TUT's vital stories to know this week
From Hurricane Milton killing over 16 people in Florida, to multiple journalists being arrested in Israel, here are a four vital stories to know this week.
Editors' note: Expect changes to the newsletter’s format given the high demand from our social media accounts and TUT’s limited resources. This may include using a list of stories and bullet points instead of full paragraphs. We also hope to use more hyperlinks, showcase videos, and cite research directly.
Hurricane Milton wreaks havoc on Florida, killing 16 people
Hurricane Milton made landfall near Siesta Key in Sarasota County, Florida, on Wednesday evening as a Category 3 storm, unleashing widespread destruction across the Sunshine State, spawning over 30 tornadoes, flooding roads, and destroying hundreds of homes. At least 16 fatalities have been reported, with the death toll potentially rising as search and rescue efforts continue. The storm's fury left over 3 million homes and businesses without power, crippling infrastructure across a large swath of the state.
“I have never seen multiple tornados before,” Rebecca Hamilton, a Clearwater, Florida resident, said. “It was a scary feeling to have watched parts of my home be destroyed and I could do nothing about it.”
Hurricane Milton’s once-in-a-century impact could cause damage of more than $50 billion or approximately $175 billion in a worst-case scenario, according to Wall Street analysts.
This unprecedented situation has strained FEMA's resources, with the agency expected to exhaust its yearly funding allocation in response to Milton and Hurricane Helene, which killed over 220 people. As a result, President Biden is urging Congress to approve additional relief funds to support long-term recovery efforts.
However, Congressional Republicans said they will not meet in an emergency secession to expand FEMA’s funding, until after Nov. 5 election, when Congress is set to return.
U.S. Journalist Jeremy Loffredo Released After Being Detained by Israel for Four Days
American journalist Jeremy Loffredo and four other reporters were released from Israeli detention after spending four days in Israeli custody. Lofferdo, who is an independent journalist for The Grayzone, was charged with "assisting an enemy in war," after publishing stories that detailed the locations of Iranian missile strikes on military targets in Israel.
Loffredo’s fellow detainee, a Russian journalist and human rights activist Andrey X, claims to have been held for 11 hours without charge, during which time he was “beaten, kidnapped, blindfolded and taken to a military base”.
Israeli authorities said that Loffredo's reporting could provide Iran with insights into future targets, despite similar information being reported by other media outlets, including news agencies in Israel. His attorney, Lea Tsemel, a well-known Israeli civil rights lawyer, dismissed the allegations as "nonsense," arguing that Loffredo merely compiled information already available from various sources.
“He didn’t do anything original — he took it from different sources that were published already, all over, by Israeli and foreign journalists,” Tsemel told The Intercept.
While Loffredo has been released, an Israeli judge has mandated that he remain in the country until October 20, allowing for further investigation or potential additional charges. The charges against him are “serious” and could lead to life in imprisonment or the death penalty, per Tsemel.
“We are deeply concerned by the arrest of journalist Jeremy Loffredo in Israel, which highlights the high level of censorship in the country since the war started, and the ban on him leaving the country,” said Committee to Protect Journalists’s Program Director Carlos Martinez de la Serna. “All journalists should be allowed to do their jobs freely and unconditionally to provide the public with important information on an escalating war.”
Context: 128 journalists have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, according to the CPJ.
Israeli forces again target UN peacekeepers in southern Lebanon
Two UN peacekeepers were injured after Israeli forces fired on a guard tower at the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) headquarters in Naqoura, southern Lebanon, a week after asking them to leave. The attack on Thursday was followed by another incident on Friday, where two more peacekeepers were wounded in a similar assault on an observation tower.
The UNIFIL, which was established in 1978, has been operating in southern Lebanon to maintain stability along the Israel-Lebanon border and is made up of members from 50 countries such as Ireland and Canada. The targeting of UN peacekeepers by a member state is considered a serious violation of international law and UN Security Council Resolution 1701.
US President Joe Biden has said he is "absolutely, positively" urging Israel to stop firing at UN peacekeepers during its conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon, following two incidents in 48 hours.
Gaza is ‘hell on earth’ for women and children. Here is one of their stories.
Gaza has become “hell on earth” for children, according to Sigrid Kaag, the United Nation’s Senior Humanitarian and Reconstruction Coordinator for Gaza, who made this freighting remark three weeks ago during a press briefing.
According to Oxfam International, more women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military than in any other recent conflict in a single year. Thousands more have lost parents, limbs, their homes, and have faced increased psychological trauma from a growing, indiscriminate Israeli assault, which the International Court of Justice has deemed a plausible genocide.
8-year-old Shahed Abed from Deir Al Balah, Gaza, is one of those children.
Her family is struggling to meet basic needs, including food, water, and medicine, as Israel’s war on Gaza ravages their home and destroys all livelihood for them. Her siblings, Ahmad, 6, Maria, 4, Sham, 2, and a 4-month-old Ala’a, have lost friends, been deprived of an education, and are constantly in fear, sometimes crying without provocation, their mother Aisha said, who spoke with us via Instagram direct messages.
“We live in Gaza, where a brutal war is raging all around us. I am an artist, but my recent exhibition featuring my own drawings was tragically destroyed, leaving me without a means to earn money. My five children desperately need to meet the basic requirements of life, such as food, drink, and healthcare. These are the crucial necessities we desperately seek to provide for them,” Aisha writes in a GoFundMe post. “We used to have a house with a small poultry farm, which sustained us with food. However, we lost both the house and the farm, and now only a few hens remain”
As the oldest of her family, Shahed helps her mom by getting firewood and fetching water. But her biggest contribution has been being a social media hit through her passion for drawing using rubbles from buildings, and posting it on social media, gaining over 12,000 followers with a goal of using her voice to put an end to the war.
“As a child living in Gaza under continuous bombardment for a whole year, I call on the world for help to stop the fire immediately. My home has been destroyed, as well as my school, the parks, and the neighborhoods—everything has been reduced to sorrow and regret in my eyes. I want to realize my dreams of returning to education and living in peace.
I hope someone will embrace my talent; my dream is to become an artist who conveys my people’s suffering to the world. Right now, I live with my family and younger siblings without a home, healthy food, or clean water. I am alive today, but at any moment, I could become a victim of this senseless war.
Please, stop the war and protect what remains of the children of Gaza,” she told TUT.
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