Israeli snipers shooting children ‘like a game’ at Gaza aid centers: British surgeon

Surgeon Nick Maynard is on his third visit to Gaza since the war started. (MAP)
Surgeon Nick Maynard is on his third visit to Gaza since the war started. (MAP)
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Israeli snipers shooting children ‘like a game’ at Gaza aid centers: British surgeon

Israeli snipers shooting children ‘like a game’ at Gaza aid centers: British surgeon
  • Prof. Nick Maynard: Different body parts being targeted depending on day of the week
  • ‘I’ve never had so many patients die because they can’t get enough food to recover’

LONDON: Israeli soldiers are opening fire on children in Gaza at aid distribution centers, targeting different body parts depending on the day of the week, .

Prof. Nick Maynard, a gastrointestinal surgeon working at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told the BBC that he and his colleagues are encountering “clear patterns of injury” in young casualties, including “certain body parts on different days, such as the head, legs or genitals.”

Speaking to the “Today” program on BBC Radio 4, Maynard said: “On one day they’ll all be abdominal gunshot wounds, on another they’ll all be head gunshot wounds or neck gunshot wounds, on another they’ll be arm or leg gunshot wounds.”

He added: “It’s almost as if a game is being played, that they’re deciding to shoot the head today, the neck tomorrow, the testicles the day after.”

Maynard said the victims at the aid distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which he called “death traps,” tend more often than not to be teenaged boys.

“These are mainly from the militarized distribution points, where starving civilians are going to try and get food but then report getting targeted by Israeli soldiers or quadcopters,” he added.

“A 12-year-old boy I was operating on died from his injuries on the operating table — he’d been shot through the chest.”

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READ MORE: British surgeon in Gaza describes wounded Palestinians dying due to malnutrition

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GHF sites, backed by the US and Israel, are manned by private contractors and Israeli soldiers.

At least 875 Palestinians seeking food at the centers have been killed by live fire since May, according to the UN.

Maynard said levels of malnutrition seen in young patients are affecting their ability to recover from their wounds.

“The repairs that we carry out fall to pieces, patients get terrible infections, and they die,” he added. “I’ve never had so many patients die because they can’t get enough food to recover.”

The BBC said other medics working in central and southern Gaza had also reported patterns of gunshot wounds in people shot at GHF centers.


Ancient statue returns to Turkiye 65 years later

Updated 19 sec ago

Ancient statue returns to Turkiye 65 years later

Ancient statue returns to Turkiye 65 years later
“It was a long struggle … we won,” Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy said
“We brought the ‘Philosopher Emperor’ Marcus Aurelius back to the land where he belongs“

ISTNABUL: Turkiye has repatriated an ancient statue believed to depict Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius from the United States as part of efforts to recover antiquities illegally removed from the country, the government announced on Saturday.

The bronze statue, smuggled from the ancient city of Boubon — now the province of Burdur in southwest Turkiye — in the 1960s, was returned to Turkiye after 65 years, according to Turkish officials.

“It was a long struggle. We were right, we were determined, we were patient, and we won,” Culture and Tourism Minister Mehmet Ersoy said.

“We brought the ‘Philosopher Emperor’ Marcus Aurelius back to the land where he belongs,” he added.

This unique artefact, once exhibited in the United States, was repatriated to Turkiye based on scientific analyzes, archival documents and witness statements, added the minister.

“Through the combined power of diplomacy, law, and science, the process we conducted with the New York Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and the US Homeland Security Investigations Unit is more than just a repatriation; it is a historical achievement,” Ersoy said.

“Marcus Aurelius’s return to our country is a concrete result of our years-long pursuit of justice.”

The headless statue had been on display at the Cleveland Museum of Art from April to July, before its return to Turkiye.

Ersoy said Turkiye was determined to protect all its cultural heritage that has been smuggled out.

“We will soon present the Philosopher Emperor to the people of (Turkiye’s capital) Ankara in a surprise exhibition,” he announced.

21 dead in Iran as coach overturns: state media

21 dead in Iran as coach overturns: state media
Updated 37 min 4 sec ago

21 dead in Iran as coach overturns: state media

21 dead in Iran as coach overturns: state media
  • The accident, the cause of which remains unclear, occurred near Kavar
  • Iranian media showed images of a coach lying on its side on a mountain road

TEHRAN: At least 21 people were killed and nearly 30 injured when a coach overturned in southern Iran on Saturday, state media reported.

The accident, the cause of which remains unclear, occurred near Kavar, a town about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from the capital, Tehran.

“Unfortunately, 21 deaths have been recorded,” Kavar Hospital director Mohsen Afrasiabi told state television, adding that 29 people were injured.

Iranian media showed images of a coach lying on its side on a mountain road.

Iran has a poor road safety record, with nearly 20,000 deaths from traffic accidents in the 12 months to March, according to official news agency IRNA.


Unidentified drone kills PKK member, injures another near Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah, sources say

Unidentified drone kills PKK member, injures another near Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah, sources say
Updated 46 min 38 sec ago

Unidentified drone kills PKK member, injures another near Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah, sources say

Unidentified drone kills PKK member, injures another near Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah, sources say
  • Officials said this is the first attack of its kind in months

BAGHDAD: An unidentified drone attack killed a member of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and injured another near Iraq’s Sulaymaniyah on Saturday, security sources and local officials said, the first attack of its kind in months.


Six local officials detained over Iraq deadly mall fire

Six local officials detained over Iraq deadly mall fire
Updated 19 July 2025

Six local officials detained over Iraq deadly mall fire

Six local officials detained over Iraq deadly mall fire
  • The ministry said: “There was clear negligence among several officials and employees” in Kut
  • Three local officials, including the head of civil defense in Kut, had been detained

BAGHDAD: Iraq has detained six local officials and suspended other public employees following a fire that killed 61 people at a shopping mall earlier this week, authorities said Saturday.

The blaze, which broke out late Wednesday in a newly opened shopping mall in the eastern city of Kut, is the latest fatal disaster in a country where safety regulations are often ignored.

After an initial investigation, the interior ministry said “there was clear negligence among several officials and employees” in Kut, located around 160 kilometers (100 miles) southeast of Baghdad.

It added that three local officials, including the head of civil defense in Kut, had been detained, and 17 employees suspended from work until further notice.

The Commission of Integrity, an anti-graft body, said later that security forces had detained three more officials “over the violations that led to the fire” at the Corniche Hypermarket Mall, including the head of the violations department at Kut’s municipality.

Officials say their investigation is ongoing, and the number of detainees may change.

Safety standards in Iraq’s construction sector are often ignored, and the country — its infrastructure weakened by decades of conflict — frequently experiences fatal fires and accidents.

Fires increase during the blistering summer as temperatures approach 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit).

The cause of the mall fire was not immediately known, but one survivor told AFP an air conditioner had exploded on the second floor before the five-story building was rapidly engulfed in flames.

Several people told AFP they lost family members — and in some cases whole families — who had gone to shop and dine at the mall days after it opened.


Syrian government urges parties to respect truce in Druze region

Syrian government urges parties to respect truce in Druze region
Updated 19 July 2025

Syrian government urges parties to respect truce in Druze region

Syrian government urges parties to respect truce in Druze region
  • Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in a separate speech said that “Arab and American” mediation had helped bring calm

DAMASCUS: Syria’s Islamist-led government said its security forces were deploying in the predominantly Druze southern city of Sweida on Saturday and urged all parties to respect a ceasefire after days of factional bloodshed that has left hundreds dead.

Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa in a separate speech said that “Arab and American” mediation had helped bring calm, and criticized Israel for airstrikes against Syrian government forces in the south and Damascus during the week.

Sweida province has been engulfed by nearly a week of violence, which began with clashes between Bedouin fighters and Druze factions, before Damascus sent in government security forces.

Israel has carried out airstrikes in southern Syria and on the defense ministry in Damascus, saying it is protecting the Druze minority, of whom there are a significant number in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In a statement on Saturday, the Syrian presidency announced an immediate and comprehensive ceasefire and urged all parties to end hostilities immediately.

The interior ministry said internal security forces had begun deploying in Sweida.

Sharaa called for calm and said Syria would not be a “testing ground for partition, secession, or sectarian incitement.”

“The Israeli intervention pushed the country into a dangerous phase that threatened its stability,” he said in a televised speech.

Tribal and Bedouin fighters cross the Al-Dur village in Syria's southern Sweida governorate as they mobilize amid clashes with Druze gunmen on July 18, 2025. (AFP)

US envoy Tom Barrack announced on Friday that Syria and Israel had agreed to a ceasefire supported by Turkiye, Jordan and neighbors.

Barrack, who is both US ambassador to Turkiye and Washington’s Syria envoy, urged Druze, Bedouins and Sunnis to put down their weapons “and together with other minorities build a new and united Syrian identity.”

Israel has attacked Syrian military facilities and weaponry in the seven months since Sharaa’s forces toppled President Bashar Assad, and says it wants areas of southern Syria near its border to remain demilitarized.

On Friday, an Israeli official said Israel had agreed to allow Syrian forces limited access to the Sweida area for the next two days.