Several detained after American’s ‘suicide capsule’ death in Switzerland: Police
This photograph shows a view of the Sarco assisted suicide capsule, during a press conference organised by the “Last Resort”, a Swiss human rights non-profit association focused on assisted suicide, in Zurich on July 17, 2024. (Arnd Wiegmann/AFP via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Multiple people were detained and a criminal case has been opened in northern Switzerland after a person died by assisted suicide Monday, according to police in the town of Schaffhausen.
“Several persons” were taken into custody on suspicion of “incitement and aiding and abetting suicide,” Schaffhausen police said.
The assisted suicide was carried out using a “Sarco” capsule, police said.
Philip Nitschke — an Australian doctor who created the device and founder of the “right to die” advocacy nonprofit Exit International — told Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant that the person who died via the capsule was a 64-year-old American woman who traveled to Switzerland to use it. The procedure was conducted at 4:01 p.m. Monday near a forest cabin in Merishausen, he said.
Florian Willet, director of Swiss assisted suicide organization The Last Resort, was the only person present when she died, Nitschke said. The woman began the dying process by pushing the button herself.
Prior to her death, a psychiatrist examined the woman and confirmed she was competent to undergo the procedure, according to de Volkskrant.
Nitschke reportedly described the woman’s death as a major milestone in the movement to legalize assisted suicide, noting that “humane” drugs that bring about death can be extremely difficult to obtain.
After the prosecutor’s office was informed of the assisted suicide by a law firm, law enforcement officials responded to the scene, where they recovered the capsule and took the deceased woman in for an autopsy, police said.
Assisted suicide is legal under Swiss law if the person does so without “external assistance,” and anyone who aids the individual in the process does not have “any self-serving motive,” according to the Guardian..
If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or worried about a friend or loved one, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 for free, confidential emotional support 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Qadira Zourob sits on a mattress outside the tent she lives in, in the courtyard of a school housing displaced people in Khan Younis. (Diaa Ostaz/ABC News)
(LONDON) — — Qadira Zourob, a 17-year-old in Gaza, was in her last year of high school when war broke out in the Strip after the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel in 2023.
“I was preparing for my exams with great excitement. I had been studying hard, staying up late every night, determined to succeed and achieve a high score. But the next day, we woke up to the sounds of bombings and rocket fire,” she told ABC News in an interview in a tent where her family has been displaced.
Zourob is one of the more than 600,000 students in Gaza who have had their education interrupted by the war. She said she dreamed of becoming a nurse, helping people and traveling abroad, but now she says she feels lost, adding, “I feel as if my life has come to a standstill.”
As millions of children go back to school around the world, formal education continues to be on hold for the children of Gaza. An ABC News visual analysis reveals that at least 70% of all schools in Gaza — 399 school buildings — have been damaged or destroyed since Oct. 7.
In a statement to ABC News about these figures, the Israel Defense Forces said “There is no IDF policy to target schools or educators. Rather, Hamas’ widespread and well documented strategy of exploiting schools and educational facilities for terror activities, has required IDF activity in those areas.”
Using Palestinian Authority government and U.N. records, ABC News geolocated nearly every school in Gaza, about 547 of the 567 school buildings. Analysis of dozens of satellite images identified which of each of the 547 buildings were damaged or destroyed.
To further supplement the data, 149 videos where schools were visible, showing about a quarter of all schools, were added to the analysis. The videos were filmed by the IDF and Hamas, as well as dozens of local journalists, civilians, the United Nations, and other organizations in Gaza. Some schools that did not look damaged on satellite imagery had holes in the sides or the structures were still standing but lower floors had been completely blown out.
The results show 212 schools are either partially or completely destroyed, and a further 187 show signs of damage.
This analysis relies solely on data available online, as international journalists are not allowed into Gaza and movement for ABC News’ local journalists in Gaza is severely restricted.
The U.N. estimates as many as 84% of schools — 477 buildings — will need to be repaired or rebuilt. This higher number is a result of the U.N.’s use of a model to estimate blast damage to areas in the vicinity of bomb sites, while ABC News’ analysis relies solely on visually verifiable damage.
It has been a particularly bloody summer at school buildings across Gaza. At least 354 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on school buildings that housed displaced people between June 1 and Sept. 1, according to individual tallies released by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health and collated by ABC News.
The death toll comes from Israeli airstrikes on 25 schools for which Israel has publicly claimed responsibility in that timeframe. In statements announcing the strikes, the IDF said each time that it was targeting Hamas militants or Hamas command centers embedded inside the school buildings. In statements on 23 of the 25 schools hit, the IDF said it took “numerous steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.”
Verified videos from 14 of the 25 scenes show injured and bloodied children either running or being carried from the wreckage.
A video taken by journalist Talal Mahmoud at the Abu Oreiban school in Nuseirat on July 14 shows six children being rushed out of the courtyard, as screams come from the school. A screaming toddler covered in dust sits against a back wall in another video. Twenty-two people were killed in the strike, according to the Ministry of Health.
The Khadija school, in the Israeli designated safe zone in Deir al-Balah, was struck on July 27. Video moments after the strike by a bystander, and verified by ABC News, shows dozens of people running from the school courtyard, carrying people, including multiple children, from the scene. As a child looks at the smoking ruins, another missile crashes to the ground, exploding on impact.
The entire eastern side of the school crumpled. Thirty people, seven of whom were children, were killed, according to the Ministry of Health. Video filmed by journalist Hani Abu Rezeq from the scene shows a young man with a biohazard bag picking up charred fragments of human remains from the rubble.
Future obstacles for educators, students
Rachael Cummins, a humanitarian director in Gaza for Save the Children, told ABC News the organization is bringing learning back to some of Gaza’s children. They started earlier this year with child-friendly spaces for play, and are now introducing more learning, with the goal of reintroducing a level of normalcy and structure to children’s lives, she said.
Cummins said the obstacles are immense, from staff safety, to finding child friendly spaces, to sourcing materials, and all made more difficult by the constant displacement of people.
For the children themselves, Cummins said, returning to learning is no easy task and the lost year will have lasting ramifications.
“Children haven’t been able to access formal education, so they’ve missed a whole year of learning. But, you know, outside of that, what they’re seeing and what they’re living through and the consequences of that in terms of their mental health, really, really cannot be underestimated. A whole generation, a whole population, actually, of children and their parents and their caregivers, in terms of the impact of the war on their mental health is absolutely extraordinary,” she said.
She said their programs have to take into account how the war has changed children’s behaviors, from finding it impossible to focus, to aggressive reactions, and anxiety attacks.
She also highlights the poor physical health, malnutrition and illnesses affecting many children in Gaza, which compound the difficulty of their focusing on anything but immediate needs.
“It’s a dire situation for children. It manifests in many different ways and is deeply distressing for them and obviously deeply distressing for their families who obviously want to support their children as best they can and to keep them safe, but it’s impossible,” Cummins told ABC News.
Qadira Zourob, the high school student, said her former school, in Khan Younis, is being used as a shelter for thousands of displaced people. It is damaged, but it has not been bombed. Even so, she said she does not have hopes she will be able to return to education, even if a cease-fire is agreed to.
“The displaced people will likely remain in the school. How can they be removed when they have no shelter, home, or anything else?” she asked.
“Our lives are on hold. What will become of my life?” she said. “An entire year of my life, where I built my hopes and dreams, has been destroyed.”
Ambulances are being dispatched to the area in Beirut, Lebanon while security forces take precautions after at least eight people, including a child, were killed in a mass explosion of wireless communication devices known as pagers on September 17, 2024. (Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — Thousands of people were injured across Lebanon and Syria on Tuesday by an Israeli covert operation that remotely detonated pagers, ABC News sources confirmed.
A source described the attack as a “huge operation” that took between six and 12 months to plan, involving the use of informants and collaborators. Explosives were implanted inside the beepers, the source added.
The attack killed at least 12 civilians — among them an 8-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy — according to Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad.
At least 2,800 people were injured, Abiad said. More than 460 people underwent surgery for serious injuries, the minister added. Most victims are suffering from eye and facial injuries, while others suffered injuries to hands and fingers, he said.
The Hezbollah militant group confirmed that 11 of its members were killed on Tuesday, though did not specify the manner of their deaths.
At least 14 people were also injured in targeted attacks on Hezbollah members in Syria, according to the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Hezbollah vowed a “reckoning” for Israel. Leader Hassan Nasrallah is due to speak on the situation on Thursday afternoon.
The pagers began exploding around 3:30 p.m. local time, according to Hezbollah officials. An intelligence source familiar with the situation told ABC News that Israel has long been working to perfect this type of “supply chain interdiction attack.”
Responding to media reports that the explosives were concealed inside its AR-924 pager model, Taiwan-based beeper maker Gold Apollo told ABC News it was not responsible for the design or manufacture of the item.
“According to the cooperation agreement, we authorize BAC to use our brand trademark for product sales in designated regions, but the design and manufacturing of the products are solely the responsibility of BAC,” they said.
ABC News has contacted BAC for comment. The company is based in Budapest, Hungary.
The Lebanese Council of Ministers collectively condemned “this criminal Israeli aggression, which constitutes a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and a crime by all standards.”
It added that “the government immediately began making all necessary contacts with the countries concerned and the United Nations to place it before its responsibilities regarding this continuing crime.”
The United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon called the operation an “extremely concerning escalation in what is an already unacceptably volatile context,” in a statement released by the U.N. Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary General.
U.S. officials said Washington, D.C., had no role in — or pre-knowledge of — the attack. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told journalists on Tuesday that the administration was “gathering information” on the incident.
The U.S. and the European Union have both designated the Hezbollah militant group a foreign terrorist organization.
(LONDON) — The foreign ministries of Germany and Finland said Monday that they were “deeply concerned” by the severing of an undersea cable connecting the two countries across the Baltic Sea — one of two Baltic Sea connections suddenly damaged in recent days.
Finnish company Cinia reported a “fault situation” with its C-Lion-1 submarine cable on Monday afternoon, saying in a statement that investigation and repair work was underway.
Cinia did not offer any explanation for the interruption to the connection and said that undersea cable repairs generally take between 5 and 15 days. The 730-mile cable has connected Finland to central European communication networks since 2016.
The German Interior Ministry confirmed to ABC News that authorities believe the cable to have been severed by an external force near the Swedish island of Oland.
Berlin and Helsinki said they were “deeply concerned about the severed undersea cable.”
“The fact that such an incident immediately raises suspicions of intentional damage speaks volumes about the volatility of our times,” the joint foreign ministries statement continued.
“A thorough investigation is underway. Our European security is not only under threat from Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors. Safeguarding our shared critical infrastructure is vital to our security and the resilience of our societies.”
The damage to the C-Lion-1 cable came one day after Telia Lietuva — a Swedish telecoms company in Lithuania — said one of its undersea telecommunications cable linking Lithuania and Sweden across the Baltic Sea sustained damage.
That cable — which intersects with the C-Lion-1 Finnish-German cable — was damaged on Sunday morning, company spokesperson Andrius Semeskevicius told local media.
The damaged cable has been the subject of faults and accidents in the past. But, Semeskevicius told Lithuanian National Radio and Television, “since both are damaged, it is clear that this was not an accidental dropping of one of the ship’s anchors, but something more serious could be going on.”
The cause of the damage to the cables is yet to be established. The interruptions come against a backdrop of concerns over Russian sabotage operations in Europe and elsewhere, prompted by Western support for Ukraine in its defensive war against Moscow.
The Baltic Sea has been the scene of mysterious undersea incidents in recent years, such as the sabotage attacks on the Nord Stream 1 and 2 natural gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany in 2022.
The following year, a Chinese container ship — the Newnew Polar Bear — dragged its anchor for more than 100 nautical miles through the Gulf of Finland, damaging an undersea natural gas pipeline and two telecommunications cables. Finnish and Estonian authorities are conducting a joint criminal investigation into the incident.
ABC News’ Aicha El Hammar and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
