Pilgrims gather for hajj, the Appleby horse fair and Standing with Giants: photos of the day
Muslim pilgrims offer prayers at the top of the rocky hill known as the Mountain of Mercy, on the Plain of Arafat, during the annual hajj pilgrimage near the holy city of Mecca Photograph: Amr Nabil/AP
Sheep are fed at a livestock market where they will be sacrificed during the Eid al-Adha festival, also known as the festival of sacrifice Photograph: Danish Showkat/Eyepix Group/Shutterstock
Muslim pilgrims gather at Jabal al-Rahmah, also known as Mount Arafat, during the annual hajj outside Mecca Photograph: Khaled Abdullah/Reuters
Voters queue to cast their ballots for the Burundi legislative elections at Musama primary school in Gitega. Burundi votes for a new parliament this week but with little risk of an upset after the main opposition was barred from running Photograph: Tchandrou Nitanga/AFP/Getty Images
Volunteer teachers provide lessons in oud, violin, and darbuka to children, helping them temporarily forget the pain of the war in Gaza Photograph: Mahmoud Issa/Anadolu/Getty Images
Oleksandr Zavnenko, a patient of the Unbroken rehabilitation centre, dances using his prosthetic legs with his wife, Maria, a professional choreographer, in Lviv Photograph: Yuriy Dyachyshyn/AFP/Getty Images
A firefighter works near a burned-out car after a Russian guided bomb attack in Kherson Photograph: Olexandr Kornyakov/GlobalThe Kherson City administrative building shows a gaping hole to the sky after it was damaged in Russian guided bomb attacks Photograph: Olexandr Kornyakov/GlobalMen sit outside a kiosk in front of a building damaged during fighting in central Raqqa. The surrounding land, which was a flashpoint in Syria's nearly 14-year civil war, is littered with landmines, cluster munitions and other unexploded bombs and improvised explosive devices Photograph:A woman picks a water bottle from washed-up rubbish on the polluted Pasig River on World Environment Day in Manila Photograph: Eloisa Lopez/Reuters
A horse pulling a chariot races by at the Appleby horse fair. Held annually in the first week of June, the fair is Europe's largest traditional Romany and Traveller gathering, attracting tens of thousands of people Photograph: Adam Vaughan/EPA
President Emmanuel Macron, his wife, Brigitte, Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and his wife, Rosangela 'Janja' da Silva, leave after an official welcome ceremony in the courtyard of the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters
Visitors look at the artwork Clinamen, an aquatic and musical installation, by the artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot at the Bourse de Commerce Pinault collection in Paris. Photograph: Sarah Meyssonnier/Reuters
Dawn breaks over the Standing with Giants silhouettes, which create the For Your Tomorrow installation at the British Normandy Memorial in Ver-Sur-Mer before the 81st anniversary of D-Day this week.
Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Conference to recognise Palestinian state to weaken scope of its ambition, diplomats say
A planned conference in Saudi Arabia this month that supporters of Palestine had hoped would push western governments to recognise a Palestinian state has weakened its ambition and will instead hope to agree on steps towards recognition, diplomats have said. The change to the aims of the conference, due to be held between 17 and 20 June, marks a retreat from an earlier vision that it would mark a joint declaration of recognition of Palestine as a state by a large group of countries, including permanent UN security council members France and the UK. Emmanuel Macron, the French president and a co-sponsor of the event, has declared recognition of Palestine as 'a moral duty and political requirement', but French officials briefing their Israeli counterparts this week reassured them the conference will not be the moment for recognition. That is now seen as a prize that will emerge from other measures, including a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, the release of Israeli hostages, reform of the Palestinian Authority, economic reconstruction and a definitive end to Hamas's rule in Gaza. France and Saudi Arabia have set up eight working parties to prepare the necessary ingredients for a two-state solution, and Macron is hosting a conference of civil society under the banner of the Paris Peace Forum immediately before the three-day conference. The UK is overseeing the humanitarian working party and other working groups cover reconstruction, economic viability of a Palestinian state, promoting respect for international law, narratives for peace and 'peace day', an imagining of the benefits to both sides from a peaceful settlement. Israel and the US have attended run-up meetings to the conference but have not spoken, prompting speculation they may boycott the event. Israel has fought hard to prevent stateless Palestinians achieving self-determination. Polls show only a fifth of the Israel electorate favour a two-state solution and 56% of Jewish Israelis supported the 'transfer of Arab citizens of Israel to other countries'. Israel has also approved plans to build a further 22 settlements in the West Bank – the biggest expansion in decades. Israel's defence minister, Israel Katz, said it was 'a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state'. Macron's initiative has been described as 'disastrous' by the Israel's ambassador to France, Joshua Zarka. Recognition of a Palestinian state was previously seen as an outcome of a failed 1990s-era two-state plan. However, governments in Europe increasingly doubt Israel has any intention to ease its control over Palestinians and see recognition as a possible lever to force a change of thinking among Israeli officials. Ireland, Spain and Norway recognised a Palestinian state last year. Macron has insisted he would only recognise a Palestinian state without Hamas – the same stance as the UK. In an open letter to Macron, The Elders, a group of former senior UN diplomats, say recognition is 'an essential transformative step towards peace' that should be taken as a matter of principle, divorced from negotiations over the ultimate form of Palestinian statehood and how and when Hamas should be disarmed. Anne-Claire Legendre, the president's adviser on the Middle East, has said the conference 'must mark a transformative milestone for the effective implementation of the two-state solution. We must move from words to deeds, and we must move from the end of the war in Gaza to the end of the conflict.' She met Israeli officials this week to discuss the conference and Israel's often cloudy long-term vision for the region. She also met the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Mustafa. Israeli newspapers reported the travelling French officials as saying: 'The recognition of a Palestinian state remains on the table, but not as a product of the conference. This will remain a bilateral subject between states.' The British foreign secretary, David Lammy, who is expected to attend the conference, is under massive backbench pressure to do more to punish Israel and is, at minimum, being asked flesh out the conditions for the UK recognition of a Palestinian state. Hamish Falconer, the Middle East minister, told MPs this week the UK thinking was evolving. 'One reason that the traditional position of the UK government has been that the recognition of a Palestinian state should come at the end, or during, a two-state solution process was the hope that we would move towards a two-state solution,' he said. 'Many minds have been changed because of the rhetoric of the Israeli government – the clear statements by so many that they are no longer committed to a two-state solution.' But the British are looking for firm undertakings at the conference on the future government of Palestine, including the exclusion of Hamas from any future governance of Gaza, which is something Hamas itself has appeared to accept in the various plans drawn up by Arab states. A growing number of Conservative MPs have broken with their frontbench on the issue and now back recognition, including the former attorney general Sir Jeremy Wright. France hopes that a group of western states recognising a Palestinian state could be counter-balanced by Muslim states normalising relations with Israel. However, Saudi recognition of Israel seems impossible. The Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, the other co-host, has asserted repeatedly that Israel is committing a genocide, a view that is shared widely by Saudi public opinion.
Daily Mail
5 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Dawn French sparks backlash after filming peculiar video about October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel
Dawn French has sparked a ferocious backlash after describing the October 7 attacks unleashed by Hamas terrorists on Israel as 'a bad thing' during a bizarre social media rant. The Vicar of Dibley star, 67, posted to X discussing her thoughts on the 'nuanced' situation in Israel and Gaza. Adopting a baby-like voice, French appeared to belittle supporters of Israel's actions amid the ongoing war against Hamas. During the 40-second video, the actress can be heard saying: 'Complicated, no, but nuanced. But [the] bottom line is no,' inferring that Israel should cease its military campaign. The British comedian then adopted more infantile tones as she gave an impression of those with opposing views to her own. 'Yeah, but you know they did a bad thing to we want that we have history… Those people aren't really even people, are they?' she can be heard saying in a whining manner. At the end of each statement French returns to her natural voice and emphatically says 'No'. Critics have seized upon the video, which has racked up 4.7million views since it was first posted on Thursday, and accused French of 'mocking' the events of October 7. Actress and playwright Tracy-Ann Oberman, who is Jewish, said she was 'saddened' by the post. 'This mocking voice 'bad thing' of October 7 that Dawn (who I revere by the way) appears to be mocking involved the most horrific terrorist attack involving rape, sexual violence, burning alive child, mutilation and the taking of civilian hostages. 'Why would Dawn seem to deny that which has affected so many of us personally in the most painful way possible. 'I can mourn the horrors of the war in Gaza whilst also remembering the horrors of what started it. 'Is this how most of our industry feels now – Oct 7 was a 'little thing'? NO!' Former MP and author Louise Mensch accused French of having a 'chuckle and chunter'. She said: 'A 'bad thing'? Rapes, murders, torture, strangled a couple of infants, etc etc, so let's have a good chuckle and chunter, shall we Dawn? 'But the saddest thing about this post is not its casual cruelty, but that you think you're a progressive. You're not.' Former MP and author Louise Mensch accused French of having a 'chuckle and chunter' Meanwhile comedy screenwriter and activist Lee Kern said French had 'sneeringly mocked' the October 7 massacre. He wrote: 'I imagine you think you are moral and righteous and taking a stand against pain and suffering. 'But not only do you remain intellectually incurious about who the architect of all this suffering is, (Hamas), not only do you fail to say NO to them in front of your audience and condemn them for their retention of the hostages, use of human shields, fighting from hospitals, schools and civilian proactively broadcast - with misplaced pride - a wicked glee in your mockery and dismissal of Jewish suffering, pain and death...' French later responded to Oberman's post to emphasise she did not 'support the atrocities of Oct 7th.' She wrote: 'I do not say 'a little thing'. In NO WAY do I support the atrocities of Oct 7th. Of course not. Appalling. Horrific. 'But starving innocent children is not the answer. NO is the answer to ALL of it Tracy.' Israel has been waging a military campaign in Gaza since Hamas' brutal massacre on October 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were murdered and 251 taken hostage. At least 20 of the remaining 56 hostages still held by Hamas are thought to be alive. According to official Hamas figures, at least 54,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war. The Israeli military issued an evacuation order on Friday for residents of parts of Gaza City ahead of an attack that 'will strike all areas from which rockets are launched'. Israel has recently stepped up its campaign in Gaza in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas amid growing international calls for a negotiated ceasefire.
Reuters
7 hours ago
- Reuters
Exclusive: US mulls giving millions to controversial Gaza aid foundation, sources say
WASHINGTON, June 6 (Reuters) - The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former U.S. officials, a move that would involve the U.S. more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos. The sources and former U.S. officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the U.S. State Department. The plan has met resistance from some U.S. officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said. The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza's 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume. The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs. The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private U.S. security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites. On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an "economic interest" in the for-profit U.S. contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF's aid distribution hubs in the enclave. While U.S. President Donald Trump's administration and Israel say they don't finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it. The U.S. and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that. USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump's drive to align U.S. foreign policy with his "America First" agenda. One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency's dismemberment. The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF's operations for 180 days. The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The two sources said that some U.S. officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF's contractor, and violence nearby. Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said. Gaza hospital officials have said more than 80 people had been shot dead and hundreds wounded near GHF's distribution points between June 1-3. Since launching its operation, the GHF has opened three hubs, but over the past two days, only two of them have been functioning. Witnesses blamed Israeli soldiers for the killings. The Israeli military said it fired warning shots on two days, while on Tuesday it said soldiers had fired at Palestinian "suspects" advancing towards their positions.
