We, a group of women and activists in social, cultural, and political fields, have created this petition in support of Mahdieh Esfandiari.

Ms. Esfandiari is a dedicated social and civic iranian activist who has been detained in France for peacefully expressing her support for the people of Palestine and Gaza on social media. Her detention contradicts the fundamental principles of human rights, freedom of expression, and civil engagement, values that France has long claimed to uphold.

 Her detention contradicts the fundamental principles of human rights, freedom of expression, and civil engagement, values that France has long claimed to uphold.

We believe that:

Her detention lacks legal and legitimate grounds.

Continued imprisonment threatens her physical and mental well-being.

This action conflicts with the values of freedom, justice, and democracy.

Therefore, we urgently call on the French government and relevant judicial and security authorities to:

1. Release Mahdieh Esfandiari immediately and unconditionally.

2. Respect her human and civil rights.

3. Prevent any future violations of fundamental rights against peaceful activists.

We urge all citizens, human rights defenders, and international organizations to sign this petition and amplify their voice in support of justice.

Freedom for Mahdieh Esfandiari is a stand for justice and the right to advocate peaceful

More than 250 international media outlets across 70 countries staged a coordinated front-page protest to condemn the killing of over 200 journalists in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

The action demanded protection for Palestinian reporters and an end to Israeli impunity for crimes against the press.

“At the rate journalists are being killed in Gaza by the Israeli army, there will soon be no one left to keep you informed,” the director of the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) media freedom group, Thibaut Bruttin, said in a statement on Monday.

Those participating in the protest “demand an end to impunity for Israeli crimes against Gaza’s reporters, the emergency evacuation of reporters seeking to leave the Strip and that foreign press be granted independent access,” the RSF statement said.

The media group stated that it has filed four complaints at the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Israel for the war crimes the Israeli army has committed against journalists in Gaza.

RSF further indicated that in under 23 months, 220 journalists have been killed by the Israeli army in the besieged strip.

Gaza’s Government Media Office reports that 247 journalists have been killed since October 2023. The UN Human Rights Office cites the same figure.

The protest, also supported by the global campaign group Avaaz, appeared on the websites of news outlets including Al Jazeera, The Independent, French publications La Croix and L’Humanité, and German newspapers Tageszeitung and Frankfurter Rundschau, according to RSF.

The group additionally urged the international community to take decisive action and appealed to the UN Security Council to halt the Israeli army's violations against Palestinian journalists.

Monday’s protest came just a week after five journalists were killed in an Israeli strike on the Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza.

Among the victims were Al Jazeera photographer Mohammad Salama, Reuters photojournalist Hussam al-Masri, Mariam Abu Daqqa, who reported for several outlets including The Independent Arabic and the Associated Press, and journalist Moaz Abu Taha.

The Gaza Ministry of Health said the victims were killed on the hospital's fourth floor in a "double-tap strike" – one missile hitting first, followed moments later by a second as rescue crews rushed to the scene.

Earlier in August, an Israeli air strike killed six journalists, among them Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif. The journalists were sheltering in a tent reserved for media personnel outside Gaza City’s al-Shifa Hospital. Reports said that the Israeli strike was aimed specifically at al-Sharif.

As Israel continues to block foreign journalists from entering Gaza, Palestinian reporters remain the only direct sources of reporting from inside the conflict zone.

The Federation of News Agencies of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has also voiced its profound concern regarding the ongoing assassinations of Palestinian journalists by Israeli forces.

The federation underscored that the events occurring in Gaza represent a blatant infringement of international laws and standards, occurring alongside Israeli transgressions against press and media freedom, as well as its strategy of suppressing the truth, silencing dissent, obscuring its daily violations, and obstructing their dissemination to the global public.

The Israeli regime has killed at least 63,557 Palestinians, mainly women and children, in Gaza since October 7, 2023.

Press TV’s website

The Hamas resistance movement has hailed a resolution issued by the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), confirming that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.

Hamas said in a statement on Monday night that the resolution affirms that Israel has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including genocide, against the Palestinians in Gaza.

Hamas described the resolution as a new legal document, which has been added to previous international reports and testimonies documenting the Israeli genocide against the people of Gaza.

The group also condemned the international community’s failure to act against Israel and its war criminal prime minister, calling it a stain of shame and an unjustifiable failure to protect humanity.

Hamas urged the UN and all other relevant parties to take urgent steps to stop the crimes of genocide, displacement, and ethnic cleansing that Israeli forces are committing in Gaza, and to hold the regime’s terrorist leaders accountable.

Eighty-six percent of voting members of the 500-strong IAGS supported the resolution, which stated that “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide in article II of the United Nations convention for the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide (1948).”

The IAGS said the "deliberate destruction of agricultural fields, food warehouses, and bakeries and other violence that prevents food production, in conjunction with denial and restriction of humanitarian aid, indicate the intentional infliction of unlivable conditions resulting in starvation of Palestinians in Gaza."

This comes as Israel’s actions in Gaza have drawn condemnation from human rights groups and governments worldwide.

Last week, Palestine’s leading human rights group presented further evidence of genocide in Gaza, accusing Israel of seeking to annihilate Palestinians in the besieged strip.

In a 204-page report titled Voices of the Genocide, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) concluded that Israel had committed four of the five acts prohibited under the 1948 Genocide Convention, with the intent to destroy Palestinians in Gaza as a group.

PCHR has previously labeled Israel's conduct in Gaza as a genocide, but Thursday's report is the culmination of the organization’s documentation of genocidal evidence over the past 22 months.

At least 340 Palestinians, including 124 children, have died from malnutrition since Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The Israeli regime continues its campaign of destruction, with Gaza City bearing the brunt of intensified attacks in recent days.

Gaza’s Health Ministry said 13 more people, including three children, died in the past 24 hours as a result of Israel-induced famine, amid mounting warnings from international agencies that starvation is spreading rapidly across the besieged enclave.

In a statement released Tuesday, the ministry said the new figures raise Gaza’s hunger-related death toll to 361 since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its ongoing genocidal campaign.

Among the dead are at least 130 children, underscoring the devastating toll on the most vulnerable.

The ministry added that more than 43,000 children under the age of five are currently suffering from malnutrition, along with over 55,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women.

Two-thirds of pregnant women are experiencing anemia, marking the highest rate observed in recent years. “Mothers and newborns are the most at risk from malnutrition,” the ministry said.

According to the ministry, 83 of these deaths, including 15 children, have been recorded since August 22, the day when the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), a United Nations-backed monitoring system, officially declared that parts of Gaza were in a state of full-blown famine.

The IPC assessment found that 514,000 people, nearly one-quarter of Gaza’s total population, were already facing a famine.

That number is expected to rise to 641,000 by the end of September. The report further warned that famine conditions are likely to spread to Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis within weeks.

The starvation crisis has also sparked strong condemnation from academic circles. On Monday, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), a network of more than 500 experts, overwhelmingly approved a resolution declaring that Israel’s actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide under the 1948 UN Convention.

The resolution, which received 86% votes, urged Israel to end “starvation, deprivation of humanitarian aid, forced displacement and deliberate attacks on civilians.”

Melanie O’Brien, president of the IAGS and professor of international law at the University of Western Australia, stated, “This is a definitive statement from experts in the field of genocide studies that what is going on the ground in Gaza is genocide.”

The Palestinian resistance movement Hamas has called on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to take immediate action to halt the Israeli regime’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

Hamas said the regime’s actions in the besieged Palestinian territory constitute blatant war crimes and grave violations of international law.

Hamas made the appeal in a statement on Tuesday, following Israeli airstrikes that targeted two separate neighborhoods in Gaza, resulting in the tragic deaths of 21 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

The resistance group condemned these atrocities as revealing Israel's "criminal fascist character," saying they clearly constitute war crimes under international law.

Hamas also underscored the pressing need for the UNSC to intervene, halt the brutal genocide, and hold the perpetrators accountable.

Furthermore, it said the United States’ obstruction of international mechanisms meant to address these brutal violations only adds to the complicity in these crimes against humanity, a legacy that history will not forgive.

By Calla Mairead Walsh

After the first two to three days of a hunger strike, the body begins breaking down its own fat stores for energy, then its muscles, vital organs, and bone marrow, eating itself alive. By day ten, significant medical intervention is required.

As of September 1, 2025, 29-year-old British political prisoner Teuta Hoxha is on her 22nd day of hunger strike in HMP Peterborough, and she has yet to be hospitalized or receive adequate medical care.

Hoxha is one of 24 activists arrested in connection with Palestine Action’s raid on an Elbit Systems factory in Filton, Gloucestershire, in August last year. 

One of the 'Filton 24' detained indefinitely under the UK's "Terrorism Act" while awaiting trial next spring, Hoxha is accused of participating in the heroic dismantling of an Elbit Systems weapons factory, which reportedly caused the Israeli arms manufacturing giant €1 million in damages.

The 'Filton 24' have experienced what can only be described as torture at the hands of the state — violent raids, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement in special counter-terrorism units, revocation of basic rights.

Hoxha's 17-year-old sister said the prison's unfair treatment of her greatly intensified after the UK's illegitimate proscription of Palestine Action as a "terrorist" group.

Hoxha was moved from HMP Bronzefield to HMP Peterborough, a for-profit prison run by the private company Sodexo, on the day MPs voted for proscription.

At least 75 medical professionals recently sent a letter to National Health Service (NHS) England and the prison authorities, warning that she is at risk of cardiac arrest.

Hoxha's loved ones report that the prison is medically neglecting her as her physical and mental health quickly deteriorates — her hair is falling out, her skin is discolored, and her last check-up showed "dangerously low blood sugar, elevated ketone levels, low blood pressure, a high pulse rate, and low oxygen.

Supporters on the outside are organizing an urgent campaign to call and email the prison administration, demanding they give Hoxha electrolyte sachets and meet the demands of her strike: the reinstatement of her job in the prison library and the delivery of her mail that the prison administration is withholding from her.

As of 30 August, supporters reported that the pressure was working: all of Hoxha's demands had been met, except for written confirmation of the reinstatement of her job, so the strike continues.

A friend told The Observer on Hoxha's condition, “She looks a lot thinner...I think she now realizes that they actually don’t care whether she lives or dies, so she’s not going to give up until they respond to the demands.” As Irish hunger striker Dolours Price said, “He who blinks first is lost."

Hoxha is not alone, though. When 35-year-old Casey Goonan, the only political prisoner in the US of the 2024 student intifada, heard about Hoxha on 26 August, he decided to join her strike until her demands are met.

Casey's cellmate in Santa Rita Jail in Dublin, California, also joined. As a diabetic, refusing to take in food is especially risky for Casey, but they have organized successful collective hunger strikes in the past, and they believe that "solidarity is actions, not words."

To announce their strike, Goonan published a statement saying, "The Palestine solidarity movement in the West cannot abandon people like [Hoxha] who have risked their lives and continue to do so in resistance to this intolerable condition of genocide...Solidarity with T. Hoxha and all prisoners of the Palestine solidarity movement! RAZE THE WALLS! LIBERATE ALL PRISONERS OF SETTLER EMPIRE!"

Goonan is facing up to 20 years in federal prison with "terrorism enhancement" for allegedly burning police vehicles at the University of California, Berkeley.

Like the weaponization of counter-terrorism lawfare in the UK cases, this "terrorism enhancement" addition to Goonan’s charges gives the federal government far more room for abuse and draconian overreach in their sentencing and treatment.

Like Hoxha, Goonan has been repeatedly targeted for the political nature of his alleged crime and deliberately isolated from other inmates. Just this summer, he and others like him were retaliated against for filing a grievance, and had their phone calls, visitations, and commissary revoked for over a month.

Several times, the state has pushed back the date of Goonan's sentencing hearing, which was supposed to take place in April but is now set for September 23, 2025.

Meanwhile, every week, supporters gather outside HMP Peterborough to demand the freedom of the 'Filton 24'. CAGE International just shared a solidarity message from Mansoor Adayfi, a former Guantánamo prisoner who spent years on a hunger strike and faced brutal force-feeding to protest his imprisonment and torture, who is now using his platform to advocate for Hoxha.

However, most organizations in the West have fallen completely silent about the ongoing hunger strike, part of their tendency to abandon those facing repression.

As New York-based Palestinian activist Nerdeen Kiswani commented, "Teuta is now paying the price for real solidarity. And while many celebrate resistance in theory, too many turn their backs when activists like her face prison cells, repression, and starvation."

The prison is today and historically a key site of struggle, and the hunger strike is a key tactic there, as the Palestinian and Irish prisoner movements show us.

As Western governments' crackdown against anti-Zionist activism intensifies, the movement will have to fortify itself against repression and build support structures for the growing number of political prisoners, not only the 'Filton 24' and Goonan, but others facing heavy criminal charges in the US, such as Elias Rodriguez, Jakhi McCray, and Tarek Bazrouk as well.

To save Hoxha and Casey's lives, call and email HMP Peterborough to demand they meet all of Hoxha's demands. For the latest updates, instructions, and set of demands, go to instagram.com/prisoners4palestine and x.com/Workshops4Gaza.

Calla Mairead Walsh is an American journalist and human rights activist.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of Press TV.)

Press TV’s website

Massive crowds poured into Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, for the funeral of Prime Minister Ahmed Ghaleb al-Rahawi and several ministers martyred in an Israeli strike last week.

The ceremony, held on Monday in Al-Sabeen Square, drew mourners from across the country. Amid the grief, attendees voiced steadfast solidarity with the Palestinian people, who have endured nearly 23 months of Israel’s genocidal war, despite the ongoing Israeli attacks on Yemen itself.

Mourners chanted slogans such as “God is Great, Death to America, Death to Israel,” as Mohammed Miftah, the acting Prime Minister of Yemen, stressed that the assassination of al-Rahawi and other ministers won’t succeed in destabilizing the foundations of the Yemeni state, and vowed revenge as well as an internal security crackdown against spies.

“We are facing the strongest intelligence empire in the world, the one that targeted the government, the whole Zionist entity (comprising) the US administration, the Zionist entity, the Zionist Arabs and the spies inside Yemen,” Miftah told the mourners at the al-Saleh mosque in al-Sabeen square, Reuters reported.

On Thursday, Israeli airstrikes on the Yemeni capital claimed the lives of Prime Minister al-Rahawi of the National Government of Change and Construction, and 12 other senior officials.

The Israeli airstrike, which also left several senior ministers wounded, marks a significant escalation in Israel’s ongoing military aggression against Yemen.

The Sana'a government was holding a routine workshop to assess its activities over the past year when it was targeted by Israeli warplanes.

Since the onset of Israel’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip in October 2023, Yemen's forces have carried out scores of operations in support of the war-hit Gazans, striking targets throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, in addition to targeting Israeli ships or vessels heading towards ports in the occupied territories.

Israel launched a genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023, after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the regime's decades-long campaign of death and devastation against the Palestinians.

The regime’s bloody onslaught on Gaza has so far killed more than 63,500 Palestinians, mostly children and women.

Press TV’s website

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization member states, in a joint statement on Monday, “strongly” condemned the US-Israeli aggression against Iran.

The statement described the attacks in June, which targeted civilian infrastructure, including nuclear-energy facilities, and resulted in civilian casualties, as blatant violations of international law, the UN Charter, and Iran’s sovereignty.

The SCO member states said such actions pose serious threats to peace and stability, endangering international security on a regional and global scale.

They also stressed that the safety of nuclear facilities must be permanently guaranteed, even during armed conflicts, to safeguard populations and the environment.

They emphasized that the member states remained fully committed to their diplomatic efforts required in order to resolve international disputes through peaceful means.

UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015) on the Iran nuclear issue was cited in the statement as the framework for resolving the dispute, emphasizing the document is binding and must be implemented.

In the joint statement, the SCO member states dismissed unilateral or arbitrary interpretations of the UN resolution, warning that such attempts would undermine the authority of the world’s top international body and do irreparable damage to the reputation of the UNSC.

The leaders, who also condemned the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip as well as the efforts to revive Nazi ideology, called for the resumption of constructive dialogue between disputing sides, noting that the focus should be on diplomatic means for finding solutions to deescalate the global tensions.

They reiterated their determination to continue their joint efforts against terrorism, separatism, and extremism, censuring all forms of terrorism as unacceptable, and pointing out that exercising double standards in this regard would not be accepted.

The statement condemned all unilateral coercive means, including economic measures used to exert unwarranted pressure on countries.

The SCO summit, hosted by Chinese President Xi Jinping, opened in Tianjin on Monday with the participation of heads of state and delegations from across the world.

The summit, which comes as the US has launched a global trade war, aims to set a long-term vision for regional cooperation amid shifting global alliances and growing calls for a new multipolar order.

The summit will review the organization’s achievements and also adopt a 10-year development strategy.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is among the guests attending the two-day summit.

Before departing Tehran on Sunday, Pezeshkian said the SCO provides an opportunity to counter the US and European unilateralism in international affairs.

Pezeshkian described the SCO as a platform for strengthening cooperation towards multilateralism and counter unilateralism and authoritarianism where countries seek alternatives to US-led foreign policies affecting trade, security and conflicts.

Press TV’s website

President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran says the United States and Europe had better stop approaches based on confrontation and engage in diplomacy to find a “balanced and fair” solution to Tehran’s nuclear issue.

Pezeshkian made the remarks in an address to the Shanghai Plus Summit in China's port city of Tianjin on Monday, which was held after the 25th Meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Council of Heads of State.

Pointing to the acts of aggression by Israel and the United States against Iran in June, at a time that Washington was “hypocritically” engaging in negotiations with Tehran, he said the attack proved the military option was ineffective, and will be met with the heroic resistance of the Iranian people.

The president warned that Europe’s move to invoke the so-called snapback mechanism of sanctions on Iran “will only complicate the situation more and lead to further tensions.”

He called on the SCO and independent countries in the world to play an effective and responsible role in the face of unjust measures.

Pezeshkian once again reaffirmed the Islamic Republic’s constant readiness to find a diplomatic and peaceful solution to issues regarding its nuclear energy program.

Elsewhere in his address, the Iranian president urged the SCO, as one of the most important independent and justice-seeking bodies in the world, to take a more organized initiative that promotes global peace.

Pezeshkian placed a premium on the urgent need for the SCO to devise a comprehensive plan to address the longstanding conflicts in the West Asia region, particularly the massacre and starvation of innocent people in Gaza.

He cautioned that no plan for global peace and justice can succeed in the world without a just resolution to the Palestinian issue.

“Our solution has always been based on the participation of all original inhabitants of Palestine in a free election to realize the right to self-determination as the most fundamental principle of international law,” he said.

Pezeshkian noted that since the end of the Cold War, unilateral moves have hindered humanity's aspirations for lasting peace in the world.

However, he added, the establishment of the SCO has kept hopes alive for collaborative efforts among nations with cultural-civilizational diversity and different political, economic, and military situations.

“The experience of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization has shown that cooperation, especially among developing countries and emerging economies, can provide a practical response to global challenges, including economic inequalities, the pressures of sanctions, climate change, and transnational security crises,” the president said.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) has warned that more than 660,000 children have been deprived of schooling for a third consecutive year due to relentless Israeli genocidal war across the besieged Palestinian territory. 

“The war in Gaza is a war on children and it must stop. Children must be protected at all times,” UNRWA said in a recent statement.

The UN agency further cautioned that the besieged region’s youth are at risk of becoming a “lost generation.”

The Palestinian Education Ministry said around 700,000 students in the blockaded strip have seen their schooling suspended under incessant bombardment by the Israeli invading forces.

According to ministry data, more than 70,000 have remained unable to take high school exams for two consecutive years.

Israeli attacks since October 2023 have killed at least 17,000 school students and more than 1,200 university students in Gaza, while injuring tens of thousands more.

Nearly 1,000 education workers have been killed in Gaza, and thousands more injured or detained across the besieged strip. 

Also in the occupied West Bank, dozens of students have been killed, wounded, or detained by Israeli forces during the same period. The toll has extended to teachers and academic staff.