Human Rights Glance
Israel has emptied four facilities within the Al-Aqsa Mosque complex that served as offices for the Islamic Waqf, in what a monitoring group has described as an escalating campaign against the Jordanian-backed body.
The Al-Quds International Institution, a Palestinian organisation that monitors developments in Jerusalem, said on Tuesday that Israeli authorities have used "manufactured security pretexts" to target the facilities.
According to the group, Israeli forces raided the sites in recent months, broke their locks and prevented the installation of replacements.
The facilities were then left open, while anyone attempting to enter them was expelled because they had been used for "activities that threaten security".
The four sites are the Dome of Imam al-Ghazali, located above the Bab al-Rahma prayer hall along the eastern wall of the complex; Dar al-Hadith al-Sharif in the northeastern section of Al-Aqsa; Qubbat Sulayman, an open-air domed shrine opposite King Faisal Gate; and Qubbat Musa, located near Bab al-Silsila (Chain Gate).
Israel 'emptying' Al-Aqsa facilities to undermine Waqf, watchdog warns
US federal judge blocks Alabama from executing man by nitrogen gas
A federal judge on Tuesday permanently blocked Alabama from executing a man with nitrogen gas after declaring the method violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Alabama became the first state in the nation to use the execution method in January 2024, but has faced repeated legal challenges to its use.
Emily C Marks, a US district judge, permanently enjoined the state from executing Jeffery Lee by nitrogen gas. Lee was scheduled to be executed Thursday at an Alabama prison.
A spokesman for Alabama attorney general Steve Marshall said the state is appealing the decision. The case will likely end up before the US supreme court, which has previously let nitrogen executions proceed.
In 2000, a jury sentenced Lee to life without parole for the 1998 murders of Jimmy Ellis and Elaine Thompson. A judge later declined to follow the jury’s recommendation and sentenced Lee to death. In 2017, Kay Ivey, an Alabama governor, signed a bill to ban such cases of judicial override, but the law only applied to future – and not past – cases. Lee’s attorneys have since asked Ivey to grant him clemency and end judicial override retroactively.
Israeli Troops Kill 7-Month-Old Baby In West Bank, Palestinian Officials Say
Israeli troops shot at a car in the occupied West Bank, killing a 7-month-old Palestinian baby and wounding his parents, the Palestinian health ministry said, with the bullet striking the boy in the face.
The Israeli military said that soldiers shot at a vehicle perceived to be accelerating toward them near Hebron. It said an initial inquiry found that the three Palestinians wounded were uninvolved civilians.
Israeli military activity, and settler violence against Palestinians, have surged in the territory since the war in Gaza began in October 2023.
The baby’s father, Bethlehem University lecturer Fahd Abu Haikal, told The Associated Press that a bullet struck the windshield before piercing his right hand and striking his son and wife in the back seat Friday evening. Another bullet struck the hood, according to AP journalists who saw the car.
The bullet passed through Sam Fahd Abu Haikal’s face.
“He was the entire world,” Haikal said of the boy, who turned seven months on Friday.
The mother was in critical condition, with shrapnel close to her heart.
Leen Ezzeddine, the US-Lebanese graduate at Harvard Medical School who chose to speak out
When Leen Ezzeddine stood before her classmates at Harvard Medical School, the moment could have been framed as a familiar story of immigrant success: a Lebanese woman graduating as a doctor from one of the world’s most prestigious institutions.
But Ezzeddine chose to tell a different story.
In her graduation speech last week, she spoke of circumstance, borders, luck and the thin line separating her life from the lives of medical students in Lebanon and Palestine who share the same ambition but are made to study under drones, bombardment and displacement.
That line, for her, was not abstract. While she was pursuing her studies at Harvard, a US missile launched by Israel levelled her family home in Arab Salim, her mother’s village in southern Lebanon, in October 2024.
It was the village where she used to spend her summers, surrounded by cousins, relatives, and her grandparents, Hayat Chamseddine and Ali Zayour, who were later forced to leave and relocate to Beirut after their house was destroyed.
The contrast was stark: she was standing in Harvard as a new doctor, while the village that helped shape her childhood and family memories was being attacked.
That contradiction became the emotional and political centre of her intervention.
Her speech was not only about Gaza, or Lebanon, or the violence of war. It was about what it means to become a doctor inside an elite institution while entire communities are being denied the basic conditions of life.
Trump Threatened or Attacked 1 in 13 Countries, CNN Says
US President Donald Trump has threatened or used force against countries representing roughly one in 11 people worldwide, according to a CNN analysis.
The report followed Trump’s remarks during a White House Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, where he warned Oman over tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, a key global shipping route.
“Oman will behave just like everybody else, or we’ll have to blow ‘em up,” Trump said.
The Strait of Hormuz, which carries about 20% of global oil shipments, has faced growing risks amid tensions in the Middle East.
According to The Guardian, the comments came amid reports that Iran and Oman have discussed possible arrangements involving control or fees for shipping through the strait.
“The Strait is going to be open to everybody,” Trump said while discussing regional tensions. “Nobody’s going to control it.”
CNN said US forces have conducted strikes in multiple countries during Trump’s presidency, including Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.
Oman is at least the 15th country Trump has threatened, suggested he could attack, or targeted militarily during his time in office.
Haftar's forces arrest Gaza aid convoy in Libya
Forces belonging to Libyan military leader Khalifa Haftar have arrested a number of members of a Gaza aid convoy in the city of Sirte.
According to a statement published by the Global Sumud Convoy Instagram page, last contact with the activists was made at 3.22pm on Tuesday.
"The detained are civilians from Spain, Poland, the USA, Argentina, Uruguay, Portugal, Tunisia, and Italy - doctors and human rights defenders who volunteered to deliver aid and stand with the Palestinian people," said the statement.
They said the convoy had entered the 5+5 security zone - a contested area established under the Libyan ceasefire agreement signed in October 2020 - to negotiate safe passage to the Gaza Strip.
"They were detained by a security force affiliated with the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF) and are still being held by Eastern Libyan authorities (GNS)," they added.
The group urged citizens of the listed countries to contact their embassies and demand their release.
A range of activist-led humanitarian missions have been sent to Gaza since the beginning of the genocide in October 2023, with most being intercepted at sea by Israeli forces.
A number have attempted to travel across land to the crossing at the Egyptian border, though these have also faced numerous legal and security obstacles.
Full list of Israel's ceasefire violations in Gaza, seven months on
More than seven months have passed since a US-mediated ceasefire was announced with the stated aim of ending Israel's two-year genocide in Gaza.
Yet Israel has continued to carry out near-daily strikes and violations of the agreement, albeit at a lower intensity than before the truce.
The humanitarian crisis caused by the war has also persisted, with Israel maintaining a tight siege on the Palestinian enclave.
The Israeli military has justified some of its violations by accusing Palestinian factions of breaching the ceasefire.
However, many of those killed, displaced or arbitrarily detained over the past seven months have been civilians, including children.
With the first phase of the agreement still not fully implemented by Israel, the US has so far failed to advance talks towards the next stage, which was meant to include the disarmament of Palestinian armed groups, the deployment of international stabilisation forces, reconstruction in the strip and a full Israeli withdrawal.
The lack of progress has raised fresh doubts over the future of the fragile ceasefire, as Israel continues to mass forces near Gaza and threatens a renewed assault on the strip.
Middle East Eye breaks down the main Israeli breaches of the ceasefire so far.
More Articles...
- Israel killing Palestinians ‘like we haven't since 1967’, top commander says
- Israel appoints settler who backs annexation to head powerful land authority
- US criticises allies over failure to stop Gaza aid flotilla
- 'All changed with the genocide': Palestinian women and girls face brutal abuse in Israeli jails
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