Hundreds greet Kneecap rapper as he arrives at court on terror charge
Demonstrations in support of the rapper were organised outside Westminster Magistrates' Court in London where he arrived on Wednesday, as well as in Dublin.
The Metropolitan Police has imposed conditions limiting where the demonstration outside the court can take place, saying they are needed to 'prevent serious disruption'.
O hAnnaidh, who arrived at court alongside fellow bandmates Naoise O Caireallain and JJ O Dochartaigh, was swamped by photographers outside, with security officers taking more than a minute to usher him into the court building.
Mr O Caireallain and Mr O Dochartaigh sat at the back of the courtroom with three others as O hAnnaidh confirmed his name, date of birth and address to the court at the start of the hearing.
O hAnnaidh's defence team are seeking to throw the case out, citing a technical error in the way the charge against him was brought.
Brenda Campbell KC told the court the Attorney General had not given permission for the case to be brought against the defendant when police informed him he was to face a terror charge on May 21.
Prosecutor Michael Bisgrove said permission was not required until the defendant's first court appearance.
Hundreds of supporters greeted the Kneecap rapper with cheers as he made his way from a silver people-carrier to the building.
Fans held signs which read 'Free Mo Chara' while others waved Palestine and Irish flags before the rapper's arrival at court.
Chants of 'free, free, Mo Chara' could also be heard over a megaphone, which was repeated by the crowd.
In response to the Met imposing conditions on the protest, Kneecap described this move as a 'calculated political decision' that was 'designed to try and portray support for Kneecap as somehow troublesome', and 'asked supporters to go out of your way to be compliant with all instructions issued, irrespective of how pitiful'.
O hAnnaidh received a rockstar welcome when he appeared at the same court in June, supported by Mr O Caireallain and Mr O Dochartaigh.
He was greeted by a festival-like atmosphere for his first court appearance, with dozens of fans waving flags, playing drums and one supporter setting off a smoke canister.
The court previously heard the 27-year-old defendant is 'well within his rights' to voice his opinions on the Israel-Palestine conflict, but the alleged incident at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, north London, was a 'wholly different thing'.
O hAnnaidh is yet to enter a plea to the charge.
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The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
Revealed: Israeli military's own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war
Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare. As of May, 19 months into the war, Israeli intelligence officials listed 8,900 named fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as dead or 'probably dead', a joint investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has found. At that time 53,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli attacks, according to health authorities in Gaza, a toll that included combatants and civilians. Fighters named in the Israeli military intelligence database accounted for just 17% of the total. That apparent ratio of civilians to combatants among the dead is extremely high for modern warfare, even compared with conflicts notorious for indiscriminate killing, including the Syrian and Sudanese civil wars. 'That proportion of civilians among those killed would be unusually high, particularly as it has been going on for such a long time,' said Therése Pettersson from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, which tracks civilian casualties worldwide. 'If you single out a particular city or battle in another conflict, you could find similar rates, but very rarely overall.' 8,900 Named fighters listed as dead or 'probably dead' in Israeli database as of May 2025 In global conflicts tracked by UCDP since 1989, civilians made up a greater proportion of the dead only in Srebenica – although not the Bosnian war overall – in the Rwandan genocide, and during the Russian siege of Mariupol in 2022, Pettersson said. Many genocide scholars, lawyers and human rights activists, including Israeli academics and campaign groups, say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, citing the mass killing of civilians and imposed starvation. The Israeli military did not dispute the existence of the database or dispute the data on Hamas and PIJ deaths when approached for comment by Local Call and +972 Magazine. When the Guardian asked for comment on the same data, a spokesperson said they had decided to 'rephrase' their response. A brief statement sent to the Guardian did not directly address questions about the military intelligence database. It said 'figures presented in the article are incorrect', without specifying which data the Israeli military disputed. It also said the numbers 'do not reflect the data available in the IDF's systems', without detailing which systems. A spokesperson did not immediately respond when asked why the military had given different responses to questions about a single set of data. The database names 47,653 Palestinians considered active in the military wings of Hamas and PIJ. It is based on apparent internal documents from the groups seized in Gaza, which have not been viewed or verified by the Guardian. Multiple intelligence sources familiar with the database said the military viewed it as the only authoritative tally of militant casualties. The military also considers the Gaza health ministry toll reliable, Local Call has reported, and the former head of military intelligence appeared to cite it recently, even though Israeli politicians regularly dismiss the numbers as propaganda. 52,928 Gaza health ministry's overall death toll as of 14 May 2025 Both databases may underestimate casualty numbers. The Gaza ministry of health lists only people whose bodies have been recovered, not the thousands buried under rubble. Israeli military intelligence are not aware of all militant deaths or all new recruits. But the databases are the ones used by Israeli officers for war planning. Israeli politicians and generals have variously put the number of militants killed as high as 20,000, or claimed a civilian-to-combatant ratio as low as 1:1. The higher totals cited by Israeli officials may include civilians with Hamas links, such as government administrators and police, even though international law prohibits targeting people not engaged in combat. They probably also include Palestinians with no Hamas connections. Israel's southern command allowed soldiers to report people killed in Gaza as militant casualties without identification or verification. 'People are promoted to the rank of terrorist after their death,' said one intelligence source who accompanied forces on the ground. 'If I had listened to the brigade, I would have come to the conclusion that we had killed 200% of Hamas operatives in the area.' Itzhak Brik, a retired general, said serving Israeli soldiers were aware that politicians exaggerated the Hamas toll. Brik advised the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the start of the war and is now among his most strident critics. 'There is absolutely no connection between the numbers that are announced and what is actually happening. It is just one big bluff,' he said. Brik commanded Israel's military colleges, and said he kept in touch with serving officers. He described meeting soldiers from a unit identifying Palestinians killed in Gaza, who told him 'most of them' were civilians. Even though much of Gaza has been reduced to ruins and tens of thousands of people killed, the classified database lists nearly 40,000 people considered by the army to be militants and still alive. Casualty estimates from Hamas and PIJ members also indicated Israeli officials were inflating the militant toll in public statements, said Muhammad Shehada, a Palestinian analyst. By December 2024 an estimated 6,500 people from the military and political wings of both groups had been killed, members told him. 'Israel expands the boundaries so they can define every single person in Gaza as Hamas,' he said. 'All of it is killing in the moment for tactical purposes that have nothing to do with extinguishing a threat.' The ratio of civilian casualties among the dead may have increased further since May, when Israel tried to replace UN and humanitarian organisations that had fed Palestinians throughout the war. Israeli forces have killed hundreds of people trying to get food from distribution centres in military exclusion zones. Now starving survivors, already forced into just 20% of the territory, have been ordered to leave the north as Israel prepares for another ground operation that is likely to have catastrophic consequences for civilians. The scale of the killing was partly owing to the nature of the conflict, said Mary Kaldor, professor emeritus at the LSE, director of the Conflict Research Programme and author of New Wars, an influential book about warfare in the post-cold-war era. International humanitarian law was developed to protect civilians in conventional wars, in which states deploy troops to face each other on the battlefield. This is still largely the model for Russia's war in Ukraine. In Gaza Israel is fighting Hamas militants in densely populated cities, and has set rules of engagement that allow its forces to kill large numbers of civilians in strikes on even low-ranking militants. 'In Gaza we are talking about a campaign of targeted assassinations, really, rather than battles, and they are carried out with no concern for civilians,' Kaldor said. The ratio of civilians among the dead in Gaza was more comparable to recent wars in Sudan, Yemen, Uganda and Syria, where much of the violence had been directed against civilians, she said. 'These are wars where the armed groups tend to avoid battle. They don't want to fight each other, they want to control territory and they do that by killing civilians,. 'Maybe that is the same with Israel, and this is a model of war [in Gaza] that is about dominating a population and controlling land. Maybe the objective always was forced displacement.' Israel's government says the war is one of self-defence after the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people. But political and military leaders regularly use genocidal rhetoric. The general who led military intelligence when the war began has said 50 Palestinians must die for every person killed that day, adding that 'it does not matter now if they are children'. Aharon Haliva, who stepped down in April 2024, said mass killing in Gaza was 'necessary' as a 'message to future generations' of Palestinians, in recordings broadcast on Israeli TV this month. Many Israeli soldiers have testified that all Palestinians are treated as targets in Gaza. One stationed in Rafah this year said his unit had created an 'imaginary line' in the sand and fired at anyone who crossed it, including twice at children and once at a woman. They shot to kill, not to warn, he said. 'Nobody aimed for their legs'. Neta Crawford, a professor of international relations at Oxford University and co-founder of the Costs of War project, said Israeli tactics marked a 'worrisome' abandonment of decades of practices developed to protect civilians. In the 1970s public revulsion about American massacres in Vietnam forced western militaries to shift how they fought. New policies were imperfectly implemented but reflected a focus on limiting harm to civilians that no longer appeared to be part of Israel's military calculus, she said. 'They say they're using the same kinds of procedures for civilian casualty estimation and mitigation as states like the United States. But if you look at these casualty rates, and their practices with the bombing and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, it is clear that they are not.'
The Guardian
3 hours ago
- The Guardian
Revealed: Israeli military's own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war
Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare. As of May, 19 months into the war, Israeli intelligence officials listed 8,900 named fighters from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as dead or 'probably dead', a joint investigation by the Guardian, the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call has found. At that time 53,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli attacks, according to health authorities in Gaza, a toll that included combatants and civilians. Fighters named in the Israeli military intelligence database accounted for just 17% of the total, which indicates that 83% of the dead were civilians. That apparent ratio of civilians to combatants among the dead is extremely high for modern warfare, even compared with conflicts notorious for indiscriminate killing, including the Syrian and Sudanese civil wars. 'That proportion of civilians among those killed would be unusually high, particularly as it has been going on for such a long time,' said Therése Pettersson from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program, which tracks civilian casualties worldwide. 'If you single out a particular city or battle in another conflict, you could find similar rates, but very rarely overall.' 8,900 Named fighters listed as dead or 'probably dead' in Israeli database as of May 2025 In global conflicts tracked by UCDP since 1989, civilians made up a greater proportion of the dead only in Srebenica – although not the Bosnian war overall – in the Rwandan genocide, and during the Russian siege of Mariupol in 2022, Pettersson said. Many genocide scholars, lawyers and human rights activists, including Israeli academics and campaign groups, say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, citing the mass killing of civilians and imposed starvation. The Israeli military did not dispute the existence of the database or dispute the data on Hamas and PIJ deaths when approached for comment by Local Call and +972 Magazine. When the Guardian asked for comment on the same data, a spokesperson said they had decided to 'rephrase' their response. A brief statement sent to the Guardian did not directly address questions about the military intelligence database. It said 'figures presented in the article are incorrect', without specifying which data the Israeli military disputed. It also said the numbers 'do not reflect the data available in the IDF's systems', without detailing which systems. A spokesperson did not immediately respond when asked why the military had given different responses to questions about a single set of data. The database names 47,653 Palestinians considered active in the military wings of Hamas and PIJ. It is based on apparent internal documents from the groups seized in Gaza, which have not been viewed or verified by the Guardian. Multiple intelligence sources familiar with the database said the military viewed it as the only authoritative tally of militant casualties. The military also considers the Gaza health ministry toll reliable, Local Call has reported, and the former head of military intelligence appeared to cite it recently, even though Israeli politicians regularly dismiss the numbers as propaganda. 52,928 Gaza health ministry's overall death toll as of 14 May 2025 Both databases may underestimate casualty numbers. The Gaza ministry of health lists only people whose bodies have been recovered, not the thousands buried under rubble. Israeli military intelligence are not aware of all militant deaths or all new recruits. But the databases are the ones used by Israeli officers for war planning. Israeli politicians and generals have variously put the number of militants killed as high as 20,000, or claimed a civilian-to-combatant ratio as low as 1:1. The higher totals cited by Israeli officials may include civilians with Hamas links, such as government administrators and police, even though international law prohibits targeting people not engaged in combat. They probably also include Palestinians with no Hamas connections. Israel's southern command allowed soldiers to report people killed in Gaza as militant casualties without identification or verification. 'People are promoted to the rank of terrorist after their death,' said one intelligence source who accompanied forces on the ground. 'If I had listened to the brigade, I would have come to the conclusion that we had killed 200% of Hamas operatives in the area.' Itzhak Brik, a retired general, said serving Israeli soldiers were aware that politicians exaggerated the Hamas toll. Brik advised the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, at the start of the war and is now among his most strident critics. 'There is absolutely no connection between the numbers that are announced and what is actually happening. It is just one big bluff,' he said. Brik commanded Israel's military colleges, and said he kept in touch with serving officers. He described meeting soldiers from a unit identifying Palestinians killed in Gaza, who told him 'most of them' were civilians. Even though much of Gaza has been reduced to ruins and tens of thousands of people killed, the classified database lists nearly 40,000 people considered by the army to be militants and still alive. Casualty estimates from Hamas and PIJ members also indicated Israeli officials were inflating the militant toll in public statements, said Muhammad Shehada, a Palestinian analyst. By December 2024 an estimated 6,500 people from the military and political wings of both groups had been killed, members told him. 'Israel expands the boundaries so they can define every single person in Gaza as Hamas,' he said. 'All of it is killing in the moment for tactical purposes that have nothing to do with extinguishing a threat.' The ratio of civilian casualties among the dead may have increased further since May, when Israel tried to replace UN and humanitarian organisations that had fed Palestinians throughout the war. Israeli forces have killed hundreds of people trying to get food from distribution centres in military exclusion zones. Now starving survivors, already forced into just 20% of the territory, have been ordered to leave the north as Israel prepares for another ground operation that is likely to have catastrophic consequences for civilians. The scale of the killing was partly owing to the nature of the conflict, said Mary Kaldor, professor emeritus at the LSE, director of the Conflict Research Programme and author of New Wars, an influential book about warfare in the post-cold-war era. International humanitarian law was developed to protect civilians in conventional wars, in which states deploy troops to face each other on the battlefield. This is still largely the model for Russia's war in Ukraine. In Gaza Israel is fighting Hamas militants in densely populated cities, and has set rules of engagement that allow its forces to kill large numbers of civilians in strikes on even low-ranking militants. 'In Gaza we are talking about a campaign of targeted assassinations, really, rather than battles, and they are carried out with no concern for civilians,' Kaldor said. The ratio of civilians among the dead in Gaza was more comparable to recent wars in Sudan, Yemen, Uganda and Syria, where much of the violence had been directed against civilians, she said. 'These are wars where the armed groups tend to avoid battle. They don't want to fight each other, they want to control territory and they do that by killing civilians,. 'Maybe that is the same with Israel, and this is a model of war [in Gaza] that is about dominating a population and controlling land. Maybe the objective always was forced displacement.' Israel's government says the war is one of self-defence after the Hamas-led attacks on 7 October 2023, which killed 1,200 people. But political and military leaders regularly use genocidal rhetoric. The general who led military intelligence when the war began has said 50 Palestinians must die for every person killed that day, adding that 'it does not matter now if they are children'. Aharon Haliva, who stepped down in April 2024, said mass killing in Gaza was 'necessary' as a 'message to future generations' of Palestinians, in recordings broadcast on Israeli TV this month. Many Israeli soldiers have testified that all Palestinians are treated as targets in Gaza. One stationed in Rafah this year said his unit had created an 'imaginary line' in the sand and fired at anyone who crossed it, including twice at children and once at a woman. They shot to kill, not to warn, he said. 'Nobody aimed for their legs'. Neta Crawford, a professor of international relations at Oxford University and co-founder of the Costs of War project, said Israeli tactics marked a 'worrisome' abandonment of decades of practices developed to protect civilians. In the 1970s public revulsion about American massacres in Vietnam forced western militaries to shift how they fought. New policies were imperfectly implemented but reflected a focus on limiting harm to civilians that no longer appeared to be part of Israel's military calculus, she said. 'They say they're using the same kinds of procedures for civilian casualty estimation and mitigation as states like the United States. But if you look at these casualty rates, and their practices with the bombing and the destruction of civilian infrastructure, it is clear that they are not.'
Metro
3 hours ago
- Metro
Facial recognition cameras set for Notting Hill Carnival ‘breach human rights'
The Metropolitan Police's plan to extend the use of live facial recognition (LFR) cameras breaches human rights law, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has said. The watchdog said the use of the cameras could have a 'chilling effect' on individuals' rights if and when deployed. It comes as London's police force finalised plans to roll out the technology at Notting Hill Carnival this weekend. Last year's event was 'marred by unacceptable violence', senior officers said, after Cher Maximen died after being stabbed in front of her three-year-old daughter. Mussie Imnetu, a Dubai based chef, was randomly attacked and sustained fatal head injuries. Officers hope the cameras, which are mostly attached to vans, will help control crime at the event as they scan faces and match them to criminal databases. Officers say the use of LFR has led to 1,000 arrests and 773 charges, but campaigners say the UK's capital is entering a new era of total surveillance. To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The EHRC has been given permission to intervene in a judicial review over the cameras, brought by Silkie Carlo, director of Big Brother Watch and Shaun Thompson. Shaun, an anti-knife crime campaigner, was wrongly identified as a criminal by the cameras, describing it as 'gross mistreatment'. John Kirkpatrick, the EHRC's chief executive, said: 'The law is clear: everyone has the right to privacy, to freedom of expression and to freedom of assembly. 'These rights are vital for any democratic society. As such, there must be clear rules which guarantee that live facial recognition technology is used only where necessary, proportionate and constrained by appropriate safeguards. The process starts by identifying a face in a still image or video – picking out which pixels make up a face and which are the body, background or something else. It then maps the face, such as measuring the distance between certain features, to create a 'numerical expression' for an individual. This can then be quickly compared to large databases to try to find a match from faces that have already been mapped. 'We believe that the Metropolitan Police's current policy falls short of this standard. 'The Met, and other forces using this technology, need to ensure they deploy it in ways which are consistent with the law and with human rights.' But not everyone is displeased at the thought of the cameras. Just last year, Croydon was named as the violence hotspot of London – with more than 10,000 violent crimes recorded in a single 12-month period. And it has now been named as the first spot in democratic world to have permanent LFR cameras. Akosua Murphy, 60, has lived in the borough for 17 years, is relieved more is being done to make the area safe once again. The cleaning lady told Metro: 'Every day I pray my grandchildren come home safe, crime is out of control – we saw what happened to Elianne Adnam and she was just an innocent girl. 'I used to work at East Croydon station, and I've seen young people stabbing each other. 'It's only getting worse, the high street is a mess.' Shannon Kirwin, 20, helps run her family's food van Old Skool Food, said she welcomes the crime reduction after seeing so many youths 'go for each other'. She told Metro: 'I have sat in this food van, and I have seen gangs just pull out weapons on each other right in front of me – the place has gone down massively over the last decade. 'But all the ones who are committing crimes are wearing balaclavas and face coverings, is there even any point to the cameras if they can't see through that.' Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Russian anti-war protester found dead in London after asylum claim was rejected MORE: Moment 'murdered' ice cream man 'argues with customer' before stabbing MORE: US hitwoman Aimee Betro who wore niqab in botched assassination jailed for 30 years
