An Indian lawyer hurled a shoe at Chief Justice BR Gavai during court proceedings in Delhi on Monday, following remarks the judge reportedly made about Hinduism.

According to Indian media reports and witnesses present in the courtroom, the shoe narrowly missed Chief Justice Gavai and another justice before falling behind them. The incident has been described as both a serious breach of courtroom security and a grave act of public disrespect.

The lawyer, identified as Rakesh Kishore, was immediately restrained by security officials. 

“We will not tolerate any insult to Sanatan Dharma,” the attacker, whose name was not given in reports on the incident, shouted as he was being led out, referring to another name for Hinduism, the Hindustan Times newspaper said.

An association of Supreme Court lawyers condemned Monday’s incident and demanded that the court initiate proceedings against the lawyer involved.

“This behaviour is antithetical to the dignity of the legal profession and contrary to the constitutional values of decorum, discipline, and institutional integrity,” the Supreme Court Advocates-on-record Association said in a statement.

India’s Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta said the attack was a result of misinformation on social media.

“I have personally seen Chief Justice visiting religious places of all religions with full reverence,” Mehta told Reuters in a text message

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the shoe attack “utterly condemnable”, joining a chorus of criticism from across the political spectrum. Modi spoke to Justice Gavai and said the attack had angered every Indian, PTI reports. “There is no place for such reprehensible acts in our society,” the PM said.

Throwing a shoe at someone in public is seen as an act of disrespect and humiliation in India and many other countries.

— With additional input from Reuters

October 7 marks the completion of two years since the Gaza conflict began. Israel’s relentless war on Gaza has since killed over 67,000 Palestinians. Experts and rights groups have slammed Israel for engineering famine in Gaza through a policy of starvation, turning food and water into weapons of war.

The UN formally declared famine in parts of Gaza in late August. A month later, a UN independent international inquiry commission concluded that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.

Top humanitarian figures, including UN relief chief Tom Fletcher, have issued urgent appeals to end what they call Israel’s “systematic obstruction” of essentials and aid — a characterisation that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government refuses to acknowledge.

Ramy Abdu, chair of the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, said the policy left no doubt about Israel’s intent. “Gaza’s famine differs from others in that it is not caused by natural disasters or economic collapse,” he told Anadolu. “It is a policy of using food and water as weapons of war and tools of genocide.”

Ramy Abdu, chair of the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, said Gaza’s famine “is a policy of using food and water as weapons of war and tools of genocide,” adding that “starvation as a weapon against civilians is a war crime.”

‘Weapon of slow annihilation’

Israel had devastated Gaza’s food security for a long time before October 2023, imposing a blockade in 2006 that controlled border crossings and, at times, even calculated daily calories. 

On Oct 9, 2023, Israel declared a “complete siege,” cutting food, water, fuel, and electricity. Imports stopped overnight; fuel blocks shuttered bakeries, stalled pumps, and halted deliveries. Farmland destruction and fishing bans further eliminated food sources. Abdu called it turning “engineered fragility” into “a weapon of slow annihilation.”

Forced displacements have deepened hunger. An estimated 2 million Palestinians remain displaced, with children and pregnant women among the hardest hit as hunger combines with disease and lack of clean water.

By early 2024, donor suspensions crippled UNRWA; warehouses were bombed, convoys blocked, and looting reported. Israel blocked aid to northern Gaza and sealed Rafah in May. In May 2025, Israel, with US support, launched the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). 

The UN and major NGOs denounced it as militarising relief, and its “aid zones” were described as “death traps.” Since then, more than 1,760 Palestinians have been killed while trying to reach food, nearly 1,000 of them near GHF sites, according to the UN human rights office.

Famine declared, genocide found

On August 22, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) formally declared famine in parts of Gaza. 

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 460 Palestinian deaths are linked to hunger and famine, including more than 150 children. One in every five children in Gaza City is malnourished.

In September, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza, finding four of five genocidal acts under the 1948 Genocide Convention. 

The commission’s September 16 statement said Israel must end its policy of starvation, lift the siege, and ensure unimpeded large-scale aid access, including for UNRWA and OHCHR staff. 

Abdu said the designation should trigger obligations under the Genocide Convention, but “in practice, little has been done.”

Toll and talks

After 732 days, Israel has killed over 67,000 Palestinians, a conservative count that experts say is higher. 

The enclave is largely in ruins, with over 28,000 women and girls and over 20,000 children killed, according to UN and Gaza Health Ministry figures. The war is the deadliest for journalists in modern history, with nearly 250 killed. Israel has killed at least 383 aid workers, according to the UN.

Hopeful peace talks are being held in Cairo, but Israel continues to strike and kill Palestinians in Gaza.

“If I didn’t have the power of tariffs, you’d be seeing at least four of the seven wars raging right now.

I use tariffs to stop wars,” Trump said while responding to a question about his trade policies.

He insisted his tariff strategy had been proven right both economically and diplomatically.

Referring to the brief but tense confrontation between Pakistan and India, Trump said his intervention linked to trade and tariffs helped defuse the situation.

“India and Pakistan were ready to go at it. Seven planes were shot down, and they were close to escalation both being nuclear powers.

I don’t want to repeat exactly what I said, but it was very effective. They stopped,” he remarked.

Highlighting the financial impact of tariffs, Trump added: “Recently, they found billions of dollars and couldn’t figure out the source.

I told them to check the tariff shelf and they came back an hour later saying, ‘Sir, you’re right.’ That’s tariff revenue. We’re a rich country again.”

Trump reiterated that tariffs had made the US both prosperous and powerful. “Tariffs are very important for the United States. We are a peacekeeper because of tariffs.

Not only do we earn hundreds of billions of dollars, but we maintain peace because of tariffs,” he said while speaking to reporters in the Oval Office.

The US president has previously asserted that his mediation efforts or the threat of economic pressure helped ease tensions between India and Pakistan earlier this year.

He claimed he had warned both sides that continued fighting would lead to suspension of trade and new tariffs.

Gaza peace deal possible

Trump said he was “pretty sure” a Gaza peace deal was possible and said Hamas was agreeing to “very important” issues as talks with Israel started. “I have red lines, if certain things aren’t met we’re not going to do it,” Trump said.

“But I think we’re doing very well and I think Hamas has been agreeing to things that are very important.”

Trump said he was optimistic about the chances of a deal as delegations from Hamas and Israel began indirect talks in Egypt on ending the war under his 20-point plan.

“I think we’re going to have a deal. It’s a hard thing for me to say that when for years and years they’ve been trying to have a deal,” Trump said. “We’re going to have a Gaza deal, I’m pretty sure, yeah.”

Trump also dismissed a report that he had accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of being negative about the talks, saying that Netanyahu had been “very positive about the deal.”

October 7 anniversary

Israel marks the second anniversary of the October 7, 2023 attack on Tuesday, as Hamas and Israeli negotiators hold indirect talks to end the two-year war in Gaza under a US proposed peace plan.

Two years ago to the day, at the close of the Jewish festival of Sukkot, Hamas-led militants launched a surprise assault on Israel, making it the deadliest day in the country’s history.

Palestinian fighters breached the Gaza-Israel border, storming southern Israeli communities and a desert music festival with gunfire, rockets and grenades.

The attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people on Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Militants also abducted 251 hostages into Gaza, of whom 47 remain captive, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.

Memorial events were scheduled in Israel on Tuesday to mark the anniversary.

Families and friends of those killed at the Nova music festival were to gather at the site of the attack, where Hamas gunmen killed more than 370 people and seized dozens of hostages.

Another ceremony was due in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, where weekly rallies have kept up calls for the captives’ release.

A state-organised commemoration is planned for October 16.

Many Israelis went to the Nova festival site on Monday.

“It was a very difficult and enormous incident that happened here,” Elad Gancz, a teacher, told AFP as he mourned the dead.

“But we want to live — and despite everything, continue with our lives, remembering those who were here and, unfortunately, are no longer with us.”

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign in Gaza by air, land and sea continues unabated, leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and vast destruction.

The Hamas-run health ministry says at least 67,160 people have been killed, figures the United Nations considers credible.

Their data does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but indicates that over half of the dead are women and children.

Entire neighbourhoods have been flattened, with homes, hospitals, schools and water networks in ruins.

Hundreds of thousands of homeless Gazans now shelter in overcrowded camps and open areas with little access to food, water or sanitation.

“We have lost everything in this war, our homes, family members, friends, neighbours,” said Hanan Mohammed, 36, who is displaced from her home in Jabalia.

“I can’t wait for a ceasefire to be announced and for this endless bloodshed and death to stop… there is nothing left but destruction.”

After two years of conflict, 72 percent of the Israeli public said they were dissatisfied with the government’s handling of the war, according to a recent survey by the Institute for National Security Studies.

Herculean task

Israel has expanded its military reach over the course of the war, striking targets in five regional capitals, including Iran, and killing several senior Hamas figures and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

Israel and Hamas now face mounting international pressure to end the war, with a UN probe last month accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza and rights groups accusing Hamas of war crimes in the October 7 attack. Both sides reject the allegations.

Last week, US President Donald Trump unveiled a 20-point plan calling for an immediate ceasefire once Hamas releases all hostages, the group’s disarmament, and a gradual Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.

Indirect talks began Monday in Egypt’s resort town of Sharm El-Sheikh, with mediators shuttling between delegations under tight security.

Al-Qahera News, which is linked to Egyptian state intelligence, said the discussions were focussed on “preparing ground conditions” for a hostage-prisoner exchange under Trump’s plan.

A Palestinian source close to Hamas negotiators said the talks, which opened on the eve of the October 7 anniversary, may last for several days.

Trump has urged negotiators to “move fast” to end the war in Gaza, where Israeli strikes continued on Monday.

The US president told Newsmax TV that “I think we’re very, very close to having a deal… I think there’s a lot of goodwill being shown now. It’s pretty amazing actually”.

Although both sides have welcomed Trump’s proposal, reaching an agreement on its details is expected to be a Herculean task.

The war has previously seen two ceasefires that enabled the release of dozens of hostages.