Slandering Israel Comes Easy

"Hundreds of aid trucks have entered Gaza with Israel's approval, but the supplies are standing idle, undelivered."

"The reason? The UN refuses to distribute the aid. Hamas and the UN prevents the aid to reach the civilians in Gaza."

"The world deserves to know the truth."

"But BBC, CNN, Daily Express and The New York Times spread a misleading story using a picture of a sick, disabled child to promote a narrative of mass starvation in Gaza -- playing into the hands of Hamas's propaganda war."

"Without proper disclosure. Without medical context. Without journalistic ethics." 

Israeli Foreign Ministry  

Humanitarian aid packages waiting to be picked up on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom border crossing on July 24, 2025. “The UN refuses to distribute the aid,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry says. Photo by  by Amir Levy/Getty Images

 British investigative journalist David Collier wrote an explanation that one of the children used as a shaming condemnation against Israel purportedly failing to ensure that sufficient humanitarian aid reaches the Palestinian civilian population in Gaza, a child with the surname al-Matouq "suffers from cerebral palsy, has hypoxemia, and was born with a serious genetic disorder", data extracted from a 2025 medical file.

 

A BBC documentary titled "Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone" was discovered by Mr. Collier to have been narrated by the son of a senior Hamas official. That revelation led to embarrassment on the part of the British public broadcaster and a retraction of the documentary. The photograph of the emaciated child saw sensational use by international media testifying to the devastation brought by Israel's war in Gaza and the resulting aid crisis there.

 

Last Thursday, the New York Times digital story was entitled "Gazans are dying of starvation", over the image of the skeletal child. "A horrifying image encapsulating the maelstrom of human misery gripping Gaza" was how the Daily Express captioned the heart-rending photograph of Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub Al-Matouq.  

 

Unlike his brother standing by his side, Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq suffers from cerebral palsy.

 

And then there is the image of five-year-old Osama al-Rakab, yet another child whose photograph saw use as an illustration of the threat of child malnourishment resulting from Israel's 'blockade' of humanitarian aid entering the Strip. Al Jazeera  featured the little boy's skeletal torso throughout a number of Italian media outlets to extract maximum disgust from news readers, holding Israel responsible for the pitiable condition of the child.

 

Israel's Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), divulged that al-Rakab "suffers from a serious genetic illness unrelated to the war", and with his mother and brother had been transported out of Gaza to an airport in Israel destined for treatment abroad. "This is what a modern blood libel looks like: A sick child. A hijacked photo. A lie that spreads faster than truth", wrote the Israeli Foreign Ministry on its X account.

 

A third infant, 11-month-old Sila Barbakh was featured on Israel's official X account, who "isn't starving", but rather "suffers from a pre-existing chronic gastrointestinal illness, unrelated to the war". In none of these pathetic photos of children suffering from dread diseases were they captioned 'for illustrative purposes only', unrelated to Hamas's wildly successful public relations' campaign aimed at the gullible West.  

 

His name is Osama al-Raqab. He has cystic fibrosis, a serious genetic illness. He’s been in Italy receiving treatment since June 12. Israel enabled his medical transfer from Gaza.

 

The Times of London found it useful when featuring tiny Barbakh's suffering from starvation to expand y explaining that the baby weighted a mere "seven-and-a-half pounds". According to data published by the Hamas-operated Gaza Health Ministry, 56 Palestinians had died in July of starvation. About half the total number reputed to have died of starvation since the war began on October 7, 2023 when Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas stormed into southern Israel to launch its campaign of rape, pillage, torture and mass slaughter. 

 

Humanitarian supplies handover was shifted away from the United Nations in May, with an U.S.-backed, Israeli-supported group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), taking the initiative. Civilians in Gaza had then to travel into areas controlled by Israeli military to receive the supplies. That solved the issues involved in Hamas armed operatives taking control of aid-delivery trucks to have the goods they carried stuffed into Hamas warehouses, and withheld from the civilian population. Some of that aid ended up at open-air marketplaces selling for exorbitant prices. Most of it was sidelined for the exclusive use of Hamas operatives.

 

Today, the IDF invited dozens of international journalists to the Kerem Shalom crossing inside Gaza, to see for themselves. Israeli Foreign Ministry

 

Reportedly, GHF distributed close to 90 million meals to civilians while facing significant opposition from Hamas, which had attacked and murdered a dozen Palestinian employees of GHF who had been working with the group to help distribute the aid. According to the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, Hamas offered bounties to any of their followers who kill American contractors or any Palestinians assisting their endeavours in providing aid.

 

The United Nations has accused Israel of reportedly killing hundreds of Gazans seeking aid in what is  essentially an active war zone. Many more have died resulting from stampedes in the chaos of crowds of Palestinians vying among one another to receive aid. A week ago Israel announced its intention to once again commit to airdrops of humanitarian aid, alongside Arab nations, including Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. Airdrops had been suspended in view of properties being destroyed and civilians being hit by the airdrops.

 

People carrying aid parcels from the privately run Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) walk along the Salah al-Din road near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip (Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images)

 

The New York Times claimed that the "Israeli military never found proof that the Palestinian militant group had systematically stolen aid from the United Nations, the biggest supplier of emergency assistance to Gaza for most of the war". In response, the Israel Defense Forces released a video showing Hamas militants with rifles "looting an aid truck", while civilians gathered about.  These same images were shared by Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a Palestinian-American academic, senior fellow with the Atlantic Council. Showing Hamas operatives stealing aid during an earlier ceasefire.

 

"Right here before your eyes! But according to NGOs & media, there's still 'no evidence' of theft", charged Alkhatib who has been a vocal critic of Hamas and the Netanyahu government, both. Alkhatib shared a video in another post, showing Hamas police officers who stripped, arrested and beat Palestinians who had gone out to the GHF aid distribution site, and paid the consequences, with the aid they had gathered taken from them, for their pains. 

 

 A truck loaded with food on the Israeli side of the border crossing heads back into Gaza. However, the food is sitting for days or weeks before it can be distributed. The U.N. and aid groups say they face a host of problems that include a shortage of trucks and fuel due to the war, as well as criminal gangs that are looting the supplies.    Maya Levin for NPR

Russia Overwhelming Ukraine with Shahed Drones

"Currently, Russians concentrate their flights at very low altitudes, up to 200 meters, which are difficult to detect by radar due to blind spots — or, on the contrary, launch drones to fly very high, 1,000–4,000 above, out of reach of of mobile air defence’s machine guns."

"From a certain sector, groups of Shaheds consisting of 5–10 drones fly in at different altitudes. There are only two goals: overload the Ukrainian air defense system and identify positions [of Ukraine’s air defense] to later attack them so that they can launch what they need along the same route."

Commander of a Ukraine air defence unit  

 

"Russia is going to devastate our entire country with Shaheds. If we don’t act now, our infrastructure, production, and defense facilities will be destroyed."

"The main focus should be on mass-producing interceptor drones and training military personnel nationwide in their use. We are out of time."

Serhii Beskrestnovy, military expert in communications and electronic warfare

 

"This will continue as long as we are led by people who blindly follow orders and are unable to stand their ground, that’s the first thing. Secondly, according to the leadership, sometimes the collapse of the front is much more strategically scary than a limited air defense."

"We can all criticize [these decisions], but we only see one part of the picture. We do not have enough weapons and ammunition to hit all the targets. All of this is extremely expensive, and it takes time to expand the [air defense] system, — and during that time, people continue to die. We also face the slowness of Western decision-making and Trump’s impulsiveness and dependence in making such decisions."

Ukrainian Air Defence source

Mobile firing groups that downed Shaheds above Kharkiv, February 2024 / Photo: Viktoria Mankovska, Gwara Media

 

The Ukrainian air defence units, tasked to remain vigilant as they scour the skies for incoming missiles and drones courtesy of Russia, are vastly undermanned and under-resourced in their weaponry. They hear that menacing buzz reverberating in the night sky in eastern Ukraine, hear,and see explosions, flashes illuminating sunflower fields,while the odour of gunpowder poisons the air. "There! Three kilometres away!" shouts a serviceman. 

 

The air defence units do the critical work assigned to them, the interception  of long-range unmanned aerial vehicles. These were originally designed and manufactured by Iran, but those now used by Moscow have been re-designed for improvement, and launched unendingly with results that have been devastating to Ukraine, for almost three years since the February 2022 Russian invasion took place.

 

Moscow's industrial-scale production of the inexpensive weaponry has been celebrated on state-television broadcasting, heralding what the Kremlin boasts of as the world's largest drone factory. There the assembly of hundreds of jet-black triangular-shaped Gerans are produced (Russian for geraniums). Russia launched 344 drones in July in Ukraine's eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, impressive to be sure, but that same month it launched its largest-yet barrage of over 700 drones. 

"It's rotten tonight, just like the day before."

"They [Russian drones] fly chaotically and unpredictably. It has become harder to destroy them."

"We're effective, but I can't promise that it will be like this every week."

"People and modern weapons [are what Ukraine needs to defend its air space." 

Vasyl, Air defence unit serviceman 

The rare footage showed the assembly of hundreds of jet-black triangle-shaped Gerans — geraniums in Russian.

 

Ukrainian servicemen manning these air defence units identify themselves only with a first name or an army nickname, as military protocol demands. Every so often an explosion booms while the horizon glows crimson followed by dark smoke appearing moments later in the sky. Persuasive President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was been successful in securing several Patriot batteries from allies during the Russian invasion, while appealing for funding to acquire ten more of the systems.

 

These costly sophisticated systems, however, are reserved for high-priority target areas and larger cities to fend off Russian missile attacks. Ukraine plans to roll out cheap interceptor drones for their air defence units and to achieve that end, manufacturers have been ordered to urgently produce up to 1,000 drones every day. 

Photo by Roman PILIPEY /AFP

 

As for the teams themselves, little sleep is enjoyed throughout their course of duty. On average, most rack up two hours each night, even four on a good night, and occasionally another hour between drone waves. Sleep is often hard to come by for many, with grim memories of past fighting elsewhere in Ukraine, and anticipation of missiles and drones targeting their emplacements night after night. Sleep deprivation takes its inevitable toll. 

 

Servicemen in these air defence units are acutely aware that the same Russian drones they look out for and react to in the determination to keep them from hitting their targets, threaten their families in the city of Kryvl Rig, further west in the region neighbouring Dnipreopetrovsk. The men have not been given leave to visit their homes in over two years, working around the clock, seven days a week. 

 

Their anti-aircraft gun fires volley after volley of tracer rounds. And then it jams. Swiftly the team grabs Second World War-era machine guns to fire blindly into the air. The Gerbera (daisy) is another drone in the Russian arsenal that once was used as an unarmed decoy to overwhelm air defence systems, and since fitted out with cameras. "Only fools are not afraid. Really", pointed out Vasyl, a Ukrainian serviceman. 

 

A mobile fire group. Photo: General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine

 

 

To Reduce Drug Overdose and Public Drug Use, Close Supervised Injection Sites

Bill 103 bars supervised drug use sites from operating within 150 metres of a school or daycare.  The bill will require two of these sites to move, including the Maison Benoît-Labre in Montreal. CBC

 

"Within 50 metres of Maison Benoit Labre, emergency calls were up 1,967 percent [from six calls to 124] after the facility opened. Within 250 metres of the centre, mischief calls were up 800 percent [and there was] a 93 percent increase, or near doubling, in crimes against people."

"Even overdose incidents were up 300 percent. Giving the lie to the claims from Maison Benoit Labre that they went to where the need was already existing and are preventing overdoses in the area."

Michael MacKenzie, professor of social work and pediatrics, McGill University, Canad Research Chair in child well-being 

 

"Remarkably, the fact that overdose rates in Toronto have gone down, not up, since four of the city's drug-use sites closed at the end of March was completely absent from a recent story in the Toronto Star about a  'staggering increase' in overdoses at ten of the city's drop-in centres since those closings."

"Arguing that consumption sites are reducing overdoses and public drug use while neglecting to mention that they are also facilitating it on a large scale is a misleading representation of the facts to those who live, work and raise children near these facilities." 

Derek Finkle, National Post 

Maison Benoît-Labre, a supervised drug inhalation site, in Saint-Henri on April 13, 2024. (Gareth Madoc-Jones, CityNews)

 

Last summer, Victor-Rousselot Park in Montreal was at the centre of the national debate over supervised injection sites. Maison Benoit Labre, a facility including drug consumption services along with a drop-in centre for homeless people had opened mere metres from the park. This is a park that serves as a playground for an elementary school located nearby where students at recess and lunch breaks view it as their outdoor recreational centre.

 

It took just weeks for the newly-located facility to attract new drug activity and with that, assaults and public sex acts. The extent to which was sufficiently intimidating and alarmingly dangerous that police escorts were required to enable the children to access the park in safety. Then in May of 2024 the Quebec government tabled legislation to prevent drug-consumption sites from opening within 150 metres of schools and daycares; a similar set of laws had been passed in law in Ontario the year before. 

 

What Quebec did to prepare for the legislation was to consult with the public, as stakeholders who should have a say in the proceedings. One resident of the impacted St.Henri neighbourhood who spoke before Social Services Minister Lionel Carmant, was area resident Professor Michael MacKenzie of McGill University. Professor MacKenzie introduced the committee in his presentation to a 2021 systematic review of injection site literature which found a mere 22 studies "that examined actual outcomes".

 

Social Planning Toronto

 

"Within the program evaluation field, it is notable that 22 studies does not represent a deep evidence base". Just one site -- Vancouver's Insite -- took up 15 of those 22 studies with another three of a site in Australia. "In other words, 19 of the 22 studies (86 percent) represented just two sites, neither of which were located near schools and daycares". Insite "was in deep and protracted community crisis before the centre was implemented", explaining why "any intervention in a neighbourhood in the throes of real crisis was likely to show some positive short-term change". 

 

As for Toronto, overdoses dropped noticeably in April once half of the city's drug-use sites were ordered closed by the province. Toronto Paramedic Services reported that fatal and non-fatal overdoses were about 50 percent lower than what was reported in 2024. There were more people using outside the site than within it, particularly in warmer months, admitted the former chief executive of the closed South Riverdale drug-consumption site in east-end Toronto. Evidently about "400 to 500 sterile crack kits a day" were distributed against expectations that users would opt for supervision.

 

"More people are choosing to use outside", as the site has three booths for supervision which can "sometimes lead to longer wait times", according to the manager of the South Riverdale drug-consumption site in Toronto. As well, at the Toronto Kensington safe-consumption site, visits for drug equipment for use off-site vastly outnumbered the number of visits for supervised consumption; only 64 of 413 visits were for safe consumption in July of 2024.  

 

Staff at the site noted: "We are still seeing clients coming in for supplies rather than using the site. Many of those visits were for supplies." Their argument remains that consumption sites reduce overdoses and public drug use -- somehow overlooking any mention that drug use is being facilitated on a large scale -- a misrepresentation of facts familiar to those who live, work and raise children close to these facilities. 

 

A board showing drug checking information is displayed in the consumption room at the Parkdale Queen West Community Health Centre in Toronto days before the site transitioned into a homelessness and addiction recovery hub. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

Canada's Italian Mafia

"This [“Camera di Controllo” — literally meaning “control room,” which acts as a board of control for the ’Ndrangheta — in Canada that mirrored the structure in Italy] is the highest and most important structure of ’Ndrangheta in Canada."

"Vincenza Muià, [who was coming to Canada to try to learn who within ’Ndrangheta had murdered his brother so he could avenge his death], but also other persons, have great respect for Vincenza DeMaria. They consider him a person worthy of respect. They think he could carry a lot of weight within their organization."

Chief Commissioner Giampiero Muroni headed the Polizia di Stato’s Central Anti-Crime Directorate from 2008 to 2019

 

"What we have here is an abuse of process by the minister [of public safety]."

"It is an absurdity that the minister, on a whim, is changing the nature of this entire hearing. How can Mr. DeMaria properly prepare for a matter when they are literally changing the foundation of their case four days in?"

Shoshana Green, one of three lawyers representing Vincenzo DeMaria

 

"Tell Jimmy" Vincenzo [Jimmy] DeMaria."

"For my brother, once I know who it was, if I can, I'll eat him in pieces, in pieces, but I have to be sure ..."

"l'll eat him in small pieces, small pieces on the barbecue and I invite  him to come eat."

Calabria mobster Vincenza Muia

 

"When it comes to entering documentation as evidence, almost anything will be admissible as long as it is relevant to an issue to be decided by the IAD [Immigration Appeal Division]."

Benjamin Dolin, Immigration and Refugee Board member  

Vincenzo "Jimmy" DeMaria is led to a police car after being arrested in April 2009. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post/File

 

 

Vincenzo DeMaria is not a Canadian citizen. He never applied for citizenship. At 71 years of age he has lived in Canada since he was nine months old. He emigrated from Italy with his parents. And Ottawa has been attempting for over forty years to deport him to Italy and rid Canada of his presence. He was convicted of shooting a man who owed him money, killing him in Toronto in 1981. He was convicted of second-degree murder, and since then the government has tried to deport him. Each of those attempts was fully challenged and litigated by a battery of lawyers hired by DeMaria.

 

In 1992 he was released from prison on full parole. Over the succeeding years, police investigators appear to have garnered evidence pointing to DeMaria's having become an influential member of the 'Ndrangheta, in Toronto. There are, in Canada, a number of 'Ndragheta groups, each one of which is associated with a particular family. A police officer at one immigration hearing characterized DeMaria as the mob's "top guy in Toronto". He has himself denied being a mobster, of even knowing anything about the 'Ndrangheta. Claiming ethnic profiling and anti-Italian prejudice has led to deportation efforts. 

 

The latest deportation hearing is ongoing, with the government declaring against expectations that it no longer planned to rely on any evidence from controversial Italian police wiretaps made covertly with the use of bugged phones of visiting members of a mob family to Canada. Although DeMaria denies allegations he is a member of the 'Ndrangheta -- the powerful Mafia from the Calabria region of Italy -- an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing is underway currently. 

 

DeMaria's lawyers had called repeatedly for the Italian police wiretaps to be rejected as evidence, insisting they represented illegal foreign interference. When the government surprised them by agreeing in the middle of the hearing on Friday, the lawyers objected. Claiming that in two days of earlier testimony this week by a senior police officer from Italy, the government's first witness at the hearing, the wiretaps had been extensively 'co-mingled' along with other evidence over the past two years.

 

Lawyer Shoshana Green asked for a stay of proceedings, to suspend the government's appeal of an earlier immigration board decision to allow DeMaria to remain in Canada. She appealed to Benjamin Dolin, the IRB member whose decision on the matter would determine whether her client would be deported. "Or in the alternative, we would certainly consent to the minister abandoning their appeal", she offered. Mr. Dolin responded that the change "would seem to benefit" her client. "I don't see any prejudice to Mr. DeMaria."

 

The wiretaps under discussion provided an intriguing look into the 'Ndrangheta activities, revealing links between those under investigation in Italy to affiliates in Canada. Italian police learned in 2019 that a mobster in Calabria was coming to Toronto to speak with people there to find out who, in the 'Ndrangheta, had murdered his brother in Italy, so he could avenge his death by killing the individual responsible, once he was identified.

 

Mindful of organizational volatility, Muia said he needed to speak with DeMaria and other 'Ndrangheta bosses in Canada, to be one hundred percent certain before acting out his retribution for his dead brother. Police had inserted a Trojan horse virus into Muia's phone, turning it into a microphone that recorded all sound where the phone was present, even when not in use. While the bugging was approved by an Italian judge, no judicial authorization by a Canadian court for intercepted communications in Canada when Muia visited with his bugged phone, had been sought. 

 

Where Italy's high court accepted the operation as legal since the bugs were installed in Italy and the recordings captured by them in Canada were transmitted to Italy before police heard them,last year in Canada, DeMaria's lawyers had asked the IRB to exclude the wiretaps with other evidence. since Canada's courts would dismiss the wiretaps as illegal. Stating that under Canadian law, immigration hearings used different rules of evidence than criminal courts, the IRB's Dolin refused their motion.

 

Vincenzo "Jimmy" DeMaria, right, is led to a police cruiser after being arrested in Toronto on April 20, 2009. Photo by Peter J. Thompson / National Post

 

 

 

Too Little, Too Late, Too Suspicious

"In every household [in Sweida] someone has died."

"I think after the massacres that happened, there is not a single person in Sweida that wants anything to do with this government, unfortunately."

"This government butchered people, and butchered any possibility to [bring[ reconciliation and harmonize the south [of Syria]."

Expatriate Syrian Druze returned to Syria

Smoke rising in the city of Sweida. At least 718 people have been killed in Sweida province after nearly a week of fighting. Photograph: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images

 

"We are for national unity, but not the unity of terrorist gangs", stated Syrian Kurd Saber Abou Ras, professor of medical sciences at Sweida university, his hopes for a better future for Syria emerging from 14 years of civil war, completely shattered. His days as an academic and health care professional have been suspended in southern Syria's Druze-majority Sweida; he carries now not a stethoscope but arms, refusing to surrender them to the government, in despair for a united Syria.

 

The violence that occurred last week started by kidnappings between Bedouin militias and fighters with the Druze religious minority, and quickly escalated to the point where hundreds of people were savagely killed -- (mostly Druze civilians), threatening to unravel Syria's tentative postwar transition. When Syrian government forces intervened to reestablish order and put a stop to the fighting and brutal slaughter, they did so in support of the Bedouin, fellow Sunni Muslims, against the offshoot-Shiite-Muslim Druze minority.

 

Details of the humiliating abuse of Druze civilians and the gruesome executions that followed, were seen in videos and reports that surfaced of sectarian insults culminating in savage killings. Gunmen in military uniforms asked an unarmed man for his proof of identity beyond that he is merely Syrian. "What do you mean Syrian? Are you Sunni or Druze?' At the man's admission of being Druze, the uniformed gunmen open fire, killing him.

 

Syrian Druze fighters,  Photo AFP

 

Druze number approximately a million, more than half of whom live in Syria, while others are in Lebanon and Israel, including the Golan Heights, part of Israel since the 1967 Mideast war, annexed in 1981. Within Syria's population of over 20 million, the Druze constitute a small community where Sweida's Druze are proud in having aided in liberating the country from Ottoman and later French colonial rule. They welcomed Assad's fall in a rebel offensive ending the Assad dynasty tyrannical rule.

 

Skeptical of the background of Syria's interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa, given his Islamist credentials as a past leader of the Nusra Front linked to al-Qaeda, many among the Druze population, including influential clerics supported engaging diplomatically with the new leadership while some remained hostile to his presidency. There were some clashes between government forces and Druze armed groups that were resolved with a security agreement in May, intended to lead to long-term co-existence. 

 

Bedouin fighters stand on a pickup truck as they arrive at al-Dour village on the outskirts of Sweida city, during clashes between Bedouin clans and Druze militias, southern Syria. (AP/Ghaith Alsayed)

 

After a wave of sectarian violence that broke out months ago on Syria's coast mostly targeting the minority Alawite Shias, Druze began to feel that reaching a fair settlement with the government diplomatically had been compromised. An official investigation into the coastal violence verified that over 1,400 people had been killed, mostly civilians. Worse for ongoing relations with Syria's minority groups, members of the security forces were implicated in the attacks.

 

Syria's interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa. (SANA / AFP)

 

Syria's president, Al-Sharaa, promised he would hold perpetrators of the attacks and bloodshed to account, restating his vow not to exclude Syria's minority groups, insisting Druze are not being targeted, but rather it was armed factions challenging state authority, led by Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri, antagonistic to the new regime, that his government was concerned with. 

 

Israel's interventions were cited as an aggravating condition by Al-Sharaa, in attempting, he said, to exacerbate divisions in Syria, by launching airstrikes on government forces in the province, in defence of the Druze.  Kurdish forces controlling Syria's northeast, in negotiations with Damascus to merge with the new national army, are now reconsidering the move to surrender their weapons following the violence that was unleashed in Sweida. 

 

Syrian government security forces block Bedouin fighters, background, from entering Sweida province, in Busra al-Harir village, southern Syria on Sunday. Omar Sanadiki/AP

 

Securing Justice

"I stand here not just as a mother but as a broken soul whose life changed forever the day my child's life was taken from me by another child."

"I ask myself what has happened to those two boys that has resulted in that terrible act of violence, and I cannot imagine how can they be so angry."

"What they did was horrific and I do not know what has led them to do this, and maybe I will never."

"At least my son is at peace, and those two kids are going to have a really tough time." 

"To the young people who carry knives, I beg you to stop before you raise that blade."

"Don't let a moment of anger steal your future. Don't let the streets raise you in a way your mother never would. There is no power in death, only loss."

Marie Bokassa, mother of murder victim, Kelyan Bokassa

 

"[The teenager looked around and out of the windows before taking his seat] giving every impression that he was concerned for his safety."

"Kelyan Bokassa had no time to reach for his own knife, which remained in his trousers, and instead tried in vain to protect himself with his school bag."

"Since Kelyan Bokassa was seated on the back seat, he was cornered, unable to escape as the defendants repeatedly thrust their knives towards him, smiling as they did so." 

"There were several other passengers on the top deck who fled in panic when they realized what was happening. They describe hearing intense screaming from the back of the bus and the victim shouting, 'Help. Help. I've been stabbed'."

Prosecutor Deanna Heer KC 

Ms Bokassa told the court her son had loved food, cooking and football, and brought her flowers on her birthday  Photo: Family handout

 

On January7, 2025, a 14-year-old aspiring rapper seated himself on the top deck of a London bus on his way to an appointment. Two minutes after Kelyan Bokassa boarded that bus, another two boys aged 16 and 15, who appeared to know that Kelyan would be on the bus, got on as well. They made their way over to where Kelyan  was seated. Kelyan had stuck a small kitchen knife under his belt for whatever reason. The two boys who confronted him on the top of the double-decker bus had boarded it with machetes concealed under their clothing.

 

As the prosecution described it: The pair walked towards Kelyan "with purpose" and without speaking a word to their victim, thrust their machetes at him 27 times while smiling. The attack lasted 14 seconds. The briefest of intervals in the lives of three boys, leaving one dead and the surviving two hunted by police. Kelyan was buried, his 15th birthday celebrated by his mother at the cemetery where he was buried. The  two boys were found and charged, to await their day in court.

 

When Kelyan was lethally assaulted, CCTV showed him stumbling through the aisle while other passengers, shocked and transfixed around him watched him bleeding and stumbling along, heading for the stairs. Another passenger moved to assist him. And Kelyan was overheard to have said:  “Take me to my mum’s. I want my mum,” before he collapsed, bleeding heavily from a wound to the leg. When the bus stopped the other two boys fled the bus.

A passing police car was flagged down by members of the public, and officers entering the bus found Kelyan had collapsed, his body limp. Attempts to save him failed and the boy died at the scene. The two boys with their machetes had slashed him no fewer than 27 times. At the time they stood trial, pleading guilty, which would have reduced the penalty they might expect at judgement, they were both 16, their identities shielded from the public under British law, as under-aged defendants. 

Metropolitan Police   The attack was captured on CCTV cameras

 

Judge Mark Lucraft KC told the court at the Old Bailey: "For any parent to lose a child is a tragedy. No sentence of a court can truly reflect the loss of a young life." When he sentenced the two teens to life in prison he explained that one boy was a "victim of child criminal exploitation who had faced "a history of trauma". The second boy, he went on, was also exploited by gangs from the age of 12, experiencing "undiagnosed developmental needs." 

 

"Life in prison" for these two cold-blooded young murderers will be reflected by a minimum term of 15 years. In all likelihood, both will serve considerably less time incarcerated, given the trend to exceptionalism when sentencing those committing serious crimes in society, including murder in the first degree, taking into account their 'deprived' past experiences with the focus on social justice for the malefactors, leaving the public aghast at the consequences of sympathetic justice for malefactors while their victims remain afterthoughts. 

"This case has been deeply troubling for all involved and our thoughts remain with Kelyan’s family and loved ones."

"The harsh reality in London is that violence disproportionately affects young black men and boys. The fact we’re seeing so many teenagers like Kelyan die should be at the forefront of the minds of every politician, every policy maker and everyone who wants better for children growing up in London. Without this collective effort, we won’t be able to tackle knife crime in its entirety."

"Finally, I would like to recognize the members of the public that comforted Kelyan in his final moments and the witnesses who entrusted my investigation team with their testimonies. It was your bravery that helped us secure justice. Thank you." 

Detective Chief Inspector Sarah Lee, Metropolitan London Police 

 

"My child had a name, it was Kelyan, a future, a heartbeat full of hope. That life was not theirs to take."

"That moment of violence may have lasted seconds, but the consequences are eternal. They didn’t just take a life; they shattered an entire world."

"They broke a family, they buried a future, and they left me, a mother dead inside with wounds no justice can ever heal."

Marie Bokassa 

Kelyan and Marie Bokassa, Still from video

 

 

 

 

 

Paleolithic Human Burial Culture

"This is an amazing revolutionary innovation for our species."

"It's actually the first time we are starting to use this behaviour [as a human species]."

"[The stone mound is] one of the three or four most important sites for [the] study of human evolution and behaviour during the Paleolithic time."

"Here we see a really complex set of behaviours, not related to just food and surviving." 

Yossi Zaidner, co-director, Tinshemet excavation, professor of archaeology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 

 

"[The concept of cemeteries in prehistoric life is important because it symbolizes] a kind of a territory."

"[That same kind of claim over land where ancestors are buried still echoes in the region.] It’s a kind of claim you make to the neighbors, saying ’This is my territory, this part of the land belongs to my father and my forefather’ and so on and so on."

Israel Hershkovitz, physical anthropologist,Tel Aviv University, co-director, Tinshemet site

Volunteers work in Tinshemet Cave, where archaeologists are excavating one of the world’s oldest known burial sites, dating back 100,000 years, near Shoam, Israel, July 2025. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

  

The Paleolithic era, or 'Stone Age", so called in reflection of the initial era in the use of stone tools representing the evolutionary time of emerging primeval humanity from 3.3 million years in ancient time up until some 10,000 years ago. Recent discoveries in Israel have unearthed two intact primeval skeletons in an ancient cave. Tinshemet Cave dates from the Middle Paleolithic era which equates to 250,000 to approximately 30,000 years ago -- an enormous sweep of evolutionary time on a vastly unimaginable scale.

 

Tinshemet Cave is located in central Israel, an area of rolling hills. The archeologists working there to unearth mysteries of the far distant past feel they have discovered one of the oldest burial sites in the world at the unassuming stone mound. And where they have discovered the well-preserved skeletal remains of early humans dating back some 100,000 years. They have been gripped with the unmistakable signs of ceremonial burials, where remains were carefully arranged in pits.

 

These findings appear to build on previous discoveries in northern Israel, adding to a growing appreciation of the realization of an emerging primitive social culture specific to the origins of human burial. The intriguing discovery of objects found alongside these remains leading to speculation they may have been used during ceremonies meant to honour the dead, and could possibly lead to more of an understanding of how humanity's ancestors thought about spirituality and an afterlife advances our understanding of ancestral human evolution. 

 

Fruit bats in Tinshemet Cave, where archaeologists are excavating one of the world’s oldest known burial sites, dating back 100,000 years, near Shoam, Israel (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

 

Work has been ongoing by archaeologists at Tinshemet since 2016, with the discovery of the  remains of five early hominids, dating back to around 110,000 to 100,000 years. Discovered in pits, the skeletons had been carefully arranged in a fetal position, known as a burial position, according to Professor Zaidner. Objects such as basalt pebbles, animal remains or fragments of ochre were found buried with the remains. Some of the objects were recognized as having been found hundreds of kilometres' distant and their practical utility questioned other than serving as objects linked to the ritual of burial.

 

The Tinshemet core findings by researchers were published in Nature Human Behavior. The remains of five early humans were represented by two full skeletons and three isolated skulls, along with other bones and teeth. Although archaeologists have studied the remains for years, it has not yet been established whether they were Neanderthals, Homo sapiens, a hybrid group or an altogether other alternatives. More than 500 various-sized fragments of red and orange ochre, a pigment created by heating iron-rich stones to a certain temperature, provided evidence that early humans discovered the means by which decorative objects could be created.

 

A unique combination of ash that resulted from frequently-made fires, and atmospheric rainfall, along with the geology of acidic limestone in Israel, served to preserve the skeletons and objects; conditions that were optimal for unintended, natural preservation purposes. The local climate conditions and geology in other words, preserved these remains, much as has been seen in other parts of the Middle East; Egypt, for example. 

 

The findings at Tinshemet support analyses and hypotheses from earlier discoveries dating to the same period in northern Israel, where two similar burial sites were discovered -- Skhul Cave and Qafzeh Cave. Skhul Cave was excavated close to a century ago, while Qafzeh Cave was excavated some fifty years ago, when archaeological professionalism in its current systematic and and scientific approach was somewhat less rigorous. 

 

What has been established is that in antiquity, Israel was an evolutionary bridge between Neanderthals from Europe, and Homo Sapiens from Africa. That there was interbreeding producing cross-species is well accepted in general.  Other subgroups of early humans have been identified in the area, leading archaeologists to believe that the groups interacted and may have interbred. In people of European and Asian descent in particular, a small percentage of genetic material from Neanderthals is part of their evolutionary inheritance.

 

Professor of Archaeology Yossi Zaidner works in Tinshemet Cave, excavating one of the world’s oldest known burial sites, dating back 100,000 years. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)