Allegations of sexual abuse against a child by a Syrian man in Kayseri, Turkey, have sparked overnight riots that targeted Syrian businesses and cars in the city.

According to Turkish state news agency Anadolu, a Syrian man was arrested on allegations that he sexually abused his seven-year-old female cousin, who is also Syrian, in a public bathroom at a market.

Reports of the purported abuse quickly spread across social media, prompting outraged local residents to riot — setting fire to cars and Syrian-run businesses in the central Anatolian city.

“An investigation was immediately launched on the issue. However, later our citizens gathered in this region, acted illegally in an attitude that does not suit our human values, and damaged houses, workplaces, and vehicles belonging to Syrian nationals,” Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said. He said that dozens of people were detained, and the crowd was only dispersed in the early morning hours.

The local governor of Kayseri called on people “to act calmly, with moderation and common sense.”

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed opposition parties, some of which have taken a hard line on removing the estimated 3.6 million Syrians from the country, for stoking “hatred politics.”

Erdogan himself has pledged to create the conditions for large numbers of Syrians to voluntarily return to Syria.

“Xenophobia and hatred towards refugees in our country should not be ignited because this does not give any positive results,” he said in a speech on Monday.

At the “Bab al-Salama” border crossing with Turkey, the Turkish flag was removed, burned and replaced with a Free Syrian Army flag, according to a local resident and images circulating on social media.

Several internet providers in northern Syria appeared to be disconnected late Monday. Only satellite internet was still working.

The largest umbrella group representing the Syrian opposition, the “National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces” released a statement urging Syrians on both sides of the border to “exercise self-restraint.”

“The sole beneficiaries of this chaos, violations, and disorder are the regime and terrorist organizations,” the statement read.

Yerlikaya blamed bots and provocateurs for sowing discord on social media. He said that more than a third of accounts sharing content about the events in Kayseri on X were bots and that 10 accounts had been referred to prosecutors.

“We will not tolerate those who threaten the peace and security of our country, make provocative posts, or engage in hate speech,” he wrote on X.

Turkey hosts more Syrian refugees than any other country, but Turkey has often struggled to integrate Syrian refugees fully into society. That, combined with a struggling economy, has turned Syrians into a political lightning rod in Turkey. Many Syrians accuse Turks of racist treatment. Countless Syrian children are not in schools because of a requirement that Syrians remain in the districts they were registered in originally — even after events such as last year’s deadly earthquake in southern Turkey forced many of them to relocate.

All of this comes just days after Erdogan said he was open to meeting with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to restore ties between the two countries — though last year Assad made clear the meeting could not take place so long as Turkish troops remained in Syria. Assad and Erdogan were once close and even vacationed together, but Erdogan eventually backed the Free Syrian Army that sought to oust Assad from power in Syria’s civil war.

More than a hundred people were killed in a crush at a religious gathering in India’s northern state of Uttar Pradesh on Tuesday, according to local police and administration officials.

The incident happened at a prayer meeting, known as a satsang, in the Mughal Garhi village in the Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh, officials said. The village in India’s most populous state is around 200 kilometers (124 miles) southeast of the capital, New Delhi.

Local police said at least 116 people had been killed, though that number may rise.

The bodies of at least 27 of the dead were taken to Etah district mortuary, according to Inspector General Shalabh Mathur, of the neighboring district Ambala Range, while the rest of the bodies are in Hathras, he said.

A video distributed by Reuters showed crowds gathering outside a local hospital in Etah, where distraught families cried for the victims. Medical personnel could be seen carrying people on stretchers.

It is unclear what caused the crush of people, but survivors spoke of the harrowing incident in its aftermath. “People started falling one upon another, one upon another. Those who were crushed died. People there pulled them out,” Shakuntala Devi told the Press Trust of India news agency, according to Associated Press.

Efforts are underway to provide the injured with medical care and arrangements are being made for post-mortem examinations at various locations, Inspector General Mathur added.

Mathur said that a police report will be filed against event organizers for allegedly exceeding permitted attendance levels. A high-level inquiry has been launched to investigate the circumstances surrounding the incident, he said.

Aligarh Commissioner Chaitra V said, “As of now, 116 deaths have been confirmed, with 18 injuries reported. Initial investigations are ongoing, and appropriate actions will be taken based on the findings.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences in an address in the lower house of India’s bicameral parliament known as the Lok Sabha.

Modi said the government is engaged in “relief and rescue work” and is coordinating with the state government. “The victims will be helped in every way,” he said.

Speaking to reporters, Ashish Kumar, the district magistrate of Hathras, said the stampede happened as people were leaving the event, which was held to celebrate the Hindu deity Shiva.

The district magistrate said police had given permission for the private event and officials were “put on duty for maintenance of law and order and security,” but arrangements inside were handled by the organizers.

An investigation into the incident will be conducted by a newly formed high-level committee, he added.

A new year’s crush in January 2022 at one of India’s holiest shrines in Jammu, in the north of the country, killed at least a dozen people.

This story has been updated with additional information.

The head of Gaza’s largest hospital has claimed he was repeatedly tortured during his seven months in Israeli detention, following his sudden release Monday, in a move that highlighted growing rifts in the Israeli establishment.

Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the director of the Al-Shifa medical complex, who was arrested in late November during the first of two Israeli raids on the facility in Gaza City, was released along with 50 other Palestinian detainees.

Their release has sparked outcry in Israel and was criticized across the political spectrum, as well as by families of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas during its deadly October 7 attack.

At a news conference Monday, Abu Salmiya alleged Palestinian detainees suffered “severe torture” and had medical treatment denied.

“My little finger was broken. I was repeatedly subjected to hitting on the head, causing bleeding multiple times. There was almost daily torture in the Israeli prisons,” he told reporters.

“The doctor there beats the detainees, and the nurse beats the detainees. This is in violation of all international laws.”

Abu Salmiya said fellow prisoners lost a significant amount of weight and were “completely denied treatment.”

“They amputated the feet of several prisoners, those who are suffering from diabetes symptoms due to the lack of medical treatment for them,” he said.

A prison service spokesperson said, “prisoners and detainees have the right to file a complaint that will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities.”

Abu Salmiya was reportedly detained while evacuating the hospital with a World Health Organization convoy. The Israeli military said at the time the director was “apprehended and transferred for … questioning following evidence showing that the Shifa Hospital, under his direct management, served as a Hamas command and control center.”

Al-Shifa became a flashpoint in Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and now lies in ruins following a 14-day Israeli siege in March. Israel repeatedly claimed that a Hamas command center sat underneath the medical complex and that the militant group has used it to hold hostages. Hamas has denied the claims, as have health officials working there.

Other Palestinian detainees released on Monday described overcrowded detention centers where prisoners were abused, diseases were rife, and food was scarce.

“They would show us photos of our relatives’ bodies, pictures of our families and children … and say: ‘Look at your children, we killed them.’ They would show us pictures of our wives, our sisters, and tell us that they had taken them and done this and that to them,” Faraj said.

Israeli outcry

The release has created tensions within Israel as its war with Hamas stretches into its ninth month, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordering an “immediate inquiry into the matter,” according to his office.

Netanyahu said the decision followed discussions at the High Court, and the identity of the released prisoners was determined independently by security officials “based on their professional considerations.”

Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet said in a statement that detainees who posed a “lesser danger” were released to “free up places of confinement.”

Shin Bet said it had been warning for about a year of the need to increase the number of spaces in detention centers “given the need to arrest terrorists” in the West Bank and Gaza.

“Without a choice, without an immediate solution to the prison shortage, arrests will continue to be canceled and detainees will continue to be released,” the agency said.

But far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir was among those outraged by the decision, calling the release of Abu Salmiya and other prisoners “security negligence.”

Former defense minister Benny Gantz, who resigned from Israel’s War Cabinet last month, said “whoever made this decision lacked judgment and should be fired today.”

The decision to release the detainees comes as families of Israelis taken hostage by Hamas during the October 7 attacks continue to wait for news of their loved ones. As many as 120 hostages remain captive in Gaza.

In a statement Monday, the Hostage and Missing Families Forum headquarters said it hoped the Israeli government would be “determined to release our family members, with the same determination as it releases the director of Shifa Hospital.”

The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders on Monday for areas in southern Gaza including eastern Khan Younis and Rafah, forcing residents – many of whom were already displaced – to seek shelter elsewhere in what signals the possibility of another ground operation.

The Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the territory’s last standing hospitals and which falls within the evacuation zone, has transferred patients, including those in intensive care and babies in incubators, and medical equipment to other hospitals in “fear of a bloodshed,” according to the hospital’s deputy director and doctors.

On Monday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said the emergency room at Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis was overcrowded with injuries after patients had been transferred from the European Hospital, following an Israeli military order to evacuate the Al Fukhari area. It said it also received some patients from Nasser Hospital, which it said had also become overcrowded with patients from the European Hospital.

In a separate statement, hours after the initial evacuation orders, the Israel Defense Forces said the order “does not apply to the patients in the European Hospital or the medical staff working there.”

“There is no intention to evacuate the European Hospital,” the statement said.

Videos posted to social media showed hospital patients on stretchers being moved through the streets near the hospital following the orders.

The Israeli military withdrew its ground forces from Khan Younis in April after months of fierce fighting that left much of the city in ruins.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, Louise Wateridge, who is currently in Gaza, said the agency is seeing a “massive” movement of people from the evacuation zones after the Israeli military’s latest order was issued. The agency said it expects around 250,000 people in the evacuation zones to leave the area.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes and shelling on Khan Younis continued, with at least eight people killed and 32 injured overnight, according to Nasser hospital.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is paying his first visit to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale war began in February 2022, according to a Hungarian government spokesperson.

“Viktor Orban arrived in Kyiv this morning to discuss European peace with President Volodymyr Zelensky,” spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs posted on X on Tuesday.

Talks between the two leaders will focus on “possibilities for achieving peace, as well as current issues in Hungarian-Ukrainian bilateral relations,” Kovacs added.

Orban has been a divisive figure regarding European support for Ukraine. The authoritarian Hungarian leader has regularly attempted to steamroll European Union initiatives offering further military and financial support to Kyiv during the conflict.

Hungary’s prime minister also has a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has frequently come under scrutiny. Their bond is underpinned by both economic cooperation and some shared values.

Both leaders have also enacted anti-LGBTQ policies and clamped down on freedom of speech in their countries. Hungary has supported Russia at a United Nations level and rejected EU sanctions following Putin’s aggression in Ukraine as early as 2014, after Russia illegally annexed Crimea.

Tuesday’s meeting comes as Orban and Hungary take control of the EU Council’s rotating presidency, which changes every six months. During each six-month period, the country controlling the presidency does not take control of the EU’s overall agenda, but does have a platform through which they can hammer home their own priorities.

On the EU Council’s website, it likens holding the presidency “to someone hosting a dinner, making sure their guests all gather in harmony,” adding that to “guarantee effectiveness, the presidency acts as an ‘honest broker,’ rising above the holder’s own national interest.”

Orban took control of the presidency on Monday with a call to “Make Europe Great Again,” a reference to Donald Trump’s political slogan that will alarm many of his European counterparts who are braced for the former US president’s potential return to the White House, concerned about what it will mean for the EU.

Other key European diplomatic meetings are planned for July. NATO will celebrate 75 years of the alliance in Washington, DC on July 9-11. The agenda for that event is expected to be dominated by long-term plans to support Ukraine and conversations about its eventual accession to the alliance.

The European Political Community (EPC), a forum for 47 European countries, inside and outside the EU, to discuss the continent’s strategic challenges, will also meet on July 18 in the United Kingdom. Ukraine and Hungary are both members of the EPC.

It is expected that Ukraine will dominate that agenda and Zelensky may attend the meeting in person. Orban may have had this in mind when timing this trip to Kyiv, ensuring that his first meeting with Ukraine’s president since the start of the war was not in such a public and high-stakes diplomatic setting.

Ukraine has foiled an alleged plot to overthrow the government that “would have played into Russia’s hands,” security officials in the war-torn country said Monday.

In a Telegram post, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) claimed the alleged coup organizers planned to trigger a riot in Kyiv on June 30 as a distraction to seize control of the Ukrainian parliament and remove the military and political leadership from power.

It is unclear if those accused have any connection with Russia, which has waged a devastating full-scale invasion against its southwestern neighbor for nearly two and a half years.

Four suspects have been identified, with two held in custody, the SBU said. They face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty. The SBU said it seized weapons and ammunition, as well as cellphones, computers and other records “with evidence of criminal action.”

According to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office, the alleged coup leader rented a hall with a capacity of 2,000 people and recruited military personnel and armed guards from private companies to “carry out the seizure” of parliament. It is unclear if prosecutors are seeking any more suspects.

“To implement the criminal plan, the main organizer involved several accomplices—representatives of the community organizations from Kyiv, Dnipro, and other regions,” the SBU said.

The alleged scheme in Kyiv comes as Russia has made slow but steady battlefield gains in recent months, exploiting Ukraine’s diminishing manpower and reliance on the West for weapons – and uncertainty over the future of that military aid.

Russian forces killed seven people, including three children, in a missile strike on the southern town of Vilniansk Saturday, according to Ukrainian officials, prompting President Volodymyr Zelensky to appeal for more long-range weapons.

“I am grateful to all partners who are helping. And the decisions we need must be accelerated. Any delay in decisions in this war means losing human lives,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

Concerns have grown over the future of US military support for Ukraine with the potential for another Donald Trump presidency on the horizon.

During last week’s presidential debate, Trump questioned whether the United States should continue to fund Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

Kathmandu, Nepal — A Nepali court sentenced a man who thousands believed was a reincarnation of the Buddha to 10 years in jail on Monday for child sexual abuse, a court official said.

As a teenager, Ram Bahadur Bamjon had drawn international attention when in 2005 tens of thousands of people turned up to see the “Buddha Boy” sitting cross-legged under a tree in a dense forest in southeastern Nepal for nearly 10 months.

Court official Sikinder Kaapar of the Sarlahi district court in southern Nepal said a judge had also ordered Bamjon, 33, to pay $3,750 in compensation to the victim.

Bamjon could not be reached for comment by Reuters, but his lawyer, Dilip Kumar Jha, said he would appeal in a higher court.

Bamjon was arrested at a house on the outskirts of Kathmandu in January.

The ruling comes nearly two decades after he first gained international attention after he retreated into the jungle at age 15 to pray for 10 months, local media reported at the time. His followers once claimed that he did so without food, sleep or water.

Those claims were never independently verified, but it led some to laud him as the reincarnation of Siddhartha Gautama, who was born in Nepal some 2,500 years ago, and later became known simply as Buddha, meaning “enlightened one.”

A leading antisemitism watchdog on Monday filed a lawsuit in US federal court on behalf of more than 100 victims of the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel, and their families, accusing Iran, Syria and North Korea of providing material support to Hamas.

If successful, the lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Washington, DC, on Monday by Jewish advocacy group the Anti-Defamation League and the Crowell & Moring law firm, could unlock federal funds designated for victims of state-sponsored terrorism if the plaintiffs can prove their case.

The lawsuit lays out publicly available evidence of Iran, Syria and North Korea’s alleged history of support for Hamas: training, weapons and financial support from Iran; training and financing from Syria; and weapons and tunnel-digging know-how from North Korea.

The lawsuit alleges that Hamas could not have carried out the October 7 attacks, which killed more than 1,200 people and led to the abduction of more than 250 others, without the support of these countries.

The 2015 Justice for United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act established the US Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund, whose funds can be disbursed to victims and the families of deceased victims following the ruling of a US district court.

Greenblatt acknowledged that it is unlikely that any of these three countries will respond to the allegations in federal court, but said he views the lawsuit as a critical step to not only seek accountability for their support for Hamas, but also to counter efforts by some anti-Israel activists to deny the horrific nature of the October 7 attack.

The plaintiffs in the case are more than 100 US citizens and their families who were killed or wounded in the October 7 attacks at the Nova music festival and in several of the kibbutzes and towns near the Gaza Strip.

One of the plaintiffs, Nahar Neta, is the son of California native Adrienne Neta, who was killed during Hamas’ attack on Kibbutz Be’eri.

“While nothing will ever undo the unbearable pain Hamas caused our family or the brutal losses we’ve suffered, we hope this case will bring some sense of justice. It’s important for us to be able to tell our stories so the world can hear how Hamas has terrorized Israel, the Jewish people, and many American citizens,” Neta said in a statement issued through the ADL.

“My mom devoted her life to caring for others regardless of race or religious beliefs. She was a peace and justice seeker who was active in many civilian efforts to bridge the gap between Jews and Arabs in Israel.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday the country’s military is nearing the “end of the stage of eliminating” Hamas’ army in Gaza.

“I returned yesterday from a visit to the Gaza Division. I saw very considerable achievements in the fighting being carried in Rafah. We are advancing to the end of the stage of eliminating the Hamas terrorist army; we will continue striking its remnants,” Netanyahu said, speaking to a group of mainly Israeli and international military officials studying at the National Security College.

He again vowed that Israel would achieve its goals in its war against Hamas: returning hostages from Gaza, eliminating Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, ensuring that Gaza will not constitute a threat against Israel and also returning displaced Israeli residents securely to their homes in both the south and the north.

Before launching a military operation in Rafah in May, Israeli leaders had maintained that the southern Gaza city was the last stronghold of Hamas.

Netanyahu said last month that the “intense phase of the war with Hamas (in Gaza) is about to end,” and that the military’s focus could then shift to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

“It doesn’t mean that the war is going to end, but the war in its current stage is going to end in Rafah. This is true. We will continue mowing the grass later,” Netanyahu told Channel 14 Television on June 23.

Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others were abducted.

Israeli attacks in Gaza have since killed at least 37,718 Palestinians and injured another 86,377 people, according to Gaza health officials.

Thirty passengers were injured after a flight from Madrid to Uruguay was hit by “strong turbulence” and had to make an emergency landing in Brazil, Spanish airline Air Europa said on Monday.

“Our flight UX045 bound for Montevideo has been diverted to the Natal airport (Brazil) due to strong turbulence,” Air Europa said in a post on X.

“The plane has landed normally and those who sustained different types of injuries are already being treated.”

The aircraft hit by turbulence was a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. The plane has the capacity to hold up to 339 passengers, according to Air Europa’s website.

The Spanish airline said that another plane was set to depart later on Monday from Madrid and pick up the passengers stranded in Brazil to continue their journey to Uruguay.

Air Europa added that anyone who is in need of healthcare is being treated in Brazil’s Natal airport.

This is a developing story. More to come.