Israel have bombed people sheltering in tents in Lebanon. The genocidal settler state has a habit of bombing and re-bombing the people it has displaced. Their practice of striking tented camps is an oft-repeated story of the Gaza genocide. Now, the people they have bombed in Beirut were only sheltering in tents because Israel had forcibly displaced them from their homes.

Israel escalated its aggression around 2 March amid a spiraling US-backed war with Iran.

Israel decimates Lebanon

Al Arabiya reported on 12 March:

In a statement, the Lebanese health ministry said “the Israeli enemy strike on Ramlet al-Bayda” in the center of Beirut killed eight people and wounded 31.

Adding:

An AFP correspondent at the scene saw a damaged motorcycle and two damaged cars, with the area sealed off by security forces.

The Cradle posted image of the strikes on 12 March:

Israel has committed a massacre of innocent civilians in Ramlet al-Baida in the Lebanese capital, Beirut, where many people displaced from their homes have been sheltering in tents, cars, and on mattresses along the beach with nowhere else to go.

According to local reports, at… pic.twitter.com/GcL7ZRKOmx

— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) March 12, 2026

TV host Marwa Osman said the strikes had hit in the Ramlet al-Bayda area, leaving bodies “scattered”:

🚨BREAKING in Beirut
A horrific massacre committed by the Zionist occupation against displaced civilians in tents in the Ramlet al-Bayda area in the heart of the capital Beirut.… bodies are reportedly scattered on the ground amid the rubble. pic.twitter.com/y65VuVqPU2

— Marwa Osman || مروة عثمان (@Marwa__Osman) March 11, 2026

Outrageous war crimes

Filmmaker Robert lnlakesh said:

An outrageous war crime reminiscent of the massacres carried out in Gaza.

BREAKING: Israel Carries Out A Beach Massacre In Beirut

An Israeli strike reportedly targeted displaced people’s tents in the Ramla al-Bayda beach area. A huge number of dead & injured.

An outrageous war crime reminiscent of the massacres carried out in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/AUJ1a5S65e

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— Robert Inlakesh (@falasteen47) March 11, 2026

Since the latest invasion began, Israel has been hitting targets throughout Lebanon – including in densely populated civilian areas of the capital:

In theory, Hezbollah breached a US-brokered ‘ceasefire’ with Israel which had held since their last war in 2024. In practice, the US has given Israel carte blanche to strike Lebanon ever since. Israel has done so constantly since the deal was struck.

You can read about the secretive Israel-US ‘side letter’ pact here. And our extensive coverage of Israel’s ceasefire breaches here.

Aseel Habbaj was displaced from other areas Israel had bombed. She has been sheltering in a tent near where the new strikes landed:

We saw dead people on the ground. We were all asleep in my tent, when suddenly we heard a noise. We jumped up and went to see what was happening.

Drop Site News reported:

The toll since the renewed Israeli offensive began on March 2 is:  – Total Killed: 634+ – Total Wounded: 1,586+ – Displaced: More than 800,000 people (According to Lebanese Ministry of Health).

They added that Israel’s far-right finance minister had openly stated the genocidal settler-colonial state would make Beirut look like Gaza:

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich stated on March 5, 2026, that the Dahiyeh district, a southern suburb of Beirut, would soon “look like Khan Younis.”

Al Jazeera posted images of the damage in Beirut’s southern suburbs:

Aftermath of overnight Israeli air strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs.

🔴 LIVE updates: https://t.co/OgnafTvf8a pic.twitter.com/xqWfIyEHPJ

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) March 12, 2026

Israel’s attack on Lebanon has a similar character to the Gaza genocide. It strikes civilians with impunity, while claiming to target terror groups. It’s unaccountable far-right leaders, meanwhile, openly call for the annihilation of Lebanese civilians and their means to life.

Featured image via the Canary

Migrant workers from poorer countries, including Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and the Philippines, who form the backbone of the UAE’s workforce are increasingly bearing the human cost of the US-Israel-Iran conflict. At least 2 Pakistani labourers are confirmed dead so far.

— Zia Ur Rehman (@zalmayzia) March 8, 2026

This means Gulf employers extract maximum profit from the Asian labourer while bearing none of the true costs of reproducing that labour like education, healthcare, housing and childcare.

So in effect, India and other south Asian countries are subsidising the Gulf’s wealth, and the border ensures the worker can never demand more.

Gulf states complicit

Ali Kadri, also a scholar on West Asia, explains why.

Gulf rulers park their wealth in US dollars, not in their own societies. As Kadri writes:

the merchant class wealth is mostly held in dollars, so it becomes one with US-led capital in the dollar.

They have “little to lose from forfeiting its production base in the home economy.” These South Asian workers are treated as servile and disposable. Mustapha Qadri, director of human rights organisation Equiderm, explained:

There is a conscious choice made to get workers that are from relatively poor countries, who don’t get paid as much and have a lot less power in the social dynamic of these countries, to do this difficult work – because they’re less likely to complain or to demand protection.

The US guarantees the economic security of these Gulf states. As such, they never have to build functioning nations with real citizen workforces.  This US-led set-up favours both. The Gulf ruling class gets cheap labour and US protection. The US gets obedient allies and recycled petrodollars.

And the workers? They exist in an exploitative structure that treats both their lives and deaths as an acceptable cost for the gross skyscrapers that make up the skylines of the richest Gulf states.

Vassalage confirmed.

Featured image via the Canary

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Spring has only just sprung, which means it’s time for that tricky edge-of-winter transitional dressing.

You know how it is – you leave the house in the morning, and it’s freezing. Then by lunch, you’re sweating your life away, but when you head home for the day, it’s chilly again.

And heaven help you if you stay out past sunset and forget a good coat!

But one of the best things about this time of year is that the weather is suddenly a lot more flat-shoe friendly, what with the fact that there’s (usually) no more snow or ice to waddle your way through, and a lot less need for thick cosy socks.

If you’re looking for a little flat shoe shopping inspo, here are some of the best flats on the high street right now that are perfect for chic gals about town.

Callum Price is Director of Communications at the Institute of Economic Affairs, and a former Government special adviser. 

When I was a child, I used to play Playmobil ‘cowboys and Indians’ with a friend every day at the after-school club (we were about 6 and it was the early 2000s, yet to be made aware of the cultural insensitivities this threw up). One day, my friend didn’t want to play anymore, because the club got a new SEGA Megadrive, which was obviously far more entertaining. I was gutted and rather petulant about it – until I too embraced the wonders of the SEGA Megadrive.

I was reminded of this recently when Ed Davey decided to use his intervention at PMQs as the war in the Middle East unfolded to take aim at those who have moved to Dubai and paid less in UK tax as a result.

Davey probably thought he was making a very sensible and patriotic point. Why should those who have left our shores be recipients of our support?

At first glance there is some instinctive logic to this. They aren’t paying in to the coffers, so why should they be able to take out of them?

However, as many others have pointed out, there are a range of problems with this logic; not least that no-one argued that those we evacuated from Sudan or Afghanistan at times of crisis should foot their own bill.

Not only that, but our entire welfare state system is built on the premise that it is there for British citizens when they need it. In an ideal world, everyone pays into it when they can, and gets out of it what they must. It might feel strange to consider RAF repatriation flights part of the welfare state, but the logic stands just the same.

If we want to be stricter about deciding who benefits from the Treasury’s coffers based on who contributes, then I’m sure many Conservative Home readers would happily partake. But it would surprise me if those who are using the Middle East crisis to take aim at ‘tax avoiders’ in Dubai would share those sympathies.

So, what is really behind the animosity directed at those who have emigrated to Dubai?

On the surface, it seems like a primarily aesthetic debate. The Dubai Deanos vs the British Patriots. To the former Dubai is a safe haven of sunny beaches and a (much) lower tax burden, much preferable to Broken Britain. To the latter, it’s a gauche and cultureless desert that could only appeal to the uncivilised.

I admit to personally being closer to the latter than the former on purely aesthetic grounds, but 240,000 Brits have moved there for something – friends and relatives among them. Can we not accept that people might seek to use their agency to go and find a better life for themselves and their families, even if it might not be our own version of a better life?

When we scratch beneath the surface it appears that many can’t, political elites and otherwise, which is a damning illustration of their attitude to prosperity. It is a sort of Dubai Derangement Syndrome; embracing decline because prosperity is gauche. The belief that having the gall to do something radical to improve your lot in life is an act of vile self-interest, and fundamentally un-British. Taking radical action to achieve something better is beyond the pale. We have it good enough and we should be happy about it.

It is the same philosophy that leads politicians to crow about ‘1.5 per cent growth, the fastest in the G7’ as a major victory: a broad comfort with mediocrity. It is managed decline, with a patriotic spin; accepting a lesser lot to spite those who have dared stray from the accepted path.

But we shouldn’t decry ambition, we should venerate it. In the week that Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations celebrates its 250th anniversary, we should remember just how important self-interest is to a functioning economy, we don’t create wealth or deliver prosperity without it. So why make villains of those who are demonstrating these values?

On the contrary, we should be doing all that we can to get them back, so they can achieve their aims in Britain and we can bask in the reflective benefits of their ambition. Dubai has a lot going for it inherently; so does Britain. But we can do significantly better in the disputed ground in between, by fixing our fundamental economic problems.

If people were more able to easily find fulfilling employment, keep more of the money they earned from it, and spend it on more than just their energy bills and replacing the phone that got stolen at the bus stop, then Dubai and its competitors might become relatively less appealing. After all, at six years old I was able to embrace the SEGA Megadrive to keep playing with my friend – and it turned out to be quite fun too.

Mr. Davey, you may not like what Dubai has to offer, but don’t tarnish those who do with the brush of ‘tax exiles’ and ‘washed-up old footballers’. If we were able to attract their like and their ambition, instead of scaring them away, we would all feel the benefits.

Who was William Willett?

Why did the UK adopt BST?

In a rational, decent world, Keir Starmer would already be toast — politically at least. Among the limited new files released, a briefing document reveals that Starmer knew about Mandelson’s Epstein ties, prior to his appointment as UK ambassador. Starmer knew. Furthermore, we have the receipts which challenge his sorry not sorry excuse of “having believed Mandelson’s lies.”

Starmer knew

He knew Mandelson was, and, had remained, “particularly close” to serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein long after Epstein’s conviction for paedophilia. He knew that Mandelson had set up a meeting between Epstein and Tony Blair. Moreover, he also knew that appointing Mandelson would be a disaster if it got out:

And it proves that Starmer flat-out lied when, after the renewed Mandelson scandal broke, that he “would never have appointed” Mandelson “had I known.”

In the public record

Of course, we knew he knew. The key facts about Mandelson and Epstein had been in the public domain long before the Epstein file release showed Mandelson leaking state information to his paedophile pal. These include:

• Mandelson and Epstein’s closeness began well over 20 years before Starmer got into Number 10 and appointed him. Notably, Mandelson immediately set up the Epstein-Blair meeting.

• Their contact continued years after Epstein’s 2008 conviction.

• Mandelson stayed at Epstein’s New York house in 2009.

And much more.

Protected by status

In a sane world, yet another confirmation of how much Starmer knew about Mandelson and Epstein would end the paedophile-protecting Brylcreemed blancmange. But it’s not a sane world. Instead, Starmer’s status as a “long-time servant of the security state” has protected him repeatedly. This is true through Savile. It is also true through the non-prosecution of Church of England paedophile John Smyth.

Through ‘beergate‘, through the decision not to prosecute the police murderer of Ian Tomlinson, through the Post Office scandal, through Assange. Through the endless paedophile and covered-up sex abuse scandals. Through dodgy apartment loans and donations for his son’s ‘study break’.

Starmer is not ‘teflon.’ He is widely loathed, and the cost of his dishonesty is the already threadbare legitimacy of the Labour party. Still, the political axe won’t swing until he’s outlived his usefulness to those driving the country toward fascism.

Featured image via the Canary

The High Court has ordered former footballer Joey Barton to pay TV sports pundit and former England footballer Eniola ‘Eni’ Aluko almost £340,000 in libel compensation and costs. A first instalment of £100,000 plus interest must be paid by 24 March, though the court gave him a week to apply for a ‘variation’ in the timing.

Aluko sued Barton over a flood of posts on the X social media platform in a “deliberately targeted public campaign of vilification [and] an attack on multiple aspects of her life and personality”. Barton accused Aluko of “cynically [seeking] to exploit her status as an alleged victim of racism and bullying”. Barton has now accepted that he mounted a harassment campaign against his victim.

Aluko said simply that she is “glad it’s the end.”

Barton has been convicted twice for violent crimes. He was also convicted in 2025 of six counts of malicious communications for his abusive messages concerning Aluko and others about TV host Jeremy Vine.

Featured image via the Canary