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France 24
24-06-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Israel: Arab-Israelis face unequal access to bomb shelters
00:58 Jaffa resident Nasser Kteilat, an Arab-Israeli, sent this video to the FRANCE 24 Observers team. The footage captures Kteilat outside a building housing a shelter, where he states that the access code has been changed, rendering the shelter inaccessible. Nasser Kteilat, an Arab-Israeli – a citizen of Israel who belongs to the country's Arab population – lives in the municipality of Tel Aviv-Jaffa. He sought refuge in a bomb shelter near his apartment on June 13, the first day of the Iranian bombardment. The bombings started here. It was very close to our home, like often. Most of the time, bombings happen in Tel Aviv. Usually, during previous attacks with Hamas, we would go down to the stairs of the building. But this time, it was different. These were Iranian rockets, much bigger and more dangerous. Our building is mixed: Arabs, Jews, and Christians. So, we went down on the first day and neighbours were there. We sat down, each on our own side. They looked at us with a lot of anger. It was only for 15 minutes, so it was okay. We are used to it… We are the Arabs here… They don't like us. Then, when it was over and we wanted to go out, a young woman stopped us. She spoke as if she was sorry, as if she liked us, but she said the neighbours had decided not to let anyone in at the next alert. What's strange is that she doesn't even live in the building, yet she was the one treating us like strangers. I came back the next day. Even before I arrived, they had changed the code. They didn't want us to come in. So I called the municipal centre. A woman answered and started saying: 'Yes… They won't let you in because you're Arabs.' I went back the next day, because of a new alert. A neighbour was outside and gave me the new code. The code was 1948 [Editor's note: the year of the expulsion of Palestinians from the newly established State of Israel, known by Palestinians as the "Nakba', Arabic for "catastrophe."] It's sad, it's awful. You feel at home and at the same time like a stranger. You're no longer welcome. This isn't an isolated incident. Since the initial Iranian attacks on June 13, several videos have been circulating on social media, showing scenes where individuals are being turned away or prevented from entering Israeli shelters. The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to Ofer Cassif, an Israeli lawmaker for the left-wing Hadash-Taal alliance: Since the war with Iran began, there have been daily cases of people who have to run to shelters because of the sirens. Almost every day, there are cases of people who are not allowed into a shelter. Cases have been reported, mainly involving Arab citizens, but also foreign workers, families from Ukraine, and people with pets. These incidents don't just involve Israeli-Arabs. A family was not allowed because they had children. Other people were rejected because they came from another building. It's illegal to refuse or disallow someone from entering a shelter, even if it's in a private building. You must allow it, as required by law. On June 19, Cassif took to X to call on the Home Front Command – the Israeli military unit responsible for civilian protection – to establish a dedicated hotline for reporting instances where individuals are denied access to shelters during alerts. In his letter, he condemned a 'fundamentally flawed phenomenon that primarily affects the weaker sections of society and minority groups that suffer from severe protection and integration problems, and from racial and social discrimination'. While these discriminatory acts target foreign workers, Arab-Israelis, and even other Israelis, Cassif said that 'most of the dozen or so cases documented primarily involved Arab citizens'. Unequal protections for Arab and Israeli communities An Iranian missile strike in Tamra, northern Israel, killed four women and injured about a dozen people on June 14. Cassif said: In this Arab city of nearly 40,000 residents, there are no public shelters. Just a few kilometres away, there is a Jewish community of fewer than 10,000 people, and they have more than 10 shelters. In Israel, there are about 9 to 10 million people, and about two and a half million don't have a shelter or even a secure room to go to. So it's definitely a problem, mainly for Arabs, but not only. This is an issue of institutionalised racial discrimination. A 2018 report by the Israeli State Comptroller on the protection of non-Jewish civilians found that 46% of Arab citizens in Israel lack access to adequate shelters, compared to 26% of the general population. Several Israeli NGOs, including Sikkuy-Aufoq, an organisation dedicated to promoting equality and partnership between Jewish and Arab-Palestinian citizens, have for years condemned these structural inequalities in civil protection. Sikkuy-Aufoq highlights a substantial gap in access to public shelters. Another example highlights this disparity. Along Highway 85, a major road connecting western and eastern Galilee, Arab communities have only one bomb shelter for every 26,000 residents, whereas the nearby Jewish city of Karmiel has one shelter for every 440 people, according to Sikkuy-Aufoq. Furthermore, legal hurdles severely impede the installation of protected rooms (known as "mamads") in private Arab homes, excluding many families. Sikkuy-Aufoq also warns of limited access to information on this issue, particularly due to documents not being translated into Arabic. This lack of translation hinders requests for administrative exemptions that would facilitate such construction. These inequalities extend to school protections as well: 26% of Arab schools lack adequate protective infrastructure, compared to 13% in Jewish communities. 'They try to find solutions by themselves' This discrimination also affects the Bedouin people, most of whom are Arab-Israelis, living in villages not recognised by the Israeli state, particularly in the southern Negev Desert. Cassif explained: 'Most of these villages have existed since before the establishment of the State of Israel, but Israel considers them illegal entities. Because of that, they have no basic infrastructure, no electricity, running water, gas – and no shelters. In those areas, the citizens are in the worst situation: they have nothing and nowhere to go.' Even in the towns that are supposed to have basic services, about half the residents lack access to missile shelters, according to Adalah, an NGO working to protect the rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel. The situation is similar in both recognised and unrecognised villages: there are few or no roads, infrastructure, shelters, or alert sirens. Regardless of their legal status, living conditions remain extremely precarious. Marwan Abu Frieh, a regional coordinator for the Negev region and a field researcher at Adalah, told our team: 'More than 12,000 shelters would be needed to properly protect these communities.' The NGO, aided by other Israeli and foreign organisations, managed to gather only 350. Facing a complete lack of assistance from the Israeli government, local organisations like Adallah and municipalities are stepping up to build mobile shelters, each costing a minimum of 50,000 shekels (12,000 to 14,000 US dollars). Abu Frieh continued: Since October 7, they have been trying to find solutions by themselves. They go under the bridge of the highway. They try to put containers in the ground to use them as shelters for children, the elderly, mothers… Many Bedouins have nothing. Without internet on your phone, you can't even receive siren alerts. And if you don't have a shelter, you have nowhere to take refuge. Children are afraid, men and women too. People run under the bridge when sirens come. Some of them stay there day and night. But over 130,000 people remain without any protection or aid because the government refuses to intervene in unrecognised villages, which it deems to have no legal status. All construction in these communities is deemed illegal, as no permits have been issued. However, even residents in recognised villages face the same roadblock: no permits are granted. Authorities claim this falls under national security and military command, placing it outside the purview of the Supreme Court.
France 24
13-06-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Iranian missile sites: What the images of the Israeli air strikes show us
At 3:47am on June 13, Benjamin Netanyahu posted a video on his X account. "Moments ago, Israel launched Operation 'Rising Lion', a targeted military operation to roll back the Iranian threat to Israel's very survival," the Israeli prime minister stated. In his statement, Netanyahu listed the targets of this operation, which aims to weaken military leadership, damage Iran's nuclear facilities, and target military sites for ballistic missile storage and launch. Israel "struck at the heart of Iran's ballistic missile programme", the Israeli prime minister stated. Several experts believe this objective is likely to severely limit the scope of Iranian retaliation. Most of these ballistic missiles have a range of 2,000 kilometres and are capable of targeting Israeli territory. 'The Israeli army considered an immediate Iranian missile retaliation as definitive, so they chose to pre-empt Iran by going after the launch capabilities so as to minimise the risks of Iranian retaliation,' said Farzin Nadimi, a research fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert on Iranian weaponry. Few images of targeted sites so far In a statement published on Telegram in the afternoon of June 13, the Israeli army stated it had destroyed "dozens of launchers, surface-to-surface missile storage facilities, and additional military sites'. It released a map showing all the sites it reportedly attacked, though these strikes have not been independently verified. The Israeli military also shared a graphic purportedly showing a strike on a launch site of surface-to-surface missiles in western Iran. The images show warehouses that the Israelis say contain surface-to-surface missiles, though this cannot be independently confirmed. The site in the video, which we have geolocated, is about ten kilometres from Borujerd, in western Iran. However, the FRANCE 24 Observers team was unable to independently verify that this site had been hit by the military. According to the map from the Israeli military, surface-to-surface missile sites in northwestern Iran, particularly around the city of Tabriz, were reportedly hit. However, while images of strikes have been geolocated near Tabriz, it's currently impossible to confirm that missile bases were actually struck. But Nadimi says it would be logical for such military sites, like the one in Tabriz, to be targeted by the Israeli army: "This base is one of the main missile bases of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which was tasked with striking Israel during Operations Promise I and II.' The Iranian army launched a total of more than 300 ballistic missiles during these two operations conducted in April and October 2024. The Israeli military released further images, which our team has not been able to verify or geolocate. The images purportedly show a strike against a truck transporting a missile, as well as a Transporter Erector Launcher (TEL), a vehicle that can launch missiles. 'Even with their extensive underground missile bases, they still need to take their launchers with the missiles on them outside, prepare them, and erect them for launch in the open air," Nadimi said. These missiles are "most vulnerable" when they are being transported by these Transporter Erector Launchers (TELs), he added. "They do have the capabilities to launch from inside these bases because they have silos. They have launch holes and loaders that, technically or theoretically, should allow missiles to be launched without pulling them out of the base," Nadimi continued. "However, those might have also been targeted by Israeli missiles in order to disrupt Iran's covert launch operations," he added, also noting the need for "satellite imagery to confirm that these parts of the missile bases were indeed targeted". Underground base hit in Kermanshah Furthermore, there are indications that a missile base near Kermanshah, in the western part of the country, may have been hit. A video filmed from a car shows several plumes of smoke rising into the air. The video has been geolocated to the east of Kermanshah. It's impossible to say exactly what was hit. However, a base identified as a suspected missile deployment site in a 2021 report by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a British international relations research institute, is located close to the affected areas. "Kermanshah missile base hit by the Israelis," Fabian Hinz, a military expert at the IISS and author of the aforementioned report, wrote on X. Sources also reportedly told the Lebanese media outlet al-Mayadeen, which is affiliated with Iran-backed Hezbollah, that "several missile bases near Tehran and in the city of Kermanshah" were attacked. Satellite images shared by the Open Source Center and captured by Airbus show damage to the roofs of several warehouses and the presumed entrance of an underground tunnel at the base. Iran's high command decimated In the operation, the Israeli military also killed top Iranian officials "while they were gathered in their underground headquarters". This included armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri, and the head of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Hossein Salami. Most leaders of the Revolutionary Guard's aerospace force, including Major General Amirali Hadjizadeh, were also killed, according to the Israeli Ministry of Defence. These significant losses may explain Iran's remarkably subdued response so far, according to analyst Nadimi. "We haven't seen a single ballistic missile launched at Israel," Nadimi said. "We should definitely consider the fact that the chain of command has been severely disrupted. This is the most likely reason [for the lack of military response], in addition to a very systematic Israeli attempt to take out launchers.' At the time of this article's publication, the Iranian military's retaliation had been limited to launching 136 drones and cruise missiles towards Israel, none of which reportedly reached Israeli territory.
France 24
07-06-2025
- General
- France 24
Meet the ‘kayak vigilante' fighting the Scottish salmon farming industry
Armed with a GoPro mounted on a telescopic pole, Staniford has been kayaking out to salmon farms for over six years. His mission: to film the circular cages holding tens of thousands of fish and expose what he calls "the horrors' of salmon farming. He then shares the footage across his social media platforms: People don't really know what's going on underneath the surface of the water, which is why it's very important for activists like me and others to film inside the cages and lift the lid to show the public what's really going on. Normally I'd kayak out very early in the morning. (...) It's a question of going to the farm when there are no workers. We don't harass workers, we don't intimidate workers. We're trying to film when no one else is there. We can have data on which farms have disease problems, which farms have deaths and mortalities, and target those farms. Staniford said he filmed around 60 salmon farms, predominantly in Scotland, as well as in Ireland and Denmark's Faroe Islands. 'The more fish you cram in a closed confinement space, the more diseases you get' Footage he captured during one of his excursions in September 2021 depicted dead fish floating on the surface, alongside others afflicted with raw flesh patches or swollen eyeballs. Staniford blames overcrowding for these conditions: You don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out that if you cram animals at high densities, you're going to get diseases. You're going to get viruses, parasites. The more fish you cram in a closed confinement space, the more diseases you get. And this is a function of intensive production. Among these parasites, Staniford says he has found sea lice, which feed on the skin and blood of salmon. Mass deaths In 2023, a record 17.4 million salmon died in Scottish farms, according to government data. The survival rate for juvenile salmon introduced two years earlier was 68.7%. The spokesperson for the industry group Salmon Scotland, Andrew Watson, told the FRANCE 24 Observers team that Scottish salmon farms had succeeded in improving survival rates in recent years. 'Following a £1 billion investment since 2018, we increased survival rates in 2024 to a four-year high. The Scottish salmon sector has delivered the best survival rates on record in the first quarter of 2025, averaging 99.02 per cent, while managing sea lice levels to an historic low,' Watson said. Initial 2024 data announced by the Scottish government in a January 17 report show no improvement in survival rates since 2018. Incidents have occurred in recent months, too. Videos released in June 2024 by activist group Animal Rising and filmed in northern Scotland appear to show fish suffering from burst eyeballs and skin wounds attributed to sea lice. Over one million farmed salmon also died in October 2024 at a Scottish farm operated by Norway's Mowi, the world's biggest producer of farmed salmon. It was the most significant mass die-off of farmed salmon in Scotland in a decade. While Mowi attributed the deaths to jellyfish blooms exacerbated by unprecedented sea temperature rises, campaigners have linked the incidents to the expansion of aquaculture farms and poor welfare. Salmon-farming companies routinely dismiss footage from Staniford and other activists as "selective" and "isolated examples", often attributing damage to external factors. Parliamentary inquiry However, the Scottish authorities themselves are taking up the issue. On January 17, 2025, the Rural Affairs and Islands (RAI) Committee of the Scottish Parliament published a report stemming from an inquiry conducted between April and December 2024. This followed the publication of a first inquiry in 2018. 'The Committee is disappointed by figures showing that mortality has not improved since the 2018 report,' the 2025 report stated. 'The Committee considers the current level of mortality to be too high in general across the sector, and it is very concerned to note the extremely high mortality rates at particular sites,' it also reads. While acknowledging some industry improvements, the Committee wrote it was 'concerned that preventing high mortality events is not currently within the operational capability of industry' and called for 'far greater transparency in reporting mortality rates and disease outbreaks'. The Committee also noted the impact of salmon farming on the global environment. Staniford says the effects of salmon farming go far beyond the boundaries of the farms themselves: The salmon farming industry discharges the waste effluent directly into the sea, which is sewage contamination. It also uses toxic chemicals. There are mass escapes from the farms that cause genetic contamination. And there's also the feed issue. Far from being a panacea for the world's food problem, we're actually overfishing. We're actually contributing to the crisis in world fisheries by fishing down the food chain. Injunctions The salmon farming industry takes a dim view of Staniford's activities. Scotland is the world's third-largest producer of Atlantic salmon, after Chile and Norway, making salmon farming a significant industry in the country. According to industry data, international sales of Scottish salmon reached £844 million (€1,000 million) in 2024, solidifying its standing as the U.K.'s largest food export. France remains the first export market, accounting for 55% of the total value of all Scottish salmon exports. Staniford is currently facing legal action from three prominent Norwegian and Faroese salmon-farming companies. The companies say his intrusions onto their facilities are unauthorised and present significant safety risks to both their personnel and fish stocks. Two of these companies successfully obtained an injunction in 2024, legally barring him from accessing the walkways of their salmon pens. Although Staniford indicated in November 2024 that he was considering retirement, he now appears more determined than ever to continue his fight: I'd love to retire. I'm 53. I'm too old; I don't want to be kayaking out to farms, and I don't want to be leaving my children on weekends. But if nobody else will do it, I will do it. In terms of retiring, if I'm banned from 75% of salmon farms in Scotland, then my job is done here. But maybe I'll just emigrate to Tasmania, Canada, Chile, or even France. They may be able to shut me down legally and have injunctions against me in Scotland. But maybe my retirement in Scotland will pave the way for me to move to another jurisdiction
France 24
06-06-2025
- General
- France 24
Investigation: The Israeli army has ordered people to evacuate 78% of the Gaza Strip since March
"Of course I'm not safe here, but I'm being forced to remain,' Mohammad said to our team on May 22. Like tens of thousands of other people living in the town of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, Mohammed had three days earlier received an order from the Israeli Army to evacuate. They said his neighbourhood, Abasan al-Kabira, is 'dangerous'. "Some chose to stay, like me, but the majority left or were displaced, fearing for their lives,' he said. Mohammad didn't want to leave, afraid that his 17-year-old autistic son, who 'has become very agitated since the start of the war', wouldn't be able to cope with the displacement. "If I am staying home despite the evacuation orders, it is because life in the areas that are supposedly 'safe' is much more difficult than what we are experiencing currently and actually is more than we could endure,' he said. But a few days after our conversation, Mohammad finally had to resign himself to leaving after the army ordered the complete evacuation of his neighbourhood and threatened to bomb the homes there. Now, he and his family are in Al-Mawasi, where they are living without tents or any kind of adequate shelter. They can't afford to buy a tent, which is now going for at least 2,000 shekels (around €500). Mohammad is waiting and hoping for a ceasefire. His son, who needs special treatment, remains particularly vulnerable. 32 evacuation orders published concerning 78% of the Gaza Strip Since Israel broke the ceasefire on March 18, the majority of the two million Gazans, like Mohammad, have been forced to flee their homes by evacuation orders issued by the IDF. The IDF issued 32 official evacuation orders between March 18 and May 29, which averages out to an order every two days. The IDF shares orders saying what areas are to be evacuated on its Telegram, Facebook and X accounts as well as publishing flyers. One such order, written in Arabic and shared on the Telegram channel of the IDF's Arabic-language spokesperson on April 11 said, for example: 'The defence army launched a powerful offensive to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organisations. This is a dangerous combat zone. For your safety, you must immediately evacuate to the known shelters in Khan Younis. Staying in shelters, homes or tents puts your life and the lives of your family in danger.' The FRANCE 24 Observers team mapped all of the zones under order. Some other sectors have also been evacuated after orders sent out by text or leaflets, but these evacuations were temporary and haven't been included in this mapping. According to our analysis, more than 78 percent of the Gaza Strip has been affected by at least one evacuation order since fighting began again on March 18 and May 29, 2025. Some of these orders cover wide swaths of land and have resulted in large-scale displacement of the population. The evacuation order issued on March 31, for example, included nearly all of the city of Rafah, a city in the south of the enclave. It affected an area of nearly 50 km², which represents 14 percent of the Gaza Strip. The evacuation order issued on May 19 affected an even larger territory – 80 km² around Khan Younis, which represents more than 20 percent of Gaza. Some areas, like the area near the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, were subject to multiple, successive evacuation orders. via GIPHY A large buffer zone Along with the evacuation orders, the IDF has also severely restricted the Gazan population's ability to move by establishing military zones, sometimes called 'buffer zones' or 'secure zones'. Gazans are banned from going into these areas, which run alongside the border with Israel as well as the border with Egypt. The Israeli army 'will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and [Israeli] communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza – as in Lebanon and Syria,' said Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on April 16. These buffer zones were described as 'death zones of enormous proportions', in a report published in April 2025 by the NGO Breaking the Silence, which gathered testimonies of Israeli soldiers. 'The testimonies demonstrate that soldiers were given orders to deliberately, methodically, and systematically annihilate whatever was within the designated perimeter, including entire residential neighbourhoods, public buildings, educational institutions, mosques, and cemeteries, with very few exceptions,' the report reads. The 'buffer zone' designed on the IDF's official site represented more than 50 percent of Gazan territory, including most of the city of Rafah, by May 29. The area that is considered an 'Israeli militarised zone' by OCHA, the UN's humanitarian wing, is even larger: by May 22, it covered more than 60 percent of the territory. It includes a large area around Netzarim, which the Israeli army described in a tweet from March 19 as a 'buffer zone between the north and the south of the strip'. OCHA estimated on May 21 that 81 percent of the Gaza Strip was either under evacuation orders or under Israeli military control. If you add the zones considered militarised by the United Nations to the zones under evacuation order, our analysis showed that more than 300 km2, or more than 82 percent of the Gaza Strip, is not accessible to the population. Today, the two million Gazans are confined to an area that measures less than 65 km². This is an area nearly as restricted as before the ceasefire. OCHA reported in August 2024 that 86 percent of the Gaza Strip had been placed under evacuation order by the Israeli army since October 2023. 600,000 people displaced by force since March 18 Nearly 600,000 Gazans were displaced by evacuation orders between March 18 and May 21, 2025, according to data from the UN's Site Management Cluster. "It is important to remember that the entire population of Gaza has already been displaced once, sometimes four, five, six, eight times,' Claire Nicolet, who runs Gaza emergency operations for the French medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), told our team. Our team contacted the IDF, who said that their evacuation orders were to protect civilians. "As part of its operational activity to defeat the Hamas capabilities, the IDF acts to warn the civilian population in order to allow it to distance themselves from areas of active hostilities, and therby mitigate the potential harm, in accordance with international law.' sfsf However, these orders, which contain no indication of the length or the possibility of returning, make humanitarians fear that civilians will be permanently prevented from returning to these areas. 'Since the hostilities began again on March 18, there is no going back for all of these zones under evacuation order,' said Nicolet of Medecins Sans Frontières. Our team contacted OCHA. A spokesperson said that 'OCHA considers any Israeli displacement order to remain in effect until it is publicly rescinded by the Israeli authorities who issued them.' 'Civilians must be protected whether they leave or remain when displacement orders are issued,' the OCHA spokesperson added. Hospitals in evacuation zones NGOs have been working to help people still in evacuation zones, who are denied humanitarian aid. "We are endeavouring to remain in areas that enable people in the so-called evacuation or forced displacement zones to access medical care,' said Caroline Bedos, an operations coordinator for the Middle East with French medical charity Medeçins du monde (MdM). Nicolet, from Medecins Sans Frontières, said that it is terrible that some operating hospitals, like Nasser Hospital, are now in evacuation zones. "If these hospitals are in evacuation zones, then that means that there are ever fewer places where the population can access medical care,' Nicolet said. Most hospitals in Gaza are no longer providing care. Evacuation orders that run counter to humanitarian law As well as humanitarian consequences, the steps taken by the Israeli army may also raise legal questions, even if the army says that its actions abide by international law. 'These evacuation orders raise serious legal concerns,' said Shai Grunberg, the spokesperson for the Israeli legal organisation Gisha, which aims to protect freedom of movement for Palestinians. "Under international humanitarian law, evacuation orders are lawful when they're strictly necessary for civilian safety or imperative military reasons,' she added. "But in Gaza, Israel issued tens of evacuation orders that are not temporary, lack clear justification and offer no safe return for people, while allowing people to flee to areas with no shelter or infrastructure, which are themselves unsafe." According to article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons, an occupying power can only call for civilians to evacuate 'if the security of the population or imperative military reasons so demands'. But these evacuations can only be temporary, with the possibility for civilians to return safely as soon as hostilities are over. Moreover, articles 55 and 56 require the occupying power to guarantee the displaced people have access to food, medical care, hygiene and decent shelter. 'Even when you are in a zone that has not been evacuated, there is a risk to staying' A number of organisations, including the UN agency that works with Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) and French medical charity Medeçins du Monde, have spoken out about the absence of real safe zones since the start of the Israeli occupation, despite mass displacements of the population. On the night of May 25, 20 people were killed when Israel bombed a refugee camp in Gaza City. Just a few days earlier, evacuation orders had told people in northern Gaza to go to this same zone. An order dated May 21 – just four days before the deadly bombings – very clearly told people to go to the area that was later bombed. In Al-Mawasi, for example, 10 people were killed by the Israeli Army during an attack on refugee tents on the evening of April 16. Once again, an evacuation order issued a few days prior pointed the population towards this zone. All in all, 11 out of 32 evacuation orders issued between March 18 and May 29 have sent the population towards this zone, located to the west of Khan Younis. Since May 2024, Israel had referred to this area as a 'humanitarian zone' – until recently. However, since the end of the ceasefire, the army, which never called it a "safe zone" and has already bombed it several times, no longer designates it as "humanitarian." "Even when you are in a zone that has not been evacuated, there is a risk to staying,' says Nicolet of Doctors Without Borders. 'In fact, there isn't really anywhere left to live because it is all saturated. There is pretty much no place where you can set up a tent or even a piece of cloth. And we know that, sadly, many people don't even have a tent, just a few pieces of cloth or blankets. They improvise however they can to make some kind of shelter.' 'Depopulating areas and entrenching long term military control' All of these factors have resulted in organisations like Medeçins sans Frontieres and the NGO Oxfam to denounce what they say is the IDF's campaign of 'ethnic cleansing'. 'The scale and nature of of these evacuations suggest broader goals to depopulate areas and to entrench long term military control,' said Grunberg from the Gisha organisation. Medeçins sans Frontières also posted a statement on May 27, saying that Israel was using evacuation orders as a 'weapon of war in its ethnic cleansing campaign in Gaza'. The Israeli army's current plan for military operation, "Gideon's Chariots", includes the 'extensive evacuation of the entire Gazan population from combat zones, including from northern Gaza, to areas in southern Gaza, while creating separation between them and Hamas terrorists, in order to allow the IDF operational freedom of action,' as one senior Israeli defence official told several media outlets in early May. More than 53,000 people have been killed by Israeli attacks on Gaza, according to estimates by UNICEF. On May 29, the United States suggested a new ceasefire, which was accepted by Israel but rejected by Hamas. This plan included a 60-day truce, the exchange of Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, as well as the opening of aid corridors to Gaza.
France 24
19-05-2025
- Business
- France 24
Elon Musk's tweets: Investigating the billionaire's anti-European rhetoric
The Observers 05:34 The FRANCE 24 Observers collaborated with France Info and Belgium's RTBF to analyse the rhetoric of Elon Musk, one of Trump's closest advisers. This two-part investigation, conducted by the Médias Francophones Publics, examines the X owner's social media posts, documenting how the billionaire is propagating anti-Ukraine sentiment and posting tweets in support of the European far right.
