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The suspect in a Molotov cocktail attack on a Jewish protest march in Colorado appeared in court Thursday facing more than 100 charges over an incident that injured 15 people.Mohamed Sabry Soliman is alleged to have thrown firebombs and sprayed burning gasoline at a group of people who had gathered Sunday in support of Israeli hostages held by Hamas.Prosecutors now say 15 people — eight women and seven men — were hurt in the attack in the city of Boulder. Three are still hospitalized.The oldest victim was 88 years old.Soliman, a 45-year-old Egyptian who federal authorities said was in the country illegally after overstaying a tourist visa, faces 28 attempted murder charges, as well as a bevvy of other counts relating to his alleged use of violence.He also faces a count of animal cruelty for a dog that was hurt, bringing to 118 the total number of criminal counts.Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty told reporters that he could face a centuries-long prison term if convicted.”The defendant is charged with attempted murder in the first degree as to 14 different victims,” he said.”If the defendant is convicted and those sentences run consecutively, that would be 48 years in state prison for each of the 14 victims, which comes to 672 years.”Two of the Soliman’s alleged victims — along with the dog — were at the court on Thursday.Soliman is also expected to be charged with federal hate crime offenses.Soliman’s immigration status has been at the center of President Donald Trump’s administration’s response to the attack.This week his wife and five children were detained by immigration agents as the White House took to social media to taunt them about an impending deportation.”Six One-Way Tickets for Mohamed’s Wife and Five Kids,” the official account posted on X.”Final Boarding Call Coming Soon.” But on Wednesday a judge imposed a temporary restraining order that bars any attempt to remove them from the country.Police who rushed to the scene of Sunday’s attack found 16 unused Molotov cocktails and a backpack weed sprayer containing gasoline that investigators say Soliman had intended to use as a makeshift flamethrower.In bystander videos, the attacker can be heard screaming “End Zionists!” and “Killers!” Sunday’s incident came less than two weeks after the fatal shooting of two Israeli embassy staffers outside a Jewish museum in Washington, where a 31-year-old suspect, who shouted “Free Palestine,” was arrested.

Israeli farmers whose dream of producing tequila was cut short by Hamas’s October 7 attack have returned to work along the Gaza border, ploughing fields and sowing seeds to bring their land back to life.With artillery fire and explosions booming in the distance, businessman Aviel Leitner and farmer Eran Braverman inspected their field of blue agave, hoping they would one day soon produce the country’s first-ever batch of tequila.Planted prior to the war sparked by the unprecedented October 2023 attack on communities in southern Israel, Leitner said the violence and subsequent chaos meant waiting until now to unveil their unique project.”We wanted to very much show that Israeli farmers had returned to the fields, that this war wasn’t going to stop them, that there were new crops growing in the Negev and that there is nothing sexier than tequila and mezcal and agave spirits,” he told AFP.Leitner said he was inspired to bring the plants to Israel following a family trip to Mexico.For him and Braverman, the survival of the exotic plants -– just like their complex transportation from Mexico to Israel — is nothing short of a miracle.- Taste of tequila -On October 7, 2023 militants attacked Kibbutz Alumim and other communities around it, burning down barns and greenhouses and destroying irrigation equipment. “We are about four kilometres from the (Gaza) fence and everything from the fence to Alumim was destroyed,” recalled Braverman, who said that 22 farm workers from Nepal and Thailand were murdered there, as were three soldiers who died defending the site.”When we heard what happened, we were very scared for the farmers and their families because we had grown close to them. It was very, very traumatic,” said Leitner.He was also concerned for his plants.The dry desert conditions and the drip irrigation technology meant the blue agave could survive without much care and somehow, the field was unaffected by the fighting.Now, the two men are counting down the days until the plants are ripe, as Leitner looks for a place to build his tequila distillery.”We’re hoping to start manufacturing in early winter 2025 and this will be the first agave spirit manufactured in the land of Israel,” Leitner said.- New crops -Danielle Abraham, executive director of the NGO Volcani International Partnerships, which assists Israeli farmers through its “Regrow” project, said communities in southern Israel were “determined to get back on their feet and grow back stronger.””They are trying to bring new crops, introduce new innovation and think about the future,” she said, adding that “they stood up after a disaster with such resolve.”Citing statistics from the kibbutz movement, Abraham said that farms in southern Israel were now back at close to 100 percent of their pre-October 2023 capacity, but were still undergoing challenges.”The ongoing war and the uncertainty is still taking a big toll mentally on the farmers,” she said.Sheila Gerber, who has run a botanical garden and cactus farm with her husband Yaakov for the past 30 years in the nearby Moshav Talmei Yosef cooperative, said visitors were still staying away.The fighting is on the other side of the border but the community still live in fear, said Gerber, who described how a recent explosion caused all the glass in one of their greenhouses to shatter.”It was horrifying. It was scary,” she said.  Hamas militants did not reach Talmei Yosef on October 7, after being repelled just outside the gates by members of a civilian security team.Gerber and her family were evacuated, and returned a few weeks later.”We came back because farmers come back — you can’t just leave everything to die,” she said, adding  that “almost all the farmers came back.”Gerber recalled how, until the Second Palestinian Intifada or uprising against Israel began in 2000, she and her family could visit Gaza.”When it was peaceful, it was very nice and we could go to the markets, we could go to the beach, we could take the kids, it was no problem,” she said. “But of course now we can’t and it’s very sad for everybody,” she added. “What will be the future, we really don’t know.” 

The United States on Thursday imposed sanctions on four judges at the International Criminal Court including over an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as it ramped up pressure to neuter the court of last resort.The four judges in The Hague, all women, will be barred entry to the United States and any property or other interests in the world’s largest economy will be blocked — measures more often taken against policymakers from US adversaries than against judicial officials.”The United States will take whatever actions we deem necessary to protect our sovereignty, that of Israel, and any other US ally from illegitimate actions by the ICC,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement.”I call on the countries that still support the ICC, many of whose freedom was purchased at the price of great American sacrifices, to fight this disgraceful attack on our nation and Israel,” Rubio said.The court swiftly hit back, saying in a statement: “These measures are a clear attempt to undermine the independence of an international judicial institution which operates under the mandate from 125 States Parties from all corners of the globe.”Israel’s Netanyahu welcomed the move, thanking US President Donald Trump’s administration in a social media post.”Thank you President Trump and Secretary of State Rubio for imposing sanctions against the politicised judges of the ICC. You have justly stood up for the right of Israel,” he wrote on Friday.- War crimes -Human Rights Watch urged other nations to speak out and reaffirm the independence of the ICC, set up in 2002 to prosecute individuals responsible for the world’s gravest crimes when countries are unwilling or unable to do so themselves.The sanctions “aim to deter the ICC from seeking accountability amid grave crimes committed in Israel and Palestine and as Israeli atrocities mount in Gaza, including with US complicity,” said the rights group’s international justice director, Liz Evenson.Two of the targeted judges, Beti Hohler of Slovenia and Reine Alapini-Gansou of Benin, took part in proceedings that led to an arrest warrant issued last November for Netanyahu.The court found “reasonable grounds” of criminal responsibility by Netanyahu and former Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant for actions that include the war crime of starvation as a method of war in the massive offensive in Gaza following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.Israel, alleging bias, has angrily rejected charges of war crimes as well as a separate allegation of genocide led by South Africa before the International Court of Justice.The two other judges, Luz del Carmen Ibanez Carranza of Peru and Solomy Balungi Bossa of Uganda, were part of the court proceedings that led to the authorization of an investigation into allegations that US forces committed war crimes during the war in Afghanistan.- Return to hard line -Neither the United States nor Israel is party to the Rome Statute that established the International Criminal Court. But almost all Western allies of the United States as well as Japan and South Korea, the vast majority of Latin America and much of Africa are parties to the statute and in theory are required to arrest suspects when they land on their soil.Trump in his first term already imposed sanctions on the then ICC chief prosecutor over the Afghanistan investigation. After Trump’s defeat in 2020, then president Joe Biden took a more conciliatory approach to the court with case-by-case cooperation. Rubio’s predecessor Antony Blinken rescinded the sanctions and, while critical of its stance on Israel, worked with the court in its investigation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. ICC judges in 2023 issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over the alleged mass abduction of Ukrainian children during the war. Both Putin and Netanyahu have voiced defiance over the ICC pressure but have also looked to minimize time in countries that are party to the court. The ICC arrest warrants have been especially sensitive in Britain, a close US ally whose Prime Minister Keir Starmer is a former human rights lawyer. Downing Street has said that Britain will fulfil its “legal obligations” without explicitly saying if Netanyahu would be arrested if he visits.Hungary, led by Trump ally Viktor Orban, has parted ways with the rest of the European Union by moving to exit the international court. Orban thumbed his nose at the court by welcoming Netanyahu to visit in April.

US President Donald Trump has signed a travel ban on 12 mostly Middle Eastern and African countries, reviving a controversial measure from his first term expected to trigger a fresh wave of legal challenges.Trump said on Wednesday the measure was spurred by a makeshift flamethrower attack on a Jewish protest in Colorado that US authorities blamed on an Egyptian man they said was in the country illegally.The move bans all travel to the United States by nationals of Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, Congo-Brazzaville, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, according to the White House.Trump also imposed a partial ban on travelers from seven other countries: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela. Some temporary work visas from those countries will be allowed.”The recent terror attack in Boulder, Colorado, has underscored the extreme dangers posed to our country by the entry of foreign nationals who are not properly vetted,” Trump said in a video message posted on social media platform X.”We don’t want them.”- World Cup, Olympics, diplomats excluded -The ban will not apply to athletes competing in the 2026 World Cup, which the United States is co-hosting with Canada and Mexico, as well as the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, Trump’s order said.Nor will it apply to diplomats from the targeted countries, according to the spokesman of the secretary-general of the United Nations headquartered in New York.”As we’ve said before, whatever system is put in place (should be) one that respects people’s human dignity,” said Stephane Dujarric, who added it was for individual countries to determine how to control their borders.UN rights chief Volker Turk warned that “the broad and sweeping nature of the new travel ban raises concerns from the perspective of international law.” And Amnesty International USA called the ban “discriminatory, racist, and downright cruel.”Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro meanwhile claimed Trump was being “poisoned” by “lies” about his country, while Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello warned that it was the United States that posed a risk to visitors from Venezuela and elsewhere.With seven of the 12 countries banned from Africa, the African Union said the move would harm “people-to-people ties, education exchange, commercial engagement, and broader diplomatic relations” and urged “constructive dialog.”Yemen’s internationally recognised government urged Washington to “reconsider” the travel ban, or to at least exempt Yemeni citizens “in recognition of the difficult humanitarian conditions” in the war-ravaged country.In Myanmar, one student affected by the ban only got her US study visa two days ago and said it would hit many young people’s dreams of escaping oppression.”We don’t really have life here, and people want to escape to a country where we can breathe, we can walk, we can study,” she told AFP from Yangon.In Haiti, Pierre Esperance, a human rights activist in the capital Port-au-Prince, warned that following the decision, the impoverished and violence-hit country “will be further isolated.”The ban could yet face legal challenges, as have many of the drastic measures Trump has taken since his whirlwind return to office in January.- ‘Terrorists’ -Rumors of a new Trump travel ban had circulated following the fire attack on Jewish protesters in Colorado, with his administration vowing to pursue “terrorists” living in the United States on visas.US officials said suspect Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national according to court documents, was in the country illegally having overstayed a tourist visa, but that he had applied for asylum in September 2022.Trump gave specific reasons for each country facing travel restrictions — a list that notably did not include Egypt — insisting the move aimed to protect the United States from “foreign terrorists and other national security” threats.His proclamation said Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and war-torn Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Yemen lacked “competent” central authorities for processing passports and vetting.Iran, with which the United States is in negotiations on a possible nuclear deal, was included because it is a “state sponsor of terrorism,” the order said.For most of the other countries, Trump’s order cited an above-average likelihood that people would overstay their visas.dk-burs/gw/bjt/sla

Hamas’s lead negotiator said the group was ready to enter a new round of talks aimed at sealing a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, where rescuers said Israeli strikes killed at least 37 people on Thursday.Negotiator Khalil al-Hayya made the declaration in a speech marking the start of Eid al-Adha festivities, typically a joyous date on the Muslim calendar, but one many Gazans say they will not be able to celebrate this year amid crushing shortages.”We reaffirm that we are ready for a new, serious round of negotiations aimed at reaching a permanent ceasefire agreement,” Hayya said, adding the group was in contact with mediators.Talks aimed at brokering a new ceasefire have failed to yield a breakthrough since the last brief truce fell apart in March with the resumption of Israeli operations in Gaza.Israel and Hamas appeared close to an agreement late last month, but a deal proved elusive, with each side accusing the other of scuppering a US-backed proposal.- Stepped-up Gaza campaign -The Israeli military has recently stepped up its campaign in what it says is a renewed push to defeat Hamas, whose October 2023 attack sparked the war.Gaza civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir said that “37 people have been martyred in Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip” as of Thursday afternoon, reporting attacks up and down the length of the territory.The Israeli military did not immediately respond to an AFP request for comment.International calls for a negotiated ceasefire have grown in recent weeks, particularly as the humanitarian situation in the devastated Palestinian territory has worsened.The World Health Organization warned Thursday that Gaza’s “health system is collapsing”, pointing to the risks faced by the Nasser and Al-Amal medical facilities — the “last two functioning public hospitals in Khan Yunis”, where many displaced Gazans are sheltering.”What is happening in Gaza is not a war. It’s a genocide being carried out by a highly prepared army against women and children,” said Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has previously used the legal term to describe the conflict.French President Emmanuel Macron, who has declined to use the term himself, vowed at a joint appearance with Lula to “ramp up pressure in coordination with the Americans to obtain a ceasefire”.France is due later this month to co-host with Saudi Arabia a United Nations conference in New York on a two-state solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday warned Israel of “further concrete actions” over its Gaza offensive and restrictions on aid.- ‘Rejoice over flour’ -Israel has faced mounting international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, after it imposed a more than two-month blockade that led to widespread shortages of food and other essentials.On a normal Eid al-Adha, Gazans would be preparing for large family gatherings, traditionally centred around the sacrifice and eating of a sheep.But this year, “one kilo of meat has become a dream”, said Mohammed Othman, 36. “We just hope to find bread to feed our children on the day of Eid, and they will rejoice over flour as if it were meat.”Israel recently eased its aid blockade and has worked with the newly formed, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to implement a new distribution mechanism via a handful of centres in south and central Gaza.But since its inception, GHF has been a magnet for criticism from the UN and other members of the aid world — which only intensified following a recent string of deadly incidents near its facilities.The United Nations and other aid groups have declined to work with GHF, citing concerns it serves Israeli military goals.GHF shut down its distribution centres on Wednesday for what it called “reorganisation” to improve its work, but said it had reopened two of them on Thursday.The group said it had distributed more than 8.4 million meals’ worth of food since opening a little over a week ago.Gaza rescuers and eyewitnesses implicated Israeli troops in instances of deadly gunfire near a GHF centre in Rafah.Israel’s military has maintained it does not prevent Gazans from collecting aid, but army spokesperson Effie Defrin said after one such incident on Tuesday that soldiers had fired towards suspects who “were approaching in a way that endangered” the troops.He added that the incident was under investigation.- Hostage bodies recovered -During their October 2023 attack, militants abducted 251 hostages, 55 of whom remain in Gaza, including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the remains of two Israeli-Americans killed on October 7 — Judy Weinstein Haggai and Gad Haggai — had been recovered in “a special operation” in Gaza and returned to Israel.US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said their return was “a stark reminder of the enduring cruelty” faced by the families of hostages still in Gaza.Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.According to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, at least 4,402 people have been killed since Israel resumed its offensive on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 54,677, mostly civilians.

A series of Israeli air strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday night, after the military said it would target underground Hezbollah drone factories.Plumes of smoke were seen billowing from the Lebanese capital, shortly after huge numbers of people had fled the area, clogging the roads with traffic.Lebanese news agency ANI said it counted nearly a dozen strikes, including two which were “very violent”. AFP journalists in the city heard at least two strong detonations.”The IDF (military) is currently striking terror targets of the Hezbollah aerial unit,” the Israeli military said in a statement on Telegram.Less than two hours earlier, its Arabic-language spokesman Avichay Adraee had warned on social media that residents of the suburbs were “located near facilities belonging to the terrorist organisation Hezbollah” and should evacuate immediately.In a separate statement, the military had said it would “soon carry out a strike on underground UAV (drone) production infrastructure sites that were deliberately established in the heart of (the) civilian population” in Beirut.The United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon wrote on X that the strikes “generated renewed panic and fear”, and called for a “halt to any actions that could further undermine the cessation of hostilities”.”Established mechanisms and diplomatic instruments are at the disposal of all sides to address disputes or threats, and to prevent unnecessary and dangerous escalation,” it added. Lebanon’s President Joseph Aoun in a statement voiced “firm condemnation of the Israeli aggression” and “flagrant violation” of a November 27 ceasefire “on the eve of a sacred religious festival”, the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha.He said the strikes were “irrefutable proof of the aggressor’s refusal… of a just peace in our region”.Prime Minister Nawaf Salam also issued a statement condemning the strikes as a “flagrant violation of Lebanese sovereignty” and of a 2006 UN resolution.- Suspected drone production -One resident described grabbing her children and fleeing her home in the southern suburbs after receiving an ominous warning before the strikes.”I got a phone call from a stranger who said he was from the Israeli army,” said the woman, Violette, who declined to give her last name.Israel also issued an evacuation warning for the village of Ain Qana, located in southern Lebanon around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the Israeli border.The Israeli military then launched a strike on a building there that it alleged was a Hezbollah base, ANI reported.Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah engaged in more than a year of hostilities that began with the outbreak of the Gaza war and culminated in an intense Israeli bombing campaign and ground incursion into southern Lebanon.The November ceasefire sought to end the fighting — which left Hezbollah severely weakened — but Israel has continued to regularly carry out strikes in Lebanon’s south.Strikes targeting Beirut’s southern suburbs, considered a Hezbollah stronghold, have been rare, however.”Following Hezbollah’s extensive use of UAVs as a central component of its terrorist attacks on the state of Israel, the terrorist organisation is operating to increase production of UAVs for the next war,” the military statement said, calling the activities “a blatant violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon”.Under the truce, Hezbollah fighters were to withdraw north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometres from the border, and dismantle their military posts to the south.Israel was to pull all its troops from Lebanon, but it has kept them in five positions it deems “strategic” along the frontier.The Lebanese army has been deploying in the south and removing Hezbollah infrastructure there, with prime minister Salam saying Thursday that it had dismantled “more than 500 military positions and arms depots” in the area.

Wall Street closed lower Thursday as a spat between President Donald Trump and his billionaire former aide Elon Musk spilled into the public eye, but global markets were mixed while investors assessed trade talks between Washington and Beijing.Major US indexes fell, with shares in Musk’s electric vehicle company Tesla tanking more than 14 percent as …

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