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Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood on Tuesday said two of his forthcoming shows with Israeli-born rock musician Dudu Tassa had been cancelled due to “credible threats”.The guitarist and keyboardist had been due to perform two dates with Tassa in the western English city of Bristol and in London in June.A pro-Palestinian activist movement that advocates political and economic action against Israel over its treatment of Palestinians welcomed the announcement.”Palestinians welcome the cancellation of both of their UK shows. We reiterate our call for all venues to refuse to programme this complicit event that can only artwash genocide,” the PACBI-BDS movement, which had campaigned against the performances, said on X.Announcing the axing of the shows, Greenwood, Tassa and their musicians said the “venues and their blameless staff have received enough credible threats to conclude that it’s not safe to proceed”. The letter posted on X said the decision would be “hailed as a victory by the campaigners… but we see nothing to celebrate and don’t find anything positive has been achieved”.”Forcing musicians not to perform and denying people who want to hear them an opportunity to do so is self-evidently a method of censorship and silencing,” it said.”We believe art exists above and beyond politics…artists should be free to express themselves regardless of their citizenship or their religion -– and certainly regardless of the decisions made by their governments,” it added.The letter comes after Irish rappers Kneecap had several concerts cancelled.British counter terrorism police last week launched an investigation into online videos of the Irish band after it denied supporting Hamas and Hezbollah or inciting violence against UK politicians.The police probe came as nearly 40 other groups and artists rallied around Kneecap with a joint statement in which they said that “as artists, we feel the need to register our opposition to any political repression of artistic freedom”.Greenwood and his fellow musicians added: “We have no judgement to pass on Kneecap but note how sad it is that those supporting their freedom of expression are the same ones most determined to restrict ours.”Radiohead performed in Tel Aviv in 2017 despite being urged to cancel as part of a cultural boycott.”Playing in a country isn’t the same as endorsing its government,” Yorke wrote on Twitter at the time. “We’ve played in Israel for over 20 years through a succession of governments, some more liberal than others. As we have in America,” he said.”We don’t endorse Netanyahu any more than Trump, but we still play in America,” he added.

Israel’s military has called up tens of thousands of reservists for its planned expanded offensive in Gaza, which an official said entails the “conquest” of the Palestinian territory.With one of the best equipped armies in the world, what forces are available to Israel?A large part of the adult population has completed military service and they are required to remain reservists until at least the age of 41, depending on rank and branch of service.But it is not compulsory for reservists to respond to the call-up.Israel’s army has 169,500 soldiers, both conscripts and professionals, according to the Military Balance annual report by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). It also has 465,000 reservists.In January 2024, 295,000 reservists and 45,000 volunteers joined to take part in the war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, according to the latest available army figures.Brigadier General Rami Abudraham, head of planning for ground forces, told a parliamentary committee on Monday that the voluntary mobilisation rate for reservists is more than 75 percent.”It’s more than a miracle… after a year and a half of war,” he said.According to the Mediterranean Foundation for Strategic Studies (FMES), Israel’s army has 12 ground divisions and five independent brigades — such as paratroopers or commandos.An Israeli army division has between 13,000 and 20,000 troops and a brigade between 3,000 and 7,000, according to experts. Israel’s Air Force has 316 combat aircraft, including 175 that can operate within a radius of more than 1,000 kilometres, according to the IISS.By comparison, Britain’s Royal Air Force has 146 fighter jets.The IISS also says that Israel has five submarines, seven small warships known as corvettes and 42 patrol boats, including eight able to fire missiles. Israel has never confirmed or denied that it has nuclear weapons, but according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) it has 90 nuclear warheads.- No shortage of soldiers -Since the Hamas attack in October 2023, Israel has operated on several fronts outside Gaza.These include the West Bank, a separate Palestinian territory which Israel has occupied since 1967, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen from where Iran-backed Huthi rebels have launched missile and drone attacks, and Iran itself, which directly attacked Israel twice in 2024.In Lebanon, a November ceasefire agreement ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and the Tehran-backed militant group Hezbollah.But Israel has maintained several positions in south Lebanon and continues to carry out deadly strikes inside the country.Since Islamist-led forces ousted Syria’s former president Bashar al-Assad in December, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes against military targets there also. It has also sent troops into the demilitarised buffer zone in the Golan Heights — much of which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war.The Huthis, who control swathes of Yemen including the capital Sanaa, have launched missiles and drones at Israel throughout the Gaza war, saying they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians.Israel has responded with several retaliatory strikes.”There is no problem with a shortage of soldiers,” former brigadier general Yossi Kuperwasser, an expert at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS), told AFP.He said operations in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen do not currently require the mobilisation of reserve forces.”On most fronts, the army does not need to mobilise many men and there are enough soldiers and reservists for the upcoming operation in Gaza,” he added.

At Basel al-Sati’s souvenir shop in a central Damascus market, socks bearing caricatures that ridicule ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad and his once feared family now sell like hot cakes.”I want to bring joy to people who’ve been deprived of happiness for so many days and years,” said Sati, 31, displaying pairs of white ankle-length socks.”Everyone who comes from abroad wants to buy the socks — some to keep as a souvenir, others to wear mockingly and take pictures,” he told AFP.”There are even some who buy them just to stomp on them,” he said.Stamping on someone’s image is considered deeply insulting in the Arab world, so the socks allow wearers to trample the Assads underfoot as they walk.Pictures of the Assad clan have gone from being ubiquitous symbols of repression to objects of derision and mockery since his December 8 ouster by Islamist-led forces after nearly 14 years of devastating civil war.Some socks showing Assad in sunglasses read “We will trample them”, while others depict him with heavily exaggerated features.Others bear a caricature of Hafez al-Assad who ruled Syria before his son, depicted in his underwear and chest puffed out.They bear the phrase “This is what the Assads look like” — a play on the family’s last name, which means lion.Assad’s once feared younger brother Maher labelled “the captagon king” also features. Western governments accused Maher and his entourage of turning Syria into a narco state, flooding the Middle East with the illegal stimulant.- ‘No better’ gift -Sati’s shop, brimming with other gift items, is decorated with images from Syria’s revolution.An image of Assad is on the ground at the entrance so people can walk on it.”It’s another kind of celebration, for all the Syrians who couldn’t celebrate in Ummayad Square after the fall of the regime,” Sati said.The Damascus landmark filled with huge crowds from across the country and hosted days of celebrations after Assad’s ouster, with people raising the now official three-starred flag symbolising the revolution.Afaf Sbano, 40, who returned after fleeing to Germany a decade ago, said she had come to buy “Assad socks”, which sell for around a dollar a pair, for friends.There is “no better” gift for those “who can’t come to Syria to celebrate the fall of the regime”, she told AFP.”I bought more than 10 extra pairs for my friends after I shared a photo on Instagram,” she said.”We had never dared to even imagine making fun of him” before, she added.- ‘People hate him’ -Manufacturer Zeyad Zaawit, 29, said the idea of socks to mock the Assads came to him after the former ruler was deposed and fled to Russia.Zaawit started with a small number and then ramped up production when he saw they were selling fast.”People hate him,” Zaawit said of Assad.”I took revenge on him this way after he fled,” he said, adding that the socks were so popular that some customers even paid in advance.Zaawit said he produced around 1,000 pairs in the first week and has since tripled production, making more than 200,000 pairs in three months.Images of the socks have been shared widely on social media and they have even been used in satirical television programmes.Assad’s own words have also been turned against him — including a refusal to meet Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a foe who is close to Syria’s new authorities.Erdogan made repeated overtures to Assad in the period before his overthrow.In August 2023, Assad famously said: “Why should I meet Erdogan? To drink refreshments?”The pronouncement, now the subject of jokes on social media, appears on posters in food and juice stalls, sometimes accompanied by mocking images of Assad.

Hollywood reacted with skepticism on Monday to US President Donald Trump’s announcement of 100 percent tariffs on foreign films, with movie insiders calling it a policy made up on the fly by a president who fails to understand how the industry works.”It makes no sense,” entertainment lawyer Jonathan Handel said of Trump’s idea.Handel told AFP …

‘Makes no sense’: Hollywood shocked by Trump’s film tariffs announcement Read More »

A senior Hamas official said Tuesday the group was no longer interested in truce talks with Israel and urged the international community to halt Israel’s “hunger war” against Gaza.”There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip,” Basem Naim told AFP.He said the world must pressure the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the “crimes of hunger, thirst, and killings” in Gaza.The comments by Naim, a Hamas political bureau member and former Gaza health minister, came a day after Israel’s military said expanded operations in Gaza would include displacing “most” of its population.They come a day after Israel said its security cabinet approved the military’s plan for expanded operations, which an Israeli official said would entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories”.Nearly all of the territory’s inhabitants have been displaced, often multiple times, since the start of the war sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.Gaza has been under total Israeli blockade since March 2 and faces a severe humanitarian crisis.Israel’s military resumed its offensive on the Gaza Strip on March 18, ending a two-month truce.The spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defence agency, Mahmud Bassal, said Tuesday that three Palestinians including a little girl were killed in Israeli dawn attacks on different areas of Gaza.A UN spokesman said Monday Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “alarmed” by the Israeli plan that “will inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza”.- ‘Large-scale evacuation’ -“Gaza is, and must remain, an integral part of a future Palestinian state,” Farhan Haq said.The Israeli decision comes as the UN and aid organisations have repeatedly warned of the humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine again looming.On Monday, a senior Israeli security official said that “a central component of the plan is a large-scale evacuation of the entire Gazan population from the fighting zones… to areas in southern Gaza”.Military spokesman Effie Defrin said the planned offensive will include “moving most of the population of the Gaza Strip… to protect them”.French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot in a radio interview on Tuesday called Israel’s plan for a Gaza offensive “unacceptable”, and said its government was “in violation of humanitarian law”.For Palestinians, any forced displacement evokes memories of the “Nakba”, or catastrophe — the mass displacement in the war that led to Israel’s creation in 1948.On Monday, the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said at least 2,459 people had been killed since Israel resumed its campaign on March 18, bringing the overall death toll from the war to 52,567.Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.Out of the 251 people abducted by militants that day, 58 are still held in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.