Eleven-year-old Ahmed Al-Raqab was playing outside his family tent pitched on Gaza’s sandy coastline in Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, on Wednesday when the Israeli missile struck, killing him and severely wounding several others.
“The children were playing and they fired a missile directly on them,” Ahmed’s father, Sabri Al-Raqab, said, sobbing as he knelt on the floor of Nasser hospital with his arms across his son’s dead body in a final embrace. “He was carrying a watermelon. What was this child’s crime? He picked up a watermelon and they fired at him. Is he a fighter? He’s not a fighter. He’s a child.”
Overcome with grief, Al-Raqab buried his face into his son’s, which was caked with blood, and wept uncontrollably. In a nearby room, a six year old child wounded in the same attack screamed in pain as blood from a gaping wound in his right eye covered his cheek and ear. He was carried into the hospital in the arms of a teenage relative who laid him down shouting, “Come attend to this boy. We are losing the boy, we are losing him.”
The child’s grandfather, Ahmed Al-Jarjawi, stood nearby, the front of his jalabiya stained deep red with blood. “We were just sitting and the strike landed next to the our tent and hit three other tents,” Ahmed Al-Jarjawi told Drop Site News. “This child lost his eye. I was wounded here,” he said pointing to his chest. “My son’s wife was also wounded in the upper part of her leg.”
Israel Bombs Palestinians in Beach Tents in Gaza
'The face of a tortured man': Photos of Palestinian journalist released from Israeli prison spark outrage
Before-and-after photos of a Palestinian journalist released from Israeli detention have sparked anger on social media and calls for accountability from journalists and rights organisations, describing the Israeli prison system as a “tool for both the slow and direct killing” of detainees.
Mujahed Bani Mufleh shared a photograph of his shocking physical state after eight months in Israeli prison on his Instagram page on Wednesday.
The 36-year-old was held in administrative detention - imprisonment without charge or trial - and eventually released from Israeli prison in January. He found out just two days later that he had suffered a severe brain hemorrhage due to prison conditions and medical neglect. He required emergency surgeries and continues to face a long road to recovery, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society said in a statement.
The father of three from the town of Beita, in Nablus in the occupied West Bank, described the nights in Israeli prison in a statement accompanying the images: “You lie awake between physical suffering and heavy thoughts, counting the hours and waiting for dawn as if it were salvation.”
Drones and decomposing babies: What's in UN report on Israel's genocide of Palestinian children
Israeli forces deliberately targeted Palestinian children as a central element of their genocide in Gaza, the UN's top investigative body on Palestine and Israel concluded this week.
The finding comes in an 88-page report examining the full scope of harm inflicted on children since 7 October 2023, from precision shootings by snipers and drones to torture in detention, reproductive violence and the destruction of schools and hospitals.
"The evidence shows that Palestinian children have been deliberately targeted and killed by the Israeli security forces," said Srinivasan Muralidhar, chair of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel.
"Even after the October 2025 ceasefire, children continue to be killed and seriously injured, with continued disregard by Israel for the ceasefire and for the protection owed to Palestinian children under international law," the Indian lawyer and judge said.
NATO 3.0: High Stakes for Ukraine Ahead of Tens of Billions in Arms Deals at Ankara Summit
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte announced Thursday that allies will unveil tens of billions of dollars in new defense-related contracts at the Alliance’s upcoming summit in Ankara, where leaders are also expected to reaffirm support for Ukraine.
Speaking at the Atlantic Council, the NATO chief outlined the July 7–8 summit in Turkey as a test of whether allies can turn higher defense spending into real military production, while keeping long-term backing for Kyiv on the agenda.
“Tens of billions” of dollars in new defense-related contracts will be announced at the summit, Rutte stated.
The Ankara meeting is expected to highlight Europe’s push to expand its defense industrial base, increase ammunition and weapons production, and reduce long-standing capability gaps across the Alliance.
Supreme court lets Trump turn back asylum seekers at US-Mexico border
The supreme court has given the Trump administration a green light to block asylum seekers at the US-Mexico border, in a decision that fundamentally reshapes the US asylum system.
The decision allows the Trump administration to revive its so-called turn-back or “metering” policy, allowing federal agents at the US border to stop migrants from physically setting foot on US soil, where federal law guarantees them the right to claim asylum and protection from persecution.
The vote was 6-3, with Justices Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett concurring. Justices Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor dissented, with the latter penning a biting 35-page long dissent – notably almost twice as long as the Alito majority opinion.
Because US immigration law entitles migrants arriving in the US to seek asylum, the supreme court case hinged on what, exactly, it means to “arrive in”.
US supreme court allows Trump administration to strip Haitians and Syrians of protected status
The US supreme court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s bid to strip temporary protected status (TPS) from hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians, who were legally in the US and protected from deportation.
In another boost to Donald Trump’s unprecedented hardline crackdown on immigrants, including many of whom have lived legally in the US for years, the court issued a 6-3 ruling. That was powered by its conservative-leaning majority, overturning decisions by federal judges in New York and Washington DC that had halted the administration’s actions terminating TPS for more than 350,000 people from Haiti and 6,100 from Syria.
The US supreme court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Trump administration’s bid to strip temporary protected status (TPS) from hundreds of thousands of Haitians and Syrians, who were legally in the US and protected from deportation.
In another boost to Donald Trump’s unprecedented hardline crackdown on immigrants, including many of whom have lived legally in the US for years, the court issued a 6-3 ruling. That was powered by its conservative-leaning majority, overturning decisions by federal judges in New York and Washington DC that had halted the administration’s actions terminating TPS for more than 350,000 people from Haiti and 6,100 from Syria.
The court’s three liberal-leaning justices disagreed with the opinion. It leaves Haitians and Syrians in the US on TPS vulnerable to deportation even if they have applications for other forms of immigration status in progress.
Judge won’t let Trump’s DOJ off the hook over ‘slush fund’ after feds refuse to say it’s dead
A federal judge won’t throw out a lawsuit against Donald Trump’s administration over plans for a nearly $1.8 billion compensation fund for the president’s allies after officials refused to provide a sworn statement that the fund is actually dead.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema wanted officials to file a “short, written declaration under the penalty of perjury” that the government won’t take any action to “create or operate” what critics have called a slush fund for Trump’s allies.
Government attorneys refused, so the lawsuit is still alive, and the case could now go to trial, the judge said Thursday.
Despite telling members of Congress that the government is “not moving forward” with the fund, Blanche said he’s “not committing to put anything in writing” and refused to rescind a memo establishing the fund. Last week, the Justice Department called the judge’s request for a written statement “unnecessary” and said it amounted to judicial “overreach.”
A federal judge in Boston blocks key parts of Trump's order to limit voting by mail
An executive order by President Trump that seeks to enlist the U.S. Postal Service to limit voting by mail has hit a legal hurdle.
On Thursday, a Boston-based judge blocked key parts of the order that, at least so far, has not directly affected mail-in voting for this year's midterm primary elections.
The ruling applies to this fall's general election and earlier races in nearly two dozen mainly Democratic-led states, plus Washington, D.C., that filed one of the five lawsuits against Trump's order.
The legal fight, however, is likely to continue. The Trump administration is expected to appeal the new ruling by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani, a nominee of former President Barack Obama, as a separate appeal of an earlier ruling by another federal judge moves forward in a similar set of lawsuits based in D.C.
Mamdani’s rent freeze passes for 1 million units
New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board on Thursday approved Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s (D) two-year rent freeze proposal for 1 million rent-stabilized apartments.
The 7-1 decision by the independent board, consisting of mayoral appointees, applies to rent-stabilized apartments in buildings constructed before 1974 and buildings with certain tax breaks.
The rent freeze goes into effect starting Oct. 1 and lasts until Sept. 30, 2027.
Past iterations of the board have frozen the rent before, including under former Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) before rent increases under his successor and Mamdani’s predecessor, former Mayor Eric Adams (D).
Activists poured into the streets of East Harlem in jubilation after the vote, which took place at El Museo del Barrio, The New York Times reported. Organizers passed around pizza and played music, where Queen’s “We Are the Champions” could be heard.
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