All the ambulance services in England experienced some of their busiest-ever days during this summer’s record-breaking June heatwave, according to data obtained by Carbon Brief.
In June, temperatures climbed past 37C in parts of the country as authorities declared only the second ever “red” extreme heat warning.
Four out of 10 NHS ambulance services, including London’s, responded to unprecedented numbers of life-threatening emergencies on at least one day from 23-27 June.
Another two services – in the south-west and east of the country – received their highest volume of 999 calls on record.
Ambulance services provided data on their busiest days since records began, in response to freedom-of-information (FOI) requests from Carbon Brief.
The results show how demand during the June heatwave exceeded levels seen during the traditionally busy winter season in other years – and even the height of the Covid-19 pandemic – for many services.
Heat demand
Extreme heat ramps up the risk of numerous life-threatening conditions, including heart disease and respiratory problems.
England experienced record-breaking temperatures at the end of June, with the whole country covered by amber or red “heat health alerts” from the government.
A red alert, which was issued for the entire Midlands and south of England, indicates “significant risk to life for even the healthy population”. This was only the second time such an alert has been triggered.
Researchers calculated that there were nearly 3,000 heat-related deaths in the UK this summer. There has also been unprecedented demand for A&E departments and some ambulance services.
To investigate the strain facing ambulances, Carbon Brief sent FOI requests to the 10 NHS ambulance trusts in England, asking for lists of their busiest days.
This covered both the total volume of 999 calls and “category 1” responses – referring to incidents involving “life-threatening injuries and illnesses”, such as heart attacks.
The chart below shows the busiest days on record for England’s ambulances, including both total calls and category 1 responses. Most services were able to provide records back to the 2010s. (See: Methodology.)
The five-day period from 23-27 June is overrepresented in these results, with at least two heatwave days ranking in the top 20 for every service in the country.
The top 20 rankings for services across England cover different periods of time. See Methodology for more details.
This trend is especially pronounced in the south and east of England, where June temperatures exceeded 36C and even approached 38C in some regions.
London, South East Coast, South Central and North East ambulance services all reported daily records for responding to life-threatening emergencies during the heatwave.
For the South East Coast and South Central services – which cover a region stretching from Oxfordshire to Kent – 25, 26 and 27 June all saw unprecedented numbers of category 1 callouts.
South Western and East of England services both saw record numbers of 999 calls on 26 June, the same day the highest-ever June UK temperature was reported in Norfolk.
It is worth noting that demand for ambulance services – including category 1 calls – has been growing for many years, driven by factors such as an ageing population, more complex health conditions and growing mental-health pressures.
This helps to explain why dates from before the 2020s are rare in the top rankings provided to Carbon Brief.
Beyond the heatwave, 2026 as a whole is on track to be a record year for ambulance demand.
‘Stifling heat’
On 26 June, the busiest day of the heatwave, ambulances across England responded to 4,084life-threatening emergencies.
The average daily volume of such incidents is normally around 2,500 during the summer months.
Stu Holliday, head of emergency preparedness, resilience and response at North East Ambulance Service, tells Carbon Brief:
“During periods of hot weather, we typically see an increase in calls from people affected by dehydration, heat exhaustion and heatstroke, as well as those whose existing health conditions, particularly heart and respiratory illnesses, can be made worse by prolonged high temperatures.
“Older people, young children and pregnant people can be especially vulnerable.”
Ambulance teams are generallybusier in the winter because cold weather and seasonal illnesses drive up the number of severe medical emergencies.
However, the data from June shows that extremely hot days are starting to match or even edge out cold ones as the busiest days. This is a trend seen across the healthcare system.
While not every service provided records back to 2019, the data broadly shows that ambulances were busier during the heatwave than at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
As well as patients, heatwaves put pressure on ambulance workers. The UNISON union has warned of crews facing “stifling heat with faulty or no air conditioning” and “back-to-back callouts” due to increased demand.
Methodology
Carbon Brief requested data on the top 50 busiest days for England’s 10 main ambulance services.
These are: London; South East Coast; South Central; South Western; West Midlands; East Midlands; East of England; North East; Yorkshire; and North West.
Data was requested for as far back as service records go. Most were able to provide records going back to some point in the 2010s, with the exception of North East and South Central, which only had records from 2021 and 2022 onwards, respectively.
Rising annual demand for ambulance services means that most of the busiest days for ambulances have been in the 2020s. For example, all but four of the busiest days for category 1 emergencies reported to Carbon Brief were in the 2020s.
Carbon Brief requested data on ambulance demand for all the UK nations. In Scotland and Northern Ireland – where temperatures are cooler – services did not see call volumes reach the top 50 rankings during the June heatwave. The Welsh Ambulance Service did not respond to Carbon Brief’s request.
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Operation theatre illustration by Kerry Cleaver for Carbon Brief.
More than 1,000 operations at NHS hospitals were cancelled due to heat during the UK’s record May and June heatwaves, Carbon Brief can reveal.
This includes 167 orthopaedic surgeries, such as knee and hip replacements, as well as heart, eye and skin cancer operations.
At least 10 emergency surgeries – those for “life-threatening” conditions – had to be cancelled because of the record-breaking heat, according to the investigation.
Carbon Brief sent freedom-of-information (FOI) requests to 140 NHS trusts to investigate the impact of heatwaves on operations being cancelled in England and Wales.
Areas with the most operations cancelled due to heat include Surrey and Sussex, south Essex and parts of London – all regions experiencing among the highest temperatures.
High temperatures can threaten patient safety by stopping the ventilation systems used in theatres from working, increasing the risk of infection, experts tell Carbon Brief.
Less than half of the NHS trusts provided details of heat-related surgery cancellations – and Carbon Brief understands that many hospitals do not routinely record this information.
Carbon Brief’s figure is therefore likely to be a significant underestimate, but still provides an unprecedented insight into a surgical system “poorly prepared” for heatwaves and the impact on patients.
Overheating operations
The record-breaking heatwaves that have repeatedly struck the UK in 2026 – amplified by climate change – have already been linked to thousands of deaths.
Extreme heat also threatens healthcare systems. News outlets have reported on the NHS “struggling”, as it faces record A&E demand, hospital wards reaching “unsafe” temperatures and equipment failing due to heat.
Among these reports was coverage of hospitals being forced to cancel operations, or even abandon them midway through, as surgical theatres became intolerably hot.
To investigate this problem, Carbon Brief sent FOI requests to the 140NHS trusts and health boards in England and Wales responsible for hospitals with surgical theatres.
They were asked about all the operations that were cancelled due to extreme heat during the May and June heatwaves, when “amber” and “red” heat warnings were in place.
In total, 59trusts and health boards responded with details of 1,110 heat-related cancellations across the 17-day period covering 22-28 May and 18-27 June.
(Of the 63 trusts that responded but did not provide details of heat-related disruption, many said that they simply did not record this data, rather than stating that heat was not a problem. See Methodology for more details.)
The map below shows the location of these cancelled surgeries, which cover everything from routine hernia operations to heart surgeries.
Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust reported the most cancellations – 140 in total – all in the surgery unit at Crawley Hospital. This hospital was in one of the hottest parts of the country in June, with temperatures approaching 36C.
Other hotspots for cancellations include south Essex, Dudley in the West Midlands, south Wales and parts of London. Many of the hardest-hit hospitals were in southern England, where temperatures were highest.
Of the trusts that provided full datasets of all surgery cancellations in the period, around 7% were heat-related. This data illustrates how heat is placing more strain on an already stretched NHS, adding to existing issues such as staff shortages and lack of beds.
Nearly all of the cancelled surgeries were “elective”, meaning they were scheduled in advance and not immediately life-saving. Nevertheless, the list of cancellations includes at least eight heart operations and seven skin-cancer removals.
There were also 10 “emergency” operations cancelled due to heat in surgical theatres. Another 18 surgeries had to be abandoned mid-way through.
Dr Dmitri Nepogodiev, a public health researcher focusing on surgery at the University of Birmingham, says hospitals will always prioritise “time-sensitive, life-threatening” surgeries.
Nevertheless, he tells Carbon Brief that every cancellation can cause significant “distress” and harm to patients’ quality of life, adding:
“Behind all of these statistics…are real people who have probably already been waiting a long time.”
Each dot in the graphic below indicates a cancelled surgery. Of the 596 for which trusts provided details, 167are orthopaedic surgeries, such as knee and hip replacements.
Eye surgeries, gynaecological and urological surgeries are also among the most frequently cancelled, broadly reflecting how common such procedures are.
Richard Egan, an endocrine surgeon and a national clinical director within NHS Wales,notes the knock-on effects of cancelling surgeries for several days during heatwaves. He tells Carbon Brief:
“That’s a significant impact on waiting lists…For every week that patients are waiting on a waiting list, their condition could get worse and deteriorate.”
‘Increased risks’
When providing specific reasons for cancellations, most NHS trusts simply indicated that surgical theatres were “too hot and humid”.
Sometimes, this was accompanied by comments about “risk of infection” or “overheating for both patients and staff”.
There are several reasons why it can get “too hot” for operations to take place, but the main one is that the complex ventilation systems installed in theatres can stop working above a certain temperature, explains Dr Ed Robinson, an NHS anaesthetist. He tells Carbon Brief:
“An operating theatre is a very tightly engineered clinical environment. There are quite complicated ventilation systems, which dilute airborne contaminants, remove fumes from different [medications] and anaesthetic gases.
“We have generalised airflow systems that make the air in theatre flow outwards to adjacent areas, so pathogens and fumes get carried away from the patient into non-clinical areas. When it gets to a certain heat, those systems can fail.”
These systems are also responsible for controlling heat and humidity levels inside theatres, says Robinson.
When the systems fail, it is not possible to guarantee patient safety, he continues, meaning surgeries may need to be cancelled.
Although most hospitals simply stated that it was “too hot” for operations to take place during the heatwaves, there were 48 cases where staff specified that this was due to air conditioning or ventilation units that were either broken or unable to sustain appropriate temperatures.
“Extreme heat can increase risks and make it harder to deliver care under the conditions clinicians would consider ideal.”
If air in operating theatres is too humid, excess moisture can condense on surgical implements and transmit infections, he says.
Extreme heat and humidity inside theatres can also pose a risk to staff having to wear heavy protective clothing. Robinson explains:
“Staff are usually wearing PPE [personal protective equipment]. If it’s orthopaedics, they will be wearing ‘leads’ a lot of the time. This is because they will be doing lots of X-rays, and there’s no time to descrub and rescrub every time.
“So if the ventilation system is not working, you’re going to overheat [and] that’s going to affect your ability to concentrate and perform a safe operation. You just wouldn’t start under those conditions.”
There are also “certain pieces of equipment and medications” that are not “validated to be used outside of certain ranges of temperature”, he says.
This includes specialised “cement” used to secure hip and knee replacements, which can set too quickly at higher temperatures, according to Lane.
‘Poorly prepared’
Following the record-breaking heat of 2022, one study found that surgical services in the UK were “poorly prepared for heatwaves”.
Based on staff surveys, the study concluded that ambient temperatures “could not be controlled” in two-fifths of NHS operating theatres.
With hospitals once again under significant pressure this summer, health secretary Yvette Cooper told the Guardian that the NHS “has to make sure we are preparing for summer pressures now in the same way we prepare for winter”.
Nepogodiev notes that the problem of extreme heat extends from increased patient numbers to staff shortages, which can be the result of a range of wider factors such as heat-related train cancellations. He tells Carbon Brief.
“There isn’t a single magic solution because it’s a kind of complex, multifactorial challenge – so it also underlines the importance of broader preparedness.”
Egan, who is investigating ways to prepare surgical theatres for extreme heat, says the response so far has been “ad hoc”. He suggests it may be possible to continue with less risky operations, even at higher humidity levels.
As it stands, many NHS hospitals are old and not designed for increasingly extreme temperatures.
Government advisers at the Climate Change Committee (CCC) have recommended that all healthcare buildings should work to “maintain safe and appropriate temperatures” by 2035.
The UK’s national adaptation programme already says NHS England will work to “adapt NHS infrastructure to extreme weather events and overheating risks”, by incorporating adaptation measures into plans for new buildings.
However, years of underinvestment have left many sites with what the King’s Fund thinktank calls “deteriorating buildings” and “outdated technology”.
Following the extreme heat this summer, the government has announced £32m from a £1.5bn spending programme for projects that strengthen hospitals’ “resilience to extreme heat, including improved “cooling and ventilation systems”.
RCS England president Lane tells Carbon Brief that heat-related surgical cancellations underline the need for investment in hospitals, ventilation systems and modern equipment:
“NHS staff work incredibly hard to adapt, often reorganising services and finding practical solutions to keep care running, but resilience alone cannot compensate indefinitely for outdated infrastructure or sustainability.”
Methodology
Carbon Brief contacted 140 NHS trusts and health boards in England and Wales, only including those that perform surgical procedures. Mental health trusts, community trusts and other specialist trusts were therefore excluded.
These requests covered the periods 22-28 May 2026 and 18-27 June 2026, when heatwaves affected much of England and Wales.
At the time of filing the FOIs, these were the two periods when the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) had issued “amber” or “red” heat-health alerts across much or all of England. There were also comparable weather warnings in place across Wales for some of this time.
(Scotland and Northern Ireland were excluded from the analysis, on the basis that they did not experience such extreme heat.)
The FOI requests asked for details of all surgical procedures – both elective and emergency – that were cancelled during this period. Specifically, the requests also asked trusts to state which cancellations were related to extreme heat. Of these, 59provided details of surgeries that were cancelled due to heat.
Of the remaining 63 that responded to the FOI requests, only a fewstated explicitly that there were no surgeries cancelled due to heat. Most either said that they did not record this information, or provided lists with standard cancellation reasons that may – or may not – indicate heat as a factor, such as “failure of equipment”. The remaining 19did not respond to the request by the time of publication.
NHS trusts and health boards responded to Carbon Brief’s FOI requests in a large variety of ways, reflecting the inconsistent way in which heat-related cancellations are recorded.
Among those that disclosed data, some provided all the information requested while others only provided parts. Some would not provide exact numbers when the number of cancellations was five or less. In those cases, Carbon Brief assumed that two surgeries had been cancelled. (This assumption accounts for fewer than 50 of the 1,110 cancellations.)
The full dataset is available here, with details of all the surgeries cancelled and the reasons given for their cancellations.
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Mobilization in Caracas demanding the return of Nicolás Maduro. Photo: Francisco Trias
The implications of this case extend far beyond Venezuela. The entire process against Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores threatens to establish the US court system as one with global and unlimited jurisdiction.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is not guilty. This is a statement of law and fact, since Maduro has not been convicted of any crime. He has pleaded not guilty to every charge brought against him, and the accusations made by the United States remain precisely that: accusations. Under the presumption of innocence – recognized in the United States Constitution and in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights – the burden rests entirely upon the prosecution to prove guilt. It is not Maduro who must prove his innocence, but it is the United States government that must prove his guilt.
On January 3, 2026, United States forces illegally entered Venezuela, attacked targets in and around Caracas, seized President Maduro and his wife and an elected official, Cilia Flores, and transported them to the United States. Two days later, shackled and injured, Maduro appeared before a federal court in Manhattan. “I am innocent. I am not guilty,” he told the court. Both defendants entered pleas of not guilty and are now imprisoned in Brooklyn while awaiting a trial provisionally scheduled for June 2027.
The charges against Maduro
The United States alleges that Maduro participated in conspiracies to import cocaine, possess machine guns and destructive devices, and collaborate with organizations Washington has designated as terrorist groups. These charges developed out of an indictment announced during Donald Trump’s first presidency in March 2020. The case was substantially expanded after Maduro was kidnapped through a fourth superseding indictment. An indictment, however, is not evidence tested before a court. It is a document prepared by prosecutors and approved through a grand-jury proceeding at which the defense is normally neither represented nor permitted to challenge the government’s account.
The prosecution relies heavily upon the idea that Maduro directed the so-called Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns. But even organizations deeply hostile to the Venezuelan government acknowledge that this is not a cartel in the conventional sense. The name has long been used as an umbrella expression for disparate Venezuelan officials allegedly involved in criminal activity, long before Maduro entered political life. It does not describe an organization with a demonstrated membership, command structure, headquarters or chain of authority comparable to Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. When Washington designated the Cartel de los Soles a foreign terrorist organization in 2025, the Associated Pressnoted that it was “not a cartel per se.”
This matters because the prosecution’s language performs much of its political work. Allegations concerning individual acts of corruption are assembled into the image of a unified organization, the organization is then attributed to the Venezuelan state, and responsibility for everything allegedly done by anyone within that loose network is placed upon Maduro. The indictment must still demonstrate that Maduro knowingly joined the specific conspiracies charged. Political authority over a state in which crimes occur does not by itself establish personal criminal responsibility for those crimes.
Case is dead on arrival
Venezuela is not a major producer of coca leaf or cocaine. The principal cocaine-producing countries remain Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Venezuela has been used as a transit territory, particularly for cocaine originating in neighboring Colombia. But transit through a country does not prove that its president commands the traffic, and nor does it substantiate the extravagant political image of Venezuela as the central source of the drugs entering the United States. The US Drug Enforcement Administration’s own 2025 threat assessment concentrated overwhelmingly upon Mexican organizations and their supply chains. The global cocaine trade operates primarily through production in the Andean region, maritime export corridors, Central America and Mexico, not through a single organization supposedly commanded from the Venezuelan presidential palace. The International Criminal Court’s investigation into the situation in Venezuela, for example, is an investigation into alleged crimes within its jurisdiction. It is not a conviction of Maduro and has not produced an individual judgment of guilt against him.
The US government is expected to rely upon cooperating witnesses, including former Venezuelan intelligence chief Hugo Carvajal and former general Clíver Alcalá. Both men pleaded guilty to serious offenses in the United States. Their evidence cannot be treated as disinterested truth. Cooperating defendants may hope to obtain sentencing benefits by assisting prosecutors. Their claims must therefore be corroborated and subjected to cross-examination. Until that happens, their statements do not establish Maduro’s guilt. In fact, it is better to see their statements as proof of their own attempt to lighten their sentences and launder their soiled reputations.
The circumstances under which Maduro was brought before the US court create an even deeper problem. Washington did not request extradition through an agreed legal process. It employed military force within another sovereign country without Venezuela’s consent or authorization from the United Nations Security Council. Article 2(4) of the UN Charter prohibits the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of a state, subject to narrow exceptions such as self-defence. Arresting a person accused of drug offenses is not one of those exceptions. International-law specialists described the operation as an unlawful use of force, while governments including Brazil, Mexico, and China condemned the violation of Venezuelan sovereignty.
Maduro’s lawyers have argued that the prosecution violates the immunity enjoyed by an incumbent head of state. Venezuela continued to recognize Maduro as its constitutional president when the United States seized him – a fact tacitly recognized by the United States when it calls Delcy Rodriquez the Acting President. Washington cannot necessarily extinguish the international legal status of another country’s head of state merely by withholding diplomatic recognition. The defense has consequently requested dismissal of the indictment on immunity grounds and has separately challenged the narco-terrorism count for lacking an adequate jurisdictional connection to the United States. Oral argument on these questions is scheduled for November 2026.
The case of former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández exposes the selectivity of Washington’s supposed war against narco-states. Hernández was a close US ally during his presidency from 2014 to 2022. After leaving office, he was extradited – not abducted through a military invasion – and tried in the same federal district in New York where Maduro is now being prosecuted. In March 2024, a jury convicted Hernández after a three-week trial. Prosecutors presented evidence that he had accepted millions of dollars from traffickers, protected cocaine shipments with the Honduran police and military, and helped move more than 400 tons of cocaine towards the United States. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison. Unlike the claims against Maduro, these allegations were tested through testimony, cross-examination and a jury verdict. Yet on December 1, 2025, President Donald Trump pardoned Hernández and secured his release, claiming that the former president had been treated unfairly.
The contrast could hardly be more revealing. Trump pardoned a former president whose participation in cocaine trafficking had been established in a US courtroom, while threatening and eventually invading Venezuela to seize a president against whom no verdict had been rendered. Hernández belonged to Washington’s political camp; Maduro did not. One was released despite his conviction, while the other was captured despite his legal innocence. This disparity does not by itself disprove the accusations against Maduro, but it demolishes the claim that Washington acted from a consistent concern about narcotics. The determining distinction was political alignment, not the strength of the evidence.
The implications of this case extend far beyond the specific circumstances of Maduro and Cilia Flores or their consequences for Venezuela. Allowing a foreign state to override the jurisdiction of another country’s legal system, pursue an accusation for which there is no evidence, and proceed with a trial that lacks a basis in international law effectively establishes the US court system as one with global and unlimited jurisdiction. The ambivalence of governments around the world toward this case is therefore alarming, as it risks signalling consent and normalizing such gross overreach. This is particularly relevant for Mexico, which is already facing a series of accusations and extradition demands from the United States with clear political implications. The outcome of Maduro’s trial could set an important precedent for how Mexico – and other countries – are treated in similar circumstances.
Nicolás Maduro is not guilty therefore expresses the only defensible conclusion at this stage. He was seized through an act of military force, placed before the courts of the state that had pursued his overthrow for years, and charged based on a politically constructed theory that has yet to survive adversarial examination. He remains innocent unless and until admissible evidence proves otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt. Sovereignty is not an ornament, an indictment is not a verdict, and an accusation issued by a powerful state does not become truth merely because that state possesses the weapons to seize the accused.
Stephanie Weatherbee Brito is the co-coordinator of the International Peoples Assembly (IPA).
Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of forty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, and How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa, written with Grieve Chelwa. He is the executive director ofTricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor ofLeftWord Books(New Delhi). He also appeared in the films Shadow World (2016) and Two Meetings (2017).
Climate science denier Donald Trump confirms that he knows nothing about democracy and that more liquid gold is being secured according to his policy of global privateering.Orcas discuss rotting brain, front Orca says Sundown Syndrome is a dead givaway and he wishes someone would Lock Him Up
Medics care for patients at a clinic set up by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) treating severe injuries and burns sustained in Israeli bombardment, at the Rafah Indonesian Field Hospital in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on April 24, 2024. (Photo by Mohammed Abed/AFP via Getty Images)
“Support for Israel requires you to be against everything good in this world, like an organization which sends doctors to conflict areas to save human lives,” said one observer.
Doctors Without Borders on Saturday condemned allegations made by a British pro-Israel lobby group, which called on Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to investigate and potentially proscribe the group, whose medical providers and other humanitarian workers provide lifesaving aid in 70 countries and have worked in Palestine during Israel’s assault there.
As The Telegraph reported, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKFLI) wrote to Mahmood as well as the Charity Commission and Fundraising Regulator, calling on the Labour government to investigate Doctors Without Borders, also known by its French name, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).
The group claimed at least two of MSF’s workers who were killed by Israeli forces, physiologist Fadi Al Wadiya and driver Nasser Hamdi Abdelatif Al Shalfouh, had connections to terrorist groups in Gaza.
Palestine Islamic Jihad published a poster earlier this year naming Wadiya as a “martyr commander,” and UKFLI claimed Al Shalfouh was a sniper for a Hamas battalion.
MSF acknowledged the poster regarding Wadiya in February and said the medical group “had no indication that Fadi Al Wadiya might have been involved in military activity of any kind prior to his killing by the Israeli Forces.”
“If the Israeli authorities had any reliable information about Fadi’s involvement in military activity, they never shared it with MSF either prior to his killing or when we reached out immediately after he was killed to ask for clarifications around the circumstances of his death,” the group added. “We would never knowingly employ people engaging in military activity. Any employee who engages in military activity would pose a danger to our staff and patients.”
UKFLI sent its report on MSF to Mahmood asking her to ban the group, as the Labour government proscribed the protest group Palestine Action last year, labeling it a terrorist group under the Terrorism Act. The government took that action after members of the group vandalized planes at a military base.
The designation put Palestine Action on the same legal footing as Al Qaeda in the UK and made membership of the group—or even expressions of support for it—punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
The demand for the same designation for MSF, said former British Army general Charlie Herbert, was “absolutely grotesque.”
This is grotesque. Absolutely grotesque. There is no more impartial an organisation than @MSF. From Afghanistan to Sierra Leone, they never once failed to impress with their neutrality, impartiality and absolute commitment to humanitarian support. This is complete madness. https://t.co/L6A4LFiXfM
MSF doctors and healthcare workers have treated thousands of Palestinians in Gaza since Israel began its onslaught there in October 2023 in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack. At least 15 people working with the organization have been killed by Israeli forces. The group is also currently providing humanitarian and medical aid in Sudan as the civil war there has displaced millions of people and collapsed the healthcare system; in Yemen as the conflict between the Houthis and Saudi-backed government troops has escalated; and in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which is facing an Ebola outbreak as well as humanitarian crises exacerbated by years of conflict.
“I work in aid, and when people ask who to support I always say MSF,” said researcher and activist Philip Proudfoot. “MSF, wherever I’ve been, are right there on the front, in dangerous conditions, in isolated outposts, providing life-saving support. They’re heroes. UK lawyers for Israel are not fit to wash their scrubs.”
US-based researcher Shaiel Ben-Ephraim said the report by UKLFI demonstrates that “support for Israel requires you to be against everything good in this world, like an organization which sends doctors to conflict areas to save human lives.”
Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel. New Labour UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham continues Labour party policy of active support and complicity in Israel’s genocide.
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Members of the Saudi border guard are stationed at a look-out point on the Saudi-Yemeni border, in southwestern Saudi Arabia, on 9 April 2015. [FAYEZ NURELDINE/AFP via Getty Images]
Saudi Arabia’s Civil Defense issued emergency alerts of a “potential danger” on Sunday in the southwestern city of Abha and Khamis Mushait governorate, before later announcing that the threat had passed in both areas, Anadolu reports.
The warnings were issued through the kingdom’s National Early Warning Platform for Emergencies, according to Civil Defense statements.
Authorities first activated an alert in Khamis Mushait, warning residents of a “potential danger” without specifying its nature.
A similar alert was later issued in Abha, also in southwestern Saudi Arabia.
The Civil Defense subsequently announced that the danger had passed in both Khamis Mushait and Abha.
The statements did not provide further details on the nature of the threat or report any casualties or damage.
A day before, similar alerts were activated in the same regions
The latest alerts came amid rapidly escalating fighting in neighboring Yemen, where the Houthis have taken control of strategic areas near the Bab al-Mandab Strait, including the districts of Hays and Al-Khawkhah in the western Al-Hudaydah province.
Fighting between Yemeni government forces and the Houthis has also intensified on several fronts, particularly in the Taiz, Al-Jawf, and Al-Bayda provinces, amid airstrikes targeting Houthi positions.
Yemen has been engulfed in conflict since the Houthis seized the capital Sanaa and several provinces in 2014. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in 2015 in support of Yemen’s internationally recognized government.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Donald Trump calls for help from NATO allies in securing the Strait of Hormuz despite saying on 7 March 2026 that they don’t need people to join wars after they’ve already won. He’s challenged with the claim that he lies as much as the IDF.
