Geneva (AFP) – A famine in the Gaza Strip “is almost inevitable” unless the Israel-Hamas war changes, the United Nations says. “The production of foodstuff within Gaza itself is almost impossible,” says Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA at a press briefing in Geneva.
Moscow (AFP) – “I’m shaking. I feel sad and hurt. People like him shouldn’t die.” Thousands queue amid heavy police presence to pay their respects to late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny outside the church where his funeral is being held. The ceremony comes two weeks after Navalny’s death in an Arctic prison, for which his supporters blame the Kremlin.
Rochdale (United Kingdom) (AFP) – “Keir Starmer, this is for Gaza,” says George Galloway from the Workers Party of Britain after winning the Rochdale by-election, beating the Conservative and Labour parties with 12,335 votes. The controversial left-wing firebrand was elected to the UK parliament after tapping into anger over the Israel-Hamas war in a chaotic by-election.
Paris (AFP) – “A small lightning operation before Paris wakes up (…) simply to show that we’re still here and we’re fed up with being taken for fools”: French farmers’ union carries out a surprise protest in front of Paris’ famed Arc de Triomphe, blocking the top of the Champs-Elysées with bales of straw and tractors.
Dhaka (AFP) – Firefighters battle a fire that blazed through a seven-storey building in an upscale neighbourhood in the Bangladeshi capital of Dhaka that killed at least 44 people and injured dozens, according to authorities.
Philadelphia (AFP) – “It’s devastating to know how much he’s missed, how much time he’s lost,” says Danielle Gershkovich, whose brother Evan, a reporter with the Wall Street Journal, is being detained in Russia on espionage charges that he categorically denies.
Grünheide (Germany) (AFP) – Environmental activists build a camp, occupying a forest outside Berlin to stop the expansion of a Tesla car factory.
Beit Lahia (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) – Israeli forces opened fire on Palestinians scrambling for food aid in northern Gaza in a chaotic melee that the Hamas-run health ministry says killed 104 people and injured more than 750 others. While an Israeli source acknowledged troops had opened fire on the crowd believing it “posed a threat”, the Israeli military said a “stampede” occurred when thousands surrounded an aid convoy. The Israel-Hamas war began on October 7 with an unprecedented Hamas attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of around 1,160 people Israeli figures show. Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed 30,035 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.
Geneva (AFP) – Israel’s planned ground assault on Rafah in the Gaza Strip would contravene the orders issued by the ICJ, says the UN’S human rights chief. “I fail to see how such an operation could be consistent with the binding provisional measures issued by the International Court of Justice,” Volker Turk tells the UN Human Rights Council.
Al-Meaibdi (Iraq) (AFP) – In the northern Salaheddine province of Iraq, puddles of black crude oil dot the ground, contaminating vast swathes of farmland. “What is happening is that oil has damaged all that the land can give, every seed we plant gets damaged … This land has become useless,” says one farmer. While local authorities blame the Islamic State group – which controlled large areas of Syria and Iraq in 2014 – farmers criticise the state for not doing enough to clean up the mess.
