Woman dies on bus near #Brazilian restaurant with 26 iPhones glued to her body

More Gazans die seeking aid and from hunger; burial shrouds in short supply.

CAIRO/GAZA - At least 40 Palestinians were killed by Israeli gunfire and airstrikes on Gaza on Monday, including 10 seeking aid, health authorities said, adding another five had died of starvation in what humanitarian agencies say may be an unfolding famine.

The 10 died in two separate incidents near aid sites belonging to the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in central and southern Gaza, local medics said. The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed trying to receive aid in the enclave since the GHF began operating in May 2025, most of them shot by Israeli forces operating near GHF sites.

The GHF said there were no incidents at or near their sites on Monday. Reuters was unable to verify where the incidents took place.

Bilal Thari, 40, was among mourners at Gaza City’s Al Shifa hospital on Monday who had gathered to collect the bodies of Palestinians killed a day earlier by Israeli fire as they sought aid, Gaza health officials said.

“Everyone who goes there, comes back either with a bag of flour or carried back (on a wooden stretcher) as a martyr, or injured. No one comes back safe,” Thari said.

At least 13 Palestinians were killed on Sunday while waiting for the arrival of UN aid trucks at the Zikim crossing on the Israeli border with the northern Gaza Strip, the officials said.

At the hospital, some bodies were wrapped in thick patterned blankets because white shrouds, which hold special significance in Islamic burials, were in short supply due to continued Israeli border restrictions and the mounting number of daily deaths, Palestinians said.

“We don’t want war, we want peace, we want this misery to end. We are out on the streets, we all are hungry, we are all in bad shape, women are out there on the streets, we have nothing available for us to live a normal life like all human beings, there’s no life,” Thari said.

There was no immediate comment by Israel on Sunday’s incident.

The Israeli military said in a statement to Reuters that it had not fired earlier on Monday in the vicinity of the aid distribution center in the southern Gaza Strip. It did not elaborate further.

Israel blames Hamas for the suffering in Gaza and says it is taking steps for more aid to reach its population, including pausing fighting for part of the day in some areas, allowing airdrops and announcing protected routes for aid convoys.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday he would convene his security cabinet this week to discuss how the military should proceed in Gaza to meet all his government’s war goals, which include defeating Hamas and releasing the hostages.
Deaths from hunger

Meanwhile, five more people died of starvation or malnutrition over the last 24 hours, Gaza’s health ministry said on Monday. The new deaths raised the toll of those dying from hunger to 180, including 93 children, since the war began.

UN agencies have said that airdrops of food are insufficient and that Israel must let in far more aid by land and quickly ease access to it.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, said that during the last week, over 23,000 tons of humanitarian aid in 1,200 trucks had entered Gaza but that hundreds of the trucks had yet to be driven to aid distribution hubs by UN and other international organizations.

Israel’s military later said 120 aid packages containing food had been dropped into Gaza “over the past few hours” by six different countries in collaboration with COGAT.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said on Sunday that more than 600 aid trucks had arrived since Israel eased restrictions in late July. However, witnesses and Hamas sources said many of those trucks have been looted by desperate displaced people and armed gangs.

Palestinian and UN officials said Gaza needs around 600 aid trucks to enter per day to meet the humanitarian requirements - the number Israel used to allow into Gaza before the war.

The Gaza war began when Hamas killed 1,200 people and took 251 hostage in an attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, according to Israeli figures. Israel’s offensive has since killed more than 60,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials who do not distinguish between fighters and non-combatants.

According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, only 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi and Mahmoud Issa; Additional reporting by Steve Scheer in Jerusalem; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Gareth Jones)

Nidal al-Mughrabi and Mahmoud Issa, Reuters

Research projects affected by US funding cuts will be first in line to benefit from additional funding announced by the Department of Health, says the SA Medical Research Council.

At least 175 people, including 93 children, have died of hunger in the Gaza Strip in recent months, Gaza’s health ministry said.

"Six deaths from hunger and malnutrition were reported during the past day," it said, adding that the overall number of such deaths "has reached 175, including 93 minors."

According to the ministry, the overall death toll from hostilities in Gaza since October 2023 has climbed to 60,430, with more than 148,000 people being wounded.

Humanitarian assistance from international humanitarian organizations and UN structures has not been reaching the Gaza Strip since March 2, Israel closed all checkpoints. Since May, Israel has been enforcing a new US-backed scheme to organize aid for Gaza residents, which transfers practically exclusive rights to establish distribution centers and provide food and essential goods to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). According to the plan, all international organizations involved in aid efforts, including UN agencies, are to operate solely through the GHF.

In March, #Israel resumed combat operations in the Gaza Strip, thus cutting short the ceasefire that had been in place in the enclave since January 2025. Several rounds of Qatar-, Egypt-, and US-mediated talks have failed to yield a new deal.

#Ukrainian #drone attack sparks massive fire at Russian oil depot near Sochi. More than 120 firefighters attempted to extinguish the blaze, sparked after debris from a downed drone struck a fuel tank, Krasnodar regional Gov. Veniamin Kondratyev said on Telegram. Videos on social media appeared to show huge pillars of smoke billowing above the oil depot.

Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, temporarily stopped flights at Sochi’s airport.

Further north, authorities in the Voronezh region reported that four people were wounded in another Ukrainian drone strike.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 93 Ukrainian drones over Russia and the Black Sea overnight into Sunday.

Meanwhile, in southern Ukraine, a Russian missile strike hit a residential area in the city of Mykolaiv, according to the State Emergency Services, wounding seven people.

The Ukrainian air force said Sunday Russia launched 76 drones and seven missiles against Ukraine. It said 60 drones and one missile were intercepted, but 16 others and six missiles hit targets across eight locations.

The reciprocal attacks came at the end of one of the deadliest weeks in Ukraine in recent months, after a Russian drone and missile attack on Thursday killed 31 people, including five children, and wounded over 150.

The continued attacks come after U.S. President Donald Trump gave on Tuesday Russian President Vladimir Putin a shorter deadline — Aug. 8 — for peace efforts to make progress.

Trump said Thursday that special envoy Steve Witkoff is heading to Russia to push Moscow to agree to a ceasefire in its war with Ukraine and has threatened new economic sanctions if progress is not made.

The Associated Press

Fresh clashes break out in #Syria as the interim government struggles to ease tensions.

In the north, government-affiliated fighters confronted Kurdish-led forces who control much of the region, while in the southern province of Sweida, they clashed with Druze armed groups.

The outbreaks come at a time when Syria’s interim authorities are trying to maintain a tense ceasefire in Sweida province after clashes with Druze factions last month, and to implement an agreement with the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces that would reintegrate large swaths of northeastern Syria with the rest of the country.

The Syrian government under interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has been struggling to consolidate control since he led a surprise insurgency that ousted former President Bashar Assad in December, ending the Assad family’s decades-long autocratic rule. Political opponents and ethnic and religious minorities have been suspicious of Sharaa’s de facto Islamist rule and cooperation with affiliated fighters that come from militant groups.

State state television said clashes between government forces and militias belonging to the Druze religious minority rocked the southern province of Sweida on Saturday after Druze factions attacked Syrian security forces, killing at least one member. The state-run Alikhbaria channel cited an anonymous security official who said the ceasefire has been broken. The Defense Ministry has not issued any formal statement.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said in addition to the member of the security forces killed, one Druze was killed and at least nine others were wounded in the clashes that took place in the in the western part of Sweida province. The Observatory said the clashes took place at the strategic Tal al-Hadeed heights that overlook Daraa province next door.
Difficult conditions in Sweida

State media says that aid convoys continue to enter Sweida city as a part of a tense truce after over a week of violent clashes in July between Druze militias and armed Bedouin clans backed by government forces. However, humanitarian conditions remain dire, and residents of Sweida have called for the road into the city to be fully opened, saying the aid that has come in is not enough.

The clashes that displaced tens of thousands of people came after months of tensions between Damascus and Sweida. The fighting led to a series of targeted sectarian attacks against the Druze minority, who are now skeptical of peaceful coexistence. Druze militias retaliated against Bedouin communities who largely lived in western areas of Sweida province, displacing many to neighboring Daraa.

Elsewhere, in the northern Aleppo province, government-affiliated fighters clashed with the SDF. The Defense Ministry said three civilians and four soldiers were wounded after the SDF launched a barrage of rockets near the city of Manbij “in an irresponsible way and for unknown reasons.”

SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami on the other hand said the group was responding to shelling by “undisciplined factions” within government forces on Deir Haffar, an eastern city in the same province.

The eastern part of Aleppo province straddles areas controlled by the government and by the SDF. Though the two are slowly trying to implement a ceasefire and agreement that would integrate the areas under Damascus, tensions remain.

“The Ministry of Defense’s attempts to distort facts and mislead public opinion do not contribute to security or stability,” Shami said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Israeli forces carry out raids bordering annexed Golan Heights

In Quneitra province, in the south, the Israeli military announced it conducted another ground operation in the area that borders the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. It said its troops questioned several suspects they accuse of involvement in weapons trafficking in the village of Hader, and raided four areas where they found weapons being trafficked.

Since Assad’s ouster, Israel has conducted numerous strikes and military operations in southern Syria, saying its forces are taking out militant groups that they suspect could harm Israelis and residents in the Golan Heights.

Damascus has been critical of Israel’s military activity, and the two sides have been trying to reach a security arrangement through U.S.-mediated talks. Syria has repeatedly said it does not intend to take military action against Israel.

Those talks intensified after Israel backed the Druze in Sweida during the earlier clashes. Israel struck military personnel near the southern city and most notably launched an airstrike targeting the Defense Ministry headquarters in the heart of Damascus.

Kareem Chehayeb, The Associated Press

#Whale dies after collision with small boat off New Jersey shore. Social media video of the collision in Barnegat Bay on Saturday afternoon shows the motor boat rocking after the impact and the 20-foot (six-metre) whale splashing near the craft before swimming away. The person thrown overboard manages to tread water next to the boat.

The whale was found dead after it came to rest on a sandbar in shallow water. Marine authorities were not able to get close to the whale due to tidal conditions, according to the Marine Mammal Stranding Center, a not-for-profit rescue, rehabilitation and release organization.

“At this point, we really don’t have much to go on,” Jay Pagel, stranding coordinator at the center, said Sunday. “The side of the animal that we were able to observe had no obvious marks on it that we could see. But again, our visibility was very limited.”

Pagel said there were reports the whale had injuries prior to the collision captured on video. He noted there was a second video posted online that appears to show the whale making contact with a pontoon boat after the initial collision.

The animal will be towed to a state park on Monday morning for a necropsy to determine the cause of death.

The Associated Press

U.S. Senate confirms former Fox News host Pirro as D.C. top federal prosecutor

#California man arrested for allegedly sending money to #ISIS.

The #FBI arrested on Friday a man in Long Beach, California, for allegedly sending money to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, a designated foreign terrorist organization, according to the Department of Justice.

Mark Lorenzo Villanueva, 28, a permanent U.S. resident originally from the Philippines, faces up to 20 years in federal prison for attempting to provide material support to ISIS, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Investigators said Villanueva was in communication with two individuals who identified themselves as ISIS fighters via social media earlier this year.

In those messages, Villanueva allegedly expressed his desire to support ISIS and offered to send money to aid the group’s activities.

“It’s an honor to fight and die for our faith. It’s the best way to go to heaven.” Villanueva allegedly wrote to the ISIS fighters. “Someday soon, I’ll be joining.”

Over a five-month period, Villanueva sent 12 payments totaling US$1,615 to two intermediaries who accessed the money overseas, according to Western Union records cited by the DOJ.

During his arrest, the FBI recovered what appeared to be a bomb from his bedroom, according to photos posted on the FBI’s Facebook and X accounts.

“Mr. Villanueva is alleged to have financially supported and pledged his allegiance to a terror group that targets the United States and our interests around the world,” said Patrick Grandy, the Acting Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office.

Earlier this year, a 19-year-old former member of the Michigan Army National Guard was arrested after he allegedly attempted to carry out a plan to conduct a mass shooting at a U.S. military base in Michigan on behalf of ISIS.

Ammar Abdulmajid-Mohamed Said was arrested on the scheduled day of the attack, after he visited an area near the military base and launched a drone in support of the attack plan, according to the Justice Department.

He allegedly planned to attack the Army’s Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, which is located in a Detroit suburb and manages the Army’s supply chain for tanks.

Prosecutors say he offered to help undercover law enforcement officers carry out the attack by training them to use firearms and make Molotov cocktails and by providing armour-piercing ammunitions and magazines for the attack.

Said was charged with attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and with distributing information related to a destructive device.

By Karina Tsui, CNN

#News: El Salvador opens path for Bukele to stay in power indefinitely. Why critics aren’t surprised.

Watchdogs and critics of the self-described “world’s coolest dictator” said they’ve seen this coming for years, watching Bukele’s administration slowly chip away at democratic institutions, attack opponents and consolidate power in the president’s hands.

Bukele, who regularly posts streams of tongue-in-cheek remarks on social media, remained notably silent Friday. His government didn’t respond to multiple requests for comment.

“It’s not surprising. But that doesn’t mean it’s not severe,” said Claudia Ortiz, one of the country’s few remaining opposition lawmakers. “The implication of this is more concentration of power, more risk of abuse of the rights of Salvadorans ... and the complete dismantling of all democratic checks and balances.”
Here’s what happened overnight in El Salvador

On Thursday night, Bukele’s New Ideas party and its allies approved changes to El Salvador’s constitution, which were jammed through Congress by the party’s supermajority.

The changes will:

1. Allow for indefinite presidential reelection, wiping out an existing ban on reelection that Bukele dodged last year when he sought reelection.

2. Extend presidential terms to six years from five.

3. Eliminate the second round of elections, where the two top vote-getters from the first round face off.

The vote passed with 57 in favour and three opposed.

Damian Merlo, a U.S. lobbyist and consultant hired by Bukele’s administration, defended the changes, noting that many European countries don’t have term limits, and said the move only gives Bukele the option of reelection, not an automatic extension of his mandate.

“It’s up to the people to decide who the leader will be,” Merlo said. “It’s been made very clear by the electorate they are very happy with the president and his political party — and this move represents the will of the people of El Salvador.”
Why watchdogs aren’t surprised

Ortiz, the opposition congresswoman, called the defense “absurd,” and said that Merlo was citing countries — Germany and France — with democratic systems of government answering to the countries’ parliaments. In El Salvador, power is now entirely concentrated in the hands of Bukele, she said.

Bukele, 44, was first elected president in 2019 after founding the New Ideas party, casting aside the country’s traditional parties thoroughly discredited by corruption and lack of results. Bukele’s highly controlled messaging of beating back the country’s gangs and rooting out corruption have gained traction in El Salvador, especially as homicide rates have sharply dropped.

But critics say many of the moves he has justified as tackling corruption and violence have actually whittled away at the country’s democracy.

Over the years, his attacks on opponents and critics have gradually escalated. In recent months, things have come to a head as Bukele has grown emboldened by his new alliance with U.S. President Donald Trump. A number of high profile arrests and a slew of other actions have forced more than 100 members of civil society — lawyers, activists and journalists — to flee their country as political exiles in the span of months.
A look back at some of the actions he’s taken:

2020: Bukele showed up to the country’s Legislative Assembly with armed soldiers to pressure lawmakers to approve one of his proposals.

2021: a newly elected legislature controlled by his party purged the country’s courts, including the Supreme Court. The lawmakers stacked the courts with loyalists.

2022: Bukele announced a “state of emergency” to beat back El Salvador’s gangs. The move suspended some constitutional rights, and has allowed the government to arrest 86,000 Salvadorans — more than one per cent of the country’s population — with little evidence. Detainees held in prisons have little access to due process. The government also passed an elections redistricting law that critics said would stack elections in favor of Bukele’s party, which was already very popular.

2023: Bukele opened a mega-prison for gangs, known as the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), where Venezuelan deportees from the U.S. were detained for months this year. The prison has been the source of accusations of mass human rights abuses.

2024: Bukele sought reelection, despite El Salvador’s constitution clearly blocking consecutive presidential terms. In an interview with The Associated Press, the country’s vice president denied last year that El Salvador had become a police state and refused to answer questions about whether he and Bukele would seek a third term. Following his landslide victory, Bukele railed against critics and press.
Intensifying his crackdown in 2025

This year, watchdogs have warned that Bukele has ramped up his crackdown on dissent, emboldened by his new alliance with Trump.
What critics saying:

In May, police violently repressed a peaceful protest near Bukele’s house asking the president for help in stopping the eviction of their rural community.

Shortly after, the government announced it was passing a “foreign agents” law, similar to those used by governments in Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Belarus to silence dissent by exerting pressure on organizations that rely on overseas funding.

Police have arrested a number of high profile critics. Among them was Ruth López, an anti-corruption lawyer for a top human rights organization. At a court appearance in June, a shackled López escorted by police shouted: “They’re not going to silence me, I want a public trial. ... I’m a political prisoner.” The government also arrested prominent constitutional lawyer Enrique Anaya after he called Bukele a “dictator” and a “despot” on live TV.

In July, López’s organization Cristosal announced it was evacuating all staff from El Salvador in the face of intensifying repression. It comes amid a flight of critics and other civil society leaders.

The recent constitutional reform has fueled a new wave of criticism by civil society in the Central American nation, with leaders saying that Bukele’s government has finally done away with one of its last democratic norms.

Roxana Cardona, a lawyer and spokeswoman for the Movement of Social Justice and Citizen Control, said “a democratic state has been transformed into an autocracy.” Cardona was among those to provide legal representation for Venezuelans detained in El Salvador and other Salvadoran youth accused of being gang members.

“Today, democracy has died. A technocracy has been born. Today, we live in a dictatorship,” she said.

Others, like human rights lawyer Jayme Magaña, said the idea of alternating power, crucial in a country that still has decades of civil war and dictatorships of the past simmering in its recent memory, has been broken. Magaña said she worried for the future.

“The more changes are made to the system of government, the more we see the state’s repression of the Salvadoran population intensifying,” she said.

——

Janetsky reported from Mexico City.