Global Pulse

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  • ‘I was slut-shamed’ – Indian women ‘cockroach’ protesters doxxed and abused

    ‘I was slut-shamed’ – Indian women ‘cockroach’ protesters doxxed and abused

    In one of the largest anti-government mobilizations India has seen in recent years, a youth-led grassroots movement called the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) successfully leveraged social media to organize demonstrators, galvanize public support and ultimately push India’s federal education minister to step down. What began as a hybrid movement of in-person marches and Instagram content quickly turned ordinary young women into some of the movement’s most visible faces – but their participation has come at a devastating personal cost, with dozens facing sustained, gendered online harassment, violent threats and privacy violations, a new BBC investigation has found.

    CJP’s defining strategy blended traditional street protest with digital activism: short-form satirical videos, meme content and on-the-ground first-person posts spread across Instagram, drawing hundreds of thousands of views and turning casual content creators and student participants into movement leaders. The movement’s peak demonstration, held July 20, saw thousands of protesters attempt to march to India’s parliament to demand policy changes, before security forces intervened with tear gas and baton charges. Official Delhi police figures put the total injured at 60 protesters and 118 police personnel, but CJP has disputed this count, claiming far more demonstrators were harmed than the government has acknowledged. In the aftermath of the demonstration, police have opened formal criminal cases against dozens of identified movement participants. But for many of the women who posted protest content online, a separate, unregulated campaign of abuse has unfolded far from official police channels.

    The BBC spoke with four anonymous female activists who participated in the protests, reviewing hundreds of pages of screenshots of abusive messages, edited deepfake images and threatening communications to document the scope of the harassment. All four requested anonymity out of safety concerns for themselves and their families.

    One 20-something content creator, who attended her first protest on July 20 and shared first-person accounts of the baton charge to her Instagram followers after the protest site’s internet was cut off, described unrelenting slut-shaming and personal attacks after she publicly questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s post-protest comments – in which Modi claimed he “forgave” young demonstrators and urged society not to harshly punish them. “I thought I was just helping organize aid and share what I saw, I didn’t even think of it as political,” she told the BBC. She estimates she has deleted thousands of abusive messages and blocked hundreds of accounts, but harassment continues. For her, the abuse has amplified a constant fear that is familiar to many women in India: “As a woman here, you grow up with fear. It follows you online when you speak out, too,” she said, adding that her mother has refused to read comments on her posts for months, unable to bear the vitriol directed at her daughter.

    A 20-year-old first-time protester, who regularly posts light-hearted fit-check videos, shared a quick joke clip ahead of the July 20 march saying she was “going to get beaten by cops” – a clip that was picked up by national television and spread widely across social media, leading doxxers to identify her home college and flood her inbox with threats. “I was just recording what happened around me, I never thought it would go that far,” she said. Abusers sent her anonymous messages threatening to report her to police for arrest and assault, called her degrading sexual slurs, and issued threats that “your turn will come.” The pressure extended far beyond online spaces: relatives contacted her parents demanding she delete all her protest content, and she has now archived nearly all of her protest-related posts out of fear for her family’s safety. “I worry less about what happens to me than what they might do to my parents,” she explained.

    A Muslim student activist, who has long shared outspoken political content online, described a sharp uptick in targeted abuse after the CJP protests, amid India’s growing religious polarization. She has since made her Instagram account private and muted most other social platforms, but offensive content about her continues to circulate. Abusers edited her photos to falsely depict her in sexually suggestive situations to shame her, morphed her image to label her an “anti-national terrorist”, and used anti-trans slurs to insult her while falsely claiming she was a paid protester. Her father, a working journalist, has pleaded with her to stop speaking out, warning that her Muslim identity makes her an easy target for state action. “My parents have watched other Muslim activists arrested and investigated, and we live in constant dread,” she said. Despite the harassment, she remains firm: “I still believe going to the protest was the right thing to do. I just understand the cost far better now.”

    A West Bengal-based student activist who helped organize supply drives and an Instagram fundraiser for protesters said the abuse began after police started detaining demonstrators in her state in late July. Abusers flooded her fundraiser post with spiteful comments and sent her sexual threats in private messages, forcing her to delete the post entirely. She changed her public social media name, locked her account and blocked messages from strangers to avoid being doxxed. What has shocked her most is the clear gender double standard: her male peers expressed the same political views online, but none faced the gendered, sexualized abuse she endured. “When women speak up, the attack always turns to our gender. I just keep asking why women can’t hold the same opinions as men online without being targeted,” she said.

  • ‘I feel like I dug my own grave’: The workers caught in the AI transition

    ‘I feel like I dug my own grave’: The workers caught in the AI transition

    For over two decades, the Philippines has held the unofficial title of the world’s call center and business process outsourcing (BPO) capital, a success story that lifted millions of Filipinos into the expanding middle class and reshaped the country’s modern economy. But today, the rise of generative artificial intelligence is posing an existential challenge to this cornerstone of the nation’s growth, leaving thousands of workers jobless and forcing policymakers and industry leaders to rethink a decades-old economic model.

    Lisa, a single mother and content writer who requested anonymity due to a confidentiality agreement tied to her severance pay, spent 15 years building her career in the Philippine outsourcing sector. After graduating college, she cut her teeth as a freelance writer before joining a multinational firm, following the well-trodden career path taken by generations of young Filipinos seeking stable, well-paying work. For years, she managed her workload without AI, meeting all her deadlines and seeing no need to integrate the new technology into her process. Just one month before her probationary role was set to become permanent, eight months into her new position, she was laid off.

    In the months leading up to her redundancy, Lisa says she and her teammates were assigned to edit AI-generated content created by an outside public relations firm, refining output to match the company’s unique brand voice. In essence, their own expertise was used to train the AI system that ultimately replaced them. “I feel like I dug my own grave,” Lisa told the BBC. “We were the ones who trained the artificial intelligence that replaced us.” She is far from alone in this experience.

    Mary, another former content writer whose name has also been changed to protect her identity, shared a similar trajectory. Her employer promoted AI as a tool to boost productivity, but in practice, it added extra layers of work: AI-generated content was often factually inaccurate, requiring teams to spend more time editing and verifying information than they spent creating original copy. Like Lisa, Mary was ultimately made redundant after helping integrate the new technology into the company’s workflow.

    The Philippine BPO industry grew from a niche emerging market offering in the early 2000s to a national economic powerhouse. Positioned as an English-speaking alternative to India, successive Philippine governments offered generous tax incentives, invested in critical digital and office infrastructure, and actively courted multinational firms looking to cut operational costs by offshoring administrative, creative and customer service work. Today, global industry leaders including Accenture, Concentrix and Teleperformance operate sprawling campuses across Manila and other major urban centers, employing roughly 1.9 million Filipinos and generating $40 billion in annual revenue, equal to around 10% of the country’s entire gross domestic product.

    But new data makes clear just how vulnerable this $40 billion industry is to AI-driven automation. The International Labour Organization estimates that more than one in four Filipino workers — 12.7 million people overall — hold roles that are exposed to automation from generative AI, the highest share of any country in Southeast Asia. While the organization notes that many roles will evolve rather than disappear entirely, the service-focused nature of most BPO work leaves the Philippine sector disproportionately at risk of mass displacement.

    Jack Madrid, president of the IT and Business Process Association of the Philippines (IBPAP), confirms that AI adoption is accelerating rapidly across the industry, with more than two-thirds of his organization’s members already running active AI pilot programs. “Agentic AI has the potential to automate at a much more accelerated pace,” Madrid explained. “Obviously, there’s a layer of jobs that are automatable or have been automated.” He added, however, that most affected workers have been redeployed to other roles within their companies, arguing that current hiring slowdowns stem as much from cooling global demand and uncertainty around long-term AI deployment as from automation itself. Even so, he acknowledges the scale of the challenge, saying, “We cannot do enough to be prepared. The importance of reskilling cannot be overstated.”

    Major BPO operators have publicly framed AI as an augmenting tool rather than a replacement for human workers. Teleperformance, the world’s largest call center operator and one of the Philippines’ biggest private employers, says AI will take over routine customer interactions, allowing human agents to move into higher-value, more complex roles. The company has committed to retraining its existing workforce to adapt to these new positions. Accenture has similarly said generative AI will reshape nearly all roles rather than eliminate jobs, and has pledged to invest billions of dollars in AI capabilities and employee training. Concentrix, the largest BPO firm operating in the Philippines, says its AI systems will remain under human oversight and has also committed to upskilling workers to work alongside new technologies.

    Despite these public commitments, many local managers harbor quiet concerns about mass worker displacement, according to Paul Quintos, a researcher at the University of the Philippines-Diliman. Many would prefer to slow the pace of AI adoption, but face overwhelming pressure from foreign clients to integrate the technology into their services. “There’s tremendous pressure from foreign clients to adopt AI,” Quintos explained. “It’s a major cost-cutting measure.” Philippine BPO firms compete fiercely with rivals in India and other low-cost markets for multinational contracts, and clients now increasingly expect providers to not only offer cheap labor but also embed AI into their service offerings to cut overhead costs.

    Quintos also notes that what is often framed as AI-driven restructuring may sometimes be “AI washing”: companies attribute layoffs to technological change to mask broader responses to slowing demand or poor economic performance. Attributing redundancies to AI allows firms to frame cost-cutting restructuring as progressive technological adoption rather than a reaction to weak market conditions.

    Labor advocates point out that existing Philippine employment laws offer clear guidelines for redundancy processes, but provide almost no framework for how companies should introduce AI to workplaces or consult workers on technological changes. Compounding this vulnerability is the fact that the Philippine BPO sector is almost entirely non-unionized, leaving most workers with no formal voice in decisions around how new technologies are deployed that will fundamentally shape their careers.

    Philippine government officials acknowledge that the country is already playing catch-up to prepare its workforce for the AI transition. “To be completely honest, I think we’re slightly behind. We have to catch up,” said Leandro Aguirre of the Philippines Department of Information and Communications Technology. “We have to double our efforts to put our people in a position where they will not be displaced but actually thrive in this growing AI race.”

    The government has pledged to upskill more than 300,000 BPO workers, but Aguirre admits the country may need to abandon its decades-long reliance on foreign offshoring work to build a more resilient digital economy. “We relied heavily on foreign direct investment,” he said. “But I think we also need to focus on local talent and local companies.” The government’s long-term goal is to nurture homegrown Philippine AI firms that can create high-value, stable jobs for local workers that cannot be easily automated or offshored. Aguirre rejects calls for sweeping new AI-specific legislation, arguing that existing labor, privacy and consumer protection laws can be adapted more quickly through targeted regulatory guidance, adding that “the benefits of AI have to trickle down to people. It can’t just benefit employers.”

    For 20 years, the Philippine BPO model has been one of the emerging world’s great economic success stories, turning a large, English-speaking workforce into a globally competitive industry that delivered broad-based prosperity. AI may not completely end that model, but it is already rapidly reshaping it — and without aggressive action to reskill workers and reorient the country’s economic strategy, it risks leaving hundreds of thousands of workers behind.

  • How a generation of record-setting guides died in a disaster that killed a climbing legend

    How a generation of record-setting guides died in a disaster that killed a climbing legend

    The global mountaineering community is in mourning after a devastating avalanche on Pakistan’s Broad Peak claimed the lives of six elite Nepali mountain guides — climbers whose decades of trailblazing achievements redefined high-altitude mountaineering and transformed the world’s perception of Sherpa guides, who were long reduced to being unseen supporting aides. Among those lost was Nirmal “Nims” Purja, the 43-year-old British-Nepali climber who led the 10-person international expedition to the 12th highest peak in the world, and who remains globally celebrated for his historic speed ascent of all 14 of the planet’s 8,000-meter-plus peaks in just over six months, a feat documented in a popular Netflix feature film.

    The other five victims included some of the most decorated climbers in the Nepali mountaineering community. Forty-six-year-old Kili Pemba Sherpa had only just completed his own 14 eight-thousanders journey in early July, earning the sport’s most coveted Grand Slam title. Long before that crowning achievement, he had already cemented his legacy as a member of Purja’s 2021 team that pulled off the first-ever winter ascent of K2 — the world’s second-highest peak, widely regarded as far deadlier and more unpredictable than Mount Everest, which had resisted all winter attempts for decades. Renowned among peers for his humility and relentless dedication to his clients, Kili Pemba summited Everest 15 times, including two trips where he guided double-leg amputees to the peak. Gyanendra Shrestha, a Nepali government official who witnessed one of these ascents from base camp, called the feat “the toughest task for any guide” and noted Kili Pemba completed it with extraordinary care.

    Thirty-seven-year-old Pur Bahadur Gurung, another victim, had scaled 12 of the 14 8,000-meter peaks and held one of the rare International Federation of Mountain Guides Association (IFMGA) certifications, a qualification held by only 100 Nepali guides. Earning this certification requires massive financial investment, years of training, and profound passion for the sport, making Gurung’s loss all the more staggering for Nepal’s mountaineering sector. In 2024, he was also part of the expedition that discovered a century-old boot on Everest, believed to have belonged to pioneering British climber Andrew Irvine, who disappeared on the mountain in 1924.

    The three remaining guides who perished also left indelible marks on the sport: Gyaljen Sherpa, who pulled off the unprecedented feat of scaling the world’s third-highest peak, Kanchenjunga, three times in a single climbing season; 36-year-old Nima Sherpa, who summited four eight-thousanders in 2026 alone; and 20-something Nawang Thindu Sherpa, one of Nepal’s most promising rising young guides. Collectively, the six climbers notched dozens of Everest summits between them and achieved many firsts once considered impossible: 8,000-meter ascents without supplemental oxygen, winter ascents of the world’s deadliest peaks, and feats that opened new possibilities for the entire global climbing community. Beyond their individual records, their careers have reshaped global recognition of Nepali Sherpa guides, moving the world beyond the outdated view that frames them only as support staff rather than elite climbers and pioneers in their own right.

    In recent years, Pakistan’s remote Karakoram mountain range has emerged as a major overseas operating base for Nepali Sherpa guides, a shift widely credited to Purja’s trailblazing 14 peaks project that put Pakistan’s climbing opportunities on the global map for international mountaineers. Each spring, Nepali guides lead commercial expeditions up Nepal’s famous Himalayan peaks. When the monsoon season hits Nepal from June to September, many move to Pakistan’s far north, which is home to five of the world’s 8,000-meter peaks. Unlike Nepal’s well-developed climbing infrastructure — which features established lodges, well-marked routes, and a robust helicopter rescue network spread across high-altitude outposts — Pakistan’s Karakoram range is vastly remote, with almost no pre-existing infrastructure. Guides working there must fix their own ropes, cut steps into glacial ice, and establish all their own camps from scratch, making every expedition a test of raw mountaineering skill that only the most experienced guides can take on. Rescue operations are also far more challenging in the isolated region, with very few viable landing zones for rescue helicopters even at base camp, let alone at higher altitudes. For all these logistical hurdles, however, demand for climbing trips to Pakistan’s Karakoram has grown steadily in recent years, as more international and Nepali climbers seek to complete their own 14 peaks journeys.

    Iswari Paudel, acting president of the Nepal Mountaineering Association, noted that Purja’s groundbreaking success gave both Nepali guides and international climbers the confidence to pursue Pakistan’s legendary peaks. “Nims’ success gave many [guides] and foreigners the courage to believe that this mountaineering crown was truly possible,” Paudel explained. “This has made Pakistan a major overseas base for Nepali Sherpas. And while helping foreign climbers fulfil their dreams, many guides have themselves completed the 14 peaks.”

    Ben Ayers, a longtime Everest correspondent for Outside Magazine, called Purja an iconic climber and “undisputedly amongst the best of his generation.” He added that Purja’s work helped usher in a new era of mountaineering that democratized access to high-altitude climbing for more people, but also accelerated the commercialization of the sport that inherently increases risk.

    Himal Gautam, spokesman for Nepal’s tourism department, described the tragedy as an “unprecedented loss” for Nepal’s close-knit mountaineering community, a sentiment echoed across the country and the global climbing world. While the disaster has already sparked renewed calls to strengthen safety regulations for high-altitude expeditions in Pakistan, industry experts and analysts agree it is unlikely to produce long-term changes to high-altitude adventure tourism. Inherent, unavoidable risk is a core part of the appeal of high-altitude mountaineering for both guides and clients, researchers note. Past major tragedies on Himalayan peaks, including the 2014 Everest ice avalanche that killed 16 Sherpas and the 2008 K2 disaster that claimed 11 lives, did not lead to sustained shifts in the industry. “Generally, these tragedies cause a moment of concern… but then things go back to how they were. It’s difficult to say with any conviction that any accident in the mountains is ‘preventable’ as the inherent danger is so high… and that’s part of the appeal,” Ayers said. Medhavi Gulati, a researcher specializing in high-altitude mountaineering, added that “often, it’s the dangers and risk of death that attracts people.” Veteran mountaineer and writer Alan Arnette echoed this view, noting “I doubt the Broad Peak incident will have a significant impact, given history. I hope I’m wrong.”

  • The Briton who helped 6,000 UK Jews move to Israel

    The Briton who helped 6,000 UK Jews move to Israel

    Over the past 15 years, a British-born Israeli immigration consultant has facilitated the relocation of more than 6,000 Jewish people to Israel, much of that work carried out during his tenure with a controversial organization that openly advertises residency opportunities in illegal Israeli settlements across the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights. As Israel continues to expand its network of unauthorized settlements and outposts in Palestinian-claimed territories, a growing number of Israel-aligned organizations have stepped up efforts to recruit Jewish migrants from across the globe to move to these occupied areas.

    One of the most high-profile groups engaged in this work is Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN), an organization that facilitates Jewish immigration to Israel—known widely as Aliyah—while actively promoting settlement in occupied territories. The group’s official website hosts dedicated informational pages for dozens of illegal settlements, complete with local community contact details for prospective migrants interested in relocating. For example, NBN spotlights the Gush Etzion settlement bloc in the West Bank, profiling individual settlements including Tekoa. In its promotional material for Tekoa, the organization notes the settlement’s population growth followed the opening of a new bypass route that circumvents nearby Palestinian communities, a framing that omits any discussion of the route’s seizure of private Palestinian land.

    NBN also promotes Katzrin, a settlement built on illegally occupied Syrian land in the Golan Heights, marketing the community only for its “breathtaking surrounding views” while failing to disclose its status on occupied territory. Other settlements across the West Bank receive similar misleading promotion: Elkana is billed as a “well-situated community in the center of Israel,” while the Mateh Binyamin cluster of illegal outposts is described as “one of the most beautiful regions in Israel. Neither location is acknowledged to sit outside of Israel’s internationally recognized 1948 armistice lines. To further recruit for Mateh Binyamin, NBN has hosted a 2021 recorded webinar on its website featuring US-born settlers encouraging international Jews to relocate to the area.

    The organization’s informational page for Mitzpeh Yericho frames relocation to the settlement as part of a “pioneering effort to build up Eretz Yisrael [the land of Israel],” noting that most residents live in permanent housing while others occupy temporary structures including mobile homes and modular concrete units—structures frequently used by settlers to establish new unauthorised outposts on seized Palestinian land. NBN also promotes expansion of the Shiloh settlement, highlighting “several construction initiatives” underway to “expand its borders,” language that directly refers to the seizure of additional adjacent Palestinian territory for settlement growth.

    While the total number of international migrants NBN has assisted to move into illegal occupied territories remains undisclosed, the group’s own page for the West Bank settlement of Efrat offers a glimpse: it notes “thousands of NBN Olim [immigrants]” currently reside in the unauthorized settlement. When contacted for comment, NBN has attempted to distance itself from promotional activity, claiming its settlement pages are “for educational and informational purposes only” and that it “does not endorse, recommend, or promote any specific community.” Despite this disclaimer, the organization’s consistent terminology and framing treats both the Golan Heights and the occupied West Bank as integral territory of the state of Israel, contradicting its formal claims.

    NBN primarily focuses on facilitating Aliyah for Jewish migrants from North America (the United States and Canada), but previously maintained operational activities in the United Kingdom, where it was led by the UK-born Dov Newmark, the subject of this investigation. Public records and Newmark’s own LinkedIn profile confirm he served as NBN’s “Director of UK Aliyah” from 2009 through 2023. In a May 2024 interview with British-Israeli podcaster David Goodwin, Newmark reflected positively on his 15-year tenure with the organization, saying “Nefesh really put all the information together on one site, which was amazing,” calling his time with the group “Amazing 15 years. Great organisation.”

    Newmark confirms that during his 15 years working on Aliyah, first with NBN and now through his private consultancy, he has assisted more than 6,000 Jewish people in relocating to Israel. It remains unclear whether any of these migrants were assisted to move to illegal settlements: neither Newmark nor NBN responded to multiple requests for comment from Middle East Eye (MEE) for this investigation. It also remains unclear exactly when NBN ceased formal operations in the UK: Newmark claims the organization exited the UK market around 2018, but a UK-registered charitable entity linked to the group, Friends of Nefesh B’Nefesh Limited, was only formally dissolved in July 2024, and NBN listed a UK contact number on its website through 2021.

    When contacted by MEE, a spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office reaffirmed the UK government’s longstanding official position on the legality of Israeli settlements, but declined to comment specifically on Newmark’s activities. The spokesperson stated, “The UK is clear that settlements are illegal under international law and jeopardise prospects for peace. We oppose further settlement expansion and strongly advise against conducting any economic and financial activities in illegal Israeli settlements.”

    Raised in northeast London, Newmark became active in Bnei Akiva, a Zionist Jewish youth movement that frames Aliyah as the “ultimate expression of its ideology” and organizes gap year programs for international Jewish youth in Israel, from his teenage years. In 2008, Newmark himself relocated to Israel with his wife and three children, and has resided in Modiin, within Israel’s recognized borders, ever since. After leaving NBN in 2023, he launched his own independent Aliyah consultancy business called Make Aliyah Easy, which offers free support services to British Jews looking to relocate to Israel, including pre-migration planning, relocation logistics assistance, and post-arrival integration support. Instead of charging clients directly, Newmark earns commission from referring clients to English-speaking service providers ranging from moving companies to currency exchange services. MEE was unable to verify which providers Newmark works with, or whether any of those providers operate in occupied territories.

    To grow his new business, Newmark has partnered with multiple Israeli and UK-based organizations, including Yad L’Olim, Olim Paveway, UK shipping firm Stephen Morris, and London-based investment firm Raymond James, hosting informational webinars featuring Israeli real estate agents and immigration experts to guide prospective migrants. Publicly, all residential communities Newmark promotes on his own platforms sit within Israel’s internationally recognized borders, with no public mention of assistance for relocation to illegal settlements. But a newly announced partnership has raised new questions about his work. In June 2026, Newmark publicized a formal partnership with Shivat Zion, an Israeli Aliyah organization that launched in 2025 marketing itself as “the UK’s Only Free Aliyah Support Charity” despite never completing registration with the UK Charity Commission.

    Earlier in 2026, investigative outlet Declassified UK exposed that Shivat Zion had offered to assist a UK citizen with relocation to an illegal West Bank settlement, prompting two UK Labour Members of Parliament to call for official sanctions against the group. In response to the expose, a Shivat Zion representative posted a video claiming the organization operates “under Israeli law” but did not directly deny the allegations that it facilitates migration to occupied territories, stating only: “If someone has decided on a specific city in Israel, we help them.”

    While Israel enshrines its settlements in the West Bank as legal under its own domestic law, this designation has no standing under international law. All Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian and Syrian territory are universally recognized as illegal under international law, and are also unlawful under British law. Newmark has publicly described his arrangement with Shivat Zion as a partnership, but the organization’s website formally lists him as its Senior Aliyah and Strategic Consultant for the UK. It remains unclear whether he works as an employee, earns commission, or operates as a freelance contractor for the group. What is clear is that Newmark serves as Shivat Zion’s primary public point of contact in the UK: no other UK-based Aliyah consultants are listed on the organization’s website. Shivat Zion also declined to respond to multiple MEE inquiries about its UK operations, its activity in occupied territories, and its partnership with Newmark, and did not rule out assisting migration to illegal settlements.

    Despite the ongoing controversy over links to organizations that promote settlement in occupied territories, Newmark remains unapologetic about his work and continues to expand his Aliyah-focused business. “If you think about it, Israel is a country made up of Olim [immigrants],” Newmark told Goodwin in the 2024 interview. “Israel survives and thrives on Aliyah.” Newmark argues the founding and existence of the state of Israel deserves celebration, noting “it didn’t come easy.” He also shared that his daughter was serving in the Israeli navy at the time of the interview, and that he regularly volunteers at Israeli army bases, cooking barbecue meals for active-duty soldiers. Despite widespread documentation of human rights violations committed by the Israeli military and ongoing international accusations of genocide in its military campaign in Gaza, Newmark says he finds the experience of volunteering with the military inspiring. “You can see the determination in those soldiers to go in there and do what they need to do. They’re so positive and the morale is so high, you can’t help but be sucked into that positivity,” he said.

    Newmark also says he expects Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza will drive an increase in Aliyah, a trend he says he is prepared to support. “There’s always a spike in Aliyah after a conflict,” he explained. “And this will be no different. There will be a spike. […] And I’m excited to help people fulfil and realise their dream of moving and making Aliyah.”

    This report was produced by Middle East Eye, an independent media outlet focused on original coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and surrounding regions.

  • ‘Coherent to describe Zionism as racist’: UK tribunal upholds protection for anti-Zionist beliefs

    ‘Coherent to describe Zionism as racist’: UK tribunal upholds protection for anti-Zionist beliefs

    In a landmark legal ruling that has reignited fierce debates over academic freedom, protected belief, and the characterization of Zionism in the United Kingdom, the Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) has upheld a lower court’s finding that the University of Bristol unlawfully discriminated against former political sociology professor David Miller when it terminated his employment over anti-Zionist comments he made in 2021. The tribunal also confirmed that framing Zionism as a racist, colonial, and imperialistic ideology is a coherent philosophical position eligible for legal protection under UK equality law.

    The EAT’s judgment, released this week, formally rejected the University of Bristol’s appeal against a 2024 employment tribunal ruling that first found Miller’s dismissal unlawful. In its written reasoning, the tribunal laid out clear support for the legitimacy of framing Zionism in critical terms. “It is coherent to describe as ‘racist’ an ideology [Zionism] that promotes the establishment of a state [in this case, Israel] for only one race of people [Jewish] in a territory that formerly contained a large number of people of a different race [Palestinians],” the judgment read. The tribunal further added that such an ideology, which historically encouraged Jewish migration to the region backed by imperial powers with the goal of displacing the indigenous Palestinian population, can also be coherently categorized as colonial and imperialistic.

    Miller, who joined the University of Bristol faculty in 2018, centered his academic research on the influence of lobbying groups, including organizations tied to the governments of Israel and South Africa. He was fired for gross misconduct in October 2021, following public comments he made earlier that year criticizing Zionism, the state of Israel, and Jewish student organizations on campus. The 2024 original employment tribunal already concluded that Miller’s termination stemmed directly from his expression of anti-Zionist beliefs, which qualify as protected philosophical beliefs under the 2010 Equality Act. The tribunal ruled that both the dismissal and the university’s rejection of Miller’s internal appeal amounted to unlawful direct discrimination, prompting the University of Bristol to launch its appeal to the EAT.

    In its final decision, the EAT reaffirmed every core conclusion of the lower tribunal. It confirmed that Miller’s core belief – that political Zionism is inherently racist, colonial, and imperialist, and that it ought to be opposed – meets the legal standard for protected belief. The tribunal also backed the finding that Miller’s 2021 comments were an expression of this protected belief, and that these comments directly and materially influenced the university’s decision to fire him.

    While the tribunal acknowledged that the University of Bristol acted in pursuit of what it framed as legitimate goals – including protecting student well-being and safeguarding the institution’s public reputation – it upheld the lower court’s ruling that dismissal was a disproportionate response to Miller’s comments. The judgment noted that Miller’s remarks were lawful, had not been found to be antisemitic, did not incite violence, and did not pose a threat to anyone’s personal safety. A lesser disciplinary measure would have been sufficient, the EAT concluded.

    The ruling does include one partial caveat: the EAT upheld the original finding that Miller contributed to his own dismissal through his specific remarks directed at Jewish students and student societies, meaning any compensation for unfair dismissal will be reduced by 50%. However, the tribunal also ruled that the lower court did not adequately justify its conclusion that there was a 30% chance Miller would have been fairly dismissed in 2023 over separate later social media posts, so this component of the compensation ruling will require reconsideration.

    For Miller, the outcome represents a total legal victory. In a post on the social platform X, he framed the decision as a “decisive” win for the global anti-Zionist movement, noting that the pressure campaign targeting him had “spectacularly backfired.” “The University of Bristol’s attempt to overturn my 2024 Employment Tribunal victory has been comprehensively dismissed. We won on every single count,” Miller wrote. “This is a public humiliation for the genocidal Zionist regime, whose assets in Britain bullied the University into sacking me and then dragged them into this futile appeal.”

  • Projectile sinks Indian-flagged ship off Yemen coast

    Projectile sinks Indian-flagged ship off Yemen coast

    A new chapter of escalating maritime instability has unfolded in the waters off Yemen, after an Indian-flagged commercial vessel capsized and sank when it was struck by an unidentified projectile, regional and national officials confirmed this week.

    All 14 crew members on board the MSV Faize Noore Oliya — 13 of whom hold Indian citizenship — have been pulled from the water safely, with no reported casualties, Indian Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal announced. In his official statement, Sonowal denounced the strike as an unprovoked attack, adding that New Delhi would move quickly to implement new safeguards to protect Indian seafarers operating in the high-risk region. As of the latest updates, no group or actor has claimed responsibility for the strike, and the identity of the perpetrator remains unconfirmed.

    This incident marks the latest in a growing string of targeted attacks on commercial shipping across the Red Sea, a critical alternative shipping route that many oil tankers have diverted to since Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world’s most vital chokepoints for global energy trade, back in February. The disruption to key regional shipping lanes began in earnest after a series of coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets in late February, which triggered Tehran’s decision to close the Strait of Hormuz — a passage that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s daily oil consumption. The closure immediately sent shockwaves through global energy markets, pushing oil prices sharply higher as supply chain fears mounted.

    In response to the closure, many oil tankers carrying crude from Saudi Arabia re-routed through the Red Sea to reach global markets. But the growing frequency of attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, most of which have been linked to Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi movement targeting Saudi-linked vessels, has turned the alternative route into a new danger zone for commercial shipping. Reuters, citing officials from Yemen’s Saudi-backed and internationally recognized transportation ministry, reported that the Houthi group carried out the latest attack using an explosive-laden boat. The Houthi movement has not issued any public response to the accusation, and the group previously announced a self-declared blockade of Saudi Red Sea ports in late July, which has already disrupted regional shipping activity. The United Kingdom’s Maritime Trade Operations agency has also documented multiple separate attacks on commercial vessels transiting the region over the past seven days.

    Despite the rising security threats to regional shipping, global oil markets saw a significant downturn on Tuesday, with prices dropping to a three-week low. The decline came after senior U.S. officials signaled growing optimism that a new deal with Iran could be reached to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. This push for a new agreement follows a 14-point memorandum of understanding signed between Washington and Tehran back in June that laid out a framework for a ceasefire, the reopening of the Strait, and a negotiated end to hostilities within a 60-day window. The deal collapsed just three weeks after it was signed, however, when then-U.S. President Donald Trump announced the ceasefire was finished after Iran carried out new attacks on shipping in the Strait and the U.S. launched retaliatory strikes.

    On Tuesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told reporters that negotiations have moved forward in recent days, indicating that a final deal to reopen the Strait could be finalized as early as Tuesday or Wednesday. Iran has pushed back against this framing, however, with Tehran officials stating that they are not engaged in direct negotiations with the United States and have no plans to open such talks, saying that any ongoing diplomatic discussions are being mediated through Oman.

    India’s Ministry of External Affairs later issued a formal statement calling the ongoing wave of attacks on commercial shipping in the region deeply worrisome. “The targeting of commercial shipping in the region must end, and free and unimpeded navigation and commerce through the international waterways in the region, in keeping with international law, must be restored at the earliest,” the ministry’s statement read, echoing growing global concern over the impact of the regional crisis on international trade and energy security.

  • Japanese lawyer slams government for military buildup under pretext of defense

    Japanese lawyer slams government for military buildup under pretext of defense

    A prominent Japanese legal scholar and advocacy leader has publicly denounced the Japanese government’s ongoing military expansion, accusing Tokyo of using national defense as a false pretext to erode long-standing constitutional constraints on the country’s military activity. Makoto Ito, who serves as both a practicing lawyer and director of the Japan Institute of Constitutional Law, has raised urgent alarms over the government’s steady push to move beyond the bounds of Japan’s post-WWII pacifist constitution, a foundational document that has limited the country’s military posture to strictly defensive operations for nearly 80 years. In his criticism, Ito emphasized that sticking to an exclusively defense-oriented security policy is not just a constitutional obligation, but the most effective path to delivering long-term, stable security for Japan and the broader East Asian region. He called on policymakers to reverse course on their current buildup trajectory and reaffirm the country’s historic commitment to pacifist governance that has shaped Japanese policy since the end of World War II. The criticism comes amid a years-long shift in Japanese security policy that has seen increased defense spending, expanded military deployments abroad, and incremental changes to constitutional interpretations that have relaxed restrictions on the use of military force beyond Japan’s immediate borders, a shift that has drawn growing concern from domestic legal experts and regional neighbors alike.

  • Israel suffers record emigration wave, with almost 270,000 leaving since 2023

    Israel suffers record emigration wave, with almost 270,000 leaving since 2023

    A landmark new study conducted by Tel Aviv University researchers has uncovered an unprecedented surge in Israeli emigration, with nearly 270,000 citizens leaving the country between the start of 2023 and the end of 2025 — the highest three-year total recorded in the nation’s modern history.

    Drawing on official datasets compiled by Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics and other state agencies, the research found a consistent upward trend in long-term departures. More than 86,000 Israelis exited the country for stays of three months or longer in 2023, and that number climbed to over 90,000 in both 2024 and 2025. This puts the annual average of long-term departures at roughly 90,000, a sharp 50% increase from the pre-pandemic average of 60,000 departures per year recorded between 2010 and 2019.

    Unlike previous official emigration reports that only counted citizens who left for a full year or more to count as long-term emigrants, the Tel Aviv University study expands this definition to include anyone spending a minimum of three months outside Israeli borders. Study co-author Itai Ater explained to local outlet Haaretz that this adjusted methodology captures a far more accurate picture of the actual scope of outward migration. The study’s final counts also exclude recent immigrants from Ukraine and Russia who left Israel within three years of arriving, focusing only on long-term residents who had lived in the country for at least three years before their departure.

    Ater emphasized that while the current cumulative numbers do not yet pose an immediate threat to Israel’s national resilience, the steady upward trajectory demands urgent action. “In 2025, we again see deeply troubling numbers of Israelis who left the country for a significant period, adding to the emigration wave of 2023 and 2024,” he said. “But looking ahead, and unless there is a change, there is growing concern that emigration from Israel will increase to a level that endangers the country’s security and economy.”

    Compounding these concerns, earlier Tel Aviv University research has already confirmed that the emigration wave is disproportionately driven by highly skilled workers: a significant and worrying share of departures are doctors, PhD-holding researchers, engineers, university academics, and high-income professionals. While some skilled labor outflow has been observed in other developed economies, the institution notes that this brain drain carries unique risks for Israel. The country has limited natural resources, and its entire economic model is built around leveraging its skilled, innovation-focused workforce.

    The study’s authors warn that the current trend could soon trigger an irreversible domino effect. As more people leave, the incentive grows for friends, family members and professional networks to join them, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that becomes harder to break the longer it continues. “Once emigration numbers cross a certain threshold, reversing the trend will be extremely difficult, perhaps impossible,” the university stated in its release of the study findings.

    The release of the unprecedented data has sparked fierce cross-party criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling government from Israeli lawmakers. Gilad Kariv, chair of the Knesset’s Committee for Immigration, Absorption and Diaspora Affairs and a member of the left-wing opposition Democrats party, took to social platform X to condemn the government’s inaction. “Israel is facing a tsunami of emigration, and the government is doing nothing about the issue,” Kariv wrote. He called the emigration wave a “strategic threat to Israel’s future” that is directly tied to the government’s policy agenda, specifically the controversial judicial overhaul launched in early 2023 that sparked months of mass nationwide protests.

    Centrist-right opposition lawmaker Meirav Cohen of the Together party also joined the criticism, drawing a pointed connection between the government’s policies toward Gaza and the growing outflow of Israeli citizens. “They declared they would carry out voluntary emigration from Gaza,” Cohen said on X, referencing the government’s widely criticized plan to encourage the expulsion of Palestinian residents from the Gaza Strip. “In the end, the October 7 government encouraged voluntary emigration from the State of Israel.”

    This report was originally framed by independent regional outlet Middle East Eye, which provides specialized, unfiltered coverage of the Middle East and North Africa region.

  • Gaza families bury 112 people recovered nearly three years after Israeli strikes

    Gaza families bury 112 people recovered nearly three years after Israeli strikes

    On a somber Tuesday in Gaza City, hundreds of mourning relatives gathered to lay to rest 112 members of two interconnected Palestinian clans, the Abu Shari’a and al-Hasayna families, who were killed in a devastating 2023 Israeli airstrike. Their remains, which lay trapped under collapsed concrete for nearly three years, were only recovered by civil defence teams last month, bringing an end to a years-long wait for closure that came paired with a devastating reawakening of grief.

    The airstrike that killed these family members targeted Gaza’s densely populated Sabra neighborhood in November 2023, and stands as one of the deadliest single attacks in the ongoing Israeli military campaign in Gaza. Israeli warplanes completely leveled an entire residential block where hundreds of clan members had gathered to shelter, killing more than 300 people in total – among them 44 children, 37 women, and more than 10 people living with disabilities. For months after the attack, most of the victims’ remains remained trapped under the rubble of the destroyed buildings, as Israeli restrictions blocked critical heavy rescue equipment from entering the besieged territory, halting all recovery efforts.

    It was not until July 14 that Palestinian Civil Defence crews were able to resume search operations at the site, working with limited, insufficient tools to extract remains from the rubble. The intense force of the Israeli bombs had scattered human remains across the site, turning the already painstaking work into an even more grueling challenge. After 17 days of nonstop work under extremely harsh conditions, crews recovered the 112 remains laid to rest this week. Even so, dozens more victims from the strike are still believed to be entombed in the debris, and thousands more across Gaza share the same fate.

    “We worked for 17 days to recover the bodies in extremely difficult conditions. In the end, we managed to recover the remains of 112 people,” Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence in the Gaza Strip, told Middle East Eye. “Thousands of people are still buried beneath the rubble, while their families continue to grieve and plead for the means to recover them.”

    Among those killed in the strike were prominent community leaders, including Fathi Abu Shari’a, the clan’s respected elder mukhtar. After the first blast hit Abu Shari’a’s home, hundreds of surviving family members fled to the residence of Mofeed al-Hasayneh, a former Palestinian Authority minister of public works and housing who also held United States citizenship. The family believed the home would be spared from attack, with around 200 al-Hasayneh members gathering there for shelter – but the building was also hit by an Israeli bomb, killing everyone inside including al-Hasayneh.

    Mahmoud al-Hasayneh, a survivor of the attack who lost multiple extended family members in the strike, shared his family’s decades-long agony of waiting for recovery. Al-Hasayneh was not at the home when it was bombed, but his son was injured, and his brother, sister-in-law, their children, two of his sisters and their entire families, and dozens of other aunts, uncles, and cousins were killed. Many of the victims held dual citizenship from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Romania, he added, noting that Israeli forces did not spare women, children, or any civilian space in the attack.

    “Unfortunately, the Israelis respected neither children nor women, nor immunity, nor any house, nor any sanctity,” al-Hasayneh said. “They struck everyone here.”

    For relatives scattered across the globe, every step of the slow recovery process reopened deep trauma. “Every time a body was recovered, relatives abroad would call and cry. We opened a new wound,” al-Hasayneh said. “We pray that God will envelop them in His mercy and honour them. This is the greatest honour for the deceased: that they are helped in being buried.”

    For the families gathered for the mass funeral, where the remains were laid out in rows, each draped in a Palestinian flag, the moment carried conflicting, bittersweet emotion: relief at finally being able to lay their loved ones to rest, after nearly 1000 days of waiting, paired with a crushing return of the grief they felt when the massacre first occurred.

    “There is a feeling of both pain and joy,” said Amer Abu Shari’a, who lost multiple family members in the attack. “Joy because we will bury and honour these martyrs after three years. But the sorrow has returned, as if the massacre happened today.”

    The mass burial of the 112 clan members shines a light on the broader crisis of missing people across the Gaza Strip. Omar Nofal, head of Gaza’s government committee for missing persons, told reporters that around 6,000 people have been officially registered as missing since the war began, but the actual number is likely closer to 15,000 – all still trapped under rubble from thousands of destroyed buildings across the territory. According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, Israeli forces have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, and wounded more than 170,000 others, with thousands more still unaccounted for under collapsed infrastructure.

  • Labour Friends of Israel defends major West Bank settlement blocs

    Labour Friends of Israel defends major West Bank settlement blocs

    A long-running pro-Israel lobbying group embedded within the UK Labour Party has ignited fierce internal and international debate after releasing a new policy report that argues against a national import ban on goods produced in Israeli settlements located in occupied Palestinian territory, a move that directly contradicts overwhelming grassroots support for such a ban within the party.

    Labour Friends of Israel (LFI), an influential lobby group that counts more than 70 sitting UK members of Parliament among its affiliate members (though it has not published a public roster of supporters for some time), published the 15-page policy briefing late last week under the title *Settlements and Solutions: A Guide to the Issues*. The document was reviewed in full by Middle East Eye ahead of its circulation to Labour lawmakers and senior party figures.

    Under international law, all Israeli settlements constructed in the West Bank and East Jerusalem – territories captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War – are classified as illegal. This position was further cemented earlier this year when the United Nations’ highest judicial body, the International Court of Justice, issued an advisory opinion ruling that Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian territory is unlawful as a whole, and required all UN member states to take active measures to end the occupation.

    Against this global legal consensus, LFI’s report takes a nuanced but controversial stance, acknowledging that most of the international community rejects Israel’s claim that settlements are legal under international law while pushing for a tiered approach to the issue. The document openly criticizes unauthorised Israeli settlement outposts – small, often rogue encampments built without formal approval from the Israeli government – and calls on the UK to pressure any future Israeli government to dismantle these outposts, halt all new settlement expansion outside of existing large, established settlement blocs, increase Palestinian access to construction permits in Area C (the 60 percent of the West Bank under full Israeli civil and military control), and expand territorially for Palestinian autonomous zones.

    This framework makes clear that LFI opposes any British objection to the large, established settlement blocs that house the vast majority of Israeli settlers in the West Bank. The report goes further, arguing that a full national ban on all settlement goods is unfeasible on both practical and political grounds. It claims a comprehensive boycott would not only impact Israeli businesses operating within settlement blocs, East Jerusalem and Jerusalem’s Old City, but would also inadvertently harm Israeli citizens living within Israel’s pre-1967 borders, effectively becoming a de facto boycott of the entire state of Israel.

    Such a move, the report argues, would be perceived by the UK’s Jewish community as evidence that the Labour government is disproportionately targeting Israel for punitive action, deepening existing divides within the country over the government’s Middle East policy.

    The LFI briefing comes at a critical juncture for UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s new Labour government, which widespread Whitehall sources confirm is actively considering implementing an import ban on settlement goods once Parliament reconvenes following its current recess. Burnham has publicly stated he is reviewing “further measures to deter unacceptable violence” in the occupied West Bank, where extremist settler attacks on Palestinian communities have spiked dramatically over the past two years.

    Multiple senior figures within Burnham’s cabinet have documented ties to LFI. Current Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, who has previously stated he has been a supporter of LFI for more than 20 years in leaked text messages to former disgraced UK ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson, has nevertheless broken with the lobby group’s latest position, endorsing sanctions on Israel and publicly accusing the country of committing war crimes in Gaza. Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds, another senior Labour figure, previously served as a vice-chair of LFI.

    It is worth noting that when Labour was the official opposition, the party publicly called for a ban on settlement goods. In June 2020, then-shadow foreign secretary Lisa Nandy argued that implementing such a ban would require political courage that sitting Conservative ministers had so far refused to demonstrate.

    The push for import restrictions on settlement goods is gaining traction across Europe. France and Sweden recently tabled a joint proposal calling on the European Union to implement strict new import controls on goods produced in Israeli settlements, while the Netherlands officially implemented a national ban on trade in these goods just last month.

    Domestically, LFI’s position puts it sharply at odds with the vast majority of the Labour Party’s own grassroots membership. Polling conducted earlier this year found that 87 percent of registered Labour members support a national ban on trade with Israeli settlements, with just 6 percent opposing the measure.

    In its report, LFI does condemn the current Israeli administration led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which took office in January 2023 and has dramatically accelerated settlement expansion beyond the established blocs while failing to crack down on violent extremist settlers. The group also argues that there is a long-standing international consensus, previously accepted by both Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams, that the major settlement blocs will remain under Israeli control as part of any final two-state peace agreement, via a land swap arrangement that would exchange Israeli territory for the occupied land held by the blocs.