In March, Reuters reported that Israel had completely destroyed 223 mosques in Gaza, and partially destroyed 289 others, including the Great Mosque of Gaza, first built in the 7th century. The Real News reports from the north of Gaza, where the faithful continue to worship amid the rubble and Israel’s ongoing slaughter.

Producer: Belal Awad, Leo Erhardt
Videographer: Ruwaida Amer, Mahmoud Al Mashharawi
Video Editor: Leo Erhardt

Transcript

Narrator:

On the 10th of August, 2024, 10 months and 3 days into Israel’s war on Gaza, Palestinians sheltering in a Al-Tabin school in the North of Gaza rose before sunrise to pray. As they prayed, an Israeli air strike targeted the school killing between 90 and 100 people according to Gaza’s civil defence agency, making the strike among the deadliest documented attacks since October 7th.

[Background]

“The targeting of Al-Tabin school… There is no God, but Allah! Are they breathing? Are they breathing?”

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!”

“Say God is great, say God is great!”

“Allah is sufficient for us, and he is the best on whom we depend.”

Narrator:

The expression this bereaved woman repeats, is one deeply rooted in Islamic faith. It is heard and repeated in hundreds of videos and interviews that have come out of Gaza in the last 10 months.

[Background]

“It’s a shame! It’s a shame! Allah is sufficient for us, and he is the best on whom we depend!”

“Allah is sufficient for us, and he is the best on whom we depend! Allah is sufficient for us, and he is the best on whom we depend! Strengthen your Faith. Fill your hearts with Faith. I swear God will save us..”

Narrator:

We met with congregation leader Imam Fehmi Khalil Al Masri, who still leads prayers from amidst the ruins of the Islam Mosque in Northern Gaza, which was targeted by Israeli air strikes earlier this year in the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.

IMAM FAHMI KHALIL AL MASRI:

Allah is sufficient for us, and he is the best on whom we depend. The enemy has attacked all the mosques in the city of Khan Yunis, and beyond it all the mosques of the entire Gaza Strip. Mosques that were frequented by all people, from all corners, in order to fulfill their obedience to God.

Narrator:

Mahmoud Ibrahim is 72 years old, he remembers the first day of arriving in Khan Yunis in the beginning of Ramadan after being displaced.

MAHMOUD IBRAHIM SADEH

In Ramadan… we were bombed in Ramadan. The first day of Ramadan, the mosque was bombed above us. Even our neighbors, around us, never got the opportunity to say hi. We were here two days before the mosque got bombed. We didn’t get to see any mosques or anything. First day of Ramadan — the second day, to be specific — it was bombed. [Do you miss praying in the mosque?] I can’t! I miss it, but I can’t go to pray anymore, when you’re injured and there are planes and bombs and drones and missiles and I don’t know what. We just want to survive these days and go home. My dream is to go and see my destroyed house and die there on the rubble of my house. I want nothing in this world.

Narrator:

According to a Gaza’s Ministry of Religious Affairs as of January 2024, 1000 of Gaza’s 1,200 mosques have been destroyed. Included in this list, is the destruction of the Great Mosque of Gaza, one of the oldest mosques in the world, dating back to the 7th Century when Islam first arrived in the region.

IMAM FAHMI KHALIL AL MASRI:

Since the start of this war, what took place on the 7th of October, the day of judgment began then and has continued. We are all scattered, displaced from place to place. In place of our beloved mosque, we now have a room that doesn’t protect us, neither from the heat of summer nor the cold of winter. The war and displacement has had a huge impact on my life — it has been full of torture, suffering, and misery. But, regardless of this, we do not run or weaken. We remain steadfast. We will pray on time and give the call to prayer, and whether we are few or many we will congregate, we will pray, even if it’s out in the open.

Narrator:

Despite the targeting of mosques, and worshippers within them, prayers continue. After Israel’s massacre of people praying at al-Tabin school, Israel claimed that 19 of the people killed were terrorists, a claim called into question by the Palestinian chairman of the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor who says that the people killed were not involved in politics.

MAHMOUD IBRAHIM SADEH

We [went] to the mosque together with our friends, and my children went with me. Me and my children used to go every day, to pray and read the Quran and talk about everything. Apart from all that political stuff, we don’t get involved in that. I don’t feel right now like I’m alive. Me personally, after what’s happened to us, I feel nothing. I’ve lost hope. There’s not much life left for me. Here, my chest is broken, and here, my leg is too. Regardless of whether a bomb fell on me or not, I am not important in this world. Our whole life is just torture upon torture. Beginning with torture and ending with torture, wars — we haven’t seen anything good in our lives. We are not with this group or that group, we are not connected to anyone. We pray to Allah and that’s it.

Narrator:

Just like so many of Gazas homes, schools, hospitals and mosques, the great mosque of Gaza, has a long history of being destroyed – then rebuilt. Its minaret toppled in an earthquake in the 11th Century, destroyed by the crusaders in the 12th, by the mongols in the 13th and damaged by British bombs in WW1. Though it has once again been destroyed, it may yet see Gaza’s faithful gather to pray under its roof once more.

Related

In today’s newsletter:

Good morning. China’s blistering stock market rally cooled yesterday after Chinese authorities held off on unveiling more stimulus for the economy.

The blue-chip CSI 300 index of Shanghai- and Shenzhen-listed stocks surged 10.8 per cent upon opening after a week-long holiday, before falling back to close 5.9 per cent higher. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index plunged 9.4 per cent, its worst day since October 2008, after having risen 11 per cent over the previous five days.

Investor expectations had been building that Beijing would detail plans for greater fiscal spending to complement a monetary stimulus that had propelled Chinese equities to their best week since 2008.

But markets were disappointed when state planners did not announce major stimulus measures yesterday, analysts said.

“This is what happens when you feed the monster,” said Alicia García-Herrero, chief Asia-Pacific economist at Natixis. “Every day you need to increase the amount of food or it turns against you.” Read the full story.

Here’s what else I’m keeping tabs on today:

• Monetary policy: India and New Zealand’s central banks announce interest rate decisions.

• Japan: New Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will dissolve parliament ahead of elections on October 27.

• Results: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company, the world’s largest chipmaker, reports September sales.

Five more top stories

1. Exclusive: Chevron is in talks to sell its east Texas natural gas assets to Tokyo Gas, said three people familiar with the discussions, as the Japanese utility looks to expand its access to the abundant US shale patch. If completed, the deal would bolster Tokyo Gas’s drive to secure supplies for its home country, which relies on fossil fuel imports to meet its energy needs.

2. Samsung Electronics has issued a public apology and acknowledged that the company is considered to be in “crisis”, following the release of worse than expected profit guidance. The company’s share price has fallen almost 30 per cent over the past six months amid growing concern over its lack of competitiveness in cutting-edge chips used in artificial intelligence systems.

3. Donald Trump had as many as seven conversations with Vladimir Putin after he left the White House, according to explosive reports that raise fresh questions about the former US president’s relationship with the Russian leader. The claims stem from a forthcoming book by veteran journalist Bob Woodward, which also reveals Trump secretly sent Putin Covid-19 tests for his personal use at the height of the pandemic.

4. India will radically reform regulations and invite foreign oil majors to explore both onshore and offshore as it races to extract as much oil as possible while there remains a market for crude, the country’s oil and gas minister has said. Hardeep Singh Puri spoke about his efforts to trigger more oil exploration at the FT’s Energy Transition Summit India in Delhi.

5. The Israeli military deployed thousands more troops in Lebanon and signalled an expanded ground offensive against Hizbollah. The Israel Defense Forces may now have more than 20,000 troops in the country, a significant rise on the initial force that invaded last week.

The Big Read

Most US allies would prefer Kamala Harris’s election victory over the presumed unpredictability of a second Donald Trump term. “If she wins, we will have a national holiday!” an official from one of Washington’s long-standing Asian partners joked. But the vice-president would enter the Oval Office with one of the least articulated visions of the world and America’s place in it. Critics of Harris say she has yet to clearly define her foreign policy vision, but the contours of a philosophy are starting to emerge.

We’re also reading . . . 

• Exploding pagers: The risk of hardware tampering is rising as companies devote few resources to verifying the origin of components, writes Chip War author Chris Miller.

• ‘Superfast charging’ EVs: Asian battery makers are racing to develop new generations of cells for electric vehicles that will make charging as fast as filling up at the pump.

• Book review: In The Great Transformation, Odd Arne Westad and Chen Jian provide a superb history of China’s transition into and out of the Cultural Revolution.

Chart of the day

Donald Trump’s proposed tariffs would not deliver the industrial regeneration protectionists desire, writes Martin Wolf. In fact, they would have the opposite effect, and inflict great harm on the global economy.

Take a break from the news

UK-based Afghan singer Elaha Soroor uses music to respond to the Taliban’s brutal suppression of female voices. “I don’t want to preach to anybody, but I can talk about my own experience,” she told the FT. But can a song change anything? Here’s what Soroor said.

Additional contributions from Gordon Smith and Irwin Cruz

THE advertising watchdog has ruled against six major broadband companies after they failed to meet advertising standards.

BT, EE, Plusnet, TalkTalk, O2 and Virgin have all been told to take down certain ads on their web pages by The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) after it said they did not make potential price increases clear.

1

The watchdog ruled that the firms had not been clear about how much customers’ bills would go up due to mid-contract price hikes.

Mid-contract price hikes are increases to your bill during your contract term.

Broadband and mobile phone firms typically increase bills every March/April in line with Consumer Prices Index (CPI) inflation, plus an extra fixed amount – often 3% – to account for other rising costs.

But the ASA said telecoms firms had made information about these rises too difficult for customers to find and that the adverts “must not appear again”.

For example, it said in some cases the firms had placed this information separately to the headline prices quoted on the advert, and in a less prominent position.

The watchdog said it had received multiple complaints from customers who felt they had been misled, and stated that the companies had “fallen foul of guidance” .

For example, it said an advert on the BT website featured the headline: “Get Ultrafast Full Fibre 100 for only £29.99 a month.”

But in much smaller text, the ad said: “Prices rise each year on 31 March by £3 – 24 month [sic] contract.”

And the ASA said the relevant information about price rises in EE’s ad “would likely have been overlooked because of its placement at the bottom of the page.”

The providers have been reminded that in future such price increases must be displayed prominently rather than in small print.

These rulings came as a reminder of CAP’s most updated guidance which was released December 2023.

The guidance said that “certain material information must be provided to consumers, in a specified format, before they can agree to enter into a contract for phone or broadband services.”

A Virgin Media O2 spokesperson told The Sun: “After working closely with the ASA to update our website and provide prominent advice about any price changes, we are surprised and disappointed by their ruling.

“Consumers visiting our website are greeted with a prominent message at the top of the page explaining in large bold font how and when price rises take effect, and this explanation is also always visible when consumers scroll, ensuring they are not misled.

“While we’re confident in the steps we’ve taken to repeatedly provide consumers with clear and easy-to-understand information about any price rises, we’ll carefully review their judgement and implement any necessary changes.”

The Sun also offered the other broadband providers the opportunity to reply and have not heard back – we will update readers if this changes.

This is not the only time providers have been warned about transparency with customers lately.

Last week, it also emerged that the regulator Ofcom had set new rules for network providers, so they must now warn customers when they might be hit with data roaming costs.

Data roaming is when you connect to another country’s network while travelling, costing as much as £6 per MB of data used.

The regulator ruled that providers must tell customers when these fees were happening to prevent them being unexpectedly charged.

Uswitch’s mobiles expert Ernest Doku pointed out that “while this is good news there is still inconsistency between providers – meaning a lack of clarity for consumers, who were hit with £539 million in unexpected roaming charges in 2023.”

To check your network or broadband rate visit your online account or phone your provider.

We recommend you always read the small print when buying into new contracts or making any changes to your location.

Do you have a money problem that needs sorting? Get in touch by emailing money-sm@news.co.uk.

Plus, you can join our Sun Money Chats and Tips Facebook group to share your tips and stories

Sum 41 frontman Deryck Whibley has alleged in a new memoir that he was abused for years by the Canadian rock band’s former manager.

In the memoir, Whibley accuses the band’s first manager, Greig Nori, of grooming and sexually abusing him starting when he was a teenager.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, the singer says he kept the dark side of the relationship secret from his bandmates for years.

Mr Nori has said called Whibley’s allegations “false”.

Sum 41 is a multi-award winning punk band formed in 1996 that has sold more than 15 million albums worldwide.

Whibley’s memoir, Walking Disaster: My Life Through Heaven and Hell, which was published Tuesday, documents the ups and downs of the band’s early start in the Toronto music scene and its rise to international stardom.

Its beginning was aided in part by Mr Nori – then in his 30s and the frontman of a popular Canadian indie band. He met Whibley after a show and begin to mentor him.

Mr Nori later became the fledgling band’s manager.

Whibley said one night, Mr Nori suddenly, “passionately” kissed him in a bathroom stall at a rave, surprising and confusing the then-18 year old, who was high on ecstasy at the time.

He alleges Mr Nori coerced him into an unwanted sexual relationship that lasted about four years.

“Greig kept pushing for things to happen when we were together,” he writes in the memoir, according to the Toronto Star.

“I started feeling like I was being pressured to do something against my will.”

When the physical relationship ended, Whibley, now 44, alleges Mr Nori continued with verbal and psychological abuse.

Whibley alleges he revealed the relationship to his former wife, Canadian singer Avril Lavigne, who said: “That’s abuse! He sexually abused you.”

The couple were married from 2006 to 2009.

The Sum 41singer told the Toronto Star in an interview that he thought the relationship with Mr Nori would be “a deep, dark secret I was going to take to my grave”.

“But I didn’t know how to tell the story [of the band] without it, because it was so intertwined with everything that was going on in my life back at that point, almost on a daily basis.”

The band parted ways with Mr Nori in 2005.

Mr Nori told the Globe and Mail that Whibley’s claims were “false allegations”, and said he had retained a defamation lawyer.

The BBC has reached out to Mr Nori for comment.

Whibley told the LA Times he did not warn Mr Nori about the allegations in the memoir before it was published.

“I’ve had an inner battle, like, ‘Why do I want to tell him? Because I feel like I’m supposed to? Because he still has this thing over me?” he told the newspaper.

Sum 41 is currently on its farewell world tour and will be disbanding after 28 years together.

Corporate reorganisations can be hugely unsettling for employees, whose working lives can change overnight. What can managers do to make these periods of flux as easy as possible for their charges? Isabel Berwick speaks to work researcher Christine Armstrong, and Andrew Hill, the FT’s senior business writer. They discuss how to get ahead of gossip, why clarity is king when you deliver bad news, and the dirtiest office secret of all: that work isn’t your whole life.

Want more? Free links:

Silent lay-offs are rarely as quiet as bosses hope

We’re all busy again’, say UK restructuring experts

The anatomy of a corporate turnaround

Presented by Isabel Berwick, produced by Mischa Frankl-Duval, mixed by Simon Panayi. The executive producer is Manuela Saragosa. Cheryl Brumley is the FT’s head of audio.

View our accessibility guide.

Brits care almost four times as much about the cost of living as they do about climate change, a new survey has shown.

The figures underline long-held concerns that many cash-squeezed Brits have to prioritise their budgets rather than considering more expensive green electric cars or heat pumps and solar panels.

2

2

Advertisement

While net zero is considered a pressing issue, it still falls far behind Brits’ lists of concerns and after the cost of living, the quality of the NHS, the economy and immigration, according to a survey of 12,000 households by British Gas.

However, threat of climate change is still seen as the fifth most important issue to Brits and even comes above housing, crime, Brexit, welfare spending or terrorism.

Despite the government’s net zero obsession, almost two-thirds of Brits reckon the UK will not hit its targets by 2050.

The survey also revealed that almost half of Brits believe that heating bills should be kept low, even if it means doing so will contribute more to climate change.

While eight in ten Brits said they would be willing to make changes to their home to tackle climate change, two thirds are put off by the cost of installations and worries that upfront costs won’t actually reduce energy bills.

More than half of the survey respondents said that the current system of grants and subsidies for energy reduction schemes was difficult to understand.