TV News LIES

Two women reported to be relatives of assassinated Iranian military commander Qassem Soleimani who were arrested in the United States are not, in fact, related to him, according to a news report.

Hamideh Soleimani Afshar and her daughter Sarina were arrested in early April after their residency permits were rescinded. This came after far-right campaigner Laura Loomer claimed they were related to the late Quds Force leader on social media and said she reported the women to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for “posting content sympathetic to the Iranian regime and Ayatollah”.

However, according to Iranian birth records, identification papers, a family will and other personal documents seen by the US-based website Drop Site News, they are not related to Soleimani, even distantly.

Soleimani Afshar was, according to the outlet, involved in anti-Islamic Republic protests in the 1990s and 2000s and spent a week in prison for her activities before moving to the US.

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A display of 20,000 teddy bears appeared on the National Mall in Washington, DC, on Thursday to represent Ukrainian children that have been forcibly taken to Russia since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, AFP reported.

The demonstration, organized by Razom for Ukraine and the American Coalition for Ukraine, was held near the US Capitol under the message: “Bring Them Home.”

Melinda Haring, senior advisor for Razom for Ukraine, said the display was meant to show the scale of the abductions.

“There are 20,000 teddy bears on this fence,” Haring said. “Each of these teddy bears represents a Ukrainian child that was taken since 2022. Now, there’s officially about 20,000 Ukrainian children. The number is definitely larger than that, but we’re here to draw attention to Vladimir Putin and what he did to Ukrainian children.”

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The annual March of Return, which typically draws tens of thousands of Palestinians inside Israel, was transformed this year into a series of smaller marches across depopulated Palestinian villages.

Despite restrictions imposed by Israeli police, hundreds of Palestinians took part in local tours to their destroyed villages to commemorate the Nakba, or catastrophe, which refers to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine by Zionist militias to make way for the creation of Israel in May 1948.

Through these events, Palestinians say they aim to reaffirm their identity amid what they describe as ongoing Israeli attempts to erase it.

Khaled Awad, spokesperson for the Association for the Defence of the Rights of the Internally Displaced, said discussions with Israeli authorities began around three months before the march. 

He noted that police initially refused to engage with the organisers of the event and warned they could break it up if it went ahead.

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Israeli forces dispersed a student protest in the village of Umm al-Khair on Sunday, after barring Palestinian residents from accessing schools for over a week.

Khalil Hathaleen, a local education official and a parent of two students, told Middle East Eye that his children were among 55 students barred from schools for the second week.

Israeli troops, armed and accompanied by security dogs, were stationed alongside their vehicles at the protests, which were mostly attended by schoolchildren.

The demonstration was sparked after residents were prevented from accessing a vital road between Khirbet Umm al-Khair and the nearby village of Umm al-Khair, south of Hebron in the occupied West Bank. Dozens of students were left unable to attend school.

“Our message is clear, it is that today, they are attempting to take away our rights to education,” Hathaleen said.

“Our goal is clear in our demands to the right to education through safe routes to our children, a safe education and the end to demolitions in Khirbet Umm al-Khair.”

The main route connecting the village to external resources was first blocked over 10 days ago by settler leader Nivo, who holds a security role in the neighbouring Carmel settlement.

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The Trump administration is in discussions to potentially send up to 1,100 Afghans who helped US forces during the war in Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a non-profit confirmed on Tuesday.

The resettlement talks, first reported by the New York Times, come after Donald Trump’s decision to stop an initiative that allowed Afghans who assisted US war efforts to apply to resettle in the U.S.

This group of more than 1,000 Afghans, who have been waylaid in Qatar for a year, reportedly includes interpreters as well as relatives of US military members. The group also includes more than 400 children.

According to the Times, the US evacuated these Afghans to Qatar for their protection because they supported US military efforts in their home country, which, since the US military withdrawal, is once again under Taliban control.

The DRC, meanwhile, is suffering from an enormous displacement crisis following decades of conflict and instability. According to the UN Refugee Agency, 8.2 million people were displaced as of September 2025, with this number expected to reach 9 million by year’s end.

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The image of the female soldier smiling with ingredients spread across the table was shared on Sunday by Bint Jbeil News, a Lebanese publisher. 

The image was reportedly taken in Bint Jbeil, the town in the Nabatiye governorate of southern Lebanon. 

“Violation in its full ‘elegance’,” the publisher captioned the picture on Instagram. “When the killer and occupier cook in the kitchen of the land’s people.” 

Diana Moukalled, a Lebanese journalist and filmmaker, said the image was an insult “to people’s memory [and] dignity”.Here we're talking about a house that still has its greenery, still has the life of its family, but they alone are the forcibly absent ones,” she wrote on X. 

“They are forbidden from returning, while a soldier from the occupation army enters the place, picks the produce, cooks, and laughs as if the house has no owners.

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