Human Rights Glance
Huda Abu Abed feared only long waits and Israeli checks when she was told she could return to Gaza after two years in Egypt.
The 57-year-old Palestinian heart patient expected delays at the Rafah crossing, but she never imagined being blindfolded, interrogated for hours, witnessing her daughter beaten, and having her belongings confiscated.
Abu Abed had been evacuated to Egypt during the genocide for urgent medical treatment, accompanied by her daughter.
She was among the first group of Palestinians contacted by the Palestinian embassy in Egypt to return on Monday, following the partial reopening of the Rafah crossing – the first since May 2024.
The crossing reopened under heavy Israeli restrictions and monitoring, limiting the number of people allowed to enter or exit, and subjecting returnees to physical searches at a checkpoint in Rafah.
Blindfolded, beaten, humiliated: How Israeli forces abused Palestinians returning to Gaza
At least 12 Palestinians killed and several hurt in Israeli airstrikes on Gaza
At least 12 Palestinians were killed and several more injured across the Gaza Strip on Sunday as the Israeli military said it carried out airstrikes in response to ceasefire violations by Hamas.
The Gaza civil defence agency said five people were killed and several others hurt when an airstrike targeted a tent sheltering displaced people in the northern city of Jabaliya.
According to the agency, which operates as a rescue force under Hamas authorities, five more people were killed and several injured in a separate early morning strike in the southern city of Khan Younis. It said one more person was killed after Israeli shelling in Gaza City, while one person was killed by Israeli gunfire in Beit Lahia.
Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesperson in Gaza, accused Israel of committing a new massacre against displaced Palestinians, calling it a serious breach of the ceasefire days before the first meeting of Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.
‘I was so scared’: US trial witnesses allege Alexander brothers worked together to rape women
In their time as real estate brokers, the Israeli-American Alexander brothers – twins Alon and Oren and older brother Tal – were known as “closers”, the salesmen who could a get a sale over finish line, often to wealthy hedge funders who were then making hay in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.
Their technique, one real estate expert explained outside the 26th floor of the federal court house in lower Manhattan last week, was based on the sense that the property salesmen “were just like their clients” – young, eager and successful. Kim Kardashian and then-husband Kanye West, Jared and Ivanka Trump were clients.
And like many, they were party animals. Nightclubs in Manhattan, the Hamptons, Miami, Aspen, Tulum and Ibiza were seasonal stops. Tal and Oren, 38, were profiled in the New York Times on “How Two Luxury Real Estate Agents Spend Their Sundays”. The Wall Street Journal followed on the family’s $31m sale of their Miami beach home. US Vogue featured Oren’s wedding to a Brazilian model.
But a far nastier picture of their high life has been on display in court for the past few weeks, where the three brothers are on trial for sex trafficking. Prosecutors have accused each of the three brothers of violent, forcible rape of at least 10 women each and in some cases of threatening them if they spoke of their experiences.
Chicago teen who called for father's release from ICE detention dies
Ofelia Giselle Torres Hidalgo, 16, died on Friday, Feb. 13, from stage 4 alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma, according to a statement from the family's spokesperson. Torres Hidalgo had been diagnosed with the rare and aggressive form of soft tissue cancer in December 2024.
The teenager was undergoing cancer treatment and had been home visiting her family for the weekend when her father, Ruben Torres Maldonado, was arrested in October 2025 at a Home Depot store in suburban Chicago, a GoFundMe page set up for the family states. He was detained during the Trump administration's "Operation Midway Blitz," a major immigration enforcement campaign that brought a surge of federal agents to the Chicago area.
Following his arrest, Torres Hidalgo posted a video on social media calling for his release. She described her father as a hardworking immigrant who cared for her younger brother while she stayed at the hospital for treatment.
Israeli settlers injure at least 54 Palestinians in West Bank attacks
Dozens of Palestinians have been injured as Israeli settlers carried out a wave of attacks across the occupied West Bank, destroying olive trees and vandalising property.
At least 54 Palestinians were wounded on Friday morning as settlers attacked several towns and villages under the protection of the Israeli military.
Settlers assaulted Palestinian farmers on their lands near Talfit, a village south of Nablus in the northern West Bank, and Israeli troops fired tear gas and live ammunition at residents who tried to repel the settler attack.
Images from the village showed homes with broken windows and vehicles with smashed windshields as a result of the attack.
Elsewhere in the West Bank, Israeli settlers also destroyed about 300 Palestinian olive trees near the Ramallah-area town of Turmus Aya, the Wafa news agency reported, citing local sources.
Trump administration ends temporary protected status for Yemeni nationals
US homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, announced the end of temporary protected status (TPS) for Yemen on Friday, the latest move by Donald Trump’s administration targeting immigrants.
The decision to end humanitarian protections that grant deportation relief and work permits to more than a thousand Yemenis in the US was taken after determining that it was against the US “national interest”, Noem claimed.
According to the National Immigration Forum, there are about 1,380 Yemeni nationals living and working in the US with TPS.
TPS provides relief to people already in the US if their home countries experience a natural disaster, armed conflict or other extraordinary events. The Trump administration has sought to end most enrollment in the program – and tried to strip the status from a string of countries, including Haiti, Somalia and Venezuela – saying it runs counter to US interests. However, many of these attempts have been challenged and blocked in federal court.
The designation will now officially terminate for Yemeni immigrants 60 days after the notice is published in the Federal Register. The status was last extended in 2024 and is set to expire on 3 March this year.
Venezuelan deportee can return to US but fears repeat of ordeal: ‘I’m not over that nightmare yet’
A US federal judge’s order that some of the Venezuelan men sent by the Trump administration to a notorious prison in El Salvador must be allowed to return to the United States to fight their cases has been greeted with hope and a sense of vindication – but also fear – by one of the deportees.
US district judge James Boasberg ruled on Thursday in Washington DC that the Trump administration should facilitate the return of deportees who are currently in countries outside Venezuela, saying they must be given the opportunity to seek the due process they were denied after being illegally expelled from the US last March.
Boasberg added that the US government should cover the travel costs of those who wish to come to the US to argue their immigration cases.
Luis Muñoz Pinto, 27, is one of the men affected and he spoke exclusively to the Guardian on Thursday by telephone from Bogotá, the capital of Colombia, where he has lived since being released from detention in El Salvador.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/14/venezuelan-illegally-deported-return-fears
“I would like to go back to the US to defend myself in court and prove that I am not a member of the Tren de Aragua [gang] – but what happens if they detain me and I have to live through another nightmare?” Muñoz Pinto said.
He has no criminal record in any country. He was an engineering student in Venezuela and fled in 2024 after being beaten by police while protesting against the dictatorship there, first to Colombia and then north. He had an appointment in the US to request asylum under the Biden administration but instead was arrested and accused of being a member of the dangerous Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua because he had some tattoos, despite no evidence being presented of actual gang connections.
More Articles...
Page 3 of 201
