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  • Western air defenses turn Kyiv into a rare safe spot in war-torn Ukraine

    Western air defenses turn Kyiv into a rare safe spot in war-torn Ukraine

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    KYIV — Inna Kozich, a communications specialist from Kyiv, still cries when she remembers the first weeks of last year’s Russian siege of the Ukrainian capital.

    “At one moment my kids and I slept in a corridor for three weeks. I was going to bed, not sure if we all wake up the next day,” Kozich remembers.

    But the air defenses now protecting the capital make her feel safer in Kyiv than anywhere else in Ukraine — so much so that she’s afraid of venturing beyond the city.

    “I was even afraid to take my kids for a summer vacation because I knew other regions unfortunately do not have as strong air defense as we now do. And I feel so much pain for Ukrainians from other regions, who are still forced to live under daily Russian bombardment,” Kozich said.

    When the full-scale Russian invasion launched on February 24, 2022, a desperate President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for the West to close Ukraine’s skies to Russian aviation and missiles. That didn’t happen, but Ukraine’s allies have steadily sent some of their best air defense systems to help protect the country’s cities, and especially Kyiv.

    When the war broke out, Kyiv relied on Soviet-era S-300 and Buk M1 medium-range anti-missile systems — a problem as replacement missiles are largely made by Russia.

    Those defenses have now been beefed up by short-range Gepard systems from Germany and Avenger Short-Range Air Defense from the U.S. to knock down drones and cruise missiles. At medium range, Ukraine is using MIM-23 Hawks from the U.S. made by Raytheon; NASAMS, developed by Raytheon and Norway’s Kongsberg; and Germany’s IRIS-T SLM. Long-range defenses are provided by the U.S. Patriot PAC-3 and the Eurosam SAMP/T supplied by France and Italy.

    Ukrainian air defense troops have shown they are capable of integrating modern systems with Soviet ones, Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, told POLITICO.

    “We continue to expect support from allies and partners. We need more air defense. Diverse. And not only for the capital but also for every Ukrainian city. Each anti-aircraft missile complex is worth its weight in gold,” Popko said.

    After Russia first put the Patriots to the test, unsuccessfully attacking the capital for more than 20 days in May, Kyivans felt relatively safe for the first time.

    “We were waiting for those Patriots like manna from heaven,” Kozich said. “It was such a relief.”

    Soon, people from other regions, where air defense is not as strong, started moving to Kyiv and the surrounding region, even though it is still frequently attacked. This weekend Russia sent waves of drones against Kyiv, most of which were shot down.

    Ukrainian air defense troops have shown they are capable of integrating modern systems with Soviet ones | Sergei Supinsky/AFP via Getty Images

    “Your accuracy, guys, is literally life for Ukraine,” Zelenskyy said in a weekend public address. “As winter approaches, there will be more Russian attempts to make the strikes more powerful. It is crucial for all of us in Ukraine to be one hundred percent effective.”

    Safe haven

    Ukraine’s cities have become lifeboats for people fleeing Russian attacks. Kyiv and the surrounding region now host almost 600,000 displaced people from other parts of Ukraine, the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration estimated in September. Other large cities are also seeing influxes of internal refugees, with about half a million now sheltering each in the Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions.

    “The first active phase of internal migration began immediately after the liberation of the Kyiv region. People from cities where active hostilities were taking place were coming at that time. Then, when Patriot arrived, people from Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia began to actively move and look for housing in Kyiv, explaining this by the fact that Kyiv is protected and fewer missiles are flying here than in their cities,” said Oleksandr Zhytiuk, a local realtor.  

    “Ukrainians from abroad also started to return after this May, when Russians were shelling us almost daily, proving the effectiveness of air defense. Today people believe it is calmer in Kyiv,” he added.

    That’s led to a jump in local real estate prices from a collapse in the early months of the war.

    Before the full-scale invasion, about 3.9 million people lived in the Ukrainian capital. By the spring of 2022, however, 1.9 million had fled, said Denys Sudilkovsky, brand and business director of LUN, an online real estate platform. Most are now back.

    “Back then it was not uncommon to find offers to rent apartments in Kyiv for the cost of utilities,” Sudilkovsky said.

    Rental prices had almost returned to pre-invasion levels by the fall of 2022, according to LUN data.

    “The return of people slowed down when Russians started shelling energy infrastructure. However, the winter of 2022-2023 showed Kyiv is capable of protecting its skies with modern Western air defense systems, and already from the spring of 2023, we began to observe a further increase in demand for long-term rental housing in Kyiv,” Sudilkovsky said.

    Still a war zone

    But the capital isn’t entirely safe — as this weekend’s attacks showed. Air raid sirens still howl almost daily, and Ukrainian officials urge people to remain cautious, Popko said.

    “With the additional air defense systems, the level of protection of the capital from air attacks has become better. But I never get tired of repeating that the best defense is to go to the shelter during an air alert. Bitter experience proves that even shot-down missiles carry a deadly threat due to numerous debris,” he said.

    While people in Kyiv do feel safer, those in Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions are still suffering from daily bombardments. Russians are hitting Odesa and its strategic port, as well as the regions of Kherson, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia.

    “I still remember the sound I heard when our Patriot shot down the first [Russian hypersonic] Kinzhal missile this summer. After that I know whatever Russians shoot at us, our air defense will shoot it down. However, other cities still cannot allow the luxury of feeling like I do,” Kozich said, adding she is still afraid to leave the city to go to her country house.

    The Ukrainian government has been urging its allies to provide more air defenses to cover other cities.  

    “The more protected the Ukrainian skies, Ukrainian cities, and villages are, the more opportunities our people will have for economic activity, for production, among other things, [for] defense industries, ” Zelenskyy said in a video statement.

    The Ukraine president also said Kyiv wants to co-produce weapons with its partners, and expects its allies to send more air defense systems by the end of the year to fend off Russia’s anticipated winter attacks on energy infrastructure.

    “Russians are insidious, and intimidation of civilians with missile terror is one of their strategies. They will never give up shelling civilians and infrastructure. Therefore, we must be sure we have something to protect our people,” Kozich said.

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    Veronika Melkozerova

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  • Kheira Hamraoui suffered an attack of ‘violent jealousy’. Two years on, this story is far from over

    Kheira Hamraoui suffered an attack of ‘violent jealousy’. Two years on, this story is far from over

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    After moving back to Paris Saint-Germain from Spain in the summer of 2021, midfielders Kheira Hamraoui and Aminata Diallo had lots in common.

    Both France internationals, they followed the same Muslim faith, stayed in the same hotel in their first few weeks at the Paris club and shared a summer holiday to Tanzania. They were also in the same place at the same time when a brutal attack occurred in Chatou, west of Paris, on November 4, 2021.

    On that day, two years ago, the footballers’ lives took very different paths.

    On the journey back home from a team dinner, Hamraoui and Diallo were stopped by two masked men. One hit Hamraoui with an iron bar, targeting her legs, and the other held Diallo to the steering wheel.


    Lawyer Said Harir holds up images of client Hamraoui’s injuries in November 2021

    Reports soon emerged that Diallo was linked to the attack so she could take Hamraoui’s place in the PSG team.

    Follow live coverage of AC Milan vs Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League today

    In September 2022, 10 months on, Diallo and five men were arrested and charged with three counts of aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy. According to a police report, Diallo instigated the attack on Hamraoui, her motive being “violent jealousy”.

    One man admitted to beating up Hamraoui and another is suspected of pinning Diallo to the steering wheel. The men claim to have acted on the orders of an unknown person whom they have not identified. They said Diallo instigated the attack.

    Diallo has always maintained she is innocent.

    The story has received global media coverage, with claims and counterclaims on both sides. Le Monde reported the theory of a revenge attack based on the relationship between Hamraoui and Eric Abidal, the former France men’s international and Barcelona men’s director of football, which was initially investigated as a lead by police. The public prosecutor confirmed Abidal has never been implicated in the investigation but was heard as a witness.

    Police and psychiatric reports have been leaked, with French media reporting Diallo was found by one psychiatrist to have “undeniable personality disorders”. The player’s lawyer says that is “bull****”.

    Details have emerged, again through French media, of malicious anonymous phone calls made to PSG players. Diallo’s home and car in Paris were also tapped and she was recorded saying, “They missed her… break her face.” Her lawyer does not dispute she said those words but argues the phrases are taken in isolation without context.

    There has been what has been described as “collateral” damage too, with changes in the management at PSG and France’s national team thought to be further fallout from the incident. And, as well as criminal charges, Hamraoui and PSG are pursuing civil actions related to the case.

    Diallo


    Diallo playing for PSG in May 2022 (Aurelien Meunier – PSG/PSG via Getty Images)

    The aftershock has been felt far and wide.

    A man referred to in initial reports as “Cesar M” — Cesar Mavacala, Diallo’s former advisor — is under police investigation for charges including threatening PSG with violence and “obtaining the departure of players (Hamraoui) and sports managers (Didier Olle-Nicolle) from PSG by coercion”. There have been claims of organised gang fraud said to be linked to Mavacala’s case, and an allegation of sexual assault against former PSG coach Olle-Nicolle that is strenuously denied.

    Mavacala, who has never been a registered agent, is the partner of former PSG player Kadidiatou Diani and the sporting advisor of PSG and France striker Marie-Antoinette Katoto.

    “My client categorically denies any involvement whatsoever in the acts of which he has been unjustly accused,” Mavacala’s lawyer Sandrine Pegand told The Athletic.

    But at the centre of it all are the two former PSG team-mates, Hamraoui and Diallo, forever linked by the events of that night in November two years ago.

    Hamraoui, now 33, has written a book — ‘Kheira a contre-pied’, which roughly translates to “Kheira on the counter-attack” — and is filming a documentary about the case. She left PSG in May 2023, saying the club had “abandoned” her, and joined Club America in Mexico in September.

    “Would they (PSG) have done the same to me if I’d been a man?” she wrote in her book. “Certainly not… My story is very revealing of what women represent in the world of football today.”

    Diallo, 28, now plays for Al Nassr in Saudi Arabia. It is unclear when the investigation will end and too early to confirm if or when the case will go to a trial.

    “This period is very complex for her,’ says Diallo’s lawyer, Romain Ruiz. “On the one hand, she has all the pressure (of the case) and on the other hand, Kheira, she was a friend, said to the police: ‘Aminata did that to me and I’m sure of that’.”

    Hamraoui’s lawyer denies her client told the police she thought Diallo was behind the attack.

    The Athletic has spoken to those close to PSG, the players’ lawyers and the public prosecutor to unpick the tangled web of what has happened to Hamraoui, Diallo and Mavacala since November 4 2021.

    go-deeper

    GO DEEPER

    Eleven months since PSG’s Kheira Hamraoui was beaten with an iron bar, this is where we are

    Kheira Hamraoui

    When her PSG contract expired in May 2023, Hamraoui said in a social media post she was turning a page after two years of “an infernal storm” at a club that “abandoned” her and “did everything it could to make (her) leave”.

    In January 2022, two months following the attack, Hamraoui returned to the pitch for PSG but experienced a turbulent second half of the season. On February 11, during a PSG men’s game against Rennes, supporters held banners which read: “Aminata Diallo, we strongly support you”, and “Kheira Hamraoui, whose turn is it?”, referring to claims about the number of lovers Hamraoui has allegedly had.

    PSG


    (FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images)

    “The goal was to be sure that Kheira would no longer play at PSG,” says Hamraoui’s lawyer Julia Minkowski.

    “She has been psychologically assaulted for 10 months,” her agent Sonia Souid told L’Equipe in September 2022. “She has been dragged through the mud, threatened with death, insulted, harassed at her workplace by several team-mates.”

    Hamraoui had a year left on her PSG contract and was determined to honour it but felt the club were trying to force her out.

    “Perhaps PSG were unable or unwilling to deal with all the media attention for reasons other than sporting ones,” Hamraoui told AFP in September this year. “They chose the easy way out by trying to push me out before the end of my contract.”

    This was a marked change of tone from Hamraoui. In an interview with L’Equipe in June 2022, Hamraoui had said: “The vast majority of (players) supported me. I was also touched by the support of the whole staff and the club. My return would have been much more difficult if I had not been supported.”

    However, in Hamraoui’s book, in a chapter titled ‘PSG, an inhumane club’, she claims she could not appear in any club footage, she was not called up at the same time as her team-mates in June ahead of the 2022-23 season and was not informed of planned squad meetings. She says her physio appointments were delayed and she was initially not invited to complete compulsory medical tests in July.

    The 33-year-old also says she was given one T-shirt — not two — at the start of the 2022-23 season, when usually players receive new kit. Hamraoui claims that when the team went to Spain for a pre-season trip, the new sporting director Angelo Castellazzi told her to stay in Paris.

    Those close to PSG, who like others in this article wish to remain anonymous to honour the legal process, maintain they acted as responsibly and sensitively as possible. They acknowledge Hamraoui was always considered to be the victim of the attack and their priority has always been to support the player. They have fully complied with the police authorities and have refrained from commenting publicly out of respect for the judicial process. They believe Hamraoui was treated on an equal footing with her team-mates. She also appeared in some of the club’s social media posts during the 2021-22 and 2022-23 seasons.

    PSG changed the women’s manager, assistant coaches and sporting director after deciding to take the club in a different direction, appointing the former Lyon head coach Gerard Precheur as their new boss on August 1 2022. He left his role by mutual consent in September 2023 with the club citing “personal reasons” for his departure.

    The new coach and sporting director assessed the team and decided which players would stay. Midfielder Hamraoui was told she would no longer be part of the new project, and that the club intended to recruit players with different technical profiles. They signed other midfielders, including Jackie Groenen from Manchester United and Lieke Martens from Barcelona.

    Hamraoui claims Castellazzi told her agent that she would not be part of the team and she had to leave. But she turned down offers for a loan move from Manchester United, Juventus, Inter Milan, Roma and Parma to stay at PSG.

    She made only five league starts in the first half of the season. When the transfer window opened in January 2023, Hamraoui claims PSG’s sporting director informed her agent they were going to recruit other midfielders and she had to leave.

    But Hamraoui stayed, and in February the then-France manager Corinne Diacre surprisingly named her in the squad for the Tournoi de France, a friendly international tournament.

    On February 15, Hamraoui started in France’s 1-0 win over Denmark. It was her 40th cap, one year after her previous national team appearance.

    France


    Hamraoui playing for France against Denmark (JEAN-FRANCOIS MONIER/AFP via Getty Images)

    Three days after a disappointing 0-0 draw with Norway in the final match of that tournament, France captain and defender Wendie Renard announced her withdrawal from the France squad with the World Cup only five months away.

    Renard said she could “no longer support the current system which is far from the requirements of the highest level. It is a sad day but necessary to preserve my mental health.”

    Diani and Katoto followed.

    “If profound changes are introduced, I’ll be back,” said Diani.

    “I am no longer in line with the management of the France team nor the values it promotes,” added Katoto.

    Diacre was sacked as France’s head coach on March 9 and was replaced by Herve Renard (no relation to Wendie) on March 30. On the same day, police interviewed Diacre as a witness concerning the Hamraoui case.

    Diacre, France


    Diacre (right) with Diani in July 2022 (FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images)

    Diacre said she was the target of intimidation in the spring of 2022 to remove Hamraoui from the national team. This was confirmed by Diacre’s lawyer Christophe Ayela and the public prosecutor.

    Hamraoui did not make France’s 2023 World Cup squad. After the announcement, she told radio station France Inter: “I’m very sad and angry. I see it as an injustice.” The once Champions League winner still dreams of returning to the national team for next year’s Olympics in Paris.

    “One day, we may find out what was behind my ousting,” Hamraoui told AFP. “I am convinced that if I had been Swedish, English or Spanish, I would never have been abandoned by my federation or my club, as I was after my attack. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: in France, we don’t like victims.”

    Hamraoui thinks she was dispensed with by PSG so the club could protect their reputation.

    “They wash their dirty laundry as a family, and try to hush things up or get rid of troublesome elements in order to save face,” she wrote in her book. “Nothing must show in public. On the other hand, I’m a woman, and the sad reality is that the club doesn’t give a damn about women’s football.”

    Sources from PSG firmly deny all of these claims. It is to be noted that the club invested in their women’s team much earlier than many others. In January, the women’s team will move into the new state-of-the-art training centre in Poissy alongside the men’s.

    A PSG spokesperson said: “Kheira Hamraoui explained in her own words in an interview with L’Equipe on June 15 2022 how she was touched by the support of the whole staff and the club (PSG) and how things would have been much more difficult if she had not been supported.

    “The club acted responsibly and sensitively to support and provide care while adhering to the proper legal process. The club’s priority was to support Kheira Hamraoui and maintain the best possible climate within the dressing room, despite the circumstances and legal proceedings.”

    Aminata Diallo

    “She’s in the middle of a media crisis,” says Ruiz. “People are saying that she is a witch, guilty, and what she has done to Kheira is a disgrace. She’s under pressure.”

    Following the attack, Diallo played 15 more times for PSG and her contract expired in the summer of 2022. She stopped playing solely to focus on the case, according to one of her lawyers, Mourad Battikh, and was charged in September last year.

    Diallo was put under strict judicial supervision but a judge accepted her lawyers’ request to modify her bail conditions to allow her to work abroad. In January 2023, she joined Liga F side Levante on a six-month contract but her 12-month option to extend was not triggered.

    In August this year, Diallo joined Al Nassr, the club Cristiano Ronaldo plays for, in Saudi Arabia.

    According to Ruiz, she decided to move to the Middle East for some “fresh air”, to experience a new league, be closer aligned with her Muslim values and escape the scrutiny from the French media.

    Diallo, though, is still on bail and is forbidden to enter into contact with the possible co-perpetrators or accomplices of the case, Harmaoui, witnesses or particular members of the PSG team and management. She could be summoned by the judge at any point.

    PSG


    Diallo on November 9 2021 (Johannes Simon – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images,)

    In June 2023, Diallo saw a psychiatrist — a requirement of French law in cases such as these, according to her lawyer Ruiz. She had three appointments, some of which lasted nine and a half hours, an occurrence her lawyer says he has never seen before.

    Dr Isabelle Teillet, the psychiatrist, noted, according to a report in Le Journal du Dimanche, Diallo “shows no particular psychopathological traits” but did present “undeniable personality disorders”.

    “That’s bull****,” said Ruiz. “The psychiatric report shows that it is not Diallo’s personality that the expert considers to be disturbed, but it is only on reading the file sent to her by the judge that she speaks of a ‘personality disorder’”.

    Another police report, quoted in Le Parisien, described Diallo’s hatred for Hamraoui as “a slow, downward psychological spiral that has become pathological”.

    “That’s real bull****,” Ruiz tells The Athletic. “The police are not doctors or psychiatrists. They are not really great investigators. My advice to them is to keep in their field.”

    Diallo’s lawyers want the recordings of Diallo’s conversations in her car and flat to be disregarded from the case. French media have reported she was wiretapped for six months from April 2022, when she was living in Paris. The judge’s decision will be heard on November 24.

    The recordings from after the assault appeared particularly damning. Diallo is heard saying: “She had nothing, brother. We don’t give a damn… Her attack, who cares… She didn’t even stay a day in hospital… She didn’t get anything, brother… They missed her… break her face.”

    Her lawyers confirm Diallo said these things but maintain her words are taken out of context. They argue the way in which the police acquired the recordings from her car and flat was illegal. “The police asked for authorisation but based on false hypotheses,” says Ruiz.

    It is a legal technicality but Hamraoui’s lawyer Minkowski believes the recordings are relevant.

    “That is why they want them out,” she tells The Athletic. “Usually, if you ask something to be out of a file, you have a good reason for that.”

    Cesar Mavacala

    Mavacala is Diani’s partner and advises Katoto — two of the three players who stepped down from the France national team before Diacre’s dismissal. He was also very close to Diallo and, although not a registered agent, was her advisor in 2022.

    He is also facing criminal charges: Mavacala is suspected of trying to gain a financial or other advantage by violence, threats of violence or coercion by claiming that Katoto would only extend her contract if Hamraoui left PSG at the end of the 2021-22 season.

    Hamraoui would not leave the club for another year, but Katoto signed a three-year contract anyway worth a reported €600,000 (now £521,000; $643,000) gross annual salary in July 2022.

    Mavacala denies any wrongdoing, and while the investigation continues he is under judicial supervision — similar to conditional bail — and banned from appearing at PSG’s headquarters, the women’s training centre and any football stadium. He is also forbidden to make contact with Hamraoui, Diallo and four former and current PSG employees.

    France


    Diani and Katoto playing for France at Euro 2022 (Sarah Stier – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)

    “He (Mavacala) represents other players of the team — even if he has no formal licence to be an agent,” says Hamraoui’s lawyer Minkowski, claiming: “He tried to negotiate these contracts with one condition: Kheira leaves the team.”

    Mavacala is also suspected of having been behind claims that led to the departure of former PSG head coach Olle-Nicolle. On May 24 2022, PSG suspended Olle-Nicolle by mutual consent after saying some of the club’s players were allegedly exposed to “inappropriate actions and comments”.

    The public prosecutor announced the opening of a judicial investigation for “sexual assault by a person in authority” in May 2022 but no charges were brought.

    PSG also launched a formal investigation and then released a statement on July 31 which said the club and Olle-Nicolle had “decided to end their collaboration by mutual agreement”. It added: “Paris Saint-Germain specifies that, following the internal investigation carried out on May 24, no fault or misconduct has been found against him.”

    On June 23 of this year, however, former PSG player Diani, Mavacala’s partner, lodged a complaint of sexual assault against Olle-Nicolle and the public prosecutor opened another investigation.

    Le Parisien reported that, in August 2021, Olle-Nicolle was alleged to have touched several players’ bottoms — including Diani’s — with a miniature baseball bat, and also put his hand on Diani’s bottom. Olle-Nicolle firmly denies all the accusations and said he knows nothing about the incidents.

    “The investigation into who is behind these unfounded accusations revealed the active role played by Ms Diani’s partner,” claimed Olle-Nicolle in a statement provided by his lawyer, Guillaume Traynard.

    “Didier Olle-Nicolle notes that the new complaint against him comes only a few weeks after he filed a civil action against Ms Diani’s partner, in the case in which the latter is under investigation for organised fraud.

    “He deplores the fact that this complaint is being used as a means of settling scores and condemns the attempt to manipulate the justice system, of which he is once again a victim.” Olle-Nicolle has subsequently filed a complaint with the public prosecutor for libel.

    PSG


    Olle-Nicolle in April 2022 (FRANCK FIFE/AFP via Getty Images)

    Diani’s complaint against Olle-Nicolle was filed on June 23, seven days before her PSG contract expired. She joined Lyon on a four-year deal on August 1.

    The police, L’Equipe report, believe Mavacala — Diani’s partner — threatened PSG with the public release of the sexual assault story if the club did not agree to his demands for Diani’s contract renewal. Mavacala’s lawyer Pegand denied this, telling L’Equipe: “Cesar Mavacala protests his innocence.”

    Regarding Diani’s complaint, Pegand told Le Parisien: “Like many victims of sexual abuse, the first option is to remain silent. So we had to encourage people to speak out and give my client the time she needed to bring her case before the courts.”

    “I was used…” Olle-Nicolle told L’Equipe in September 2022. “(I am) a collateral victim of the Hamraoui case.”

    So what happens now?

    Given there are now two main criminal cases (Hamraoui’s attack and the charges against Mavacala), the judge will conduct further investigations.

    “What the investigation has to now determine is whether Mavacala just jumped on the opportunity of the attack or if there were other things,” says Hamraoui’s lawyer, Minkowski.

    If there is a trial, it could be at least another year for a date to be set. It would be public with three judges. All those charged and civil parties seeking damages would also be present and questioned.

    Diallo’s lawyer says she maintains her innocence and will not plead guilty for a lesser sentence.

    “Since day one, the police have decided that it was Aminata Diallo,” Ruiz tells The Athletic. “They ended all of the leads that used to be real at the beginning of this case. That’s the reason why I feel the police do not do their jobs properly. It’s too late (now) to follow the other leads.”

    Diallo’s fear of going to prison and serving a sentence — which could be up to 10 years for criminal conspiracy — weighs on her shoulders.

    “It’s a big fear for her,” Ruiz says. “She doesn’t want to be sent to jail. Her main fear is that she can be found guilty of something she didn’t do.”

    Diallo’s lawyers say the police have still not found the person who ordered the attack on Hamraoui.

    As for Hamraoui, her lawyer believes it is too long for a victim to wait three years for a trial.

    This case is far from over.

    (Top photos: ANP/Getty Images; Aurelien Meunier/PSG via Getty Images; design: Eamonn Dalton)

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    The New York Times

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  • Shocking moment uncontacted tribe have terrifying stand-off with mine bulldozer

    Shocking moment uncontacted tribe have terrifying stand-off with mine bulldozer

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    AN uncontacted tribe faced off a bulldozer as it razed their forest to the ground.

    The dramatic footage shows the moment the clan, called Hongana Manyawa, warned the outsiders to leave.

    3

    An uncontacted tribe tries to stop the bulldozer from destroying their forestCredit: Facebook
    The men raised their sticks to scare the bulldozer away

    3

    The men raised their sticks to scare the bulldozer awayCredit: Facebook
    As the excavator revved its engine, the men fled in fear

    3

    As the excavator revved its engine, the men fled in fearCredit: Facebook

    Two men in the video raise sticks in their hands to scare the excavator away as it continues to make path for nickel mining.

    The bulldozer driver then revved the engine, prompting the men to flee.

    Hongana Manyawa people live on Halmahera island, the largest of Maluku islands, located in Indonesia.

    They choose to live away in the rainforest, far from the outside world, with an estimated 300-500 people in the tribe.

    But Hongana Manyawa could face extinction as their homes get demolished for a massive nickel mining project.

    Survival International, a non-profit organisation, sounded the alarm over the disturbing video.

    According to the NGO, many of the tribe members had to flee from the mining which destroyed their ancestral land and polluted their rivers.

    Huge areas of their territories have already been allocated to mining companies from Indonesia, France, Germany and China.

    This comes as Indonesia plans to become “a major nickel producer for the electric car battery market”.

    Companies including Tesla are investing billions into the project.

    Weda Bay Nickel (WBN) – a company partly owned by French mining company Eramet-has a massive mining concession over the areas that overlap with the uncontacted tribe.

    The company began mining in 2019 and now controls the largest nickel mine in the world.

    The footage of the bulldozer is believed to be filmed near WBN-controlled territories.

    Survival International called the incident “a brutal disregard both for international law and for human life”.

    The non-profit warned the mining and electric car companies of “a genocide” their violations could cause.

    They reminded them of other uncontacted peoples whose existence was wiped out in other parts of the globe.

    Survival International’s Director Caroline Pearce said: “This video documents a human rights catastrophe unfolding. It shows that the logging and mining operations on Halmahera are invading deep into the rainforests of the Hongana Manyawa.

    “These mining companies should stay out of the Hongana Manyawa’s land, period. We call upon the Indonesian government to urgently recognize and protect the Hongana Manyawa’s territory.”

    According to Survival International, there are more than 100 uncontacted tribes around the world.

    In the heart of Amazon, there are still hundreds of mysterious settlements untouched by civilization.

    Some released footage shows how these groups live self-sufficiently in the dense rainforest in the far west of northern Brazil.

    Oblivious to the modern world, they are rarely caught on camera and fear the contact with the outsiders which can be deadly for the tribes.

    Aside from the disease risk, the outside world poses a threat of violence.

    For example, land grabbers have erased a tribe in Amazon in 1995, leaving only one survivor.

    He has been spotted felling a tree after spending 22 years alone in the jungle.

    Ten members of another Amazonian tribe were hacked to death by ruthless gold miners out to seize their land.

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    Aiya Zhussupova

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  • Israel has only weeks to defeat Hamas as global opinion sours, former PM Ehud Barak says

    Israel has only weeks to defeat Hamas as global opinion sours, former PM Ehud Barak says

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    TEL AVIV — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may be digging in for a “long and difficult war” but former leader Ehud Barak fears Israel has only weeks left to eliminate Hamas, as public opinion — most significantly in the U.S. — rapidly swings against its attacks on Gaza.

    In an exclusive interview with POLITICO, the former prime minister and chief of the Israel Defense Forces also suggested a multinational Arab force could have to take control of Gaza after the military campaign, to help usher in a return of Mahmoud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority to take over from Hamas. Even with that change of the political order in Gaza, however, Barak stressed the return to diplomacy aimed at the creation of a Palestinian state was a very remote prospect.

    Barak, who led Israel between 1999 and 2001, observed the rhetoric of U.S. officials had shifted in recent days with a mounting chorus of calls for a humanitarian pause in the fighting. The sympathy generated toward Israel in the immediate wake of October 7, when Hamas launched the deadliest terrorist attack on Israel in the Jewish state’s 75-year history, was now diminishing, he worried.

    “You can see the window is closing. It’s clear we are heading towards friction with the Americans about the offensive. America cannot dictate to Israel what to do. But we cannot ignore them,” he said, in reference to Washington’s role as the main guarantor of Israel’s security. “We will have to come to terms with the American demands within the next two or three weeks, probably less.”

    As he was speaking, Israeli military officials told reporters the ground campaign was reaching a new dangerous phase with troops penetrating deep inside Gaza City, further than in previous operations in 2009 and 2014.

    Barak spoke with POLITICO in his book-lined office in a high-rise apartment building in downtown Tel Aviv.

    On the walls are photographs recording different stages of his storied career as a special forces soldier and statesman. One was snapped in May 1972 when he led an elite commando unit, which included Netanyahu, to rescue passengers from Sabena Flight 571, which was hijacked by Black September gunmen.

    Under the photograph, there’s a piano. A trained classical pianist, Barak says he has recently been playing Chopin Ballade No. 1. A performance of that piece is central to the plot of the 2002 film The Pianist, which moves a German Nazi officer to hide Władysław Szpilman.

    Barak added it would take months or even a year to extirpate the Islamist militant group Hamas — the main war aim set by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his war cabinet – but noted Western support was weakening because of the civilian death toll in Gaza and fears of Israel’s campaign sparking a much broader and even more catastrophic war in the region.

    Western nations are also anxious about their nationals among the 242 hostages Hamas is holding captive in Gaza, he continued.

    “Listen to the public tone — and behind doors it is a little bit more explicit. We are losing public opinion in Europe and in a week or two we’ll start to lose governments in Europe. And after another week the friction with the Americans will emerge to the surface,” Barak said.

    Handing over Gaza for a period to a multinational Arab force to police has been mooted before | Ahmad Hasaballah/Getty Images

    Last week, President Joe Biden raised the need for a “humanitarian pause” in the campaign.

    And this week on his fourth trip to Israel, and his third to the region since October 7, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken pressed the case with Netanyahu and the Israeli war cabinet telling them they should now prioritize the protection of civilians in Gaza and minimize civilian casualties.

    Blinken’s efforts so far have been spurned by Netanyahu but Barak didn’t think the Israeli war cabinet would be able to fend off the Biden administration and Europeans for much longer.

    Political and military veteran

    Barak has plenty of experience of dealing with Israel’s allies and adversaries alike.

    As prime minister he negotiated with Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat at Camp David, in a 2000 summit hosted by President Bill Clinton, where they came close to striking a deal. A former defense minister and chief of staff, Barak was an elite commando and one of the key planners of Operation Thunderbolt, the rescue from Entebbe, Uganda, of the passengers and crew of an Air France jet hijacked by terrorists.

    Barak said Israel rightly set the bar high in its Gaza war aim. “The shock of the attack was huge. This was an unprecedented event in our history, and it was immediately clear that there had to be a tough response. Not in order to take revenge, but to make sure that it cannot happen ever again.”

    And even if the military campaign falls short of its maximum goal of the full eradication of Hamas, severe damage will have been inflicted on the Iran-backed Palestinian group, he explained. It will then be important to constrain Hamas from pulling off a resurgence, he continued.

    Barak poses with members of the LGBTQ+ community in Tel Aviv in 2019 | Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images

    To change the political landscape, he believed a multinational Arab force could take over Gaza after the Israeli military campaign.

    “It is far from being inconceivable that backed by the Arab League and United Nations Security Council, a multinational Arab force could be mustered, with some symbolic units from non-Arab countries included. They could stay there for three to six months to help the Palestinian Authority to take over properly,” he said.

    Handing over Gaza for a period to a multinational Arab force to police has been mooted before.

    Back in 2008-2009, when Israel and Hamas fought a three week-war, Barak, then Israeli defense minister, discussed with the Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak the possibility of Egypt and other Arab nations stepping in to administer the Gaza Strip. “I remember his gesture,” says Barak. “He displayed his hands and said, ‘I will never ever put my hands back in the Gaza.’”

    Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president and head of the Palestine Liberation Organization, was equally dismissive.

    Abbas told Barak he could never return to Gaza supported by Israeli bayonets. “I didn’t like the answer. But you can understand his logic. Fifteen years ago, it was impossible because there was no one who would do it but a lot has changed since then,” Barak said.

    Displaced Palestinians wait at a food distribution at a U.N.-run center | Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images

    Hamas battled the PLO-affiliated Fatah party for control of Gaza in 2007 in a clash that effectively split Palestinian political structures in two, with Hamas controling Gaza and Fatah predominating in the West Bank.

    Barak noted Israel, Egypt and Jordan had deepened their anti-terrorism cooperation and Israel had signed “normalization” accords with Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, a process that he thought Arab states would not want to row back from.

    “Arab leaders also need to be able to tell their own peoples that something is changing, and a new chapter is opening, one where there is a sincere effort on all sides to calm down conflict. But they need to hear that Israel is capable of thinking in terms of changing the direction it has been on in recent years,” he adds.

    That doesn’t mean Israel should or can rush into revived negotiations over a two-state solution, he cautioned. Getting back to the era of when he was negotiating with Arafat might not be possible, for a very long time.

    “History does not repeat itself. So I do not think that something exactly like that can be repeated. But as Mark Twain used to say, history can rhyme.”

    He added: “It won’t happen quickly, and it will take time. Trust on all sides has gone – the distrust has only deepened.”

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    Jamie Dettmer

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  • Macron pursues nuclear deals in Russia’s back yard

    Macron pursues nuclear deals in Russia’s back yard

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    PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron travels on Wednesday to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, where he hopes to secure uranium for his country’s nuclear plants.

    The trip comes as geopolitical tensions grow with the EU’s current major suppliers, Niger and Russia.

    Macron’s visit to the two countries aims to expand French influence in an area which has strong ties with Russia and is now also growing closer to China, an Elysée official said.

    Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are respectively France’s largest and third-largest suppliers of uranium, which is burned to fuel nuclear plants.

    Last summer a military junta took over Niger, which supplies 15 percent of France’s uranium needs, sparking questions as to whether the African country can continue to be a reliable source. Uncertainty has also surrounded imports of Russian uranium since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

    “Niger raises questions, Russia could raise questions in the long term [if] the EU imposes sanctions on the nuclear sector. Macron’s visit to Central Asia helps to anticipate those concerns,” said Phuc-Vinh Nguyen, an energy expert at the Jacques Delors Institute think tank in Paris.

    Russia’s nuclear sector has not been targeted by EU sanctions so far, but member countries continue to turn away from Moscow. The quantity of uranium the EU imported from Russia fell by 16 percent last year from 2021, while the amount from Kazakhstan rose by over 14 percent.

    Earlier this year, Yerzhan Mukanov, CEO of the country’s state-run nuclear firm Kazatomprom, told POLITICO he was seeing increasing interest from Europe, and that Kazakhstan “intends to become a significant contributor to the European nuclear market.”

    French nuclear firm Orano is active in Kazakhstan, where it has been operating uranium mines since the 1990s, and more recently in Uzbekistan. Orano President Claude Imauven is accompanying Macron on his trip along with 14 other French executives, including Luc Remont, head of French energy giant EDF.

    An Elysée official said that new contracts and business partnerships will be announced during the trip, including in the energy sector. 

    EDF has also positioned itself to become a supplier of nuclear reactors for Kazakhstan’s first nuclear plant.

    The visit comes as Brussels competes with China for influence in the region via investment programs focused on infrastructure. 

    Both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan are benefitting from Chinese investment under Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, with their presidents attending a high-level meeting on the subject in Beijing in October. The EU is trying to gain influence in the two countries by involving them in cooperation and investment projects under its “Global Gateway” initiative, the bloc’s response to Belt and Road.  

    Victor Jack contributed reporting.

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    Giorgio Leali

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  • US and China join global leaders to lay out need for AI rulemaking

    US and China join global leaders to lay out need for AI rulemaking

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    BLETCHLEY PARK, England — The United States and China joined global leaders to sign a 27-country agreement on the risk of AI that launched a two-day AI Safety Summit.

    In a major diplomatic coup for the British hosts, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo took the stage on Wednesday morning alongside Wu Zhaohui, China’s vice minister of science, at the summit at Bletchley Park — a former military installation north of London where British engineers used early forms of computers to break German codes during World War II.

    The site — symbolic of what London believes is a similar global need to rein in the potential harms of artificial technology — forms the backdrop for efforts by politicians, tech executives and academics to find new ways to police a technology evolving faster than almost all governments can respond to it.

    This week alone, the U.S. government and G7 group of leading Western democracies published separate efforts to regulate artificial intelligence in the form of a White House executive order and voluntary code of conduct, respectively. The EU expects to complete its separate Artificial Intelligence Act by early December and the United Nations’ newly-created AI advisory board will provide its own recommendations by the end of 2023.

    “We will compete as nationals. But even as we compete vigorously, we must search for global solutions for global problems,” said Raimondo, who is traveling to the United Kingdom alongside U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris. “The work, of course, does not begin and end with just the U.S. and the U.K. We want to expand information sharing, research, collaboration, and ultimately policy alignment across the globe.”

    In a summit communiqué, published Wednesday, 27 countries and the EU signed the so-called Bletchley Park Declaration on AI. The document focuses solely on so-called “frontier AI,” or the latest version of the technology that has become popular via digital services like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. 

    The signing countries include both China and the U.S. despite the world’s two largest economies battling over everything from technology to geopolitical power. The voluntary statement commits governments to work together toward trustworthy and responsible AI — catchwords for the safe use of the emerging technology.

    “China is willing to engage on AI governance for the promotion of all mankind. That’s our objective,” Wu Zhaohui, China’s vice minister of science and technology, told the audience in Bletchley. The official sat on stage next to the U.S.’s Raimondo despite the countries’ ongoing tension.

    References to global AI regulation efforts undertaken by international organizations such as the United Nations and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, which were featured in an earlier draft, did not make it to the final communiqué. Questioned about that in a press briefing, U.K. Digital Minister Michelle Donelan said that the summit “complements and doesn’t cut across the existing processes” unfolding at the international level, and that officials from the U.N. and the OECD see the U.K.’s initiative as “as a missing piece of the [AI regulation] puzzle” as it specifically deals with advanced frontier AI.

    The British government announced the next AI Safety Summit will be held in South Korea in May, 2024 and a third event is planned for France by the end of next year. The U.K. and the U.S. also announced plans to work together on AI Safety Institutes, which are expected to exchange analyses.

    Věra Jourová, the EU’s digital chief, welcomed the renewed efforts to rein in potential risks associated with the most advanced systems of artificial intelligence. The 27-country bloc has been working on its own AI legislation for the last three years. But the Czech politician acknowledged much had changed over that time period when it came to what AI systems could now do.

    “We have a common obligation for doing this right,” Jourová told the British audience Wednesday in reference to global efforts to set guardrails for the emerging technology. “The future will ask us if we did the right thing at the right moment.”

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    Mark Scott, Tom Bristow and Gian Volpicelli

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  • Rishi Sunak questions whether ‘pause’ in Gaza fighting is even possible

    Rishi Sunak questions whether ‘pause’ in Gaza fighting is even possible

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    LONDON — Rishi Sunak has said Britain will do “everything we can” to get aid into stricken Gaza — but warned any pause in fighting may be impossible to arrange.

    Speaking to POLITICO’s Power Play podcast, the U.K. prime minister said he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday about “the concept of humanitarian pauses” to allow aid to enter Gaza via the Mediterranean.

    But Sunak added the strategy was not without risks.

    “It’s hard to have completely reliable conversations with Hamas when you’re dealing with a terrorist organization, which is obviously present on the ground,” he told host Anne McElvoy.

    Sunak’s statement comes after the first British nationals crossed the Rafah border crossing from Gaza into Egypt, following days of uncertainty about when foreign nationals would be able to leave the embattled territory.

    Sunak added: “I remain cautiously optimistic that the flow of aid should and will increase across the Rafah crossing.”

    Israel, which controls Gaza’s air, land and sea borders, imposed a “complete siege” on the territory in early October after an attack by Hamas. In doing so it cut off fuel, water and electricity — and stopped aid delivery of food and medicine — to 2.2 million people.

    The majority of Gaza’s residents rely on humanitarian assistance, and before the Israel-Hamas war hundreds of aid trucks crossed into Gaza daily. Since the outbreak of hostilities, however, only dozens have been allowed across the border.

    You can hear the full interview with Rishi Sunak here.

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    Peter Snowdon

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  • British PM Rishi Sunak secures ‘landmark’ deal on AI testing

    British PM Rishi Sunak secures ‘landmark’ deal on AI testing

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    BLETCHLEY, England — The British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday said that under a new agreement “like-minded governments” would be able to test eight leading tech companies’ AI models before they are released.

    Closing out the two-day artificial intelligence summit in Bletchley Park on Thursday, Sunak announced the agreement signed by Australia, Canada, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Singapore, the U.S. and the U.K. to test leading companies’ AI models. 

    “Until now the only people testing the safety of new AI models have been the very companies developing it. That must change,” said Sunak to a room full of journalists. 

    “Like-minded governments and AI companies have today reached a landmark agreement. We will work together on testing the safety of new AI models before they are released… it’s made possible by the decision I have taken along with Vice President Kamala Harris for the British and American governments to establish world leading AI safety institutes with public sector capability to test the most advanced frontier models.”

    Sunak said the eight companies — Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, Google, Google DeepMind, Inflection AI, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral AI and Open AI — had agreed to “deepen” the access already given to his Frontier AI Taskforce, which is the forerunner to the new institute. The access is currently given on a voluntary basis, though under its Executive Order, the U.S. government has put binding requirements to hand over certain safety information. 

    Sunak also announced further details of an agreement reached with countries yesterday to establish an international advisory panel on frontier AI risks. 

    Modeled on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), it will be formed from representatives from the 28 countries attending the summit. The British government said it would provide secretariat support for it.

    The panel will also support academic Yoshua Bengio in producing a “State of Science” report into the risks and capabilities of frontier AI. The report will not make policy recommendations, but is designed to inform international and national policy making. It will be published ahead of the next safety summit in South Korea in the first half of next year.

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    Vincent Manancourt

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  • Keep your bedbugs, Putin tells the EU

    Keep your bedbugs, Putin tells the EU

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    Russian President Vladimir Putin is not worried about Western sanctions — quite the opposite, in fact.

    Faced with the prospect of a 12th round of EU sanctions — which could include trade in anything from diamonds to needles — the Russian leader brushed off the plan as ridiculous and took a jab at Europe and its crawling bedbug problem.

    “Perhaps the less junk, the better. There is less of a chance of bedbugs coming here from large European cities,” Putin joked on Wednesday, reported Russian state-run news agency TASS.

    Several European cities, including Paris, are battling an infestation of bedbugs in recent months. The tiny insects have swarmed public transport, raising alarm among residents and public officials, and sending cities into a frenzy.

    Last month, French intelligence even blamed Russian propaganda for stoking fears about the bedbugs by posting fake articles that looked like they were written by reputable French newspapers.

    Putin’s comment comes as the EU is preparing a new round of sanctions against Russia, which is likely to include export restrictions on welding machines, chemicals and diamonds, among other items. According to EUobserver, Lithuania has proposed a plan which also includes the ban of exports of “nails, tacks, drawing pins” and “sewing needles, knitting needles.”

    Putin — whose full-scale invasion of Ukraine is heading toward the two-year mark — has ridiculed the proposal, saying that Western officials “are now simply reaching the point of absurdity in their fantasies.”

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    Claudia Chiappa

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  • Brickbat: Terrorist Tacos?

    Brickbat: Terrorist Tacos?

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    Police in Valence, France, ordered a Chamas Tacos restaurant franchise to turn off its sign or face an administrative closure order. The problem is that the “C” in the sign is not working, and at night it appears to read “Hamas Tacos.” The owner of the restaurant told local media the “C” has not been working for months, well before the latest attack on Israel by the terrorist organization Hamas.

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    Charles Oliver

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  • French Jews live in fear amid rising antisemitism following Hamas attacks

    French Jews live in fear amid rising antisemitism following Hamas attacks

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    SARCELLES, France — In the usually lively “Little Jerusalem” neighborhood of Sarcelles, the only people loitering are gun-toting French soldiers on patrol.

    Since Hamas’ deadly assault against Israel on October 7, this largely Jewish enclave in the northern suburbs of Paris has gone eerily quiet, with locals keeping their movements to a minimum, and with restaurants and cafés bereft of their regular clientele — fearing an increasing number of antisemitic attacks across France.

    “People are afraid, in a state of shock, they’ve lost their love for life” said Alexis Timsit, manager of a kosher pizzeria. “My business is down 50 percent, there’s no bustle in the street, nobody taking a stroll,” he said in front of a large screen broadcasting round-the-clock coverage of the war.

    France has seen more antisemitic incidents in the last three weeks than over the past year: 501 offenses ranging from verbal abuse and antisemitic graffiti, to death threats and physical assaults have been reported. Antisemitic acts under investigation include groups gathering in front of synagogues shouting threats and graffiti such as the words “killing Jews is a duty” sprayed outside a stadium in Carcassonne in the southwest. The interior minister has deployed extra police and soldiers at Jewish schools, places of worship and community centers since the attacks, and in Sarcelles that means soldiers guard school pick-ups and drop-offs.

    “I try not to show my daughter that I’m afraid,” said Suedu Avner, who hopes the conflict won’t last too long. But a certain panic has taken hold in the community in the wake of the Hamas attacks, in some cases spreading like wildfire on WhatsApp groups. On one particularly tense day, parents even pulled their children out of school.

    France is home to the largest Jewish community outside Israel and the U.S., estimated at about 500,000, and one of the largest Muslim communities in Europe. Safety concerns aren’t new to France’s Jewish community, as to some degree, it has remained on alert amid a string of terror attacks on French soil by Islamists over the last decade.

    Israel’s war against Hamas is now threatening the fragile peace in places like Sarcelles, one of the poorest cities in France, where thousands of Jews live alongside mostly Muslim neighbors of North African origin, from immigrant backgrounds, and in low-income housing estates.

    Authorities meanwhile are often torn by conflicting imperatives — between the Jews, who are fearful for their safety, and the Muslims, who feel an affinity for the Palestinian cause. During his visit to Israel and the Palestinian Territories, French President Emmanuel Macron himself struggled to strike a difficult balance between supporting Israel in its fight against Hamas, and calling for the preservation of Palestinian lives.

    A community under threat

    For Timsit, the threat is very real. His pizzeria was ransacked by rioters a couple of months ago, when the fatal shooting of a teenager by a police officer in a Paris suburb caused unrest in poor housing estates across France.

    The attack was not antisemitic, he said, but was a violent reminder. In 2014, a pro-Palestinian demonstration protesting Israel’s ground offensive against Gaza degenerated into an antisemitic riot against Jewish shops. “All you need is a spark to set it off again,” said Timsit.

    France’s Jews have seen an increase in antisemitic attacks since the early 2000s, a reality that cuts deep into the national psyche given the memories of France’s collaboration with Nazi Germany in the Second World War.

    “The fear of violence [in France] appeared with the Second Intifada,” said Marc Hecker, a specialist on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with IFRI think tank, with reference to the uprising against Israeli occupation in Palestinian Territories.

    Patrick Haddad, the mayor of Sarcelles, is working to keep the communities together | Clea Caulcutt/POLITICO

    “Every time the situation in the Near East flares up, there’s an increase in antisemitic offenses in France,” he added. The threat of antisemitic attacks has led to increased security at Jewish schools and synagogues, and has discouraged many French Jews from wearing their kippahs in some areas, according to Jewish organizations.

    In addition to low-level attacks, French Jews are also a prime target for Islamists as France battles a wave of terrorist attacks that have hit schools, bars and public buildings, among other targets, in the last decade. In 2012, three children and a rabbi were shot dead at a Jewish school in Toulouse at point-blank range by Mohamed Merah, a gunman who had claimed allegiance to al-Qaida. In 2015, four people were killed at a kosher supermarket near Paris.

    While Hamas, al-Qaida and ISIS networks are separate, Hecker warned that the scale of Hamas’s attack against Israel has “galvanized” Islamists across the board, once again sparking deep fears among France’s Jews.

    Delicate local balance

    Many of Sarcelles’ Jews are Sephardic — that is, of Spanish descent — and ended up in North Africa when Spain expelled its Jewish population in the Middle Ages. Most came to France after having lived in the former French colonies of Algeria and Tunisia. Sarcelles’ Muslim population therefore shares a cultural and linguistic history with its Jewish community, and the two groups have lived together in relative harmony for decades.

    In his office, the mayor of Sarcelles, Patrick Haddad, stands under the twin gazes of Nelson Mandela and Marianne, the symbol of French republicanism, with pictures of both adorning his wall, as he reflects on the thus-far peaceful coexistence among the local population.

    “There’s been not a single antisemitic attack in Sarcelles since the attacks … It’s been over two weeks, and we are holding things together,” he said, smiling despite the noticeable strain. Relations between the city’s Muslims and Jews are amicable, said Haddad, and locals on the streets are proud of their friendship with people of a different religion.

    Israel’s war on Hamas is testing relations in Sarcelles, one of France’s poorest cities | Clea Caulcutt/POLITICO and Bertrand Guay/AFP via Getty Images

    “Relations are easy, we share a similar culture, a lot of the Jews are originally from Tunisia, Algeria, they even speak some Arabic,” said Naima, a Muslim retiree who did not want to give her surname to protect her privacy. “My family, my husband and my children respect the Jews, but I know many who are angry with Israel,” said Naima, who moved to France from Algeria as a young adult.

    “I’ve got Muslim friends, we get along fine, we don’t go around punching each other,” said Avner.

    But for many, politics — and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — is off-limits, and communities live relatively separate lives, with most Jewish pupils enrolled in religious schools. Many Jews from Sarcelles have also chosen to emigrate to Israel in recent years.

    But Israel’s image as the ultimate, secure sanctuary for Jews has been shattered after Hamas killed more than 1,400 Israelis in horrific attacks, said Haddad.

    “Where are [Jews] going to go if they are not safe in Israel? People’s fears have been magnified, they fear what is happening here, and they are anguished about what is happening in the ‘sanctuary state’ for Jews,” he said.

    In a twist of the many tragic reversals of Jewish history, several French families have returned from Israel since the Hamas attacks to find temporary shelter in the relative peace of Sarcelles.

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    Clea Caulcutt

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  • Israeli President Herzog endorses Macron’s plan for a coalition to fight Hamas

    Israeli President Herzog endorses Macron’s plan for a coalition to fight Hamas

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    Paul Ronzheimer is the deputy editor-in-chief of BILD and a senior journalist reporting for Axel Springer, the parent company of POLITICO. 

    Israel’s President Isaac Herzog has backed French President Emmanuel Macron’s plan for a joint coalition to fight Hamas.

    “I like Macron’s idea. I thought it was innovative, original, it makes sense,” Herzog told Axel Springer, POLITICO’s parent company. Referring to Hamas, Herzog added that “this threat must be eradicated by a major effort of the international community such as they’ve done to ISIS.”

    During Macron’s visit to Israel last week, the French leader suggested the remit of the international coalition fighting the Islamic State terror group should be widened to fight Hamas. “We should build a regional and international coalition to battle against terrorist groups that threaten us all,” he said.

    Macron’s office took a more cautious stance following the president’s comments, however, underlining that France was ready to “work on ideas of action against Hamas, with our partners and Israel.”

    But Herzog endorsed Macron’s suggestion, saying that it would allow allies to show active support. “There is a coalition fighting ISIS, now we have to analyze if it can be replicated also for fighting Hamas — it makes a lot of sense. It’s a test for all friends to show that they’re willing also to work on it,” Herzog said in an interview. 

    Israel has been gradually increasing its troop numbers in the Gaza Strip, as part of what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the “second stage of the war” without referring to a ground invasion.

    “We are operating in Gaza,” Herzog said. “It’s no secret we are operating in order to destroy their [Hamas’] military infrastructure, we’re also putting a top priority on bringing back the hostages. We’re working in parallel. That’s what I can comment right now, and our soldiers are doing what they need to do in order to protect our people,” Herzog said.

    Herzog also warned of antisemitic protests turning violent, in the wake of a huge crowd storming the main airport in the Russian region of Dagestan to protest the arrival of a plane from Israel. This was “shocking” and “extremely worrying,” Herzog said about the incident in which 20 people were injured, and 60 were arrested.

    It is “something that all governments should be very much on alert” for, he said, adding that it was “purely antisemitic, and of course instigated.”

    On Monday, the mother of Shani Louk, an Israeli-German woman thought to have been kidnapped by Hamas fighters at a music festival in Israel, said her daughter is dead.

    “They found her skull, which means these barbaric sadistic animals simply chopped off her head when they were attacking and torturing and killing Israelis, it’s a huge tragedy,” Herzog said.

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    Paul Ronzheimer and Laura Hülsemann

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  • The EU prepares for war — and this French ship is the tip of the spear

    The EU prepares for war — and this French ship is the tip of the spear

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    ABOARD THE FRENCH HELICOPTER CARRIER TONNERRE — John Denver’s “Country Roads,” a folk song from 1971, resounds through the Tonnerre. 

    It’s 7:30 a.m., and some of the crew aboard the Mistral-class amphibious helicopter carrier are already eating breakfast — loading up on coffee, bread and jam ahead of a planned exercise to storm a Spanish beach. It’s been a short night, and plans for the landing have changed several times.

    The French assault vessel — 199 meters long, 32 meters wide and able to carry 21,500 tons — is a key element in the European Union’s first live military exercise in October off the southern coast of Spain. 

    In the training scenario chosen by top EU military officials, European troops had to assault a beach to rescue the government of a fictitious ally called Seglia. 

    That’s exactly what the Tonnerre (Thunder in English), was designed to do. Called a Landing Helicopter Dock in NATO-speak, the ship can carry helicopters, armored vehicles, tanks and troops; move them overseas at 19 knots and transform into a landing base. Landing craft parked in the 885-square-meter bay can carry men and military vehicles to the shore.

    “Amphibious helicopter carriers are the core of France’s power projection, that is to say the ability to project military capabilities onto enemy territory, or onto allied land confronted with an enemy,” Vessel Captain Adrien Schaar, the commanding officer, told POLITICO speaking from the flight deck. “The Tonnerre can be deployed across the entire spectrum, from low to high intensity.”

    The vessel’s motto —“si vis pacem, para Tonnerre” — is a pun on the famous Latin adage “si vis pacem, para bellum,” meaning, if you want peace, prepare for war.

    The Tonnerre has been in service since 2007 and is stationed in Toulon on France’s Mediterranean coast.

    It’s part of the Mistral class, built by France in the 2000s. They have been deployed for a wide range of operations, including evacuating French and European citizens from the Middle East during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war and backing France’s military intervention in Mali in 2013. They also participate in NATO missions and U.N. peacekeeping efforts.

    Five ships were built, with France operating three: the Tonnerre, the Mistral and the Dixmude.

    The remaining two have a much more complicated past.

    Former President Nicolas Sarkozy initially sold them to Russia — the first time a NATO country planned to send military equipment to Moscow. However, after Russian President Vladimir Putin annexed Crimea in 2014, it became politically impossible to deliver the Sevastopol and the Vladivostok. Sarkozy’s successor François Hollande canceled the order and France had to refund Russia €950 million, in what remains one of the worst diplomatic fallouts between Paris and Moscow before Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

    France later sold the warships to Egypt, and the whole tangle ended up costing French taxpayers €409 million.

    Floating village

    While the Tonnerre’s mission is the projection of military force, it takes a lot of mundane activity for that to happen.

    The warship is a self-sufficient mini-town with a 69-bed hospital that includes two surgery units, a dentist, gyms and even a boulangerie, where bakers make hundreds of baguettes every day.

    The Tonnerre can go up to three weeks without restocking, explained Pierre, who works in the kitchens and has been a sailor for a decade (his full name cannot be disclosed for security reasons). Military cooks go through special training to learn how to provide crews of hundreds with a balanced diet. Aboard the warship, a typical dinner is chicken, rice and spinach. “You can’t have pasta or French fries every night,” Pierre said.

    For the EU’s October military exercise, the kitchen was running at full tilt, as the Tonnerre hosted about 600 military personnel, including from the army and the air force — in addition to the permanent crew of about 200. The overwhelming majority are men.

    Military cooks go through special training to learn how to provide crews of hundreds with a balanced diet | Laura Kayali/POLITICO

    “At first, some had a hard time adjusting,” said Daniel, who’s been in the army for four-and-a-half years and aboard a warship for the first time, “but if you’re not claustrophobic, you get used to it.” 

    “We’re discovering the navy,” he added, with a grin.

    Amphibious helicopter carriers are, by their nature, inter-service vessels, linking ground, air and naval forces.

    The Tonnerre can act as mobile command and control center, and can carry 16 helicopters as well as 60 armored vehicles, or 13 Leclerc tanks. The 5,200-square-meter flight deck also functions as a track for joggers looking to stretch their legs.

    It’s not always used for war. One of the Tonnerre’s missions was in Lebanon after the 2020 explosions that tore apart the Port of Beirut, when France provided food supplies and construction material. The ship’s narrow, white corridors are decorated with photos of that mission and a framed drawing by cartoonist Plantu on Franco-Lebanese friendship. 

    Not an easy life

    The crew joined for a variety of reasons — the desire to belong to a group, the chance to sail to different countries, an interesting career — but missions aren’t easy.

    Being aboard the Tonnerre for weeks or months at a time means limited contacts with friends and family. Cell phones are allowed — unless the mission requires a blackout — however there’s often no reception and only high-ranking personnel have access to computers.

    Helicopters on the deck | Laura Kayali/POLITICO

    “We adapt, that’s the life of a sailor, but the family has to keep up,” said Charles, who’s been in the navy for nearly three decades and whose father was also a sailor. “Back in the day, there was no contact at all, no contact with the family for months on end.”

    Now, there are landline telephones and TVs — which isn’t always positive.

    In mid-October, the crew gathered in the helicopter hangar to watch France’s nail-biting 29-28 defeat to South Africa in the quarterfinals of the Rugby World Cup.

    In the evening on deck, in a makeshift smoking area, young men in uniform check their phones for an internet connection — but the Spanish shore is too far away. “So we play silly games,” said one of them, scrolling on his smartphone screen with a shrug.

    The lack of decent Wi-Fi is a problem that needs to be addressed to attract and retain younger people, navy chief Admiral Nicolas Vaujour told the French Association of defense journalists, including POLITICO, in Paris last month.

    The warship is a self-sufficient mini-town with a 69-bed hospital that includes two surgery units, a dentist, gyms and even a boulangerie | Laura Kayali/POLITICO

    The French government is also trying to make life easier for sailors and their families, well aware that the navy — like most European militaries — has a talent retention problem. Civilian work may be less exciting, but it is more comfortable and defense contractors are more than willing to poach trained and specialized people from the military.

    The government has come up with a so-called Family Plan to help, among other challenges, with childcare.

    “We’re fully aware that we have to work for the sailors at sea,” Vaujour told the National Assembly earlier this month. “The question I ask my staff is: ‘What have you done today for those at sea? Have you used up at least five minutes of your time for those in operations?'”

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    Laura Kayali

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  • France’s Macron the latest Western leader to visit Israel

    France’s Macron the latest Western leader to visit Israel

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    French president to express ‘full solidarity’ with Israel but also emphasise ‘true peace process’ with the Palestinians.

    French President Emmanuel Macron has landed in Tel Aviv for a “solidarity” visit to Israel amid its continued bombardment of the Gaza Strip, weeks after deadly attacks launched by the Palestinian group Hamas.

    Macron is the latest Western leader to visit Israel, following counterparts from the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Italy and others.

    He is set to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog on Tuesday to express his country’s “full solidarity” with Israel, according to AFP.

    The French news agency, which was briefed by Macron’s office ahead of the visit, reported on Monday that the president will also call for the “preservation of the civilian population” in Gaza amid Israel’s relentless bombardment of the besieged enclave, and the “resumption of a genuine peace process” for the creation of a Palestinian state.

    Macron will also call for a “humanitarian truce” to allow desperately needed aid into Gaza, whose some 2.3 million people have been largely deprived of water, food, electricity, fuel and other basic supplies after an Israeli blockade, the Elysee Palace told AFP.

    Macron’s visit comes more than two weeks after Hamas members stormed into Israel, killing at least 1,400 people, mostly civilians, including about 30 French citizens.

    Israel has since relentlessly bombed Gaza, so far killing more than 5,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, while it prepares for a ground invasion of the blockaded area.

    During the October 7 attack, Hamas also took more than 200 people hostage.

    The French foreign ministry said seven of its citizens are still missing and that it has confirmed that “some of them are hostages of Hamas”.

    In Tel Aviv on Tuesday, Macron will also meet the families of French and French-Israeli nationals killed or being held hostage.

    The French president also aims to continue efforts “to avoid a dangerous escalation in the region”, the Elysee told AFP, amid growing alarm over swelling cross-border exchanges between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon.

    He will propose relaunching a “true peace process”, with the aim of creating a viable Palestinian state in exchange for guarantees from regional powers towards “Israel’s security”.

    Macron will most likely also travel to Lebanon and Egypt, the French newspaper Le Parisien reported, citing diplomatic circles.

    Elsewhere on Tuesday, Qatar’s emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani warned that the dangerous escalation of the war on Gaza threatened the region and the world. He urged that the fighting should stop and said “Israel shouldn’t be given a green light for unconditional killing”.

    In Rome on Tuesday, Italian President Sergio Mattarella emphasised the need to avoid the escalation of violence, and commit to a common and peaceful solution in the region.

    On Sunday, leaders of the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Britain underscored their support for Israel and its right to defend itself, but also urged it to adhere to international humanitarian law and protect civilians.

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  • Another Curious Ripple (XRP) Rumor (Hint: It’s not the IPO)

    Another Curious Ripple (XRP) Rumor (Hint: It’s not the IPO)

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    TL;DR

    • Speculation suggests France might use XRP for its digital euro, backed by positive references from Banque de France.
    • The European Union is progressing towards a digital euro with recent European Central Bank movements.
    • Bhutan and Montenegro have already collaborated with Ripple for their CBDC efforts.

    Could XRP Find a Spot in France’s Future Financial Plans?

    Several X (Twitter) users have recently speculated that one of the leading European economies – France – might commit to Ripple’s native token – XRP – for its digital euro. One such person is the CEO of Alpha Lions Academy, using the handle EDO FARINA. 

    They reminded that the nation’s central bank successfully used CBDC in a test environment two years ago. In addition, the financial institution has previously praised Ripple and XRP in a paper called “Implementation of real-time settlement for banks using decentralized ledger technology policy and legal implementations.”

    Specifically, Banque de France outlined the coin’s ability to be used as an intermediary asset to bridge any currency pair. 

    The European Union (EU) has recently taken some vital steps towards launching a digital version of the euro: a controversial monetary product that received support from some central bankers but was also bashed by certain cryptocurrency proponents who assumed it might be used as a tool for surveillance. 

    Earlier this week, the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB) moved the project to a “preparation phase,” while an official launch is expected in the following years.

    XRP’s Involvement in Other CBDCs

    France is not the only nation that has supposedly decided to employ Ripple’s native token in its central bank digital currency (CBDC) efforts.

    As CryptoPotato reported, the Royal Monetary Authority (RMA) – Bhutan’s central bank – partnered with the blockchain enterprise in 2021 to launch a digital version of its official currency, “enhance digital and cross-border payments,” and expand financial inclusion efforts.

    Earlier this year, Montenegro’s central bank also collaborated with Ripple to develop a strategy for its CBDC. The financial institution has also contemplated using the firm’s help in introducing a stablecoin.

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    Dimitar Dzhondzhorov

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  • I’m true King of France in exile 4,500 miles away…crown is rightfully mine

    I’m true King of France in exile 4,500 miles away…crown is rightfully mine

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    AN UNASSUMING lawyer from India has been identified as a possible heir to the French throne.

    Balthazar Napoleon IV de Bourbon, 65, believes he is a senior descendant of France‘s Bourbon kings and the rightful ruler of the defunct Kingdom of France.

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    Indian lawyer Balthazar Napoleon IV de Bourbon claims he is the pretender to the throne of the defunct Kingdom of FranceCredit: Rex
    The 65-year-old is married and has three children

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    The 65-year-old is married and has three children
    Big brass letters spelling out 'House of Bourbon' hang outside Balthazar's front door

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    Big brass letters spelling out ‘House of Bourbon’ hang outside Balthazar’s front doorCredit: 2007 AFP
    Shaukat Mahal is a 19th century palace designed by a Frenchman said to be a descendent of the Bourbon kings

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    Shaukat Mahal is a 19th century palace designed by a Frenchman said to be a descendent of the Bourbon kingsCredit: Alamy

    The Bourbon dynasty ruled France from 1589 to 1789.

    Balthazar claimed his royal heritage was instilled in him from the moment he gained consciousness.

    “I am born an Indian,” he told the LA Times in 2008. “But the fact of life is that I belong to the royal family of France.”

    A lawyer and part-time farmer by trade, Balthazar is married to an Indian woman named Elisha Pacheco with whom he shares three children: Frederick, Michelle, and Adrian.

    It is his family’s understanding that an exiled French noble by the name of Jean Philippe de Bourbon ended up in Goa on India’s southwestern coast after escaping the clutches of pirates.

    The story goes he survived assassination attempts as well as a kidnapping at sea before washing up in India.

    The French noble, a nephew of King Henry IV, made his way to and served at the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar in the 16th century.

    By the 18th century, his descendants had moved to Bhopal, central India – where Balthazar Napoleon de Bourbon and his family reside today.

    Members of the De Bourbon family are understood to have intermarried with members of the local population.

    Balthazar Napoleon IV de Bourbon seems, on the surface, as ordinary as they come.

    He is short and portly, and often spends his days tending to his tractor and covered in grease, describing himself as “poor” but “happy”.

    “I’m not looking for any claim to any riches,” he said. “I’m not begging [for] anything from anybody. I’m a happy man.”

    His unwavering belief in his supposed royal heritage was apparently confirmed by Prince Michael of Greece – the first cousin of the late Prince Philip – in the mid-2000s.

    The prince came to know of Balthazar in 2006 while staying at a hotel in Bhopal on holiday.

    He told the LA Times: “I was upgraded in the best hotel from a room to a suite. And what do I see on the door of my suite? ‘Bourbon Suite.’

    “So I rushed to the porter of the hotel and asked, ‘Why do you call it Bourbon here?’ And he said, ‘There is a family called Bourbon and they are well-known in Bhopal.’

    “I had no idea they were still existing. I must say it’s quite amusing to see in a directory in India the name Bourbon.”

    The coincidence inspired Michael to research and write a historical novel, Le Rajah Bourbon, in which he seemed to confirm Balthazar was the long-lost descendent of the Bourbon kings.

    Balthazar told Times of India in 2007: “Ever since I was a boy people have been contacting me to establish my French lineage. But this is the first time my lineage is being acknowledged in Europe.”

    He noted he wanted to continue to live in India as an Indian citizen and had no interest in relocating to France or trying to obtain French citizenship.

    The entrance to Balthazar’s home in Bhopal features big brass letters declaring “House of Bourbon” and the fleur-de-lis: a heraldic crest that has been associated with the French monarchy for centuries.

    His living room is also French in style.

    According to the Legitimists, Louis Alphonse de Bourbon is the head of the House of Bourbon and the pretender to the defunct throne of France as Louis XX.

    He has used the title Duke of Anjou since his father’s death in 1989.

    The French monarchy was formally abolished during the French Revolution in 1792.

    Louis XVI, the last king to live at the Palace of Versailles, died at the guillotine in January 1793.

    The Bourbon monarchy was briefly restored in 1814 and again in 1815, after the fall of Napoleon, with Louis XVI’s brothers on the throne.

    It lasted until a popular uprising in 1830.

    After that, Louise Philippe I ruled as “King of the French” from 1830 to 1848 when the Second Republic was formed.

    Balthazar's father Salvador instilled his royal heritage in him at a young age

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    Balthazar’s father Salvador instilled his royal heritage in him at a young ageCredit: Rex
    Prince Michael of Greece, cousin of Prince Philip, was the first in Europe to acknowledge Balthazar

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    Prince Michael of Greece, cousin of Prince Philip, was the first in Europe to acknowledge BalthazarCredit: Wikipedia
    Balthazar never had any doubts about his royal lineage

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    Balthazar never had any doubts about his royal lineageCredit: 2007 AFP
    Louis-Philippe I (1773-1850) was the last French king

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    Louis-Philippe I (1773-1850) was the last French kingCredit: Heritage Art/Heritage Images
    The current Duke of Anjou, Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, is another pretender to the French throne

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    The current Duke of Anjou, Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, is another pretender to the French throneCredit: Wikipedia
    Louis XVI was the last king to live at the Palace of Versailles

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    Louis XVI was the last king to live at the Palace of Versailles

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    Jessica Baker

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  • MI5 considers raising UK terror threat level

    MI5 considers raising UK terror threat level

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    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    LONDON — British intelligence chiefs are considering putting the U.K. on high alert for a terrorist attack, as tensions rise around the world after the outbreak of war between Hamas and Israel.

    According to people familiar with the matter, officials are weighing up whether to raise the government’s terrorism alert level to “critical,” the maximum state of vigilance.

    The current level is set at “substantial,” which means an attack is “likely,” according to the government’s definitions. Raising it two levels to “critical” would mean that intelligence and security services regard an attack as “highly likely in the near future.”

    No final decision has been taken, according to the people, who discussed sensitive security matters on condition of anonymity. The level could also remain the same or be raised one notch to “severe.”

    Security officials across the West have been assessing the threat of violence inspired by the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, as well as by Israeli reprisals in Gaza. Europe has already seen two fatal attacks in recent days.

    France raised its security level after an attacker last week fatally stabbed a teacher and seriously wounded two others. Earlier this week, two Swedish citizens were killed in Brussels in a terror attack; the suspect was subsequently shot dead by police.

    The U.K.’s national threat level system is designed to give a broad indication of the likelihood of a terrorist attack, and is set by the government’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre and security service MI5.

    The country’s threat level was last rated as “critical” in September 2017 following a bomb attack on the London underground. It has been at “substantial” since 2019.

    When deciding whether to raise the threat level, officials sometimes have specific information about potential attacks, but consider a range of intelligence as well. They also look at likely targets, the scale of any potential plot, and whether an attack appears imminent.

    Speaking this week before a summit of intelligence chiefs in California, MI5 chief Ken McCallum said there “clearly is the possibility that profound events in the Middle East will either generate more volume of U.K. threat, and/or change its shape in terms of what is being targeted.”

    A higher terror threat level would prompt increased security activity such as more meticulous bag searches and checks at airports. The public would be asked to remain vigilant and report suspicious activity, but would not be expected to take any other action.

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    Tim Ross and Andrew McDonald

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  • Aid enters Gaza as Rafah border crossing opens

    Aid enters Gaza as Rafah border crossing opens

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    The Egyptian-controlled Rafah border crossing from the Gaza Strip opened on Saturday morning, letting trucks carrying humanitarian aid into the blockaded enclave, which has been under siege from the Israeli military for almost two weeks.

    The first of 200 trucks loaded with about 3,000 tons of aid, which have been blocked near the Rafah crossing for days, started moving toward Gaza early Saturday, the Associated Press reported.

    Earlier this week, U.S. President Joe Biden said Egypt had agreed to open the border and let 20 trucks enter the Palestinian enclave, while Israel said it would allow the delivery of food, water or medicine — but no fuel — from Egypt, provided they were limited to civilians in the southern part of Gaza and would not go to Hamas militants.

    European leaders were quick to welcome the border’s opening. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on social media that the crossing’s opening was “an important first step that will alleviate the suffering of innocent people.” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said it was “good and important that the first humanitarian aid is now coming to the people in Gaza.”

    “They need water, food and medicine – we won’t leave them alone,” Scholz said.

    The Gaza Strip has been besieged by Israeli forces since October 9, when Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallan moved to restrict all access to food, water and energy in the enclave in retaliation for a surprise incursion from the Hamas militant group that killed at least 1,400 people in Israel.

    In response, Israel launched thousands of airstrikes on Gaza, killing more than 4,100 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and ordered all civilians to evacuate Gaza City to the southern part of the enclave as its troops get ready for a ground assault.

    The U.N. has called on Israel to reverse course, with a spokesperson saying an evacuation in Gaza “could transform what is already a tragedy into a calamitous situation.”

    The news of the border crossing’s opening comes as leaders of a dozen countries — including top officials from Germany, France, Turkey and Qatar — are set to meet in Cairo on Saturday at the invitation of Egypt’s leader Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, in an attempt to prevent the conflict from escalating into a broader regional war.

    Meanwhile, Israel asked its citizens living in neighboring Jordan and Egypt to leave those countries “as soon as possible” and to “avoid staying in all the Middle East/Arab countries,” according to a joint statement from the prime minister’s office and the foreign ministry.

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    Nicolas Camut

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  • 4,000-year-old rock with mysterious markings becomes a

    4,000-year-old rock with mysterious markings becomes a

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    A piece of rock with mysterious markings that lay largely unstudied for 4,000 years is now being hailed as a “treasure map” for archaeologists, who are using it to hunt for ancient sites around north-western France.

    The so-called Saint-Belec slab was found at the site of a tomb and claimed as Europe’s oldest known map by researchers in 2021 and they have been working ever since to understand its etchings — both to help them date the slab and to rediscover lost monuments.

    “Using the map to try to find archaeological sites is a great approach. We never work like that,” said Yvan Pailler, a professor at the University of Western Brittany (UBO).

    Ancient sites are more commonly uncovered by sophisticated radar equipment or aerial photography, or by accident in cities when the foundations for new buildings are being dug.

    “It’s a treasure map,” said Pailler.

    But the team is only just beginning their treasure hunt.

    The ancient map marks an area roughly 30 by 21 kilometers and Pailler’s colleague, Clement Nicolas from the CNRS research institute, said they would need to survey the entire territory and cross reference the markings on the slab. That job could take 15 years, he said.

    “Symbols that made sense right away”

    Nicolas and Pailler were part of the team that rediscovered the slab in 2014 — it was initially uncovered in 1900 by a local historian who did not understand its significance.

    At the time, more than a dozen workers were needed to move the heavy slab out of the mound where it had been used to form a wall of a large burial chest, according to the National Archeology Museum. It has been kept in the museum’s collections since 1924.

    A broken ceramic vessel characteristic of early Bronze Age pottery was also found with the slab, according to the French Prehistoric Society.

    The French experts were joined by colleagues from other institutions in France and overseas as they began to decode its mysteries.

    “There were a few engraved symbols that made sense right away,” said Pailler.  

    In the coarse bumps and lines of the slab, they could see the rivers and mountains of Roudouallec, part of the Brittany region about 500 kilometers west of Paris. The researchers scanned the slab and compared it with current maps, finding a roughly 80% match.

    “We still have to identify all the geometric symbols, the legend that goes with them,” said Nicolas.

    The slab is pocked with tiny hollows, which researchers believe could point to burial mounds, dwellings or geological deposits. Discovering their meaning could lead to a whole flood of new finds.

    But first, the archaeologists have spent the past few weeks digging at the site where the slab was initially uncovered, which Pailler said was one of the biggest Bronze Age burial sites in Brittany.

    “We are trying to better contextualize the discovery, to have a way to date the slab,” said Pailler.

    Their latest dig has already turned up a handful of previously undiscovered fragments from the slab.

    The pieces had apparently been broken off and used as a tomb wall in what Nicolas suggests could signify the shifting power dynamics of Bronze Age settlements.

    The area covered by the map probably corresponds to an ancient kingdom, perhaps one that collapsed in revolts and rebellions.

    “The engraved slab no longer made sense and was doomed by being broken up and used as building material,” said Nicolas.

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  • Israel floods social media to shape opinion around the war

    Israel floods social media to shape opinion around the war

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    Voiced by artificial intelligence.

    BRUSSELS — A photo with a bloody dead baby whose face is blurred has been circulating on X for the last four days. 

    “This is the most difficult image we’ve ever posted. As we are writing this we are shaking,” the accompanying message says. 

    The footage is not from a reporter covering the conflict in Israel and Gaza, or from one of the countless accounts sharing horrifying videos of the atrocities. 

    It’s a paid message from the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry.

    Since Hamas attacked thousands of its citizens last week, the Israeli government has started a sweeping social media campaign in key Western countries to drum up support for its military response against the group. Part of its strategy: pushing dozens of ads containing brutal and emotional imagery of the deadly militant violence in Israel across platforms such as X and YouTube, according to data reviewed by POLITICO.

    Israel’s attempt to win the online information war is part of a growing trend of governments around the world moving aggressively online in order to shape their image, especially during times of crisis. PR campaigns in and around wars are nothing new. But paying for online advertising targeted at specific countries and demographics is now one of governments’ main tools to get their messages in front of more eyeballs. 

    The Israeli government’s efforts come as Hamas has pumped out its own propaganda on platforms including Telegram and X. The group — which is designated as a terrorist organization by the European Union, United States and United Kingdom — on Monday published online a first hostage video of a young French-Israeli woman.

    The social media campaigns began shortly after Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 and abducted nearly 200 people in a surprise assault. Israel’s military responded with retaliatory strikes and a siege of the Gaza Strip, killing more than 2,330 Palestinians to date. 

    More than 2 million Palestinians trapped in Gaza have been subjected to worsening conditions ahead of an expected upcoming offensive, and Western leaders are increasingly calling on the Israeli government to exercise restraint and respect humanitarian law. 

    A barrage of ads

    In a little over a week, Israel’s Foreign Affairs Ministry has run 30 ads that have been seen over 4 million times on X, according to the platform’s data. The paid videos and photos that started appearing on October 12 were aimed at adults over 25 in Brussels, Paris, Munich and The Hague, according to the same data. 

    The ads portrayed Hamas as a “vicious terrorist group,” similar to the Islamic State, and showed the scale and types of the abuse, including gruesome images like that of a lifeless, naked woman in a pickup truck. Another paid video posted to X, with text alternating between “ISIS” and “Hamas,” has disturbing imagery that gradually speeds up until the names of the two terrorist organizations blend into one. 

    “The world defeated ISIS. The world will defeat Hamas,” the ad ends.  

    A cyclist rides past kidnap and disappearance posters, showing recently kidnapped or missing Israelis, following the Hamas attacks on Israel, in central Paris on October 17, 2023 | Kiran Ridley/AFP via Getty Images

    Over on YouTube, the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry has released over 75 different ads, including some that are particularly graphic. They have been directed at viewers in Western countries — including France, Germany, the U.S. and the U.K. — and have aired between the initial Hamas attack on October 7 and Monday, according to Google’s transparency database. 

    “We would never post such graphic things before,” said a spokesperson for Israel’s Mission to the EU, who was granted anonymity because of security concerns to speak candidly. “This is something that is not part of our culture. We have a lot of respect [for] the deceased,” they said, adding that “war is not only on the ground.”

    In one ad, titled “Babies Can’t Read The Text in This Video But Their Parents Can,” a lullaby plays against a backdrop of a rainbow and a unicorn flies across the screen. The ad says, “We know that your child cannot read this,” but pleads with parents to sympathize with those whose children were killed during the attack on Israel.

    Another ad notes that “Israel will take every measure necessary to protect our citizens against these barbaric terrorists.” Yet another shows images of bloodied hostages with their faces blurred. 

    Israel has largely targeted Europe with its narrative to win over support. Nearly 50 video ads in English were directed to EU countries, while viewers in the U.S. and the U.K. were pushed 10 and 13 ads, respectively. One of the videos had been seen over 3 million times as of Tuesday afternoon European time.

    Platforms’ ongoing content challenge

    The ad campaign has posed some challenges to social media companies, which have set standards for what type of content can be posted on their streams.

    Google, for example, removed about 30 ads containing violent images from its public library after POLITICO reached out for a comment on Monday — meaning there is no public record that such ads ran for several days on YouTube. The company said it didn’t allow ads containing violent language, gruesome or disgusting imagery, or graphic images or accounts of physical trauma. (Some of the graphic videos are still available on the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry’s YouTube channel with some warnings.)

    X did not respond to a request for comment. The tech company is currently being investigated by the European Commission over whether its handling of illegal content and disinformation connected to the Hamas attack has respected the EU’s content-moderation law, the Digital Services Act (DSA). 

    Under the DSA, companies have to swiftly remove illegal content, including terrorist propaganda, and limit the spread of falsehoods — or else face sweeping fines of up to 6 percent of their global annual revenue. 

    No similar ads were running on Meta’s Instagram and Facebook, LinkedIn and TikTok, according to the platforms’ public ad libraries as of Monday. 

    Some of the ads online have been met with some pushback by viewers who have sought ways to stop being targeted by the foreign ministry. But experts in the field say that this is simply the new reality of PR campaigns built around wars.

    “This tactic is almost as old as war … Stirring moral outrage to build support for war is a very old practice,” said Emerson Brooking, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. “But I do not think it has collided with social media in quite this way before.”

    The EU reminded Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai last week to be “very vigilant” to ensure that YouTube respects the DSA | AFP via Getty Images

    Still, amid an onslaught of disinformation and illegal content connected to the attacks, Israel’s online push may prove more complicated. The European commissioner in charge of enforcing the DSA, Thierry Breton, has warned some online platforms to step up their efforts to protect young viewers from harmful content. The EU also reminded Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai last week to be “very vigilant” to ensure that YouTube respects the DSA. 

    As Israel amps up its war online, its army’s retaliatory airstrikes have damaged Gaza’s telecommunications infrastructure, leaving millions on the verge of a total network blackout. 

    “It is difficult to imagine a robust counter-messaging effort by pro-Palestinian groups which could make use of the same advertising medium,” Brooking said. “It’s one part of the social media battlefield in which Israel has a real advantage.”

    Hailey Fuchs contributed reporting from Washington. Liv Martin and Clothilde Goujard contributed reporting from Brussels.

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    Liv Martin, Clothilde Goujard and Hailey Fuchs

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