Human rights campaigners say honour for Avraham Zarbiv endorses ethnic cleansing and war crimes

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An extremist rabbi known for razing civilian homes in Gaza will light a torch at Israel’s independence day celebration on Tuesday, a role human rights campaigners said marked the embrace of genocide as the official “spirit of the nation”.

Avraham Zarbiv is one of 14 people chosen for their “extraordinary contribution to society and the state”, alongside a scientist, a Michelin-starred chef, a leading doctor, members of the security forces and entrepreneurs.

Civil rights group logs 300% yearly rise from before war and says ‘authoritarian repression … went into overdrive’

A civil rights group dedicated to the defense of pro-Palestinian speech said that requests for legal assistance linked to Palestine-related activism in the US continues to far surpass pre-2023 levels, having logged 300% more requests for support last year than in any year prior to Israel’s war in Gaza.

Palestine Legal logged some 1,131 requests in 2025. That was less than the record 2,184 requests it received in 2024, amid the peak of student protests and encampments, but well above its yearly average prior to the 7 October 2023 Hamas attacks and Israel’s response in Gaza.

Experts say attacks, also carried out by settlers, are leading girls to quit school and enter early marriages

Israeli soldiers and settlers are using gendered violence and sexual assault and harassment to force Palestinians from their homes in the occupied West Bank, human rights and legal experts say.

Palestinian women, men and children have reported attacks, forced nudity, invasive and painful body cavity searches, Israelis exposing their genitals, including to minors, and threats of sexual violence.

Stephen Heydt says he spoke in a custom-made T-shirt and was ‘charged with two offences: one for the shirt, one for the chanting’

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Stephen Heydt woke up on Saturday, put on a T-shirt, hobbled out the door with the aid of a walking stick and spoke at a rally in the middle of Brisbane – where he was promptly arrested by a large and heavily armed contingent of police.

For his choice of words and wardrobe, the 73-year-old Jewish clinical psychologist became one of the first people in Queensland charged under new laws designed to crack down on antisemitic hate speech.