Six In The Morning Thursday 23 May 2024

 

• The Israeli army intensify its assault on Rafah as the International Court of Justice says it will rule on Friday on a request by South Africa to order Israel to implement a ceasefire in Gaza, including in the southern city.
• Israeli forces kill 12 Palestinians in two-day raid on Jenin, in the occupied West Bank.
• UN says displaced “families living among the rubble” after more than 800,000 Palestinians flee Rafah as Israeli forces attack.
• At least 35,800 people killed and 80,011 wounded in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7. The revised death toll in Israel from Hamas’s October 7 attack is 1,139 with dozens still held captive.

Sounds of heavy clashes heard in central Rafah

Palestinian journalist Doaa Khaled has posted footage to her Instagram account – which was verified by Al Jazeera – that documents the sounds of gunfire in the Yibna refugee camp in the middle of Rafah, southern Gaza.

The Israeli army has stepped up its attacks on Rafah this month as part of a ground offensive on the city.

Whistleblowers allege widespread abuses at Israeli detention camp

Sources describe Palestinian inmates being beaten, kept shackled to hospital beds or made to stand for hours

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Lorenzo Tondo and Quique Kierszenbaum in Jerusalem

Thu 23 May 2024 14.02 BST

Prisoners held at an Israeli detention camp in the Negev desert are being subjected to widespread physical and mental abuses, with at least one reported case of a man having his limb amputated as a result of injuries sustained from constant handcuffing, according to two whistleblowers who worked at the site.

The sources described harrowing treatment of detainees at the Israeli Sde Teiman camp, which holds Palestinians from Gaza and suspected Hamas militants, including inmates regularly being kept shackled to hospital beds, blindfolded and forced to wear nappies.

Can Taiwan defend itself against China?

Taiwan has expanded its asymmetric warfare capacity which involves using smaller, but highly effective, weapons to make an invasion by a larger force prohibitively costly.

Large-scale Chinese military drills near Taiwan come after William Lai Ching-te, of Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), was sworn in as president of the self-governing democratic island on Monday.

In his inauguration speech, Lai vowed to defend the island's democracy, and called on China to end its military intimidation.

The leadership of the People's Republic of China (PRC) under President Xi Jinping considers self-ruled Taiwan as Chinese territory that must be "reunited" with the mainland, by using force if necessary.

Palestinian film draws praise as Cannes stars take discreet stances on Gaza war

The war raging in Gaza has given added prominence to director Mahdi Fleifel’s drama “To a Land Unknown”, the only Palestinian film to be screened in Cannes this year. While festival organisers have reined in protests, filmmakers, actors and activists have sought to shed light on the plight of Gaza’s population and the hostages still held in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave. 

“To a Land Unknown”, Fleifel’s fiction debut, opens with a quote by the Palestinian scholar Edward Said: “It’s a sort of fate of Palestinians not to end up where they started, but somewhere unexpected and far away.” 

Spoken decades ago, Said’s words capture the tragedy of a stateless people whose diaspora outnumbers those left behind. They acquire added resonance today as Palestinians in Gaza seek refuge from Israel's devastating military offensive, unleashed in response to the October 7 attacks carried out by Hamas. 

The only Palestinian film in Cannes this year, Fleifel’s movie premiered on Wednesday in the Directors’ Fortnight, which runs parallel to the festival. It follows two exiled cousins yearning for a fresh start in a social-realist drama that was warmly received by film critics at the French Riviera gathering. 

Russian strikes key Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, killing at least 7, as ground troops advance

By Olga Voitovych and Sharon Braithwaite, CNN

 2 minute read 

Updated 10:35 AM EDT, Thu May 23, 2024

A wave of Russian missile strikes on Thursday pummeled several locations in Kharkiv, including a printing house the regional capital, killing seven people, as the Kremlin’s forces advance.

Russian troops have taken advantage of a weakened front line in Ukraine, and for the past two weeks have advanced towards Kharkiv. The region was captured by Russian forces earlier in the war before being liberated.

All seven of the deceased, at least five of whom were women, were civilians working for the Factor-Druk printing company in the region’s capital, the city of Kharkiv, according to the regional governor, Oleh Syniehubov. Sixteen people were injured at the at printing house, located south of the city center, and another seven were injured elsewhere.

Unprecedented insurrection in New Caledonia - Macron

Jaroslav Lukiv, BBC News

President Emmanuel Macron has described rioting in the French-Pacific territory of New Caledonia as an "unprecedented insurrection movement" that no-one saw coming.

During a tour of police headquarters in the capital Nouméa on Thursday, he said the coming days and weeks would be difficult, but Paris would "go until the end" to restore calm.

Six people, including two police officers, have been killed and hundreds more wounded in riots, looting and arson triggered by a controversial electoral reform.