WHEN Mark Chapman fired four shots into John Lennon four decades ago there seemed little doubt who was responsible for the cold-blooded murder.
Immediately after the shooting outside the former Beatle’s New York home on December 8, 1980, the killer dropped his gun and waited for the police to arrive.
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Was the former Beatle a target of the FBI? John Lennon with wife Yoko Ono in New York in 1980 – the year he was killedCredit: Rex
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A police lieutenant who questioned Chapman reportedly told British barrister and writer Fenton Bresler: ‘He looked as if he could have been programmed’Credit: PA:Press Association
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Confidential documents reveal that the FBI considered John and Yoko ‘dangerous’ and that President Richard Nixon wanted their activities – such as ‘bed-ins for peace’ stoppedCredit: Hulton Archive – Getty
But a new documentary series raises questions about whether Chap-man could have been hypnotised or controlled by shadowy forces.
In the three-part Apple TV+ series a pal of John’s reveals for the first time that the singer’s widow Yoko Ono asked him to look into a possible conspiracy.
And he discovered that the US secret services had followed and bugged the peace-campaigning couple because of their radical ideas.
Confidential documents reveal that the FBI considered them “dangerous” and that President Richard Nixon wanted their activities stopped.
If jobless oddball Chapman seems an unlikely assassin, the fact that the CIA had carried out experiments to see if mind control was possible only adds to the murder’s mystique.
Elliot Mintz, who used to be a spokesman for John and Yoko, says: “I’ve never expressed this before.
“One of the things Yoko asked me was to look into the various conspiracy theories after John’s murder.
“The two of them were convinced that the Dakota building, their apartment area, was being bugged.”
Phone tapped
John and Yoko were arguably the world’s best-known peace campaigners during the Vietnam War.
In 1969 they held “bed-ins for peace” and John released the anti-war anthem Give Peace A Chance.
That year Republican Nixon became US President and approved the secret carpet-bombing of Vietnam’s neighbour Cambodia.
John believed his phone was being tapped and saw men loitering outside his door.
He once said: “I realised this was serious. They were coming for me, one way or another.”
While that might sound paranoid, the FBI really were on his tail. Confidential files revealed that agents had been ordered to follow and wire-tap the couple.
At the end of one document, a note in capital letters says: “All extremists should be considered dangerous.”
Elliot, 78, who was also a DJ on underground radio, says: “There were hundreds and hundreds of pages written to the director of the FBI from Richard Nixon, where it was determined that John and Yoko were to be followed, monitored and steps were taken on the highest level of government to do something about the Lennon problem.”
But John remained a thorn in the side of the US government.
He expressed a distrust for the police, took illegal substances and his 1971 single Imagine asked people to think of a world with no possessions or national borders.
In his final interview, recorded just hours before his death aged 40 and aired in the documentary, John said: “People have the power to make the society they want.”
Repeated attempts by British-born John to obtain US citizenship had failed. But he had largely kept a low profile for five years before his murder and didn’t appear to be a critic of President Jimmy Carter.
However, Chapman did not have an obvious motive either. Various bizarre explanations have been given, with the killer once saying he did it to promote the reading of JD Salinger’s 1951 novel The Catcher In The Rye.
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John signing a copy of his album for Mark Chapman – who, just a few hours later, would shoot dead the ex-BeatleCredit: New York News
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Elliot Mintz says: ‘There were hundreds and hundreds of pages written to the director of the FBI from Richard Nixon, where it was determined that John and Yoko were to be followed’Credit: Getty
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Fenton Bresler believed Chapman was a victim of a mind control programme and put the blame on the CIA in his 1989 book The Murder Of John LennonCredit: Apple TV
He had modelled himself on its main character Holden Caulfield, a symbol of teenage rebellion.
But the prosecution claimed Chap-man simply wished to be famous.
In one confession, he said: “I thought I would turn into somebody if I killed somebody.”
Witnesses to the murder certainly found his behaviour odd for a killer.
Taxi driver Richard Peterson says in the show: “After he shot him, Chapman was still standing there with the gun, took off his overcoat and pulled out that book and held it up — Catcher In The Rye.”
The police officers were equally puzzled by Chapman. One, Tony Palma, asked him: “Do you realise what you’ve done?” and the accused replied: “Yes, I just killed myself, I’m John Lennon.”
A police lieutenant who questioned Chapman reportedly told British barrister and writer Fenton Bresler: “He looked as if he could have been programmed.”
Chapman, a married man who lived in Hawaii, admitted to the killing, but Detective Ron Hoffman, who was in charge of the investigation, speculated that there could be more to the case.
He says: “We had the killer, we were positive about that, we wanted to close every possibility that he had no help.
“Was he alone, was there somebody behind the lines, was it a conspiracy — all these questions started running through my mind.” In Chapman’s room Hoffman found his personal effects carefully laid out on a desk, including his passport and a Bible open at the Gospel of John.
This pointed to a premeditated act and there was no evidence he corresponded with a co-conspirator, though that still leaves the hypnosis theory.
From the 1950s, the CIA ran a 20-year top-secret project, codenamed MKUltra, that used drug addicts and mental health patients in mind-control experiments.
Chapman fits that profile because he had both a history of suicidal feelings and drug abuse.
His former girlfriend Jessica Blank-enship, who met him at a church retreat aged 16, remembered him having a nervous breakdown and trying to kill himself.
She adds: “He particularly liked The Beatles until John Lennon said they were more popular than Jesus Christ.”
Childhood friend Vance Hunter recalled Chapman taking “eight hits of LSD 25, which was very powerful” over one weekend, and trying opium.
After the killing Chapman was repeatedly interviewed by the police and his own legal team.
On one tape he described the seconds before firing the gun, saying: “All I remember is I had a voice in my head saying, ‘Do it, do it, do it, do it’.”
Over the years since the killing, conspiracy theorists have been out in force.
Fenton Bresler believed Chapman was a victim of a mind control programme and put the blame on the CIA in his 1989 book The Murder Of John Lennon.
In 2018 documentary Drugs As Weapons Against Us, John Potash suggested the same agency played some part in John’s death.
But Potash has also claimed the CIA had a hand in the murder of rapper Tupac Shakur and the suicide of rocker Kurt Cobain.
Reagan survived being shot at close range by Hinckley in 1981, just three months after John’s murder.
But the idea that the former Beatle was killed by the State has gathered few supporters. Even Chapman’s own lawyers did not put forward that defence.
Instead his legal team maintains that the miscarriage of justice in this case was allowing a psychologically disturbed man to enter a guilty plea.
But the court decided Chapman was of sound mind and in August 1981 he was sentenced to 20 years to life. He remains in prison today, after 12 parole hearings.
David Suggs, who helped to put Chapman’s defence together, says: “This isn’t a whodunnit. Our intention was to prove this man was insane.”
Indeed, insanity remains a credible reason for the murder, and Suggs adds: “He thought he was going to turn literally into Holden Caulfield in The Catcher In The Rye.”
John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial is streaming on Apple TV+ now.
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Elliot Mintz in ‘John Lennon: Murder Without A Trial,’ now streaming on Apple TV+Credit: Apple TV
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A vigil attended by 50,000 of Lennon’s fans in New York’s Central Park after his killing
HIDING for his life, Yoni Saadon watched in horror as a Hamas mob man-handled a woman “with the face of an angel”.
The Israeli had crept under the stage at the Supernova desert rave when it was attacked by armed-to-the-teeth terrorists.
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Israeli soldiers look at photos of people killed and taken captive by Hamas militants during their attack on the Supernova desert rave on October 7Credit: AP
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Footage shows an armed Palestinian militant walking around the music festivalCredit: AFP
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Members of the security forces continue to search for identification after the attack – while harrowing testimony has revealed the extent of atrocities on that dayCredit: Getty
After an hour, the 39-year-old dad of four peeked out: “I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her.
“She was screaming, ‘Stop it — I’m going to die anyway from what you are doing, just kill me!’
“When they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head.
“I kept thinking it could have been one of my daughters.”
Yoni’s harrowing testimony to the Sunday Times of rape as a weapon of terror is far from unique.
Yet the welter of vivid evidence reported by respected media outlets — and Hamas’s own sick videos — have not swayed many who would normally be natural allies of raped and mutilated women.
Shamefully, there has been no widespread crescendo of outrage from feminist groups, #MeToo activists, human rights campaigners and social justice warriors.
There were no circular letters signed by famous luvvies. And no special hashtag for the defiled women of Israel.
It appeared that sympathy for the Palestinian cause meant some could find no place in their hearts for raped and butchered Israeli women.
It led Israeli tech boss Danielle Ofek to launch a campaign on Twitter/X with the hashtag #MeTooUnlessUrAJew — its aim to gather a million signatures to acknowledge that every woman’s life is equally precious.
Despite the deafening silence, multiple heart-wrenching accounts of the rape and mutilation of women have emerged since the massacre.
This week the BBC told how Israeli police had shown journalists the video testimony of another Supernova survivor.
It’s an extremely shocking and graphic account of barbarity.
The woman, known as Witness S, first told how Hamas passed a female partygoer from one attacker to another.
Then she said: “She was alive. She was bleeding from her back. They sliced her breast and threw it on the street. They were playing with it.”
Witness S then told how the victim was passed to another man in uniform, who shot her in the head while he was raping her.
The BBC also quoted a survivor from the festival saying in a statement: “Some women were raped before they were dead, some raped while injured, and some were already dead when the terrorists raped their lifeless bodies.
“I desperately wanted to help, but there was nothing I could do.”
And a morgue worker said: “There is evidence of mass rape so brutal that they broke their victims’ pelvis — women, grandmothers, children.”
Photographs from massacre sites show dead women naked from the waist down, or with their underwear ripped to one side, their legs splayed and with signs of trauma to their genitals and legs.
Israeli police commander Shelly Harush, leading the investigation into the rapes, said: “It’s clear now that sexual crimes were part of the planning, and the purpose was to terrify and humiliate people.”
Israel’s Women’s Empowerment Minister May Golan said the “very, very few” victims of rape or sexual assault who survived the attacks were having psychiatric treatment.
She added: “The majority were brutally murdered. They aren’t able to talk — not with me, and not to anyone from the government or from the media.”
Most social media users would have seen the highly distressing images of a handcuffed woman taken hostage, with cuts to her arms and her trousers bloodstained.
Yet the silence from many has left Israeli women feeling ignored by the global feminist movement.
The United Nations organisation UN Women — which calls itself “the global champion for gender equality” — had nothing initially to say after the mass rapes on October 7.
Despite publishing a report on women in the region a few days after the outrage, it remained silent.
‘Unverified accusation’
Nearly two months after the rape and murder spree — and following intense lobbying by Israeli women’s groups — UN Women finally acknowledged the sexual attacks.
It released a statement saying the organisation was “alarmed by the numerous accounts of gender-based atrocities and sexual violence” during the October attacks.
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One woman was wedged between two fanatics as they carried her away on a motorbikeCredit: AP
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Noa Argamani, 25, was snatched from a music festival as she begged for her lifeCredit: Supplied
But Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen slammed the statement as “weak and late”.
In Canada an open letter has been gathering signatures among politicos, but rather than decry the Hamas killings and sexual attacks, it denied that women were raped.
It criticised opposition New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh for having “repeated the unverified accusation that Palestinians were guilty of sexual violence.”
Astonishingly, it was signed by Samantha Pearson, director of the University of Alberta’s Sexual Assault Centre.
The Jewish Federation of Edmonton wrote: “Shouldn’t a sexual assault centre believe all victims, and not just the non-Jewish ones?”
Pearson was fired from her role.
In Britain, Guardian newspaper posterboy Owen Jones — who was at a screening of Hamas atrocities put together by the Israeli Government — said there was no “conclusive evidence” of rape in the images he witnessed.
He added: “If there was rape and sexual violence committed, we don’t see that on camera.”
The Israel Defense Forces said only footage that “preserved the dignity” of those killed was used out of respect to their families.
It was left to fellow Guardian columnist Gaby Hinsliff to point out last week that after reports of the rape of Yazidi and Ukrainian women she couldn’t remember “too many sceptics demanding to see video proof”.
Jones later tweeted: “All allegations of rape and sexual assault must be investigated, including those alleged against Hamas during 7th October atrocity”.
On Tuesday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a Press conference: “I say to the women’s rights organisations, to the human rights organisations, you’ve heard of the rape of Israeli women, horrible atrocities, sexual mutilation — where the hell are you?”
Last week UN secretary general António Guterres finally said that the “numerous accounts of sexual violence during the abhorrent acts of terror by Hamas” should be “vigorously investigated”.
Israeli author Hen Mazzig tweeted: “So, it took the top man in the humanitarian world almost TWO MONTHS to believe women and say that there are “reports” of rape that should be investigated?
“No, sir, it must be condemned, NOW, with your full chest.”
BRITAIN is sending eight warships on missions – from the Baltic to the Gulf – amid fears that Russian meddling and Gaza war could spiral into global conflict.
HMS Diamond, a guided missile destroyer, will steam through the Suez Canal in a show of force to Hamas backers Iran.
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HMS Diamond will head into the Suez Canal in a show of force to Hamas-backers IranCredit: Paul Edwards
The Type 45 destroyer is one of the Navy’s most powerful warships armed with dozens of Sea Viper missiles that can intercept rockets, jets, drones and intercontinental ballistic missiles up to 75 miles away.
Combined with the vessel’s Samson radar the ship can track up to 1,000 objects the size of small as a tennis ball travelling three times the speed of sound.
Its mission follows a spate of attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.
They hijacked a cargo ship on Nov 19 and fired missiles and drones at Israel and a US warship the USS Mason.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said HMS Diamond’s main mission was to act as a “deterrent” to Iran.
He said: “Iran, under the wrong circumstances, may try to stir this all up.”
He added: “It is critical that the UK bolsters our presence in the region, to keep Britain and our interests safe.”
HMS Defender will join the frigate HMS Lancaster, three Royal Navy mine hunters and a Royal Fleet Auxiliary support ship already in the region.
Separately, a fleet of frigates, gunboats and mine hunters, will set sail within in days to defend undersea cables in the Baltic and North Sea along with allies from UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF).
It is the first time the 10-alliance, which includes Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Sweden and Norway, has activated a “response” protocol to counter Russian threats.
It follows repeated warnings Russian activity that could threaten undersea internet cables, powerlines from windfarms and oil and gas pipelines.
Shapps hailed the mission as an “historic and unprecedented”.
He said: “The UK and our JEF partners will do whatever it takes to defend our mutual areas of interest, and today’s display of unshakeable unity sends a powerful message of deterrence that we stand ready to meet any potential threat with force.
“Together, we stand firmly in support of peace, security, and a steadfast resolve to uphold the rules-based international order.”
The seven vessel task force includes a Royal Fleet Auxilliary landing ship, RFA Mounts Bay, designed to launch coastal assaults with commandos.
The other vessels are HMS Richmond, HMS Somerset, HMS Severn, HMS Tyne, HMS Cattistock, HMS Penzance, RFA Mounts Bay and an RAF P-8 Poseidon sub-hunting patrol aircraft based at RAF Lossiemouth.
Freed Emily Hand, nine, is barely able to speak after being ordered to stay silent by HamasCredit: Doug Seeburg
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The young girl’s father Tom, 63, said his daughter is so traumatised she speaks in whispers
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Little Emily, pictured above with pal Hila being walked to the Red Cross van by the terrorists, was ordered to stay silent by armed terrorists during her 50-day ordeal
Her father Tom said: “She was a happy noisy kid, now she whispers.
“She’s been terrorised by terrorists in hell but as her dad it’s my job to make it better and I will.”
The sparkle in pop music fan Emily’s blue eyes has also dimmed while she lost more than half a stone during her horrifying ordeal.
Heartbreakingly, Tom revealed the first thing she wanted after her release was his phone — so she could watch a video of her favourite star Beyonce.
He has pledged to dedicate his life to the recovery of his brave little girl, who yesterday posed for a snap peeking behind a giant teddy — a belated birthday present.
Tom told The Sun in his first interview since she walked free: “I’ll do whatever it takes to get Emily back to where she was.
“Her chubby cheeks may have gone but she’s smiling again now she’s safe.
“I can’t bear to think about what she’s been through – she’s been terrorised by terrorists in hell – but as her dad it’s my job to make it better and I will.
“It’s going to be a long road but we’ll get there.”
Dublin-born Tom’s ex-wife Narkis, 52, was killed on October 7 when 400 Hamas beasts rampaged through the Be’eri kibbutz near Gaza.
The single dad was at home nearby while Emily was on a sleepover with her pal Hila Rotem, 13, and Hila’s mother, Raya, 54.
Tom was trapped in his home’s safe room for 19 hours before he was freed under fire from the terrorists.
The father of three then presumed Emily had been killed, saying she was “better off dead” than in the hands of Hamas.
But 23 days later hopes grew she was still alive when tests showed no sign of her DNA or blood near the scene of her capture.
The bewildered youngster, who turned nine in captivity, was then released back into her overjoyed dad’s arms early on Sunday.
Tom said: “She ran to me and hugged me but she was clearly in a state of shock because she believed I had been kidnapped as well.
“She looked at me as if to say, ‘What are you doing here?’
“It was only then I realised that she had no idea what had happened to the rest of the kibbutz.”
Tom said post-October 7 that we were “grieving for Narkis with my son and daughter and we were grieving for Emily as well”.
He went on: “We presumed she was dead and it was actually a sad but peaceful time.
“I completely believed that she had gone and had a kind of closure and I don’t regret saying that she was better off dead than being kidnapped by these people.”
But he added: “I’m obviously extremely happy and grateful that she’s alive and back in my arms and she was lucky the kidnappers didn’t hit or abuse her.”
Tom revealed Emily had told him she was not – as believed – held in the labyrinth of Hamas terror tunnels dubbed the “Gaza Metro”.
But she instead faced greater danger being moved from one safe house to another at the height of Israel’s revenge blitz on the terror group’s 25-mile-long stronghold.
He said of the Hamas gunmen: “They were shouting ‘yala yala yala’ in Arabic – ‘hurry hurry hurry’ — at my terrified little girl as she ran for her life.
“They made her run from the Israeli army from house to house.
“She was constantly being moved – sometimes under fire – to stay one step ahead of the army.
“She must have been absolutely terrified – an eight-year-old girl being led by strangers from one blown-up shell of a house to the next in the middle of a war zone.
“I said when she was being held that I was horrified by the thought of her spending her ninth birthday in the tunnels under Gaza.
“But the reality of what was happening to her was actually much worse – and I’m glad I didn’t know what she was going through at the time.”
After Emily returned, Tom said she was afraid to raise her voice above a whisper.
He believes she was ordered to keep quiet by the terrorists, fearing their position would be given away.
He said: “When she came back I literally had to put my ear on her lips to hear what she was saying.
“She was a normal happy noisy kid but now she whispers – she was moving her lips with no volume or even air coming out.
“She’s got used to talking like that for the past 50 days and now I guess she can’t stop.
“As soon as she was released the first thing she did was ask for my phone so she could watch a video of her favourite pop star, Beyonce.
“She held the phone a foot from her face and watched but I couldn’t hear any sound.
“When I turned the volume up she turned it back down again because she was scared to make a noise.
“I realised she must have been commanded to be silent for so long she’s still terrified to make a sound.
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Tom Hand has pledged to dedicate his life to the recovery of brave EmilyCredit: Doug Seeburg
“It’s still too early for her to talk to us about it but these are the tiny clues we’re seeing that show us what she must have gone through.”
Tom said Emily remains in shock and is being evaluated by child trauma specialists in a hospital near Tel Aviv.
He told how she was returned to him in the same Donald Duck Disney pyjamas – her favourites – that she had worn on her sleepover.
He said she wants to keep them, even though they smelled “pretty ripe”, but insisted he bin all the clothes given to her by Hamas.
Tom added: “At the moment she’s still in shock and doesn’t even want to use the word ‘Gaza’.
“She’s asked us to call it just ‘The Box’ – because the whole of Gaza was just a series of boxes to her as she was moved from one building to the next.”
Tom fought back tears as he told how she was immediately put on a course of vitamins to boost her nervous system.
He said: “She had these lovely chubby round cheeks but now she looks chiselled, like me, with high cheekbones.
“She’s lost at least half a stone and the hospital have given her multivitamins with a big focus on vitamin B1, which they say is the most important one.
“She must have been kept in the dark because she’s pale – I have never seen her so white.
“It emphasises her big blue eyes because she lost all the weight – and when she was first handed over the sparkle in her eyes had gone.
“They were very glassy as she was so shocked, so traumatised.
“But slowly but surely life is coming back to her – and it’s my job now to make sure that happens.”
Tom travelled to Israel three decades ago to volunteer on a kibbutz near Gaza.
He then had Emily with new partner Liat, who died of breast cancer when the little girl was two.
The former printing plant worker is now homeless but dreams of returning to once-idyllic Be’eri kibbutz when the threat is over.
For now though, his whole focus is on Emily.
He said: “She’s so hungry she’s eating like a horse now.
“Her favourite is sushi and salmon and chocolate and cheesecake and she’s slowly getting better.
“I know now I’m going to become an overprotective dad and still can’t bear to let her out of my sight.
“But the last thing I would ever want is for her to feel trapped or threatened in any way again.
“But that cannot happen until Hamas are utterly destroyed so we must carry on fighting – and fighting for all the hostages to be free.”
Emily’s ninth birthday passed while she was held on November 17 but Tom said she is not yet strong enough for a party.
The Sun yesterday handed the doting dad a giant teddy for the youngster and a birthday balloon.
Emily’s kidnapped pal Hila came back to Israel alongside her – but their captors cruelly kept her mum Raya, in breach of the terms of the hostage deal with Israel.
Hila celebrated her 13th birthday on Monday – and both girls were given cakes and plates of sushi.
But Raya’s continuing ordeal cast a shadow over the celebrations as she remained among nearly 200 innocent captives held.
Tom called for her release last night as more hostages were freed.
He said: “Hila’s mum was supposed to be with her at her 13th party but she wasn’t.
“Raya, Hila and Emily were together for 50 days – thank God – and Raya was looking after Emily like she was her own child.
“Then two days before the release they separated Raya from her own daughter and mine.
“I have no idea why they would do that – it’s just more psychological pain and cruelty.
“Can you imagine the terror of Raya?
“She would be thinking, ‘Why am I being taken away now? Am I going to be shot?’ and Hila thinking the same thing.
“I’m seeing kids running around the hotels we have been taken to orphaned with no parents, I’m seeing parents who’ve lost their kids.
“We’re all devastated and grieving for each other – but we can only hope for a better future.”
Meanwhile, desperate relatives of the two youngest hostages in Gaza blasted their kidnappers yesterday – after learning the pair were not on last night’s list to be freed.
Their aunt Ofri Bibas said the delay was part of Hamas’s “psychological warfare”.
She added: “The last four days since the start of the truce have been a big nightmare.
“I hope they’re not holding them as a trophy.”
Thirty children have been released while ten are still in captivity.
Ofri said: “We don’t know where they’ve been held.
“From what we know, they are kept underground.
“Everybody who is involved in this negotiation and this deal should do whatever they could to include the Bibas.”
Israeli supporters last night released thousands of orange balloons in Tel Aviv in support of the pair, who have bright ginger hair.
It came as ten more hostages – reported to be a girl and nine women – were being transferred to Israel last night.
Hopes rose last night of a further two-day extension to the ceasefire to allow more releases – despite concerns that Hamas had lost track of their captives.
The ceasefire was still holding despite two explosions in northern Gaza which injured Israeli troops.
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Tom said Emily remains in shock and is being evaluated by child trauma specialists near Tel AvivCredit: AP
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The Sun handed the doting dad a giant teddy for the youngster and a birthday balloonCredit: Doug Seeburg
FIRST it was maverick world leader Donald Trump posting bizarre and deluded tweets through his four-year US presidency.
Now he has a rival – Argentina’s new right-wing leader Javier Milei, who has already created a stir with revelations of tantric sex and threesomes, as well as speaking to his dead dog.
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Argentina has just elected right-wing leader Javier Milei, who wields chainsaws at ralliesCredit: AP
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The controversial leader is not unlike Donald Trump – so can you guess which president said what?Credit: Reuters
Trump and Milei admire each other and are not afraid to speak their minds, but how alike are they?
Can you work out which of them was responsible for which crazy quote? Try Samantha Yule’s quiz.
Answers below.
1. “Can you believe I’m a politician? I can’t even.”
2. “The sale of human organs is merchandise.”
3. “For me the state is an enemy, as are the politicians who live off it.”
4. “A murderer is a murderer. A thief is a thief. And that’s what you call them. They’re an organised crime group, the biggest in the world, called ‘the state’. Why should I treat them any other way?”
5. “I tested positively toward negative, right? So no. I tested perfectly this morning, meaning I tested negative. But that’s a way of saying it. Positively toward the negative.”
7. “If I had to choose between the state and the Mafia, I would choose the Mafia because the Mafia has codes, the Mafia adapts, the Mafia doesn’t lie. And above all, the Mafia competes.”
8. “I like kids. I mean, I won’t do anything to take care of them. I’ll supply funds and she’ll take care of the kids. It’s not like I’m gonna be walking the kids down Central Park.”
9. “I think apologising’s a great thing, but you have to be wrong. I will absolutely apologise, sometime in the hopefully distant future, if I’m ever wrong.”
10. “When you see the other side chopping off heads, waterboarding doesn’t sound very severe.”
11. “Each man has his own dynamic. In my case, I ejaculate every three months.”
12. “Mickey Mouse is the aspiration of every politician because he is a disgusting rodent whom everybody loves.”
13. “I will not be apologising for having a penis. I don’t have to feel ashamed of being a man.”
14. “I have a great relationship with the blacks. I’ve always had a great relationship with the blacks.”
15. “On promising to stop government benefits as they are “based on that atrocity that says that where there is a need, a right is born, its maximum expression being that aberration called social justice”.
16. “To be blunt, people would vote for me. They just would. Why? Maybe because I’m so good looking.”
17. “Marriage is a horrible institution, first because it is a contract for life. I don’t want marriage, I don’t want regulations.
“With marriage, the relationship worsens because, since breaking that contract is costly, what appears, it’s called the moral hazard, so you take more risks. Men get fat, women take less care of themselves, and a whole series of deteriorations occur . . . ”
18. “Sorry, losers and haters, but my IQ is one of the highest, and you all know it! Please don’t feel so stupid or insecure, it’s not your fault.”
Kevin said of the moment he hugged wife Kelly, who had been campaigning for his release: “It was probably the best moment I have had in my life besides seeing my children being born. I couldn’t speak for a couple of minutes. I didn’t have the words.”
The former soldier, from Middlesbrough, was working for the UN Refugee Agency when he was arrested for possessing a gun, even though he had a certificate for the pistol which was in his safe for emergency use.
While in captivity, he suffered bouts of sepsis and developed kidney stones.
Kevin — who served in the military for almost 25 years, including 12 years in the Royal Army Medical Corps — was finally released last month along with extreme tourist Miles Routledge, 23, of Birmingham, and two other men who were also being held.
His wife thanked the Press for helping her increase pressure on the UK Government and Taliban to release him.
Kelly said: “I don’t think he would be home now if that pressure hadn’t been added and if I hadn’t taken it to the Press in the first place.”
Kevin added: “I won’t be going back to Afghanistan.”
DOZENS died when an airstrike hit a UN-run school used as a shelter in Gaza yesterday, witnesses said.
Survivor Ahmed Radwan called scenes at al-Fakhoura in the Jabalia refugee camp “horrifying”.
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An airstrike hit a UN run school in the Gaza Strip with dozens feared dead, witnesses said yesterdayCredit: EPA
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Israeli top brass said they were investigating footage of the aftermath appearing to show casualtiesCredit: Getty
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One survivor called scenes at al-Fakhoura in the Jabalia refugee camp ‘horrifying’Credit: Getty
He added: “Corpses of women and children were on the ground. Others were screaming for help.”
Israeli top brass said they were investigating footage of the aftermath appearing to show casualties.
Their spokesman Lt Col Peter Lerner said: “I can’t confirm this incident is IDF. We’re looking into it.”
The Israeli military had warned Jabalia residents to leave.
It said troops were in the area “with the aim of hitting terrorists”.
The UN’s Philippe Lazzarini said: “Receiving horrifying images and footage of scores of people killed and injured in another UN school sheltering thousands of displaced.
“Civilians cannot and should not have to bear this any longer.”
Meanwhile, Israel yesterday expanded its war on terror after urging residents in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis to evacuate.
Troops opened a humanitarian corridor and paused military action.
It followed an overnight blitz as IDF troops entered the “next phase” of their fight with Hamas, whose October 7 terror raid killed 1,400.
An airstrike on a residential block killed at least 26, medics said.
And patients and staff at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital joined the exodus, leaving behind a skeleton crew to care for 120 people too ill to travel.
In a striking comparison – demonstrating the herculean task facing Israeli troops – it is now even bigger than the London Underground.
Massive stockpiles of fuel light the tunnels – as Gazans above ground struggle with barely enough electricity to power their hospitals – whilst ventilation systems provide oxygen.
To win the war and destroy Hamas, the IDF will at some stage have to enter its concrete underground base.
One former defence official said: “They have turned huge swathes of the Strip into legitimate military targets.
“These sons of b**ches have intentionally put their tunnels under houses, mosques and hospitals to maximise civilian casualties.
GRETA Thunberg sparked fury at a climate protest by wearing a Palestinian scarf and calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.
The 20-year-old eco-protester’s Amsterdam speech was interrupted by a man who grabbed her microphone.
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A man wrestles the microphone from Greta Thunberg, who has sparked fury for wearing a Palestinian scarfCredit: Reuters
He told her: “I’ve come for a climate demonstration, not a political view.”
Volker Becker, president of the German- Israel Society DIG, said her outburst marked “the end of Greta Thunberg as a climate activist”.
He added: “From now, Israel hater is her main job.” The Israeli embassy in Germany said she was “again misusing the climate stage for her own purposes”.
The Israeli embassy in Germany also wrote on X that it was “sad that Greta Thunberg is again misusing the climate stage for her own purposes”.
READ MORE ON GRETA THUNBERG
On Sunday, Greta was talking to a crowd of tens of thousands in Amsterdam when she invited a Palestinian and an Afghan woman onto the stage.
She said: “As a climate justice movement, we have to listen to the voices of those who are being oppressed and those who are fighting for freedom and for justice.
“Otherwise, there can be no climate justice without international solidarity.”
THE daughter of a Nazi death camp survivor has told her father’s incredible story for the first time — after being shocked by anti-Jewish hate triggered by the Hamas attacks.
Mum-of-three Maja Klausner, 49, had kept silent on the heart-stopping story of her late father Wladyslaw Rath, an Auschwitz inmate who was on the real-life Schindler’s list.
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The international Jewish community has been shocked by anti-Jewish hate triggered by the Hamas attacksCredit: Alamy
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Mum-of-three Maja Klausner is the daughter of a Nazi death camp survivorCredit: Doug Seeburg
But she contacted The Sun after being moved by our front page showing the faces of 32 child hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
And yesterday she told how her peace campaigner dad would have been horrified by the rise of anti-Semitic hate set to be paraded again this Remembrance weekend.
Housewife Maja, 49, said: “My father could not bring himself to describe what happened to him in Auschwitz until two years before his death.
“It was too painful.
“But when the film Schindler’s List was released, he began telling us he had been a part of that story and was one of the lucky ones who lived.
“I had never intended to reveal what he told me but feel I have to say something as we remember the Second World War, because I fear the wheel of history has come full circle again.
“There is so much hate — on both sides — but I would appeal to everyone planning to protest, please remember the lessons of the past.”
Wladyslaw Rath was the 15-year-old son of a successful Jewish factory owner in Krakow, Poland, when the Nazi invasion decimated his well-to-do family’s life in 1939.
‘Huge, ferocious dogs’
The youngster, his older sister Dora, then 19, their father Max and mother Amalia lost everything and were marched from their townhouse to Krakow’s ghetto at gunpoint.
Amalia was gassed in a Nazi extermination camp and Max collapsed and died on a forced “death march” days before the end of the war.
But Wladyslaw and Dora survived the horrors of Plaszow, Buchenwald and Auschwitz concentration camps thanks to Holocaust hero Oskar Schindler.
The German industrialist saved 1,200 Jews by creating fake jobs for them in his Krakow armaments factory to keep them out of death camps.
Wladyslaw and Dora were numbers 231 and 200 respectively on the record of employees immortalised as Schindler’s List in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 Oscar-winner.
Before his death aged 71 in 1996, Wladyslaw told Maja he was saved by Schindler — played by Liam Neeson in the film — and how he thanked him after the conflict.
But he also haltingly recounted his near-death ordeal at the hands of sadistic Plaszow camp commandant Amon Göth, chillingly portrayed by Ralph Fiennes in the film.
Maja told The Sun: “My father was saved by Oskar Schindler but first had to survive Göth in Auschwitz.
“In the movie Göth was seen delighting in shooting dead prisoners for fun with a sniper rifle, and my father endured this torment.
“One day he was carrying a ladder through the camp with a man who was taller than he was when Göth appeared and began shooting.
“A bullet went through my father’s hair and grazed his scalp but hit the taller man, killing him instantly.
“My father was traumatised but had seen so much death in the camp by then that he just picked up the ladder and carried on walking.
“While many lost the will to live and were shot, gassed, starved or worked to death, he somehow managed to stay strong and carry on.”
Maja told how her father also recalled the horror of watching Jew-hating Göth’s huge, ferocious hunting dogs savage camp inmates to death.
She told The Sun: “Göth had two enormous dogs which he had trained to kill.
“They were vicious cross breeds as big as a Great Dane.
“He would set his dogs into crowds of starving, exhausted prisoners and laugh as they tore people to pieces.
“My father was in the crowd several times when this happened and somehow avoided being the victim.
“And Göth later gave him the job no one wanted — feeding the dogs.”
Maja told how her determined father, by then in his late teens, turned the feared chore to his advantage.
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Wladyslaw Rath was held in auschwitz but survived the warCredit: Doug Seeburg
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Wladyslaw survived by pretending to be an experienced factory machinists to enable him to be added to Schindler’s listCredit: Doug Seeburg
She continued: “He had a way with animals which enabled him to control them.
“He began stealing the dogs’ food to enable himself and other inmates to survive.
“Everyone was terrified of them, so he would hide the food he stole as he walked with them and trained them to snarl at any camp guard who approached him.
“That food kept them alive when many more starved.
“He also managed to save Dora’s life by hiding her from the guards when she fell ill with typhoid.
“Any prisoner unwell in Auschwitz was routinely gassed or shot immediately because they were of no further use to the Nazis.
“This was the very peak of anti-Semitism of the kind we are seeing rising again now, the mass murder of millions of people just because they were Jewish.
“It must never be allowed to happen again.”
Wladyslaw and Dora survived by pretending to be experienced factory machinists to enable them to be added to Schindler’s list of fake forced labourers.
Schindler, who died aged 66 in 1974, had his workers deliberately make dud shells to hamper Adolf Hitler’s war machine before Krakow and nearby Auschwitz were liberated in 1945.
Maja said: “At the end of the war Oskar Schindler’s workers feared he would be mistaken for a Nazi and shot.
“So my aunt Dora and others escorted him to surrender to the Allied soldiers to save his life.
“Years later my father met him especially to say thank you.
“He told me it was an incredibly emotional moment for them both.”
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Wladyslaw only survived the war because he was on Schindler’s listCredit: AFP
After the war, Wladyslaw moved to the Austrian capital, Vienna, where he ran a successful cinema business.
He was invited to the world premier of Schindler’s List in the city in 1993.
‘Risk of attack too high’
He also managed to track down and buy the wartime ID card of his nemesis Göth — which is now on display on the Auschwitz holocaust museum site.
Maja said: “My father was a very positive person and always tried to look forward rather than back.
“He never really talked about what happened in the war until a couple of years before his death.
“He firmly believed that what happened to him and millions of others changed the world for ever, and I’m glad he is not alive to see what is happening today.
“People were marching against Israel and celebrating the Hamas massacres on the streets even before Israelis retaliated.
“I’m not a practising Jew but I have Jewish friends who are afraid to go out.
“Others have removed Jewish names from their doorbells fearing they will be attacked.
“I won’t be going to the Christmas markets in Vienna, which I love every year, because the risk of an attack by extremists is too high.
“And while I am determined to speak out, I don’t want to give you the names of my three children in case they are put at risk.
“This is the climate we are living in again, at a time of year when we are remembering those sacrificed during World War Two.
“It feels as though history is going backwards and that we have learned nothing.”
Maja — whose children are aged eight, ten and 12 — said she had been heartbroken by the suffering of Israelis and Palestinians triggered by the October 7 atrocities.
And she was particularly moved by the plight of innocent youngsters caught in the crossfire, including the 32 Israeli child hostages pictured on a powerful Sun front page last month.
THREE desperate mums of kidnapped kids dragged to Gaza wept yesterday as they saw their lost loved ones pictured in a moving appeal by The Sun.
Distraught Renana Jacob, Batsheva Yahalomi, and Hadas Kalderon asked to see our front page showing their youngsters among 32 child hostages snatched by Hamas.
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Distraught Renana Jacob, Batsheva Yahalomi, and Hadas KalderonCredit: Doug Seeburg
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Hadas begged for the safe return of her children Erez, 12, Sahar, 16, and their 53-year-old father OferCredit: Facebook
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Renana said: ‘The last words I heard my son say were, ‘Don’t take me. I’m too young’ – pictured Or, 16
Emotion poured out as each, in turn, spotted the smiling face of their children — now enduring hell in the terror group’s tunnel lair.
Renana, 56, smiled then sobbed as she pointed to Or, 16, and Yagel, 12.
The mum, who was on the phone to her youngsters as they were snatched, told The Sun: “The last words I heard my son say were, ‘Don’t take me. I’m too young’.
“No mother should ever have to endure what we’re going through now. We don’t sleep wondering if they are sleeping.
“We don’t eat because we think about whether they’re eating and we don’t even shower as we don’t know if they’re being allowed to wash.
“I just want my son to do what all 12-year-olds do at home again — ride his bike and play football and bother me with phone calls.
“But I’ve heard nothing from them for a month now and every minute that passes makes a wound which will take years to heal.
“If they come home, we know they will never be the same again but we have to hope that they will be able to resume some kind of life.”
Directly appealing to the monsters holding her kids amid Gaza’s bomb-blasted ruins, Renana added: “I hope they are held deep underground. And I’m hoping the people holding them, since they have mothers, are supposedly human.
“Maybe they have children of their own and they will see their hostages as children. I hope they will treat them like children but most of all we’re begging them to release them.
“Children and babies should not be part of this war game. They should not be a bargaining chip.”
As Israeli bombs continued to fall last night amid mounting civilian casualties, she added: “Families on both sides are suffering and Palestinians are also hostages of Hamas.”
Batsheva, 44, her husband Ohad, 49, son Eitan, 12, and two younger children aged ten and 18 months, were at home in the Nir Oz kibbutz a mile from Gaza on October 7.
The family’s life became a living hell when Hamas invaded and Ohad was shot in the leg as he tried to stop them.
She later found out he was believed to be in Gaza, grabbed while searching for his family.
Pointing out Manchester United fan Eitan’s face on our Page One, she said: “I begged them to take me and leave our children. They ignored me.
I want all the children home…I want my family back.
Hadas Kalderon, mum of Sahar & Erez
“And now I can’t bear the thought of my son in danger and alone.”
She added: “We don’t wake up in the morning because we don’t have nights. We have nightmares. Life is a continuous nightmare.”
Batsheva said she and her children were marched away at gunpoint and slung across motorbikes that roared off towards the Gaza Strip.
She and the younger kids fell off a bike and fled when the terrorists were surprised by two Israeli tanks.
She said: “Our motorbike fell and this was the last time I saw Eitan.
“I ran away through the fields because the roads were full of terrorists — hundreds of them shooting, burning, looting and stealing TVs.
“I can’t stand the thought that Eitan’s alone there now. It’s breaking me. We’re here in London because we want the world to hear us and understand children are no part of this and should be freed.”
Hadas, 56, endured the agony of having five family members kidnapped from the Nir Oz and Kissufim kibbutz communities.
No mother should endure what we are going through.
Renana said: “I’d urge the people tearing down the posters to think about what they would do if it was their own child.”
On behalf of the mums, she added: “We’d like to thank The Sun for your wonderful support. That front page passes on our message to the world.”
Each of the mums asked to take away a copy of The Sun with the Page One appeal for their loved ones.
23 killed in strikes
DAWN bombing raids killed 23 people in the Gaza cities of Khan Younis and Rafah, according to Palestinian health officials.
Images showed survivors being pulled from the rubble after air strikes had flattened homes as Israel hunts for the butchers of Hamas.
Ahmed Ayesh, who was among those rescued in Khan Younis, said: “This is the bravery of the so-called Israel — they show their might and power against civilians, babies, kids and the elderly.”
He spoke as rescuers used their bare hands to try to free a girl buried up to her waist in debris.
Israel says it is seeking to minimize civilian casualties and accuses Hamas of preventing Palestinians from leaving northern Gaza in order to use them as human shields instead.
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Renana said: ‘No mother should ever have to endure what we’re going through now’ – pictured Yagel, 12
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Batsheva said: ‘I begged them to take me and leave our children. They ignored me’ – pictured Eitan, 12Credit: Ian Whittaker
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The faces of the hostages are projected on the Old City wall in JerusalemCredit: AP
TERROR group Hamas has been accused of using civilian sites to launch its attacks.
Aerial footage appears to show a rocket launcher being fired from an orchard — which was just yards from a water desalination plant.
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Hamas has been accused of using civilian sites to launch rocket attacks against IsraelCredit: AFP
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A Hamas rocket has been launched from a near to a water desalination plant constructed with EU cashCredit:
The video, supplied by the Israeli Defence Forces to The Sun on Sunday, shows a flare of light when what appears to be a rocket, one of more than 7,000 which have been launched, is fired towards Israel.
We geolocated the site and confirmed it was next to a £9million plant which was built with European Union funding and opened in 2017.
The weapon appeared to be hidden at the plant at Deir al Balah on the Mediterranean coast in what seems to be an orchard — likely an olive or pomegranate grove — just a few yards from the facility.
If the site was to suffer damage in a strike to take out the launcher then it could further deprive thousands of Palestinians already reeling after four weeks of bombardment.
Water has long been in short supply for Gaza’s 2.3million residents as 95 per cent of that extracted from the aquifer beneath it is not suitable for human consumption.
Israel supplies ten per cent of the country’s water with the rest made up of sea water treated at three desalination plants.
The supply from Israel was cut off when a full blockade of the enclave was imposed after the attacks on October 7 by Hamas.
Israel later restarted supplies and by this week was supplying 28.5 million litres a day — only about half of its supply before war broke out.
The plant in the footage was providing 20,000 cubic metres of water a day to residents of southern Gaza before the war.
It is not known if the rocket launcher still remains at the site in Deir al Balah since the footage of it being fired was released.
An IDF spokesman said of the video clip: “Hamas is firing rockets from inside densely populated civilian areas — right next to schools, hospitals, homes and humanitarian facilities.
“In this footage, you can see a Hamas rocket launcher, placed intentionally adjacent to a water desalination facility, used for providing water to the civilians in the Gaza Strip.
“It is an active rocket launching from within the Gaza Strip, towards Israel.”
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The weapon appeared to be hidden at the plant at Deir al Balah on the Mediterranean coast in what seems to be an orchardCredit:
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Hamas have a network of underground tunnels across Gaza, with some dug underneath medical facilitiesCredit: AFP
The spokesman added that the location was picked to make it hard for Israeli forces to eliminate it — underlining the alleged policy of choosing areas that would suffer collateral damage if targeted by a strike.
He insisted that the tactic was “a deliberate strategy”.
He added: “Hamas knows that when they fire rockets at Israel, Israel will respond in self-defence to stop this threat.
“They also know that Israel makes every effort to avoid civilian casualties while operating, so they do this to make it even more difficult for Israel to target their terrorist infrastructure.
“Hamas has got better at covering this up over the years, but there are countless examples to show that its strategy is still in place.”
The Palestinian Red Crescent said 15 people were killed when the ambulance, which had been trying to take patients to the Rafah border crossing, was hit outside Al-Shifa hospital on Friday.
It accused Israel of committing a war crime.
The PRC claims there were two strikes on ambulances, the deadliest one yards from the hospital and one about a kilometre away.
It says the dead were civilians and 60 others were wounded.
Witness Bisan Owda, a filmmaker, told the BBC: “Some people lost their legs, lost their hands, people were trying to carry injuries,
“People were crying, trying to find each other.”
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World Health Organisation, said he was “utterly shocked”.
He added: “We reiterate: patients, health workers, facilities, and ambulances must be protected at all times. Always.”
But the IDF said that it had targeted the vehicle because it was being used to ferry terrorists and that a number of Hamas fighters had been killed.
A spokesman said: “We have information which demonstrates that Hamas’s method of operation is to transfer terror operatives and weapons in ambulances.
“We emphasise that this area is a battle zone.
“Civilians in the area are repeatedly called upon to evacuate southwards for their own safety.”
The IDF’s Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari accused the terror group of using patients as human shields and said: “Hamas wages war from hospitals.”
He claimed Hamas had placed a command and control centre under Shifa Hospital — with another base inside it.
He said: “We have concrete evidence that hundreds of terrorists flooded into the hospital to hide there after the massacres of October 7.”
He also said that Israel believes several tunnels lead to the underground base from outside the hospital and there is an entrance to the complex within one of the wards.
Mr Hagari added: “Shifa is not the only hospital — it is one of many. Hamas’s use of hospitals is systematic.”
Background to the conflict
HISTORIAN Mark Almond — Director of the Crisis Research Institute, Oxford — here outlines background to the conflict between Israel and Palestine and explains the parts played by others in the Middle East.
WHAT IS THE HISTORY OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL?
ISRAEL declared its independence in 1948 — but the Jewish state’s roots go back 3,000 years to when it occupied the land as a kingdom.
It was later conquered by Rome and the Jews eventually expelled after a rebellion was crushed.
They were scattered around the world until Hitler’s World War Two murder of six million led to survivors moving to UK-run Palestine.
In 1948 Israel’s army defeated Arab states who tried to strangle the new state at birth.
WHO ARE HAMAS AND WHAT DO THEY WANT?
HAMAS is the governing party of Gaza. It is a Muslim organisation which rejects Israel’s right to exist.
The group was founded in 1987 by blind, wheelchair-bound cleric Sheikh Yassin who wanted an Islamic state to include Israeli territory.
He was killed by an Israeli airstrike in 2004. But Hamas continued to attack Israel with homemade and Iranian rockets.
They launched a murderous assault on Israeli families on October 7, killing 1,400.
WHY ARE HEZBOLLAH OF CONCERN TO ISRAEL?
HEZBOLLAH is a Shia Muslim organisation run by Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah which controls the most powerful armed force in Lebanon.
After clashes with Israel, it became an army with Iranian missiles and thousands of fighters.
Israel suffered heavy losses when it fought Hezbollah in 2006 — the first time an Arab army had successfully held off its forces.
A third of Israel’s forces man the Lebanese border to deter Hezbollah from joining Hamas’s war in Gaza.
WHAT IS IRAN’S ROLE IN CURRENT EVENTS?
IRAN is Israel’s mortal enemy — seeing it as America’s main ally in the Middle East ever since the Islamic Revolution there in 1979.
Iran provides money, weapons and training to both Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon to act as proxies for its anti-Israeli strategy on the country’s borders.
But it also backs Iraqi militant Muslim groups who attack American forces there, as well as the Yemeni Houthi militia.
WHAT’S HAPPENED TO SAUDI/ISRAELI TALKS?
ONE of the biggest impacts of the current war has been the suspension of talks between Israel and Saudi Arabia, who had been preparing to live normally side-by-side.
The humanitarian crisis in Gaza, resulting from Israel’s determination to crush Hamas, has made it impossible for the Saudis to deal directly with Israel.
Popular anger at the human cost of defeating Hamas has made even countries like Egypt and Jordan back away.
DOZENS more Brits finally made it out of besieged Gaza yesterday — crossing over the Rafah border into the safety of Egypt.
Families spoke of their intense relief after 90 of their loved ones escaped the enclave while the week-long Israeli bombardment continued.
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A Brit official speaks to a recent arrival at Rafah crossing on the border of Gaza and Egypt as dozens of UK citizens make it out of the StripCredit: EPA
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This included Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, from Dundee, whose son-in-law Humza Yousaf is First Minister of ScotlandCredit: Family Handout / PA Wire
Among those who made it were the in-laws of Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf, who said: “These last four weeks have been a living nightmare.”
He confirmed at noon that his wife Nadia’s parents, Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, from Dundee, were out as he told of his “deep personal relief”.
Of 200 or so Brits stuck in Gaza when war broke out, a handful are thought to remain in northern Gaza because it has been impossible to travel safely south to Rafah.
The Foreign Office has not said exactly how many have made it out.
Security Minister Tom Tugendhat said the Government was being “very cautious” on numbers.
He said: “We neither control the border, nor do we control what’s going on inside Gaza.
“We don’t want to give false hope or false belief to individuals that they’ll be able to cross.”
The UK has deployed a Border Force team in Cairo and posted consular officials near Rafah to assist those trying to get out.
Among those to cross at Rafah was surgeon Abdel Hammad, from Liverpool.
His son, Salim, said: “We finally got the news when he gave us a call and said, ‘I’ve made it through’. We felt overriding relief.”
Scottish leader Mr Yousaf and his wife called for a ceasefire so a humanitarian corridor could open to save innocent Palestinians as Israel continues its rout of Hamas.
He said: “Although we feel a sense of deep personal relief, we are heartbroken at the continued suffering of the people of Gaza.
“We reiterate our calls for all sides to agree to an immediate ceasefire, the opening of a humanitarian corridor and for all hostages to be released.”
As the fighting raged, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged both sides to do as much as possible to reduce casualties.
On his third visit to Israel since the conflict began, he described Hamas’s bloodthirsty outrages on October 7 as “almost beyond human capacity” and blasted them for using civilians as “human shields”.
More than 1,400 people were slaughtered in the attacks.
Mr Blinken, who met Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, also said more needed to be done to protect Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
He said: “We have provided Israel advice, that only the best of friends can offer, on how to minimise civilian deaths while still achieving its objectives of finding and finishing Hamas terrorists.”
And he said work on a two-state solution — with Israel and Palestine peacefully co-existing beside each other — must begin “not tomorrow, not after today, but today”.
Mr Netanyahu ruled out a temporary ceasefire to establish a humanitarian corridor unless the kidnapped Israelis were released.
America is flying MQ-9 Reaper drones over Gaza to help locate the others.
Israeli Defence Forces troops, meanwhile, have tightened their encirclement of Gaza City.
Hamas health chiefs said more than 9,000 Palestinians have been killed.
There were reports of 15 deaths when a convoy of ambulances carrying injured Palestinians to the Rafah crossing was hit.
An IDF spokesman said later: “An IDF aircraft struck an ambulance that was identified by forces as being used by a Hamas terrorist cell in close proximity to their position in the battle zone.
“A number of Hamas terrorist operatives were killed in the strike.
“We have information which demonstrates Hamas’s method of operation is to transfer terror operatives and weapons in ambulances.
“We emphasize that this area is a battle zone. Civilians in the area are repeatedly called upon to evacuate.”
Another four Israeli soldiers have died, taking the total killed to more than 330 since the war began.
Violence also continues to escalate in the West Bank where the death toll since October 7 is 144.
COPS searching for Madeleine McCann believe their prime suspect may have taken pictures of her and buried them.
German drifter Christian B is alleged to have taken twisted “trophies” from victims — though it has never been publicly confirmed if any exist of Madeleine.
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German officers investigating Christian B believe hidden USB drives could hold clues to Madeleine McCann’s disappearanceCredit: Collect
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Christian B is currently in jail in Germany for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da LuzCredit: Enterprise
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Detectives have been digging for USB drives hidden by suspect Christian BCredit: Solarpix
It has emerged detectives had specifically hoped to find data drives or USB sticks when they dug around Arade reservoir in Portugal in May.
None were found in the area where he camped and no forensic matches are expected — but officers think Christian B had a string of other hidden lairs.
The Sun has also learned investigators have received no new tip-offs or leads for months.
A source said: “They now know Christian B buried data carriers like hard drives and USB sticks at any of the places where he’s stayed so that was their real hope at the lake.
READ MORE MADELEINE MCCANN
“They really thought they might find pictures there, but they are not giving up hope.
“They believe he made duplicates because he loved to keep them like trophies.
“So cops are now trying to find out more about Christian B’s movements.”
German police were criticised for sending Christian B a subpoena in 2013 asking him to account for his whereabouts when Madeleine, then three, disappeared during a family holiday in Praia da Luz in 2007.
Experts said it would have given the convicted sex offender a chance to destroy evidence.
However, officers have established he was so obsessed with his collection of vile images that he made duplicates — and may have overlooked a stash.
A source close to the case said: “They fear it’s the last chance to clarify Madeleine’s fate — and if they don’t seize it, there won’t be a second.
“It is not like cops are getting that many more leads and tip-offs.
“They have already worked through the most promising leads.”
It also emerged that 55-year-old parents Kate and Gerry, of Rothley, Leics, have been kept in the dark over the German probe because they are considered witnesses.
The source added: “The family was only informed one day before officers went public about Christian B.
“Other than that, they have had no briefings or updates whatsoever.
“As far as the Germans are concerned, the McCanns are witnesses — completely normal witnesses, as in other cases, and they know no more or less than anyone else.”
Christian B is currently in jail in Germany for the 2005 rape of a 72-year-old American woman in Praia da Luz.
Prosecutor Christian Wolters said: “Clearly finding any pictures of Madeleine would represent a huge step forwards.
