The Ukrainian military agency said the plane was among ‘a countable few’ of its type in Moscow’s arsenal.
Ukrainian forces have struck a latest-generation Russian Sukhoi Su-57 fighter jet at an airbase inside Russia, Kyiv’s GUR defence intelligence agency said, sharing satellite pictures which it said confirmed the attack.
In a Telegram post on Sunday, the GUR did not specify how the Su-57 was hit or by which unit of the Ukrainian military, the first such attack.
In one photo, black soot marks and small craters could be seen dotting a concrete strip around the parked aircraft.
A popular Russian pro-war military blogger, who calls himself Fighterbomber and focuses on aviation, said the report of the strike on the Su-57 was correct and that it had been hit by a drone.
The GUR said the aircraft was parked at the Akhtubinsk airfield, which it said was 589km (366 miles) from the front lines in Ukraine.
“The pictures show that on June 7, the Su-57 was standing intact, and on [June 8th], there were craters from the explosion and characteristic spots of fire caused by fire damage near it,” the GUR said, posting the images alongside the message.
The Ukrainian military agency said the plane, which is capable of carrying stealth missiles across hundreds of kilometres, was among “a countable few” of its type in Moscow’s arsenal. According to reports by Russian agencies, “more than 10” new Su-57s were added to Moscow’s fleet last year, and a total of 76 have been ordered for delivery by 2028.
First Su-57 combat loss?
Ukraine has been fighting against a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022.
Ukraine, which lacks the vast arsenal of missiles available to Moscow, has focused on making long-range drones to strike targets deep inside Russia.
Russian blogger Fighterbomber said the jet fighter was struck by shrapnel and the damage was currently being assessed to see if the aircraft could be repaired.
He said if the plane were to be deemed beyond repair it would be the first combat loss of a Su-57.
Russia’s military bloggers like Fighterbomber are often seen as sources of information on military losses in the absence of an official Kremlin comment. Russia’s Ministry of Defence and senior political figures did not comment on the claimed attack on Sunday.
Despite being touted as a Russian fifth-generation fighter aircraft to rival its US equivalent, the Su-57 was plagued by development delays and a crash in 2019. According to its manufacturer, serial production of the aircraft began in 2022.
It is a heavy fighter jet capable of fulfilling a variety of battlefield roles.
Far-right AfD are set to finish in second place in Germany’s European Union parliamentary election, according to projections from public broadcaster ARD.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is on track to take second place in Sunday’s EU election, according to projections from public broadcaster ARD, underscoring the party’s resilience ahead of next year’s federal election.
The Eurosceptic party was set to secure a record 16.5 percent of the vote on Sunday, according to an exit poll published by ARD.
That was 5.5 percentage points more than in the last European Union election in 2019, and more than all three parties in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s coalition.
The conservatives, who are in opposition at the federal level, have been forecast to come first, rising slightly to 29.5 percent.
Germany’s Greens were the biggest losers on Sunday, falling 8.5 percentage points to 12 percent, punished by voters for the cost of policies to reduce CO2 emissions – in line with expectations for environmental parties across Europe.
Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the third coalition partner, the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP), also fared poorly, expected to win 14 percent and 5 percent of the vote respectively, down from 15.8 percent and 5.4 percent in the previous election.
The results are in line with an expected broader shift rightwards for the European Parliament across the bloc of 450 million citizens.
The strong showing comes as Germany’s party landscape undergoes its biggest upheaval in decades, with new populist parties vying to take space vacated by the shrinking mainstream parties that have dominated since reunification in 1990.
This looks set to make it much harder for established parties to form workable coalitions, and is coarsening the political climate, say analysts. The campaign was overshadowed by a surge in violence against politicians and activists.
The AfD was plagued by scandals in recent months, with its lead candidate having to step back from campaigning in May after declaring that the SS, the Nazis’ main paramilitary force, were “not all criminals”.
“We’ve done well because people have become more anti-European,” the AfD’s co-leader Alice Weidel said on Sunday.
“People are annoyed by so much bureaucracy from Brussels,” she added, giving a plan ultimately to ban CO2-emitting cars as an example.
Besides Germany, projected results from France put Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally around 33 percent, with 31 seats in the incoming European Parliament – more than double the score of President Emmanuel Macron’s liberals, at 15 percent.
Reporting from Berlin, Al Jazeera’s Step Vaessen said that the Eurosceptic parties appeared set to form a large bloc in the next European Parliament.
“With this very large bloc of far-right parties, there can be an influence on climate policies, for example … Also, [the EU’s] agriculture policies … and migration policies, which is a very important issue here in Germany and in the Netherlands,” she said.
However, Vaessen noted that the far-right parties are not united.
“They have a lot of divisions among themselves, and they have been trying to reach out to each other. We’ve seen [France’s] Marine Le Pen, for example, reaching out to [Prime Minister] Giorgia Meloni in Italy,” she said.
“But after tonight, we will have to see how these groups will be formed and what kind of influence they will have.”
Announcement comes after exit polls showed his alliance losing to far-right National Rally (RN) in EU parliament vote.
French President Emmanuel Macron has announced he will dissolve parliament and call new legislative elections after exit polls showed his alliance suffered a heavy defeat in European elections to Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) party.
Macron said the European Parliament results on Sunday were grim for his government, and ones he could not pretend to ignore. In an address to the nation, he said lower house elections would be called for June 30, with a second-round vote on July 7.
“This is an essential time for clarification,” Macron said. “I have heard your message, your concerns and I will not leave them unanswered … France needs a clear majority to act in serenity and harmony.”
“Far-right parties… are progressing everywhere in the continent. It is a situation to which I cannot resign myself,” he said.
Le Pen’s National Rally, led by 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, won around 32 percent of the vote, more than double the Macron ticket’s 15 percent, according to the first exit polls. The Socialists came within a whisker of Macron, with 14 percent.
Le Pen’s strong showing, notching a 10-point increase on the last European Union election in 2019, will weaken Macron’s hold on power three years before the end of his final term. It could also prompt high-level defections from his centrist camp as the succession battle to replace him heats up.
“We are ready to take over power if the French give us their trust in the upcoming national elections,” Le Pen said at a rally shortly after Macron’s shock announcement.
Le Pen and Bardella sought to frame the EU election as a mid-term referendum on Macron’s mandate, tapping into discontent with immigration, crime and a two-year inflation crisis.
The European elections also mark a critical moment in France as Macron cannot stand again as president in 2027 and RN figurehead Le Pen fancies she has her best-ever chance of winning the Elysee Palace.
Jaques Reland, from the Global Policy Institute told Al Jazeera that the situation in France “is a rampant mess.”
“It’s a risky gamble”, he said, commenting on Macron’s decision.
“The European election was used a way for the French to vent…to say they are not satisfied on issues like immigration, cuts in unemployment benefits,” he said.
“But they recognise one thing about him [Macron] that on the international level, he puts across a good image of France and Europe.”
Carlos Alcaraz’s third grand slam title maintains his perfect record in major finals.
Carlos Alcaraz fought back to defeat Alexander Zverev in a five-set French Open final and become the youngest man to win Grand Slam titles on all three surfaces.
The 21-year-old battled cramps to recover from 2-1 down in sets on Sunday and win a gripping contest 6-3, 2-6, 5-7, 6-1, 6-2 after four hours and 19 minutes on Court Philippe Chatrier.
Alcaraz adds the Roland Garros crown to the Wimbledon title he won against Novak Djokovic last year and the 2022 US Open.
He will head to the Australian Open next year with the chance to become the youngest man to complete the career Grand Slam.
Fourth-seed Zverev, who settled a court case in Germany two days ago over domestic abuse allegations, is still waiting for a maiden major title.
He had also lost his only previous Slam final in five sets, when he blew a two-set lead against Dominic Thiem at the 2020 US Open.
Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz poses with the trophy after winning the men’s singles final alongside the runner-up, Germany’s Alexander Zverev [Stephanie Lecocq/Reuters]
Zverev had high hopes of finally getting over the line – he has also lost six Slam semifinals – but Alcaraz was too strong in the key moments as he levelled their head-to-head record at 5-5.
Alcaraz said before the final that he wanted to join the list of men’s players from his country, including his idol Rafael Nadal, to win the Roland Garros title, and he celebrated becoming the eighth Spanish champion by falling to the clay with his head in his hands in disbelief.
The UEFA European Championship 2024 will begin on June 14 with 24 teams competing for the right to be crowned champions of Europe.
Ahead of the month-long tournament, Al Jazeera takes a look at some of the high-profile players who are missing from the showpiece event in Germany.
Norway’s messy qualification leaves top duo stranded outside Euros
Arsenal captain Martin Odegaard narrowly missed out on winning the 2023-24 Premier League trophy, which was coincidentally lifted on the final day of the season by his good friend Erling Haaland’s Manchester City for a record fourth time in a row.
While Odegaard and Haaland enjoyed hugely impressive individual performances in the Premier League – and are beloved by their clubs and country – both will be forced to sit out the European summer after their nation, Norway, stunningly failed to qualify for Euro 2024.
Norway, who have not played in a major football tournament since 2000, and who, despite being stacked with these two superstar players, finished a disappointing third in their group in the qualifying phase behind Spain and Scotland, failed to secure an automatic berth. Later, their playoff hopes were extinguished as well.
Even a thumping six-goal haul by Haaland during the Euro 2024 qualifiers was not enough to earn Norway passage to the tournament, while Odegaard’s two-goal contribution from the midfield was evidently not enough to get his team over the hump.
With a talented squad also featuring Fredrik Aursnes, Oscar Bobb and Julian Ryerson, it’s fair to say that Norway is the biggest shock omission from the Euro 2024 tournament, and a huge disappointment for the millions of fans who follow this talented pair.
Norway’s Erling Haaland celebrates a goal in happier times with Martin Odegaard [Christine Olsson/Reuters]
Manchester United duo miss England call after poor season
Misfiring forward Marcus Rashford was left out of Gareth Southgate’s provisional squad for the Euros, just a year and a half after his dynamic outing at the World Cup in Qatar.
The 26-year-old suffered a loss in form in 2023-24, registering a paltry eight goals in 43 games in all competitions – a huge drop from the 30 goals he scored in the previous season.
Rashford’s omission from the national football squad was undoubtedly the biggest shock to English fans, as he had been a familiar presence in Southgate’s squad for years.
Rashford was not the only player in Manchester United’s underachieving 2023-24 side who failed to make the England Euros squad.
Jadon Sancho’s difficult spell at Old Trafford in the first half of the season proved to be a deciding factor as Southgate left him out, too.
The star winger found his form on his return to Borussia Dortmund on a loan move in January, helping the German club earn a place in the Champions League final, but it came too late to get Sancho back in the Three Lions squad for Euro 2024.
England’s Jadon Sancho (L) and Marcus Rashford won’t get a chance to avenge their Euro 2020 final loss to Italy at Wembley [Carl Recine/Reuters]
Pogba leaves a huge hole in France’s midfield
With his flashy, once-in-a-generation displays in midfield, the technically gifted Paul Pogba played a major role in France’s World Cup victory in 2018 but was forced to miss the 2022 edition in Qatar due to injuries.
Despite returning to fitness this season, Pogba will not play in the upcoming Euros after the Juventus midfielder was handed a four-year doping ban for testing positive for a banned drug.
The ban, which runs until September 2027, also puts the French superstar out of the next World Cup in 2026, effectively ruling out Pogba from the national team until he is in the twilight of his career at age 34.
Pogba’s absence in the midfield will be a huge blow for France, especially given his proven track record with the national team at major tournaments.
In Pogba’s absence, Eduardo Camavinga and Aurelien Tchouameni will try to fill the huge talent void in the French midfield.
France’s hopes of Euro 2024 glory were severely dented when Paul Pogba was handed a four-year doping ban [Daniele Mascolo/Reuters]
Austria’s Alaba will be at the Euros – but not on the field
Austria’s David Alaba was left out of coach Ralf Rangnick’s provisional squad due to an injury – but there was an unexpected twist to this story.
In an unusual decision, the defender will still be on the plane with the rest of the Austrian team to Germany and will play a role at Euro 2024.
Alaba, who played in two of Austria’s previous Euros appearances in 2016 and 2020, has been named a “nonplaying captain” by the national football federation after the 31-year-old stressed he wanted to be with the team at the tournament.
After a discussion with his club Real Madrid, Rangnick confirmed Alaba will travel with the Austrian squad, despite ongoing rehabilitation of an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) knee injury.
Alaba, known as a positive-minded, team-first player, will continue to play the captain’s role of squad leader and motivator at Euro 2024 – and one would now expect, he’ll also play the key role of head cheerleader from the sidelines.
Even without Alaba on the pitch, Austria has a star-studded squad including Marcel Sabitzer, Marko Arnautovic and Konrad Laimer as the small Alpine nation tries to qualify out of a tough group featuring France, Poland and the Netherlands.
Pre-injury, David Alaba was flying high for Austria on the football pitch. Now, he will support the team from the bench as a nonplaying captain at Euro 2024 [Matthias Schrader/AP]
Unlucky Gavi to miss out for Spain
Top-rated central midfielder Gavi, a regular for Barcelona and Spain, will not play for La Roja at the Euros as he, too, continues to recover from an ACL injury.
The 19-year-old picked up the knee injury during Spain’s Euro qualifier against Georgia in November.
Ruling him out until the start of the 2024-25 season, Barcelona were said to be furious with Spain coach Luis de la Fuente’s decision to play Gavi in that match, as his side had already sealed qualification for Euro 2024 in the previous game.
The coach, responding to a plethora of complaints over Gavi’s workload, lamented the unfortunate – some would say unnecessary – injury as “an accident, a misfortune”.
The young midfielder’s absence will be huge for Spain, though they have a good mix of youth and experience in the squad with Lamine Yamal, Rodri, Dani Carvajal and Aymeric Laporte all ready to step into the large shoes of Gavi.
Spain’s Gavi reacts after being injured in a Euro 2024 qualifying match against Georgia [Juan Medina/Reuters]Gavi will be hoping that Spain can win a record fourth Euros title without him in the team [Juan Medina/Reuters]
Michael Mosley had set off on a walk in a mountainous area in Greece on Wednesday afternoon.
A days-long search for missing British television presenter Michael Mosley has led to the recovery of a body on a Greek island, according to local authorities.
A police spokesman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of an ongoing investigation, was quoted as saying by The Associated Press news agency that the body was found on a rocky coast by a private boat and that formal identification was pending.
The 67-year-old went missing on the island of Symi on Wednesday afternoon after going for a walk.
His wife, Clare Bailey Mosley, who was on the island along with their four children, alerted authorities after he did not return or respond after several hours.
The AP also quoted Lefteris Papakalodoukas, the island’s mayor who was on a boat with media representatives looking for Mosley on Sunday – the fifth day of the search – as confirming the body believed to belong to Mosley was found.
The mayor said the deceased appeared to have fallen down a steep slope, stopping against a fence and lying face-up with a few rocks on top of it. The body had a leather bag in one hand, said Antonis Mystiloglou, a cameraman with state TV ERT, who was also on the boat.
Mosley is best known for a string of British television programmes, including the BBC series Trust Me, I’m a Doctor and a number of documentaries about diet and exercise, including the Channel 4 show Michael Mosley: Who Made Britain Fat?.
Mosley, who studied medicine in London, also made radio appearances and was a columnist in the Daily Mail newspaper.
Outside the United Kingdom, for his 2013 book The Fast Diet, which proposed the so-called “5:2 diet”, which promised to help people lose weight quickly by minimising their calorie intake two days a week.
He also lived with tapeworms in his guts for six weeks for the BBC documentary Infested! Living With Parasites.
The bodies of hundreds of protesters filled the streets outside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao to mimic the mass casualties in Israel’s war on Gaza. The city in northern Spain was besieged and bombed during the Spanish Civil War.
The election will shape how the European bloc confronts challenges including a hostile Russia, increased industrial rivalry with China and the United States, climate change and immigration.
Voters across 20 European Union countries have started picking the bloc’s next parliament amid concern that a likely shift to the political right will undermine the ability of the world’s biggest trading bloc to take decisions as war rages in Ukraine and anti-migrant sentiment mounts.
The election began on Thursday in the Netherlands and in other countries on Friday and Saturday, but the bulk of EU votes are being cast on Sunday, with France, Germany, Poland and Spain opening the polls and Italy holding a second day of voting to elect 720 members of the European Parliament.
Seats in the assembly are allocated based on population, ranging from six in Malta and in Luxembourg to 96 in Germany.
The election will shape how the European bloc confronts challenges including a hostile Russia, increased industrial rivalry with China and the United States, climate change and immigration.
An unofficial exit poll on Thursday suggested that Geert Wilders’s anti-migrant hard right party should make important gains in the Netherlands, even though a coalition of pro-European parties has probably pushed it into second place.
Since the last EU election in 2019, populist or far-right parties now lead governments in three nations — Hungary, Slovakia and Italy — and are part of the ruling coalition in others, including Sweden, Finland and, soon, the Netherlands. Polls give the populists an advantage in France, Belgium, Austria and Italy.
The elections come at a testing time for voter confidence in a bloc of some 450 million people. Over the last five years, the EU has been shaken by the coronavirus pandemic, an economic slump and an energy crisis fueled by the war in Ukraine – the biggest land conflict in Europe since World War II.
The polls also mark the beginning of a period of uncertainty for the Europeans and their international partners. Beyond the wrangling to form political groups and establish alliances inside parliament, governments will compete to secure top EU jobs for their national officials.
Chief among them is the presidency of the powerful executive branch, the European Commission, which proposes laws and watches to ensure they are respected. The commission also controls the EU’s purse strings, manages trade and is Europe’s competition watchdog.
Other plum posts are those of the European Council president, who chairs summits of presidents and prime ministers, and EU foreign policy chief, the bloc’s top diplomat.
EU lawmakers have a say on legislation ranging from financial rules to climate or agriculture policy. They also approve the EU budget, which apart from funding the bloc’s political priorities bankrolls things like infrastructure projects, farm subsidies and aid delivered to Ukraine.
But despite their important role, political campaigning often focuses on issues of concern in individual countries rather than on broader European interests. Voters routinely use their ballots to protest the policies of their national governments.
Surveys suggest that mainstream and pro-European parties will retain their majority in parliament, but that the hard right, including parties led by politicians like Wilders or France’s Marine Le Pen, will eat into their share of seats.
The biggest political group – the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) – has already edged away from the middle ground, campaigning on traditional far-right issues like more security, tougher migration laws, and a focus on business over social welfare concerns.
Much may depend on whether the Brothers of Italy — the governing party of populist far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, which has neo-fascist roots — stays in the more hardline European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR), or becomes part of a new hard-right group that could be created in the wake of the elections. Meloni also has the further option to work with the EPP.
The second-biggest group — the centre-left Socialists and Democrats — and the Greens refuse to align themselves with the ECR. A more dire scenario for pro-European parties would be if the ECR joins forces with Le Pen’s Identity and Democracy to consolidate hard-right influence.
Questions remain over what group Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s staunchly nationalist and anti-migrant Fidesz party might join. It was previously part of the EPP but was forced out in 2021 due to conflicts over its interests and values.
The EPP has campaigned for Ursula von der Leyen to be granted a second term as commission president but nothing guarantees that she will be returned even if they win. National leaders will decide who is nominated, even though the parliament must approve any nominee.
Thousands of protesters gathered in a town under colonial rule in the 1940s. They raised national flags and placards and called for self-determination.
The authorities tried to confiscate the flags, triggering a riot that killed several officers and settlers.
The colonial army, its settler militias and police responded by bombing villages and homes where “rebels” were ostensibly hiding.
Thousands were killed and entire families wiped out.
Echoes of the past
That was not Palestine, but Setif, Algeria. And it was not Israel’s occupation, but France’s.
“Setif revealed the hypocrisy of the liberation of Europe as it maintained a settler colony,” said Muriam Hala Davis, a historian of Algeria at the University of California in Santa Cruz, referring to the incident that came as Europe celebrated the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Several scholars believe Israel’s violent occupation of Palestinian lands has sharp parallels with France’s 132-year colonisation of Algeria, which ended in 1962 after an eight-year war for independence.
France displaced Algerians, confined them to small spaces that could not sustain human life and armed French settlers against them.
Israel has done the same since the Nakba in 1948 when Zionist militias ethnically cleansed at least 750,000 Palestinians to establish Israel on top of the ruins of their homes and history.
It occupied more land in the 1967 war, subjugating Palestinians to military rule since then and expanding its settlements on their land, which are illegal under international law.
“[In both contexts], we can talk about the disregard and dehumanisation of Arab life … either as part of Islamophobia or anti-Arab sentiment,” Davis said.
Israel’s dehumanisation of Palestinians is essential to justify its occupation and repression – both to its own citizens and to its Western allies, scholars told Al Jazeera.
Rights groups say Palestinians are portrayed as a security and demographic threat to Jewish Israelis, necessitating violent raids, a blockade on Gaza since 2007 and a separation wall that fragments and reduces freedom of movement in the occupied West Bank.
“There is certainly a continuum that has some deep resonances,” Davis said.
Over the past 17 years, Israel has launched five wars on Gaza to “mow the lawn”, a phrase Israel uses to refer to its goal of degrading Hamas’s military capabilities by fighting periodic wars.
Palestinian civilians have been the biggest casualties of each conflict.
The West Bank has not been spared either. Israel killed thousands of civilians during two Intifadas (uprisings) in 1987 and 2000 against Israel’s ever-deepening occupation.
Both Intifadas started off largely nonviolent, yet Israel responded by killing hundreds of Palestinian civilians.
A mural on a building in Beddawi refugee camp was painted during the first intifada. New paintwork avoided painting over the mural to keep it intact. November 29, 2023 [Rita Kabalan/Al Jazeera]
Philippeville to Gaza
Israel’s latest war on Gaza began after Hamas-led attacks on Israeli communities and military outposts on October 7, in which 1,139 people were killed and 250 taken captive.
Over the past eight months, Israel has responded by killing more than 36,000 Palestinians, displacing more than 80 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people and reducing most of the enclave to rubble.
Israel’s military conduct has drawn comparisons with France’s operations against the National Liberation Front, an armed group better known by its French acronym, FLN.
Like Hamas, the FLN carried out a surprise operation on the settler town of Philippeville in August 1955, attacking settlers and military installations and killing more than 120 people.
Similar to Israel, the French authorities responded by arming settlers and coordinating attacks on several Algerian villages that killed about 12,000 people, mostly civilians.
The attack on Philippeville is on a long list of brutal attacks and incidents that unfolded during Algeria’s war for independence.
Israel’s current practice of trying to confine millions of Palestinians to “safe zones” in Gaza also echoes the eviction of hundreds of thousands of Algerians from their villages during the war, said Terrance Peterson, a scholar on the Algerian war at the University of Florida.
Women throw roses into the Seine river to commemorate the brutal repression of an October 17, 1961 protest for Algerian independence, during which at least 120 Algerians were killed. On October 17, 2021, in Paris [Alain Jocard/AFP]
France bombed villages and relocated their inhabitants to “regroupement centres”, which were camps surrounded by barbed wire where people died from malnutrition and disease.
But unlike Gaza, Peterson told Al Jazeera, these areas were never bombed or attacked.
“I think the logic is the same in that [Israel and France] wanted to separate and isolate the civilian population into ‘safe zones’ in order to survey them and separate them from the insurgents,” he said.
“That means there were forbidden zones and anyone in those forbidden zones would be killed.”
‘Savages’
Israel and France both tried to brand their enemies as rapists, according to Sara Rahnama, a scholar of the gendered history of the French-Algerian war
“In November and December, … the response to mass protests [for a ceasefire in Gaza] was that Hamas intentionally used rape as a weapon of war and that is a marker of how depraved they are and how necessary this struggle is for the values of Western civilisation,” Rahnama said.
She believes the Israeli accusations fit into a broader historical pattern whereby Indigenous populations are portrayed as morally and sexually depraved to justify confiscating their land and using violence against them.
“I remember thinking that this is a really old claim. From the very beginning of the French colonial project, they [propagated ideas] of Muslim sexual and gender inferiority. That was imperative to how the French legitimised their [colonial] project.”
The UN said it has “reasonable grounds” to believe some incidences of sexual violence occurred on October 7 as well as against captives taken by Hamas although it is impossible to determine the scope of such violence.
Hamas has repeatedly denied the accusations.
Diana Buttu, a Palestinian legal expert, said Israel’s allegation of mass rapes on October 7 also reminded her of how French colonial authorities framed Muslim Algerians.
“The [French] had talked about mass rape and mentioned stories such as breasts being chopped off and fondled by FLN fighters,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Fast forward to October 7 … and Israel did the exact same thing. [Israel] portrayed [the attack] as super savage in order to elevate their [own status] and to carry out a massive genocide.”
Is the goal the erasure of Palestinians?
Israel has long said it would investigate Israeli soldiers and settlers accused of perpetrating human rights abuses against Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
But scholars and rights activists said Israel’s legal system is designed to legitimise its settlements and occupation, not seek justice.
From 2017 to 2021, investigations into Israeli soldiers led to indictments in less than 1 percent of the cases, according to Yesh Din, an Israeli rights group.
Palestinians who took part in a protest at the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound are arrested by Israeli security forces in the Old City in East Jerusalem [File: Menahem Kahana/AFP]
Palestinians are tried in military courts and face a conviction rate of 99 percent. In many cases, Palestinians are also held without charge or trial under “administrative detention”, a relic of British colonisation in the area under which their lawyers are unable to see evidence against them.
“In the case of Palestine, … there is a legal system that facilitates a colonial process, and … its aim is the erasure of the natives,” Buttu said. “There is just no way that you will have a legal system that protects Palestinians. The national aim is the erasure of Palestinians.”
Davis added that both Israel and France entertained the belief that they could oversee a project of “good colonisation”.
In the 1950s, some French reformists called for giving political rights to a minority of Algerians who fought with France in World War II. Others advocated giving Muslim Algerians some form of self-rule in parts of the colony.
Davis said these calls are similar to Israelis who advocate for giving Palestinians limited rights or sovereignty.
“There is a fundamental fantasy … where both France and Israel blame a few bad apples for a structural project of white supremacy that was behind [France’s project] in Algeria or Israel’s project as a Jewish state,” she said.
“For those of us who have organised around Palestine, we are now horrified by the scale of the violence [in Gaza]. But none of us are fundamentally surprised by a genocide that underpins [Israel’s settler] project.”
The United States and France have both reaffirmed support for Ukraine in its battle against Russia’s invasion during a meeting in the French capital.
Speaking at a joint news conference at the Presidential Elysee Palace in Paris on Saturday, President Joe Biden warned that Vladimir Putin would “not stop” at Ukraine. French President Emmanuel Macron, in turn, hailed his US counterpart’s loyalty to Europe.
“All of Europe will be threatened, we are not going to let that happen,” Biden said during his state visit to France. “The United States is standing strong with Ukraine. We will not, I say it again, walk away.”
Macron then told Biden in front of reporters: “I thank you, Mr President, for being the president of the world’s number one power but doing it with the loyalty of a partner who likes and respects the Europeans.”
The US president has been in France since Wednesday, taking part in commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings that changed the course of World War II.
On Friday, both Biden and Macron met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Paris, pledging support for Ukraine.
In a statement released by the White House on Saturday, the French and US leaders said they agreed that wider security across the Atlantic was at stake in Russia’s war.
“France and the United States co-chair the artillery coalition at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group and intend to take new steps to provide the necessary support to Ukraine in the current phase and in the longer term,” the statement said, referring to a coalition of about 50 countries that meet regularly to discuss Ukraine’s security needs.
The US and France also reaffirmed their commitments to the “continued provision of political, security, humanitarian, and economic assistance to Ukraine”, the statement said.
US President Joe Biden, right, shakes hands with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, left, as they hold a bilateral meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel in Paris [Saul Loeb/AFP]
Shared goals, diverging strategy
Speaking to Al Jazeera, Former US Ambassador to NATO Kurt Volker said that Washington and Paris both seek “to make sure that Ukraine survives as a sovereign, independent European democracy”.
He added the countries are also unified in their desire to halt “Putin’s ideology of re-establishing an empire and denying the existence of the Ukrainian people”.
However, the former diplomat said that the nations differ on how to carry out their goals.
“The US has been very cautious, has been very concerned about escalation and very concerned about poking Putin,” Volker said.
“Macron, more recently, has been pushing the envelope. He’s been talking about what more can be done to help Ukraine, including the possibility of helping regulate their air defences by having some trainers on the ground in Ukraine.”
Macron on Friday said he had discussed such a plan with NATO leaders, with some agreeing to join the effort. That would be finalised “in the days ahead”, he said.
The US has been staunchly opposed to having any of its personnel on the ground in Ukraine, a position that has remained unchanged since Russia invaded its neighbour in February 2022.
Biden and Macron also discussed their support for using interest earned from frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine, a move that has been met with scepticism from some European G7 allies.
‘We’re still in it’
Ukrainian forces, long outgunned by Russia, have struggled to maintain pressure against Russia along the 1,000-kilometre (621-mile) front line in recent months. That has come as some support from Western allies has flagged.
Still, Kyiv received a boost in recent weeks, with France and Germany at the end of May allowing Ukraine to use the weapons they provided against targets on Russian soil.
The US soon followed suit, giving Ukraine permission to use weapons provided by Washington in Russian territory near Kharkiv.
In Paris on Friday, Biden apologised to Zelenskyy for previous delays in Washington’s aid to Kyiv, stressing that the US is “not going to walk away” from supporting Ukraine.
“We’re still in – completely, thoroughly,” he said.
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