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natural disaster · natural disaster

At least two people have been killed and eight injured after torrential rain triggered flooding

geopolitical · geopolitical

Two people have been killed and three others injured in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast as a result of Russian strikes on Sunday.

geopolitical · geopolitical

A suicide bomber targeted protesters at an anti-militant rally in northwestern Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least 14 people, including police officers, and wounding more than two dozen others, officials said. The attack happened in Kabal, a town in Swat Valley in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where demonstrators had gathered near a police station, chanting anti-militant slogans and demanding peace, district police chief Omar Khan said. Bilal Faizi, a spokesman for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa...

natural disaster · natural disaster

Record low water levels on Germany's Rhine River left boats stranded in Cologne, as prolonged heat and drought pushed the country's busiest waterway to its lowest level on record.

geopolitical · geopolitical

A leak of a hazardous chemical substance occurred following a Russian attack on a critical infrastructure facility in Poltava Oblast on Sunday, but the threat was eliminated.

military · geopolitical

Disabled 2, and boarded 2, it wrote on X

geopolitical · geopolitical

Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least five people across Russia overnight into Sunday, hitting industrial sites and another warehouse belonging to e-commerce giant Wildberries as Kyiv pressed its long-range campaign to disrupt Moscow's economy while Russia continued its own attacks on Ukraine.

geopolitical · geopolitical

US president halted strikes after earlier threatening Iran with unprecedented force.

military · geopolitical

Russia's military says it attacked Ukraine's ports and vessels in the Black Sea overnight.

geopolitical · geopolitical

Rep. Jonathan Jackson says the Trump administration's policies toward Haiti, Venezuela and Cuba risk worsening instability across the Caribbean, arguing that ending Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and maintaining broad sanctions will deepen humanitarian and migration challenges. He also calls for greater transparency in US policy toward Venezuela and warns that continued pressure on Cuba could further destabilize the region. (Source: Bloomberg)

natural disaster · natural disaster

Video of the incident shows one of the helicopters hitting the propellers of the other, which bursts into flames.

geopolitical · geopolitical

Opinion: Israel's genocide has frozen a generation of Gaza's young doctors In July 2025, when Israeli forces suddenly ordered Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah to evacuate under threat of imminent bombardment, my friend Ahmed Shabat, a junior doctor, found himself facing a choice that defined the thin line between life and death. Around him, the hospital was descending into panic as staff and patients scrambled to flee. Amid the blinding chaos, Dr Ahmed spotted a young man who had been brought into the emergency department, entirely overlooked as everyone rushed to escape. He was bleeding heavily from a deep shrapnel wound to his thigh; a major artery had been severed and his life was running out in seconds. Read more: Israel's genocide has frozen a generation of Gaza's young doctors Opinion by Shoug Mukhaimar A doctor checks a drip at the dialysis unit of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on 1 February 2026 (Eyad Baba/AFP)

geopolitical · geopolitical

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine continues to struggle to defend against ballistic missiles because of a shortage of Patriot air defence interceptors, adding that the Air Force is intercepting a significant number of Russian cruise missiles and more than 90% of attack drones.

geopolitical · geopolitical

US President Donald Trump has pulled back from plans for major new strikes on Iran, in his latest climbdown after weeks of threatening to hit Tehran hard. The president said late Saturday that the US would hold off, provided a deal can be reached quickly. It follows a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who reportedly urged de-escalation, amid fears that Iran could retaliate against the Kingdom and other Gulf states. In announcing that he was calling off the strikes, Trump said Israel had “joined him in this commitment”. But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to comment. Matthew-Mary Caruchet, from France 24 international affair desk, shares further insights.

natural disaster · natural disaster

Two firefighting helicopters have collided while battling a wildfire west of Athens in Greece. The Greek fire service says each helicopter was carrying a two-person crew, and a search-and-rescue operation is now underway. Greece is battling wildfires on multiple fronts, with the Prime Minister warning of “extremely difficult” days ahead. Dozens of homes have been damaged or destroyed, and three firefighters have died this week. Catherine Viette has more.

natural disaster · natural disaster

Two helicopters have collided and crashed while fighting a fire west of Athens, the Greek broadcaster ERT reported on Sunday. The pilots of one of the helicopters have made contact with fire brigade headquarters by radio, but the fate of the crew of the second helicopter remains unclear. Each helicopter was carrying a two-person crew, the Greek fire department said. A large-scale search and rescue operation has been launched in the area near the village of Psatha. Nearly 500 firefighters and 23...

geopolitical · geopolitical

Israeli attacks kill 14 in Gaza on Sunday The death toll in Gaza has risen to 14 today after two Palestinians, one a child, were killed in an Israeli strike on a tent housing displaced people in Remal, west of Gaza City. This follows Israeli attacks on Gaza City, Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis earlier on Sunday.

military · geopolitical

'They almost killed my child': Women in Syria's Roj camp describe night of gunfire and fear Submitted by Reem Aouir on Sun, 08/02/2026 - 13:58 Women detained in northeast Syria's Roj camp say bullets tore through tents housing children during a confrontation with Kurdish-led security forces A boy shelters from the rain with a plastic bag during a military operation at Camp Roj in Syria's Hasakah province, on 5 April 2025 (Delil Souleiman/AFP) Off Kurdish-led armed forces opened fire inside Syria's Roj camp on Friday evening, with bullets tearing through tents housing children, after several days of protests by women demanding better treatment inside the facility, according to multiple accounts shared with Middle East Eye. No one was reported killed or wounded. But women inside the camp, which holds thousands of foreign women and children, relatives of suspected Islamic State (IS) group fighters, described a night of chaos and terror that has left them and their children severely traumatised. MEE reviewed videos, images and voice recordings obtained from sources inside Roj camp, which appear to show the aftermath of the confrontation, including the sound of gunfire and scenes of panic among women and children. Friday's violence followed several days of what women in the camp described as peaceful protests demanding an end to alleged abuses and the repatriation to their home countries. The incident comes amid growing concern from rights groups over conditions inside Roj and renewed calls for international intervention. MEE reported in June that violations inside Roj had increased "significantly in both frequency and severity" since January, according to a report by the Swedish-based organisation Repatriate the Children (RTC), which drew on testimony from more than 40 women held in the camp between January and May. According to several women who spoke to MEE, the confrontation began around 6pm when Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) personnel entered the camp in armoured vehicles and established a “human shield” on the main road. Detainees said women began gathering to understand why the forces had entered, before being ordered back to their tents. Hoda Muthana, a woman detained in the camp, said the situation escalated after women challenged the soldiers' presence. "The Kurds provoked the women for their own propaganda. The women then reacted, and the Kurds began to shoot in the air, but one soldier shot through the tent," she told MEE. War on Iran: Who are the Kurds and what does Trump want from them? Read More » Muthana said bullets tore through a neighbouring tent belonging to an Indonesian family before passing dangerously close to where her son was sheltering. "My child had been lying there for about half an hour already before the shots went through," she said. "The tent is all material. We don't know where to hide. Our nightmare came true. We are always in a routine of shielding ourselves inside the tent." "If the shot had been one or two feet lower, it would have hit my child," she added. "I couldn't move from fear. We were only a few feet apart. They almost killed my child." Muthana’s testimony also shed light on what she described as calculated propaganda tactics employed by the SDF. She claimed that soldiers used their mobile phones to record the women’s reactions during the confrontation, aiming to create a narrative that would portray the detainees as “inhumane and radical” to international observers. "The administration in Roj camp is propaganda con artists," she said. "They are always thinking of ways to make us look inhumane and radical so the public and governments don't sympathise with us." Muthana said the stand-off lasted roughly four hours. She added that several women nearest the guards were beaten during the confrontation. According to Dalal*, a Bosnian woman detained in Roj camp whose name has been changed for safety reasons, the protests were triggered by a violent beating of a Russian detainee who refused to hand over her money and mobile phone during a night raid earlier that week. "The protests were a few days ago... and they started because the Kurds beat up a woman from Russia because she didn't want to give them her personal money and phone," she told MEE. Syrian government and SDF agree ceasefire and integration deal Read More » She said the assault reverberated across the camp. "That night they hit her so hard that it echoed through the camp." According to Dalal, the incident marked a turning point after months of alleged night-time raids, beatings and confiscation of personal belongings, prompting women to resist security personnel entering the camp openly. "That night the women gathered their courage for the first time, and everyone came out to see what was happening," she said. "Since then we haven't let them enter the camp." Dalal said the women believed the confrontation on Friday was a direct consequence of that resistance. Dalal travelled to Syria in 2015 on the urging of her husband, who was later killed. She said she remained trapped in IS-held territory because she had no safe way to leave until she eventually escaped in 2017, but was then subsequently detained by Kurdish forces before being transferred to Roj camp, where she has remained ever since with her two children. "I want deportation," she said. "I do not want to stay in Syria." Another woman inside the camp, who spoke to MEE on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns, said many of those who confronted the guards on Friday were unwell, unarmed and had gathered only to protect their children. "Those moms in the camp, the majority are sick - no medical attention for years - or [have] had injuries from before, overweight and unarmed," she said. "All they do is just gather to protect a child and to speak with the soldiers." She said her two young children believed they were about to be shot after gunfire erupted inside the camp, saying they had already experienced bullets passing through a neighbouring tent during an earlier incident. "My daughter, who is just seven, ran and hid under a plastic chair," she said. "The kids were screaming. Even I found myself screaming. It's a moment you can't control, especially when your whole family is already living with PTSD." She also expressed that years of detention had left many families physically and psychologically exhausted, arguing that the latest violence underscored the urgency of finding a lasting solution for those still held in the camp. "We are humans, and those innocent children have rights too," she said. "For a decade we've been seeing our children live in extreme danger. Please react before it's too late." Images shared with MEE from sources inside Roj camp (Provided) Several women who spoke to MEE believed the latest escalation was linked to broader political developments in Syria, arguing that tensions inside the camp had intensified as the country's new authorities gradually assumed a greater role in the northeast. "I can tell the PKK [Kurdish Workers Party] and YPJ [Women's Protection Units] are extremely angry with the coalition and the new government, and they take it out on unarmed, sick women and children," one woman said. Muthana elaborated on her belief that Friday's confrontation had been deliberately staged to portray the detainees as violent and extremist. "They want to provoke us to create reactions, and these reactions are then shown to countries or the Syrian government to keep us under their control," she said. “The Kurds use a blanket judgement on us all and treat us inhumanely because they believe we came here to commit genocide against their people. I was 20 when I came to Syria and had never even heard of the Kurdish race before. Many younger women have said the same,” she said. “Our captivity is personal for them, and in their ideology, which in my opinion is similar to ISIS, they are allowed to do anything they want to us. They've told us numerous times that if the world wasn't watching, they would've raped and killed all of us,” she added. 'We knew it was coming': Belfast violence leaves Syrian supermarket in ruins Read More » Most of the women now hoped the Syrian government would eventually assume responsibility for the camp. "We want the Syrian government to take control of this camp," Muthana said. "All we want is to go home and be with our families." Friday's shooting is not the first time women in Roj have reported guards firing weapons during a confrontation. Human Rights Watch reported in February that a Trinidadian woman described a similar episode on 31 January, when security forces arrived at her tent "shooting in the air" before ordering women out into freezing temperatures. Roj camp, near the Iraqi border in Hasakah province, is administered by the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) and guarded by the Kurdish-led SDF. It holds around 2,300 people, mostly foreign women and children, as of MEE's most recent reporting, and became the country's last major detention camp for relatives of suspected IS fighters after the collapse of the larger al-Hol camp in January. MEE has contacted the SDF for comment, but received no reply by the time of publication. As Damascus seeks to expand its authority in eastern Syria, women such as Muthana say they are increasingly placing their hopes in the government, which she described as the only possible escape from a camp that has become unbearable. "If the devil offered us a safe haven away from the Kurds, we would take it," she said. "All we want is to go home and be with our families." Syria after Assad News Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:19 Update Date Override 0

natural disaster · natural disaster

As France grapples with its worst wildfire season in decades, officials are looking for ways to stop fires before they even start. Catherine Viette has more.

military · geopolitical

The three terrorists attempted to advance terror attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops, the Israel Defense Forces said

military · geopolitical

Israel says it was targeting military operatives in the strikes on Gaza City, Khan Younis and Deir el-Balah.

social demographic · education

An educational trust established by Hong Kong-based conglomerate Jardine Matheson will end its prestigious undergraduate scholarship programme for Oxford and Cambridge universities after a strategic review, redirecting the funds to institutions in Asia. According to the Jardine Foundation’s website, students starting their studies later this year will be the final cohort of undergraduate “Oxbridge” scholars to be covered by the programme. The move marks the end of an undergraduate scholarship...

geopolitical · geopolitical

One person has been killed and two others have been injured as a result of a Russian guided aerial bomb strike on a residential area in the city of Zaporizhzhia on the afternoon of 2 August.

natural disaster · natural disaster

Record-low water levels on Danube force country’s first shutdown of nuclear power plant

geopolitical · geopolitical

Russian forces launched two Shahed drone attacks on port infrastructure facilities in Mykolaiv Oblast on Sunday afternoon, damaging two civilian vessels.

natural disaster · natural disaster

Meanwhile, France’s vast wildfire near Bordeaux remains contained. Most of the 200,000 people who were told to evacuate have now returned home, although parts of the fire are still burning. The blaze has scorched an area four times the size of Paris. James Andre has the latest.

geopolitical · geopolitical

Iran says Trump's comment on pullback from threatened strikes made 'within the context of psychological operations'.

natural disaster · natural disaster

Europe struggles with record-breaking summer heat as wildfires ravage Greece, France, and Spain, sparking evacuations.

military · geopolitical

Ukrainian troops tried to attack a power substation in Donetsk with the use of a FP-2 fixed-wing drone equipped, the Federal Security Service’s department for the Donetsk People’s Republic said

geopolitical · geopolitical

Israel's genocide has frozen a generation of Gaza's young doctors Submitted by Shoug Mukhaimar on Sun, 08/02/2026 - 12:24 With crossings closed and hospitals destroyed, medical training is at a standstill - and the specialists Gaza needs to rebuild may never exist A doctor checks a drip at the dialysis unit of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, on 1 February 2026 (Eyad Baba/AFP) Off In July 2025, when Israeli forces suddenly ordered Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah to evacuate under threat of imminent bombardment, my friend Ahmed Shabat, a junior doctor, found himself facing a choice that defined the thin line between life and death. Around him, the hospital was descending into panic as staff and patients scrambled to flee. Amid the blinding chaos, Dr Ahmed spotted a young man who had been brought into the emergency department, entirely overlooked as everyone rushed to escape. He was bleeding heavily from a deep shrapnel wound to his thigh; a major artery had been severed and his life was running out in seconds. Repairing a ruptured artery is the high-stakes work of a specialised vascular surgeon, but the specialists had already been forced to leave. Left with a decision to make in a rapidly emptying room, Dr Ahmed refused to walk away. "I looked at him and thought, what if this was a member of my own family?" he recalled later. Armed with nothing but a phone and a strong sense of duty, he called a senior surgeon who had just evacuated, and followed urgent, step-by-step instructions through the static of a failing mobile network. Instead of entering a structured residency programme to master a chosen specialty, Dr Ahmed's days are consumed by 12-hour volunteer shifts With his hands shaking but determined, he managed to clamp the artery, stopping the haemorrhage and stabilising the man. By then, Dr Ahmed was two years out of medical school and should have been well into his residency training. But instead of entering a structured residency programme to master a chosen specialty, his days are consumed by 12-hour volunteer shifts, managing a relentless influx of casualties with no clear horizon ahead. Today, his life remains suspended in that same emergency department. He belongs to Gaza's "frozen generation" of young medical professionals - brilliant minds halted at the precise moment they were meant to grow. The destruction of Gaza's healthcare system cannot be measured in demolished hospitals alone. Its quietest form is the stagnation of the next generation of doctors - the very people meant to rebuild it. A vanished path Even before Israel's genocide in Gaza , medical training in the territory faced constraints due to limited resources, equipment shortages and the restricted availability of advanced specialist training programmes. While young doctors could complete portions of their training locally, many were forced to seek opportunities abroad to gain the specialised expertise and education that Gaza could not fully provide. Securing a residency slot, obtaining a travel permit and funding years of study was an arduous journey, but it represented a clear path forward. Follow Middle East Eye's live coverage of Israel's genocide in Gaza Since the outbreak of the war, however, that path has virtually vanished. With Gaza's crossings closed and its remaining hospitals consumed by a daily struggle for survival, young doctors are left with no environment to continue the training required to become specialists. Despite this, young doctors in Gaza have refused to let the war completely halt their education. Across the Gaza Strip, local initiatives have emerged to sustain medical learning under impossible conditions. The Samir Foundation , for instance - founded by a fellow medical student - established a medical training centre for students and junior doctors, launching practical programmes, including essential surgical suturing workshops, to help them keep learning amid the conflict. These efforts reflect immense resilience, but they simultaneously underscore the magnitude of the crisis. No single workshop or local initiative can substitute for years of clinical training under specialist supervision or formal residency programmes. Medical students practise surgical suturing at a Samir Foundation workshop in Gaza (Samir Foundation) Determination can keep medical education alive, but it cannot replace opportunities that have been entirely shut down. This inability to progress is where the visible destruction of Gaza's healthcare system gives way to a far deeper tragedy. Medicine is built on continuity. Senior consultants pass down years of experience, judgment and clinical expertise to the next generation, ensuring that knowledge does not end with one doctor but lives on through many. But when an entire generation of young doctors is trapped, that institutional chain is broken. The damage is no longer confined to hospitals or infrastructure; it reaches the future of medicine itself. 'Bleeding our time' By 2026, this confinement has already stretched into its third consecutive year. It is not a temporary disruption. Since 2023, new batches of medical students have fought against unimaginable odds simply to graduate. They have studied in tents , searched for displaced professors and completed their final examinations amid the ruins of their destroyed universities . Yet after overcoming such devastation to earn their degrees, they step into the same dead end as the cohorts before them. They join a growing generation whose professional lives remain suspended. The true, long-term crime of this siege is not just what it takes from Gaza in the present, but how it hollows out its future. One day, the bombing will stop, and the world may help rebuild Gaza's hospitals. But who will staff them? In Gaza, medics are killed every day, but as a doctor I'll never leave these sick children Read More » Gaza's greatest shortage will not be hospital buildings or medical equipment, but specialists. We will search for neurosurgeons, paediatric oncologists and intensive care doctors, only to realise that the generation meant to become them spent its most formative years trapped behind closed crossings, treating trauma instead of developing the expertise those professions demand. When I spoke to Dr Ahmed recently about his years of forced waiting, his words carried the heavy, quiet exhaustion of an entire generation. "We feel like we are bleeding our time and our most crucial years away for nothing," he told me. "We survived death by bombardment, but now we face a different kind of death: the death of our passion and the professional future we laboured for years to build. We handled mass casualties and did jobs meant for people decades older than us, but we cannot live on emergency adrenaline forever. We want to learn; we want to grow." The international community routinely measures the devastation of war by what collapses in an instant - the buildings levelled and the immediate casualty counts. Yet the most insidious destruction is the slow, silent stifling of human potential. When a generation of young physicians is systematically barred from advancing, the punishment extends far beyond individual careers; it is an active embargo on a society's capacity to heal. Dr Ahmed and his peers are not asking for pity or praise; they are fighting for the right to learn, to specialise and to return. If the world continues to look away as this chain of medical knowledge is severed, a haunting question remains: when the dust finally settles, who will be left to mend the wounds of Gaza? The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye. Israel's genocide in Gaza Who will heal Gaza when the bombing stops? Opinion Gaza's young doctors are fighting for the right to learn, specialise and return Post Date Override 0 Update Date Mon, 05/04/2020 - 21:29 Update Date Override 0