.

    Dr Deepak Venkatesh, an independent forensic expert deployed to the crash site to assist with identification, explained that in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, emergency responders prioritized search and rescue over strictly segregating recovered remains. “The recovery environment presented challenges for maintaining the separation of remains, which can contribute to commingling,” he said, noting that commingling — the mixing of remains from multiple individuals — was an unavoidable risk given the conditions. After the initial rescue effort wrapped up, teams conducted a systematic grid search of the entire crash site to recover all remaining fragments.

    India’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has formally acknowledged the systemic gaps exposed by the crash, and in January 2026, released updated victim identification guidelines that use the Air India crash as a core case study. The guidelines note that prior to the disaster, comprehensive disaster victim identification had not received adequate systematic attention in India’s national disaster management framework. At the time of the crash, protocols prioritized DNA verification over the globally recognized faster, more reliable method of dental identification, which created a crippling bottleneck at the only regional forensic laboratory in Gandhinagar. The sudden influx of hundreds of highly degraded DNA samples overwhelmed the lab’s capacity, the NDMA report found, concluding that India needs to expand regional DNA testing infrastructure and integrate more dental identification into standard protocols.

    Despite the procedural changes that have come from the tragedy, grieving families say they have yet to receive the transparency and accountability they deserve. James Healey-Pratt, the lawyer representing both Miten Patel and Amanda Donaghey, argues that even with the unprecedented scale of the disaster, authorities owe families a full accounting of what went wrong. “There still needs to be transparency and accountability, because the families deserve it,” he said, adding that no senior Indian authority has accepted responsibility for the identification errors more than a year later. “It’s highly embarrassing, and it makes them look incompetent.”

    For Miten Patel, the fight for accountability is a way to honor the parents he lost. Most days, he sets his grief aside to focus on his advocacy, but late at night, he retreats to a private room to watch old videos of his parents. “At the end of the day, my mother came back home with somebody else,” he said. When he thinks about the future, he says he only wants one thing: to be able to tell his parents he did everything he could after they were gone. “I want them to say to me, Beta (son), we are so proud of you. You did everything you could after we went.”

    The BBC has reached out to India’s foreign ministry, the Ahmedabad hospital that led on-site identification, and the UK Foreign Office for comment on the ongoing inquest and identification errors, but has not received a response. Last July, roughly one month after the crash, the Indian foreign ministry said in a statement that authorities had “carried out identification of victims as per established protocols and technical requirements” and “handled all mortal remains with utmost professionalism and with due regard for the dignity of the deceased.”

  • Did US ‘precisely’ bomb water facilities serving 20,000 Iranians?

    Did US ‘precisely’ bomb water facilities serving 20,000 Iranians?

    Amid a sweltering heatwave that pushed temperatures above 100°F in Bemani, an Iranian village located just kilometers from the strategically critical Strait of Hormuz, two critical civilian water storage facilities were destroyed in a bombing this week, cutting off safe drinking water access to 20,000 local residents. Multiple independent open-source analyses and Iranian official reports now point to the attack being an intentional precision strike carried out by U.S. military forces, raising grave legal and ethical questions over whether the Trump administration deliberately targeted non-combatant infrastructure — a violation that would qualify as a war crime under binding international humanitarian law.

    The incident unfolded in the early hours of Wednesday, when Hormozgan Province’s water authority confirmed two large water storage tanks with a combined capacity of 2,500 cubic meters had been completely destroyed in the strike. In a public statement posted to social media shortly after the attack, U.S. Central Command acknowledged that U.S. Air Force and Navy units had launched a series of strikes near the Strait of Hormuz, using precision-guided munitions to target what it described as Iranian air defense positions, ground control stations, and surveillance radar sites. The command made no mention of any damage to nearby water infrastructure in its initial announcement.

    Esmaeil Baqaei, spokesperson for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, swiftly condemned the attack, releasing public video footage of the destruction that clearly shows light blue pipes and structural components consistent with civilian water infrastructure. “As part of its ongoing aggression against Iran, the U.S. military has deliberately targeted vital civilian water infrastructure in Sirik, Hormozgan,” Baqaei stated in his address. “These facilities supplied drinking water to more than 20,000 residents across 10 local villages. This is not collateral damage — it is a calculated war crime, a flagrant violation of human rights and international humanitarian law. The United States must be held fully accountable for this systematic brutal attack on infrastructure that sustains civilian life.”

    An in-depth analysis published by *The New York Times* late Wednesday corroborated many of Iran’s claims. The outlet confirmed that commercial satellite imagery matches the location and description of the two damaged facilities provided by Abdolhamid Hamzehpour, chief executive of Hormozgan Province’s water authority, who first reported the missile strike on Wednesday. Local media footage from the site shows one facility’s roof fully collapsed, while a second has a clear, concentrated impact point at the center of its roof, consistent with a precision-guided strike.

    Crucially, the *Times* analysis notes that both water facilities are located in a remote area with no military infrastructure within their immediate vicinity, further supporting the conclusion that the strike was deliberate. Open-source weapons researchers from the Open Source Munitions Portal later examined photos of bomb fragments recovered from the site and published by Iran’s semi-official Tasnim News Agency, confirming the fragments are components of a GBU-39 precision-guided bomb, a weapon exclusively used by the U.S. Air Force. The *Times* adds that the damage pattern observed at the site — a clean, concentrated punch through the facility roof with limited surrounding blast damage — aligns perfectly with the effects of a GBU-39 strike.

    The strike comes at a period of extreme volatility in U.S.-Iran relations, just months after an April ceasefire agreement reached following former President Donald Trump’s public threats to “wipe out Iran’s civilization.” Trump has publicly complained in recent days that Tehran is moving too slowly to finalize a new negotiated deal, and the U.S. military expanded its offensive operations with additional strikes targeting an oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman and additional Iranian radar and air defense positions between Wednesday night and early Thursday.

    Regional officials and independent security experts have condemned the strike in sharp terms. Phillips P. O’Brien, a professor of strategic studies at the University of St. Andrews, argues that the attack is a deliberate act of intimidation targeting civilian populations rather than military objectives. “Trump is so angry that Iran will not give him the deal he wants that he is telling the U.S. military to commit war crimes,” O’Brien explained. “Destroying a drinking water facility in the middle of a heatwave is not an attack on a legitimate military target. It is a mafia-style operation designed to inflict suffering on the Iranian people to force political concessions.”

    Local officials have confirmed that temperatures in the region remain “unbearably high” for residents now cut off from their main drinking water supply, though emergency response teams have deployed mobile water tanks to the 10 affected villages to mitigate the immediate public health risk.

  • The World Cup is coming to Central America’s doorstep. The billions won’t

    The World Cup is coming to Central America’s doorstep. The billions won’t

    As the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the largest men’s edition in the tournament’s 92-year history, prepares to kick off its tournament cycle with co-hosts Mexico, the United States, and Canada, a stark geographic irony plays out just to the south. Central America, a region where football is not just a pastime but a cultural thread woven into every corner of daily life – where children chase worn balls across dust-strewn neighborhood pitches and a single national team victory can freeze entire cities in celebration – will once again be relegated to the sidelines. Only one nation from the region, Panama, has qualified for the 2026 tournament, and more significantly, not a single match will be played on Central American soil. Economists and sports policy analysts agree this exclusion is unlikely to change any time soon, and the barrier has nothing to do with the quality of the region’s football and everything to do with FIFA’s costly hosting model.

    The economics of modern World Cup hosting have priced out most small, developing nations, and Central America is no exception. As FIFA’s flagship event has grown into a multibillion-dollar commercial enterprise, the upfront costs of staging the tournament have surged far beyond the fiscal capacity of countries in the region, where poverty rates reach as high as 50% in some nations. Central America not only lacks the extensive network of modern stadiums, intercity transport links, and hospitality infrastructure FIFA mandates, but it also cannot cover the billions in upfront investment the governing body requires of all host nations.

    Sports economists point to FIFA’s hosting structure as the core barrier. Unlike major event organizers that contribute to host infrastructure, FIFA covers none of the construction or upgrade costs required to meet its strict standards, even as it pulls in billions in revenue from broadcasting rights, corporate sponsorships, and commercial partnerships. FIFA’s binding Host City Agreements place 100% of the financial risk on local hosts, requiring cities to cover all expenses related to hosting and waive all rights to liability claims against the governing body. In return, FIFA only provides minimal compensation: nominal stadium rental fees and prize money distributed to participating national teams, which does nothing to offset the cost of building new roads, expanding airports, or upgrading broader public infrastructure. Per city, infrastructure, security, and logistical costs alone range from $100 million to $200 million.

    FIFA’s strict venue requirements only compound the challenge. The governing body mandates a minimum of 14 stadiums with seating capacities of at least 40,000, paired with thousands of quality hotel rooms, dedicated training facilities, and logistics networks capable of handling hundreds of thousands of international visitors. In all of Central America, just one venue – Costa Rica’s national stadium – comes close to meeting these standards, and it alone cannot support the scale of the modern World Cup. Beyond infrastructure, regional political and economic fragmentation adds another layer of difficulty: while Costa Rica and Panama have higher average incomes than their neighbors, coordinated cross-national hosting bids face significant political and financial coordination hurdles. For any individual nation, the price tag is also politically unpalatable: as democratic states, large-scale infrastructure spending for a World Cup requires broad public support, which is hard to secure when social spending on healthcare, education, and poverty reduction is already stretched thin.

    Even if Central American nations could scrape together the required funding, economists widely warn that hosting a World Cup makes little financial sense for developing countries, pointing to a long track record of poor returns on investment. The 2022 Qatar World Cup, the most expensive in history, cost an estimated $220 billion in infrastructure spending, while the International Monetary Fund calculated total economic returns from tourism and related revenue at just $2.3 billion to $4.1 billion – a fraction of the upfront cost. Brazil’s 2014 World Cup offers another cautionary tale: the tournament cost $15 billion, including $3.6 billion for 12 new or renovated stadiums. Tourist revenue from 4 million visitors covered only a tiny share of the total cost, and Moody’s projected the total economic stimulus over a full decade would amount to just $11.1 billion, equal to a 0.4% increase in national GDP. Many of Brazil’s large new stadiums became white elephants after the tournament, with 50,000-seat venues handed to low-tier fourth-division clubs that draw an average of just 1,500 fans per match, leaving local governments stuck with ongoing maintenance costs.

    While some analysts argue large global tournaments deliver intangible benefits – such as increased social cohesion, new trade connections, and global visibility for host nations – those gains are rarely enough to offset the massive financial burden. “There is at least some evidence, although I think it’s pretty weak, that big events like the World Cup bring people together in a way that later causes business leaders to come together, allowing for future trade negotiations and other things,” explained Victor Matheson, a renowned sports economist at Massachusetts’s College of the Holy Cross, in an interview with Middle East Eye. “If you have a South African World Cup and Costa Rica is in it, you see at least some increase in bilateral trade between South Africa and Costa Rica that you don’t see with otherwise similar countries like Honduras or Nicaragua. But that doesn’t make it right.”

    The 2026 tournament’s expansion to 48 teams, up from 32 in previous editions, has only raised the stakes and raised questions about whether the World Cup can still claim to be a truly global event. The expanded format requires more stadiums, more training facilities, and more logistical capacity than any prior tournament, locking in access to hosting for only the world’s largest and wealthiest nations. While the 2010 World Cup in South Africa was widely celebrated as a milestone for bringing the tournament to Africa for the first time, it also left a relatively poor nation carrying massive debt while FIFA collected billions in revenue. Even in Brazil, one of the world’s most football-mad countries, widespread public protests erupted against the tournament, as public funds were diverted from healthcare and public transit to build luxury stadiums, pushing up transit fares for working-class residents.

    This gap between FIFA’s public rhetoric and its commercial business model has drawn widespread criticism from analysts. FIFA’s official motto is “Football Unites the World”, and its slogan “For the Game. For the World” positions the organization as a force for global development, aligned with United Nations Sustainable Development Goals focused on reducing inequality and driving inclusive growth. But under its current hosting rules, the costs of even hosting a handful of matches are out of reach for most of the world’s developing nations.

    “Fifa will do what is best for Fifa, and that is unlikely to involve giving hosting duties to small, developing countries,” said Dennis Coates, a sports economist at the University of Maryland. “Fifa probably does not put much weight on greater international visibility, national pride, optimism, etc, for potential host countries, nor do I think they should since those are all impossible to measure.”

    FIFA is projected to generate $11 billion in total revenue from the 2026 World Cup across its current four-year cycle. In comparison, each national member federation receives just $5 million over the same period, while FIFA’s financial reserves have surged from $1.5 billion in 2014 to nearly $4 billion in 2022.

    “Fifa positions football as a global public good, but its business practices are not in line with that sentiment,” said Nikolas R Webster, clinical assistant professor of sport management at University of Michigan.

    Critics argue that FIFA’s structure extracts billions from the global popularity of football while investing almost nothing to help lower-income nations build the infrastructure required to host the sport’s biggest event. Andrew Zimbalist, an economist at Smith College and one of the world’s leading experts on the economics of mega sporting events, went even further in his assessment. “Hosting the World Cup is not a development opportunity, it is a development retardant, especially in countries that don’t have stadiums and infrastructure that meet Fifa’s requirements,” Zimbalist said. “The US, Mexico and Canadian hosts will all be hurt from hosting.”

    For Central American football fans, who live and breathe the sport just meters from the 2026’s host borders, that means decades more of watching the world’s biggest tournament from the outside looking in.

  • India’s ‘blue gold’ starts a new drinks industry

    India’s ‘blue gold’ starts a new drinks industry

    For generations of Indian farmers across the Deccan Plateau, the spiky, hardy agave Americana plant served only one purpose: a low-maintenance, impenetrable natural fence to keep wild animals away from valuable food crops. To them, it was nothing more than a stubborn, valueless weed growing along property lines. Today, this native desert plant is being rebranded as “blue gold,” unlocking unexpected new income streams for rural communities and laying the groundwork for India’s nascent homegrown agave spirits industry, tapping into a $15 billion global market long dominated by Mexico.

    The turning point for many smallholder farmers like Masapalli Venkatesh came in 2010, when traders began approaching rural landholders seeking to source wild agave for spirit production. Venkatesh, who previously grew tomatoes, peanuts, and corn on his 10-acre Kandukur farm, quickly transformed into a regional agave aggregator, coordinating a network of villagers and farmers across a 100-kilometer range to meet growing demand from domestic distilleries. “By combining the yields of multiple small holdings, I ensure a steady, high-volume supply that distilleries are willing to pay a premium for,” Venkatesh explained, turning what was once unused plant life into a reliable source of supplementary income.

    Harvesting agave for spirit production is a far more nuanced process than many outsiders realize. The critical component of the plant is its carbohydrate-dense core, called the piña for its resemblance to a large pineapple. Skilled harvesters must first strip away the plant’s sharp, spiky leaves to expose the core, but timing is everything: once the plant begins to bloom, it redirects all its stored sugar reserves to the flowering stalk in just a matter of days, leaving the piña completely depleted and useless for alcohol production. “Gatherers must accurately identify the exact pre-blooming window to harvest the plant at its absolute peak sugar capacity, making the timing of the harvest incredibly narrow,” noted Rakshay Dhariwal, founder of Indian craft distiller Maya Pistola Agavepura.

    The clock does not stop once harvesting is complete. To preserve sugar content and flavor, piñas must reach a processing facility to undergo sugar extraction within 24 hours of harvest. Any longer delay triggers uncontrolled fermentation and sugar rot, ruining the delicate flavor profile required for premium spirits. This logistical challenge is particularly acute in India, where wild agave grows in scattered patches across four states: Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, and Andhra Pradesh. Unlike Mexico’s centralized, large-scale agave plantations, Indian distillers rely on a decentralized network of local aggregators to source semi-wild plants growing on marginal lands and rural property boundaries.

    Despite these logistical hurdles, demand for agave spirits is surging across India. Industry insiders report the domestic market is growing at an annual rate of 31%, as domestic consumers grow more open to exploring craft spirits beyond India’s long-standing favorite, whisky. “It’s only been a few years now that India’s finally caught the tequila bug,” said Vikram Achanta, co-founder of 30 Best Bars India. “Producers are beginning to experiment with it seriously, and there’s a consumer base today that is far more open to exploring new spirits than before.” While agave spirits are unlikely to displace whisky as India’s top-selling spirit, Achanta notes that domestic producers are already carving out a unique niche, building an emerging Indian agave identity around the Deccan Plateau’s wild plants that sets their products apart from imported Mexican offerings. “It’s still early days, but they’re helping move the category from curiosity to something more credible,” he added.

    Desmond Nazareth, founder of Agave India, is widely recognized as the pioneer of India’s agave spirit sector, having launched the country’s first domestic agave spirit back in 2011, nearly a decade before the market began to develop. “What started as kitchen experiments eventually became India’s first craft agave distillery after nearly 12 years of research and experimentation,” Nazareth said. “We were making Indian agave spirit long before the market was ready for it. It was a craft business way ahead of its time.” Today, he is taking a data-driven approach to scaling the industry, using satellite imagery to map existing successful agave growing regions and identify new areas with matching environmental conditions. This careful planning is critical: agave takes between 9 and 13 years to mature, so a poor site selection can mean losing an entire decade of investment.

    A common concern around the emerging industry is whether growing demand will deplete India’s wild agave supplies, but agricultural expert Miguel Braganza says there is little immediate risk. For one, India’s domestic processing capacity remains extremely small, with just one commercial processing plant currently operating, owned by Nazareth’s Agave India. Additionally, wild agave is an exceptionally effective self-propagator. Over its 10 to 20-year lifespan, a single mother plant sends out long underground root runners that sprout genetically identical baby agaves every few feet, slowly growing into large, self-sustaining colonies without any human intervention. “So one plant can naturally turn into dozens of plants across an area without any human help,” Braganza explained.

    Not all Indian agave spirit brands rely on domestic wild agave, however. Entrepreneur Sree Harsha Vadlamudi, co-founder of tequila brand Loca Loka, argues that wild agave has inherent limitations for large-scale, standardized production. Unlike selectively bred farmed agave in Mexico, wild Indian agave is genetically inconsistent, leading to fluctuating sugar yields that make consistent alcohol output difficult to achieve. To avoid this issue, Loca Loka sources its blue agave from established plantations in Jalisco, Mexico, the only region in the world legally allowed to produce tequila. “We wanted to leverage the rich, iron-heavy red soil left behind by ancient volcanic eruptions in Jalisco, Mexico,” Vadlamudi said. “This unique terroir imparts a distinct flavour profile to the agave that cannot be replicated by growing the same seeds in Indian soil.” Mexico’s large-scale commercial operations also benefit from modern technological investments, including drones and artificial intelligence systems that monitor crop health, track piña growth, and pinpoint the ideal harvest window – resources that remain out of reach for most emerging Indian producers.

    While Nazareth acknowledges that building a competitive, large-scale agave industry in India will take decades of patient investment, he remains optimistic about the sector’s long-term potential. “India could absolutely become a major agave economy,” he said. “The Deccan Plateau alone has millions of acres suitable for cultivation. We could theoretically rival Mexico if there’s long-term vision and patience.”

  • World Cup 2026: Somali referee denied entry by US will officiate Uefa Super Cup final

    World Cup 2026: Somali referee denied entry by US will officiate Uefa Super Cup final

    A high-profile international football development has broken this week, as European football’s governing body UEFA has announced that Somali referee Omar Artan — who was barred from entering the United States ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, costing him a spot in the tournament’s officiating pool — will helm one of the sport’s biggest continental fixtures later this summer.

    Artan, who was named the Confederation of African Football’s Men’s Referee of the Year for 2025, was denied entry by U.S. authorities at Miami International Airport earlier this month. FIFA, global football’s governing body, subsequently removed him from the roster of 52 officials selected to work the 2026 World Cup, which will be co-hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19. The move ended Artan’s historic bid to become the first Somali match official ever to officiate at a men’s World Cup finals.

    The Trump administration announced Tuesday that the entry denial was rooted in unsubstantiated claims that Artan holds links to “suspected members of terror organisations”, offering no additional evidence to back up the assertion. Andrew Giuliani, who leads the White House Task Force on the World Cup, told BBC World Service that while he could not share sensitive derogatory information related to the case, he viewed U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s decision as correct and fully supported it. This stance aligns with comments Giuliani made in December, when he stated the Trump administration could not guarantee non-U.S. citizens would be safe from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids at World Cup venues.

    Per BBC reporting, a senior advisor to Somalia’s Ministry of Youth and Sports confirmed the entry denial, noting that Artan was traveling with all required valid documentation. A Somali embassy official based in Nairobi added that Artan had even been issued a diplomatic passport to ease travel after previous visa-related difficulties, a step that ultimately failed to prevent the rejection. The Somali Football Federation has since contacted FIFA to request urgent clarification on the outcome of the incident.

    After being turned away, Artan returned to Somalia Wednesday, where he received a hero’s welcome from supporters and officials. In public remarks following his arrival, the referee acknowledged the disappointment of the outcome while expressing gratitude for the backing he received from FIFA. “What happened has happened and it was unfortunate. I am grateful for the support Fifa gave me,” he said. Addressing young Somalis, he encouraged them to hold onto ambition, adding “I want to tell our youth not to lose hope in our country. I am now in my country, and there is no other place I want to be.” Artan also affirmed his intention to qualify for the next men’s World Cup, saying “I promise you, God willing, that I will attend the next one [World Cup]… I want the Somali public to take comfort in this and remain confident.”

    In its official statement following the entry denial, FIFA noted that after consultations with U.S. authorities, it confirmed Artan could not participate in the 2026 tournament. The governing body clarified that it does not have any involvement in host country immigration processes, including visa adjudication decisions. A FIFA-listed referee since 2018, Artan has previously officiated at top-tier competitions including the Africa Cup of Nations, as well as domestic league matches in Somalia. Somalia is one of several countries impacted by broad travel restrictions implemented by the Trump administration.

    Just days after Artan’s return to Somalia, UEFA stepped in to offer the respected referee a new high-profile assignment. The continental governing body announced Thursday that Artan will take charge of the 2026 UEFA Super Cup, scheduled for August 12 in Salzburg, Austria. The match pits Champions League winner Aston Villa against Europa League champion Paris Saint-Germain in the annual showpiece that opens the European club football season.

  • World Cup 2026: Tournament kicks off under shadow of politics and restrictions

    World Cup 2026: Tournament kicks off under shadow of politics and restrictions

    The 2026 FIFA World Cup, the most prestigious tournament in global football, kicked off Thursday amid a wave of controversy that has pitted the joy of the world’s game against systemic issues ranging from harsh visa restrictions and exploitative dynamic pricing to overt political interference from the Trump administration. What was billed as a historic first tri-nation co-hosting effort between the United States, Mexico and Canada has instead been defined by barriers for teams, officials and fans, particularly those from Global South nations. Play opened with the host Mexico facing 2010 World Cup winner South Africa in Mexico City, followed by a Group Stage clash between South Korea and Czechia. The North American leg of the tournament gets underway on Friday, with Canada’s opening match against Bosnia and Herzegovina in the afternoon and the United States taking on Paraguay in the evening. Of the tournament’s 104 total matches, 78 will be held across the U.S., while Canada and Mexico will host 15 matches apiece.

    Even before the opening kickoff, political tensions spilled onto the pitch. Thousands of protesters gathered at Mexico City’s Estadio Ciudad de Mexico ahead of the opening ceremony, drawing attention to the politicized landscape surrounding the event. But the most high-profile controversy has centered on actions by the Trump administration, which has enacted sweeping entry restrictions and targeted vetting that has disrupted teams and officials across the globe. Just days before the tournament began, U.S. border officials barred entry to Somali referee Omar Artan, one of 52 officials selected to officiate matches, who was stopped during a so-called “routine inspection” at Miami International Airport despite holding a valid U.S. visa. Artan, who would have made history as the first Somali referee at a men’s World Cup and was named 2025 Confederation of African Football Referee of the Year, was held for 11 hours of intensive questioning where he provided all required FIFA and supporting documentation before being detained and deported back to Somalia via Istanbul. The U.S. currently enforces a near-total travel ban on Somalia.

    Artan’s exclusion is not an isolated case. Iran, which is also under a full Trump-era travel ban, requested that all of its team’s matches held on U.S. soil be relocated to Mexico amid heightened security tensions tied to the U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran. The request was initially rejected, before officials eventually allowed Iran to base its team in Mexico – but imposed a punishing requirement that the entire squad enter and exit the U.S. on the same day as each of their fixtures, eliminating any chance for proper pre-match acclimatization and preparation. Multiple members of Iran’s support staff were also denied visas entirely. U.S. officials publicly stated the restrictions were intended to prevent Iran from “abusing this system to sneak terrorists into the United States under false pretences.”

    Teams from other nations that fall under U.S. travel restrictions have also faced heightened, discriminatory security measures. Senegal’s national team underwent extensive baggage inspections directly on the airport tarmac upon arrival, while the Uzbek squad was greeted at their U.S. training facility by drug-sniffing dogs and mandatory security screenings. Senegal is subject to a partial U.S. travel ban. An Iraqi player was detained at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, and the Iraqi team’s official photographer was barred from entering the country entirely.

    On the eve of the tournament opening, U.S. President Donald Trump – who has previously been awarded the FIFA Peace Prize – made a stunning announcement that the U.S. would launch military strikes against Iran and invade its territory, amplifying global security fears just as the tournament got underway. When asked about the ongoing visa disputes impacting World Cup participants, Trump only stated that the cases were under review, adding “We’re working on it very closely to make sure the right people come into our country.”

    Beyond political and visa chaos, the 2026 tournament has been marred by exorbitant ticket pricing that has priced out all but the wealthiest fans, a crisis amplified by the introduction of “dynamic pricing” for the first time in World Cup history. The new model allows ticket platform algorithms to adjust prices in real time based on consumer demand, pushing costs to unprecedented levels. As of the tournament’s opening day, the cheapest available ticket for the U.S.’s opening match in Los Angeles stood at $1,183, while the next U.S.-based fixture between Qatar and Switzerland carries a minimum entry price of roughly $614. Even for a lower-demand Group Stage match between Haiti and Scotland in Massachusetts, the cheapest available seat costs just under $650. A high-profile clash between top-ranked Brazil and Morocco in New Jersey will see fans pay a minimum of $1,633 just to attend.

    Unlike past World Cups held in South Africa, Brazil, Russia and Qatar – which offered subsidized ticket rates for local residents – the U.S. has implemented no federal program to make tickets affordable for average fans. While prices in the U.S. are the highest across the three host nations, even opening match tickets in Mexico during the second round of sales in April 2026 ranged from $3,000 to $10,000, according to CNN reporting. Minor price cuts have emerged in the days leading up to kickoff, but volatile price fluctuations have left costs far out of reach for most casual fans. Leading U.S. sports outlet The Athletic has labeled the 2026 ticket pricing structure an outright “rip-off.”

    Visa restrictions have created additional layers of barriers for international fans hoping to attend. The U.S. already maintains one of the strictest visa application regimes in the world, requiring visitors from Global South nations to disclose extensive financial records, full employment histories, next-of-kin details, attend mandatory in-person interviews and pay hundreds of dollars in application fees just to be considered. The Trump administration has added a new requirement for extensive social media vetting of all non-immigrant visa applicants, ostensibly to screen for national security threats, but critics argue the process is used to exclude applicants with political views that conflict with the administration’s agenda.

    Unlike the 2018 World Cup in Russia and the 2022 tournament in Qatar, both of which implemented simplified special entry processes for ticket holders, the U.S. has created new hurdles that disproportionately impact fans from lower-income countries. In December 2025, Trump added 39 nations to the U.S. travel ban, including four participating World Cup nations: Haiti and Iran were placed under full entry bans, while Senegal and Ivory Coast face partial restrictions. The administration also imposed a mandatory visa bond scheme requiring travelers from 50 nations to pay deposits ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 to the State Department before receiving a visa, though the rule was partially rolled back in mid-May to exempt ticket holders and team staff from participating nations including Algeria, Cape Verde, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Tunisia.

    Advocates and rights groups have criticized FIFA for failing to push back against these discriminatory restrictions, arguing the global governing body has effectively legitimized the U.S.’s policies. Even FIFA’s much-promoted “once-in-a-lifetime 2026 World Cup Final experience” package, which includes tickets and accommodation, is only open to legal residents of 16 countries – explicitly excluding residents of co-host Mexico from entering.

    Andrew Giuliani, executive director of the White House Task Force on the 2026 FIFA World Cup, defended the administration’s policies in December 2025, telling reporters “I’ve known the president for 25 years. The president does not rule out anything that will help make American citizens safer.”

    Tensions extend far beyond entry restrictions, with rights groups warning that even fans and officials with valid visas face risks of detention, invasive questioning and aggressive immigration enforcement during their stay. The issue gained attention after a father of two was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a FIFA Club World Cup match in New Jersey in July 2025. In late April 2026, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued an official national travel advisory warning foreign visitors of the risks of entering the U.S., including arbitrary detention and deportation, invasive social media screening, racial profiling, suppression of free speech, widespread surveillance, and even the risk of inhumane treatment or death in U.S. detention facilities.

    The ACLU has also raised concerns about the rights of people already residing in the U.S., particularly those protesting the Trump administration’s immigration policies. In late May, workers at Inglewood, California’s SoFi Stadium – which will host multiple World Cup matches – publicly demanded that ICE have no involvement in the tournament. Workers raised alarms that FIFA may be sharing personal data of staff and attendees with ICE and foreign intelligence agencies. “We cannot celebrate the World Cup while workers, tourists, immigrant families, and local communities are made to feel unsafe. Los Angeles should be a city of welcome – not fear,” Yolanda Fierro, a SoFi Stadium worker and member of Unite Here Local 11 trade union, said in a statement.

    Activists stress they are not calling for a boycott of the tournament, but rather for all visitors to prepare for the risks they may face. “It is a call for precaution – for awareness of risks, for preparation, and for safety planning,” explained Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU’s human rights program.

  • As Colts wrap up minicamp, Cam Bynum turns focus to helping Filipinos affected by earthquake

    As Colts wrap up minicamp, Cam Bynum turns focus to helping Filipinos affected by earthquake

    INDIANAPOLIS — Fresh off the Indianapolis Colts’ three-day mandatory minicamp, starting safety Cam Bynum is already preparing for a far different mission than preparing for the upcoming NFL season: joining disaster relief efforts in the Philippines, a nation that holds deep personal meaning for him.

    Bynum’s ties to the Southeast Asian archipelago run far deeper than casual connection. His mother Jen is of Filipino descent, he owns property in the country, and his wife Lalaine is Filipino — the pair even held their wedding there in March 2023. Long an advocate for the Philippines’ national flag football program, cross-Pacific trips during NFL offseasons have become a regular tradition for Bynum and his family. This year, however, the trip will center on recovery, not relaxation, after a devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake hit the country.

    The powerful offshore quake, one of the strongest to strike the Philippines in 50 years, hit near the southern province of Sarangani on Monday. Official data puts the death toll at at least 37, with tens of thousands of residents displaced from their homes. While Bynum said he counts himself lucky that all of his family and close friends in the affected region escaped unharmed, many have lost their homes to the destruction.

    “A week from now, I’m tied up here filming content for the NFL, which delays my departure a bit,” Bynum explained Thursday after practice. “But as soon as that wraps up, I’m heading straight for the Philippines. I’m grateful to have this window of time off before training camp to go there and actually contribute to the recovery.”

    Bynum, who grew up in California and played college football at the University of California, Berkeley before being drafted by the Minnesota Vikings in the fourth round of the NFL Draft, is entering his second season as a key contributor to the Colts’ defensive secondary, even amid widespread roster changes made by the team this offseason. He has long been open about celebrating his Filipino heritage; two years ago, he shared a public video dinner with his mother and other family members where he discussed Filipino cultural traditions and beloved cuisine.

    With the Colts’ training camp set to kick off in just one month, Bynum’s trip will require careful balancing of his professional football preparation, personal rest, and new relief work. Through the Bynum Faith Foundation, the organization he founded, he will help coordinate community outreach and rebuilding projects in the earthquake zone.

    His daily routine will look familiar in some ways: he plans to stick to his workout schedule, holding 7 a.m. training sessions at a facility used by Filipino Olympic athletes, and even using local flag football players as a scout team to stay sharp for the upcoming season. But any leisure time that would usually be spent at beaches or with family will be redirected to highlighting the quake’s damage and amplifying the stories of affected communities.

    “Through our foundation, we’ll be running multiple outreach missions to map out exactly what the affected areas need most,” Bynum said. “Right now, communities are still without power, they don’t have access to clean water after all the pipes broke in the quake. My goal is to bring more attention to the destruction that’s happened, so we can reach as many people in need as possible.”

    He added that he has already been inspired by the collective response to the disaster in the Philippines. “This is a community effort, everyone is pitching in to lift each other back up,” he said. “You see people coming together through this terrible hardship, and that’s just the spirit of the Filipino people.”

  • US attack kills three Indian sailors in Gulf of Oman

    US attack kills three Indian sailors in Gulf of Oman

    In a sharp escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran that has sent ripples across global maritime security, three Indian crew members have been confirmed dead following a U.S. military strike on a Palau-flagged oil tanker in the Gulf of Oman, India’s federal shipping minister announced Thursday.

    The attack on the MT Settebello unfolded late Tuesday, after U.S. Central Command (Centcom) accused the vessel of repeatedly ignoring instructions from American forces while violating Washington’s ongoing blockade on Iranian ports by carrying Iranian crude oil. Of the 24 Indian nationals on board the tanker, 21 crew members have been pulled to safety, but three initially reported missing were confirmed dead after search teams recovered and identified their remains, said Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

    Calling the deaths a devastating loss for India’s broader maritime community, Sonowal confirmed that the Modi administration is extending full support to the bereaved families of the deceased. “I have directed officials to prioritize immediate repatriation of the rescued crew and the swift return of the mortal remains of the deceased so their final rites can be carried out,” the minister added. In direct response to the fatal strike, New Delhi summoned the deputy chief of the U.S. mission in India to register its objection.

    This attack marks the third U.S. strike on commercial vessels off the Omani coast in less than a week, as Washington ramps up enforcement of its blockade of Iranian maritime trade. Just one day before the strike on the MT Settebello, U.S. forces targeted another Palau-flagged tanker with an Indian crew, the Marivex, in the same region, also citing non-compliance with U.S. instructions. All 24 crew members of that vessel were rescued by Omani military forces, and all Indian personnel were confirmed unharmed. On Thursday, India confirmed a third suspected U.S. strike hit the asphalt tanker Jalveer off Oman’s coast; the Royal Navy of Oman is coordinating the evacuation of all crew to the port of Shinas, with no reports of Indian casualties as of Thursday evening.

    The surge in U.S. maritime operations comes against a backdrop of rapidly escalating cross-border hostilities between Washington and Tehran, which reignited earlier this week following the downing of a U.S. military helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz—a critical global chokepoint through which 20 percent of the world’s crude oil and 20 percent of its liquefied natural gas transit daily. Since the outbreak of the latest conflict in late February, Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, prompting the U.S. to impose a full naval blockade on Iranian ports that launched on April 13. Centcom reported Wednesday that since the blockade began, U.S. forces have disabled eight non-compliant vessels, redirected 134 compliant ships, and allowed 42 vessels carrying humanitarian aid to pass through the restricted area.

    In the wake of the helicopter downing, U.S. President Donald Trump launched new strikes on Iranian military infrastructure across the country overnight Wednesday into Thursday, with Iranian media reporting explosions in key areas including Bandar Abbas, Qeshm, and Minab near the Strait of Hormuz, as well as multiple locations near Tehran. Iranian media reported at least three people were wounded in Tehran province. Trump defended the strikes Wednesday, accusing Tehran of dragging out ceasefire negotiations and claiming Iran had “played us for suckers,” saying the country “will have to pay the price.”

    Iran’s foreign ministry issued a sharp condemnation of the U.S. strikes Thursday, saying the attacks had rendered the nearly two-month-old ceasefire “practically meaningless” and holding Washington fully responsible for any “extremely serious consequences” of the escalation. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) retaliated within hours, launching strikes on U.S.-linked military targets in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Jordan, extending the cycle of violence across the Middle East.

  • ‘Illegal and immoral’: How Luxembourg became the EU hub for Israeli war bonds

    ‘Illegal and immoral’: How Luxembourg became the EU hub for Israeli war bonds

    On September 1, 2025, a low-profile administrative ruling from the financial regulator of one of Europe’s smallest nations ignited an escalating legal and political firestorm that continues to gain momentum across the continent. The Luxembourg Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) greenlit a prospectus for Israel’s diaspora bond program, clearing the way for the sale of “Israel Bonds” to retail investors throughout the entire European Union.

    This approval came after the program was forced to relocate its regulatory base from Ireland, where sustained cross-party and civil society pressure – rooted in accusations that the bonds fund Israeli military operations in Gaza – pushed the US-based issuer, the Development Corporation for Israel (DCI), to seek a new host within the bloc. Under existing EU financial rules, issuers are permitted to request that prospectus approval authority be transferred to the financial regulator of another member state, a mechanism DCI exploited after departing Ireland. What followed this transfer has been widely described as procedurally irregular: the CSSF opted not to consult Luxembourg’s Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs before signing off on the controversial prospectus, even amid fierce global political backlash against Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

    Addressing an Amnesty International-organized conference in Luxembourg last May 2026 focused on the grand duchy’s potential legal liability, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese issued a scathing rebuke of the approval. “The sale of these bonds is illegal under international law because it goes directly to funding the genocide,” Albanese stated. “International law demands that all financial actors must abstain from direct links to human rights crimes. Those who authorized the bond sale are complicit. This is morally and legally indefensible.”

    To contextualize the growing outcry, it is critical to distinguish DCI’s Israel Bonds from standard Israeli sovereign debt. Unlike conventional government bonds sold almost exclusively to large institutional investors, Israel Bonds are marketed directly to retail buyers, religious institutions, and municipal public funds, often leveraging transnational diaspora networks and appeals to political solidarity. DCI’s own marketing material, released around the time of the CSSF approval, made no attempt to obscure the bonds’ core purpose: funding Israel’s wartime state budget. According to DCI’s official website and Instagram account, the program has raised $7.7 billion for the Israeli government since the October 7, 2023 attacks.

    All proceeds flow into Israel’s general treasury with no spending restrictions at a time when the country’s military spending has surged from roughly 20% to more than 30% of total government expenditure. Unlike typical war-time sovereign debt, which demands high risk premiums from investors, Israel Bonds carry a yield of only around 4%, despite Israel running a fiscal deficit equal to nearly 7% of its GDP. As a detailed new report prepared by a multi-disciplinary team of legal scholars, economists, and financial regulation experts explains, this gap is filled by what the authors term a “patriotic premium”: buyers motivated by solidarity rather than rigorous financial analysis accept below-market returns, while remaining largely unaware of the full legal and financial risks they are taking on.

    The report, presented at the same Amnesty conference where Albanese spoke, outlines severe legal and reputational risks for Luxembourg, as well as unaddressed dangers for retail investors. Its legal argument is anchored in three 2024 provisional measures orders from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which have all confirmed the plausibility of claims that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, alongside the ICJ’s July 2024 advisory opinion that requires all UN member states to refrain from providing assistance to Israel’s unlawful occupation of Palestinian territory.

    “The processing of Israel Bonds in EU markets is undeniably a grave violation of international law,” Shahd Hammouri of Law for Palestine, a keynote speaker at the conference, told Middle East Eye. “This act cannot be justified by appeals to financial or bureaucratic proceduralism.” Hammouri emphasized that Luxembourg’s regulator already held discretionary authority under EU prospectus rules to reject approval on public interest and peace and security grounds, and its failure to exercise that power amid clear risks of complicity in international crimes constitutes a direct breach of legal duty. She went further, noting that decision-makers who approved the prospectus could even face personal criminal liability for aiding and abetting acts of genocide.

    The report draws a striking historical parallel to Luxembourg’s own financial history: between 1967 and 1975, Luxembourg’s Kredietbank issued approximately $625 million in loans to apartheid South Africa, and European loans to the apartheid regime were processed through the Luxembourg Stock Exchange before global pressure eventually led to widespread sanctions. Today, the report notes, the international legal framework binding Luxembourg is far stronger, anchored in binding ICJ rulings rather than incremental political pressure.

    The contradiction at the heart of this controversy is amplified by a key timeline detail: Luxembourg formally recognized the State of Palestine on September 22, 2025, just three weeks after the CSSF approved the Israel Bonds prospectus.

    The May 2026 Amnesty conference, which gathered more than 200 attendees including legal experts, activists, and parliamentarians from across Europe, produced five concrete actionable demands to be implemented over the next 6 to 12 months, with the most urgent deadline falling this coming September, when the annual prospectus renewal is due. Irish Senator Alice-Mary Higgins, who helped lead the campaign that forced the bond program out of Ireland, stressed that neither Ireland nor Luxembourg should facilitate the upcoming renewal. “If no EU member state agrees to approve the prospectus after Luxembourg rejects renewal, these bonds will effectively be barred from the entire European single market,” she explained. Higgins also pushed back against the common government tactic of hiding behind regulatory independence, arguing that “claims that the government cannot intervene because regulators are independent are not an acceptable excuse.”

    Franz Fayot, a Luxembourgish MP from the centre-left LSAP party, told the conference that his team has commissioned two independent legal opinions – one from the University of Luxembourg and one from Utrecht University in the Netherlands – both of which concluded that Israel’s violations of international law are undisputed, and that Luxembourg cannot remain inactive. “It is very clear that Luxembourg still has the power to act, through economic sanctions and through regulation of its financial sector, which is our biggest leverage,” Fayot said. He added that an upcoming cross-party parliamentary debate organized with the Greens and Left party will produce concrete policy proposals, including motions and potential draft legislation to hold the current government accountable.

    To date, Luxembourg’s centre-right coalition government has responded to mounting pressure with deliberate evasion. When questioned in parliament in late May 2026, ministers refused to comment on whether the CSSF’s approval triggered Luxembourg’s international legal responsibility, repeatedly citing the regulator’s statutory independence. When asked whether the government would intervene to block a renewal, ministers repeated the same position: the CSSF acts with full autonomy, and the executive cannot interfere with its decision-making. This same line was repeated by officials during street protests organized by the newly launched Stop Israel Bonds campaign outside the finance ministry, and in earlier press briefings in early 2026.

    The CSSF for its part has insisted its role is purely procedural: it only assesses whether the information contained in the prospectus is complete, consistent, and comprehensible, and that approval does not constitute an endorsement of the economic merits of the bonds or the solvency of the issuer. Critics argue this technicalist framing is legally untenable. “Hiding behind procedural technicality does not erase responsibility,” Anas Obeidat, a Luxembourg-based activist and co-author of the report, told Middle East Eye. “Legal and financial distancing mechanisms cannot be used as a shield against accountability for facilitating the financing of war crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

    The controversy also carries uncomfortable implications for Luxembourg’s broader financial branding. The small country has invested heavily in positioning itself as Europe’s leading hub for sustainable finance and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) investment. While Norway’s massive sovereign wealth fund – a global benchmark for ESG investing – has already divested from companies linked to Israel’s unlawful occupation, alongside a growing number of other European financial institutions, Luxembourg’s own public pension fund remains invested in multiple companies listed on a UN database of businesses supporting Israeli settlements. The report notes that the CSSF’s approval of Israel Bonds places Luxembourg’s carefully cultivated ESG reputation under significant reputational and political strain.

    A lawsuit against the CSSF is already being prepared in Luxembourg, challenging the regulator’s failure to force adequate disclosure of risks to investors, mirroring a similar case already filed against the Central Bank of Ireland before the program’s transfer. The cross-border Stop Israel Bonds campaign, launched at the May conference, is coordinating civil society pressure across Luxembourg, Ireland, and the broader EU to prevent the program from simply relocating to Germany or another willing host if Luxembourg rejects renewal.

    With the September 2026 renewal deadline fast approaching, the core question remains: will Luxembourg’s government continue to insist its hands are tied by regulatory independence, or will pressure from its own parliament, civil society, and international legal experts force a policy shift before the prospectus comes up for a new vote. As Martina Patone, another co-author of the report, put it: “The findings in this report are not unknown to European governments. But putting them on the record reminds future generations of what was done, and hopefully holds accountable those who chose to look away in the present.”

  • She survived an Israeli raid that left babies decomposing. Now she awaits treatment

    She survived an Israeli raid that left babies decomposing. Now she awaits treatment

    On the eve of the October 2023 outbreak of war in Gaza, Palestinian mother Samar Hammad welcomed her youngest daughter into the world. She named the baby Nour – Arabic for “light” – a name filled with quiet hope for a new life. What Hammad could never have foreseen in that moment was that just hours after her daughter’s birth, this tiny child would be thrown into a fight for survival, caught in the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system under Israeli military advance.

    Nour was born perfectly healthy, Hammad recalled in an interview with Middle East Eye from her displacement tent in central Gaza City. Barely hours after the new mother and baby returned home, Israeli bombardment hit near their neighborhood, damaging a nearby building. Within a day, Nour began slipping into unconsciousness. With her condition worsening by the minute, Hammad rushed the newborn to al-Nasr Children’s Hospital in Gaza City. Doctors quickly delivered a grim diagnosis: Nour was suffering life-threatening complications from inhaling toxic gases released by the nearby bombing, and she was dying.

    As Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza, intense fighting closed in around al-Nasr, one of the first medical facilities targeted by the Israeli military. For more than a month, Nour lay in a hospital incubator, repeatedly losing oxygen as constant shelling cut off power and supplies to the facility. “The shelling was relentless,” Hammad said. “Nour was in an incubator with several other newborns. She repeatedly lost oxygen and had to be resuscitated.” At one point, doctors told Hammad there was nothing more they could do – the life support machines keeping Nour alive were only postponing the unavoidable.

    In her desperation, Hammad begged staff to let her hold and breastfeed her dying daughter. After repeated requests, the medical team relented. Within minutes of being held in her mother’s arms, Nour’s vital signs began to improve. “The machines started showing a response,” Hammad said. “The doctors were shocked. They told me it was like a miracle.”

    As Israeli forces surrounded the hospital, staff ordered all parents of incubator newborns to evacuate, assuring them their infants would remain protected. Every other mother fled south, leaving their babies behind. But Hammad refused. “I told the doctors I couldn’t leave my daughter behind,” she said. After more urgent pleas, doctors agreed to release Nour into Hammad’s care, warning that Israeli troops were advancing rapidly and the choice put both their lives at risk. “They gave her to me at my own responsibility,” Hammad recalled. “I carried her and walked out.” She fled al-Nasr on 9 November 2023.

    Later that same day, Israeli forces struck the hospital and cut off oxygen to the neonatal intensive care unit. The following day, all staff were ordered to evacuate, forcing them to abandon non-transferable infants who relied on incubators and life support to survive. Israeli troops occupied the hospital for roughly three weeks. When medical workers returned during a temporary ceasefire on 28 November, they found four incubator babies dead. Nour was the only known survivor from the neonatal ward – saved by her mother’s refusal to leave her behind.

    But survival only marked the start of a new, endless ordeal for Hammad and Nour. After escaping al-Nasr, Hammad carried her limp newborn from one damaged medical facility to the next seeking care, before becoming trapped in a school-turned-shelter for displaced people amid intensifying fighting. “She cried constantly,” Hammad said. “People would tell me to make her stop because the tanks were surrounding us, and they were afraid soldiers would hear her.”

    Eventually, the pair reached al-Ahli Arab Hospital (commonly called Baptist Hospital), where a CT scan revealed Nour had developed brain calcification. Doctors told Hammad the condition was most likely caused by inhalation of phosphorus gas from the bombardment, and that Nour would require ongoing, intensive physiotherapy to recover. For six months, Hammad brought Nour for daily treatment at Gaza City’s al-Wafa Hospital, clinging to the hope that therapy would reverse the damage.

    Securing medical care was only one layer of the daily struggle. Like tens of thousands of Gaza families trapped under siege, Hammad faced the constant threat of hunger and thirst. After the 7 October 2023 attacks, then-Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege” of Gaza, promising “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel” would enter the enclave. While Gaza had been under an Israeli blockade since 2007, this total restriction cut off all essential supplies, triggering catastrophic shortages that pushed the region’s already crumbling healthcare system to total collapse and worsened an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Multiple human rights organizations have concluded that Israel has used mass starvation as a weapon of war and a tool of forced displacement, designed to push civilians out of northern Gaza. By late 2025, the Palestinian Ministry of Health recorded at least 453 Palestinian deaths from severe malnutrition in Gaza – 150 of them children.

    “I would walk for hours, sometimes up to seven hours every day, searching for water,” Hammad said. On one of these treks, carrying an empty bottle across bombed-out streets, an elderly displaced man saw her desperation. Three hours later, he found her again and secretly filled her bottle from his own family’s limited reserve. “Water was extremely scarce and almost unavailable; the man had to hide the water bottle in his clothes to secretly fill it,” Hammad said. “As soon as I got the water, I prepared her milk. She drank it and finally fell asleep after hours of crying and inability to sleep.”

    Despite the constant danger and deprivation, Hammad refused to flee south. Reports of systematic abuse against displaced Palestinians at Israeli military checkpoints left her too terrified to attempt the journey, and she feared Nour’s fragile health would not survive the trip. Slowly, as Nour began to move her limbs and grasp small objects, Hammad allowed herself a sliver of hope. “She was improving, but the doctors told me she needed to be urgently evacuated for treatment abroad, which was nearly impossible at the time,” she said.

    In December 2024, Hammad heard that a respected paediatrician at northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital might be able to help Nour. She risked her life to travel to the facility, only to find the doctor was overwhelmed by a flood of injured patients. Staff told her to return two days later for an appointment – but when she came back, Israeli forces had stormed the hospital and detained the doctor, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya. According to his legal team, Abu Safiya has been subjected to repeated torture in detention, lost 40 kilograms, suffered severe health decline, and has recently been moved to solitary confinement.

    Hammad has continued to fight to secure Nour a spot for evacuation for specialist treatment abroad, but Israel’s strict blockade keeps almost all Palestinians trapped in Gaza. Nour was officially approved for medical transfer to Italy, but like tens of thousands of other critically ill Gaza patients, she has spent months stuck on a waiting list. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reports that at least 17,757 people requiring urgent life-saving care abroad have received official medical referrals, including roughly 4,000 children. Severe Israeli restrictions mean the vast majority will never leave.

    Though Israel agreed to a limited reopening of the Rafah crossing with Egypt in February 2026, allowing up to 50 patients per day to exit Gaza, only 1,204 patients had been evacuated through Rafah and the Kerem Shalom crossing by 20 May. After more than two and a half years of fighting for Nour’s life, Hammad says her daughter’s future now hinges on a decision she can never control.

    “I have managed to rescue Nour from imminent death in the incubator, found water and milk for her during the harshest times, and took her to hospitals for physiotherapy throughout two years of genocide,” Hammad said. “Now her health is hanging on an Israeli permit that would determine whether she can improve or remain disabled for the rest of her life.”