JERUSALEM: A senior Israeli official on Wednesday said he led a secret investigation into 16-year-old Palestinian protest icon Ahed Tamimi and her family, in part because their appearance — including “blond-haired, freckled” children in “Western clothes” — made them seem less like “real” Palestinians.
The stunning comments by Michael Oren, a deputy minister and former ambassador to the US, promptly drew accusations of racism from the family — the latest twist in a case that has turned into a public relations headache for Israel.
The case revolves around Israel’s handling of Ahed Tamimi, who was arrested on Dec. 19 for slapping two Israeli soldiers outside her West Bank home four days earlier.
Video of the scuffle quickly spread, giving Ahed worldwide attention. The girl, noticeable for her long blond curls, and her mother are now being held in jail. Ahed faces charges that carry up to 14 years in prison.
Oren told The Associated Press that he had led a classified parliamentary investigation into the Tamimis two years ago in which Israeli security agencies and diplomats participated.
The family has a long history of leading protests against Israeli policies in the West Bank that often turn into clashes with soldiers in their village of Nabi Saleh and Ahed has been involved in highly publicized scuffles with soldiers in the past.
Oren said his investigation looked into whether the protests were genuine or whether the family members were provocateurs, paid to send children to clash with soldiers.
Derisively calling the skirmishes caught on tape “Pallywood,” Oren claimed that “someone” was funding the unrest to harm Israel’s image, without providing evidence.
“The Tamimi family and those claiming to be part of the Tamimi family have been provoking Israeli soldiers for many, many years now,” he said. “The children were chosen on the basis of their external look, to look Western, freckled, and blond-haired.”
“They were dressed as Westerners,” he added. “They don’t dress the way children dress in the West Bank, for a very specific purpose: To get soldiers to react violently to them, to take pictures of this violence and to spread it around the world in order to delegitimize, discredit the state of Israel.”
He called it a “very sophisticated operation” that has succeeded in manipulating the Western press.
In an interview with Israeli Channel 10 TV, Oren claimed one boy appeared in different videos with a cast on one arm at one protest, and on his other arm at another protest, before disappearing from demonstrations altogether.
In a statement from his office, Oren said: “In discussions held in the committee, the issue of the family’s credibility was raised and if it really is a real family.”
Ahed’s father, Bassem Tamimi, called Oren’s investigation “silly and stupid” and said the investigation was racist.
“We, the Tamimi family, were here in Palestine before the creation of Israel, and we will stay,” he said. “Denying that Palestinians could be blond reflects racism in the Israeli society.”
Ahed has been celebrated by Palestinians as a national hero, and Israel’s treatment of her has drawn the attention of international activists, human rights groups and UN officials.
In the Dec. 15 video, she is seen approaching two soldiers standing outside her home. She yells at them, tells them to leave, then kicks and slaps them as they stand silently.
The family says the girl was upset because a young cousin had been shot in the head and seriously wounded with a rubber bullet fired by Israeli troops. But the altercation drew outrage in Israel over what some had seen as a humiliation of the military.
In a reflection of the tensions, Israel’s Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman ordered the popular Army Radio station to ban any songs composed by Yehonatan Geffen, a leading journalist and songwriter, because of a poem he published that praised Ahed. Israel’s attorney general ruled that Lieberman has no authority over the station’s programming.
Opposition lawmaker Nachman Shai, a former chief military spokesman who is often critical of the government, acknowledged that the incident has become part of the war for the “hearts and minds” of people around the world.
But he said Israel had no choice in how to handle the case.
“She does not deserve to return home as if nothing happened,” he said. “You cannot ignore it, because that will cause other Palestinians to follow her.”
Tamimi was arrested in an overnight raid on Dec. 19, and her mother was arrested when she visited her daughter at a police station.
An Israeli military court has ordered they both be held for the duration of their trial — a process that is expected to take months. Ahed has been charged with 12 counts of attacking soldiers in five incidents going back to April 2016, while her mother has been charged with incitement. A cousin arrested with Ahed has been released on bail.
The family lawyer, Gaby Lasky, said the trial is scheduled to begin on Jan. 31, Ahed’s 17th birthday. She said she was hopeful the prosecutors would not seek the maximum 14-year sentence for the girl and would agree to a reduced sentence of several months.
Ahed is currently being held in a special prison wing for minors, where her conditions have improved, Lasky said. For the first week while she was interrogated, she said Ahed was not provided with a change of clothes or a coat, and threatened with the arrests of other family members if she did not talk.
Asked about Oren’s investigation, she said she was “ashamed” to hear a parliamentary committee was dealing with “wild conspiracy theories.”
Israel official doubted Palestinian protest icon, her family
Israel official doubted Palestinian protest icon, her family
UN says 3 million Sudan children facing acute malnutrition
- Famine has already gripped five areas across Sudan, according to a report last month
- Sudan has endured 20 months of war between the army and the paramilitary forces
“Of this number, around 772,000 children are expected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition,” Eva Hinds, UNICEF Sudan’s Head of Advocacy and Communication, told AFP late on Thursday.
Famine has already gripped five areas across Sudan, according to a report last month by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a UN-backed assessment.
Sudan has endured 20 months of war between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), killing tens of thousands and, according to the United Nations, uprooting 12 million in the world’s largest displacement crisis.
Confirming to AFP that 3.2 million children are currently expected to face acute malnutrition, Hinds said “the number of severely malnourished children increased from an estimated 730,000 in 2024 to over 770,000 in 2025.”
The IPC expects famine to expand to five more parts of Sudan’s western Darfur region by May — a vast area that has seen some of the conflict’s worst violence. A further 17 areas in western and central Sudan are also at risk of famine, it said.
“Without immediate, unhindered humanitarian access facilitating a significant scale-up of a multisectoral response, malnutrition is likely to increase in these areas,” Hinds warned.
Sudan’s army-aligned government strongly rejected the IPC findings, while aid agencies complain that access is blocked by bureaucratic hurdles and ongoing violence.
In October, experts appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council accused both sides of using “starvation tactics.”
On Tuesday the United States determined that the RSF had “committed genocide” and imposed sanctions on the paramilitary group’s leader.
Across the country, more than 24.6 million people — around half the population — face “high levels of acute food insecurity,” according to IPC, which said: “Only a ceasefire can reduce the risk of famine spreading further.”
Turkiye says France must take back its militants from Syria
- Ankara is threatening military action against Kurdish fighters in the northeast
- Turkiye considers the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces as linked to its domestic nemesis
ISTANBUL: France must take back its militant nationals from Syria, Turkiye’s top diplomat said Friday, insisting Washington was its only interlocutor for developments in the northeast where Ankara is threatening military action against Kurdish fighters.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan insisted Turkiye’s only aim was to ensure “stability” in Syria after the toppling of strongman Bashar Assad.
In its sights are the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which have been working with the United States for the past decade to fight Daesh group militants.
Turkiye considers the group as linked to its domestic nemesis, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
The PKK has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkiye and is considered a terror organization by both Turkiye and the US.
The US is currently leading talks to head off a Turkish offensive in the area.
“The US is our only counterpart... Frankly we don’t take into account countries that try to advance their own interests in Syria by hiding behind US power,” he said.
His remarks were widely understood to be a reference to France, which is part of an international coalition to prevent a militant resurgence in the area.
Asked about the possibility of a French-US troop deployment in northeast Syria, he said France’s main concern should be to take back its nationals who have been jailed there in connection with militant activity.
“If France had anything to do, it should take its own citizens, bring them to its own prisons and judge them,” he said.
Lebanese caretaker PM says country to begin disarming south Litani to ensure state presence
- Najib Mikati: ‘We are in a new phase – in this new phase, we will start with south Lebanon and south Litani’
DUBAI: Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said on Friday that the state will begin disarming southern Lebanon, particularly the south Litani region, to establish its presence across the country.
“We are in a new phase – in this new phase, we will start with south Lebanon and south Litani specifically in order to pull weapons so that the state can be present across Lebanese territory,” Mikati said.
Tanker hit by Yemen militia that threatened Red Sea spill has been salvaged
- The Sounion had been a disaster in waiting in the waterway, with 1 million barrels of crude oil aboard
- The Houthis have targeted some 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started
DUBAI: An oil tanker that burned for weeks in the Red Sea and threatened a massive oil spill has been “successfully” salvaged, a security firm said Friday.
The Sounion had been a disaster in waiting in the waterway, with 1 million barrels of crude oil aboard that had been struck and later sabotaged with explosives by Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi militia. It took months for salvagers to tow the vessel away, extinguish the fires and offload the remaining crude oil.
The Houthis initially attacked the Greek-flagged Sounion tanker on Aug. 21 with small arms fire, projectiles and a drone boat. A French destroyer operating as part of Operation Aspides rescued its crew of 25 Filipinos and Russians, as well as four private security personnel, after they abandoned the vessel and took them to nearby Djibouti.
The Houthis later released footage showing they planted explosives on board the Sounion and ignited them in a propaganda video, something the militia have done before in their campaign.
The Houthis have targeted some 100 merchant vessels with missiles and drones since the war in Gaza started in October 2023. They seized one vessel and sank two in the campaign that has also killed four sailors. Other missiles and drones have either been intercepted by a US-led coalition in the Red Sea or failed to reach their targets, which have included Western military vessels as well.
The Houthis maintain that they target ships linked to Israel, the US or the UK to force an end to Israel’s campaign against Hamas in Gaza. However, many of the ships attacked have little or no connection to the conflict, including some bound for Iran.
Lancet study estimates Gaza death toll 40% higher than recorded
- The number of dead in Gaza has become a matter of bitter debate since Israel launched its military offensive
- The study’s best death toll estimate was 64,260, which would mean the health ministry had under-reported the number of deaths
PARIS: Research published in The Lancet medical journal on Friday estimates that the death toll in Gaza during the first nine months of the Israel-Hamas war was around 40 percent higher than recorded by the Palestinian territory’s health ministry.
The number of dead in Gaza has become a matter of bitter debate since Israel launched its military campaign against Hamas in response to the Palestinian militant group’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack.
Up to June 30 last year, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza reported a death toll of 37,877 in the war.
However the new peer-reviewed study used data from the ministry, an online survey and social media obituaries to estimate that there were between 55,298 and 78,525 deaths from traumatic injuries in Gaza by that time.
The study’s best death toll estimate was 64,260, which would mean the health ministry had under-reported the number of deaths to that point by 41 percent.
That toll represented 2.9 percent of Gaza’s pre-war population, “or approximately one in 35 inhabitants,” the study said.
The UK-led group of researchers estimated that 59 percent of the deaths were women, children and the elderly.
The toll was only for deaths from traumatic injuries, so did not include deaths from a lack of health care or food, or the thousands of missing believed to be buried under rubble.
AFP is unable to independently verify the death toll.
On Thursday, Gaza’s health ministry said that 46,006 people had died over the full 15 months of war.
In Israel, the 2023 attack by Hamas resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel has repeatedly questioned the credibility of the Gaza health ministry’s figures, but the United Nations have said they are reliable.
The researchers used a statistical method called “capture-recapture” that has previously been used to estimate the death toll in conflicts around the world.
The analysis used data from three different lists, the first provided by the Gaza health ministry of the bodies identified in hospitals or morgues.
The second list was from an online survey launched by the health ministry in which Palestinians reported the deaths of relatives.
The third was sourced from obituaries posted on social media platforms such as X, Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, when the identity of the deceased could be verified.
“We only kept in the analysis those who were confirmed dead by their relatives or confirmed dead by the morgues and the hospital,” lead study author Zeina Jamaluddine, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said.
The researchers scoured the lists, searching for duplicates.
“Then we looked at the overlaps between the three lists, and based on the overlaps, you can come up with a total estimation of the population that was killed,” Jamaluddine said.
Patrick Ball, a statistician at the US-based Human Rights Data Analysis Group not involved in the research, has used capture-recapture methods to estimate death tolls for conflicts in Guatemala, Kosovo, Peru and Colombia.
Ball said the well-tested technique has been used for centuries and that the researchers had reached “a good estimate” for Gaza.
Kevin McConway, a professor of applied statistics at Britain’s Open University, said there was “inevitably a lot of uncertainty” when making estimates from incomplete data.
But he said it was “admirable” that the researchers had used three other statistical analysis approaches to check their estimates.
“Overall, I find these estimates reasonably compelling, he added.
The researchers cautioned that the hospital lists do not always provide the cause of death, so it was possible that people with non-traumatic health problems — such as a heart attack — could have been included, potentially leading to an overestimate.
However there were other ways that the war’s toll could still be underestimated.
The study did not include missing people. The UN humanitarian agency OCHA has said that around 10,000 missing Gazans are thought to be buried under rubble.
There are also indirect ways that war can claim lives, such as a lack of health care, food, water, sanitation or the spread of disease. All have stricken Gaza since October 2023.
In a contentious, non-peer-reviewed letter published in The Lancet in July, another group of researchers used the rate of indirect deaths seen in other conflicts to suggest that 186,000 deaths could eventually be attributed to the Gaza war.
The new study suggested that this projection “might be inappropriate due to obvious differences in the pre-war burden of disease” in Gaza compared to conflicts in countries such as Burundi and East Timor.
Jamaluddine said she expected that “criticism is going to come from different sides” about the new research.
She spoke out against the “obsession” of arguing about death tolls, emphasizing that “we already know that there is a lot of high mortality.”
