Human Rights

Palestinian journalist and mother Aya Shamaa wrote about how an Israeli strike killed her children, newborn Ryan and seven-year-old Yaman. Like countless mothers in Gaza, she saw her children as gleams of hope amid a fragile ceasefire. Narrated by Al Jazeera’s Al Anoud Al Aqeedi.

While it might be true that the cases are progressing, families of the missing argue they are moving at a snail’s pace.

Since early December, Fault Lines has spent time with families who are pushing for accountability and pleading with the government to learn what happened to their loved ones.

In some cases, they have spent years without receiving any direct response.

“It gets harder every time my nephew asks when his father will come home and I don’t have any answers,” said Rosario Villon, whose brother, Jonathan Villon, has been missing for almost a year and a half.

The 31-year-old father of three was last seen on December 9, 2024, when he left to pick up groceries in his hometown of Guayaquil.

Addressing a vigil for Jonathan last December, Rosario explained the toll his disappearance has taken on her family.

“Seeing my mother cry for her son, not knowing what to do next to bring him home — it isn’t easy,” she said.

Fault Lines has reviewed footage of the day Jonathan was detained. Security cameras show soldiers patrolling Jonathan’s neighbourhood, Nueva Prosperina.

A neighbour’s mobile phone video also captures the moments after Jonathan was forced into the truck’s bed, under a wooden bench. The truck then drives off, and he has not been seen since.

The family recorded the licence plate numbers of the municipal vehicle the soldiers were using, but the military has refused to respond to requests about Jonathan’s case.

“We have the evidence, we have videos, we have the licence plates of the truck, and they won’t give us a concrete and exact answer. What happened to my husband?” asked Jonathan’s partner, Yadira Bohorquez.

Lawyers representing the family say the military simply declared that it had no operations in that area on that date, despite the video evidence.

“The case of Jonathan Villon is completely paralysed by the refusal of the Ministry of Defence to cooperate in handing over information that the Prosecutor’s Office has already requested,” said Fernando Bastias, a lawyer with CDH Guayaquil, a human rights nonprofit representing the family.

Israeli strikes on residential buildings have killed nine Palestinians, setting homes ablaze and leaving widespread destruction. Footage from the scenes showed rescue efforts amid the flames and ambulances transporting casualties.

More than two years ago, Gaza resident Hanin Muhammad accompanied by her 39-year-old sister Sabreen, a kidney transplant recipient, was flown to the Iraqi capital Baghdad for medical treatment. But Muhammad has since been confined to the Private Nursing Home Hospital inside Baghdad’s Medical City complex, thousands of miles away from her home in Gaza, as her travel documents have been confiscated by Iraqi authorities.

“My six children are in Gaza, and I am entering my third year without seeing them,” 40-year-old Muhammad told Al Jazeera.

Her family home in Rafah was destroyed by Israeli forces, forcing her children to be displaced into makeshift tents located between Rafah and Khan Younis.

“I check on them through other people because they lack internet connection. I am begging anyone to intervene so we can get back to Egypt, register, and see our children,” she said. Currently, Palestinians can go in and out of Gaza only using the Rafah crossing, which opens into Egypt.

Muhammad, who travelled to Iraq as a medical companion to her sister, is part of a forgotten cohort of 46 Palestinians evacuated to Iraq, comprising 21 patients and 25 family escorts.

According to health authorities tracking the group, the clinical breakdown of the patients highlights the severity of their conditions, which include five oncology patients, four suffering from blood disorders, one cardiac patient, one kidney disease patient, and 10 patients wounded in the ongoing genocidal war that has killed nearly 73,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 172,000.

The group was flown to Baghdad in March 2024 on a military aircraft in coordination with the Iraqi and Egyptian governments, with a symbolic presence from the Palestinian Embassy in Cairo.

These rare evacuations highlight a much broader medical crisis back home. According to Gaza’s Health Ministry, more than 20,000 patients and wounded people are currently waiting to travel abroad for medical treatment.

Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the ministry’s Information Unit, reported that 1,200 children in Gaza now suffer from spinal cord injuries and paralysis directly resulting from Israeli attacks, while some 4,000 children require urgent treatment abroad.

Despite the overwhelming need, official data provided by al-Waheidi shows that only 154 children have been allowed to leave Gaza since the Rafah crossing, the enclave’s only gateway to the outside world, partially reopened in February amid heavy Israeli restrictions.

The crisis is equally dire for newborns: in 2025, more than 4,000 women had premature deliveries, and at least 4,800 babies were born with low birth weights – double the pre-war figure. Last year alone, 457 infants died in their first week of life.

For the handful who made it out, like the group in Iraq, the promised sanctuary quickly devolved into a cage defined by confiscated documents, restricted movements, and systemic neglect.

Confiscated documents and suspended lives

Upon their arrival from Egypt’s Heliopolis Hospital, the promised short-term recovery windows evaporated. Evacuees state that their primary identification and travel documents were immediately seized.

“When we left Egypt for Iraq, the Iraqi authorities took our identification papers from the Egyptians, and we haven’t seen them since,” Muhammad told Al Jazeera.

“When we asked for them, they told us they were held by Iraqi Intelligence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. We demand them back, but no one answers us.”

The Palestinian Embassy in Baghdad issued new passports for those lacking them, but according to Muhammad, these documents remain unstamped by the Iraqi government and are functionally useless. She noted that without the official stamps, they cannot travel anywhere.

This administrative vacuum has completely frozen the lives of the companions. Noor Ibrahim, a pseudonym for a young woman who arrived as an escort for her cancer-stricken aunt, is stranded along with four of her aunt’s children.

“I have been engaged for four years, and my fiancé and family are in Gaza,” Ibrahim told Al Jazeera. “We left on the promise that it would be a temporary six-month treatment trip, but now, two years have passed.”

She expressed deep frustration as she is stuck inside the medical complex, emphasising that she just wants to return to Egypt, from where she can travel to Gaza to complete her marriage and start her life.

The stress of the confinement has also severely exacerbated underlying health conditions. Ibrahim noted that while her aunt received the necessary cancer treatment, she has developed various other undisclosed health complications in Iraq, and her psychological state is exhausted from leaving her husband and family behind in war-ravaged Gaza.

Retaliation and dire conditions

For the Palestinians living inside Baghdad’s Medical City complex, daily life has become a grind of material deprivation and psychological distress. The evacuees are completely cut off from any monetary stipends, leaving them entirely dependent on the hospital for basic shelter and local citizens for additional charity.

Samah Abdul Moati, 65, who battles leukaemia, liver cancer, and an arm injury, is accompanied by her injured 43-year-old son and her daughter-in-law. She painted a grim picture of their daily life.

“The hospital brings food every day, but no one can eat it because it is unfit for consumption,” Abdul Moati told Al Jazeera. “We are surviving on the grace of local well-wishers who don’t fail us. But we don’t care about the treatment any more – we just want to return to our children.”

Abdul Moati’s situation is compounded by unfathomable grief: two of her sons were killed in the war, two others have platinum implants from injuries, her husband is fighting cancer in a Gaza intensive care unit with no one to care for him, and her daughters and orphaned grandchildren are living in tents for displaced people.

“The hardest feeling is that I am trapped between the hospital walls while my heart is outside with my family and my people,” Abdul Moati said. “My husband is in the intensive care unit alone, and my children and grandchildren are in tents under the cold and fear.”

Compounding their alienation, evacuees who have tried to protest or publicise their predicament faced swift administrative blowback. When they demanded their right to travel five months ago and spoke to the media, hospital management retaliated by locking down the ward and banning them from even visiting the hospital garden.

Muhammad revealed that they were only allowed out after journalists wrote about their situation, adding that officials continuously throw them from one department to another without providing any straightforward answers.

Bureaucratic runaround

The spokesperson for the Iraqi Ministry of Health, Saif Albadr, did not answer repeated calls from Al Jazeera.

While the head of public relations at the Health Ministry, Ruba Falah Hassan, told Al Jazeera that the case is “political.”

“Frankly, this is a political issue, not health-related.. I’m not authorised to talk about it,” she stated.

The newly appointed Iraqi government spokesperson, Haidar Al-Aboudi, told Al Jazeera that he “will look into the matter”.

For the Palestinians stranded in the Medical City, they maintain that they lack the financial means to buy commercial airline tickets even if their papers are returned, meaning they desperately need a coordinated effort by a charity or government body to facilitate their travel back to Egypt.

“I am not asking for a luxury or an exception,” Abdul Moati pleaded in her final remarks.

“I am asking for a simple human right: that my family does not remain divided between life and death. Open a safe path, facilitate our family reunification, and let me return to my family before it is too late.”

At least two Palestinians were killed and around a dozen wounded when an Israeli air strike hit a crowded cafe at Gaza’s seaport. Witnesses said people had gathered there to escape the heat and enjoy a public holiday, as attacks continue despite an October ceasefire.

New Jersey Governor Mikie Sherrill has imposed a curfew and deployed state police outside Newark’s Delaney Hall immigration detention centre after nights of clashes between protesters and ICE agents.

Ras Baraka, the mayor of Newark in New Jersey, has imposed a curfew on the area surrounding Delaney Hall, the immigration detention centre that has become a flashpoint in the debate over United States President Donald Trump’s mass deportation drive.

The Sunday morning announcement came amid a flare-up in tensions outside the detention centre, which is run by the private contractor GEO Group, as part of a 15-year deal with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“Due to the escalating situation at Delaney Hall and the increasing need for police intervention, immediate action is required to protect public safety,” Baraka wrote in a statement.

“Multiple individuals have already been arrested and found in possession of weapons, underscoring the seriousness of the threat.”

As part of the curfew, movement will be restricted within half a mile (0.8km) of the detention centre between the hours of 9pm and 6am US Eastern time (1:00 to 10:00 GMT).

A nearby road, Doremus Avenue, will also be closed to pedestrians and vehicles that cannot verify their need to be in the area.

Since the reopening of Delaney Hall as an immigration detention facility last year, it has been the site of confrontations between law enforcement and protesters, including Mayor Baraka himself.

The month of May has seen more than a week of daily protests outside Delaney Hall, after lawyers for the detainees at Delaney Hall announced a hunger strike was unfolding inside.

Detainees have denounced the living conditions to human rights groups, reporting expired food, a lack of medical care and abuse at the hands of authorities.

The Trump administration has justified its mass deportation campaign as an effort to rid the US of “the worst of the worst”, framing undocumented immigrants as a criminal threat.

But critics point out that many of those detained have no criminal record, and some who do have only been cited for minor offences.

The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a data-tracking service from Syracuse University, found that, as of April, roughly 71 percent of those in ICE detention had no criminal conviction.

To show solidarity with the hunger strike, protesters have been gathering outside Delaney Hall, locking arms to form human chains and creating barricades to prevent access.

But that has led to tense confrontations with law enforcement, who have used batons and pepper spray to try to clear roads to the facility.

Governor Mikie Sherrill called for the establishment of designated protest zones, to mitigate the likelihood of conflict between officers and demonstrators.

But clashes have continued. Overnight on Wednesday, six protesters were arrested.

Politicians themselves have encountered tense interactions at Delaney Hall.

A year ago, one protest resulted in trespassing charges against Mayor Baraka and assault charges against US Representative LaMonica McIver, after a disagreement over which officials could enter the facility for an inspection.

While the charges against Baraka were dropped, McIver continues to face legal proceedings. She has denied the charges and called the prosecution politically motivated.

“One year ago, the Trump administration threw baseless charges against me for conducting oversight to protect immigrants at Delaney Hall,” McIver wrote on social media on Saturday.

“Have they tried to silence me? Yes. Have the stakes risen? Yes. Am I backing down from speaking up for you? Never.”

This past week, Governor Sherrill was also denied access to the facility. She has since issued a statement calling for Delaney Hall to be shut down.

At a news conference on Saturday, she blamed “national extremist groups” for arriving from out of state and escalating tensions. She added that the current precautions were designed to protect the safety of peaceful protesters.

“I urge those protesting outside of Delaney Hall to bring the temperature down, so we can focus on the detainees and their families,” Sherrill said.

She suggested that the actions of state and local officials would help head off any expanded ICE operations in New Jersey.

“I will not give ICE a pretext to expand operations at Delaney Hall or across our state. I will not put lives at risk,” she said. “I’m grateful to the vast majority of protesters who have assembled peacefully and raised their voices about Delaney Hall’s conditions.”

On October 28, 2025, more than 2,500 police officers launched a massive raid on two favelas in Rio de Janeiro. They were targeting leaders of Red Command, one of Brazil’s largest drug trafficking groups. By the end of the day, more than 120 people were dead, making it Brazil’s bloodiest police operation.

In the aftermath, police withdrew without securing the scene. Bodies were left behind, and forensic teams never arrived. Residents recovered the dead themselves, which erased critical evidence of what happened.

Through exclusive reporting, Fault Lines reconstructs the case of Douglas de Almeida da Silva, a father and small business owner shot by police that night. Officers say he fired first, but forensic analysis and witness footage raise serious questions about their account.

The raid reflects a broader pattern in Rio, where police routinely fail to preserve crime scenes, undermining investigations and shielding officers from accountability.

Despite repeated deadly raids, gangs continue to control the favelas, raising questions about whether these operations curb the violence or simply add to it.

Syrian commission confirms the deaths of Rania al-Abbasi’s six children, missing since 2013 under Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

Syria’s National Commission for Missing Persons (NCMP) says the children of dentist and former chess champion Rania al‑Abbasi, who disappeared with their parents more than a decade ago under then-President Bashar al-Assad, are likely dead.

“We have reached reliable and corroborating results that allow us to conclude with a high degree of professional certainty that Dr Rania al-Abbasi’s children are deceased,” the NCMP said in a statement on Saturday.

The fate of the children, unknown for years, became a symbol of the plight of other missing children of detainees and those forcibly disappeared during al-Assad’s rule, which ended with his ouster in 2024.

Al-Abbasi went missing along with her husband, Abdul Rahman Yasin, and their six children, aged three to 15, in March 2013 after government forces raided their home in Damascus, according to rights groups.

The commission, set up by the country’s new rulers in May 2025 to investigate missing and forcibly disappeared people, said its findings were “based on multiple verification and analysis procedures” conducted in coordination with national authorities.

“Efforts to find the remains … are still ongoing,” it added.

Hassan al-Abbasi, Rania’s brother, confirmed the children’s deaths in a video posted on Facebook.

He said the family had been able to view video recordings linked to the main suspect in a 2013 massacre in a Damascus district, including one showing him accusing children in a dark room of being “major financiers of terrorism”.

“They turned out to be our children,” Hassan al-Abbasi said. “We finally saw them … but they were martyred.”

The fate of Rania and her husband remains officially unknown after all contact with them was lost following their arrest on accusations linked to opposition to the Assad government.

Rights groups and media reports suggest they may have died, though their bodies were never found.

The issue of missing people remains one of the most pressing in Syria. They include detainees who vanished in government prisons as well as people who went missing during fighting, at checkpoints or while fleeing their homes over the years of civil war.

Tens of thousands of people were detained or disappeared during the war, which erupted in 2011 after a brutal crackdown on antigovernment protests by al-Assad.

The NCMP said last year that the number of people who went missing over decades of al-Assad family rule may exceed 300,000.

Notorious al-Assad regime figure linked to killings

Separately on Saturday, the Syrian Ministry of Interior said its investigation into the disappearance of al-Abbasi’s children had uncovered evidence linking Amjad Youssef – a notorious figure during al-Assad’s rule and the perpetrator of the 2013 Tadamon massacre – to their killing.

In a statement, it said interrogations of detainees, together with videos and information shared by the NCMP, had helped strengthen the case.

Youssef was arrested in April, prompting many Syrians to demand “just punishment” for a man they say carried out the massacre in cold blood.

The Tadamon case drew international attention after footage surfaced documenting the killings.

In 2022, The Guardian newspaper in the United Kingdom published footage it said had been leaked by a conscript in a pro-government militia showing members of the Assad-era Military Intelligence Branch 227 killing at least 41 people and burning their bodies.

The video showed an intelligence officer, identified as Youssef, shooting blindfolded and bound detainees.

The charges stem from the January 14 shooting of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis during Operation Metro Surge.

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent charged with shooting a Venezuelan man during a controversial immigration raid in Minnesota has been arrested in Texas, according to United States authorities.

Agent Christian Castro, 52, was taken into custody on Friday after investigators from Minnesota tracked him down in the southern state, where he was arrested with assistance from the Texas Rangers and the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) inspector general’s office. He faces four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime.

The charges stem from the non-fatal shooting on January 14 of Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in Minneapolis during Operation Metro Surge, a large-scale immigration enforcement campaign that drew widespread criticism for its aggressive tactics.

Prosecutors allege Castro fired through the front door of a residence, striking Sosa-Celis in the leg.

“Mr Castro was charged earlier this month with four counts of second-degree assault and one count of falsely reporting a crime for an incident on January 14, 2026, when he discharged his weapon through the front door of a home knowing there were people who had just run inside,” the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office said in a statement.

“The bullet travelled through the door and struck one victim in the leg before making its final impact in the wall of a child’s room.”

Minnesota officials welcomed Castro’s arrest, saying federal agents should be held to the same legal standards as everyone else.

“In Minnesota, we believe in equal justice under the law. That means nobody is above the law, including agents of the federal government,” said Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. “I am pleased to hear Christian Castro has been taken into custody and will stand trial for the crimes he allegedly committed in Minnesota.”

Operation Metro Surge faces increasing legal scrutiny

The case became a flashpoint after federal authorities initially claimed Sosa-Celis and another man had assaulted ICE officers.

Those allegations later unravelled when video and other evidence emerged that contradicted agents’ accounts, prompting prosecutors to drop charges against Sosa-Celis and his housemate, Alfredo Aljorna.

The DHS later acknowledged that officers involved in the incident had provided false information about the shooting.

The outgoing director of ICE, Todd Lyons, also indicated a federal investigation was under way. “Lying under oath is a serious federal offense,” he said.

But through a spokesperson, ICE rejected Minnesota’s effort to prosecute the agent involved, calling the case “unlawful” and “a political stunt”.

Castro is the second federal officer charged this year in connection with Operation Metro Surge, an unusual step that reflects growing scrutiny of federal agents’ conduct during the immigration crackdown.

Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty is also pursuing investigations into other incidents linked to the operation.

Operation Metro Surge began in Minnesota in December 2025. By the time Sosa-Celis was shot on January 14, hundreds of federal agents had been deployed across the Minneapolis-St Paul area in what officials described as the largest DHS operation in US history.

The crackdown ultimately prompted intense controversy, particularly after the fatal shootings of two US citizens: Renee Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24.

Against that backdrop, the investigation into the Sosa-Celis shooting further intensified scrutiny of federal agents’ tactics and conduct during the operation.

After two years of relentless bombardment and ground invasions, Israel’s future in Gaza had appeared to be settled with the signing of United States President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan on October 9, 2025.

Under the terms of that agreement, Israeli forces were meant to withdraw behind what planners called the “Yellow Line”, maintaining control of 58 percent of the territory, with their full withdrawal to be set at a date to be determined.

That withdrawal hasn’t happened. In fact, in the months since, as well as killing at least 922 people in near-daily strikes on the enclave during the “ceasefire”, Israel has expanded its territory by about 11 percent.

According to satellite data gathered in March, it has also established at least 32 military outposts, a ground barrier and infrastructure along what was supposed to be a temporary line.

Since October last year, numerous humanitarian agencies, including Oxfam, have accused Israel of compounding the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by restricting deliveries of aid and other essential goods.

Then, on Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that Israel will take over yet more territory in Gaza, telling a conference: “We are currently squeezing Hamas; we now control 60 percent of the territory of the Strip – you know this. We were at 50. My directive is to move to …,” he said, pausing briefly as someone in the crowd yelled, “100!”

“Let’s go step by step,” he responded, “First of all, 70. Let’s start with that. We’re pressing them from all sides, we’ll deal with the remnants.”

Al Jazeera contacted the Israeli prime minister’s office for clarification of this, but received no response by the time of publishing.

Can Israel just grab more land in Gaza?

“If Israel’s ultimate plan is to exercise permanent effective control over the entirety of the Gaza Strip, we are talking about unlawful annexation,” Michael Becker, a professor of international human rights law at Trinity College in Dublin, told Al Jazeera.

“As the International Court of Justice reaffirmed in a 2024 advisory opinion, annexation constitutes a violation of the bedrock prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force.”

Nevertheless, to date, since the onset of its war on Gaza in October 2023, Israeli forces have killed at least 72,819 men, women and children in Gaza, with many thousands more missing and presumed dead under the rubble.

By 2025, Israel had caused a confirmed famine in the enclave and has now decimated nearly all infrastructure needed to support life. It has done all this without experiencing any meaningful international sanctions and still takes part in numerous international sporting and entertainment competitions – despite protests.

Hopes that the US might enforce its own conditions on Israel also appear ill-founded. Since announcing a ceasefire in the enclave in October last year, the US has failed to react as Israel has expanded and entrenched its presence in Gaza, choking off access to about two-thirds of the enclave for its inhabitants by April 2026.

Al Jazeera also contacted the US State Department for comment about this, but received no response by the time of publishing.

Can Gaza’s population survive in such a reduced territory?

It’s very hard to tell. Several agencies, including the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), have expressed deep concern about how Gaza’s remaining population can continue to subsist in an ever-shrinking space.

Israel’s answer to this is simple. “The plan for voluntary emigration from Gaza will also be implemented, all at the proper time and in the proper manner,” Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote in a statement marking the killing of Hamas leader Mohammed Odeh on Wednesday this week.

“Voluntary emigration” is a term used by a number of Israel’s government ministers, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich. Observers typically acknowledge that this means the ethnic cleansing of the enclave.

Israel’s Ministry of Defence did not respond to questions about this from Al Jazeera.

Is any of this legal?

No.

“The idea of permanently removing Palestinians from Gaza smacks of forced displacement and would also violate the fundamental right to self-determination of the Palestinian people,” Becker said. The principle of self-determination serves as a “cornerstone” of the UN Charter, he said.

However, Becker said, the spotlight of international attention has now shifted from the crisis in Gaza to the US and Israel’s war on Iran, as well as Israel’s actions in Lebanon, where it has occupied large swaths of the south of the country.

“While the Trump administration may be willing to diverge from Israel’s interests in seeking a resolution to the disastrous and illegal war that the United States started against Iran, the United States seems to have lost interest in Gaza or pushing for restraint on the part of Netanyahu’s government. It is unclear what role the so-called Board of Peace is willing to play in terms of maintaining a future for the Palestinians of Gaza,” he said.

A digital register of land ownership in the West Bank is seen as an escalation of Israel’s occupation.

Occupied East Jerusalem, Palestine – A controversial Israeli plan to digitally register property ownership in the occupied West Bank is a “dangerous colonial occupation step that represents a direct assault on the historical and legal rights of the Palestinian people to their land and property”, the Palestinian Land Authority has said.

The Palestinian Jerusalem Governorate and the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission (CRRC) have urged Palestinians in the West Bank not to engage with any Israeli “entities, committees, platforms, or procedures” of lands and property.

Israel reportedly launched the online “Land Registry and Settlement of Rights” platform on which it plans to “update” property ownership in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday this week.

The Jerusalem Governorate and the CRRC have called on the international community, the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and all international human rights and legal institutions to “take their urgent responsibilities to stop these illegal procedures and hold the occupying state accountable for its continuous violations against the Palestinian people, their land, and their resources”, they said.

Moayad Shaaban, head of the CRRC, which is part of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said the move reveals “the occupation’s transition from traditional policies of field control to digital and administrative colonial engineering aimed at imposing permanent legal realities on the occupied Palestinian territory”.

‘Annexation’ by land registry

In May 2025, the Israeli Security Cabinet launched a new, aggressive land settlement process throughout the West Bank, with the aim of “completing the legal and administrative annexation of the occupied territories through fully registering the lands under Israeli authority”, the Jerusalem Governorate said.

Then, in July 2025, Israel’s parliament approved a symbolic measure calling for the annexation of the occupied West Bank. The move was first tabled in 2024 by Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, who himself lives in an illegal Israeli settlement.

On February 15, 2026, the permanent acquisition and registration of approximately 58 percent of Area C – the part of the West Bank over which Israel exerts total control – began.

Under that decision, Palestinian land registration in the Israeli “Tabu” – the land registry extract – began for the first time since the occupation of the West Bank in 1967. It is a final measure that will be difficult to challenge in Israeli courts, the Israel Hayom newspaper reported in February.

With the onset of land settlement, the Israeli Land Registry unit will take over the regulation and registration of land ownership in Area C. It also has the power to issue sales permits and to collect fees. Israel aims to complete the full settlement of 15 percent of the West Bank by the end of 2030.

Some 700,000 Israeli settlers already live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as illegal settlement has expanded under the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Rights groups say settlement approvals, along with rising settler violence against Palestinian communities, have accelerated since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.

A woman has lost a court battle after she claimed that “water is a natural resource and a universal human right” having been refused a glass of tap water by the Hotel Sassongher in Corvara

A hotel has won a legal fight with a tourist who asked for a glass of water.

In the UK, the right to ask for a glass of water from certain establishments is enshrined in the law. Restaurants that serve alcohol are legally required to provide free tap water to paying customers, although they may charge for the glass or service.

The same cannot be said for other countries.

In Italy, the land’s highest court has just ruled that a five-star Dolomites hotel acted lawfully when it refused to provide tap water to a tourist.

Way back in 2019, the woman, from Rome, asked for a glass of H2O, only to be told that she couldn’t have one and that she’d have to make do with a £6 bottle of mineral water instead.

What followed was a legal fight that has run on until this week. Eventually settled in the Italian Supreme Court, the tourist claimed that “water is a natural resource and a universal human right”.

However, such arguments failed, with the five-star Hotel Sassongher in Corvara eventually victorious and the tourist’s request for £2,300 in compensation for emotional distress and economic damage dismissed.

Silvio Belardi, the lawyer representing the hotel, told the Corriere Alto Adige newspaper that the court held that “there is no obligation to supply tap water”.

According to the lawyer, the case had been rejected first by a court in Rome, then by an appeals court and now the Court of Cassation.

The Roman had argued that her consumer rights had been violated. She compared the denial of tap water to a hotel not putting sheets on a bed or soap in the bathroom.

“The woman claimed she had suffered damage, including financial and moral harm. This was rejected for lack of evidence,” Mr Belardi told the BBC.

Supreme Court judges dismissed her claim, eventually ruling that Italian laws and regulations do not require venues to provide tap water to guests. It is up to individual establishments whether they decide to do so.

“We also argued that if a person wanted running water, they could easily get that in the hotel – just not at the restaurant,” the lawyer added

European countries where free tap water is legally required

France: Requires restaurants to provide a carafe of water with every meal at no extra charge.

Spain: Passed a law in 2022 requiring bars and restaurants to offer unpackaged drinking water for free.

Lithuania: Restaurants must give guests tap water if they ask for it.

What about the EYU as a whole?

The EU as a whole has passed no laws requiring establishments to provide free tap water, although that could change soon. The EU’s Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, approved by the EU Council, encourages member states to ensure restaurants, bars, cafés, and catering services provide tap water for free or for a minimal service fee, with rules set to take effect in August this year.

The first flight carrying around 300 Ghanaians evacuated from South Africa following anti-immigrant tensions and reported attacks on foreign nationals has arrived in Accra. Authorities welcomed returnees with reintegration support and transport assistance.

The Trump administration has sought to pressure international officials who scrutinise reported abuses by Israeli forces.

The United States government has returned UN human rights expert Francesca Albanese to a list of sanctioned individuals after a judge had granted a temporary injunction against the designation.

On Wednesday, an update appeared on the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) website, indicating that Albanese had been added to the agency’s list of Specially Designated Nationals (SDN), without offering further details.

Albanese serves as the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, and her criticism of Israeli policies has made her a target under US President Donald Trump.

In July 2025, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement announcing sanctions against Albanese, accusing her of “lawfare” and “biased and malicious activities” against Israel.

He also cited her recommendation that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should issue arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant, which it ultimately did in November 2024.

The announcement was one in a series of actions the Trump administration has taken against critics it sees as hostile to US and Israeli interests.

The sanctions barred Albanese from entering the US and froze her assets in the country. They also prevented any US-based entity from doing business with her.

Albanese, an Italian citizen, has close ties to the US: Her daughter is a US citizen, and the family maintains a residence in the country.

In February, members of Albanese’s family filed a lawsuit on her behalf, stating that the sanctions had disrupted her life, even preventing her from accessing her bank account.

The lawsuit also accused the Trump administration of trying to intimidate those who speak out against Israeli rights abuses.

Albanese has been vocal in her assessment that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, a view echoed by leading human rights experts around the world. More than 75,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory since 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on the Strip.

Albanese is not alone in facing economic penalties for her work. Since taking office for a second term, Trump is estimated to have issued sanctions against nine ICC judges, as well as prosecutors for the court.

The judges and prosecutors were reportedly involved in probes into abuses by US and Israeli forces.

Legal experts have condemned the sanctions as an assault on international law and an effort to shield the US and its allies from scrutiny.

On May 13, US District Judge Richard Leon, an appointee of former President George W Bush, ruled in favour of the Albanese family’s lawsuit, granting a temporary injunction against the sanctions.

Leon found that the Trump administration had used the penalties to curtail Albanese’s constitutionally protected speech. He also stated that Albanese could not be blamed for the ICC’s actions.

“It is undisputed that her recommendations have no binding effect on the ICC’s actions,” Leon wrote. “They are nothing more than her opinion.”

As a result of the ruling, Albanese was removed from the sanctions list this month.

But the Trump administration appealed Leon’s order. It also said it would restore her to the sanctions list as soon as it was able, though it is unclear what prompted Wednesday’s change.

Indonesian authorities have shut down several screenings of a new documentary about alleged human rights abuses in Papua, including Indigenous land seizures. Al Jazeera’s Jessica Washington explains the controversy.

Caracas, May 26, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Attorney General Larry Devoe announced on Monday a formal investigation into recent unrest at the Barinas Judicial Detention Center (INJUBA). 

The prison began to make headlines last week when inmates seized control of the facility to denounce ill-treatment and physical abuse from authorities. The investigation followed the dismissal of prison director Elvis Macuare Guerrero, who had held the post for less than a week before the revolt.

“The Attorney General’s Office announces the launch of a criminal investigation into the events that took place on May 24, 2026, at INJUBA, where inmates staged a protest,” read the official statement. The investigation will focus on accusations of “cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” allegedly carried out by security personnel inside the facility.

The probe followed dramatic scenes in which prisoners climbed onto the roof, burned mattresses, and held up banners demanding an end to what they described as a regime of terror. 

According to testimonies gathered by local journalists on the ground, the inmates accused prison authorities of recurring violence and torture, including systematic beatings and forced “ice-cold baths with electric currents.”

The riot was sparked after guards reportedly confiscated belongings and subjected a group of prisoners to violent searches.

In response to the unrest, authorities transferred over 100 female inmates out of the Barinas facility to reduce tensions. On Tuesday, General Giuseppe Cacioppo, head of the Barinas governorship security office, told press that the situation at INJUBA was calm and under control, with a further 818 male prisoners transferred to other penitentiary centers throughout the country.

Rodríguez raises judicial reform priorities

The Barinas inmate unrest coincided with the Venezuelan government announcing the impending release of hundreds of prisoners. On Friday, Acting President Delcy Rodríguez announced that 500 prisoners would be liberated “in the coming hours.” 

Three officers from the former Metropolitan Police were among those already confirmed free. Héctor Rovaín, Erasmo Bolívar, and Luis Molina were serving 30-year sentences for their involvement in the violence leading up to the brief 2002 coup against then-president Hugo Chávez. They had been arrested in 2003 and convicted in 2009.

According to official figures provided by the presidency, since the February approval of the Amnesty Law, a total of 8,740 people have received amnesty. Of these, 8,426 were still facing trial or under probation-type measures and had their cases dropped.

However, the government announcements have also drawn criticism. The Justicia, Encuentro y Perdón (JEP) NGO cautioned that “this type of public pronouncement [announcing more releases] generates enormous expectations,” warning that any failure to comply would represent a “new and cruel affront to human dignity.”

Rodríguez explained that the latest freed individuals had their cases and sentences reviewed through a “different mechanism,” evaluated via the Commission for Judicial Revolution and the Program for Peace and Democratic Coexistence, as opposed to the Amnesty Law.

During a televised working session on Saturday, the acting president framed the ongoing releases and the investigation into the Barinas prison riot as part of a broader transformation of the penal system. She likewise enacted a reform to the Organic Law of the Supreme Court (TSJ), expanding the number of magistrates from 20 to 32.

Rodríguez acknowledged prison overcrowding as one of the main issues plaguing the Venezuelan penitentiary system. She claimed that, according to official statistics, 68% of the incarcerated population in Venezuela comes from the poorest economic strata and vowed to advance judicial reforms that tackle the “criminalization of poverty.”

The Venezuelan leader went on to announce the beginning of the National Consultation for Penal Justice Reform on June 1. The public consultation aims to address what she identified as the “three great challenges” of the current system: procedural delays, judicial corruption, and the criminalization of poverty.

Rodríguez went on to denounce the “partisan and political” manipulation of the justice system.

The commission tasked with the consultation, headed by Attorney General Devoe, will hold meetings with academics, NGOs, judicial system workers, and other relevant actors.

Venezuela’s justice system came under the spotlight recently with the case of Victor Quero, who had an amnesty request denied despite having died in state custody months earlier. Authorities did not inform his mother, Carmen Navas, who continued to visit the prison in search of information. Navas passed away days after her son’s death was publicly acknowledged. The Attorney General opened an investigation into the case.

In recent years, human rights NGOs and prisoner relatives have denounced systematic due process violations and poor incarceration conditions.

Edited by Ricardo Vaz in Caracas.

Australian Federal Police have not made any arrests but say inquiries are ongoing.

A group of 19 women and children with alleged links to ISIL (ISIS) has returned to Australia, with the government warning that anyone found to have engaged in criminal activity will be prosecuted.

The six women and 13 children arrived from a Syrian refugee camp on Tuesday, with one group landing in Sydney and the other in Melbourne.

It is the second cohort of Australian women and children to return from Syria this month. Responding to criticism over their arrival, the Australian government said it had not assisted them in any capacity.

“These are people who have made the horrific choice to join a dangerous terrorist organisation and to place their children in an unspeakable situation,” Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke said.

Australian women began travelling to Syria to marry members of ISIL in 2012, with some allegedly taken against their will.

At the height of its power in 2015, ISIL controlled territory across Syria and Iraq roughly equivalent in size to the United Kingdom.

Australian Federal Police did not arrest any members of the group upon their arrival but said that investigations were ongoing.

The group’s return has sparked anger in some sections of Australian society.

According to local media, a large police presence was deployed at Melbourne airport, where a scuffle reportedly broke out as the group of women and children was escorted out through a side entrance.

Australia is one of several Western countries that have shown reluctance to repatriate citizens who travelled to the Middle East to join ISIL about a decade ago.

Both France and the UK have expressed opposition to allowing former ISIL members to return.

In 2022, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said that France’s failure to repatriate children born to French nationals in Syria violated their right to life and exposed them to inhumane treatment.

Meanwhile, the UK stripped British national Shamima Begum of her citizenship in 2019 on national security grounds.

In February, the Australian government issued a temporary exclusion order against a woman in Syria, preventing her from returning home.

Her child, who was not barred from returning, chose to stay with her.

The order prevents the woman from returning to Australia until February 2028, and her family is currently challenging the decision.

Afzal Ashraf, a visiting fellow at Loughborough University specialising in international relations and security, said the risk posed by people returning from countries including Syria needs to be viewed proportionately.

“There will be some security challenges, because people like this are likely to suffer from issues such as PTSD,” Ashraf told Al Jazeera.

“The fact of the matter is that there are security challenges in Australia and other countries, but statistically speaking, the return of these nationals doesn’t increase that risk very much, while the threat to life from terrorism is far lower than the threat posed by road accidents, for example.”

“That said, these threats can be reduced by providing comprehensive mental health support for returnees and ensuring they are reintegrated into society in a positive way, with follow-up programmes to address any dangerous ideas they may have adopted,” Ashraf said.

“It’s worth remembering that ISIL has killed far more Muslims than Westerners.”

Earlier this month, four women and 13 children arrived in Australia from Syria. Three of the women were arrested upon arrival.

A new report warns that Britain is undergoing a “deeply troubling transformation” in how it treats political protest as climate activists and pro-Palestine campaigners increasingly face lengthy prison sentences, sweeping legal restrictions and months in jail before trial.

The report, Britain’s Political Prisoners, copublished by researchers at the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary University of London and the campaign group Defend Our Juries, said the UK has “witnessed an increase in anti-protest powers granted to the police and the courts through legislation” that has “created a significantly more repressive legal terrain for activists engaging in civil disobedience and direct action”.

It traces the shift from crackdowns on protests by Extinction Rebellion, Black Lives Matter, Insulate Britain and Just Stop Oil to more recent prosecutions linked to Palestine solidarity actions, including campaigns targeting British factories operated by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.

The report, released on Tuesday, found that a combination of new laws, broader police powers and increasingly punitive court tactics has reshaped Britain’s protest landscape since 2019.

The United Kingdom has witnessed numerous mass protests and direct actions by activists to pressure the government to stop selling arms to Israel during its genocidal war on Gaza, in which more than 72,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 40,000 women, children and elderly.

So what does Britain’s shifting stance on protests mean for civil rights, and what’s behind the legal clampdown on climate and pro-Palestine protests?

How Britain’s legal system has changed since 2019

The report painted a stark picture of how Britain’s legal system has changed in response to climate and pro-Palestine direct action campaigns through a mix of new laws, expanded police powers and what campaigners describe as increasingly punitive court tactics. What this means for protesters is longer jail sentences, stricter bail conditions and harsher treatment in the courts than was once typical for acts of civil disobedience, according to the report.

At the centre of that shift are two major laws introduced after waves of demonstrations by groups such as Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, two environmental groups that employ nonviolent civil disobedience tactics to pressure governments to address the climate crisis.

The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 transformed the old common law offence of “public nuisance” into a formal criminal offence carrying a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. This means actions that seriously disrupt the public – such as blocking roads, stopping traffic or shutting down infrastructure – can now lead to far more severe criminal penalties than before because the offence was never previously codified into legislation. Campaigners said the law has given prosecutors a powerful new tool to pursue long prison sentences against protesters.

The Public Order Act 2023 introduced a series of protest-specific offences in May of that year, largely in response to climate protests by groups including Just Stop Oil, Insulate Britain and Extinction Rebellion, whose actions included blocking motorways, occupying oil terminals and targeting infrastructure projects in an attempt to pressure the government to halt new oil and gas extraction.

Such offences under the act included “locking on”, in which protesters attach themselves to roads, buildings, vehicles or each other using chains, glue or other devices to make removal difficult. The law also criminalised tunnelling, a tactic used by some activists to delay infrastructure projects, and introduced offences for disrupting major transport networks, oil terminals and other nationally important infrastructure. 

The legislation also significantly widened police powers whereby officers may now place restrictions on even one-person protests if they are deemed disruptive. Police were also granted powers to carry out stop-and-search operations in designated protest zones without needing reasonable suspicion that someone has committed an offence – a significant expansion of police authority criticised by civil liberties groups.

But the report argued the crackdown extends beyond parliament and into the courts.

One of its central findings is the growing use of civil injunctions and contempt of court proceedings against activists.

Oil companies, arms manufacturers, councils and universities have increasingly obtained court orders banning protests near their sites, the report said.

The report identified contempt of court as the most common route to imprisonment among the 249 protest-related cases it analysed. Contempt of court usually refers to someone disobeying a judge’s order or behaving in a way the court says interferes with justice. In protest cases, it has increasingly been used against activists who ignore injunctions or refuse to follow restrictions imposed during trials.

Because contempt proceedings are handled directly by judges rather than juries, campaigners argued they allow courts to imprison protesters more quickly and with fewer legal safeguards.

Researchers also highlighted what campaigners described as the “gagging” of defendants. Judges have increasingly stopped protesters from mentioning climate concerns, Gaza, international law or their political motivations in front of juries.

Courts have often argued that juries should focus only on whether a defendant broke the law, not on the political or moral reasons behind their actions. Critics said those restrictions prevent activists from fully explaining why they protested in the first place.

Campaigners also said the legal shift reflects a broader political change, driven in part by corporate lobbying under successive Conservative governments and continuing under Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labour government. They argued that peaceful protest is increasingly being criminalised to protect corporate interests, regardless of wider ethical concerns about the supply of arms to Israel during its war on Gaza or opposing fossil fuel projects linked to the climate crisis.

Perhaps most controversially, the report pointed to the growing use of lengthy pretrial detention. That means protesters being held in prison before they have been convicted of any crime.

According to the findings, many activists spend months on remand awaiting trial while some Palestine Action defendants have been held for more than a year before their cases are heard in court.

In 60 percent of the cases studied, the final sentence handed down was shorter than the time defendants had already spent in custody awaiting trial.

Are lobbyists influencing the crackdown?

Tim Crosland, director of Defend Our Juries, said the findings challenge Britain’s claims of ensuring democratic protections.

“This report strips away the illusion that Britain remains committed to democratic principles,” Crosland said.

“It reveals that peaceful protesters are being jailed in ever-increasing numbers under pressure from the oil and arms industries, the Israeli government and their lobbyists.”

The report pointed to what it described as growing political and corporate pressure behind Britain’s crackdown on protest movements.

Researchers cited reports that parts of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act may have originated in proposals from the right-wing think tank Policy Exchange. According to the investigative news site Open Democracy, Policy Exchange has previously received funding from ExxonMobil. The think tank had earlier published a report titled Extremism Rebellion, which called for new laws targeting Extinction Rebellion activists.

Al Jazeera could not independently verify the links between the think tank and the legislation.

The report further alleged that British officials came under pressure from both Elbit Systems and the Israeli government to take a tougher approach towards Palestine Action protests targeting Elbit’s UK factories.

According to correspondence quoted by the researchers, the British government said in 2022 that it had “expressed our support in recognising the attacks and boycott on Elbit UK”. The report said the issue was later raised directly with then-Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab during a visit to Israel, where he reportedly “declared that the British government is committed to stopping the attacks”.

Zoe Blackler, founding director of the London events space Kairos, said: “In the face of this clampdown on the right to peaceful protest, we need to come together in solidarity and defiance.”

Which are the cases at the centre of Britain’s protest crackdown?

The report traced Britain’s hardening response to the protests through a series of landmark cases involving climate activists and Palestine solidarity campaigners, many of whom received lengthy prison sentences or spent months behind bars before trial.

Among the most high-profile is the case of the Whole Truth Five, a group of Just Stop Oil activists jailed in July 2024 over a Zoom call discussing plans to disrupt the M25 motorway. The five were convicted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance and initially sentenced to between four and five years in prison.

The report described the case as one of the clearest examples of the tougher approach now being taken towards protest movements. Campaigners argued the sentences were extraordinary because the activists were punished largely for planning disruptive action rather than carrying it out. Prosecutors relied on conspiracy laws, which allow people to be charged for agreeing to commit an offence even if the planned action never ultimately happens.

Four Palestine Action activists were also sentenced to between 23 and 27 months for conspiring to damage an Israeli-linked arms factory in Wales. Meanwhile, four Just Stop Oil activists received prison terms of up to 30 months over plans to disrupt Manchester Airport despite never reaching the site. A fifth defendant, Noah Crane, spent almost a year in jail on remand before later being acquitted.

Another major case involved the Filton 24, Palestine Action activists prosecuted after a protest at an Elbit Systems factory in Bristol. Some defendants were held on remand for up to 18 months before trial.

After several activists were acquitted of aggravated burglary charges, most were eventually granted bail.

The report said the case raises “serious concerns” that prosecutors used unusually serious charges to justify holding defendants in prison for long periods before trial.

The report also highlighted the Brize Norton Five, activists accused of spray-painting air force planes in protest against Britain’s military links to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. According to the report, the group has remained on remand since August and is not expected to stand trial until 2027, meaning some could spend close to two years in jail before a verdict is reached.

Other cases revealed the growing use of judicial “gagging orders”.

During the retrial of the Filton 6, a separate trial from the Filton 24, the judge barred defendants from mentioning Gaza, Elbit’s role in supplying weapons to Israel and their political motivations for protesting. Critics argued such restrictions make it harder for juries to hear the broader context behind direct action campaigns.

In another case, three Insulate Britain activists were imprisoned for contempt of court after defying a judge’s order not to mention the “climate crisis” or “fuel poverty” before a jury.

Despite the legal restrictions, several juries continued to acquit activists. The report pointed to acquittals involving Just Stop Oil protesters, Extinction Rebellion activists and a hung jury in the first Filton 6 trial as evidence that some jurors remained unconvinced by the increasingly aggressive prosecution of protest movements.

Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK CEO, told Al Jazeera that “the right to protest is being eroded before our eyes.”

“We’re seeing a worrying shift where the state is using remand, sweeping injunctions and contempt proceedings to lock people up or silence them before they’ve even stood trial.

“The broader legal implications here are concerning. It’s not just about one group of activists; it’s about a systemic attempt to shut down dissent, something we’ve been ringing the alarm on for a long time.

“By replacing the presumption of liberty with preemptive legal intimidation, it creates a chilling effect, undermines the rule of law and flies in the face of basic human rights.”

Baltimore, United States – Muslim Americans are grieving after two gunmen last week opened fire at the Islamic Center of San Diego, killing three people.

But at the annual conference for the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) in Baltimore, community leaders stressed the urgency of turning the sorrow into action.

Nearly 25,000 people turned out for the annual event, held on Saturday and Sunday. Speakers addressed the recent shooting, pointing to the courage of the three victims as examples for the broader community in a time of heightened Islamophobia.

“We owe them more than condolences. We owe them resolve,” said Lena Masri, a lawyer at the Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).

She explained how the victims — a security officer, a caretaker and a neighbour — sacrificed their lives to save others. The security officer, Amin Abdullah, exchanged fire with the shooters, while the other two victims, Mansour Kaziha and Nadir Awad, rushed to help and called for emergency services.

“They protected the physical space of our community: the masjid [mosque], the school, the children, the teachers, the worshippers,” Masri explained.

“Our responsibility is to protect the civic space of our community: the right to worship, the right to speak, the right to organise, the right to defend Palestine, the right to build institutions.”

That was the recurring theme of the conference: that the Muslim American community cannot afford to be passive and must draw on its strength to push back against bigotry and hate.

Speakers emphasised voting, organising and donating to community institutions and candidates who align with Muslim Americans. They also underscored the need to hold officials accountable and push for an end to Israel’s atrocities in Palestine.

“We owe Gaza more than grief. We owe Gaza advocacy that cannot be intimidated into silence,” Masri said.

Islamophobia and Palestinians’ dehumanisation

Symbols of Palestine could be seen everywhere at the conference, from bags emblazoned with watermelons and flags to keffiyeh-patterned scarves, shirts and water bottles.

At a bazaar featuring dozens of vendors, conference-goers left messages of solidarity on a tent that will be sent to Gaza by the charity Life for Relief and Development (LIFE).

In speeches and on panels, advocates drew a link between anti-Muslim bigotry in the United States and Israel’s abuses in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Lebanon.

Some of the loudest promoters of Islamophobia in the US are also staunch Israel supporters, among them right-wing commentator Laura Loomer and Congressman Randy Fine.

Both Loomer and Fine are allies of US President Donald Trump, whose administration has unleashed a crackdown to deport critics of Israel who live in the US but are not citizens.

Altaf Husain, a professor at the Howard University School of Social Work, said anti-Palestinian voices are trying to “scare” Muslims as a means of silencing criticism of Israel.

“They want to shut this down, so it’s a direct connection,” Husain told Al Jazeera.

He said the large turnout at the ICNA conference shows that the community is not intimidated and will not back down.

In the response to the shooting in San Diego, Husain pointed out that the community raised more than $3.5m for the victims’ families and moved to bolster security around Muslim institutions.

Layers of security

Saad Kazmi, the president of ICNA, said the organisation relied on three layers of protection to secure this weekend’s event: its own security guards, an outside firm and local law enforcement agencies in Baltimore.

While there is anxiety in the community over the rise of Islamophobia and Trump’s immigration crackdown, he said Muslim Americans must take matters into their own hands and work with “sensible” people across the political spectrum to defeat hate.

“We are very thankful that we live in a country that is ruled by the Constitution and law,” Kazmi told Al Jazeera.

Kazmi added that the shooting in San Diego only added to the community’s determination to assert and protect its rights. The Islamic centre in the city, he noted, did not shut down after the attack.

“If anything came out of this, it is that there are more attendees to the masjid, more people who believe that the way forward is to strengthen ourselves, strengthen our community and march on,” Kazmi said.

After the shooting, Loomer doubled down on her anti-Muslim rhetoric, calling on immigration authorities to target the Islamic Center of San Diego.

She also called for the deportation of all Muslims from the US, describing them as an “invasive species”. But few Republicans disavowed Loomer, who maintains close ties to the White House.

Rather, more than 60 Congress members have joined the Sharia-Free America Caucus since it was established in December. CAIR has designated the caucus a hate group.

At the state level, governors and local legislators have disparaged Islam while also pushing to penalise Palestinian rights activism.

Texas and Florida, for example, have labelled CAIR a “terrorist” group, while implementing measures against “Sharia law” that critics consider anti-Muslim dog whistles.

Rights under attack

In March, after CAIR sued Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over its “terrorist” designation, a federal court blocked the label from being imposed.

In his ruling, Judge Mark Walker wrote that DeSantis’s executive order (EO) targets the Muslim community as a whole.

“It should be lost on no one that Defendant’s EO targets one of America’s largest Muslim civil rights organizations for indirect suppression of speech. But, as we all know, it is easy for those in power to target minority groups with little pushback,” Walker wrote.

“Sadly, history teaches that it is often minority religious groups who find themselves in the crosshairs.”

On Saturday, several panels praised the US legal system and the laws that protect freedom of religion and speech. But the panellists argued that human rights do not defend themselves; people must step up to protect them.

“You’ve got to imagine rights are a territory, and you have to occupy that territory. If you do not actively occupy that territory, that territory will be taken from you. And that is exactly what has been happening,” Tom Facchine, an imam from New Jersey, said.

Last year, Palestinian immigrant Leqaa Kordia found her rights in jeopardy when immigration agents knocked on her door and detained her over her activism against Israel’s genocidal war in Gaza.

Kordia spent more than a year in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention before an immigration judge ordered her to be released in March.

But Kordia — who is still fighting deportation — told ICNA conference attendees on Saturday that she has no regrets, encouraging them to remain politically active and engaged.

“Speaking up, it comes with a cost … It cost me my health, my life, literally my freedom, and I’m living in uncertainty that tomorrow I’m going to be here, or I’m going to be deported,” she said.

“It comes with a cost, but it’s worth it. It’s worth it because silence, it costs even way more than speaking.”

A mile from the Manhattan jail where convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in 2019, an unassuming Tribeca gallery at 101 Reade Street has been transformed into a physical archive of the disgraced financier’s many cases.

More than 3.5 million pages of law enforcement documents published by the United States Department of Justice have been printed, bound and stacked across 3,437 volumes to line the walls of a room from floor to ceiling.

The exhibition, titled “The Donald J Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial Reading Room”, was organised by the Institute for Primary Facts, a nonprofit that says it focuses on transparency and anti-corruption initiatives.

Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges in July 2017 before hanging himself in his New York jail cell a month later, denying victims a chance at justice. The “reading room” is an attempt to shed light on the many cases connected to Epstein that never went to trial.

The shelves hold documents released under the Epstein Files Transparency Act, alongside timelines, handwritten visitor notes, and a memorial space dedicated to survivors and victims.

Since opening two weeks ago, the gallery has drawn a steady stream of visitors, including survivors of a string of offences linked to Epstein.

Lara Blume McGee, who was only 17 when she was abused by Epstein, visited the reading room last week.

“I found something brutally human in the Trump-Epstein reading room,” Blume McGee told Al Jazeera. “Proof that our lives mattered enough to be gathered, cataloged, and finally seen.”

She described entering the room as walking into a “paper city”, with three and a half million pages on display, a sight that hit her “like a physical blow”. What she remembers most vividly is the silence.

“The silence was thick with memory,” she said. “Row after row, each bound volume a life, a name, a day that should never have happened if the US government had acted when he was reported to the FBI in 1996.”

The overwhelming scale of the archive is intentional. Organisers say the physicality of the documents forces visitors to confront not only the extent of Epstein’s crimes, but also the number of lives affected by them.

Thousands of victims have been identified in connection with Epstein’s abuse network. One of the most prominent survivors, Virginia Giuffre, died by suicide in April 2025.

David Garrett, a co-founder of the exhibition, said the project was built around survivors from the outset.

“We are centred around the victims and survivors more than anything,” Garrett said. “The biggest thing is transparency and accountability.”

Garrett described the exhibition as part of a broader effort to create “real-life pop-up museums” aimed at generating public pressure around corruption and institutional failure.

“Our goal is how can we drive public outrage in order to put pressure on Congress and the Department of Justice to get full and real transparency and hopefully eventually accountability,” he said.

The process of assembling the archive was itself chaotic. Garrett said organisers downloaded the files from the Department of Justice in March, believing they had received properly redacted documents. Only after printing the collection did they discover that many survivors’ names remained visible in the files.

“What seems to have happened is the Department of Justice modified its search function instead of actually redacting the names,” Garrett said. “The names of survivors were left unredacted while the names of witnesses and co-conspirators were hidden. They brazenly broke the law.”

Finding a venue also proved difficult. Garrett said several locations backed out after initially agreeing to host the exhibit, fearing controversy or retaliation. The Tribeca gallery ultimately became the fifth venue that organisers approached.

Despite these challenges, survivors and advocates quickly embraced the project.

On Tuesday, the gallery became the site of a 24-hour livestream reading of the files led by survivors, advocates and supporters.

Dani Bensky, an Epstein survivor, opened the broadcast Monday afternoon, standing at a podium inside the dimly lit gallery with one of the thick white volumes in her hands.

Her reading marked the beginning of a continuous public recitation of excerpts from the files – an attempt, organisers said, to ensure the documents are not quietly buried again.

Throughout the gallery, visitors have left flowers, handwritten notes, and messages of grief and anger.

Garrett recalled one woman who spent hours walking silently through the space before telling organisers she was herself a survivor of sexual abuse.

“She said this helped her realise that she felt seen,” Garrett said. “That meant a lot to us.”

For Blume McGee, that feeling of visibility carries both relief and frustration.

“For years we were told to be quiet, to accept settlements, to move on,” she told Al Jazeera. “Seeing our truths preserved in a public archive felt like a long-overdue acknowledgment of our pain, our abuse and our reality.”

But she warned that documentation alone is not justice.

“This exhibition gives real hope because the record is now undeniable,” Blume McGee said. “Finally, there is action: documentation, visibility, proof. But those same files map systemic failure — how many doors stayed shut, how many people escaped scrutiny.”

“Visibility without consequence only prolongs the wound,” she added. “We need both: the files on the table and the government to act — investigate, prosecute, reform — so that being ‘finally seen’ becomes finally safe.”

Convictions handed down amid an intensified crackdown by Bahraini authorities on individuals accused of having ties to Tehran.

Bahrain has sentenced nine people to life in prison for carrying out what authorities describe as “hostile and terrorist acts” in cooperation with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Two other defendants were also jailed for three years each after being convicted of collaborating with the IRGC in what prosecutors described as “terrorist and espionage” activities, state media reported on Sunday.

The convictions were handed down during an intensified crackdown by Bahraini authorities on individuals accused of ties to Tehran. The crackdown followed a wave of Iranian strikes on Bahrain after the United States and Israel launched their war on Iran in late February. Iran began striking all of its Gulf neighbours in response, saying it was targeting American interests, including military bases.

Prosecutors said some of the defendants photographed vital and strategic sites in Bahrain on behalf of the IRGC. Others were accused of facilitating the transfer of funds from Iran to Bahrain, including through cryptocurrency transactions, to finance the operations. Authorities also alleged that individuals inside the country were recruited to support some of the plans.

Bahrain began arresting individuals allegedly linked to Iran in March, shortly after the conflict began.

Earlier this month, authorities detained a further 41 people.

Less than two weeks later, more than 60 people were stripped of their citizenship for allegedly supporting Iranian attacks on Bahrain and “colluding with foreign entities”.

The London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy described the move as “dangerous” and said it constituted a clear violation of international law.

Other Gulf states have also arrested individuals accused of cooperating with Iran. Last month, the United Arab Emirates said it had dismantled a group allegedly planning to carry out what officials described as “terrorist acts”.

Bahrain is home to a large Shia population. Many of its members have long accused the authorities of political and economic marginalisation. The government denies discriminating against Shia citizens, accusing Iran of fuelling unrest in the country.