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A Palestinian was shot, beaten and tied to an Israeli army jeep. The army says he posed no threat

Published

6 days ago

June 26, 2024

JENIN, West Bank (AP) — When Mujahid Abadi stepped outside to see if Israeli forces had entered his uncle’s neighborhood, he was shot in the arm and the foot. That was only the start of his ordeal. Hours later, beaten and bloodied, he found himself strapped to the searing hood of an Israeli military jeep driving down a road.

The army initially said Abadi was a suspected militant, but later acknowledged he had not posed a threat to Israeli forces and was caught in crossfire with militants.

Video showing the 24-year-old strapped to the jeep circulated on social media, sparking widespread condemnation, including from the United States. Many said it showed that Israeli soldiers were using him as a human shield — a charge Israel has frequently leveled at Hamas as it battles the group in Gaza.

The military said it was investigating the incident and that it did not reflect its values. But Palestinians saw it as yet another act of brutality in Israel’s crackdown on the occupied West Bank, where violence has surged since Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza.

Abadi, speaking to The Associated Press from a hospital bed on Tuesday, said he stepped outside his uncle’s house in the volatile West Bank city of Jenin on Saturday after he heard a commotion.

“I went outside to see what was happening, and looked towards the neighbors’ houses, where I saw the army,” he said. “When I tried to return to the house, heavy and indiscriminate gunfire was suddenly directed at me. My cousin who was near me was also hit.”

After he was shot in the arm, he hid behind his family’s car. Then he was shot again, in the foot. Unable to move, he called his father and told him he was about to die.

“I told him to try not to lose consciousness and to keep talking to me,” Raed Abadi said as he stood over his son’s hospital bed. “Suddenly, the call was disconnected.”

Raed later saw false reports on social media that a Palestinian had been killed in the raid. “I collapsed, because I was 90% sure it was my son,” he said.

Abadi was not dead, but his suffering had just begun.

After a couple of hours, Israeli soldiers found him. He says they struck his head and face and in the areas where he had been shot. Then they dragged him by his legs, lifted him by his hands and feet and threw him onto the hood of the military jeep.

“I screamed because of the heat,” he said. “Then, one of the soldiers started cursing at me and told me to be quiet.”

The military said its forces had tied Abadi to the hood of the jeep to transport him to paramedics.

But Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent rescue service, said the army had sealed off the area and prevented paramedics from tending to the wounded for at least an hour.

In dashboard camera footage obtained by the AP, the jeep to which Abadi was tied drove past at least two ambulances. Abadi said he was lashed to the jeep for about half an hour before soldiers untied him and released him to paramedics.

In Washington, D.C., State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the video was “shocking.”

“Civilians should never be used as human shields. The IDF should swiftly investigate what happened and hold people accountable,” he said, referring to the Israeli military.

Israel has long accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields because the militants operate in dense, residential neighborhoods in Gaza. It blames Hamas for the high death toll in Gaza, where local health officials say over 37,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, without specifying how many were civilians. The Hamas attack that ignited the war killed some 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians.

In the West Bank, Israeli forces have carried out near-nightly raids, often setting off gunbattles with militants, and over 550 Palestinians have been killed.

Rights groups say Israel itself has a long history of using Palestinians as human shields during military operations in both territories, which it captured in a 1967 war and which Palestinians want for their future state.

For decades, the military routinely ordered Palestinian civilians to remove suspicious objects from roads and to tell people to come out of their homes so the military could arrest them, a practice known as the “neighbor procedure,” according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

Israel’s Supreme Court ordered the military to stop using Palestinians as human shields in 2005, but rights groups have continued to document examples over the years. In 2021, Israeli soldiers operating in the West Bank held an AP photographer against his will in an area where Palestinians were hurling stones and the troops were firing tear gas and rubber bullets.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Gaza at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

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China’s BYD posts 21% jump in quarterly EV sales, closes gap with Tesla

Published

4 hours ago

July 2, 2024

worlddailyinfo

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s BYD (BYDDY) posted a 21% rise in second-quarter electric vehicle sales, closing the gap with Tesla (TSLA) after handing back the world’s top EV vendor title to the U.S. rival in the first quarter.

BYD sold 426,039 EVs in the April-June quarter, according to Reuters’ calculations based on its monthly sales reports. That’s around 12,000 vehicles fewer than Tesla’s vehicle deliveries estimated for the second quarter.

FILE PHOTO: BYD and Autotorino store in Milan — BYD and Autotorino store in Milan. (Reuters)

Tesla is expected to report a 6% drop in April-June quarter vehicle deliveries on Tuesday, the first time the U.S. firm is set to post two straight quarters of decline, as it deals with stiff competition in China and slow demand due to a lack of affordable new models.

The company may again cede its EV championship to BYD if the actual results turn out to be softer than estimated, with Barclays predicting an 11% drop in second-quarter deliveries, Tesla’s biggest ever.

Tesla has hit a speed bump after years of rapid growth that helped make it the world’s most valuable automaker. It warned in January that deliveries growth in 2024 would be “notably lower” as a boost from months-long price cuts wanes.

The EV maker has cut output of its best-selling Model Y electric car by a double-digit percentage number at its Shanghai plant since March to address weakening demand for its aged models in China, its second-largest market after the United States, Reuters reported in May.

By comparison, its top Chinese competitor BYD maintained steady growth in EV sales, while EV upstarts such as Nio reported stellar growth last quarter. NIO’s vehicle deliveries in the second quarter more than doubled to 57,300 units.

Price cuts and a growing shift in consumer demand to EVs and hybrids from gasoline-powered vehicles are the main reasons behind Chinese EV makers’ strong sales in recent months, said Cui Dongshu, secretary general, China Passenger Car Association (CPCA).

Sales of new energy vehicles including EVs and plug-in hybrids in China made up 46.7% of total car sales in May, a fresh monthly high, as per CPCA data.

(Reporting by Qiaoyi Li, Zhang Yan and Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Miyoung Kim and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)

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Biden slams SCOTUS presidential immunity ruling, ignores questions about dropping out

Published

8 hours ago

July 2, 2024

Stepheny Price

President Biden slammed the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity in Trump v. United States, saying it means there are virtually no limits on what a president can do, in a speedy address Monday evening.

The president spoke for less than five minutes – four minutes and 40 seconds to be exact – before turning his back to the press and walking away.

“This is a fundamentally new principle, and it’s a dangerous precedent, because the power of the office will no longer be constrained by the law, even including the Supreme Court of the United States,” Biden said.

The Supreme Court ruled that a former president has substantial immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office, but not for unofficial acts.

TRUMP IMMUNITY CASE: SUPREME COURT RULES EX-PRESIDENTS HAVE SUBSTANTIAL PROTECTION FROM PROSECUTION

Trump and Biden squared off in their high-stakes 2024 election debate rematch last week. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images, left, )

In a 6-3 decision, the Court sent the matter back down to a lower court, as the justices did not apply the ruling to whether or not former President Trump is immune from prosecution regarding actions related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Biden continued his address, saying that the American people must decide whether Donald Trump’s assault on democracy on January 6th makes him “unfit” for public office and the highest office in the land.

“The American people must decide if Trump’s embrace of violence to preserve his power is acceptable. Perhaps most importantly, the American people must decide if they want to entrust the presidency to Donald Trump once again. Now knowing, he’ll be even more emboldened to do whatever he pleases, whenever he wants to do it,” Biden said.

Biden also spoke about the character of the nation’s first president, George Washington, and how he believed power was limited, not absolute.

Biden wrapped his speech and dodged questions from reporters as he left abruptly.

Reporters shouted questions at Biden, asking him if he plans to drop out of the presidential race following his debate with Trump.

TRUMP TOUTS SUPREME COURT’S PRESIDENTIAL IMMUNITY RULING AS ‘BIG WIN FOR OUR CONSTITUTION AND FOR DEMOCRACY’

US President Joe Biden speaks during a Memorial Day address at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, US, on Monday, May 27, 2024. (Bonnie Cash/UPI/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Biden has not taken questions from the press and has used teleprompters at his events, including a fundraiser in the Hamptons, following his disastrous debate performance against Trump last week.

“Today’s Historic Decision by the Supreme Court should end all of Crooked Joe Biden’s Witch Hunts against me, including the New York Hoaxes – The Manhattan SCAM cooked up by Soros backed D.A., Alvin Bragg, Racist New York Attorney General Tish James’ shameless ATTACK on the amazing business that I have built, and the FAKE Bergdorf’s “case.” PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN!,” Trump wrote in a post on his social media site Truth Social.

BIDEN CAMP DISMISSES TRUMP IMMUNITY RULING: ‘DOESN’T CHANGE THE FACTS’

Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and argued he should be immune from prosecution from official acts done as president of the U.S. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

The former president was charged in August 2023 by Special Counsel Jack Smith with conspiring to overturn the results of his election loss to President Biden in the run-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Trump has denied doing anything wrong and has said this prosecution and three others are politically motivated to try to keep him from returning to the White House.

Trump shared his reaction to the Supreme Court’s ruling on his presidential immunity case, saying it’s a “big win for our constitution and democracy,” according to his Truth Social page.

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“THE SUPREME COURT DECISION IS A MUCH MORE POWERFUL ONE THAN SOME HAD EXPECTED IT TO BE. IT IS BRILLIANTLY WRITTEN AND WISE, AND CLEARS THE STENCH FROM THE BIDEN TRIALS AND HOAXES, ALL OF THEM, THAT HAVE BEEN USED AS AN UNFAIR ATTACK ON CROOKED JOE BIDEN’S POLITICAL OPPONENT, ME. MANY OF THESE FAKE CASES WILL NOW DISAPPEAR, OR WITHER INTO OBSCURITY. GOD BLESS AMERICA!” Trump posted.

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman and Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.

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Hurricane Beryl Flattens Grenada’s Carriacou Island

Published

11 hours ago

July 1, 2024

Emiliano Rodríguez Mega

Officials in Barbados said on Monday that the island had been spared the worst of Beryl.

The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, told a nationwide broadcast from the island’s emergency operations center that as many as 20 fishing boats, including two popular cruisers, had possibly sunk. Still, she added, “This could have been far worse for us.”

Roughly 40 homes were known to have sustained roof or structural damage so far, she said, though that number was expected to rise as more than 400 residents returned home from shelters.

On St. Lucia, storm surge caused significant damage to fishing vessels, sinking at least 20 boats, according to initial reports. Dozens of homes were also damaged.

People across the eastern Caribbean had started preparing for the storm over the weekend, including those doing some last-minute shopping for supplies.

“Hurricanes are not something that we take lightly at home as a family,” said Fleur Mathurin, who lives on St. Lucia, where some parts of the island were experiencing power outages. “Having my family, my grandmothers, great-grands, gone through Hurricane Allen and Gilbert, this is something that they always preach to us.”

As of Monday afternoon, the storm was expected to continue tearing its way through the Caribbean, reaching Jamaica with potential hurricane conditions by Wednesday according to the National Hurricane Center.

Julius Gittens contributed reporting from Christ Church, Barbados; Linda Straker from Gouyave, Grenada; Kenton X. Chance from Kingstown, St. Vincent; Sharefil Gaillard from Gros Islet, St. Lucia; and Maria Abi-Habib from Mexico City.

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