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Palestinian Health Ministry says 73 people killed while waiting for aid in Gaza – as it happened

The Palestinian health ministry reported on Sunday that at least 73 people waiting for aid had been killed across Gaza in Israeli attacks. The largest toll was in northern Gaza, where at least 67 Palestinian people were killed while attempting to access aid entering northern Gaza through the Zikim crossing with Israel, according to health officials. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. At least 58,895 Palestinian people have been killed and 140,980 injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since 7 October 2023, the Gaza health ministry said in an updated death toll. Around 130 Palestinian people were killed and 495 others injured in the last 24 hours alone, the ministry said. The Israeli military issued evacuation orders for the city of Deir al-Balah – a crowded part of central Gaza full of displaced Palestinian people with nowhere safe to flee relentless bombardments. A fragile calm returned to southern Syria’s Sweida province on Sunday, after fighters withdrew following a week of violence estimated by a war-monitor to have killed over 1,000 people. The uneasy calm was reported by local residents after Syria’s Islamist-led government said Bedouin fighters had withdrawn from the predominantly Druze city (you can read more in this story). Thanks for joining us. We are closing this blog now. You can find all our latest coverage of the Middle East here.

The world’s oldest president is running again: can anyone stop him from winning?

Opposite Treasure Hunter, one of four casinos on the same street in Douala, Cameroon’s commercial capital, money changers and motorcycle taxi drivers such as André Ouandji mill around, calling out to potential clients. Ouandji has worked in the area for three years but has not entered the casinos. He prefers to frequent the sports betting shop in his local neighbourhood of Bonabéri. Cameroon has the second-best performing economy in central Africa, but despite this a third of the population live on $2 or less daily and, according to a 2023 survey by the country’s National Statistics Institute, eight in 10 of the workforce are informally employed. Against this backdrop, gambling and betting have become increasingly popular. “We stopped relying on the government for anything years ago,” said Ouandji, who is 27. Like many young Cameroonians, he is undecided about whether to vote in October’s presidential election. In a country where the median age is 18 and average life expectancy is 63, the overwhelming favourite is the 92-year-old incumbent, Paul Biya, president since 1982. He formally declared his candidacy for another seven-year term on 13 July, brushing aside calls from inside and outside the country to step aside. “Together, there are no challenges we cannot meet,” he wrote on X. “The best is still to come.” Biya’s decades-long rule has been accompanied by a decline in voter turnout. The abstention rate in the 1992 election – widely believed to have been stolen from the late opposition leader John Fru Ndi – was 19.6%. By 2018 it had hit 46.7%. Eighteen-year-old Serge (not his real name), a first-year geography student at the University of Douala, said prioritising his economic future in a country of high unemployment and rampant nepotism was more important to him than voting. “My dream was to be a lawyer but you need connections for jobs, your father needs to be placed somewhere, so I settled for being a teacher which is easier,” he said. ‘We are in misery’ Supporters of the ruling Cameroon People’s Democratic Movement (CPDM) point to the country’s overall economic performance relative to its neighbours and say they prefer stability to the unknown. Some even believe Biya’s mandate is divine. “No authority can exist unless it comes from God,” said Antoine Nkoa, the author of the 51-page pamphlet 10 Good Reasons Why You Should Vote Paul Biya in 2025. Nkoa, who lives in the capital, Yaoundé, said he had never met the president but that he had an early morning vision of the world’s oldest president winning again. Such a vision represents a nightmare scenario for Barthélemy Yaouda Hourgo, the Catholic bishop of Yagoua in the country’s Far North region. “Enough is enough,” he said in January while urging Biya, the son of a catechist, to call it quits. Christopher Nkong, the secretary general of the leading opposition party, Cameroon Renaissance Movement (MRC), said in an interview that Biya had “outlived his usefulness”. “We say, ‘Papa you have done your best. Can you not leave for another Cameroonian to take over?’” Biya’s critics say his supporters are out of touch with reality. Endemic corruption and a cost of living crisis have been exacerbated by concurrent conflicts with armed anglophone separatists in the west sending thousands into neighbouring Nigeria, jihadists in the Far North region and criminal kidnapping gangs in the so-called triangle of death near the borders with Chad and Central African Republic. Experts say the crises could make voting in some areas harder, which would favour Biya. The election takes place a few days after separatists mark the independence of the breakaway state of Ambazonia. At least seven people including a priest were killed by security officials during the 2018 election weekend in Buea and Bamenda, the main cities in anglophone Cameroon. In a twist to proceedings, two of Biya’s longtime allies – the influential ministers Bello Bouba Maigari and Issa Tchiroma – resigned from the cabinet within days of each other in June and declared their intention to run against him. “We are in misery,” Tchiroma said from his home town of Garoua in the north, a hunting ground for the jihadists of Boko Haram. The same month, Léon Onana, a municipal councillor, filed a lawsuit to compel CPDM to organise its first national congress since 2011 on the grounds that “we cannot remain in a party where everything revolves around a single individual”. A battle against all odds MRC hopes to rally the undecided and uninterested to vote in large numbers for its candidate, the former justice minister Maurice Kamto. “Everybody is feeling the pinch of mismanagement, embezzlement, non-development, low standards of living, and poverty brought by the regime [which] knows that it is unpopular,” said Nkong. But, he added, “to uproot a dictator is not a day’s job”. Despite efforts by civil society groups to mobilise people to register to vote, and moves by multiple opposition parties to coalesce into a coalition, some say the field has already been rigged in favour of Biya. The country’s electoral commission, Elections Cameroon, for example, comprises several former ruling party members and is not seen as impartial. The commission is supervised by the all-powerful minister of territorial administration, Paul Atanga Nji, a self-described “Biyaiste” nicknamed Moulinex National after the French kitchen blender for his threats to Biya’s opponents. Among his critics, Biya is seen as a master of divide and rule. For years, CPDM has been accused of sponsoring political parties to cause confusion within opposition ranks and armed separatist factions to stir chaos. A law forbidding parties from campaigning until a month before the election often does not seem to apply to CPDM. The government was approached for comment. Shortly after Kamto held a mass rally with the diaspora in Paris at the end of May, he was put under house arrest. Some of his supporters were also locked up in police cells for two days. “The police, gendarme and military came,” a witness who wished to remain anonymous said. Kah Walla, the leader of the left-leaning Cameroon People’s party, has similar stories of harassment. “In the last year, my office here has been surrounded by police tanks and water cannons,” she said. “If I cannot hold a normal political meeting, then for sure I cannot be a candidate in the election … it’s an aberration to even call these things elections.” Her party is boycotting the elections, as it did in 2018, demanding serious reforms instead. “I always tell Cameroonians, if we are asked to go to a football tournament, say in Nigeria, and the referees are Nigerian, the people allowing people into the stadium are Nigerian, and the stadium is on a hill with Nigeria at the top and the other teams are at the bottom, Cameroonians will say bring the team back home.” In some circles there is hopeful talk on social media of a “post-Biya era”. MRC has urged young people to copy its Senegalese counterparts, who stayed at polling stations during vote-tallying last year to “protect their votes” and helped unseat the ruling party. Some experts say another post-election scenario may be a repeat of events in Gabon, where the re-election of Ali Bongo in August 2023 triggered unrest and a coup. There is the sense that many Cameroonians will be comfortable with either scenario. “There will be no error in 2025,” Nkong said. “CPDM’s time has ended.”

Two UK pro-Palestine organisations have bank accounts frozen

At least two grassroots pro-Palestine organisations in the UK have had their bank accounts frozen, raising fears about a wider attempt to silence voices speaking out about Gaza. Greater Manchester Friends for Palestine (GMFP) and Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), which both organise peaceful protests and vigils, have had access to their funds cut off indefinitely by Virgin Money and Unity Trust bank respectively. The Guardian understands a local PSC branch in England has also had its bank account frozen but was unable to confirm it directly. Coming amid the banning of Palestine Action earlier this month and the arrest of more than 100 people for showing support for the group, and the threatened arrest of a peaceful protester for having a Palestine flag and “Free Gaza” sign, it has amplified concerns about a crackdown on critics of Israel. Owen Cooper, co-treasurer of GMFP, said the group, which lists bike-riding among its activities, has been marching peacefully for more than a year and a half without incident or criminal activity but Virgin Money refused to say why its account had been frozen. “If it’s purely the fact that we have Palestine on the bank account name, I think it’s a very worrying sign,” said Cooper. “It would be not only hugely worrying but hugely disappointing to think that a country that values freedom of speech, that is a liberal democracy can be acting like this and that ordinary, decent people with a conscience are being regarded as extremists. “What could the bank be thinking that we’ve done? Certainly nothing that the police believe is a crime.” He said the freeze meant that GMFP could not send money to Gaza and the West Bank to help those in need. “They’re actually preventing aid and support going into Gaza, and it’s going in for food and medical supplies,” said Cooper. “We don’t have access to F-35 jets or 500lb bombs that we’re funding.” Unity Trust bank says its aim is to be “the bank of choice for all socially minded organisations in the UK”, including charities and trades unions. But Mick Napier, from Scottish PSC’s finance committee, said it had acted disgracefully. He said Scottish PSC was told the reason for its account being frozen last month was that it had a button on its website to donate to Palestine Action before the group was banned on 5 July. But the button was removed when Palestine Action was proscribed and yet the account had not been restored, said Napier. “It’s shocking,” he said. “It’s absolutely disgraceful that a campaign like ours [has been treated like this]. We’ve been operating for 25 years. Palestine Action we supported until they were proscribed. It came out the blue [the freezing of the account], and we were very disappointed. We think it’s very bad practice. “We can’t get into our cash at all. We’ve had to use other means, very inconvenient means to pay bills and generally operate, it’s been extremely burdensome.” The Guardian asked both banks for the reasons for the accounts being frozen and if there had been any external influence. Both said they were unable to comment on individual customer accounts. A Virgin Money spokesperson added that there were “a variety of reasons why we may decide, or be required, to suspend or close an account in order to comply with applicable laws and regulations”. A Unity Trust bank spokesperson said it was “a politically neutral organisation. Our mission and values underpin our commitment to operating with integrity”. They added: “Unity has a diverse customer base that represents a broad range of communities.”

Clashes continue in Sweida after Syrian presidency’s ceasefire declaration

Bedouin fighters and their allies have continued to clash with Druze fighters in the Syrian province of Sweida, despite an order by the government to put down their arms in a conflict that has killed more than 900 people since Sunday. The Syrian presidency had earlier declared an “immediate and comprehensive” ceasefire and deployed its internal security forces in the southern province after almost a week of fighting in the predominantly Druze area. Armed tribes had clashed with Druze fighters on Friday, a day after the army withdrew under Israeli bombardment and diplomatic pressure. On Saturday, in his second televised address since the fighting started, the Syrian leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, blamed “armed groups from Sweida” for reigniting the conflict by “launching retaliatory attacks against the Bedouins and their families”. He also said Israeli intervention “pushed the country into a dangerous phase”. Late on Saturday, the interior ministry said clashes in Sweida city had been halted and the area cleared of Bedouin tribal fighters following the deployment. The presidency added in a statement that any breaches of the ceasefire would be a “clear violation to sovereignty”, and urged all parties to “fully commit” to it and end hostilities in all areas immediately. Syria’s internal security forces had begun deploying in Sweida “with the aim of protecting civilians and putting an end to the chaos”, the interior ministry spokesperson Noureddine al-Baba said in a statement on Telegram. A statement on Saturday by one of the three religious leaders of the Syrian Druze community, Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, said the ceasefire would guarantee safe exit for community members and the opening of humanitarian corridors for besieged civilians to leave. Correspondents with Agence France-Presse, however, reported clashes in the west of the provincial capital as Druze fighters battled armed Bedouin supported by tribal gunmen from other parts of Syria. The Druze fighters said those who had arrived to support the Bedouin were mostly Islamists. One armed tribesman, who identified himself only as Abu Jassem, told AFP that “we will slaughter them [the Druze] in their homes”. France’s foreign ministry urged all sides to respect the ceasefire. “France welcomes the announcement of a ceasefire in the Sweida region. It urges all parties to strictly adhere to it,” the ministry said. “Fighting and violence must cease immediately.” The US special envoy, Thomas Barrack, had announced early on Saturday morning that Israel and Syria had agreed to a ceasefire, after Israel sided with the Druze factions and joined the conflict, including by bombing a government building in Damascus. Barrack, who is the US ambassador to Ankara, said the deal had the backing of Turkey, a key supporter of Sharaa, as well as neighbouring Jordan. “We call upon Druze, Bedouins and Sunnis to put down their weapons and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity in peace and prosperity with its neighbours,” he wrote on X. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, later on Saturday called on the Syrian government’s security forces to prevent jihadists from entering and “carrying out massacres” in the conflict-stricken south. US-brokered negotiations sought to avert further Israeli military intervention. “The US has remained heavily involved over the last three days with Israel, Jordan and authorities in Damascus on the horrifying and dangerous developments in southern Syria,” Rubio said. He called for the Syrian government to “hold accountable and bring to justice anyone guilty of atrocities including those in their own ranks”. “Furthermore the fighting between Druze and Bedouin groups inside the perimeter must also stop immediately,” Rubio added. Sharaa followed up on the US announcement by renewing his pledge to protect Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities. “The Syrian state is committed to protecting all minorities and communities in the country … We condemn all crimes committed” in Sweida, he said in his televised speech. He also paid tribute to the “important role played by the United States, which again showed its support for Syria in these difficult circumstances and its concern for the country’s stability”. The EU welcomed the deal between Syria and Israel, saying it had been appalled by the deadly sectarian violence of recent days. But Israel expressed deep scepticism about Sharaa’s renewed pledge to protect minorities, pointing to deadly violence against Alawites as well as Druze since he led the overthrow of the country’s longtime leader Bashar al-Assad in December. In Sharaa’s Syria “it is very dangerous to be a member of a minority – Kurd, Druze, Alawite or Christian”, the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, posted on X. The UN had previously called for an end to the fighting and demanded an independent investigation of the violence, which has killed at least 940 people from both sides since Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The SOHR reported on Friday that the humanitarian situation in Sweida had “dramatically deteriorated” owing to an acute shortage of food and medical supplies. All hospitals were out of service because of the conflict and looting was widespread in the city. “The situation in the hospital is disastrous. The corpses have begun to rot, there’s a huge amount of bodies, among them women and children,” a surgeon at Sweida national hospital said over the phone. The renewed fighting raised questions about the authority of Sharaa, whose interim government faces misgivings from the country’s minorities after the killing of 1,500 mostly Alawite civilians on the Syrian coast in March. It was Sharaa who ordered government forces to pull out of Sweida, saying that mediation by the US and others had helped to avert a “large-scale escalation” with Israel. A number of sources told Reuters that Sharaa had initially misread how Israel would respond to him deploying troops to the country’s south earlier this week, having been encouraged by Barrack saying Syria should be centrally governed as one country. When Israel targeted Syrian troops and Damascus on Wednesday, bombarding the Syrian defence ministry headquarters in the centre of the capital and striking near the presidential palace, it took the Syrian government by surprise, the sources said. Druze people are seen as a loyal minority within Israel and often serve in its military. An Israeli military spokesperson said the strikes were a message to Syria’s president regarding the events in Sweida. But the Syrian government mistakenly believed it had a green light from the US and Israel to dispatch its forces south despite months of Israeli warnings not to do so, according to the Reuters sources, which included Syrian political and military officials, two diplomats and regional security sources. The violence erupted last Sunday after the kidnapping of a Druze vegetable merchant by local Bedouin triggered tit-for-tat abductions, the SOHR said. The government sent in the army, promising to put a halt to the fighting, but witnesses and the SOHR said the troops had sided with the Bedouin and committed many abuses against Druze civilians as well as fighters. The organisation reported that 19 civilians had been killed in an “horrific massacre” when Syrian defence ministry forces and general security forces entered the town of Sahwat al-Balatah. A truce was negotiated on Wednesday after the Israeli bombardment, allowing Druze factions and clerics to maintain security in Sweida as government forces pulled out. Sharaa said in a speech on Thursday that Druze groups would be left to govern security affairs in the southern province in what he described as a choice to avoid war. “We sought to avoid dragging the country into a new, broader war that could derail it from its path to recovery from the devastating war,” he said. “We chose the interests of Syrians over chaos and destruction.” But clashes resumed on Thursday as Syrian state media reported that Druze groups had launched revenge attacks on Bedouin villages. Bedouin tribes had fought alongside government forces against Druze fighters earlier in the week. On Friday, about 200 tribal fighters clashed with armed Druze men from Sweida using machine guns and shells, an AFP correspondent said, while the SOHR reported fighting and “shelling on neighbourhoods in Sweida city”. Sweida has been heavily damaged in the fighting and its mainly Druze inhabitants have been deprived of water and electricity. Communication lines have also been cut. Rayan Maarouf, the editor-in-chief of the local news outlet Suwayda 24, said the humanitarian situation was “catastrophic”. “We cannot find milk for children,” he told AFP. The UN high commissioner for human rights, Volker Türk, has demanded “independent, prompt and transparent investigations into all violations” adding that “those responsible must be held to account”. The International Committee for the Red Cross said “health facilities are overwhelmed, medical supplies are dwindling and power cuts are impeding the preservation of human remains in overflowing morgues”. “The humanitarian situation in Sweida is critical. People are running out of everything,” said Stephan Sakalian, the head of ICRC’s delegation in Syria. Syria’s minority groups have been given what many see as only token representation in the interim government since the former president fled the country, according to Bassam Alahmad, the executive director of Syrians for Truth and Justice, a civil society organisation. “It’s a transitional period. We should have a dialogue, and they [the minorities] should feel that they’re a real part of the state,” Alahmad said. Instead, the incursion into Sweida sent a message that the new authorities would use military force to “control every part of Syria”. “Bashar Assad tried this way” and failed, he said. Government supporters, however, fear its decision to withdraw could signal to other minorities that it is acceptable to demand their own autonomous regions, which they say would fragment and weaken the country. If Damascus ceded security control of Sweida to the Druze, “of course everyone else is going to demand the same thing”, said Abdel Hakim al-Masri, a former official in the Turkish-backed regional government in north-west Syria before Assad’s fall. “This is what we are afraid of,” he told the Associated Press.

Recognised Palestinian state could develop disputed gas resources, expert says

Recognition of Palestine as a state would put beyond doubt that the Palestinian Authority (PA) is entitled to develop the natural gas resources of the Gaza Marine field, according to one of the experts that worked on the stalled project. Michael Barron, the author of a new book on Palestine’s untapped gas reserves, has suggested the field could generate $4bn (£3bn) in revenue at current prices and it is reasonable that the PA could receive $100m a year over 15 years. He said the revenues “would not turn the Palestinians into the next Qataris or Singaporeans, but it would be their own revenue and not aid, on which the Palestinian economy remains dependent”. Plans to develop the field have a near 30-year history, during which time legal controversies over ownership have stalled exploration. A law firm representing Palestinian human rights groups sent a warning letter to the Italian state-owned firm ENI that it should not exploit the gas fields in an area known as Zone G, where six licences were awarded by Israel’s energy ministry. In their letter, the lawyers claim that roughly 62% of the zone lies in maritime areas claimed by Palestine and, as such, “Israel cannot have validly awarded you any exploration rights and you cannot validly have acquired any such rights”. Palestine declared its maritime borders, including its exclusive economic zone, when it acceded to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in 2015, and set out a detailed claim in 2019. Israel is not a signatory to UNCLOS. Barron said recognition of Palestine, particularly by states with large oil firms registered in their jurisdiction, would effectively end the legal ambiguity, and provide the PA with not only a new secure source of income, but regular supplies of energy independent of Israel. Since the legal letter, ENI has told pressure groups in Italy that “licences have not yet been issued and no exploratory activities are in progress”. Another group, Global Witness, claims the East Mediterranean Gas pipeline that runs parallel to the Gaza coastline is unlawful since it runs through Palestinian waters, and is not providing any revenue to the PA. The 56-mile (90km) pipeline transports gas from Ashkelon in Israel to Arish in Egypt, where it is then processed into liquefied natural gas for export, including to Europe. “The Oslo Accords agreed in 1993 clearly give the Palestinian National Authority jurisdiction over territorial waters, the subsoil, power to legislate over oil and gas exploration and to award licences to do so,” Barron said. “Control over natural resources was an important element of [the] state-building agenda of the Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Israeli exploitation of Palestinian resources was and remains a central part of the conflict.” Gas was discovered in the Gaza Marine field in 2000 in a joint venture owned by the BG Gas group, a giant privatised off-shoot of British Gas and the Palestinian Consolidated Contractors Company. The plan was for the gas to be used by the sole power station on the Gaza strip to end the territory’s perennial energy shortages. Barron argues in his book – The Gaza Marine Story - that the fate of the project is a microcosm of how Israel worked to increase Palestinian dependence on Israel while at the same time trying to separate Palestinians from Israelis. The project was dogged by issues of commercial viability and an Israeli court ruling that the waters were a “no-man’s water”, partly because the PA was not a sovereign entity with unambiguous powers to award licences. The court also did not resolve whether the rights to Palestinian territorial waters clearly provided for in the Oslo Accords included a Palestinian “exclusive economic zone”, a zone that normally extends 200 miles off the coast. The accords were only intended to be an interim arrangement before full statehood and so did not delineate the full maritime border. Territorial waters are normally defined as only 12 or 20 miles off the coast and Israel always argued that any licence for Gaza Marine 20 miles off the Gaza coast should be seen as a gift to the PA by Israel, and not a right. After Hamas took control the Gaza strip in 2007, Israel did not want the revenue to fall into its hands, so it blocked the development, prompting the BG group to put the project on hold and then eventually to quit. In June 2023 Israel approved plans for an Egyptian firm EGAS to develop the field, only for the war in Gaza to start. Gaza Marine is estimated to contain only 30 billion cubic metres (BCM) of natural gas, which is a small fraction of the more than 1,000 BCM contained in Israel’s own territorial waters. Barron argued that Israel has its own gas supplies and so long as a Palestinian state with unified governance is recognised, Israel will have no motive or legal right to block Palestine exploiting its single greatest natural resource. The whole controversy around private sector investment in Israel’s acknowledged occupation of Palestine moved centre stage with a report published last week by the UN special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese, warning corporations against sustaining what has been declared an unlawful occupation by the international court of justice (ICJ). She claims ICJ decisions place on corporate entities a prima facie responsibility “to not engage and/or to withdraw totally and unconditionally from any associated dealings with Israel, and to ensure that any engagement with Palestinians enables their self-determination”. Her claim has been rejected wholesale by Israel.

A steakhouse heir, Israeli spies and a cross-border abduction: the custody battle gripping Germany

For over half a century Block House has ranked as one of the most recognised restaurant chains on the German high street – a collection of family-friendly steakhouses whose staples include the “classic Block burger” and filet mignon. But for months the Hamburg-based chain has been making headlines for an altogether different reason: a bitter and extraordinary custody battle between the heiress to the family business, Christina Block, and her ex-husband over the youngest two of their four children. Among those accused of being involved are Israeli spies, as well as the former head of Germany’s domestic intelligence service. Now the row, which had until now largely played out in lawyers’ offices and – unusually for Germany, where there are strict privacy laws – in the country’s tabloid press, has reached a Hamburg court room. Amid a blaze of publicity, Block is standing trial in the northern port city’s regional court, accused of aggravated child abduction, grievous bodily harm, and unlawful detention. More precisely, and at the heart of the case, is the allegation that she contracted a global security firm to carry out the violent, cross-border kidnapping of her two youngest children. If convicted she faces up to 10 years behind bars. In the dock with her is the former TV sports journalist Gerhard Delling, one of Germany’s best-known football presenters and Block’s romantic partner since 2021. He is accused of aiding and abetting her in the alleged abduction operation. The case is being heard in a high-security court room usually reserved for terrorist trials, owing to the nature of those on trial, who include alleged former Israeli intelligence agents. According to the charges, Block is alleged to have contracted a group to ambush her ex-husband, Stephan Hensel, and their two youngest children, then 10 and 13, while they were watching a fireworks display as part of new year 2023-24 celebrations at Hensel’s home in southern Denmark, close to the German border. The men allegedly knocked Hensel down, before dragging his son and daughter into a forest, across a stream and into a car. The children had their mouths taped and one was tied up. They were allegedly threatened with death, with one man telling them: “Be quiet, otherwise we’ll kill you.” Danish police with sniffer dogs were quickly dispatched on the tail of the kidnappers, due to an alarm that had been attached to the boy by his father. The children were taken to a farmhouse in Baden-Württemberg, southern Germany and held in a mobile home until Block arrived to pick them up on 2 January 2024 and took them back to her Hamburg villa. They were subsequently handed over to police and taken back to Denmark days later. Both Block and Delling – who is accused of helping to organise the handover and the transport of the children to Hamburg – deny the charges. Among several alleged accomplices are August Hanning, a former head of Germany’s federal intelligence service, the BND, who according to prosecutors forged the initial contact between Block and the Israeli spy firm believed to have carried out the abduction. Hanning, who has spoken in public in defence of Block, denies any involvement in the abduction. Block has said the security firm acted of its own accord, and that her mother, who died about nine months before the abduction, paid for the operation which is thought to have cost hundreds of thousands of euros and to have been months in the planning. Block is also accused of contracting the same firm to plant bogus child sexual abuse images on Hensel’s property in an attempt to frame him as a child abuser. She also denies this charge. Block’s defence team is expected to argue on her behalf that she had become desperate after her children were wrongfully kept by their father in Denmark when he refused to return them as agreed after a pre-arranged visit in 2021. Her lawyers say she had been granted sole custody of them, but Hensel had disregarded the German ruling. German police had taken the children back to Denmark after their abduction, at the request of Danish police. Danish authorities have refused to accept the German custody order. German media have widely reported that the same authorities have said the children do not want to have any contact with their mother. Block’s lawyers have said that she was looking forward to her day in court to be able to defend herself against claims by her ex-husband that she is a danger to her children. Hensel has been granted custody of the two children by a Danish court, a decision that Block has tried but failed to get German courts to quash. They now live with their father in Denmark at a secret address. All are said to have changed their names. The high-profile court case is expected to continue until Christmas and to hear from 141 witnesses and 22 experts. During the two days it has sat so far, Block and Hensel sat just metres apart but neither looked at nor spoke to each other. Their daughter, now 14, has said she wants to speak in court. However, the case was adjourned earlier this week and is not due to resume until 25 July, after concerns were expressed over whether the children should be allowed to give evidence, in particular as their father faces separate legal proceedings for failing to abide by the German custody ruling and the evidence in both cases might clash. The founder and patriarch of the Block House business, Eugen Block, 83, who wishes diners “much joie de vivre and pleasure” in the menus at his eateries, has said he had not seen his grandchildren at the heart of the row for several years. The custody battle had caused him “much heartache”, he told the Hamburger Abendblatt.

Dozens reported dead and more than 100 wounded after Israeli attacks on Gaza aid centres – as it happened

This blog will be closing soon. Here is a summary of today’s developments: At least 32 people were killed by Israeli fire while they were on their way to an aid distribution site in Gaza at dawn on Saturday, according to the Gaza Health Ministry and Nasser hospital in Khan Younis. The Israeli military said it had fired warning shots at suspects who approached its troops after they did not heed calls to stop, about a kilometre away from an aid distribution site that was not active at the time. US president Donald Trump said on Friday that another 10 hostages will be released from Gaza shortly, without providing additional details. Trump made the comment during a dinner with lawmakers at the White House, lauding the efforts of his special envoy Steve Witkoff. Israeli and Hamas negotiators have been taking part in the latest round of ceasefire talks in Doha since 6 July, discussing a US-backed proposal for a 60-day ceasefire. The death toll from violence in Sweida province, heartland of Syria’s Druze minority, has risen to 940 since last weekend, a war monitor said, despite the announcement of a ceasefire, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead included 326 Druze fighters and 262 Druze civilians, 182 of whom were “summarily executed by defence and interior ministry personnel”. Syria’s Islamist-led government said its internal security forces began deploying in Sweida on Saturday as the presidency called on all parties to respect a ceasefire following bloodshed in the predominantly Druze area that has left hundreds dead. In a statement, the Syrian presidency announced an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire and urged all parties to commit to it and end hostilities in all areas immediately. Dr Omar Obeid, who heads the Sweida division at Syria’s Order of Physicians, said Sweida’s only government hospital has received “more than 400 bodies since Monday morning”, including women, children and elderly people. He said: “It’s not a hospital any more, it’s a mass grave,” Iraq has detained six local officials and suspended other public employees following a fire that killed 61 people at a shopping mall earlier this week, authorities said on Saturday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports. The blaze, which broke out late on Wednesday in a newly opened shopping mall in the eastern city of Kut, is the latest fatal disaster in a country where safety regulations are often ignored. The number of people killed when a coach overturned in southern Iran on Saturday has risen to 21, with 34 having been injured, state media reported. The accident, the cause of which remains unclear, occurred near Kavar, a town about 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) from the capital, Tehran.

First Nations leaders walk out of Mark Carney meeting on Building Canada Act

Several First Nations leaders have walked out of a meeting with Mark Carney, as an event the Canadian prime minister hoped would assuage their concerns over his Building Canada Act instead left many with growing concern that it would violate their rights. Carney has spent recent weeks promoting the act, which passed last month as part of Bill C-5 and which he says is a key part of his campaign promise to ensure Canada’s economy is less dependent on the US under Donald Trump, who has repeatedly threatened huge tariffs. The legislation sets out a framework for major building projects, such as pipelines and mines to exploit natural resources and infrastructure including ports, railways and electricity grids. Under the act, certain projects designated as “nation-building” could be fast-tracked and override environmental and other planning regulations. To qualify, it says the projects should strengthen Canada’s autonomy and security, provide economic “or other” benefits and support the interests of Indigenous peoples, while meeting Canada’s objectives to tackle the climate crisis. The government has not yet said which projects will be fast-tracked, but the minister responsible for Indigenous relations, Rebecca Alty, said it would consult provinces, territories and Indigenous peoples to agree those suitable. Earlier this week, however, nine First Nations communities in Ontario launched a constitutional challenge against the federal government over Bill C-5, and against the province over similar legislation recently passed there. They allege that unchecked, fast-tracked development which is not subjected to laws and regulations, and which excludes consultation with First Nations on whose land some of the proposed projects will be built, violates the Canadian constitution, which mandates that Indigenous groups be consulted on any decisions that could affect their treaty rights. At the meeting on Thursday, held at the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Quebec, Carney promised to hundreds of assembled First Nations delegates that new infrastructure would enrich generations of Indigenous peoples, and that First Nations communities affected by any development would be thoroughly consulted. Some leaders expressed cautious optimism at his remarks, but several others told reporters they were frustrated they did not get time to speak to the prime minister or members of his cabinet ministers, and that they felt they were not being listened to. A delegation of First Nations youth also staged a protest, holding signs with slogans including: “We won’t be silenced.” Several First Nations leaders walked out of the meeting after a few hours, saying it was a crude attempt at public relations designed to mitigate the damage the Liberal government had already done in pushing the law through parliament quickly without first consulting Indigenous groups properly. “I don’t even know what this is, but this is not engagement. This is definitely not consultation. I’m speechless,” the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake grand chief Cody Diabo, who was among the leaders who left, told the Canadian Press. Gwii Lok’im Gibuu (Jesse Stoeppler), deputy chief of Hagwilget Village Council in northern British Columbia, told the CBC: “I didn’t have much faith in the process to begin with, and I’m leaving very concerned.” Carney told leaders at the meeting that he was optimistic about finding consensus, but the negative reception could increase pressure on him to urgently repair marred relations with First Nations communities, said Bruce McIvor, an adjunct professor at the University of British Columbia who specialises in Indigenous law. Otherwise the government could face more legal challenges or wider protests, he said. “I’m not optimistic based on what this federal government has done to date. It’s more rhetoric and damage control than meaningful engagement with Indigenous people,” said McIvor, who is also a member of the Manitoba Métis Federation. First Nations communities have argued that consultation cannot be meaningful under legislation that is specifically intended to bypass legal obligations in order to build as fast as possible. McIvor noted, however, that the duty to consult Indigenous peoples has been made clear by Canada’s supreme court. “Unfortunately, now, in a rush, the federal government has decided we will abandon those principles,” he said. “What’s required under Canadian law is for the government to engage early on, take as much time as it needs and, importantly, do not simply make a decision and then say ‘trust us’.” Carney has said he will conduct more regional dialogues with First Nations communities this summer. Chief John Powell of the Mamalilikulla First Nation in British Columbia said he had spoken to the prime minster for a few minutes at the meeting, and that he had appeared sincere. He said it was hard, however, to believe the government would keep its promises when First Nations peoples were not consulted before the law was passed. “The fear is they’re going to push through projects,” he said. “After all, we’ve experienced over 150 years of the government being the people who benefit from all of the extraction of what they call our ‘resources’ and what we call our ‘responsibility’.”