Videos of Israeli hostages in Gaza increase pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu for a ceasefire
04/08/2025
Israel wants world attention on hostages held in Gaza
Middle East
04/08/2025
More Gazans die as aid fails to reach most needy
Middle East
04/08/2025
Israeli ex-security chiefs urge Donald Trump to help end Gaza war
Middle East
04/08/2025
Lebanon marks 5 years since Beirut port blast
Middle East
04/08/2025
Hamas says it will allow aid for hostages if Israel opens humanitarian corridors, halts airstrikes
Middle East
04/08/2025
Lebanon awaits justice 5 years after Beirut port blast
Middle East
04/08/2025
FRANCE 24 report: France carries out airdrops of humanitarian aid into Gaza
Middle East
04/08/2025
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu asks Red Cross to help hostages in Gaza
Middle East
04/08/2025
Migrant boat sinks off Yemen, killing at least 68
Middle East
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Euronews
4 hours ago
- Euronews
South Korea, US to carry out major joint military exercises
South Korea and the United States will launch their annual large-scale joint military exercises this month to bolster their readiness to counter North Korean threats, in a move likely to irritate Pyongyang amid a prolonged stalemate in diplomacy. Ulchi Freedom Shield, the second of two military drills held in South Korea annually, typically involves thousands troops in computer-simulated command post training and combined field exercises. The two allies have also had a joint exercise earlier this year in March. The 10-day exercise, set to start on 18 August, may trigger angry reactions from North Korea, who call these drills 'invasion rehearsals' and often uses them as a pretext to dial up military demonstrations and weapons tests aimed at advancing their nuclear programme. North Korea has repeatedly rejected Washington and Seoul's calls to resume diplomacy, which derailed in 2019, aimed at winding down the country's nuclear ambitions. Pyongyang has since made Russia its top foreign policy priority, sending large amounts of troops and military equipment to support Moscow in its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Some 18,000 South Korean soldiers will take place in this year's exercise, according to military spokesperson Lee Sung Joon, who announced the figures during a joint press conference with US Forces Korea, who did not disclose how many US troops will participate. Both Lee, and US Forces Korea Public Affairs Director Ryan Donald downplayed speculation that South Korea's new liberal government, led by President Lee Jae Myung, sought to downsize the exercise to foster an environment where a resumption of diplomacy can emerge. Lee and Donald say this year's exercises are similar in scale to previous years. Lee however noted that half of the originally 40 planned drills will be postponed to September, due to weather conditions. The threat posed by North Korea's growing nuclear and advanced missiles programmes will be a key focus area of this year's exercise. The drills will also incorporate lessons from recent conflicts, including Russia's war in Ukraine and the Israel-Iran conflict, to enhance readiness to effectively and timely respond to any threat that may arise.
LeMonde
12 hours ago
- LeMonde
Dozens Palestinians killed while seeking aid in Gaza Strip
At least 38 Palestinians were killed overnight and into Wednesday, August 6, in the Gaza Strip while seeking aid from United Nations convoys and sites run by an Israeli-backed American contractor, according to local health officials. The Israeli military said it had fired warning shots when crowds approached its forces. Another 25 people, including several women and children, were killed in Israeli airstrikes, according to local hospitals in Gaza. The military said it only targets Hamas militants. The latest deaths came as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected to announce further military action – and possibly plans for Israel to fully reoccupy Gaza. Experts say Israel's ongoing military offensive and blockade are already pushing the territory of some 2 million Palestinians into famine. A new UN report said only 1.5% of Gaza's cropland is accessible and undamaged. Another escalation of the nearly 22-month war could put the lives of countless Palestinians and around 20 living Israeli hostages at risk, and would draw fierce opposition both internationally and within Israel. Netanyahu's far-right coalition allies have long called for the war to be expanded, and for Israel to eventually take over Gaza, relocate much of its population and rebuild Jewish settlements there. US President Donald Trump, asked by a reporter Tuesday whether he supported the reoccupation of Gaza, said he wasn't aware of the "suggestion" but that "it's going to be pretty much up to Israel." Desperate crowds Of the 38 Palestinians killed while seeking aid, at least 28 died in the Morag Corridor, an Israeli military zone in southern Gaza where UN convoys have been repeatedly overwhelmed by looters and desperate crowds in recent days, and where witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire. The Israeli military said troops fired warning shots as Palestinians advanced toward them, and that it was not aware of any casualties. Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies, said another four people were killed in the Teina area, on a route leading to a site in southern Gaza run by the Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an American contractor. The Al-Awda Hospital said it received the bodies of six people killed near a GHF site in central Gaza. GHF said there were no violent incidents at or near its sites, and that the one in central Gaza was not open on Wednesday. It said the violence may have been related to the chaos around UN convoys. Two of the Israeli airstrikes hit Gaza City, in the north of the territory, killing 13 people there, including six children and five women, according to the Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the bodies. Partner service The Israeli military says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas because its militants are entrenched in heavily populated areas. Israel facilitated the establishment of four GHF sites in May after blocking the entry of all food, medicine and other goods for 2 1/2 months. Israeli and US officials said a new system was needed to prevent Hamas from siphoning off humanitarian aid. The United Nations, which has delivered aid to hundreds of distribution points across Gaza throughout the war when conditions allow, has rejected the new system, saying it forces Palestinians to travel long distances and risk their lives for food, and that it allows Israel to control who gets aid, potentially using it to advance plans for further mass displacement. 'Disturbing' The UN human rights office said last week that some 1,400 Palestinians have been killed seeking aid since May, mostly near GHF sites but also along UN convoy routes where trucks have been overwhelmed by crowds. It says nearly all were killed by Israeli fire. This week, a group of UN special rapporteurs and independent human rights experts called for the GHF to be disbanded, saying it is "an utterly disturbing example of how humanitarian relief can be exploited for covert military and geopolitical agendas in serious breach of international law." The experts work with the UN but do not represent the world body. The GHF called their statement "disgraceful," and urged the UN and other aid groups to work with it "to maximize the amount of aid being securely delivered to the Palestinian people in Gaza." The Israeli military says it has only fired warning shots when crowds threatened its forces, and GHF says its armed contractors have only used pepper spray and fired into the air on some occasions to prevent deadly crowding at its sites. Gaza's food production mostly destroyed Israel's air and ground war has destroyed nearly all of Gaza's food production capabilities, leaving its people reliant on international aid. A new report by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization and the UN satellite center found that just 8.6% of Gaza's cropland is still accessible following sweeping Israeli evacuation orders in recent months. Just 1.5% is accessible and undamaged, it said. The military offensive and a breakdown in security have made it nearly impossible for anyone to safely deliver aid, and aid groups say recent Israeli measures to facilitate more assistance are far from sufficient. Hospitals recorded four more malnutrition-related deaths over the last 24 hours, bringing the total to 193 people, including 96 children, since the war began in October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Jordan said Israeli settlers blocked roads and hurled stones at a convoy of four trucks carrying aid bound for Gaza after they drove across the border into the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli far-right activists have repeatedly sought to halt aid from entering Gaza. The Israeli military said security forces went to the scene to disperse the gathering and accompanied the trucks to their destination. Le Monde with AP Reuse this content
France 24
12 hours ago
- France 24
Grok, is that Gaza? AI image checks mislocate news photographs
But when social media users asked Grok where it came from, X boss Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot was certain that the photograph was taken in Yemen nearly seven years ago. The AI bot's untrue response was widely shared online and a left-wing pro-Palestinian French lawmaker, Aymeric Caron, was accused of peddling disinformation on the Israel-Hamas war for posting the photo. At a time when internet users are turning to AI to verify images more and more, the furore shows the risks of trusting tools like Grok, when the technology is far from error-free. Grok said the photo showed Amal Hussain, a seven-year-old Yemeni child, in October 2018. In fact the photo shows nine-year-old Mariam Dawwas in the arms of her mother Modallala in Gaza City on August 2, 2025. Before the war, sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Mariam weighed 25 kilograms, her mother told AFP. Challenged on its incorrect response, Grok said: "I do not spread fake news; I base my answers on verified sources." The chatbot eventually issued a response that recognised the error -- but in reply to further queries the next day, Grok repeated its claim that the photo was from Yemen. The chatbot has previously issued content that praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and that suggested people with Jewish surnames were more likely to spread online hate. Radical right bias Grok's mistakes illustrate the limits of AI tools, whose functions are as impenetrable as "black boxes", said Louis de Diesbach, a researcher in technological ethics. "We don't know exactly why they give this or that reply, nor how they prioritise their sources," said Diesbach, author of a book on AI tools, "Hello ChatGPT". Each AI has biases linked to the information it was trained on and the instructions of its creators, he said. In the researcher's view Grok, made by Musk's xAI start-up, shows "highly pronounced biases which are highly aligned with the ideology" of the South African billionaire, a former confidante of US President Donald Trump and a standard-bearer for the radical right. Asking a chatbot to pinpoint a photo's origin takes it out of its proper role, said Diesbach. "Typically, when you look for the origin of an image, it might say: 'This photo could have been taken in Yemen, could have been taken in Gaza, could have been taken in pretty much any country where there is famine'." AI does not necessarily seek accuracy -- "that's not the goal," the expert said. Another AFP photograph of a starving Gazan child by al-Qattaa, taken in July 2025, had already been wrongly located and dated by Grok to Yemen, 2016. That error led to internet users accusing the French newspaper Liberation, which had published the photo, of manipulation. 'Friendly pathological liar' An AI's bias is linked to the data it is fed and what happens during fine-tuning -- the so-called alignment phase -- which then determines what the model would rate as a good or bad answer. "Just because you explain to it that the answer's wrong doesn't mean it will then give a different one," Diesbach said. "Its training data has not changed and neither has its alignment." Grok is not alone in wrongly identifying images. When AFP asked Mistral AI's Le Chat -- which is in part trained on AFP's articles under an agreement between the French start-up and the news agency -- the bot also misidentified the photo of Mariam Dawwas as being from Yemen. For Diesbach, chatbots must never be used as tools to verify facts. "They are not made to tell the truth," but to "generate content, whether true or false", he said.
