Israel admits mistakes over medic killings in Gaza

Israel’s army has admitted its soldiers made mistakes over the killing of 15 emergency workers in southern Gaza on 23 March.

The convoy of Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS) ambulances, a UN car and a fire truck from Gaza’s Civil Defence came under fire near Rafah.

Israel originally claimed troops opened fire because the convoy approached “suspiciously” in darkness without headlights or flashing lights. It said movement of the vehicles had not been previously co-ordinated or agreed with the army.

Mobile phone footage, filmed by one of the paramedics who was killed, showed the vehicles did have lights on as they answered a call to help wounded people.

Thousands protest in Spain over nationwide housing crisis

Tens of thousands of Spaniards took to the streets in 40 cities across the country on Saturday to protest housing speculation.

“Housing should be a right, not a commodity for speculation,” protest organizers said.

“However, investment funds and landlords continue to accumulate profits while thousands of people are evicted, displaced from their neighborhoods, or forced to live in inhumane conditions.”

Media reports said around 150,000 protesters showed up in Madrid, while protest organizers claimed another 100,000 people turned out in Barcelona.

The organizers — a collection of tenants’ rights and left-leaning organizations — accuse the government of turning housing “into a business model.”

The protest, which took place under the motto, “Let’s End the Housing Business,” focused on Spain’s housing crisis, with organizers demanding forced rent reductions, expropriation and the creation of more social housing.

“Exhorbitant rents,” they write, “are the main cause of impoverishment of the working class and a barrier to accessing housing.” They accuse a small minority of property owners of “suffocating a large part of society.”

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Spain’s history of real estate speculation and its lack of completed affordable housing over the past decade have caused rents to double during that time.

Foreign ownership of properties and tourism have supercharged the problem. As tourism explodes across Spain, locals in Barcelona, Madrid, Malaga, Mallorca and Valencia have been priced out of the market by visitors and the real estate speculators catering to them.

Rents in Barcelona, for instance, have increased 60% in just the past five years. The city has now decided to phase-out all short-term apartment rental licenses by 2028.

Spaniards spending over 40% of income on rent alone Spain’s government estimates it needs to build at least 600,000 new apartments to get a handle on what it calls “a social emergency.” In 2024, 100,000 new homes were completed.

But organizers like Gonzalo Alvarez of the Tenants’ Syndicate (Sindicato de Inquilinas e Inquilinos) said “there is a lack of housing because homes are being hijacked — on the one hand tourist flats, and on the other hand all the empty flats belonging to vulture funds and the banks. So there’s no need to build more, it’s not necessary.”

Instances in which investors allow apartments to fall into disrepair to evict renters has become a common problem, meaning that many tenants are forced to live in squalid conditions because landlords refuse to maintain properties with an eye to increasing prices down the road.

Spain has an abundance of abanoned or unfinished homes that protesters say should be used to alleviate the country’s housing problemImage: Oscar Del Pozo/AFP/Getty Images Spain’s Central Bank recently reported that 40% of renters spend around 40% of their total income on housing. And despite salaries rising by 20% over the past 10 years, these have failed to keep pace with doubling rents. This has made housing the number one concern occupying Spanish voters.

Opponents of the protest movement see measures like the threat of rent strikes as hostile and escalatory, accusing organizers of being radical leftists opposed to the idea of private property ownership while masquerading under the guise of supporting housing equity.

Spain’s Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has imposed rent caps as well as proposing bans and/or so-called 100% supertaxes on foreign property ownership as a way to tackle the problem.

At a recent ribbon-cutting ceremony for social housing units in Sevilla, Sanchez said Spaniards, “want us to act, they want the housing market to operate according to the law of reason, of social justice: they want to insure that vulture funds and speculators are not doing whatever they like.”

On Saturday, tenants amplified their calls for slashing rents, the revamping of 3.8 million vacant homes, the banning of eviction companies and the establishment of eviction protections for those who have no alternative housing.

Thousands protest in Spain over nationwide housing crisis

Anti-Trump protesters gather in cities across the US

Crowds of protesters have gathered in cities across the US to denounce President Trump, in the largest nationwide show of opposition since the president took office in January.

The “Hands Off” protest planners aimed to hold rallies in 1,200 locations, including in all 50 US states. Thousands of people turned out in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington DC, among other cities, on Saturday.

Protesters cited grievances with Trump’s agenda ranging from social to economic issues.

Coming days after Trump’s announcement that the US would impose import tariffs on most countries around the world, gatherings were also held outside the US, including in London, Paris and Berlin.

In Boston, some protesters said they were motivated by immigration raids on US university students that have led to arrests and deportation proceedings.

Law student Katie Smith told BBC News that she was motivated by Turkish international student Rumeysa Ozturk, whose arrest near Boston-area Tufts University by masked US agents was caught on camera last month.

“You can stand up today or you can be taken later,” she said, adding: “I’m not usually a protest girlie.”

In London, protesters held signs reading, “WTAF America?”, “Stop hurting people” and “He’s an idiot”.

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They chanted “hands off Canada”, “hands off Greenland” and “hands off Ukraine”, referencing Trump’s changes to US foreign policy. Trump has repeatedly expressed interest in annexing Canada and Greenland. He also got into a public dispute with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and has struggled to negotiate a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.

In Washington DC, thousands of protesters gathered to watch speeches by Democratic lawmakers. Many remarks focused on the role played in Trump’s administration by wealthy donors – most notably Elon Musk, who has served as an advisor to the president and spearheaded an effort to dramatically cut spending and the federal workforce.

Florida Congressman Maxwell Frost denounced the “billionaire takeover of our government”.

“When you steal from the people, expect the people to rise up. At the ballot box and in the streets,” he shouted.

The protests come after a bruising week for the president and his allies. Republicans won a closely watched special Florida congressional election on Tuesday, but with slimmer margins than they had hoped. Wisconsin voters elected a Democratic judge to serve on the state supreme court, roundly rejecting a Musk-backed Republican candidate by almost 10 percentage points.

In both states, Democrats sought to tap into voter anger towards the Trump administration’s policies and Elon Musk’s influence.

Some polls show approval ratings for President Trump to be slipping slightly.

One Reuters/Ipsos poll released earlier this week found that his approval rating had dropped to 43%, its lowest point since Trump began his second term in January. When he was inaugurated on 20 January, his approval rating was 47%.

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The same poll found that 37% of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, while 30% approve of his strategy to address the cost of living in the US.

Another recent poll, from Harvard Caps/Harris, found that 49% of registered voters approve of Trump’s performance in office, down from 52% last month. The same poll, however, found that 54% of voters believe he is doing a better job than Joe Biden did as president.

One protester in Washington named Theresa told the BBC that she was there because “we’re losing our democratic rights”.

“I’m very concerned about the cuts they’re making to the federal government,” she said, adding that she is also concerned about retirement and education benefits.

Asked if she thought Trump was receiving the protesters’ message, she said: “Well, let’s see. [Trump has] been golfing just about every day.”

Trump held no public events on Saturday, and spent the day golfing at a resort he owns in Florida. He was scheduled to play golf again on Sunday.

The White House released a statement defending Trump’s positions, saying he would continue to protect programs such as Medicare and pointing to Democrats as the threat.

“President Trump’s position is clear: he will always protect Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid for eligible beneficiaries. Meanwhile, the Democrats’ stance is giving Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare benefits to illegal aliens, which will bankrupt these programs and crush American seniors.”

One of Trump’s top immigration advisors, Tom Homan, told Fox News on Saturday that protesters held a rally outside of his New York home, but that he was in Washington at the time.

“They can protest a vacant house all they want,” Homan said, adding that their presence “tied up” law enforcement and prevented officials from seeing to more important tasks.

“Protests and rallies, they don’t mean anything,” Homan continued.

“So go ahead and exercise your first amendment [free speech] rights. It’s not going to change the facts of the case.”

Anti-Trump protesters gather in cities across the US

BBC