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Thousands of Palestinians are once again being forced to evacuate their homes as Israeli forces continue bombarding areas of Khan Younis and Rafah.
Health officials in Gaza say at least eight Palestinian civilians have been killed and dozens more injured in the latest assault.
Israeli forces bombarded several areas of the southern Gaza Strip on Tuesday and thousands of Palestinians fled their homes in what could be part of a final push of Israel’s intensive military operations.
Gaza’s health ministry says at least 38,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since October.
Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General Stéphane Dujarric says more efforts are needed to protect civilians in Gaza.
“It’s another stop in this deadly circular movement that the population in Gaza has to undergo on a regular basis. This is yet again why we need to see an end to this conflict. We need to see a humanitarian ceasefire, the release of the hostages, which would lead to our ability to distribute aid quickly to all those who need it.”
Opponents of French far right National Party are stepping up their efforts to block the far right from coming to power as more candidates bow out to avoid splitting the vote.
French far-right leader Marine Le Pen’s National Rally has come out ahead after the first-round vote last weekend after President Emmanuel Macron’s bid on a snap election backfired.
Now, local media says that around 180 candidates have confirmed that they will not stand in the next round vote for France’s 577-seat national parliament.
Marine Le Pen says the people of France don’t want to be told how to vote.
FRENCH, THEN ENGLISH: “I think this election is one of emancipation for the French people. What the people came to say is stop giving us moral lessons, stop telling us for whom we have to vote, how to think – that’s what they said in the first round. And I hope they will say the same thing in the second round, because that’s in fact the key to change the policies that from which they have been suffering for seven years now.”
A convicted drug offender in Western Australia is set to be deported back to the U-K this week after his bid for clemency failed on Tuesday morning at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
55-year-old Stephen Pokrywka [[PER-CREW-TH-KERR]] has lived in Australia for almost all of his life after moving with his parents at age 12.
Under Australia’s migration legislation, people living without citizenship in Australia, who have spent more than 12 months in prison, can be deported on character grounds.
He will be leaving behind six children and ten grandchildren.
His lawyer David Kew says the policies in place today are reminiscent of deportation laws from 200 years ago.
“In a normal situation he’s served his sentence done his time, he’s had a good parole report. My only observation I think is, thinking about this is that we’ve not learned a lot in over 200 years. Great Britain was deporting people over here over 200 years ago for in similar circumstances and we were still doing the same thing in reverse and it just seems would actually have learned anything in that time. “
Security staff at hospitals in New South Wales will begin trialling new body-worn cameras amid growing concerns about rising rates of assaults at health facilities like emergency departments.
The New south Wales Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research says that hospitals recorded 972 assaults on their premises in the year to March 2024, with a rate of more than 18 assaults per week.
The year long trial is still in planning stages and will require established privacy and security policies before it can proceed.
New South Wales Health Minister Ryan Park says the current trend is unacceptable.
“I’m very, very concerned that we have to start to look at interventions to reduce the number of these serious incidents taking place across our health and hospital system, so I can announce that we will be embarking on a 12 month trial across nine hospital sites, 300 cameras in total, worn by our security officers as a way to try and look at de-escalating incidents before they become problematic within our health and hospital system.”
In tennis, defending women’s champion Marketa Vondrousova has been eliminated in the first round of Wimbledon.
In a stunning upset, she has been defeated by Spain’s Jessica Bouzas Maneiro in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2.
Vondrousova says dealing with the expectations of a defending champion is hard.
“Yeah, overall, it was very tough. And it’s tough feelings also to go back… I feel everyone just expects you to win, maybe? So, that’s tough too. I was happy to be back on the centre court, but it just didn’t go as planned today.”
Australian Ajla Tomljanovic [[eye-luh tomml-yanna-vitch]] also went out tamely in the first round, losing to Jelena Ostapenko, 6-1, 6-2.
The Australian men did a little better.
Australia’s top ranked male, Alex De Minaur, beat fellow Aussie James Duckworth, 7-6, 7-6, 7-6.
Alexei Popyrin beat Thiago Montero in four sets.
And Adam Walton beat Federico Coria.
