In maybe the only good news of the year so far, Iranian ballistic missiles have struck both Tel Aviv – including Mossad HQ – causing major damage.

JUST IN: 🇮🇱🇮🇷 Major damage in Tel Aviv, Israel following Iranian ballistic missile strike.

pic.twitter.com/lrwGkGxb84

— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) February 28, 2026

Mossad HQ and Israeli military intelligence HQ in Tel Aviv hit by Iran.

— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) February 28, 2026

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Of course, white Jewish Israelis will be running to their cosy little bomb shelters. Meanwhile, as we have seen previously, the illegal settlers exclude minorities.

Nothing to see here.

Just Israelis hiding in bunkers. Dancing and cheering as bombs rain on schoolgirls in Iran.

And as American soldiers are sent to die for Israel’s war.

CNN and BBC won’t show you this.pic.twitter.com/ZpXv2ImU3T

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— sarah (@sahouraxo) February 28, 2026

And Netanyahu? The dickhead responsible for the chaos across the entirety of the Middle East flew out of Tel Aviv quicker than Donald Trump can post to Truth Social when new Epstein files drop.

🇮🇱✈️ Netanyahu’s plane just left Israel. Circled for hours. Now over Greece.

The man who started the war. Who promised victory. Who declared Khamenei dead.

Now flying away while his country burns.

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They’ll call it a trip. They’ll call it strategy. They’ll call it anything… pic.twitter.com/89OtANR4qF

— New Direction AFRICA (@Its_ereko) February 28, 2026

IsNOTrael is getting a taste of its own medicine.

BOOM BOOM #Telaviv, please #Iran make them feel what they have done to #Gaza https://t.co/8HXtdxInnV

— kandang puyang (@KandangPuyang) February 28, 2026

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If you play with fire you can get burned. God save the Middle East. https://t.co/UX9uspqsyr

— Neil Nevim (@NeilNevim) February 28, 2026

And I’m guessing all media broadcasts will be banned from Israel in 3, 2, 1…

Tel Aviv is in tatters right now. Israelis are banned by military order from filming the damage (one of their many democratic values).

— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) February 28, 2026

Israel is finally getting an iota of what it deserves for murdering thousands of Palestinians.

Netanyahu and Trump bomb civilian areas, killing children in the process, and then run, hide or party. They give zero fucks about the lives they are taking.

Anyone who has chosen to stay in Israel after watching Netanyahu and his terrorist government wage war on Palestinians for the last two and a half years needs to give their head a shake. And quite frankly, I have zero sympathy that they now have bombs falling on them.

Featured image via the Canary 

The man on trial for the murder of 27-year-old Zahwa Mukhtar expressed his remorse that none of the six occupants of the car adequately checked she was conscious.

“She was still breathing”

During his final day giving evidence, Duane Owusu was quizzed on his defence statement, probed on how the car they’d been travelling in circled back twice towards Zahwa. The first time was within minutes of her receiving an “open-handed shove” by Owusu.

Another witness in the car said she was still breathing, but he didn’t look for himself. On Friday, the 36-year-old defendant said:

I didn’t even believe she was seriously injured, that’s honestly the truth. I didn’t think I caused a serious injury […] Nobody got out the car to check, that’s what I regret.

The defence statement continued:

The group then drove off unaware that [Zahwa] had sustained a life-threatening injury but shortly afterwards decided to return. Before they could do so the vehicle was stopped by police.

The stop, which was on suspicion of drugs, lasted about 50 minutes, during which time Owusu told jurors he thought Zahwa might appear and tell them herself what had happened.

Steering clear

He didn’t want to drive back to Zahwa, who was outside a care home in Chadwell Heath Lane, due to repeated altercations between her and two other women in the car, Paige Allen and Abigail Winter. Owusu believed returning would have risked reigniting those arguments if she re-entered the car, he told the court.

When Owusu learned Zahwa still hadn’t moved, he agreed with others to return to check on her. On route, he asked to be let out of the car, but the driver refused.

The defendant said:

I agreed, let’s go back, but as he’s done the u-turn, I just didn’t want to be involved with the fighting so I was going to remove myself from the whole group.

Henrietta Paget KC, prosecuting, suggested Owusu wanted to put as much distance as possible between himself and “the scene”.

“No,” he began.

The whole night I was preventing them from fighting, stopping the fights..I was just tired…I was basically being a peacemaker. I felt like the whole night I was just being a babysitter for people, which I don’t mind doing, but I’d just had enough of the fighting.

Defendant maintains his innocence

Evidence of altercations between all three women was mentioned in court, including one of Owusu’s conversations and reference to a cut on Paige’s nose from 16 August, before Zahwa’s death.

Before being struck in the neck, the prosecution’s case is that two kicks were aimed towards the finance assistant’s face.

Referring again to Owusu’s defence statement, Ms Paget read:

The kicking motions were not intended as strikes but were made to create distance and to move the deceased away from the vehicle as he was concerned that she would attempt to re-enter the car or place herself at risk.

He did not intend to, and did not, make contact with her and disengaged once she was clear and another female intervened.

She ask asked:

What does it mean, you didn’t mean to make contact with her?

Owusu replied that he didn’t mean to harm or hurt Zahwa.

On the advice of his legal team, Owusu answered ‘no comment’ to questions during his police interview and was arrested before he’d had a chance to hand himself in, he said.

Everything that happened was a total accident. I’m traumatised talking about that and I’m deeply sorry. That wasn’t how the night was supposed to go.

Owusu, of Althorne Way, Dagenham, denies murder and manslaughter.

The verdict is expected next week at the Old Bailey.

Featured image via the Canary

UK PM Keir Starmer has done his usual ‘mendacious limp dishrag’ performance in response to the new US/Israel attacks on Iran. Iran has hit US bases and Israeli facilities in retaliation.

Starmer has announced that Iran should “return to the negotiating table”. As political commentator Philip Proudfoot pointed out, that’s exactly where it was when the US and Israel attacked its people:

Iran was at the negotiating table when Israel bombed them, you absolute ghoul. pic.twitter.com/gnAt3PVTDh

— Philip Proudfoot (@PhilipProudfoot) June 22, 2025

Number 10 has denied that the UK participated in the attack on Iran. This is a lie. Flight tracking in recent weeks has shown a string of US military aircraft leaving the US en route to the area around Iran or using UK airspace to get there:

The US-Israel attacks on Iran are unprovoked and criminal — and carried out while Iran was negotiating against US-Israel demands that both coloniser powers knew were impossible. This mirrors Israel’s murder of Qatari bystanders while trying to assassinate Hamas’s ceasefire negotiating team — likewise assisted by the UK.

In November 2025, Sky News reported:

A small number of British military personnel – single digits – are understood to be deployed on USS Gerald R Ford, a giant US aircraft carrier, and other warships that form part of the carrier strike group that has been sent towards Venezuela.

Our own Joe Glenton pointed out:

Either UK personnel are aboard the US warships being positioned to threaten – and possibly attack – Iran or they are not. Self-evidently, there is a public interest in knowing if this is the case.

Now, Netanyahu claims the attack is for the good of the Iranian people. This is what he said of the Syrian people when Israel, after assisting terrorists take over that country, turned and mass-bombed them and stole Syrian territory as soon as the government had fallen.

War criminals in Tel Aviv and the White House and a snivelling little Renfield in Number 10 assisting and enabling them in return for scraps and beetles.

Featured image via the Canary

Iran has struck the US Navy’s 5th Fleet HQ in Bahrain and other US bases in the region this morning, 28 February 2026, in retaliation for unprovoked US and Israeli attacks on the country. US bombs struck a girls’ school in southern Iran, murdering at least 40 children and teachers:

Bahrain confirmed the strikes:

Heavy smoke rising from the targeted base in Bahrain:

Israel claims the attacks are for the sake of the people of Iran. We’ve heard that before.

Yemen has also attacked US vessels in the region in solidarity with Tehran:

Featured image via the Canary

Israel has bombed a girls’ elementary school in Iran, murdering at least 40 children.

An Israeli air strike hit Shajareh Tayyebeh school in Minab city in the Hormozgan province of southern Iran.

The victims were between seven and 12 years old.

Israel is taking out its primary enemy: children. https://t.co/rZNZ6S01t5

— Philip Proudfoot (@PhilipProudfoot) February 28, 2026

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Middle East Eye has reported that there were at least 170 female students in the school at the time of the attack. Reports suggest that at least 45 people have also been wounded.

US-Israeli Airstrikes On Iran Targeted A Girls School

At least 40 Iranian schoolgirls massacred.

This is what they meant by “liberating Iranian women”.

This is what those warmongerers calling for regime change asked for. Are you happy now? pic.twitter.com/qxMCLBrviY

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— Robert Inlakesh (@falasteen47) February 28, 2026

Of course, Israel was not content with the thousands of children it has murdered in Palestine.

Not content with killing tens of thousands of children in Gaza, Israel now kills children in Iran https://t.co/Lslzxet1BM

— Tenzing Lamsang (@TenzingLamsang) February 28, 2026

What do you get when you mix American weapons and Israelis?

Murdered children.

The telltale sign of American and Israeli violence: targeting schools and killing children. https://t.co/o2gpzcUMZB

— Sana Saeed (@SanaSaeed) February 28, 2026

Israel loves bombing schools and murdering kids. No surprise. https://t.co/lANablR1dd

— Abubaker Abed (@AbubakerAbedW) February 28, 2026

Israel — deliberate attacks

Israel has not even attempted to hide the fact that it is targeting civilian areas. Are they going to claim there was a Hamas compound in an Iranian elementary school full of little girls?

They’re hitting civilian areas https://t.co/F9SzPnPoQI

— Amar Mustafa | امار مصطفى (@_Amarmustafa) February 28, 2026

Why should innocent children die for the sake of Donald Trump and Netanyahu’s regime change bullshit?

Disgusting when young students at an elementary girl’s school are killed by the Israeli regime’s strikes

Praying for the victims of this illegal war

I wonder how UK media will cover these attacks:

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Will they parrot Israeli (& US) propaganda or report what is actually happening? https://t.co/QQtdI0VsTB

— Miqdaad Versi (@miqdaad) February 28, 2026

Let’s not forget that Israel has extremely high-tech weaponry. When it wants to, it can target exact apartments or bedrooms with precision.

So make no mistakes, this attack on an elementary school was deliberate.

Remember, that Israel has top notch precision tech. They are able to strike missiles into the exact bedroom of the exact flat of the apartment where their target would be. They have done it before.

This is deliberate murder of school children. https://t.co/AdLZN6hKCl

— Sreekara Adwaith (@Adwaith_WS) February 28, 2026

They have done it before, and there is, unfortunately, no doubt they will do it again.

So much for the US wanting to ‘liberate‘ Iran.

Trump tells Iran ‘help is on the way’ and then bombs a school. Trump’s ‘major combat operations‘ are literally just an extension of Israel’s murderous rampage in the Middle East.

From Palestine to Iran to Lebanon and to Syria, Israel has shown time and time again that it will not stop. It literally gets off on murdering brown children. But why would it stop when it has the backing of the US and so many other Western countries? Until the West grows a pair and takes a stand, nothing will change, and thousands more innocent children will end up dead because of Israel’s terrorism.

Feature image via FRANCE 24 English/ YouTube

The European Green Party has welcomed Hannah Spencer’s victory in the Gorton and Denton by-election. Spencer’s dominant win came against a backdrop of ludicrous smears from Labour and led to racist dogwhistles from Reform.

Reacting to the victory, European Green Party co-chair Vula Tsetsi said:

Voters in the Manchester constituency of Gorton and Denton have heard Zack Polanski and the Green Party’s call to ‘make hope normal again’ and they have made it reality.

This victory brings the number of Green Members of Parliament in the UK to five, up from the historic high of four after the last general election. Together with their skyrocketing membership this confirms the Greens as a solid and growing progressive force in the UK.

We warmly congratulate Hannah Spencer and the Green Party of England and Wales for their enthusiastic, hopeful and locally rooted campaign. People are looking for affordable housing, clean air, and properly funded public services to improve their everyday lives.

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Co-chair Ciarán Cuffe added:

Greens are demonstrating that the green transition can lower energy bills, create quality jobs and strengthen local communities.

While right-wing and far-right parties, including Reform UK, continue to try to divide communities across Europe, this result proves that fear is not the only force shaping politics.

The Green Party of England and Wales, a full member of the European Green Party, has beaten Reform and Labour by offering credible solutions on affordability, housing and investment in public services. This makes us very hopeful for the upcoming UK local elections in May.

The Greens have seen significant local wins across Europe, that gave the Greens the mayoral leadership in five capitals. These include Amsterdam (the Netherlands), Copenhagen (Denmark), Budapest (Hungary), Riga (Latvia) and Zagreb (Croatia).

Featured image via the Canary

Inequality economist Faiza Shaheen has summed up why people chose hope in the Gorton and Denton by-election. The Green’s Hannah Spencer won by a mile in the Manchester constituency by-election.

“Represent” the people

On social media, Shaheen said:

Greens came from nowhere to win in one of the safest Labour seats in the country. This is evidence that people want politicians that represent them, not the billionaires and city lobbyists

As part of a wide-reaching purge of progressives (that may have now backfired given the rise of the Greens), Keir Starmer arbitrarily blocked Shaheen from standing as a Labour candidate in the 2024 election. That’s despite her performance against Conservative Iain Duncan Smith in the Chingford and Woodford Green constituency in 2019. She came within around 1,000 votes from unseating him.

The Autonomy Institute made the corruption around corporate influence clear with its research last year. 373 companies have made over £60 billion from public contracts following their political donations in “recent years”.

As Shaheen points out, the public are sick of it and the result in Gorton and Denton reflects that. The Greens won a landslide victory in what appeared to be a close race. The party received 14,980 votes to Reform’s 10,578.

‘Muslims would forget’

Economist and politician Shaheen continued with her reasons for the Green win:

Labour’s complicity in a genocide has hurt them (David Lammy once told me that Muslims would forget!); and that people can and will defeat the divisive politics of Reform. Thank you Hannah Spencer, Zack Polanski and the Green Party 

Despite the ceasefire, people aren’t forgetting the indiscriminate bombardment of Palestinian people. Labour was in a position to help stop the onslaught and instead has done the opposite.

As Shaheen says, the Greens are showing that a re-balancing of the economy away from billionaires and elites.

Featured image via the Canary

New York mayor Zohran Mamdani apparently helped to encourage US president Donald Trump and his paramilitary militia, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unit, to release a Columbia student with over 100,000 Instagram followers. Tens of thousands more people whom immigration authorities have unfairly mistreated, however, haven’t had such luck.

Just got off the phone with President Trump.

In our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elmina Aghayeva, who was detained by ICE this morning.

He has just informed me that she will be released imminently. https://t.co/rvmTWpq83r

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) February 26, 2026

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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) had accused Elmina Aghayeva of having a student visa termination due to a ‘failure to attend class’ back in 2016. ICE agents reportedly impersonated police officers to gain access to the Columbia University dorm where they detained Aghayeva.

Many politicians chimed in to criticise her dodgy detention. And it seems Mamdani’s plea to Trump may have made an impact.

However, few of the people ICE has detained during Trump’s second term in office have the same kind of profile Aghayeva does.

What about justice for everyone else?

The Trump regime regularly refers to the people ICE detains as dangerous or violent criminals – supposedly the “worst of the worst“. But as CBS News has reported, a DHS document shows less than 14% of around 400,000 people whom ICE arrested in the last year actually had “charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses”.

ICE’s unaccountable, aggressive behaviour has resulted in numerous deaths. And about 40% of all the people it has arrested “did not have any criminal record at all“, apart from questions relating to their permission to stay in the US. Civil proceedings have usually addressed such violations historically.

This means that ICE is mistreating tens of thousands of people who are definitely not ‘the worst of the worst’, and getting away with it.

Everyone deserves fair treatment from authorities – whether they’re influencers or not. But that doesn’t seem to be the system that currently reigns in the US under Donald Trump. And even politicians don’t seem to make as much noise when ICE detains people who don’t have such a prominent profile.

Featured image via the Canary

After a jam-packed night of amazing performances and surprise guests, Sombr had a unique way of grabbing Brit Awards viewers’ attention during this year’s ceremony.

On Saturday evening, the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter was the penultimate performer at the Brits, kicking things off with a rendition of his hit Undressed.

Halfway through the performance, viewers were shocked when there appeared to be a scuffle between Sombr and an apparent stage invader, who pushed him from the podium he’d been singing on.

At that point, the man in question ripped down a gold shimmer curtain, as Sombr launched into the second of his two songs, Back To Friends.

Many subsequently rushed to social media to check what had actually transpired, and see whether or not the stage invasion was genuine.

However, it’s been pointed out that the supposed stage invader was wearing a t-shirt, emblazoned with the message “Sombr is a homewrecker”, in a nod to the American performer’s upcoming single of the same name.

While Rosé and Bruno Mars’ collaboration Apt. picked up the latter award, the former went to Rosalía, beating stiff competition from the likes of Lady Gaga, Taylor Swift, Doechii, Chappell Roan, Sabrina Carpenter and Bad Bunny.

The US and Israel’s unprovoked attack on Iran has led to retaliatory strikes across the Arabian Gulf. The Gulf Cooperation Council states (GCC) – Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE – are caught in a nexus partially of their own making as imperial ties threaten to pull the region apart.

Arguably, the right to self-defence, enshrined in international law is one thing. However the use of excessive force, risks isolating Iran and undermining its cause.

Strike on Iran means gloves are off

Unlike the largely contained and bruising 12-day war in 2025, this time Iran’s gloves are off. Responding to US strikes, its government launched attacks on Arab Gulf countries hosting US assets. So far, these states—many of which Iran claims are ‘allies’ — are resisting being pulled into the ring of fire. However, the flames of war are fanning out in their direction.

Dubai International Airport, terminal three to be precise, suffered an Iranian drone attack. The government has issued an emergency alert to all civilians, urging them to ‘seek immediate shelter.’ Thousands of passengers, whose flights were cancelled, remain stranded in the airport. The airport is now thrust into the theatre of war:

Earlier videos from #Dubai airport Terminal 3 pic.twitter.com/tZPYiiZi2d

— Ovais Jafar (@ovaisjafar) February 28, 2026

The path of mutual destruction

Earlier today, an Iranian missile targeted the headquarters of the US Navy’s 5th Fleet in Bahrain. Another missile struck Dubai’s Fairmont Hotel located in the upscale Palm Jumeirah, which caught fire. Kuwait’s International Airport was targeted by a drone strike, grounding both departures and arrivals until further notice. Meanwhile, in Jordan, Iranian missiles were intercepted. Similarly, in Iraq, drones targeting the US consulate and the International Airport were also shot down.

تحطم طائرة مسيرة داخل مطار أربيل، واشتعال النيران فيها.pic.twitter.com/1fmhelBXcN

— المحامي سعد شنگالي (@SaadSh1ingali) February 28, 2026

The stress test of regime durability

Tehran’s leadership has maintained its innocence, with officials and aligned commentators justifying these actions through the logic of self-defense — like a defiant child caught with its hand in the candy jar. Sacrificing its allies to save itself is a dangerous tango. It is one that may not end US strikes. In other words, it could be cutting off its nose to spite its face.

If self-defense — both as rationale and military strategy — is reliant on the spread of terror and military tactics that risk civilian lives, Iran is purposely dragging the region into quicksand—escalation by de-escalation, promoting the proliferation of war. The millions of Arabs who have survived war and established roots in the Gulf — not just recently, but over decades—are unlikely to agree. And can you blame them?

In an interview with NBC News, Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Aragchi, said

Nobody has any record of any aggression by us against our neighbours in the past 200 years.

The irony is clearly lost on him.

No appetite for war

However, the slew of stern statements issued by these neighbours, reeling from intense retaliatory strikes and the resulting state of emergency, suggests that Aragchi is leading audiences astray. Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Iraq, among others, have condemned the barrage of attacks as an attack on their sovereignty. The message is clear – Arab countries will not bow to Iran’s pressure campaign.

Even across Lebanon and Iraq, Iran’s proxies, despite condemning Trump’s unprovoked strikes, are yet to mobilise their personnel. They appear to be keeping a low profile, fearful, it may seem, of possible blowback, with their own survival in mind.

بيان | دولة قطر تدين بشدة استهداف أراضيها واستهداف الدول الشقيقة وتؤكد احتفاظها بحق الرد

الدوحة | 28 فبراير 2026

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تعرب دولة قطر عن إدانتها الشديدة لاستهداف الأراضي القطرية بصواريخ إيرانية بالستية، وتعتبره انتهاكًا صارخًا لسيادتها الوطنية، ومساسًا مباشرًا بأمنها وسلامة أراضيها،… pic.twitter.com/eLnpNx3ZO8

— الخارجية القطرية (@MofaQatar_AR) February 28, 2026

With few options for pushback, Iran is swinging the bat, and excusing its actions as targeting “legitimate targets on military sites”. The videos circling on social media tell a different story.

Iran won’t relent until the “enemy” is defeated – it officials have repeatedly warned. But at what cost? America is equally misguided if it thinks that leadership decapitation and military aggression will result in a ‘happy ever after’. Iraq is a case in point.

A sustained war, feared by all — mostly civilian populations who have already survived war once, twice, or thrice, in some cases – is becoming an increasingly likely, though terrifying prospect. It will test regime durability irrespective of the regional earthquake it will set in motion, and place the Middle East on a warpath.

Featured image via the Canary