Latest news with #Occupation
Saba Yemen
3 days ago
- Politics
- Saba Yemen
Occupation surround house, arrest three Palestinian youths in Wadi Burqin, west of Jenin
Jenin - Saba: Israeli Occupation forces arrested three Palestinian youths from the Wadi Burqin area, west of Jenin in the northern West Bank on Saturday morning. Local Palestinian sources reported that Israeli Occupation forces arrested the three youths after surrounding and raiding a home belonging to Abu Hudhayfah al-Masri family. They indicated that an Israeli enemy special forces force stormed Wadi Burqin, surrounded al-Masri's home, and directed a drone toward it. The Occupation added that Israeli enemy soldiers climbed onto the roofs of the houses surrounding the besieged house. For the 138th consecutive day, the Israeli army continues its aggression against Jenin and its camp, leaving 39 martyrs, more than 200 wounded, and dozens arrested. The Israeli enemy has forced approximately 22,000 Palestinian citizens to flee Jenin camp and its surroundings, in addition to destroying and bombing dozens of homes. Whatsapp Telegram Email Print
30-05-2025
- General
'Occupied Kyoto': New Book Explores Postwar Treatment of Historic Sites
The most interesting details in Akio Satoko's book Kyoto senryō: 1945 nen no shinjitsu (Occupied Kyoto: The Truth About 1945) relate how and why famous and historic sites in the city came to be requisitioned during the postwar Allied Occupation of Japan, as well as the determined opposition to the occupying authorities' plans by Kyoto municipal officials and religious leaders. Below are just a few examples of the sites affected by requisition orders. Many of Kyoto's grand avenues, some of them 50 meters wide, run north to south. Dwellings lining those streets had been forcibly cleared away during the war, to prevent fire from spreading to the Kyoto Imperial Palace. After the war, one of them, Horikawa-dōri, was even used as a runway for small US forces' aircraft, since Kyoto had no airport. In December 1945, the Allied Occupation issued the Shintō Directive to end state support for Shintō, although shrines throughout the country were left undisturbed so that people could worship there if they saw fit. As a result, Heian Jingū's main shrine was spared, but surrounding structures were requisitioned, transforming the area into a so-called 'American village.' Other buildings requisitioned by the Occupation forces included the Kyoto Enthronement Memorial Museum of Art, erected to commemorate the enthronement of Emperor Shōwa (Hirohito); it is today the Kyoto City Kyocera Museum of Art. The building was used for lodgings and as a hospital for Occupation personnel. A martial arts hall was turned into a noncommissioned officers' club, half of the Kyoto City Zoo became a parking lot, and other structures were used as storage depots for arms and materiel. At one point, the Imperial Palace, where generations of emperors had lived, and its surrounding gardens, were in danger of being requisitioned as well. Occupation authorities were looking for a spacious plot of land on which to build homes for 245 families, but to Kyotoites, handing over the Imperial Palace was unthinkable, even if Japan's emperors had resided in Tokyo since the nineteenth century. After long negotiations, Occupation officials accepted an offer of land at the Kyoto Botanical Gardens instead. It is likely that this decision was influenced by Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers General Douglas MacArthur's pronouncement after meeting with Emperor Hirohito in late September 1945 that the imperial system would be maintained. But site preparation at the Botanical Gardens saw over three-quarters of the more than 25,000 trees there cut down in the process. Gods or Golf? The Occupation authority's Kyoto commander was a golf lover who attempted to turn Kamigamo Shrine, Kyoto's oldest Shintō shrine, into a golf course. Shrine leaders learned of this when they were called to the Kyoto prefectural government office in September 1946. They were told that the proposed site for the golf course was the sacred Mount Kōyama, where the shrine's deity is said to have descended to earth and where the miare rite, the most important ritual of the shrine's Aoi Festival, is conducted. The shrine opposed the plan, but construction nevertheless began in October. In the end, the project was scrubbed when the central government objected, but by that time 4,000 of the shrine's sacred trees had been felled, with less than half remaining. The commander was tenacious, though: he finally got his golf course two years later, built on land owned by the shrine, the experimental forest of Kyoto University's faculty of agriculture, and privately-owned land. Today, that course is the Kyoto Golf Club. The war did not spare the heart of Kyoto's traditional culture either. In March 1944, all geisha quarters throughout the country had been ordered closed and okami teahouse proprietors, geisha, and nakai room attendants were put to work for the war effort. Gion's Kaburenjō, where young geisha trained in dance and the grand Miyako Odori dance performance took place, became a denture factory, and balloon bombs were fabricated at the Yasaka Kaikan hall next door. During the Occupation, the Kaburenjō became a dance hall for the US military, and the building was only returned to Gion in 1951. Today, 80 years after the end of the war, older Kyotoites remember this dark period of Kyoto's history, but such episodes are mostly unknown to Japanese and to foreign visitors. Even so, it is interesting to explore the story behind each of these examples. Kyoto senryō: 1945 nen no shinjitsu (Occupied Kyoto: The Truth About 1945) By Akio SatokoPublished by Shinchōsha in December 2024 ISBN: 978-4-10-611070-2
Arab News
29-05-2025
- General
- Arab News
Israel says it will establish 22 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank
JERUSALEM: Israel said Thursday it would establish 22 new Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank. They would include new settlements and the legalization of outposts already built without government authorization. Israel captured the West Bank in the 1967 Mideast war and the Palestinians want it to be the main part of their future state.
Mada
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Mada
Israel kills journalist Hassan Eslaih on his hospital bed
Eslaih was among the most prominent and prolific reporters in Gaza who documented the devastation of Israel's occupation since before its genocidal war began, contributing extensive reporting as well to Mada Masr's coverage of the war. He was killed by an airstrike directly targeting the burns ward at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, where he was recovering from an earlier attack in which Israel had attempted to assassinate him. The Occupation military sought to justify the attempt at the time by claiming Hassan was affiliated with Hamas. With his death, a total of 215 Palestinian journalists have now been killed by Israel since October, 2023, the Government Media Office in Gaza said on Tuesday, condemning the dual attack on journalists and medical facilities as a war crime and a crime against humanity. Fellow journalists who witnessed the moment Eslaih was killed spoke to Mada Masr about the attack on Tuesday morning. Adly Taha and Ibrahim Qanan, two journalists who were at the scene at the time of the attack, told Mada Masr that a huge explosion was heard at 3 am inside Nasser Medical Complex. Shrapnel from the blast flew everywhere, even reaching the journalists' tents near the complex. Moments later, it became clear that the target was the fourth floor of the hospital, where the burns unit was located and where Eslaih was receiving treatment, they said. 'We immediately rushed with the paramedics to the room where Hassan was staying. It was pitch black, but we could see how devastated the place was and how much rubble was everywhere through the lights on our phones,' Taha explained. 'Hassan was still in his bed, completely covered in rubble. We quickly began to remove the rubble off of him, and we discovered that he was still alive and breathing with difficulty.' 'We and the paramedics quickly transferred him to the emergency room. The doctors tried to revive his heart and perform CPR, but it was only a few moments before he passed away.' Taha said it wasn't clear to him what Israel used to assassinate Eslaih, but he suggested, based on the shape of the shrapnel, that the attack was carried out by a suicide drone. This was the fifth time the Occupation forces had attempted to assassinate Eslaih, Taha noted. The first time was when Israel bombed his home and his family's home, followed by the homes of his two brothers. They also attempted to assassinate him last month, when they targeted journalists' tents near Nasser complex, wounding him and 15 others and killing two journalists. The Israeli military followed up today's raid with a statement claiming to have targeted a Hamas command and control center within the complex, without mentioning Eslaih. After the attack in April, the Occupation military claimed Eslaih is affiliated with the Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, and operates 'under the guise of a journalist and owner of a newspaper company.' Eslaih faced an Israeli incitement campaign over recent months that framed his media coverage of the October 7 Operation Al-Aqsa Flood as proof of military activity. This was echoed last week by Israeli organization Honest Reporting, which also called on several international news agencies to end their cooperation with him. In an interview about the accusations, Eslaih said they were the same old story, a way of attempting to justify the aggression. 'I didn't take part in anything.' 'We feel deep sadness over the loss of Hassan. Hassan was one of the journalists who ignored the incitement campaigns and successive threats he received since the first day of the war of extermination. The Occupation attempted to assassinate him more than once. None of this prevented him from continuing his work with passion and dedication,' Qanan said. 'The occupation fought Hassan everywhere, and suspended his online accounts in an attempt to hinder his work, but he didn't care.' 'We knew the extent of the danger threatening him, and we were worried for his life. But at the same time, we knew how much he loved and was dedicated to the profession of journalism, so he wouldn't give in to any of the Occupation's threats,' he added. Tuesday's strike also killed Brigadier General Ahmed al-Qedra, director of the Anti-Narcotics Police and a member of the Police Command Council at the Interior Ministry in Gaza, who was in the same hospital room as Eslaih, a statement from the ministry said today. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate condemned Eslaih's assassination today, which it said falls within the framework of a systematic Israeli policy of killing journalists and preventing the publication of the truth. For its part, Hamas said today that Eslaih's assassination while receiving medical treatment was a double war crime that reflects Israeli sadism and a systematic insistence on suppressing the truth. Eslaih began contributing to Mada Masr in the early months of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, alongside his work with other media outlets. Over nearly two years, he documented the devastation caused by the ongoing Israeli airstrikes, from interviews he conducted with displaced Palestinians in Rafah and Khan Younis to photographs capturing the brutal living conditions of displaced people in Mawasi's tents during the harsh winter months and stories from a makeshift school established to keep children learning during the war. Through his personal social media accounts, where he had hundreds of thousands of followers, Eslaih captured scenes of daily life amid the war, including festive moments at Eid prayers and a kahk-making session for young children. Aerial images he captured documented the historic return of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to northern Gaza during the ceasefire. Eslaih's death today comes nearly a week after the deaths of journalists Nour Eddin Abdo and Yahya Subeih, who were killed in two separate Israeli bombings, one targeting a school sheltering displaced people and another a restaurant and a popular market, during a bloody day in which about 92 people were killed by intensive Israeli airstrikes.
ITV News
09-05-2025
- Entertainment
- ITV News
Tortoise which survived Guernsey Occupation stars in Liberation celebrations 80 years on
A tortoise that survived the Occupation in Guernsey played a starring role in Cavalcade celebrations as the island marks 80 years since Liberation from German rule. Timothy the tortoise, known lovingly as Timmy, was gifted to local woman Maggie Talbot-Cull, now 85, at the start of World War Two. On the 80th anniversary of Liberation Day, the pair took centre stage - cruising through St Peter Port atop a car. Speaking about how Timmy became part of her life during the Occupation, Maggie told ITV News: "I've had Timmy tortoise all my life. "My godmother gave him to me when I was born at the beginning of the war because the shops were all shut. There wasn't anything much she could give me." Maggie adds: "She gave him to me and I used to feed him all the way through the war with my father on thistles and tomatoes, he still likes tomatoes, and we've always had him in the garden." Maggie describes Timmy's survival through WW2 as "amazing" and although they realised 25 years later from a vet that he is actually a she, the name stuck. It is not the first time Timmy has been in the public eye. The much-loved pet went missing from her home in Jerbourg for five days in 2023, sparking an island-wide search for the creature before she was eventually found. In her latest public appearance, Timmy rode safely in a bed of hay in front of enthusiastic crowds. Maggie says it was her daughter who inspired her to get Timmy in the Cavalcade and she believes his appearance was a huge success, adding: "All the kids are thrilled to bits, of course. It's the highlight of their Cavalcade I think."
