The memories of what happened in el-Fasher were difficult for her to put into words.
“The dead bodies were everywhere – in the streets, inside houses and at the gates of many houses,” Yahya told Al Jazeera. “Wherever you are in el-Fasher, you will see dead bodies scattered.”
Her testimony is one of several accounts from people who fled North Darfur’s capital after the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group fighting Sudan’s regular army, captured the city on October 26.
Since the powerful paramilitary group made a major incursion into the city last week, the UN human rights office has received “horrendous accounts of summary executions, mass killings, rapes, attacks against humanitarian workers, looting, abductions and forced displacement,” said Seif Magango, spokesperson for the UN human rights office (OHCHR).
Speaking from Nairobi to journalists in Geneva, Mr. Magango said numerous testimonies had been received from residents who had fled in terror as the city fell, then “survived the threatening journey to Tawila, approximately 70 kilometres away” – a journey that takes three to four days on foot.
The delegation, arriving on a flight from Athens, included ruling Civic Platform (PO) lawmaker Franciszek Sterczewski, activists Omar Faris and Nina Ptak, and journalist Ewa Jasiewicz. Faris, Ptak, and Sterczewski were deported to Greece on Monday, while Jasiewicz had left Israel earlier.
Sterczewski sharply criticized both Israel and Poland’s foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski.(…)
“They treated us absolutely brutally. For several hours, I’m 73 years old, they tied my hands behind my back and put me on rocks,” Faris said.
He added that during interrogation in an Israeli prison, the activists were questioned about possible links to Hamas. “Our problem is the occupation, which began 42 years before the founding of Hamas,” he said. “You won’t be able to kill us. And we don’t want to kill you either. We want a solution like in South Africa — a democratic state for all, regardless of religion.”
Thunberg told a news conference in Stockholm that she and others were „kidnapped and tortured“ by the Israeli military.
She declined to elaborate, adding when pressed that she didn‘t get clean water and that other detainees were deprived of critical medication.
Israel‘s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment but has repeatedly denied mistreating the detainees.
Watch the full conversation above or on YouTube to also hear David discuss his treatment as a Jewish activist receiving “special interrogation by Ben-Gvir” and the US’s lack of response to his illegal detention.
People were taken individually out of their cells and regularly beaten, handcuffed, ankle-cuffed, and left in solitary confinement. This happened many times over many days. We were denied the most basic things, like critical access to insulin for diabetic detainees that were part of the flotilla. In short, we were treated as terrorists, just as national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir had promised.
From the first moment that we stepped onto that tarmac after interception, we were violently forced onto our knees into positions of submission. The two Jews of the flotilla were taken by the rear and ripped from the group for a photo op with Ben-Gvir — staring at the flag of the State of Israel and taunted by his goons. Thus began a five-day nightmare of serial and systematic violation of our most basic rights. Reports varied from the different cellblocks. But one report that is consistent is that we were all denied food and water. At all times, we were denied access to medicine based on the whims of individual officers working shifts.
(…)
Of course, all of this pales in comparison to the treatment that Palestinians endure every single day. Eleven thousand of them are in indefinite detention at the moment, including in the same internment camp where we were held as terrorists by Israel.
“I could talk for a very, very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment. Trust me, but that is not the story,” Thunberg said during a press conference at Athens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport in Greece, where she and other flotilla participants released by Israel were greeted by a cheering crowd.
“What happened here is that Israel, while continuing to worsen and escalate their genocide and mass destruction with genocidal intent, attempting to erase an entire population, an entire nation in front of our very eyes, they once again violated international law by preventing humanitarian aid from getting into Gaza while people are being starved,” she continued.
“This genocide and other genocides are being enabled and fueled by our own governments, our institutions, our media, and companies. It is our responsibility to end that complicity… to use our privileges, our platforms, to take a stance against this, that is in every way unjustifiable,” Thunberg asserted.
“I will never, ever comprehend how humans can be so evil that you would deliberately starve millions of people living trapped under an illegal siege as a continuation of decades and decades of suffocating oppression, apartheid, occupation,” she added.
Streamed live 11 hours ago #GretaThunberg #GazaFlotilla #AthensArrival
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, along with 27 Greek nationals and over 70 international deportees from the intercepted Global Sumud Flotilla, arrives in Athens on a special flight from Israel. Detained during the humanitarian aid mission to Gaza, they return amid global outcry over the blockade and mistreatment allegations. DRM News provides live coverage of the airport arrival, statements, and reactions to the ongoing crisis.
So, I was dragged out of the boat by my collar and chucked on the floor, cut my knee open. And the first thing I saw as we were dragged out, or I was dragged out, was 300 people kneeling with their hands behind their backs, facing straight down at the concrete, outside of the Port of Ashdod. They were forced to stay there, in some cases, for six hours. I was forced to stay there for about two-and-a-half hours on my knees with my hands behind my back, before I was processed in the Ashdod center and sent to the prison in the Negev Desert, which we can get onto the conditions of in a moment.
At that point, Ben-Gvir, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was brought out so that he could parade in front of us. And I think the assumption — and I want to emphasize this — I think the assumption was that we would be cowed, that we would be fearful, that we would stay quiet. And actually, that’s not what happened. And what happened sets the tone for what then carried on in the prison, which is that everybody, as soon as we saw Ben-Gvir, 300 people on their knees — in fear, no doubt — started shouting, “Free Palestine! Free Palestine!” calling him a génocidaire and a baby killer and so on. And he was really shocked. You could see that Ben-Gvir was stunned by that. His people, the police, they were all stunned by it. They expected us to be cowed, and we weren’t.
Separately, Malaysian sisters and singers-actors Heliza Helmi and Hazwani Helmi, also described “brutal” and “cruel” treatment when detained by Israeli forces.
“Can you imagine we drank from the toilet water? Some people were very, very sick, but they [the Israelis] said: ‘Are they dead? If not, then that’s not my problem,‘” Hazwani told Anadolu news agency after landing in Istanbul on Saturday. “They are very, very cruel people.”
Heliza also described going without food for days. “I ate on October 1. Today is my first meal,” she said on Saturday. “So for three days, I did not eat – only drank from the toilet.”
Saverio Tommasi , journalist for Fanpage: „We were kidnapped by an armed gang in international waters. They took away everyone‘s medicine: heart patients, asthmatics, and an 86-year-old man whose asthma canister was taken away . He felt ill, as did the other people. And despite requests, banging loudly on the cells, a doctor was never sent. The water was from the bathroom tap, warm and rancid. The food was scarce .“
„Personally,“ Tommasi adds, „they literally took my wedding rings away from me: I had to argue with the judge, and only thanks to that was they returned to me when I arrived in Istanbul by plane. I imagine the aid will all have sunk along with the boats.“
Greta Thumberg? „We saw her inside and also at the port: her arms were tied and an Israeli flag was nearby, mocking her, like the verbal and psychological abuse they always used, to ridicule, belittle, and laugh at times when there was nothing to laugh about.“
Others 15 Italians who refused to sign the voluntary release Instead, they will have to await expulsion through judicial proceedings, expected in the coming days.
(…(
Paolo Romano, regional councillor of the Lombardy Democratic Party and one of the 26 Italians expelled from Israel, said at the Istanbul airport, where he arrived from Tel Aviv before returning to Italy, that they had been treated like animals. “They made us kneel face down. And if we moved, they beat usThey laughed at us, insulted us, and beat us. They used both psychological and physical violence.”, he added.
Other activists, such as Cesare Tofani and Paolo De Montis, emphasized that the greatest difficulties stem from the accumulation of stress during detention and transfers, comparing their experience to the daily challenges faced by Palestinians in the territory. Tofani explained: “we were treated very badly… They treated us like they treat terrorists, the Palestinians.“ while De Montis explained:
„There were 15 women in a cell for four; there were 10 of us in a cell for seven, with only one roll of toilet paper, no water, and with our food eaten on the floor.“
“Welcome to Hell” is a report on the abuse and inhuman treatment of Palestinians held in Israeli custody since 7 October 2023. B’Tselem collected testimonies from 55 Palestinians held during that time and released, almost all with no charges. Their testimonies reveal the outcomes of the rushed transformation of more than a dozen Israeli prison facilities, military and civilian, into a network of camps dedicated to the abuse of inmates as a matter of policy. Facilities in which every inmate is deliberately subjected to harsh, relentless pain and suffering operate as de-facto torture camps.
Two of them, Hazwani Helmi, a Malaysian citizen, and Windfield Beaver, an American citizen, told Reuters at the airport that they had witnessed Thunberg being mistreated, saying she was shoved and forced to wear an Israeli flag.
„It was a disaster. They treated us like animals,“ said Helmi, 28, adding that detainees were not provided with clean food or water and that medication and belongings were confiscated.
(video)
The allegation was corroborated by at least two other members of the flotilla who had been detained by Israeli forces and released on Saturday.
“They dragged little Greta [Thunberg] by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others,” the Turkish activist ErsinÇelik, a participant in the Sumud flotilla, told Anadolu news agency.
Lorenzo D’Agostino, a journalist and another flotilla participant, said after returning to Istanbul that Thunberg was “wrapped in the Israeli flag and paraded like a trophy” – a scene described with disbelief and anger by those who witnessed it.
Israelis prevented us from having medicine, they only gave us water after 32 hours. We barely had any food.
We were woken up at 3 in the morning with dogs and snipers walking into our rooms, they woke us up every 2 hours to prevent us from sleeping.
They did this to us, innocent citizens, it could only let us imagine what they do to Palestinians.
(September 10, 2025)
A source familiar with the investigation told The Times that a bullet struck Kirk’s carotid artery.
(,..)
The gunman is believed to have killed Kirk from at least 200 yards away using some type of sniper rifle, law enforcement sources told The Times.
(…)
Witness Seth Teasdale told the Salt Lake Tribune that the gunshot was so loud it echoed across the pavilion where Kirk was speaking.
Brynlee Holms told the Tribune the shot was “super loud,” which added to the panic in the crowd.
“I just heard a clear shot, ‘Boom!’ And that was it,” another witness told KUTV.
(September 8, 2025)
“The bus doors didn’t open, the driver said there was a malfunction,“ an eyewitness to the attack said. Another eyewitness, Malka Cohen, stated that the bus doors initially did not open, and the driver claimed there was a malfunction. Immediately afterward, when the doors opened, the terrorists opened fire.
Israeli forces deploy explosive robots at ‚unprecedented pace‘, obliterating homes and displacing families
(today)
Prominent doctor Hussam Abu Safiya and his nephew are being kept in appalling conditions in Israeli detention, his lawyer said after a rare visit.
Gheed Kassem said Abu Safiya and his nephew Hussam Zaher were „exposed to sunlight for only thirty minutes a month, while scabies and boils ravage their bodies, and they remain in the same clothes.“
„As for bathing, it lasts only two minutes, and they have each lost a third of their body weight. They are in dire need of dermatologists and medicines to treat the widespread skin diseases and infections,“ said Kassem.
A resident of al-Saftawi neighbourhood, also in the north of the city, Matar and his wife were startled awake by what he described as a “frightening sound of movement“.
“We thought it was the sound of asbestos sheets being moved from place to place by a crane or a tuk-tuk. We couldn’t sleep out of fear.”
At around 4:45am, the couple realised the sound had come from a remotely controlled Israeli military robot.
The robots, which carry explosives, have been widely used by Israeli forces during the ongoing invasion of Gaza, often targeting civilian homes.
The “robots” described by Ismail are likely the Israeli army’s outdated M113 APC models, which have been retrofitted with explosives and remotely detonated near buildings throughout the war. Ismail told Mondoweiss that neither he nor his family had time to take anything from their home due to fears that the APC near them would be detonated.
“Before now, the army used to blow up one or two buildings with the robots. Now they destroy dozens of buildings at once. Robots and warplanes are working together to destroy every place in Gaza City,” he described.
While sleeping in her home in Gaza City, MF was jolted awake at dawn by an unusual sight: an Israeli armed quadcopter hovering in her room.
Panicked, the 26-year-old Palestinian shut her eyes and forced herself back to sleep.
The next morning, she got up and went to work, wondering whether what she had seen was just a bad dream – a product of the ongoing attacks that had already triggered a psychological breakdown.
But when she returned home, MF, who asked to be identified only by her initials, overheard her father saying he had seen a quadcopter leaving their home earlier that morning.
It was then she realised that what she had witnessed was, in fact, real.
(August 1, 2025)
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a U.S. and Israeli-backed humanitarian aid initiative, has been delivering aid into Gaza since May. But since then, the U.N. says hundreds of Palestinians have been killed outside of GHF aid sites. Nick Schifrin spoke with former security contractor Anthony Aguilar about what he saw there and why he believes the execution of the GHF mission has failed.
A fired U.S. contractor likened Gaza aid efforts to “The Hunger Games.” His former employer and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation refuted his claims.
(August 1, 2025)
JERUSALEM — Shortly after 5 p.m. local time on Wednesday, trucks carrying food from the U.N. World Food Program passed an Israeli checkpoint and entered the rubble-strewn no-man’s-land of northern Gaza. Immediately, they were overwhelmed.
“Hundreds of thousands” of aid seekers who had been waiting for hours surged to within 100 meters of the checkpoint, and Israeli troops began to fire rifle and artillery rounds, according to an internal WFP mission security report seen by The Washington Post.
There, trucks from the World Food Programme (WFP) were expected to arrive, offering a rare chance to access long-denied essential supplies.
But as people gathered near the truck, Israeli troops surrounded relief-seekers, directly and indiscriminately shooting towards them, according to eyewitnesses, among them Ewadi.
„They [the Israeli army] fired heavily at us from the tanks,“ he told Middle East Eye, describing how military vehicles moved through the crowd, at times passing within inches of civilians.
(page 10)
HSGAC Majority: I also work for Chairman Peters. And just as starting point if you could maybe give us a really brief high-level overview of your role and responsibilities with respect to the July 13th rally at Butler.
Witness: Sure. I was assigned as the command post/slash security room agent.
(…)
(page 16)
And then talking about July 13th specifically, could you give us a sense of the chain of command on that day from your point of view, who, if anyone, you reported to on that day?
Witness: Sure. I reported to the site agent.
HSGAC Majority: To the site agent?
Witness: Yes.
(…)
(page 25)
HSGAC Majority: And who do you know who was responsible for making the decisions about the location of the event and what equipment would be there?
Witness: Typically, that would be the site agent.
HSGAC Majority: And did you have any conversations with the site agent prior to the 13th about the setup in the room?
Witness: About the setup in the room? No.
(…)
(page 30)
Witness: So, it was a very, very busy site. I think in earlier testimony, I‘ve said it was one of the busier sites I‘ve ever worked from a command post perspective, the amount of traffic that was coming through it.
(…)
And there was a constant flow of dispatch of medical personnel to people who were, you know, having issues in the crowd. Throughout the day, we had two or three lost children, one of whom actually spent some time in the command post and security room until they were reunited with their family. We had lost property coming into the command post and security room. We had a call about a media truck that was going to set the ground on fire. So, we had to figure out how to get fire trucks to that. (…)
HSGAC Majority: Got it. Can you talk a little bit about just the physical setup of the room, how big it was?
Witness: Sure. It was a relatively large room, kind of in a standalone building. And there were essentially card tables or tables of about this size. You know, the six-foot, eight-foot tables set up in a big ring configuration. That was pretty much it. There was one door out the front, and then there were two small windows to my right. And there was a little kitchen in the back and a restroom.
(…)
(page 33)
I had to enlist the help of the Butler Farm Show personnel there to find me an extension cord and a power strip. So, I set up my radio so I could at least look out the door of the command post.
(…)
The security room also functioned as the — what we would call the down room. when the agents were getting relief from their post, it‘s where they would come. The site agents were in and out of the room throughout the day. The PI response and the counter sniper, CS Response Teams, were in and out of the room all day.
Other Pennsylvania State Troopers who were doing the same thing, who were being pushed, were in and out of the room all day. Our Uniformed Division personnel who were working the magnetometers who were on break, in and out of the room all day. And then at one point the agent assigned to work the UAS detection system, ended up taking up residence and setting up his station in the security room
(…)
(page 55)
HSGAC Majority: But the first person on the chain would‘ve been the site agent?
Witness: Correct.
HSGAC Majority: You mentioned in preparation the written materials were the only mention you saw of the setup that day. And correct me if I‘m wrong, but I believe you said it, reference commmand post or security room, but in this case, both?
Witness: Correct. So for this particular visit, the command post and the site security room for the Butler Farm Show were one and the same.
(…)
HSGAC Minority: I guess, let‘s start first with the man on the roof. Well, I mean at that time you didn’t know about it, so.
Witness: So the Man on the roof thing, again, I never heard the man on the roof thing because I believe if the claim is that that was said out loud into the room, that that was probably occurring as I‘m getting the same traffic of the local police are working a problem at 3 o‘clock, which I‘m listening to my Secret Service radio intently at that point.
HSGAC Minority: And are you only listening to your Secret?
Witness: Well, I‘m trying to listen to as much as I can, but I typically can only listen to one thing at a time.
HSGAC Minority: Do you recall, I guess, the level of activity that was going on around that time, around 6:09
Witness: Precisely at 6:09, no. But I will say that at the time that the call came across that the local police were working a problem at the 3 o‘clock, that the entire — everybody who was in the security room definitely peaked up and was very much turned on.
HSGAC Minority: So, is it that the locals were working something at the 3 o‘clock that raised it to enough of a threat level that you felt like you needed to communicate that out on the radio?
Witness: Yeah. I reported back what I heard on the radio that came across on the Secret Service radio from another Secret Service personnel. And to this day, I‘m still not sure exactly who that was, who called that into the security room. But I‘m listening for traffic on my Secret Service radio.
Witness Counsel: Can I just say that when you used the phrase „enough of a threat,“ there were between a suspicion and a threat, those are mutually exclusive categories and they have completely different meanings. If you wanted to expound on your understanding of the difference between a suspicion and a threat?
Witness: Sure. A threat is somebody who has the capability to do immediate harm to somebody. So even in this instance, even if I had heard that there was a man on a roof, a man on a roof solely that is not necessarily a threat.
The day after the massacre on Al-Rashid Street that claimed Hatem Shaldan’s life, even larger crowds gathered in the same spot, including 17-year-old Muhammad Abu Sharia, who arrived with four relatives. The few aid trucks that arrived that week gave a sliver of hope to starving families.
Abu Sharia lives with his family of nine in their partially destroyed home in southern Gaza City, the only son among six sisters. “My family didn’t want me to go at first,” he said. “But we’ve been starving for two months.”
At 10 p.m., he made his way to Al-Rashid Street, where crowds had gathered on the sand near the shore, waiting for aid trucks. People shared warnings in hushed voices: “Stay behind the trucks. Don’t run in front — you might get crushed.”
Abu Sharia was shocked by what he saw. “Elderly people, women, children, all just waiting for a chance at flour.” Then, without warning, artillery shells began falling around them.
Panic broke out. Some fled. Others, like Abu Sharia, sprinted toward the trucks. “People were being killed and wounded, but no one stopped. Everyone just kept running for the flour.”
He managed to grab a bag lying beside a dead body, but only made it a few meters before a gang of four men with knives surrounded him and threatened to kill him if he didn’t hand it over. He let it go.
Still hoping to reach another truck, he waited hours longer. Then he saw people shouting, “More aid has arrived!” The trucks rolled in, barely slowing down as crowds swarmed them. “I saw a man fall under one [truck] and get his head crushed.” With ambulances too far away to approach for fear of Israeli airstrikes, the wounded and dead were dragged away by donkey carts and tuk-tuks.
Bushra Rajab recalled waking up “to the sound of people screaming and panicking” after what sounded “like a big explosion”.
“Many people were killed and many were injured. Some of those killed were my relatives,” she said. “There were too many injured people for ambulances to reach. The remains of bodies were all over the place.”
Nearly 80 people have been killed in the latest round of Israeli airstrikes, including nine of a Gaza pediatrician’s ten children, according to local health officials. The strikes hit Khan Younis in southern Gaza, leaving the doctor’s husband wounded and only one child critically injured.
Nine of a doctor‘s 10 children have been killed in an Israeli missile strike on their home in Gaza, which also left her surviving son badly injured and her husband in a critical condition.
Alaa Al Najjar, a paediatrician at Al Tahrir Clinic in the Nasser Medical Complex, was at work during the attack on her home, south of the city of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, on Friday.