'This is an apartheid regime' Does Trump have real leverage over Netanyahu? At least three Palestinians have been killed and several others wounded after an Israeli drone struck a vehicle near Abu Khadra Mosque in the Rimal neighbourhood of western Gaza City, according to medical sources. Al Jazeera's Hind Khoudary, reporting from Gaza City, said the attack on Thursday was the first explosion in the area after a few "calm and quiet" days. What to know about Colombia's run-off election "Only one of the three victims has been identified: Abdul Jawad Abu Lebn [who] was set to get married next week. Wedding invitations were found inside the car."

'This is an apartheid regime' Does Trump have real leverage over Netanyahu? Young Palestinian women in Gaza are learning to use artificial intelligence to create short films and tell stories about their life during the war. Trump: 'Very strong' Iran deal is a'wall to a nuclear weapon'

The great German philosopher, who died in March, understood how much depended on a principled public sphere. Habermas emerged from the uncompromising Frankfurt School, but his work was considerably less fatalistic. You wake up and brace yourself for the barrage of toxic gibberish that constitutes the modern public sphere. Your e-mail is overrun with spam, scams, and smut. There are voice mails from no one about nothing. A glance at the news reveals that the President is continuing to spew lies and obscenities; that a trillionaire is peddling white-supremacist propaganda on a social-media platform he owns; that a chart-topping musical artist is praising Hitler, or apologizing for praising Hitler, or praising Hitler once again. Publications from the on down employ clickbait headlines that treat you like a starving rat in a Pavlovian experiment. A.I. systems simulate the experience of talking to an arrogant ten-year-old boy who knows far less than he thinks he does. When pressed, the chatbots admit that they cannot "naturally understand human morality, dignity, culture, or meaning." It all adds up to a continuous discursive tinnitus--a buzz of random, fake, stupid, sinister chatter that nobody wants and nobody can stop. The person who should have been best able to explain how we got here was the great German philosopher Jürgen Habermas, who illuminated how a feisty, principled public sphere is integral to democracy. But Habermas died in March, at the age of ninety-six, and, although he remained active until his final months, commenting on Ukraine, Gaza, and Eurobonds, he struggled to understand the turn history had taken. As a teen-ager in 1945, he had witnessed American soldiers enter his home town of Gummersbach, near Cologne, carrying messages of freedom and openness. Eight decades later, he watched American voters choose a leader who had advertised his fascistic bent in blood-and-soil rhetoric, fantasies of punitive violence, and a taste for bombastic architectural kitsch.

Fibre-optic drones have become Hezbollah's primary weapon against Israeli soldiers and civilians, along both sides of the Lebanese border, and are now seen as the biggest threat there, as fighting continues six weeks into a supposed ceasefire. One Israeli soldier was killed and two others injured in a drone attack near the Israeli border community of Shomera on Wednesday. Of the 11 Israeli soldiers and one civilian defence contractor killed since the ceasefire came into force, eight have been killed by fibre-optic drones. Most of the attacks have targeted Israeli forces, which are currently occupying a large area of southern Lebanon, but Hezbollah is also increasingly attacking Israeli communities across the border, according to the Alma Research Center, an Israeli think tank which monitors the conflict. It has recorded more than 100 drone attacks against communities inside Israel since the ceasefire began in April.

The US military has carried out new strikes on Iran, targeting a military site in Bandar Abbas, a strategic port city. US Central Command (Centcom) said its forces also shot down four Iranian one-way attack drones that posed a threat around the Strait of Hormuz. The site in Bandar Abbas was struck as it was about to launch a fifth drone, Centcom said. Iranian media reported that explosions were heard to the east of the city. The strikes come amid a fragile ceasefire between the US and Iran, and protracted negotiations to end the three-month war that has choked traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and shot up global energy prices.

The Israeli military has said it is carrying out air strikes on Hezbollah targets in Tyre in southern Lebanon, after ordering the evacuation of the entire city. The military told residents that it was compelled to act forcefully in Tyre because the Iran-backed armed group was violating a US-brokered ceasefire that began five weeks ago. Earlier on Wednesday, Lebanese media reported a wave of Israeli strikes across the south and the eastern Bekaa Valley, with four people killed in the towns of Choukine and Nabatieh. Hezbollah, which has itself accused Israel of breaching the ceasefire, said it was battling Israeli troops north of the Litani river, about 30km (19 miles) from the border. It came a day after Israel's prime minister announced an expansion of its ground operation following Hezbollah drone attacks on troops occupying part of southern Lebanon and on civilians in northern Israel.

'This is an apartheid regime' A mural of Barcelona player Lamine Yamal was painted on war-damaged buildings in Gaza after the teenager waved a Palestinian flag during the club's LaLiga title parade. The gesture sparked widespread reactions, including criticism from Israeli officials. Trump, Xi speak ahead of talks to make relations'better than ever'

Why is Israel still in southern Lebanon? A war to shape Lebanon's future'The world is sounding an alarm': Why big tech is the new colonist When investigations by Al Jazeera and other media outlets in 2024 revealed that Israeli-linked artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as Lavender and Gospel had helped generate thousands of military targets in Gaza, critics warned that warfare was entering a new era - one driven not only by soldiers and bombs, but by algorithms, data, and surveillance technology. Then, in September 2024, thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by members of Hezbollah exploded in coordinated attacks in Lebanon, widely attributed to Israeli intelligence operations that had turned ordinary communication devices into weapons. And, last year, reporting by Al Jazeera also raised concerns about the use of cloud and data infrastructure linked to major US technology companies in Israeli surveillance operations involving Palestinians. For a growing number of scholars, economists and political thinkers, such developments reflect more than just the changing nature of conflict.

'This is an apartheid regime' A Palestinian boy mourns his father, one of three people killed in an Israeli strike on a security post in Gaza. The attack is part of ongoing Israeli violence, despite a fragile ceasefire, which has killed at least 846 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Iran's president says he has spoken to the country's Supreme Leader

Activists sailed to Gaza to deliver aid, but were met with drone attacks and imprisonment. "All of this preparation, all of this work--it's actually come together and we're sailing east, finally," said Dane Hunter. Get your news from a source that's not owned and controlled by oligarchs. Last fall, hundreds of activists from all over the world crowded onto several dozen boats and set sail for Gaza. They thought that by sharing their journey through social media, they could capture the world's attention.