A Palestinian mother filmed the panic and confusion, screaming for her son after she said an Israeli strike targeted their neighbour’s home as they were preparing to evacuate. Palestinians in Gaza City say Israel often gives only 15–30 minutes’ warning before striking buildings.
Doha, Qatar – Six coffins – five of them draped in Palestinian flags, one in a Qatari flag – were laid before the hundreds gathered for funeral prayers at Doha’s Imam Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab Mosque.
Sitting in the front row of the congregation on Thursday was Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. He was there to honour those killed in an Israeli attack this week that has shaken Qatar.
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Among those killed was Lance-Corporal Badr Saad Mohammed al-Humaidi al-Dosari, a 22-year-old member of the Internal Security Forces. In the crowd after the prayers, the emir comforted a young boy with tears rolling down his cheeks.
The sombre feeling at the funeral followed the shock of Tuesday’s attack, which targeted Hamas leaders as they were discussing a Gaza ceasefire proposal presented by the United States. The leaders survived the attack.
The attack took place on Tuesday afternoon in the city’s West Bay Lagoon area. Several blasts rang out across Doha, sending up a thick plume of smoke and uniting its residents in equal parts shock and horror. Though the nature of the incident was quickly apparent, Doha’s reputation for safety cast a shadow of doubt over whether it really could have been attacked.
Since gaining independence in 1971, the country has faced no conflicts that have escalated into direct military action on its territory. When Iran carried out its strike earlier this year, Qatar was more of a circumstantial participant – its role shaped largely by the presence of a major US military base.
Mohammed Asim, 40, who moved to Doha from Bangladesh with his wife and two children and works in the wholesale food trade, lives about a kilometre from the building that was hit and said he had never believed such a thing could happen in the city.
“I thought a house was being demolished, as the sounds of the explosions, which came one after the other, reminded me of that,” he told Al Jazeera. “It wasn’t until I saw the news that I realised.”
About 45 minutes after the strike, I arrived with my colleague, photojournalist Showkat Shafi, in the Diplomatic Area in West Bay near Doha’s coast, just as details were beginning to reach newsrooms worldwide. We parked the car a few blocks down from the site and walked about 500 metres until we arrived near the site. Before us stood a large crimson-walled compound, its facade torn open, ashen debris spilling through the wide gate, with wisps of smoke still curling from the courtyard where another strike had hit.
Two drones, one fibre optic and the other remote, hovered above the compound for hours, providing light after dusk, as emergency services dug through the rubble.
All entrances to the streets near the compound were cordoned off. Beside us were members of various branches of Qatar’s security services, civil defence teams and several ambulances on standby. As the night drew on, the police presence thinned, with families in nearby houses occasionally glancing out of their windows at the security forces and their glaring red and blue siren lights.
The building, situated in a residential area with three schools nearby, housed members of Hamas’s political bureau.
Qatar has promised to act in coordination with regional allies. In the days that followed the attack, regional leaders, crown princes, prime ministers, and ministers have visited Doha in a show of unity and solidarity, the most prominent among them the United Arab Emirates president, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and Pakistan’s leader, Shehbaz Sharif.
Even US President Donald Trump joined the chorus of solidarity with Qatar, saying that such an attack wouldn’t happen again, even if he did add that “eliminating” Hamas was a “worthy goal”.
But is that enough to reassure Qatar and its people?
Trump’s words haven’t provided much reassurance to Doha’s inhabitants, whose once peaceful abode is now caught directly in the crosshairs of Israel’s wars in the region, becoming one of six countries that Israel has attacked just this week.
Billboards carried short messages to help calm nerves. At West Bay’s City Centre Mall, one of Doha’s most popular malls, the Prophet Abraham’s famous prayer – “Our Lord, make this land secure” – was emblazoned on its walls.
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been convicted of attempting a coup in order to cling onto power following his loss in the country’s 2022 elections.
On Thursday, the populist ex-leader was found guilty by four out of five judges examining the case at Brazil’s Supreme Court, on all five counts he faced, making him the first Brazilian leader ever to be found guilty of an attempt to overturn an election. On house arrest in the lead-up to the verdict, he has now been sentenced to more than 27 years in prison.
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Bolsonaro, 70, has always denied the charges against him, but experts say a successful appeal is unlikely.
The landmark trial has set Latin America’s biggest economy on edge, with Bolsonaro’s tens of thousands of supporters denouncing the prosecution as a “witch-hunt” and calling for his release. Others, meanwhile, have rallied in support of the prosecution and have demanded Bolsonaro’s formal arrest.
Washington, DC, too, has kept a close eye on the trial, with President Donald Trump, a close ally of Bolsonaro, making it plain that he is deeply opposed to the prosecution. He cited his displeasure when announcing 50 percent trade tariffs for Brazil in July.
On Thursday, following the verdict, Trump told CNN that he had followed the trial and reiterated his support for Bolsonaro, whom he called “a good man”.
Earlier this week, the White House hinted it could use its “economic and military might” if Bolsonaro was handed a guilty verdict.
Here’s what we know about the verdict and what it could mean for United States-Brazil relations:
Bolsonaro was tried on the following charges:
He has now been found guilty of all five counts and sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison.
Four out of the five Supreme Court justices who heard the case supported a guilty verdict. The fifth had argued that the Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction to hear this case.
Hearings began on September 9 and concluded on Thursday this week when two final judges voted to convict Bolsonaro. A sentence was passed afterwards.
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who led the case, sided with prosecutors’ arguments that Bolsonaro had planned to assassinate President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, his Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and De Moraes himself, in an operation codenamed Operation Green and Yellow Dagger.
Investigators presented evidence that Bolsonaro had gathered cabinet and military officials to discuss an emergency decree that would have suspended the October 2022 election results and prompted an investigation of unproven electoral fraud claims, ultimately allowing Bolsonaro to stay in power after he had already lost to leftist leader Da Silva.
De Moraes found that those efforts constituted a coup and cast doubt on the country’s electoral system. He also found Bolsonaro had encouraged the violent protests that broke out on January 8, 2023.
Bolsonaro denied all the charges. The embattled politician, who has been under house arrest at his home in the capital, Brasilia, since August, was not in court during the trial.
Seven of Bolsonaro’s allies were also convicted on related charges of a coup attempt. Their sentences have not been announced, but the judges are expected to convene on Friday to clarify that, according to the local news site, UOL.
Bolsonaro’s lawyer, Celso Vilardi, said the defence team would try to lodge appeals of both the conviction and sentence before all the Supreme Court’s 11 justices.
The court’s press office, responding to reporters, confirmed that according to the court’s jurisprudence, the full court can accept an appeal if there are at least two dissenting votes in a ruling, according to reporting by The Associated Press news agency.
However, only one of the five judges, Justice Luiz Fux, disagreed with prosecutors in the trial and called for Bolsonaro’s acquittal. It is not known if the court will accept an appeal yet.
Al Jazeera’s Lucia Newman, reporting from the capital, Brasilia, on Thursday, said Bolsonaro’s supporters in Congress could also move to have the former president pardoned.
“(They) are already submitting an amnesty law, hopefully to get Bolsonaro off the hook so he won’t have to go to prison at all. Maybe house arrest, maybe no jail time at all. That’s still happening as I speak; it hasn’t (been concluded) yet,” she said.
The court panel now has up to 60 days to formally publish its ruling. After that, Bolsonaro’s lawyers have five days to file motions for clarification, which is a request for clearer language or better explanations of the ruling. That could provide some stalling time for the defence team.
However, once there is a firm sentence, Bolsonaro can go to prison. As ex-president, he will likely be granted special incarceration status and could be detained at the Federal Police’s main building in Brasilia, rather than in a regular prison, according to reporting by AP.
Reactions in Brazil were mixed after the final verdict was reached late in the day on Thursday.
Opponents of the ex-leader and supporters of the ruling Workers Party celebrated across the country. Meanwhile, hundreds of Bolsonaro’s supporters gathered in a vigil near the site of his house arrest to pray for him.
There were earlier fears of violent protests after Bolsonaro’s supporters had rallied in large numbers across the country throughout the week to support the ex-leader. Thousands in support of the trial also held counterprotests.
Trump and Bolsonaro are close allies, and the US president has long expressed his displeasure with the Brazilian government over the trial. He referred to the trial when announcing 50 percent trade tariffs for Brazil.
In July, he also posted on social media that Bolsonaro was “not guilty of anything, except having fought for THE PEOPLE” and told prosecutors to “LEAVE BOLSONARO ALONE!”
He praised Bolsonaro as a “strong leader” who “truly loved his country”.
President Lula fired back, saying “the defence of democracy in Brazil is a matter for Brazilians. We are a sovereign nation. We won’t accept interference or instruction from anyone. We have solid and independent institutions. No one is above the law. Especially those who attack freedom and the rule of law.”
Trump has also compared Bolsonaro’s prosecution to the legal cases he has faced between his own presidencies, including a prosecution for his alleged role in attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 US elections and inciting the riots and invasion of the US Capitol in DC on January 6, 2021 by his supporters.
Following the verdict against Bolsonaro on Thursday, Trump told reporters: “It’s very surprising that that could happen… I can only say this, I knew him as president of Brazil, and he was a good man.”
On Tuesday this week, White House Spokesperson Karoline Leavitt hinted that the US could react economically or even militarily if there was a guilty verdict.
Speaking at an event on Wednesday, Lula again responded. “We are a sovereign country and masters of our own nose. Brazil owes nothing to anyone when it comes to competence, resilience, and capacity,” he said.
In July, the US announced a 50 percent trading tariff for Brazil – even though it has a trading surplus with the Latin American country – citing the charges against Bolsonaro as politically motivated.
The high tariffs were “due in part to Brazil’s insidious attacks on Free Elections, and the fundamental Free Speech Rights of Americans”, Trump had said.
The US State Department also sanctioned Justice de Moraes, who led the Supreme Court panel for Bolsonaro’s trial, in July.
It accused De Moraes of suppressing freedom of expression and politicising prosecutions, including that of Bolsonaro. The judge, alongside his “allies” in the court, is now barred from obtaining a US visa. Any US property De Moraes might own will also be confiscated.
Some experts believe higher tariffs or sanctions, perhaps on government officials, could follow Bolsonaro’s guilty verdict.
Bolsonaro’s trial has soured relations between the leaders of the two countries.
Some Brazilian officials, including Lula, have denounced the US’s interference in the Bolsonaro case, and say the former leader should be tried for attempting to turn the US against his own country.
Lula, meanwhile, initially called for talks between the two nations. However, following the July tariff escalation by the US, the Brazilian president told reporters that there was “no point” in attempting to reason with Trump. The levies, Lula said, were imposed without conversation and done in an “authoritarian” manner.
On August 11, Brazil filed a request for dispute mediation to the World Trade Organization, complaining about the high tariffs. Brazil is also considering taking the Trump administration to a US court.
Separately, Lula has criticised US naval forces’ deployment in the Caribbean since August.
The US says its military forces are in the region to counter drug trafficking. However, the deployment comes as US threats against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whom US President Donald Trump’s administration has accused of being closely linked with drug trafficking groups, have ramped up. Some see the military buildup as a pretext to attack Venezuela.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has said his government will “carefully consider” the recommendations of an independent report which found that anti-Muslim incidents in the country have “skyrocketed” since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza.
During a media briefing at the Commonwealth Parliament Offices in Sydney on Friday, Albanese said targeting Australians based on their religious beliefs was an attack on the country’s core values.
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“Australians should be able to feel safe at home in any community … we must stamp out the hate, fear and prejudice that drives Islamophobia and division in our society,” he said.
Aftab Malik, who has been serving as the government’s special envoy to combat Islamophobia since last October, was appointed to the three-year role to recommend steps to prevent anti-Muslim hatred. The appointment came as Australia had been experiencing a surge in anti-Semitic and Islamophobic incidents since the start of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attacks on southern Israel.
The independent report, released on Friday and Malik’s first since assuming the position, said the normalisation of Islamophobia has become so widespread in Australia that many incidents are not even getting reported.
“The reality is that Islamophobia in Australia has been persistent, at times ignored and other times denied, but never fully addressed,” said Malik, appearing alongside Albanese.
“We have seen public abuse, graffiti … we have seen Muslim women and children targeted, not for what they have done, but for who they are and what they wear.”
The 60-page report’s 54 recommendations to the government include a review of counterterrorism laws and procedures to investigate potential discrimination.
Malik also recommended a wide-ranging inquiry into Islamophobia to investigate its main drivers and potential discrimination in government policies.
Islamophobia had intensified since the al-Qaeda attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001 and had become entrenched, said Malik.
Islamophobic incidents in person had skyrocketed by 150 percent — and by 250 percent online — since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza, Malik said.
The Australian government has acknowledged steep rises in both Islamophobic and anti-Semitic incidents in Australia.
Jillian Segal was appointed envoy to combat anti-Semitism in July 2024.
Segal recommended, in her first report two months ago, that Australian universities lose government funding unless they address attacks on Jewish students, and that potential migrants be screened for political affiliations.
According to the 2021 Australian Census, 3.2 percent of the Australian population is Muslim.
Israeli forces have sealed off entrances to Tulkarem in the northern occupied West Bank, further escalating a campaign of raids, arrests and collective punishment that has displaced thousands of Palestinians as the military relentlessly destroys Gaza.
Footage from Thursday night shared by residents showed soldiers marching Palestinians in lines through the streets in what many described as a humiliating show of force.
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Tulkarem Governor Abdullah Kamil appealed to the international community on Friday, urging the United Nations General Assembly, the Human Rights Council, and humanitarian groups to act against what he called “crimes” being committed against the city’s nearly 100,000 residents.
Kamil said Israeli forces were “arbitrarily and unjustly” carrying out mass arrests, storming homes, destroying property and “terrorising children and women”, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa.
On Thursday, Israeli forces in Tulkarem were allegedly struck by what Israel called an explosive device that injured two Israeli soldiers.
Al Jazeera’s Nida Ibrahim, reporting from Doha, described “videos of the Israeli forces dragging hundreds and hundreds of Palestinians from their homes, from their cafes, from even a garage … in a show of humiliation”.
“They’re trying to remind everyone that if there is any incident in any place in the occupied West Bank that they do not like … they’re going to crack down, not just on the perpetrators … but on everyone in that vicinity,” said Ibrahim.
She added that Israel’s crackdown has displaced “tens of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes … rendering the city, the refugee camps into ghost towns”. Ibrahim said Palestinians see this as part of a broader policy, with Israeli forces trying “to crack down on Palestinians and really … remind them who has the upper hand and control in the occupied West Bank”.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, five young Palestinians were shot and wounded by Israeli forces in the village of Deir Jarir, Wafa reported. One of the injured was arrested before receiving medical treatment, according to the village council. Israeli soldiers also closed the village entrance for several hours.
Israeli troops stormed Nablus and the nearby town of Beit Furik at dawn on Friday, raiding several neighbourhoods in the Old City and surrounding areas.
Witnesses said shops were ransacked, while in Beitin, east of Ramallah, Israeli soldiers seized a house and converted it into a military barracks.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the raids, saying international silence had emboldened Israel to press ahead with unilateral measures aimed at destabilising the territory.
The escalation comes as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu advances an illegal settlement expansion plan that would all but eliminate the possibility of a Palestinian state.
On Thursday, he signed an agreement to push forward with construction in the so-called E1 area near the illegal Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, several kilometres to the east of Jerusalem.
“We are going to fulfil our promise that there will be no Palestinian state. This place belongs to us,” Netanyahu declared at the signing ceremony, adding: “We are going to double the city’s population.”
The project, which has been driven by far-right ministers in the government, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir, covers a 12sq km (4.6sq mile) stretch of land and foresees 3,400 new homes for Israeli settlers. Critics say the plan would cut off large parts of the occupied West Bank from East Jerusalem while linking together major settlement blocs.
Saul “Canelo” Alvarez stands in the way of Terence Crawford’s bid for boxing history on Saturday when they clash in Las Vegas for Alvarez’s undisputed super middleweight world title.
Crawford, a four-division champion, is jumping up two weight divisions for the bout in a bid to become the first male boxer to become an undisputed champion in three different categories.
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Unbeaten with a record of 41-0 with 31 knockouts, Crawford previously claimed all four belts on offer at super lightweight and welterweight.
But the 37-year-old American will step into the ring at Allegiant Stadium, home of the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders, an underdog against Mexican great Alvarez.
Alvarez, who owns a record of 63-2-2 with 39 knockouts, is also a four-division champ and the only fighter to claim a four-belt undisputed title at super middleweight – first in 2021 and again in May when he beat IBF champion William Scull by a unanimous points decision in Riyadh.
Although Crawford is actually a hair taller than Alvarez with a longer reach, the Mexican superstar’s weight advantage is expected by many to be decisive, even though Crawford has visibly bulked up for the encounter.
The bout is being promoted by Saudi Arabia’s Riyadh Season, which inked Alvarez to a four-fight deal that made him the latest in a growing list of boxers to flock to the kingdom for mega-paydays.
Riyadh Season has teamed with UFC mastermind Dana White to promote the fight that will be streamed globally by Netflix.
“This fight for me is one of the biggest fights in my career,” Alvarez said at a Thursday night news conference attended by thousands of fans at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
After nearly four years without a knockout win, Alvarez said he is looking for a decisive victory.
“I’ll give it everything I have, and if the knockout comes, good,” he said. “If not, I’m going to show why I’m the best.”
Questions abound as to whether even a muscled-up Crawford will be able to hurt Alvarez.
The Mexican champion has looked a step slower in recent fights, but his counter-punching prowess could be dangerous if Crawford feels compelled to press the action.
Crawford said he wasn’t concerned.
“I’m feeling great,” he said. “I’m ready to go. Shock the world.”
Crawford has embraced his underdog status, making a point of calling out his critics throughout the build-up to the fight.
“I think people are underestimating everything about me,” he said. “From what everybody says, I haven’t fought anybody.
“It’s been a long time coming, it’s been long overdue,” added Crawford of the spotlight on him this week.
“And come Saturday, I’m going to show the world what they’ve been missing out on.”
Crawford is also ready for a pro-Alvarez crowd in Las Vegas the weekend before the Mexican Independence Day holiday on Tuesday.
One thing Crawford did not appear concerned about was the suggestion that popped up on social media this week that he is battling a shoulder injury.
He mocked the rumours when speaking to reporters.