LONDON: Female passengers who were escorted off a Qatar Airways flight and made to undergo an intimate medical examination have yet to receive individual apologies from the airline.
The women have not been contacted by the airline or the Qatari government since the incident that sparked international outrage took place on October 2, The Guardian reported on Wednesday.
The lack of apologies come despite some passengers making a formal complaint to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and the Australian federal police (AFP) within 24 hours of arrival in Sydney.
Staff at Doha international airport violated standard procedure by demanding that 18 women, including 13 Australian citizens, disembark a plane and follow security staff to a private area of the airport, Qatari authorities have said.
The women were subject to intimate medical examinations in ambulances to see if they had recently given birth after a newborn baby was found abandoned at the airport.
Women from 10 other flights, which have yet to be publicly identified, were also examined.
The women, who have not been offered compensation for the distressing incident, have been contacted by the AFP and were interviewed by the law enforcement agency.
The AFP said it is committed to pursuing an investigation into their treatment and one of the passengers who was contacted by the agency said the AFP officer she spoke to was “genuinely committed” to supporting the welfare of passengers who were subjected to the disturbing examinations at Doha airport.
The group of passengers said they would be seeking individual written apologies and were considering the possibility of legal action.
They would also like a pledge from Qatari authorities that the safety of transit travelers at Doha airport be put ahead of other concerns in the future.
Australian women subjected to invasive examinations at Doha airport say Qatar has not contacted them
https://arab.news/yvb56
Australian women subjected to invasive examinations at Doha airport say Qatar has not contacted them
- Staff at Doha airport demanded 18 women disembark a plane and follow security staff to a private area
- The women were subject to intimate medical examinations in ambulances to see if they had recently given birth
British doctors describe hospitals flooded with casualties from Gaza aid site attacks
- Patients all had gunshot wounds, mostly to their limbs, after Israeli soldiers opened fire on crowds Tuesday, emergency consultant at Al-Mawasi hospital says
- Scores of Palestinians killed in 3 days near same aid distribution hub
LONDON: The remaining hospitals in southern Gaza were overwhelmed with casualties after Israeli soldiers opened fire on crowds trying to access an aid distribution center, British doctors working in the territory said.
Scores of Palestinians congregating to reach the food hub in Rafah have been shot dead in recent days.
The Red Cross said 27 people were killed and many more wounded on Tuesday when Israeli soldiers opened fire about one km from the aid center run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
On Sunday, at least 31 people were killed as they gathered at the same roundabout before heading to the aid center.
Dr. Iain Lennon, an emergency consultant volunteering at Al-Mawasi hospital in southern Gaza, told the BBC that all of the patients who arrived at the facility after the attack were suffering bullet wounds.
“We were woken up in the early hours of the morning by the team in the hospital,” Lennon said. “One of our partner organizations had declared a mass casualty incident and were overwhelmed, and we were taking patients both directly from the scene and from the other hospitals involved.”
“We’ve seen probably about 22 patients between 5 and 8 a.m. in the morning, two patients who we’ve had to take immediately to theater for immediate life saving surgery and a number of other patients with bullet wounds in limbs.”
He said the youngest victims were aged 15 or 16, and most of them were men who had walked the long distances to reach the aid hub.
“They were all injured by bullets, as far as we could see,” he added. “There was no sort of blast or shrapnel injuries, particularly at this event. Lots of people with wounds in, arms and legs, and a couple of people with more sort of central abdominal wounds.”
The Israel Defense Forces said its soldiers opened fire when “several suspects” deviated from the designated route toward the aid site.
“The troops carried out warning fire, and after the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near individual suspects who advanced toward the troops,” the military said.
Dr. Victoria Rose, a British surgeon, said that on Sunday, 28 bodies and more than 200 people with gunshot injuries arrived at the Nasser hospital where she is working.
“We went into a mass casualty scenario, so all of the theaters stopped operating and just started taking the emergency work from the emergency department,” she said in a video shared by Islamic Help charity. “It’s going to be very hard for us to deal with all of this now because we don’t really have the medical supplies or the reserves in the workforce to deal with a mass casualty of this kind.”
New aid distribution hubs have been set up after Israel blocked the UN from delivering aid to Gaza and cut off all supplies on March 2.
Deliveries resumed late last month but are being managed by the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Turk, said: “Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza are unconscionable.”
He called for a “prompt and impartial” investigation into the killings.
What future awaits Gaza’s children under airstrikes and aid embargo?
- Yaqeen Hammad, an 11-year-old social media influencer from Gaza, has become a symbol of the war’s devastating impact on children
- Child casualties mount across Palestinian enclave, even as the world marks International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression
DUBAI: “Where is the world?” That was the chilling closing caption shared by 11-year-old Yaqeen Hammad in one of the final videos she posted on social media, just days before she was killed on May 23 by an Israeli airstrike on Deir Al-Balah in Gaza.
Yaqeen’s story has been thrown into particular focus this week as the world marks International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression on June 4, a reminder not only of those lost but of the futures stolen.
As Gaza’s youngest social media influencer, Yaqeen was known for the uplifting videos she created and her work alongside her brother at Ouena, a local nonprofit organization dedicated to humanitarian relief and development.
Yaqeen’s followers will remember her for her infectious optimism and volunteer work with displaced families. Just days before she died, she posted survival tips to help others endure life under siege.
Now she has become a haunting symbol of the toll the war between Israel and Hamas is taking on young people.
More than 50,000 children have been killed or injured since the latest conflict began, according to the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF. Thousands more have been orphaned or displaced by the ongoing violence.
Israeli authorities launched military operations in Gaza in retaliation for the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, during which 1,200 people were killed, the majority of them civilians, and about 250 were taken hostage, many of them non-Israelis.
Despite repeated international efforts to broker a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, the ruling authority in Gaza, the continuing conflict has devastated the Palestinian enclave, creating one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world.
FASTFACT
- Every year on June 4, International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression acknowledges the pain that children around the world suffer. Many of these children are victims of physical, mental, and emotional abuse.
For those children who survive long enough to see an enduring ceasefire, what kind of future awaits them?
“We are losing a generation before our eyes, condemning patients to die from hunger, disease and despair — deaths that could have been prevented,” American trauma surgeon Dr. Feroze Sidhwa told the UN Security Council on May 28.
He delivered a searing account of what he witnessed during two volunteer missions in Gaza, the first in 2024, the second in March and April this year, at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis. Sidhwa said he has worked in several conflict zones, including Haiti and Ukraine, but nothing compared to what he witnessed in Gaza.
“I operated in hospitals without sterility, electricity or anesthetics,” he told council members. “Children died, not because their injuries were unsurvivable but because we lacked blood, antibiotics and the most basic supplies.”
He stressed that during his five weeks in Gaza he had not treated a single combatant.
“Most of my patients were preteen children, their bodies shattered by explosions and torn by flying metal,” he said, describing six-year-old patients with bullets in their brains, and pregnant women whose pelvises had been shattered by airstrikes.
“Civilians are now dying not just from constant airstrikes, but from acute malnutrition, sepsis, exposure and despair,” he added, noting that in the time between his two visits he had observed a sharp decline in the general health of patients, many of whom were too weak to heal as a result of hunger.
According to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, almost 71,000 cases of acute malnutrition, including 14,100 severe cases, are expected in Gaza between April 2025 and March 2026. As of May 29 this year, about 470,000 people in Gaza were facing imminent famine, the UN said, and the entire population was suffering from severe food insecurity. One in five children under the age of 5 years old is severely malnourished, and more than 92 percent of infants and pregnant or breastfeeding women are not receiving adequate nutrition.
Despite global pressure on Israeli authorities to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza, access for relief workers remains limited. The UN Relief and Works Agency said deliveries are sporadic and some areas are unreachable as a result of fighting.
The day after Yaqeen was killed, Gaza was struck by another tragedy. On May 24, an Israeli airstrike hit the home of Dr. Alaa Al-Najjar, a pediatrician in Khan Younis who had long devoted her life to saving children, while she was on duty treating the wounded at Nasser Medical Complex.
Nine of her 10 children were killed in the blast. The youngest was just 7 months old, the eldest only 12. Her husband Hamdi, also a doctor, and their 11-year-old son, Adam, were pulled from the rubble with critical injuries. Hamdi died in hospital on May 31.
The Israel Defense Force said in response to initial reports of the strike that “an aircraft struck several suspects identified by IDF forces as operating in a building near troops in the Khan Younis area, a dangerous combat zone that had been evacuated of civilians in advance for their protection. The claim of harm to uninvolved individuals is being reviewed.”
Two days later, another child’s face captured the attention of the world. Ward Jalal Al-Sheikh Khalil, 7, emerged from the flames alone when Fahmi Al-Jarjawi School in Gaza City, a shelter for displaced families, was hit by an Israeli airstrike on May 26.
Her mother and two siblings were killed and her father is fighting for his life. In a now-viral video, Ward whispers through tears: “There was a shooting and all my siblings died.”
The Israeli military and Shin Bet, the country’s internal security service, issued a statement about the bombing of the school, in which they claimed the strike had targeted a compound used by Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
“The command and control center was used by the terrorists to plan and gather intelligence in order to execute terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF troops,” the army said. “Numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
Illustrations of a little girl surrounded by flames, inspired by Ward’s escape from the school, quickly spread across social media, capturing the sense of grief and outrage over the suffering of children in Gaza.
INNUMBERS
- 1,309 children killed and 3,738 injured since the collapse of Gaza ceasefire on March 18.
- 50,000 children reportedly killed or injured since latest conflict began in October 2023.
(Source: UNICEF)
“In a 72-hour period this weekend, images from two horrific attacks provide yet more evidence of the unconscionable cost of this ruthless war on children in the Gaza Strip,” UNICEF’s regional director, Edouard Beigbeder, said on May 27.
“On Friday, we saw videos of the bodies of burnt, dismembered children from the Al-Najjar family being pulled from the rubble of their home in Khan Younis. Of 10 siblings under 12 years old, only one reportedly survived, with critical injuries.
“Early Monday, we saw images of a small child trapped in a burning school in Gaza City. That attack, in the early hours of the morning, reportedly killed at least 31 people, including 18 children.
“These children — lives that should never be reduced to numbers — are now part of a long, harrowing list of unimaginable horrors: the grave violations against children, the blockade of aid, the starvation, the constant forced displacement, and the destruction of hospitals, water systems, schools and homes. In essence, the destruction of life itself in the Gaza Strip.”
Beyond the physical destruction, an invisible crisis is escalating. According to the War Child Alliance, nearly half of children in Gaza now exhibit suicidal thoughts as a result of the sheer weight of grief, trauma and loss. Aid workers report children as young as 5 years old asking why they survived when their siblings, parents or even entire families did not.
During his address to the UN Security Council, Dr. Sidhwa described the despair he witnessed among young patients during his time in Gaza, and asked: “I wonder if any member of this council has ever met a 5-year-old who no longer wants to live — let alone imagined a society in which so many young children feel that way.
“What astonishes me is not that some children in Gaza have lost the will to live, but that any still cling to hope.”
Mental health professionals warn that many children in the territory display symptoms of complex trauma, including persistent nightmares, bed-wetting, social withdrawal, and panic attacks triggered by the sound of planes or ambulances.
But with even the most immediate, basic means of survival out of reach for many in Gaza, mental health support remains a more distant concern, leaving an entire generation to navigate profound psychological scars alone.
“How many more dead girls and boys will it take?” asked Beigbeder, the UNICEF chief. “What level of horror must be livestreamed before the international community fully steps up, uses its influence, and takes bold, decisive action to force the end of this ruthless killing of children?”
Vast majority of Brits want full arms embargo on Israel: Poll
- Just 16% oppose expelling the country from the UN
- Palestine Solidarity Campaign: Survey ‘speaks to Israel’s growing isolation and the significant public support for sanctions’
LONDON: Around 80 percent of the British public support a full arms embargo on Israel, and just 16 percent oppose expelling the country from the UN, according to a poll conducted by Opinium.
Around three-quarters of respondents want public sector pensions to disengage from investments linked to Israel.
The findings come in the aftermath of Co-op members voting at their annual general meeting last week for the supermarket to stop selling Israeli products. Two-thirds of those surveyed by Opinium back similar boycotts by other UK supermarkets.
Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said in a statement: “The polling … speaks to Israel’s growing isolation and the significant public support for sanctions.
“By continuing to arm and support Israel even as it enacts a genocide and a policy of forced starvation, the British government is holding on to an increasingly fringe position, completely out of sync with public opinion, and with the views of those who supported it at the last election.”
On Wednesday, thousands of activists are set to form a kilometer-long cordon around the Houses of Parliament in London, linked by a stretch of red fabric, to call for an end to UK military aid to Israel and the imposition of sanctions on the country.
Jamal said: “Those bringing the demand for an arms embargo to Parliament … in a symbolic red line are doing so knowing that the demand is supported by the majority of their fellow citizens.”
The PSC said in a press release: “For nearly 3 months Israel imposed a total blockade preventing all humanitarian assistance, resulting in deaths by starvation, widespread malnutrition and hunger amongst 2.3 million people.
“Israel has now imposed a severely limited and militarised aid operation, condemned by international aid organisations, that has resulted in scores of Palestinians being shot dead as they search for food.”
Israel army says projectiles launched from Syria fell in open areas, intercepts Yemen missile
- Two projectiles fell near two Israeli settlements in the occupied Golan Heights
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said two projectiles launched from Syria crossed into Israeli territory on Tuesday, but fell without causing damage near two settlements in the occupied Golan Heights.
“Following the sirens that sounded in Haspin and Ramat Magshimim at 21:36, two projectiles were identified crossing from Syria into Israeli territory and fell in open areas,” the military said in a statement.
Haspin and Ramat Magshimim are both located in the southern Golan Heights, a territory which Israel occupied from Syria in 1967 and annexed in 1981.
Israeli media reported that Tuesday’s projectiles were the first fired from Syria into Israeli territory since the fall of longtime Syrian leader Bashar Assad in December.
Following Assad’s overthrow, Israel moved its forces into the UN-patrolled demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights and has carried out hundreds of strikes against military targets in Syria.
Israel says its strikes aim to stop advanced weapons from reaching Syria’s new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.
In a statement on Sunday, Israel’s military said its troops were continuing “defensive operations in southern Syria” to “dismantle terrorist infrastructure and protect the residents of the Golan Heights.”
Syria and Israel have technically been at war since 1948.
Yemeni missile
In a separate incident, Tel Aviv said it intercepted a missile launched from Yemen on Tuesday, with a series of explosions heard over Jerusalem.
"Following the sirens that sounded a short while ago in several areas in Israel, a missile launched from Yemen was intercepted," the Israeli military said.
Yemen’s Houthi militants have repeatedly launched missiles and drones at Israel since the Gaza war broke out in October 2023 with Palestinian militant group Hamas’s attack on Israel.
Tuesday’s interception was the third in as many days.
Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency medical service said no injuries were reported.
The Houthis claimed responsibility for a missile attack on Monday, which they said had targeted Israel’s main airport near Tel Aviv.
Israel has carried out several strikes in Yemen in retaliation for the attacks, including on ports and the airport in the capital Sanaa.
Libya’s eastern-based parliament passed budget for its development fund
- The budget of $12.71 billion will be spread equally over three years
BENGHAZI: Libya’s eastern-based parliament voted on Tuesday to approve a budget for its development and reconstruction fund, a parliament spokesperson and member said, although it is unclear if the money will be forthcoming given the country’s divisions.
The budget of 69 billion Libyan dinar ($12.71 billion) will be spread equally over three years, lawmaker Tarek Jroushi told Reuters, adding that the funds will be overseen by the parliament.
Parliament spokesperson Abdullah Blheg earlier announced the approval of the budget in a post on X, without disclosing the budget amount.
The fund, established in February last year by the eastern-based House of Representatives, has independent financial status, according to the parliament gazette.
However it is unclear if the governor of the Tripoli-based Central Bank of Libya, Naji Issa, will hand over the money for the fund. The central bank, based in Tripoli, is the only internationally recognized depository for Libyan oil revenues, the country’s vital economic income.
The eastern development fund is headed by Belgasem Haftar, a son of military commander Khalifa Haftar.
The Benghazi-based government of Osama Hamad is allied to Haftar, who controls the east and large parts of the southern region of Libya.
The north African country’s separate Tripoli-based Government of National Unity is headed by interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Al-Dbeibah, who was installed through a UN-backed process in 2021.
