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The doctor who carried out the postmortems of the 15 paramedics and rescue workers who were killed by Israeli troops in Gaza in March has said they were mostly killed by gunshots to the head and torso, as well as injuries caused by explosives.
There was international outcry last month after it emerged that Israeli troops had launched a deadly attack on a group of paramedics from the Palestinian Red Crescent, civil defence and UN workers, as they carried out a rescue operation in southern Gaza.
Their bodies, along with the crushed vehicles, were buried in a sandy mass grave in Gaza by Israeli troops. After digging up the bodies days later, the UN claimed they had been executed “one by one”.
Israel’s military admitted carrying out the killings but was forced to change its version of events after evidence emerged that contradicted its account that the vehicles had been “moving suspiciously” without lights.
What did the autopsies find? Ahmed Dhair, the forensic pathologist in Gaza who carried out autopsies on 14 of the 15 victims, told the Guardian he had found “lacerations, entry wounds from bullets, and wounds resulting from explosive injuries. These were mostly concentrated in the torso area – the chest, abdomen, back, and head.”
What’s the latest with Israel’s aid blockade? Doctors Without Borders said yesterday that Gaza was becoming a “mass grave for Palestinians”. Aid supplies including food, fuel, water and medicine have been blocked by Israel from entering Gaza since 2 March.
What is Israel’s argument for it? The country’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said: “Israel’s policy is clear: no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population.”
US senator says El Salvador denied his request to meet Kilmar Ábrego García
Maryland’s Democratic senator Chris Van Hollen says the government of El Salvador has denied his request to visit Kilmar Ábrego García, his constituent who was wrongly deported to the Central American country last month.
Van Hollen traveled to El Salvador on Wednesday with the intention of meeting Ábrego García at the Terrorism Confinement Center, where US authorities have said that the Maryland resident is being held along with others deported on Donald Trump’s orders, but was told a face-to-face or telephone meeting was not possible.
What has Van Hollen said about it? “We have an unjust situation here. The Trump administration is lying about Ábrego García,” he said. “This is an unsustainable and unjust moment, and so it cannot continue this way.”
Police use stun gun on two people amid protests at Maga politician Marjorie Taylor Greene’s town hall
Police used a stun gun on two people and arrested three attenders at a town hall hosted by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene on Tuesday.
Protesters repeatedly interrupted Greene during a town hall in Acworth, Georgia. One man, Andrew Russell Nelms, began booing Greene almost as soon as she began speaking, according to the New York Times, and was dragged out of the room by police officers who used a stun gun on him.
Why did Greene face protests? At the event Greene mounted a defense of Donald Trump’s policies, touting his plans to cut taxes and downsize the federal government while parrying questions about safety-net programs such as Medicare and Medicaid.
In other news …
Burglars tunneled through a concrete wall to gain access to a Los Angeles jewelry store, police said, making off with at least $10m worth of stock.
Donald Trump called Harvard a “joke” on Wednesday and said it should lose all federal funding, including research contracts, after the prestigious university refused to accept outside political supervision.
Authorities released a report into the final hours of Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa, which showed searches on Arakawa’s computer for medical symptoms such as dizziness and nosebleeds.
Astronomers claim the strongest evidence yet that extraterrestrial life may be thriving beyond our solar system, from a planet 124 light years from Earth.
Stat of the day: Fed chair says Trump tariffs could make inflation worse, as Nasdaq falls 3% and S&P 500 drops 2%
The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, warned on Wednesday that Donald Trump’s tariffs were generating a “challenging scenario” for the central bank and were likely to worsen inflation. It came as US stocks fell further yesterday, with the S&P 500 index sliding 2% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq down 3%, with the chip designer Nvidia seeing a 7% drop amid tariff fears.
Don’t miss this: Live colossal squid captured on video in wild for first time ever
The colossal squid, the heaviest invertebrate in the world, has been filmed alive in the wild for the first time. Growing up to 23ft long and weighing up to half a ton, the baby squid (just 11.8in in length) was seen near the South Sandwich Islands. The search for the elusive giant squid was immortalized in a 2004 New Yorker profile by David Grann.
Climate check: The Mississippi tops list of most endangered rivers amid fears over Trump’s federal agency cuts
The Trump administration’s cuts to the federal climate disaster agency and deregulation of fossil fuels could prove catastrophic for America’s endangered rivers, threatening the food, water and livelihoods of millions, according to American Rivers. It said the Mississippi was most in danger. “When our rivers are sick, our own health and prosperity suffers,” the nonprofit’s president said.
Last Thing: Tennis player Lois Boisson pokes fun at Harriet Dart ‘deodorant’ incident
“@dove apparently need a collab🙏🏼🤣🤣”, the French tennis player Lois Boisson wrote on Instagram, with a photo of herself holding a stick of deodorant, poking fun at an incident in which Harriet Dart – who lost to Boisson on Tuesday – said to the court umpire in their match that Boisson “smells really bad”. Dart later apologized.
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