The Israeli military is investigating soldiers for throwing bodies from a rooftop in the northern occupied West Bank on Thursday, amid an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) incursion in the area that left seven dead, according to the Palestinian government, and has seen clashes and intense gunfire with militants.

The longest video shows three Israeli soldiers standing on a rooftop. They can be seen pushing a body over the edge of the building. The feet of the body get stuck in what appears to be electrical or telephone cables, and it dangles over the edge, headfirst. One of the soldiers then reaches over to dislodge the person’s feet, and the body tumbles to the ground.

Approaching a second body on the roof, a soldier picks up the person’s hands and another picks up the feet. They swing the body back and forth, then toss it over the side.

Finally, a soldier uses his feet to kick a third body over the side of the building.

Militaries are required under international law to treat the bodies of enemy soldiers with respect, prevent them from being mutilated, and return them to the deceased’s family. The Israeli military often confiscates the bodies of militants killed in battle.

Ameed Shehadeh, a correspondent for Al-Arabi, also witnessed the incident.

The IDF later said that along with the Israeli Security Agency, its forces had killed “the head of the terrorist organization in Qabatiya and six other terrorists.”

The IDF did not name the group it was targeting but said that several armed terrorists were identified last night who shot at the forces operating in the area. “The terrorists’ vehicle had weapons and explosives that caused a secondary explosion,” it added.

Palestinian politician Mustafa Barghouti called the treatment of the bodies “a barbaric act that shows the extent of the degradation and brutality of the behavior of the occupation army.”

Video shot earlier in the day showed a Palestinian militant with a rifle darting across the rooftops, with loud gunfire echoing off the concrete walls. Another video showed an Israeli soldier on the rooftop, shooting at the prone body of a man. A photo shows three bodies on the roof.

Later in the day an Israeli airstrike struck a car in the town, according to multiple videos from the scene. The IDF said in a statement that it was targeting “armed terrorists operating within a vehicle.”

Clashes between militants and Israeli security forces are ongoing in Qabatya with intense gunfire heard in the town well after sunset on Thursday.

The Israeli military has in recent weeks used increasingly militarized tactics in the occupied West Bank. Around 700 people have been killed in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since October 7, including more than 150 children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said Thursday that had treated eight people wounded by live ammunition, two of whom were in critical condition.

Lauren Izso and Tim Lister contributed to this report.

The legal team representing the alleged victims of the former owner of Harrods, Mohamed Al Fayed, say the late billionaire was a “monster” whose crimes were “enabled” by the high-end department store.

At least 37 women have accused Al-Fayed, who died in 2023 aged 94, of sexually assaulting them, barrister Dean Armstrong told reporters in London Friday. Armstrong said Al-Fayad was a “monster” who committed a “vast web of abuse.”

Setting out the legal claim being brought against Harrods, Armstrong said Al-Fayad was “enabled by a system” that pervaded the store.

“This is and was a systematic failure of corporate responsibility, and that systematic failure is on the shoulders of Harrods,” Armstrong said.

The legal team involved in the BBC investigation claimed Harrods knew of Al Fayed’s alleged crimes. The store showed an “abject failure of corporate responsibility, and a failure to provide a safe system of work,” Armstrong said.

The team called the case “horrific,” comparing it to that of Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted pedophile who died in jail before he could face trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, and of Jimmy Savile, a British television personality who was revealed to a be a prolific sexual offender after his death.

Barrister Bruce Drummond described the case as “one of the worst cases of corporate sexual exploitation that certainly I, and perhaps the world, has ever seen.”

Harrods apologized to victims in a statement Thursday, saying it was “utterly appalled” by the allegations of abuse perpetrated by its former owner. The billionaire businessman owned the department store between 1985 and 2010.

In the statement, Harrods said that “new information came to light” last year about historic allegations of sexual abuse perpetrated by Al-Fayed.

Since then, it said, “it has been our priority to settle claims in the quickest way possible, avoiding lengthy legal proceedings for the women involved.”

It is unclear if the current owners will be liable for the alleged crimes committed under Harrods’ previous ownership, and whether they will be responsible for compensating the alleged victims and survivors of abuse.

Speaking at the news conference, Gloria Allred, a world-leading women’s rights attorney who has represented women who said they were abused by Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein, described Al-Fayed as “the epitome of a serial sexual abuser.”

The allegations against Al-Fayed include “serial rape, attempted rape, sexual battery and sexual abuse of minors,” Allred detailed.

London’s Fulham Football Club, which Al-Fayed owned between 1997 and 2013, said in a statement posted on X on Friday: “We are deeply troubled and concerned to learn of the disturbing reports following yesterday’s documentary. We have sincere empathy for the women who have shared their experiences.”

It added that it was working to establish whether anyone at the club had been affected.

The Egyptian-born Al-Fayed was a fixture of the business and celebrity world in Britain during his life. Al Fayed’s son, Dodi Fayed, died in 1997 along with Princess Diana in a high-speed car crash in Paris.

Israel’s military claimed it killed a senior Hezbollah commander in an airstrike on the group’s stronghold in southern Beirut on Friday, sharply escalating the conflict between the two sides and raising fears of all-out war.

Ibrahim Aqil, a commander of Hezbollah’s elite Radwan Force, was assassinated along with “about 10” other commanders, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. He accused Aqil and the commanders of planning to raid and occupy communities in Galilee in northern Israel.

Hezbollah has not confirmed the deaths.

Lebanon’s health ministry said at least 12 people were killed and 59 others injured in the airstrike, which leveled a multistory building in a densely populated neighborhood.

According to Hagari, the targeted commanders were “underground underneath a residential building in the heart of the Dahya neighborhood, using civilians as a human shield” at the time of the attack.

Aqil had a $7 million bounty on his head from the United States for his suspected involvement in the 1983 strike on the US Embassy in Beirut, which killed 63 people, as well as the bombing of the Beirut Marine barracks, which killed 241 US personnel later that year.

A week of surprise attacks

Friday’s strike marked the fourth consecutive day of surprise attacks on Beirut and other sites across the country, even as Israeli forces continued deadly strikes and operations in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

The first major attack against Hezbollah this week came Tuesday afternoon when pagers belonging to the militant groups’ members exploded near-simultaneously. The pagers had been used by Hezbollah to communicate after the group’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, encouraged members to switch to low-tech devices to prevent more of them from being assassinated.

Almost exactly 24 hours later, Lebanon was rocked by a second wave of explosions, after Hezbollah walkie-talkies detonated in Beirut and the south of the country on Wednesday.

At least 37 people were killed, including some children, and more than 3,000 were injured in the twin attacks.

After initially refusing to comment on Tuesday’s pager explosions, Israel on Wednesday tacitly acknowledged its role in the attacks. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant praised the “excellent achievements” of the IDF, together with the country’s security agency, the Shin Bet, and its intelligence agency Mossad.

Gallant said a “new era” of war was beginning, and on Thursday Israel targeted Beirut for a third time, flying jets and dropping flares over the city while Nasrallah made a speech in which he pledged Israel would face a “reckoning.” Later, Israel launched one of its most intense bombardments against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in nearly a year of cross–border strikes, saying it hit about 100 Hezbollah rocket launchers.

Friday’s airstrike was the third Israeli airstrike on Beirut since hostilities began last year, after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. In January, an Israeli airstrike killed Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas’ military wing, who had been living in Beirut. In July, a second Israeli strike on Beirut killed Hezbollah’s most senior military official, Fu’ad Shukr.

Before the surprise attacks on Lebanon, Israel’s security cabinet on Monday voted to add a new objective to its ongoing conflict with Hamas and Hezbollah: ensuring the safe return of residents from communities along its northern border with Lebanon to their homes.

After nearly a year of cross-border exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel, tens of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes both in southern Lebanon and northern Israel. While the return of residents of northern Israel has long been understood to be a political necessity for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, this is the first time it has been made an official war goal.

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador says the United States is partially responsible for a wave of violence in the state of Sinaloa that has left dozens dead in the past two weeks, with bodies repeatedly found on public streets and highways.

López Obrador suggested during a press conference Thursday that Washington helped stir up enmity between factions of the Sinaloa drug cartel after arresting two cartel leaders in the US.

On July 25, Sinaloa Cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was arrested along with Joaquín Guzmán López, son of drug kingpin “El Chapo” Guzmán, after they landed near El Paso, Texas on a small plane.

Zambada would later claim that he was “ambushed” and “kidnapped” by Guzmán López and hand-delivered to US authorities.

“A group of men assaulted me, knocked me to the ground, and placed a dark-colored hood over my head,”  Zambada said in a statement released by his attorney in August, adding he was tied and handcuffed and forced into the back of a pickup, driven to a landing strip, and forced onto the US-bound private plane.

It remains unclear why Guzmán López surrendered to US authorities and brought Zambada with him.

The Mexican president alleged the US Department of Justice had “agreements” with an organized criminal group that led to the arrest of Zambada, also referring to the operation as a kidnapping.

US Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar previously denied that Washington was involved in the operation that led to Zambada’s arrest.

“It was not a US plane, it was not a US pilot, it was not our agents or our people in Mexico. This was an operation between the cartels, where one handed over to the other,” he said on Aug. 9.

‘In Sinaloa, there wasn’t the violence that there is now’

In the weeks after the arrests, violent clashes erupted in Sinaloa between what Mexican authorities call rival factions loyal to Zambada and those led by other sons of “El Chapo.”

The surge in violence has left at least 49 people dead since September 9, according to official figures.

The state prosecutor’s office has reported numerous cases of dead bodies being found with gunshots in the streets, on highways and in other locations across Sinaloa.

The situation forced Gov. Ruben Rocha Moya to suspend Independence Day celebrations last week and cancel classes at all levels for two days.

“In Sinaloa, there wasn’t the violence that there is now,” the Mexican president said Thursday.

However, López Obrador also denied that the situation in the state is completely out of control, insisting that Mexican authorities are handling it.

“No, we are there, but we have had to take special measures and move elements of the Armed Forces and we have also lost officers who have been killed due to this special, extraordinary situation,” he said.

Mexican Defense Secretary Luis Cresencio Sandoval said on Tuesday that at least two soldiers died last week during the violence in Sinaloa.

Eden Yerushalmi was taken from the Nova music festival when Hamas launched its October 7 attack on Israel, and her body was among six recovered by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) late last month. 

“It’s very difficult for us. We feel like we’re in a nightmare,” Shani Yerushalmi said. “Sometimes it feels like it isn’t real, like it’s not happening to us, because the whole time we truly believed that Eden would come back home alive.”

Yerushalmi’s family have learned details of her captivity from the IDF since her body was returned to Israel from Gaza. Describing the tunnel in which she was kept for several weeks, Shani said: “They barely could stand fully … they couldn’t sleep next to each other, only in a line. There were no windows, no air, no light. Barely food, and if they needed to go to the bathroom they were forced to do it in a bucket.”

Yerushalmi’s death, along with five other Israeli captives, ignited fresh rage in the country, much of it directed at the handling of the crisis by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

More than 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage on October 7, according to Israeli authorities, and more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s ensuing war began. Netanyahu has been under intense pressure to reach a ceasefire-for-hostages deal that would secure the return of more than 100 people still held in the enclave.

The 23-year-old from Tel Aviv was a pilates instructor and working as a bartender at the Nova music festival on October 7. When sirens sounded, Yerushalmi sent a video of rocket fire to her family group chat, saying she was leaving the festival, according to the Hostages Families Forum.

For four hours, she spoke with her two sisters, May and Shani, who heard everything she went through as she tried to escape. Her last words were: “They’ve caught me.”

The sisters described Yerushalmi as a friendly and warm person, with May saying: “The most important thing is that she was a hero, and she survived 11 months in those tunnels.”

West Papua, Indonesia — New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens has been freed from more than 18 months in captivity in Indonesia’s Papua, the Indonesian police said in a statement on Saturday.

An armed faction of the West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB), led by Egianus Kogoya, kidnapped Mehrtens on Feb. 7, 2023, after he landed a small commercial plane in the remote, mountainous area of Nduga.

“We are prioritising approach through religious leaders, church leaders, traditional leaders and Egianus Kogoya’s close family to minimise casualties and maintain the safety of the pilot,” said the chief of Cartenz 2024 Peace Operations, Brigadier General Faizal Ramadhani.

Mehrtens was freed and picked up by a joint team in Nduga Regency and is undergoing health check-ups and a physiological examination in Timika regency, the police said.

The police they would hold a press conference later.