UN calls for probe into Israel’s strikes on Lebanon
The UN human rights office has urged a “prompt and impartial” investigation into Israeli strikes in Lebanon, warning of possible violations of international humanitarian law nearly a year after a ceasefire was signed. Thameen Al-Kheetan, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, cited an attack last week on the Ein el-Hilweh refugee camp that killed 11 children. Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list He said in a statement on Tuesday that all of those killed in the Ein el-Hilweh strike were civilians, raising “serious concerns that the Israeli military’s attack may have violated international humanitarian law principles on the conduct of hostilities”. Israel has killed more than 300 people in Lebanon since the November 27, 2024, ceasefire, including about 127 civilians, according to the UN. Israeli forces remain deployed in five areas of southern Lebanon and continue near-daily air raids, which Israel claims target fighters from the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah and its infrastructure. Al-Kheetan described last week’s strike on Ein el-Hilweh, near Sidon, as one of the deadliest since the ceasefire. “At least 13 civilians, including 11 children, were killed and at least six civilians injured last week in an Israeli strike on the Ein El-Hilweh camp,” he said. “There must be prompt and impartial investigations … those responsible must be brought to justice.” He said Israeli attacks have also hit homes, roads, factories and construction sites, hampering reconstruction in the south and preventing families from returning. He cited a November 16 strike on a cement and asphalt factory in Ansar, which destroyed dozens of concrete mixers, cranes and fuel tanks. Advertisement More than 64,000 people, mostly from southern Lebanon, remain displaced, according to the UN. Al-Kheetan said Israel had begun constructing a wall that crosses into Lebanese territory, rendering 4,000 square metres (43,055sq feet) inaccessible and undermining displaced people’s right of return. “All those internally displaced must be able to go back to their homes, and reconstruction should be supported, not tampered with,” he said. Escalation in Beirut The warning comes amid heightened tension after an Israeli strike in Beirut on Sunday killed a senior Hezbollah commander. Hezbollah said its chief of staff, Haytham Ali Tabtabai, was among five people killed and 28 injured in the attack in Dahiyeh. Experts say the attack marks a major escalation after Lebanon’s capital was struck for the first time in months, and days after Lebanon’s president announced that the country had agreed to talks following pressure from Israel and the United States to accelerate efforts to disarm Hezbollah. Hezbollah was severely weakened after an Israeli escalation in September 2024 that killed its longtime leader Hassan Nasrallah and other senior officials. Since the November ceasefire, the group has responded to Israeli attacks only once. Al-Kheetan has urged “all parties” to observe the ceasefire “in good faith”. “A genuine path towards a permanent cessation of hostilities is the only way to protect the human rights of civilians on both sides from the devastating effects of new hostilities. Accountability for violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law must be realised,” he added. Meanwhile, Israel continues its genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, killing more than 300 people since the truce took effect in early October. At least 69,733 people have been killed in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza since October 2023. Israel launched the genocidal war on Gaza after the Palestinian armed group Hamas led an attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing at least 1,129 people and seizing more than 200 others as captives. Hezbollah started firing rockets into Israel on October 8, 2023, in what it said was an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, beginning more than a year of escalating hostilities with Israel as the two sides frequently exchanged attacks across the border. Adblock test (Why?)
India, Pakistan to play T20 World Cup 2026 group match on February 15
Bitter rivals India and Pakistan will face off in Group A at next year’s 20-team competition. By News Agencies Published On 25 Nov 202525 Nov 2025 Click here to share on social media share2 Share Archrivals India and Pakistan will clash in a politically-charged Twenty20 World Cup match in Colombo on February 15, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said as it announced the draw on Tuesday. The 20-team tournament will be played across eight venues – five in India and three in Sri Lanka – between February 7 and March 8, the ICC said in a statement. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list Pakistan will play all their games in Sri Lanka because of their soured political relations with India. The March 8 final is scheduled for the western Indian city of Ahmedabad but would be moved to Colombo if Pakistan reach it. A military conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours in May overshadowed the subsequent Asia Cup 2025 in which India refused to accept the winners’ trophy from Asian Cricket Council chief Mohsin Naqvi, who is Pakistan’s interior minister. The teams in the tournament have been divided into five groups of four, with the top two advancing to the Super Eight phase. The top four in that will qualify for the semifinals. Defending champions India will begin their Group A campaign against the United States in Mumbai on February 7. Sri Lanka and Australia are in Group B, which also includes Ireland, Zimbabwe and Oman. England and West Indies, both twice winners, will face first-timers Italy and Asian sides Bangladesh and Nepal in Group C. New Zealand, South Africa, Afghanistan, Canada and the United Arab Emirates make up Group D. Jasprit Bumrah, right, will spearhead the Indian bowling attack at the T20 World Cup 2026, to be staged in India and Sri Lanka [File: Francois Nel/Getty Images] Adblock test (Why?)
US-backed GHF ‘aid mission’ in Gaza ends – a timeline of violence
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), backed by the US and Israel to oversee the distribution of aid in Gaza, has announced it is ending its controversial “mission” and is closing aid distribution sites following a US-brokered ceasefire agreement. Under increasing international pressure to allow aid into the besieged Gaza Strip earlier this year, Israel and the US backed the GHF as an independent agency to administer aid. Israel completely blocked aid to the Strip from March this year, claiming that Hamas was stealing aid provided by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. Israel did not provide any evidence for this and also blocked UNRWA workers from entering the Strip from February. Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list While the UNRWA network operated about 400 sites across the Strip before that, the GHF, guarded by armed US private security contractors, set up only four “mega-sites” – three in southern Gaza and one near Gaza City – to distribute food and other aid to Gaza’s population of about two million Palestinians. Furthermore, since the organisation began operations in Gaza in May, Israeli forces and some US contractors have routinely opened fire on Palestinians arriving to receive aid. Disorganisation around the sites has caused large crowds to gather, and some people have suffocated or died in stampedes. While GHF Executive Director John Acree said in a statement on Monday that the organisation delivered the “only aid operation that reliably and safely provided free meals directly to Palestinian people in Gaza”, more than 2,000 aid seekers have been crushed to death or killed by gunfire, according to UN figures. Advertisement Here is how the GHF “mission” to Gaza unfolded this year: May 26 – GHF issues a statement announcing it will begin direct aid delivery inside the battered enclave, hours after its executive director, Jake Wood, resigned, citing concerns about the agency’s independence. The UN and other aid agencies refuse to work with GHF, warning that requiring Palestinians to gather at a few centralised aid points would put people at risk and undermine other aid efforts. May 27 – GHF begins operating in Gaza. Israeli forces open fire on thousands of Palestinians attempting to receive food in southern Gaza’s Rafah area, killing at least 10 people and injuring dozens. Aid seekers are forced to clamber over fences and push through packed crowds to reach life-saving supplies. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says seeing thousands of Palestinians storming the aid site is “heartbreaking” as the chaos underscores the staggering level of hunger gripping Gaza. Gaza’s Government Media Office calls the incident a “deliberate massacre and a full-fledged war crime.” May 29 – Israeli forces open fire at an aid point in southern Gaza, killing 10 people and injuring dozens. Shortly after, multiple explosions are reported near another aid centre on the Netzarim Corridor, which divides northern Gaza from the rest of the Strip. It is not clear what caused the blasts, and there are no reports of casualties. May 30 – Israeli forces open fire on civilians waiting to collect food at a GHF distribution point on Salah al-Din Street in central Gaza, wounding at least 20 people. June 1 – Israeli tanks kill at least 32 Palestinians waiting to get food at two aid distribution sites in Gaza, leaving more than 200 others injured. June 3 – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says the killing and injuring of Palestinian aid seekers is “unacceptable” and calls for an independent investigation after Israeli forces open fire close to an aid distribution site in Rafah. Gaza’s Health Ministry says at least 27 Palestinians have been killed in the incident and 90 injured. June 8 – At least 13 Palestinians are killed, and more than 150 are injured when Israeli troops and US security contractors open fire on crowds waiting for food near two aid distribution sites in Gaza, one east of Rafah and another near the Wadi Gaza Bridge. Gaza’s Government Media Office accuses Israel of turning distribution sites into “human slaughterhouses”. July 16 – At least 21 Palestinians are killed at a GHF aid distribution centre in southern Gaza. Witness accounts say Israeli forces opened fire on the crowd, causing a stampede. At least 15 people died of suffocation, while others were shot. Twenty-four-year-old Mohammed Abedin, who survived the incident, told Al Jazeera that they were “shot at like animals”. Advertisement July 22 – The United Nations says the number of Palestinians killed while trying to access food in Gaza from GHF distribution points has topped 1,000. [Al Jazeera] August 1 – A former contractor for GHF, Anthony Aguilar, tells Al Jazeera about what he describes as the deadly and unprofessional practices he witnessed firsthand at aid distribution sites in Gaza. This includes firing what the organisation described as “warning shots” on an unarmed population using heavy artillery. “They call that warning shots, I call it a war crime,” he said. August 2 – At least 38 Palestinians seeking aid at distribution sites operated by GHF are killed, despite Israel announcing on July 27 it would begin implementing “tactical pauses” in fighting in some areas to allow Palestinians greater access to humanitarian aid. August 5 – Twenty-eight UN experts call for GHF’s dismantlement, describing it as an “utterly disturbing example” of aid exploitation for military purposes. August 9 – Israel allows some aid to be airdropped into Gaza by several countries, including Germany, Belgium and Jordan, amid global outrage, but a 15-year-old Palestinian boy is crushed to death by a falling pallet during an airdrop near the so-called Netzarim Corridor in central Gaza. September 4 – The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says it has recorded more than 2,146 deaths in the vicinity of sites run by GHF and along aid convoy routes. October 12 – GHF confirms it has suspended operations following the announcement of a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which came into effect on October 10. November 10 – A documentary, Breaking Ranks: Inside Israel’s
Next National Lok Adalat to be held on THIS date, check eligibility criteria
The next National Lok Adalat is scheduled for 13 December 2025, offering another chance to traffic violators to settle their pending traffic challans and penalties. These fines will come at reduced rates with processes to clear challans being completed in a short span of time.
Civil Aviation Ministry’s BIG statement on flight ops amid concerns over volcanic ash: ‘There is no…’
The aviation ministry stated that it was working with Air Traffic Control (ATC), the India Meteorological Department (IMD), international aviation agencies, and airlines to manage the situation. According to the IMD, the Hayli Gubbi shield volcano in Ethiopia’s Afar region erupted on Sunday.
Texas summer camp owners brace for more mental health issues among youth
Mental health experts expect the July 4 floods have resulted in post-traumatic stress disorder, unhealthy hypervigilance and recurring thoughts on disasters among campers.
They couldn’t save their daughters’ lives in the July 4 floods. Now they’re dealing with the grief and the guilt.
RJ and Annie Harber have leaned on faith, their community and each other to move through each day after losing their daughters and RJ’s parents. But memories of that night still haunt them.
Texas education chief met with Turning Point USA to discuss group’s expansion in high schools
The meeting happened days before Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick pledged $1 million to help establish chapters of the conservative student group on every Texas college and high school campus.
Brandon Herrera raises $1 million, swipes at Rep. Tony Gonzales over alleged affair
Gonzales recently made his first public remarks about the death of his 35-year-old aide who died after lighting herself on fire. He vigorously denied reports that the two were engaged in an extramarital affair.
DOJ backs Texas in Supreme Court fight over Republican-drawn map
The Department of Justice threw its support behind Texas on Monday, arguing the new map the state’s Republican-led legislature approved was not an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. Solicitor General John Sauer, who represents the Trump administration, wrote in an amicus brief that a lower court’s decision to block the map through the 2026 midterms was wrong and that the Supreme Court should intervene and reverse the decision. “This is not a close case,” Sauer wrote. TEXAS FILES EMERGENCY SUPREME COURT PETITION AFTER TRUMP-BACKED CONGRESSIONAL MAP BLOCKED BY FEDERAL JUDGES Sauer said the lower court misunderstood what drove the Texas legislature to shift five districts in favor of Republicans. He said the move was not based on race, which could violate federal voting laws and the Constitution. “There is overwhelming evidence — both direct and circumstantial — of partisan objectives, and any inference that the State inexplicably chose to use racial means is implausible,” Sauer wrote. Sauer also defended a letter Civil Rights Division head Harmeet Dhillon wrote to Texas this year demanding that it address “coalition districts” that favor Democrats, which the challengers to the map have seized on as evidence of race-based motives. Days after the letter, Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, added redistricting to the legislature’s agenda, leading to a stunning boycott in which state Democrats temporarily fled the state. The lower court “misinterpreted the letter’s meaning; and more importantly, the court misunderstood the letter’s significance to the legislature’s adoption of the 2025 map,” Sauer said. The plaintiffs in the case, who include numerous voting and immigrant rights groups, argued that Dhillon’s letter demanded dismantling the coalition districts and packing Black and Latino voters into other districts. “The DOJ letter, riddled with legal and factual errors, incorrectly asserted that these districts were ‘unconstitutional coalition districts’ that Texas was required to ‘rectify’ by changing their racial makeup,” the plaintiffs’ attorneys wrote. REAGAN-APPOINTED JUDGE TORCHES COLLEAGUES IN TEXAS MAP FIGHT Texas’ mid-cycle redistricting dispute is one of several that have cropped up across the country as President Donald Trump stares down the possibility of losing an acquiescent Republican-led House in 2026. California voted in favor of an eleventh-hour ballot measure that would cancel out the five Republican gains in Texas. Utah’s map has changed in favor of Democrats, Virginia has taken steps to redraw its map and Louisiana’s is pending before the Supreme Court. The DOJ recently sued Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, over California’s redistricting efforts, arguing that unlike in Texas, those were unconstitutionally race-based. Texas has asked the Supreme Court to pause the three-judge panel’s ruling in the Western District of Texas that found 2-1 last week that race was too much of a factor in its redraw. “This summer, the Texas Legislature did what legislatures do: politics,” Texas’ attorneys argued in their request, disputing all notions that the redistricting process used race as a factor. In a lengthy and wild tirade, Judge Jerry Brown, a Reagan appointee and the lone dissenter, called the three-judge panel’s decision the “most blatant exercise of judicial activism” he had ever seen and a work of “fiction.” Justice Samuel Alito has administratively paused the panel’s ruling, but the Supreme Court could now make a more lasting decision on the map at any time. Texas lawyers have also argued the high court should block the panel’s decision because it interfered with the 2026 midterms, for which candidates were already filing to run based on the new map.