PRESS REVIEW – Wednesday, June 24: Papers discuss the newest UN report that says Israel targeted and killed Palestinian children after the truce. Next: more than 40 people have drowned amid the heatwave in France. Also: France’s national team coach Didier Deschamps will skip an important game following the death of his mother. Finally, we take a look at the world’s loudest man.
A UN report released on Tuesday accuses Israel’s security forces of abuse and deliberate killings of Palestinian children, eight months after the Israel-Hamas truce in the Gaza Strip, The New York Times reports. The report concluded that the killings are a part of a wider strategy to destroy any future for Palestinians in Gaza, which amounts to genocide. The Gaza health ministry has estimated that more than 21,000 Palestinian children were killed during the Gaza war. Around 5,000 of them were under the age of five, and more than 1,000 were under the age of one. About 420 were newborns.
Right-wing Israeli paper The Jerusalem Post says the report has prompted a strong Israeli rebuttal. The article says “it is worth noting” that UN reports in general consider a “child” to be “every human being below the age of 18 years”. The paper spoke to IDF soldiers who say that at least 40 percent of those killed in Gaza were Hamas soldiers. It also asserts that Hamas “systemically used human shields”. The paper puts the word children in quotation marks and claims a “significant chunk” of them were Hamas fighters aged between 16 and 17. The paper insists they posed an equal danger to IDF troops as Hamas soldiers over 18 did. Meanwhile, left-wing Israeli paper Haaretz reports that the new head of Israel’s National Security Council called an urgent meeting on the issue of “encouraging the voluntary emigration” of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip. This comes despite the fact that no destination countries have been found and the idea hasn’t shown any practical progress so far.
We turn next to the heatwave in France. Le Parisien asks: “Why is the heatwave leading to a dramatic rise in fatal drownings?” In just a week, at least 40 people have died from drowning in France, according to PM Sébastien Lecornu. In another article, the paper reports that the body of a professional Ligue 2 football player was pulled from the Rhône River in a brain-dead state. He was swimming in a restricted zone near Lyon. French daily Le Monde tells the story of those who live under roofs where the temperatures reach 40°C, making homes unliveable. The paper interviewed Matthieu, a teacher who says that heatwaves usually hit during the summer break, when he is not teaching. Now he has to go through a whole day of work, having slept only a few hours. For Le Figaro, the extreme heat puts an end to a political taboo in France: air conditioning. The right-wing paper says that all political parties – including the Green ones – are being forced to “face reality” and acknowledge the need for air conditioning. Libération reports that the heatwave has given the French film industry a boost: since mid-June, there has been a 43 percent increase in cinema attendance.
Next, France head coach Didier Deschamps’ mother died on Tuesday. Le Monde reports that he is going to miss France’s final World Cup group stage game against Norway on Friday. He is going back to France for his mother’s funeral. M6 shows a video of the French national team observing a minute of silence in her memory.
Finally, Canberra has a new Guinness World Record holder. The Associated Press reports that Joseph McGrail-Bateup, a professional air conditioning cleaner and an honorary town crier, has won the Guinness World Record for the world’s loudest person. He managed to yell the word “now” at 122.4 decibels – the loudest ever shout by an individual. To put it in perspective, this is the noise range of a chainsaw or an ambulance siren at close range.
You can catch our press review every morning on FRANCE 24 at 7:20am and 9:20am (Paris time), from Monday to Friday.
