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US indicts former Cuban president Raúl Castro as it seeks to oust regime

The United States issued a federal criminal indictment against Raúl Castro, Cuba’s former president, and five others on Wednesday in a significant escalation of the Trump administration’s campaign to oust the country’s six-decades-old communist regime. The 94-year-old political figurehead was charged in Miami, Florida, with conspiracy to kill US nationals, four counts of murder and two counts of destruction of aircraft. Other defendants are a fighter pilot who was initially charged in connection with a 1996 incident in which four men were killed by the Cuban military when their aircraft were shot down during a humanitarian mission in the Florida Straits. Castro, Cuba’s defense minister at the time, is alleged to have given the order to open fire. The indictment, in US district court for the southern district of Florida, comes at a time of heightened tension between the US and Cuba. Donald Trump has threatened military action against the Cuban government, and an energy crisis created by a tight US oil embargo has caused rolling blackouts and prompted protests in the capital. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday afternoon after the indictment was handed down, Trump said there “won’t be an escalation” with Cuba. “I don’t think there needs to be,” he said. “Look, the place is falling apart. They’ve really lost control of Cuba.” When asked if there would be an arrest similar to that of ousted Venezuelan president Nicholás Maduro earlier this year, he said: “I don’t want to say that.” Miami’s Freedom Tower, where more than half a million Cuban refugees were processed as immigrants between 1962 and 1974 after fleeing Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, provided a symbolic backdrop for the indictment announcement, made on Cuban national day. Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said: “For the first time in nearly 70 years, senior leadership of the Cuban regime has been charged in this country for acts of violence resulting in the deaths of American citizens. “Nations, and their leaders, cannot be permitted to target Americans, kill them, and not face accountability.” Miguel Díaz-Canel, the Cuban president, condemned the indictment as a political stunt that sought only to “justify the folly of a military aggression against Cuba”. In a message on social media, he accused the US of lying and manipulating events surrounding the shooting down, including ignoring repeated warnings by Cuban officials at the time that they would defend against “dangerous violations” of their airspace “by notorious terrorists”. Raúl Castro allegedly authorized the 24 February 1996 shooting down of two small planes belonging to the Miami-based Brothers to the Rescue volunteer group of exiles, which would scour the 90 miles of water between Cuba and the Florida Keys for refugees. Four men, Armando Alejandre Jr, Carlos Costa, Mario de la Peña and Pablo Morales, died after their Cessnas were hit by missiles fired from MiG fighter jets from the Cuban air force. A third plane, piloted by the group’s founder, José Basulto, escaped and landed safely in Florida. Raúl Castro stepped down as president in 2018, and resigned as secretary of Cuba’s communist party three years later, but remains one of the most powerful figures in Cuban politics. Fidel Castro died in 2016 at the age of 90. It is uncertain whether he will ever face a US court to answer the charges. “We expect that he will show up here by his own will, or by another way,” Blanche said, an apparent allusion to the capture and extradition of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro by US military forces in January. “We expect and believe Mr Castro is entitled to his day in court right here in Miami.” Also on Wednesday, Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, posted a message to the Cuban people on X. In Spanish, he said: “The reason you are forced to survive without electricity is not due to an oil blockade by America. “No electricity, fuel or food is because the people who control it have plundered billions of dollars, but nothing has been used to help the people.” Carlos Cossio, Cuba’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, responded in his own post on X. “The reason why the US secretary of state lies so repeatedly and unscrupulously when referring to Cuba and trying to justify the aggression imposed on the Cuban people is not ignorance or incompetence,” he wrote. “He knows well that there is no excuse for such a cruel and ruthless aggression.” Earlier, in Washington DC, a group of Cuban American Congress members hosted a press conference to welcome the indictment, which Blanche said was returned by a Miami grand jury on 23 April. “Today is a glorious day for those Cubans who had to leave their homeland unwillingly, the people that we represent in the city of Miami, only because of the cruelty of the wickedness of a group of gangsters, the Castro family, who did nothing but seize the island to turn it into their own business,” said Maria Elvira Salazar, who represents south Florida. The Republican Florida congressman Carlos Giménez told reporters that the Brothers to the Rescue volunteers were trying to save lives when they were attacked. “They were just looking for these rafters in the middle of the Florida Strait so that they wouldn’t die, and then they report the position to the Coast Guard, that’s all they were doing,” he said. “They weren’t carrying drugs, they weren’t doing anything illicit, and they were international waters, and they were American citizens. “For far too long this incident has gone without any repercussions for any of the people, or at least the person most responsible for this act, which was Raúl Castro. “Why it’s taken 30 years, I don’t know why, but the number one job of any government is to protect its citizens. Finally, this administration, the Trump administration, has taken notice of that and said, ‘Yes, we will protect American citizens.’ And yes, maybe justice comes a little late in this case, but justice will be served.” Salazar said she hoped Cubans on the island would continue to react to the US pressure, and Castro’s indictment, by protesting against their government. “The message is for the Castro family: understand this well, that your days are over,” she said. “A federal indictment is serious stuff. Maduro thought Trump was fooling … and look where Maduro is today, in a federal prison in New York. “So we are sending the message to the Castro family, it’s time for you to leave. It’s time for you to heed the signal from the White House, do not fall into the abyss. “You have the option not to wind up where Maduro is. You can leave now and let the island in the hands of the opposition forces, in the hands of freedom, so that destiny can bring Cuba to a different place.” Associated Press contributed reporting

Bolivia rocked by protests as US warns of ‘coup d’état’

Protests blocking roads across Bolivia and turning the centre of the capital, La Paz, into a battleground between demonstrators and police have entered a second week. It is the most turbulent moment of the centre-right president Rodrigo Paz Pereira’s mere six months in office since he ended nearly two decades of rule by the leftwing Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas). In response to the protests, the president said later on Wednesday that he would carry out a cabinet reshuffle and would not “dialogue with vandals” involved in acts of violence, but would set up a council to allow Indigenous groups, farmers, miners and other workers who have been on the streets “to be part of the decision-making process”. After taking office in November, one of the former senator’s first moves was to restore relations with the US, which now describes the uprisings as “an ongoing coup d’état” against Paz Pereira. Alongside the domestic unrest, Bolivia’s president has triggered a diplomatic crisis after ordering the immediate expulsion of Colombia’s ambassador in La Paz on Wednesday, in retaliation for remarks by Colombia’s leftwing president, Gustavo Petro. On Sunday, Petro reposted a video claiming that Paz Pereira was a “puppet of the US” and commented that Bolivia was experiencing a “popular insurrection” that was “the response to geopolitical arrogance”. Announcing ambassador Elizabeth García’s expulsion on Wednesday, Bolivia’s foreign ministry said the decision was intended to “preserve the principles of sovereignty and non-interference in internal affairs”. Moments later, Petro told a Colombian radio station that Bolivia was “sliding into extremism”. The protests have so far caused four deaths – one demonstrator reportedly killed in clashes and three others reportedly because roadblocks prevented them from receiving proper medical treatment – as well as dozens of injuries and more than 40 road blockades across the country on Wednesday. On Tuesday, the US deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, claimed that the protests were “an ongoing coup d’état”. Speaking in Washington, Landau said: “Let us not make any mistake about that; it is a coup financed by this perverse alliance between politics and organised crime across the region.” On Wednesday, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, echoed the remarks of his deputy, posting: “Let there be no mistake: the United States stands squarely in support of Bolivia’s legitimate constitutional government. We will not allow criminals and drug traffickers to overthrow democratically elected leaders in our hemisphere.” Bolivia is going through its worst economic crisis in four decades, with shortages of dollars and fuel and rising inflation dating back at least to the final years of the previous president Luis Arce’s term under Mas. At a press conference on Wednesday at the presidential palace, Paz Pereira said: “We need to reorganise a cabinet that must have the capacity to listen.” Although he has not yet provided details of the changes he plans to make, the president said it would become a “more agile cabinet, closer [to the population]”. He also announced the creation of an “economic and social council” to form a “joint government” and coordinate decision-making, to which “everyone who wants to participate” would be invited – except “vandals”: “Is vandalism valid? No, and I will not dialogue with vandals.” Paz Pereira, the son of former president Jaime Paz Zamora, who governed from 1989 to 1993, took office promising an “economic shock therapy”, but conditions have not improved and some of his measures have proved deeply unpopular. One of his first decisions was to end a two-decade-long fuel subsidy, promising that a free market would bring higher-quality fuel into the country. Instead, shortages continued and, shortly afterwards, the “dirty fuel” crisis erupted, after part of the supply was found to have been adulterated. The president said he had been the victim of an alleged “sabotage” by former officials supposedly linked to Mas. The historic leader of Mas, the former president Evo Morales, also remains an uncomfortable shadow over the current administration. The country’s first Indigenous president has been entrenched since late 2024 in the coca-growing region of Chapare, where hundreds of farmers prevent police or the military from enforcing an arrest warrant against him for allegedly fathering a child with a 15-year-old girl in 2006. Morales is currently being tried in another province on human-trafficking charges, linked to alleged political favours granted to the girl’s parents. He failed to appear in court and the judge issued a new arrest warrant. The presidential spokesperson, José Luis Gálvez, said Morales was fuelling the unrest in order to “evade the trial”. Morales denies this and said the uprisings were “against the implementation of the neoliberal model”, adding that “it is just and necessary for the thousands of victims of ‘dirty fuel’ to begin a civil action”.

Canada faces calls for investigation into death of woman after plasma donation

Patient advocates in Canada have called for a new investigation into the death of a young woman who was donating blood plasma, describing a “perfect storm” of lax safety protocols and poorly trained staff and warning of “systemic issues” at plasma donation sites across the country. Rodiyat Alabede, an international student at the University of Winnipeg, died of cardiac arrest shortly after a plasma donation in October 2025 at a facility operated by the Spanish healthcare company Grifols. An initial investigation by Health Canada found no links between the plasma donation and her death. But on Wednesday, campaigners alleged that “significant medical discrepancies” had been uncovered between her autopsy, completed within two days of her death, and the medical summary drafted by Health Canada, dated 27 March. They accused the federal body of “covering up” details of her death. Kat Lanteigne, a safe blood campaigner who represents Alabede’s family, said that Alabede’s autopsy revealed she had a cardiomegaly, or enlarged heart. That condition would have put a “major strain” on her body while she was donating. “We don’t know whether they screened her properly. We don’t know whether they responded to her donation process properly,” said Lanteigne, citing “damning” inspection reports by Health Canada immediately following Alabede’s death. “They had staff taking plasma from donors who did not know how to extract plasma in a safe manner. They did not know how to respond to the codes in the machine, which would instruct them to stop the process. The [failures] were so egregious that … now we have more questions than answers.” The inspection reports, viewed by the Guardian, found numerous deficiencies, including poor training for staff, failures in standard operating procedures, poor record keeping and a failure by Grifols to remedy past issues. In some cases, staff were allowed up to four retakes of a failed quiz, testing their knowledge of operating procedures and safe use of machines, before corrective action was taken. The questions were not changed with each test. The Health Canada reports also flagged issues with staff competency operating the machines, including how to respond to alarms. “When Rodiyat was donating, we believe that alarms were going off instructing the staff members to stop her donation, and that was possibly not adhered to,” said Lanteigne. Whether or not Alabede knew of her condition, “Health Canada and Grifols had a duty of care to ensure that all aspects of her plasma donation had been investigated”. The Health Canada report also found that staff did not stop plasma collection when alarms went off, and described the company’s reporting “incomplete” and “inaccurate”. Grifols did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Lanteigne’s comments. But earlier this week, in response to Globe and Mail reporting about the November inspection report, Grifols said it had submitted detailed action plans to Health Canada for immediate implementation. The company also said it would work closely with the regulator to meet its licence requirements. Lanteigne said she and others had written to Mark Carney, Canada’s prime minister, to ensure an investigation is reopened into Alabede’s death, and that Grifols’s license is suspended in the interim. Plasma, the pale yellow liquid part of blood, is used to create medications for a number of conditions, including haemophilia, and to help treat burn victims. Deaths from plasma donation are exceedingly rare. Only three fatalities have been documented in Canada in the last decade, all of which happened in Manitoba. The Guardian first reported the extent to which Grifols had failed inspection reports at other sites including “validation, calibration, cleaning, or maintenance of critical equipment [that] were not always sufficient” and records that “were not always accurate, complete, legible, indelible and/or readily retrievable”. Of the eight documented instances of non-compliance for blood inspections, which date back to 2016, facilities operated by Grifols made up half of all cases. In the case of the Winnipeg site where Alabede died, inspectors found issues dating back to 2022. Alabede, who moved to Canada from Nigeria to pursue her goals of becoming a social worker, was remembered by friends as “deeply devoted to her dream and always carried herself with grace, warmth, and sincerity”. Three months after Alabede’s death, another person died while donating plasma at a different location in Winnipeg. Health Canada said there were immediate visits to the plasma collection centres after each reported fatality and records indicated standard operating procedures were being followed. But in a chain of internal emails among health officials from February, seen by the Guardian, Health Canada’s director general of compliance enforcement expresses concern after the second death at a plasma donation site. Grifols said in a statement at the time that it had “no reason to believe that there is a correlation between the donors’ passing and plasma donation”. In its March medical summary, Health Canada said there was “no linkage” between plasma donation and Abede’s death. But Lanteigne said there were “profound” discrepancies between the medical examiner’s report and the report that Health Canada has distributed to legislators, including dramatically different volumes of plasma collected. The Guardian was provided a copy of the autopsy, with a representative of the family’s permission, to confirm the discrepancies. Questions over the structure of how Canadians give blood and plasma are set against the backdrop of a national scandal in which thousands of Canadians were infected with HIV/Aids and hepatitis C through contaminated blood products in the 1980s and early 90s. Lanteigne said she was disheartened that no officials ever reached out to the family. “Nobody has helped this family to find answers as to what happened to [their] daughter,” said Lanteigne “Rodiyat donated that day to save the life of another person. She did not go to Grifols to die.”

UK struggles to reassure Ukraine after easing new sanctions on Russian oil

The UK was last night desperately trying to reassure Kyiv its new sanctions policy on Russia did not weaken restrictions, after Ukrainian officials warned the change could help Moscow fund its war efforts. While Downing Street insisted the decision to allow the temporary import of Russian oil and jet fuel was only one element of a tougher overall sanctions package, a British minister conceded that the matter had been handled “clumsily”. Speaking on Wednesday evening, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president, said there had been discussions with the UK about the sanctions package and Ukraine had “conveyed our views”. Yvette Cooper, the foreign secretary, is understood to have spoken to her Ukrainian counterpart, Andrii Sybiha, with UK diplomats in Ukraine also seeking to reassure officials in Kyiv. Zelenskyy said: “Of course, our team has been in contact with the UK today. The issue of sanctions is always a very sensitive one, and there has been much discussion in the media and among politicians. We have conveyed our views on this matter to London.” Saying that long-term sanctions were “what most effectively influence Russia”, he added that the expectation was that the matter would be discussed further with the UK this week. The row began after the announcement of expanded UK sanctions against Russia that came into force on Tuesday. Initially announced in October, the sanctions banned Russian oil products processed in a third country. There were, however, some short-term exceptions added to the initial plan because the Iran war has pushed up fuel costs. Jet fuel and diesel refined from Russian crude will be allowed in on a temporary basis, as well as fossil gas shipments from two Russian terminals. The licences will last for three months before they are reviewed. Keir Starmer’s spokesperson told reporters that such measures were “standard practice to ensure market stability, used by both this government and previous administrations”. But the decision prompted a furious reaction from the Conservatives. Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, used prime minister’s questions in the Commons to accuse Starmer of having “snuck out an announcement that it was removing sanctions on Russian oil”. The government, she said, was “choosing to buy dirty Russian oil, that money will be used to fund the killing of Ukrainian soldiers”. Starmer accused Badenoch of misrepresenting the sanctions package for political advantage, saying the phasing-in of some sanctions was also done by other countries. He said: “What we announced yesterday was a strong new package of new sanctions going well beyond existing sanctions, so it is a new package. This includes new bans on maritime services on LNG [liquefied natural gas] and new bans on refined oil products from Russia. We also issued two targeted short-term licences to phase the new sanctions in and to protect UK consumers. That is standard practice.” However, Ukrainian officials expressed disappointment at the decision. One former senior government figure described western sanctions policy against Russia as “too little too late”. They added: “I’m not sure I understand the logic behind this British decision. The only way Ukraine can stop the war is to put physical sanctions on Russia and destroy its infrastructure.” The source said Vladimir Putin would decide over the summer whether to launch another winter campaign against Ukraine, or wind down his invasion. Two factors would influence his decision: the situation on the battlefield and the attitude of Ukraine’s allies. Kyiv has intensified strikes against Russia’s oil infrastructure, hitting ports on the Baltic and Black Seas, as well as refineries in the Urals, more than 900 miles (1,500km) from the frontline. These strikes were “effective” and would “tangibly compel” Russia to “reduce its aggression”, Zelenskyy said on Wednesday. Writing on Facebook, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, a Ukrainian government sanctions commissioner, called Downing Street’s decision “to some extent predictable”. He wrote: “What can one say? They’re treating the symptoms instead of addressing the causes. Russia will channel all the extra money it makes into the war against us.” Speaking after Starmer in the Commons, Chris Bryant, a trade minister, repeated the UK argument that sanctions were being strengthened. “We’ve handled this clumsily and that’s entirely my fault and I apologise to all honourable members,” he said, replying to an urgent question from the Conservatives. “We’ve ended up giving the wrong impression of what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to strengthen the regime, not weaken it.” Bryant blamed poor communication between his own Department for Business and Trade and the Foreign Office, adding that this was “entirely my fault and nobody else’s, so if anybody wants to have a go at anybody, they can just have a go at me”. Speaking on Wednesday morning, Emily Thornberry, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee, criticised the plan. She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are talking about our allies in Ukraine who have been fighting a war bravely against Russia for years and years with our support. “They have looked to Britain as one of their most important allies, and they don’t understand, given that we promised that we would stop this loophole in October, and we still haven’t done it. In fact, it seems to have got worse. People feel very let down.” On Wednesday night, No 10 said Starmer and Zelenskyy had spoken with each other and the PM had “reaffirmed the UK’s steadfast support for Ukraine and set out our ongoing commitment to do everything possible to debilitate and degrade Putin’s war machine”. A spokesperson added: “He outlined how the UK was ramping up measures to crack down on Russia’s economy including through the new package of sanctions announced yesterday, and that as a result of the UK’s actions to date, there will be less Russian oil on the market, with Russia weaker as a result.”

Outrage grows over treatment of Gaza flotilla activists; US boards Iranian oil tanker – Middle East crisis as it happened

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, sparked a diplomatic crisis on Wednesday after publishing footage of Israeli security forces abusing international activists who were detained as they tried to sail to Gaza with aid. There was a rapid and furious response from countries whose citizens were on board the boats, including the UK, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland, in many cases delivered in person from the top of government. Several nations have summoned their Israeli diplomats over the appalling incident. Benjamin Netanyahu moved to quell the furore, criticising Ben-Gvir’s actions as “not in line with Israel’s values and norms” and saying he had instructed the activists to be deported from Israel as soon as possible. And even the US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, one of the country’s staunchest allies, described Ben-Gvir’s behaviour as “despicable” and said the minister “betrayed the dignity of his nation”. Here’s my colleague Emma Graham-Harrison’s report: Meanwhile on Iran, as a peace deal remains elusive and Donald Trump weighs resuming military action, he said the only question now is whether the United States goes back to finish the job or if Tehran will sign a document. The US president told cadets in his US Coast Guard Academy commencement address: “We will not let Iran have a nuclear weapon. It’s very simple. We will not let that happen. We’ll see what happens. We hit them very hard. We may have to hit them even harder – but maybe not.” Trump had earlier told reporters he was in no rush to end the war and that achieving the mission’s objectives was more important than setting a timeline for its conclusion. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament, meanwhile, accused the US of “seeking a new round of war” as he vowed Tehran “will not bow down to force”. In a statement on his Telegram channel, Ghalibaf said: “The enemy has imposed a difficult war on our beloved Iran, and today, more than ever, it is clear that we are in a war of wills, and whoever wins this war of wills will write Iran’s history and determine Iran’s future.” US Marines boarded Iranian-flagged commercial oil tanker M/T Celestial Sea in the Gulf of Oman after suspecting it had violated a US blockade, US Central Command said in a statement. US forces released the ship, which was headed toward an Iranian port, after searching it and directing its crew to alter course, the statement said. There has been no immediate comment from Iran.

Israeli security minister stirs diplomatic outrage with flotilla activist abuse video

Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, has sparked a diplomatic crisis by publishing footage of Israeli security forces abusing international activists who were detained as they tried to sail to Gaza with aid. Three activists were hospitalised as result of Israeli violence, lawyers representing the group said. They were subsequently discharged. Dozens of others have suspected broken ribs, resulting in breathing problems. “The team reports systemic violations of due process, and widespread physical and psychological abuse by Israeli authorities,” rights group Adalah said in a statement. There were “a large number of complaints of extreme violence”. Ben Gvir’s video drew a rapid and furious response from countries whose citizens were onboard the boats, including the UK, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and Ireland, in many cases delivered in person from the top of government. The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, one of the country’s staunchest allies, described Ben-Gvir’s behaviour as “despicable” and said the minister had “betrayed the dignity of his nation”. The video includes images of dozens of men and women kneeling in rows, with their foreheads to the ground and their hands zip-tied behind their back. Ben-Gvir posted it on his social media account with the caption “Welcome to Israel” in English. He appears waving an Israeli flag, mocking and taunting the detainees, including shouting: “The people of Israel live” in the face of one bound man. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, said the images were “unacceptable”, and demanded the release of all Italian citizens involved, along with an apology for the mistreatment and the display of “total contempt” toward the Italian government. “It is inadmissible that these demonstrators, including many Italian citizens, are subjected to this treatment that violates human dignity,” Meloni said in a long statement posted on social media. The Spanish foreign minister called the treatment “monstrous, disgraceful and inhumane”. His British counterpart, Yvette Cooper, said she was “truly appalled” by the video, which “violates the most basic standards of respect and dignity in the way people should be treated”, and added that she was in touch with the families of British citizens held by Israel. New Zealand’s foreign affairs minister Winston Peters condemned Ben-Gvir’s behaviour, and instructed the ministry to call in the Israeli ambassador so his “grave concerns” could be directly passed on. Peters said New Zealand had placed a travel ban on Ben-Gvir in 2025 for “severely and deliberately undermining peace and security, and removing prospects for a two state solution”. “His latest conduct with respect to the Gaza flotilla, which has been seriously criticised by his own prime minister, is further vindication of that position,” Peters said. Israel detained three New Zealanders – Mousa Taher, Hāhona Ormsby and Julien Blondel – after their boats were intercepted while taking part in a flotilla to Gaza, the Global Sumud Flotilla said. Peters said he expected Israel to adhere to its international legal obligations, including in its treatment of the New Zealanders participating in the flotilla. More than 400 activists from 40 countries, travelling on 50 vessels, took part in the flotilla, organisers said. It set off from Turkey carrying food and other aid, in the latest high-profile attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. Seven months after a ceasefire came into force in Gaza, hunger is widespread, most Palestinians live in tents or overcrowded shelters without adequate sanitation or access to clean water, and Israeli attacks are still a near-daily occurrence. Israeli forces intercepted the flotilla in international waters on Tuesday and brought everyone onboard to Israel. Earlier on Wednesday, the South Korean president, Lee Jae Myung, also denounced Israel’s actions, describing them as “way out of line”, and questioned the legal basis for the arrests outside Israeli territorial waters. Adalah attorneys and volunteer lawyers working with them met hundreds of the activists at Ashdod port, but “severe access restrictions” meant they were not able to see everyone who had been detained. Detained flotilla members told lawyers they faced violence when their boats were intercepted, on Israeli military boats and during transfer to the port, Adalah said. This included the use of rubber bullets and tasers. Israeli authorities forced the activists into stress positions, forced them to sit on their knees for prolonged periods and forced them to bend double and when being moved around the port. In addition to physical abuse detainees “were subjected to severe degradation and sexual harassment and humiliation”, Adalah said. Several women reported that their hijabs were ripped off. The Israeli military referred requests for comment about the violence detailed by Adalah to the Israeli prison service and the foreign ministry, who did not immediately respond when contacted late Wednesday evening. The global outrage at the activists’ treatment prompted the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to condemn Ben-Gvir within hours of the video being published online. “The way that minister Ben-Gvir dealt with the flotilla activists is not in line with Israel’s values and norms,” he said, adding that he had ordered the deportation of the group “as soon as possible”. The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, launched a more scathing personal attack on the national security minister. “You knowingly caused harm to our state in this disgraceful display – and not for the first time,” he said in a statement on X. “You are not the face of Israel.” Ben Gvir appeared to relish the censure. “Israel has stopped being a pushover,” he replied to Saar. Rights groups documented widespread, systemic torture and abuse of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and detention centres during Israel’s war in Gaza, sparked by the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023. Sari Bashi, director of the rights group Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, said Ben-Gvir’s video, publicly celebrating the mistreatment of citizens of some of Israel’s closest allies, reflected a broader culture of impunity. “To me it’s just an indication of how badly the rights and welfare of detainees have suffered under [Ben Gvir’s] leadership,” Bashi said. “A prison guard who sees his boss’s boss express pride in the mistreatment of foreign detainees will have no qualms about abusing Palestinian detainees and he won’t even have to be afraid to get caught. “Ben-Gvir is saying that this behaviour is welcomed and encouraged at the highest level.” The legal rights group Adalah, which represents some of those detained, said it had “documented similar patterns of ill-treatment against activists in previous flotilla missions, for which Israel faced zero accountability”, and called for the international community to take urgent action to protect activists held by Israel. The video was released the day after another far-right member of the Israeli cabinet – the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich – announced that he had ordered the ethnic cleansing of a Palestinian village in response to reports that the international criminal court (ICC) was seeking a warrant for his arrest. Smotrich called a press conference to attack the ICC and publish an order for the eviction of all residents of Khan al-Ahmar, home to more than 700 people. It lies in the heart of the occupied West Bank, about 6 miles (10km) east of the Old City of Jerusalem, ringed by Israeli settlements. The ICC’s top prosecutor has requested arrest warrants for Smotrich, Ben-Gvir, Orit Strook, the minister of settlements and national missions, and two Israeli military officials, Haaretz newspaper reported this week.

Trump may see himself in Ahmadinejad but having him lead Iran was a perplexing idea

For all their outward differences, there always seemed to be things that linked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Donald Trump. A visit to the then Iranian president’s rather humble Tehran neighbourhood nearly 20 years ago highlighted cost of living problems that prefigured those facing Trump now. Amid soaring prices, the grocer at the end of Ahmadinejad’s street in the Narmak district was no longer stocking tomatoes, saying customers could not afford them and voicing a wish to close down. Shoppers at a nearby fruit and vegetable market complained at the cost of potatoes, onions and fish. It seemed to represent a failure on the kitchen table issues that the populist leader had pledged to tackle. Trump critics will surely hear an echo. Two decades later, that reporting trip has uncanny resonance amid reports that Israeli strikes on a security post were designed to free Ahmadinejad from house arrest and lead to his installation as Iran’s new leader. The New York Times, citing official sources, reported that the US and Israel had identified the anti-western and anti-Zionist former president as the person they wanted to lead Iran after the regime’s presumed collapse in their face of their military onslaught. The plan went awry almost immediately. The strikes, on the first day of the war on 28 February, killed the guards and injured Ahmadinejad, who was initially reported by Iranian media to have died. The former president, it is said, went to ground afterwards, having become “disillusioned” with the US-Israeli scheme. His whereabouts is not known. There are several other mysteries as to how such a divisive figure became the poster boy for regime change in what has long been the west’s leading adversary in the Middle East. On one level, a mutual attraction between Trump and Ahmadinejad is not so far-fetched. The pair share a populist, headline-grabbing communication style; similarities in their autocratic governing style have also been noted. Cynics may add that the two have a common taste for overturning democratic election results. Compare Ahmadinejad’s hugely controversial 2009 election win – widely assumed to have been stolen – with Trump’s efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in 2020. But the real headspinner is Israel’s apparent choice of Ahmadinejad as a man it could do business with. Styling himself as an Islamist populist, the former provincial mayor was arguably the key figure who set Iran and Israel on a long path to war after he was elected in 2005. Within weeks of taking office, he set the tone at a “World Without Zionism” conference in Tehran with remarks that were roughly translated as calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map”. Ahmadinejad revelled in the backlash and his baiting of Israel became relentless. His government organised exhibitions and conferences satirising and challenging the veracity of the Holocaust. Amid it all, Ahmadinejad loudly championed the resumption of Iran’s nuclear programme, which had been stalled to allow negotiations and to build trust with the west. It was a recipe for fear, hostility and mounting tensions – a toxic mix that has led to open warfare. And the man chosen to clear the air is the same one who did so much to pollute the atmosphere in the first place. How did it happen? Washington policy insiders point to “a transformation” Ahmadinejad underwent after leaving office in 2013. He became increasingly disenchanted with the Iranian regime and fell out with the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, his one-time mentor who was killed on the opening day of the war. In a measure of his alienation from the regime, he was rejected three times by a candidate vetting body when he tried to regain the presidency in 2017, 2021 and 2024. A former White House adviser on Iran said: “He is a true populist and even when he was president, he would be focused much more on the nationalistic sides of Iran, the history and the Persian heritage stuff that the Islamic republic had mostly been dismissing. He was pretty public about his dissatisfaction with the trajectory of the Islamic republic and developed this really brilliant social media campaign.” Regime-imposed restrictions on Ahmadinejad’s movements – which were not widely known about – may have been triggered by contacts with Israel, which some speculate could have occurred when he travelled to Hungary in 2024 and 2025 to speak at a university associated with the far-right government of Viktor Orbán. “My understanding is that he showed some level of recognition that his antics [on Israel] were not helpful, and that he was willing to do things differently,” the former US official said. It is not clear how Ahmadinejad would have taken over after the regime’s expected collapse – and whether he would have been accepted by a public that protested against him after the disputed 2009 election. Alex Vatanka, head of the Iran programme at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, said: “If this was a genuine effort to go regime change, in many ways it is not a bad idea. Ahmadinejad certainly did start speaking as a very different man than he was first in 2005 when he became associated with his Holocaust denial rhetoric. [But] I do question whether he had the level of popularity to pull it off.” More intriguing, said Vatanka, was why Ahmadinejad’s role as an agent of change was emerging now when hopes of toppling the regime appeared all but lost. He added: “My first question is who leaked it and why? Are they trying to make the regime panic about the level of infiltration. Is this going to create a sense of anxiety and paranoia inside the regime in transition? “This is a regime that has been badly infiltrated across the board for years. It was focused in the past on nuclear and military officials. Now a relative political heavyweight has been implicated. If you can tap into Ahmadinejad, who else can you tap into?”