"One of the Most Terrifying Strikes"

 

"[The assault was] one of the most horrifying attacks on Kyiv [with over 440 drones and 32 missiles launched across Ukraine overnight]."

"Such attacks are pure terrorism. And the whole world, the United States and Europe must finally respond as civilized societies respond to terrorists."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

 

"[This was a] massive and brutal strike [timed deliberately to coincide with the G7 summit]."

"Putin does this on purpose... He sends a signal of total disrespect to the United States and other partners who have called for an end to the killing."

"Only strong steps and real pressure on Moscow can prove him wrong."

Ukraine's  Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha

A partially destroyed residential building after a mass Russian missile and drone attack overnight in Kyiv, Ukraine on June 17, 2025. (Katya Denisova/The Kyiv Independent)

 

On Tuesday, an overnight Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed 15 people, and injured another 156 residents of the capital city, Kyiv. A nine-story Kyiv apartment building was demolished in the deadliest attack on Ukraine's capital this year. As explosions sounded across the Ukrainian capital for close to nine hours, dozens of apartments were destroyed, according to Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko.

 

More than 440 drones and 32 missiles were fired overnight June 17, making the Kyiv attack "one of the most terrifying strikes" on the  capital, quoting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Interior Ministry reported that 139 people were injured, while Mayor Vitali Klitschko announced an official day or mourning for Wednesday.

 

Two rounds of direct peace talks have failed to produce any measure of progress in ending the war, entering its fourth year. Civilian areas of Ukraine have repeatedly been hit by Russia with missiles and drones, killing more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according tot he United Nations, even as Russia claims that it targets only military sites.

 

Recent months have seen Russia step up its aerial attacks, launching close to 500 drones at Ukraine on June 10 in the largest overnight drone bombardment of the war. April 24 saw Russia pounding Kyiv as well, on that occasion killing at least 12 people. Long range intensified strikes coincided with a Russian summer offensive on eastern and northeastern sections of the 1,000 kilometre front line where Ukraine, short-handed, needs additional military support from Western partners. 

 

Firefighters extinguish burning parked cars next to a heavily damaged residential building following the Russian missile strike on Ukraine's capital of Kyiv on June 17, 2025. (Genya Savilov/AFP via Getty Images)

 

Doubts have been fueled over uncertainty lingering on U.S. policy on the war, on how much assistance Kyiv can count on. New sanctions were announced by the United Kingdom Tuesday, on Russia's defence industry and its oil-carrying 'shadow fleet' of some 500 ships of uncertain ownership, allowing Moscow to evade  sanctions.

 

President Zelenskyy, appearing by invitation at the G7 conference in Alberta this last few days, is concerned that Ukraine's plight not be put on the back burner in the face of more recent conflict involving Israel's pounding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the past week in a concerted drive to destroy the reign of the Islamic Republic and its focus on acquiring nuclear weapons, which have been seen as a red line, given Iran's frequent threats to annihilate Israel.

 

North Korea is set to send thousands of military construction workers and deminers in support of Russian reconstruction work in the Kursk region of Russia. Seven thousand troops have already been forwarded by North Korea to aid Russia's war against Ukraine, as well as a vast amount of conventional weapons. Pyongyang and Moscow announced their soldiers fought together to repel an incursion by Ukraine into Russia's Kursk border region.

 

Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu stated that North Korea is to set to dispatch 1,000 deminers along with 5,000 military construction workers in "a kind of brotherly aid", to the Kursk region, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

 

South Korean, U.S. and Ukraine assessments have revealed that roughly 15,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to Russia. And according to South Korea's spy agency, about 600 North Korean soldiers have died on the Russia-Ukraine battlefronts.  

 

The aftermath of the Russian missile attack on a residential building in Kyiv, Ukraine on June 17, 2025. (Anna Donets / The Kyiv Independent)

 

Global March to Gaza : Pouf!

"We were stopped at a checkpoint, they took our passports, they have detained us."

"They have put us in a barrier like animals."

"As a Canadian citizen, I am reminding you [Canada's Foreign Affairs Department]of your duty to act when Canadian[s] are in danger in Egypt."

Torontonian Nour Hadidi

 

"[Egypt retained] the right to take all necessary measures to preserve its national security, including the regulation of the entry and movement of individuals within its territory, especially in sensitive border areas."

Egyptian Foreign Ministry 

 

"Avoid all travel to northern Sinai due to terrorist activity and ongoing military operations by the Egyptian Armed Forces."

"Canadians who choose to travel to the region do so at their own risk."

Global Affairs Canada, travel advisory 

Demonstrators stand at a checkpoint at the Suez Canal city of Ismailia, Egpyt, where activists are being detained and had their passports confiscated. (Submitted by Tatiana Harker)

 

"A lot of people are being detained, left in the [heat] without any answers, for two to three hours."

"The [Canadians] have been contacting the Canadian embassy in Cairo with no answer whatsoever."

"Our government is completely ignoring us."

We're not expecting to breach the siege. We're not expecting to breach the borders. We're doing it in a [peaceful] humanitarian way. 

Tatiana Harker, Palestine Vivra Montreal 

 

"Several people had their phones taken then returned."

"We suspected they have installed new SIM  cards with spyware."

New Brunswick professor Jeff Houlihan 

 

"Some have been waiting for hours detained at a checkpoint between Cairo and Ismailia]." 

"Some people have been told to get their passports back, they have to get on a bus to the airport to be deported."

Ontario physician Yipeng Ge 

Members of a convoy of at least 1,500 people, including activists and supporters from Algeria and Tunisia, shout pro-Palestinian slogans as they gather on their way to Gaza's Rafah Crossing with Egypt, in Zawiya, Libya, on Tuesday. (Yousef Murad/AP)

 

The Canadian protesters who gathered at the Rafah crossing in Egypt expecting to make their way into Gaza in solidarity with Hamas, and who sneeringly refer to Canada as a supporter of 'genocide' and itself an illegally constituted country which colonized the northern half of North America, illegally appropriating it from Canada's Indigenous people on whom a 'cultural genocide' was perpetrated are now bleating heartbreakingly at an official Canada that prewarned entry to Egypt under present conditions would be a their own risk and is failing to provide consular services to them. 

 

They don't feel that it is their own responsibility to manoeuvre themselves out of a compromised situation they willingly entered. Egypt has made it clear that it will not permit invaders, even those who call themselves humanitarian rescuers of Palestinian babies from the malign clutches of despised Israel which in their worldview has no moral right of legitimacy to presume it must respond to the slaughter of Israeli citizens with the intention to neutralize completely the violence that Palestinian leadership and Palestinian terrorist groups have subjected it to for decades.

 

The intention was to march in solidarity of numbers representing a mixture of nationalities aspiring to give moral and practical assistance to embattled Palestinians caught in their government's spiderweb of terror prodding Israel to respond to the October 7 declaration of war with its own version of a final conflict to extinguish the threat that refused to go away on its own. The trouble with the best laid plans of mice and men is not to consider what other mice and men on their very own territory might deem as offensive to their own positions.

 

And so, Egyptian authorities and locals interdicted the intent of the organized demonstration of solidarity with Gaza. What they accomplished for themselves was arrests, detentions, and confiscation of their passports by Egyptian security officials -- among them an estimated 40 Canadians of the almost-100 that had originally set out with the international group that called themselves principled humanitarians. 

 

The Instagram account linking Canadian participants in the Global March to Gaza spoke of "harrowing" treatment meted out to its members, in Egypt. Quoting one unidentified "member of the Canadian delegation" who detailed the scene of participants forced onto waiting vans, having refused to board them voluntarily. "They eventually dragged us up violently into vans. They treated my black Muslim sisters horribly especially" read the account.

 

"They have beaten people. I have seen one woman that was beaten in her face in front of me", German organizer Melanie Schweizer said, describing activists being "pushed" and "dragged" onto deportation buses in a video. Ottawa physician Yipeng Ge who recently described Canada on social media as a white supremacist "settler colonial state" needing to be destroyed was also detained. Ge, prominent in the anti-Israel community, posted support letters from two NDP MPs, Leah Gazan and Alexandre Boulerice.

 

Egypt's ambassador to Canada, Ahmed Hafaz, was appealed to by MP Leah Gazan to help ensure the Canadian activists would be released, and to see that they would be allowed to continue their march through the Sinai peninsula up to the Egyptian border with Gaza. Intended partially as a critique of Egyptian government policy, the Global March to Gaza, was not a great hit in Egypt which maintains a heavily fortified border with Gaza. 

 

Members of a convoy of at least 1,500 people wave Palestinian flags from a bus as the group travels towards Gaza [Yousef Murad/ AP]

 

Biting The Bullet

 

"All gatherings, including synagogue services and public assemblies, are strictly forbidden at this time."

"Residents are urged to keep at least one phone on in every household to receive real-time alerts."

"It is also recommended to keep a radio tuned to an open emergency frequency." 

Israeli Home Front Command notice

 

"President Trump has deftly used the Israeli attack to, in effect, say to the Iranians: 'I am still ready to negotiate a peaceful end to your nuclear program and you might want to go there fast -- because my friend, Bibi is C-R-A-Z-Y."

"I am waiting for your call." 

Mockup of imagined call from Trump to Ayatollah Khamenei: NYT columnist Thomas Friedman 

Israeli security and rescue forces at the scene of a ballistic missile impact in Rehovot, June 15, 2025. (Yossi Aloni/Flash90)

 

Attack sirens sound throughout Israel these days on a regular basis. Messages reach Israelis  constantly from the Home Front command urging people to be aware and to make themselves knowledgeable about the risks they face now that the Israel Defense Forces have been committed finally by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to square off with the Islamic Republic of Iran with the intention of destroying the Islamist Theocracy and its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, along with the country's nuclear sites, military bases, weapons depots and select military leaders.

 

People are being urged to shelter in place with news of a major attack expected. Messages update Israelis over the massive attacks the Israeli Air Force is engaging in over Iran and retaliation is expected with all its devastating potential. Reservists have received call-up notices and present at their bases. Israelis value their safe rooms, installed in their homes, if they're fortunate. Enter, seal the door shut, and look around at their preparations; fresh water, food, emergency batteries. Or head straight over to community-based shelters and bide the time there until it's deemed safe to emerge.

 

Responders are seen next to a damaged building following a strike by an Iranian missile in the Israeli city of Petah Tikva, east of Tel Aviv, on June 16, 2025. (Jack GUEZ / AFP)

 

They call their loved ones wherever they live around Israel, to ensure that there have been no casualties among them. The Israeli precision strikes on Iranian targets are discussed and hopes expressed that this will be a mercifully short conflict, and everyone can be released in good order from the unbearable fear and tensions that have descended. Some among them even extend their concerns to the Iranian civilian population for whom the IRGC and the Ayatollahs have been a dreadful life burden. The shorter the conflict, the fewer the civilian victims -- whether in Israel or Iran.

 

Israelis take shelter in a bomb shelter during a barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles, in the city of Bat Yam, on June 15, 2025. (Gili Yaari / Flash90)

 

The waves of Israeli attacks targeted the top echelons of the Iranian military, air force and civilian leadership. The Iranian chain of command has been decimated. The nuclear scientists instrumental in developing the country's nuclear capabilities were targets as well. Key nuclear sites were set on fire, and massive secondary explosions rocked the nearby areas. Air bases were bombed, and planes on the tarmac destroyed. Iran's state news broadcaster was bombed.

 

Swarms of drones were launched at Israel from Iran and inside Iraqi territory. It takes seven hours for these missives to reach Israel. Ballistic missiles can reach Israel within a two-hour period, and they do. Yemen too has sent missile fire into Israel. Israelis expect that most of these weapons of destruction will be intercepted before they can reach their targets, and most are -- an estimated 90 percent of them. The few that do get through hit apartments and other civilian infrastructure, resulting in injuries and thus far, a handful of deaths.

 

Residents shelter in  Jerusalem school during a missile attack, June 16, 2025. (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

 

The Jihadist Theocracy of Iran ... Fading

"We're geared to do whatever is necessary to achieve our dual aim, to remove ... two existential threats - the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat."

"We did act - to save ourselves, but also, I think, to not only protect ourselves, but protect the world from this incendiary regime."

"We can't have the world's most dangerous regime have the world's most dangerous weapons."

"Iran will pay a very heavy price for the murder of civilians. We will also achieve our goal. We are here because we are in an existential battle, which today is understood by every citizen of Israel."

"Think about what would happen if Iran had 20,000 missiles like this [that hit the northern Israeli community of Bat Yam]. It would be an existential threat to Israel. That is why we launched a war of salvation against a dual annihilation threat, and we are doing so with strength." 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits homes hit by Iranian projectiles on Sunday, June 15, 2025.

(photo credit: PRIME MINISTER'S OFFICE)

How much more threatening provocations, bald statements of intent to annihilate its presence, inciting of deadly violence, complicity in training, arming and dispatching satellite terror groups would any country other than Israel reasonably tolerate before finally in the realization that there was no possibility of reaching detente with an avowed enemy and to prevent total existential calamity it must act to protect itself and its population to preempt the inevitable? After decades of incendiary threats, attacks by terror proxies of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the potential of facing a nuclear strike, Israel, left with no other choice, moved to defend itself and extinguish that threat.

 

Friday, 13th of June long before dawn rose to illuminate the day, that pre-emptive military strike was undertaken, reaching deep within Iranian territory toward very specific targets -- the country's nuclear infrastructure, its military sites, and most particularly its organizational capacity in the targeting of its senior military officials, its nuclear scientists and those senior officials in control of state mechanisms geared toward the jihad intentions of the theocratic state.

 

People gather outside an area hit by an Israeli strike in Tehran on 13 June. Photograph: Meghdad Madadi/Tasnim News/AFP/Getty Images

 

Israel is accused by many in the Western media, hinted at by the leaders of allied nations of overstepping its rights in planning and executing a full-scale attack on Iran. But none of these other countries have had to live for years with the Iranian Damoclean sword hanging over them, or responding to strike after strike by neghbouring terrorist groups or their administrations that incite the populace to violence against their population. Urging a ceasefire when Israel has only just launched an operation to nullify the Islamic Republic regime's focus on destroying the Jewish state, is an exercise in futility.

 

The threat against Israel represents a direct and imminent one, but the same surly threats, although not quite so freely expressed, are meant to create disequilibrium within Western democracies for the ultimate purpose of destroying their culture, laws, politics and ideology in favour of that of extreme political Islam as Muslim migration accelerates, creating large political, professional and activist blocs whose favour is sought by politicians with an eye fixed on votes, bypassing the longer stealth picture of overturned traditions and values.

 

Israel's Iron Dome air defense system fires to intercept missiles over Tel Aviv, Israel on Sunday.

Leo Correa/AP

 

Israel's expected, but still shocking decision to launch a full-scale attack on Iran is fully legitimate in the international arena of legal permissibility. Every nation has the inherent right to defend itself under Article 51 of the Charter of the United Nations. Iran, as the only member of the UN that has openly threatened the annihilation of another UN member, it is understood that the threat goes well beyond rhetoric, but expresses full intention. 

 

According to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Israel is a "cancerous tumour" which "must be  eradicated". Iran has never been content to stop at verbal insults and threats of assault, but has moved to ensure that actual violent attacks take place as precursors to its final intent. In the IRGC's Quds Division's formation, training and arming of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Houthis in Yemen, Shia militias in Iraq, and Hezbollah in Lebanon, a pincer movement closing in on Israel was not only contemplated but put into motion.

 

These are groups whose focus on occasion strayed toward disturbed actions hitting Western interests through Tehran's global network, attacking American troops, disrupting global shipping, and hitting western allies in the Mediterranean, South America and Europe. Which led eventually to October 7, 2023, when Iranian proxy Hamas gave vent to its ambition of fomenting dread terror to a degree not to be outdone in its sadistic savagery, much less imagined that human nature could sustain such a degree of malevolence.

 

Rescue personnel work at an impact site following a missile attack from Iran, in Bat Yam, Israel, June 15, 2025 (credit: RONEN ZVULUN/REUTERS)

 

But it was an event that galvanized a traumatized nation to launch its military in a response to destroy the capacity of the Palestinian terror group to ever imagine a repeat could occur, striking at its leaders, its headquarters, its rocket launching sites, its interminable tunnel system, its weapons depots. And when Hamas was left licking its wounds but still launching missiles, it was Hezbollah's turn after a year of lobbing missiles into Israel, when precision technology placed pagers in the hands and pockets of shocked terrorists for long-range efficiency in administering punishment.

 

Although the Houthis' direct fire into Israel placed an additional burden on Israel to respond to that third front, the fourth failed to fully surge when Syrian opposition groups moved to destroy the Assad regime's hold on Syria. And then it was Iran's turn, to feel the full vibrant, deadly strength of the enemy whose ire it had so carefully cultivated over the years. The International Atomic Energy Agency had declared Iran in violation of its nuclear non-proliferation obligations earlier in the week. In the realization that it had little time left before Iran reached the end stage of producing nuclear weapons, Israel took the initiative.

 

Vehicles jam a highway as a fire blazes nearby in the oil depots of Shahran, northwest of Tehran, on June 15, 2025. (ATTA KENARE / AFP)

 

Necessity moved Israel to destroy the Islamic Republic's aspirations for nuclear achievement; to match nuclear warheads to the technologically advanced missiles it had devised for that purpose. With success, Israel may remove a regime that beggared its nation's culture and economy for the greater interests of forming a Shi'ite cabal capable of undermining and destabilizing the greater numbers of Sunni-led Arab regional governments. Removing the Ayatollahs and the IRGC from power in Iran to free the Iranian population from its stranglehold, relieving the region of the tensions inherent in Iran's bid for conquest, and freeing Israel from the prospect of a nuclear night, would also release the international community from the octopus-probing arms of Islamist state theocratic jihad. 

 

The Iranian regime’s security chain of command that has been eliminated by Israeli strikes, June 14, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

 

 

The Time Has Come

"I'm less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago. Something happened to them, but "I am much less confident of a deal being made."

"They seem to be delaying, and I think that's a shame." 

U.S. President Donald Trump

 

"We are constantly assessing the appropriate personnel posture at all our embassies."

"Based on our latest analysis, we decided to reduce the footprint of our mission in Iraq."

Anonymous U.S. State Department official 

 

"Diplomacy -- not militarism -- is the only path forward."

"Iran is not seeking a nuclear weapon, and U.S. militarism only fuels instability."

"CENTCOM's legacy of fuelling regional instability through arming aggressors and enabling Israeli crimes, strips it of any credibility to speak on peace or non-proliferation."

Islamic Republic of Iran

Tehran, Friday, June 13. AP

 

This past week the U.S. State Department ordered all of its embassies within striking distance of Iran, including its proxy locations; missions in the Middle East, eastern Europe and North Africa, to convene emergency action committees, and to urgently forward cables to Washington of measures to mitigate risks. The departure of non-essential personnel from Iraq was also authorized. Bearing in mind that the U.S. is viewed in Tehran as the military and political support of Israel and as such promised consequences should Israel strike Iran.

 

The doomsday stars have aligned for the Islamic Republic. Bleating that it respects not military means but diplomacy reveals that it considers arming and inciting terrorist groups to represent its particular brand of diplomacy. Having connived to destabilize the entire Middle East with its Axis of Resistance the Ayatollahs cannot resist attributing regional instability to the United States and Israel. Because it is a theocratic regime of undisputed 'peace' and 'harmony', Iran deplores aggressors such as Israel insisting it has the universally legitimate human right to exist.

 

A person stands near a damaged residential building after an Iranian ballistic missile strike hits Tel Aviv. Abir Sultan/EPA

"For decades, the tyrants of Tehran have brazenly, openly called for Israel's destruction."

"They backed up their genocidal rhetoric with a program to develop nuclear weapons."

"If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon within a very short time."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 

That determination to defend and protect itself from a regime that has time and again over the decades threatened to destroy 'the Zionist entity', even so far as declaring that intention within the hallowed halls of the United Nations, has finally pushed Israel to the inevitable. A final and total frontal assault on the Islamic Republic, to neutralize that existential threat and prevent it from producing the nuclear weapons it says it has no intention of pursuing; that with its oil for energy notwithstanding, its search for nuclear energy is purely domestic.

 

Reuters

 

Hostile, threatening rhetoric and support for terrorist death cults aimed directly at destroying Israel identifies Iran for what it is. The Hamas October 7, 2023 unspeakable malevolence unleashed by thousands of Palestinian terrorists marauding through southern Israel in a maelstrom of savage intensity, as clear a declaration of war as any that could be imagined. Orchestrated by Iran, championed by Iran, fuelled by Iran, celebrated by Iran as a great victory. 

 

The response was swift with the Israel Defense Forces responding to the bloodshed, rape, torture, destruction and hostage taking. And having to respond as well to Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis is Yemen, as well as Hamas, the PLFP, Islamic Jihad and Fatah in Gaza. The last two decades of Iran's search for nuclear weapons as a deterrent to Israel's existence and its extended goal of conquest of the Middle East for Shia Islam over its Sunni neighbours has been unsettling for the entire region.

 

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran had an organized nuclear weapons program up to 2003, enriching uranium to gradually achieve weapons-grade levels. A nuclear armed Iran would represent the existential threat that Iran celebrates itself as being for Israel. With Hamas battered, Hezbollah in disarray, the Houthis on the back foot, and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad out of the picture, the Islamic Republic has been deprived of its allies' militant support. 

 

The Islamic Republic was given fair warning to cease and desist or face the consequences. The former never resulted, but the latter is in the process. When the IAEA's board of governors censured Iran for failing to work with its inspectors, Iran responded with the announcement it would establish a third enrichment site and exchange some of its centrifuges for more advanced models.

 

Photos show some Iranians rallying in front of a mock-up of the Dome of the Rock  Atta Kenare / AFP - Getty Images

 

War is never pretty. In the prosecution of war, innocents are caught up while the military on either side pursue their goals, each of outdoing the other to become victorious in combat, leading to surrender of one, dominance of the other. Iran has thus far lost many of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps military commanders, its nuclear scientists, all members of the IRGC themselves, airports, arms depots, oil refineries, assault depots. In response swarms of missiles have rained down on Israel.

 

Israel is in a battle for survival. Its success in this battle will result not only in removing the source of an unrelenting cult dedicated to the destruction of Israel and by extension, Jews, but by extension, freeing the Iranian people themselves from their burden of Islamist anti-human corrosion of the most basic of human rights. Moreover, the removal of the current Islamist regime's stranglehold on its own population, on the Middle East and its long-range threat to the West and its freedoms represents a benefit to the international community. 

 

The justice of peace and freedom will arrive with the removal of impediments to both. And Israel alone has undertaken that task of benefit to all.

 

A fire at Tehran's Shahran oil depot after an Israeli attack. Photograph: Majid Asgaripour/Reuters

 

Chance Encounter In Evading Death

Parts of an Air India plane that crashed on Thursday are seen on top of a building in Ahmedabad, India, Friday, June 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

 

"The police found one survivor in seat 11A. He has been in the  hospital and is under treatment." 

"The death toll may increase, as the flight crashed in a residential area."

Ahmedabad Police Commissioner G. S. Malik 

 

"I can't believe myself how I came out of it alive, because for a while I thought I was going to die as well." 

"But when I opened my eyes, I saw that I was alive. So I tried to open my seat belt, and I was able to get out." 

 "After takeoff, after 5-10 seconds, it seemed like the aircraft was stuck."

"When my door broke, I saw there was a bit of space. So I tried to get out and I was able to get out."

"I just walked out."

Viswashkumar Ramesh, sole survivor, Air India crash

 

"Typically in an airplane accident, being in the back of the airplane is better because you sort of have the front of the airplane as a shock absorber to take some of the impact loads."

"Because the tail hit first it would have then caused the whole fuselage to rotate forward and slam into the ground, and that would cause breaking of the fuselage."

"If he said he went through a break, that was what caused that break."

"In some cases you can survive the impact damage, but then the fire can be what actually ends up being the problem."

"Put your seat belt on tight, know where the exits are. And as was shown in this case, getting out quickly is really important. So don't wait and grab your stuff, just … get away as quickly as you can." 

John Hansman, professor of aeronautics and astronautics, MIT 

Viswashkumar Ramesh, the sole survivor of Thursday's Air India crash, meets with Home Affairs Minister Amit Shah at a hospital in Ahmedabad. Indian Ministry of Home Affairs/AP

 Air India Boeing 787-8 commercial passenger jet had just lifted off from Ahmedabad airport, in a city of four million people, in transit to London, with a full passenger load and crew on a routine flight. Barely clearing the airport, the plane's nose failed to lift and instead it appeared almost as though it was landing. And land it did in a sense, but not on an airstrip, but into the side of a building just outside the airport perimeter. As it hit the building, a fireball exploded, and all aboard were lost in the explosion. Except, miraculously, for one passenger, 40-year-old British citizen Vishwash Kumar Ramesh, seated in the first economy-class row behind business class, in a window seat.

 

Local video revealed a man wearing a stained white T-shirt walking away from the crash limping, headed toward an ambulance. He had injuries and blood on his face left side, where he would have faced the window. He had with him his folded boarding pass, matching the passenger name, flight and seat assignment in the plane's manifest. Proof was sought simply because it seemed impossible that anyone could walk away from such a catastrophic crash. 

"Thirty seconds after take-off, there was a loud noise and then the plane crashed. It all happened so quickly."

"When I got up, there were bodies all around me. I was scared. I stood up and ran. There were pieces of the plane all around me."

"Someone grabbed hold of me and put me in an ambulance and brought me to the hospital."

Vishwash Kumar Ramesh 

Reuters

 

 At the hospital he was taken to, medical authorities found he had suffered "impact injuries" to chest, face and feet. He was placed in a general ward bed, the impression being that his injuries were of a relatively minor nature. Somehow, astoundingly, out of all those aboard the plane who perished, this man's life had been spared and the explanation why he survived eludes experts. While he survived, however, there was still a family tragedy in that he was travelling with his older brother Ajay Kumar Ramesh. Seated in a different row, his brother's crash outcome was the same as all other passengers and crew: death.

 

Onboard the plane were 169 Indian citizens, 53 British citizens, several Portuguese and one Canadian passenger destined to arrive at Gatwick Airport in London. Aboard there was a dozen crew members, along with the 230 passengers. Among the passengers were twelve children. None but Ramesh survived. Additionally there were other people on the ground killed and injured. The tally is rising. The jet had smashed into a hostel used by local doctors. At least three young doctors living in the hostel lost their lives. 

 

Less than a minute after take-off air traffic controllers had received a Mayday call from the plane, as it sank to the ground, burst into flames and clouds of dark smoke were sent up, visible from the airport. In a video, the plane is seen sinking through the lower atmosphere -- in appearance like a planned landing, not an errant crash. As it smashed through the building, the front of the plane penetrated deep into the building. 

 

The plane struck a doctors' hostel after crashing into the residential area of Meghani Nagar on Thursday  Reuters

 

In the  general aura of grief and disbelief, the plane's crash is under investigation as authorities attempt to discern what could have caused the plane to descend when it should have ascended, more seconds following takeoff. And with that mystery waiting to be understood, another that might be more difficult to discern; how out of the hundreds who perished, one man was able to walk away in a state of shock, suffering relatively slight injuries from the massive concussion.

 

  

 

 

Canada/U.K./Norway/Australia/New Zealand Sanctioning Israel .. RCMP 'Investigating' Canadians in the IDF

"Extremist rhetoric advocating the forced displacement of Palestinians and the creation of New Israeli settlements is appalling and dangerous."

"Itimar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich have incited extremist violence and serious abuses of Palestinian human rights."

"Extremist settler violence and settlement expansion [is imperilling a two-state solution]."

"This is why we have taken action now -- to hold those responsible to account." 

"Violent perpetrators continue to act with encouragement and impunity. The Israeli government must uphold its obligations under international law and we call on it to take meaningful action to end extremist, violent and expansionist rhetoric." 

Sanctions statement, Canada/U.K., Norway, Australia, New Zealand 

 

"It is outrageous that elected representatives and members of the government are subjected to these kinds of measures."

"I discussed it earlier today with PM Netanyahu, and we will hold a special government meeting early next week to decide on our response to this unacceptable decision." 

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar 

 

"These sanctions do not advance U.S.-led efforts to achieve a ceasefire, bring hostages home and end the war."

"We reject any notion of equivalence; Hamas is a terrorist organization that committed unspeakable atrocities, continue to hold innocent civilians hostage, and prevents the people of Gaza from living in peace."

"The United States urges the reversal of the sanctions and stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel." 

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio 

Israel's Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich (L) and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (R) have been sanctioned by the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, Australia, New Zealand  Getty Images

 

Canada's Royal Candian Mounted Police announced a 'structural investigation' into whether citizens of Canada may have committed war crimes while serving with the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza. An announcement that has elicited incredulous fury from Jewish Canadians whose leaders level accusations against the the Liberal government of political targeting. The June 4 statement revealed that an investigation had begun in early 2024 to determine whether Canadian citizens were acting in contravention of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act.

 

This was not -- the RCMP hastened to assure -- a criminal investigation, merely a pursuit of information to "collect, preserve and assess information" including "open-source material and voluntary submissions". It is well to note that should prosecutions ensue, the data may be used in court in the future, should it meet the legal threshold. While not specifying any group, entity, or military -- such as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Abu Shabab, PFLP, Muslim Brotherhood or others fighting in the conflict, Jewish groups parse the announcement as aiming directly at Canadians who have fought for the IDF.  

"It's funny how law enforcement in our cities have watched tens of thousands of people illegally protest and harass Jews while the RCMP tells us they want to play global cop and pour resources into finding bogeyman crimes."

"[His son, fighting with the IDF] doesn't know when or if there's a bullet with his name on it. But I never expected this kind of bullet that would come from my government, and that really tore up my heart. I feel betrayed." 

Israel Ellis, Torontonian 

Smoke rises to the sky following an Israeli strike in Gaza City, June 1, 2025. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

 

Mr. Ellis pointed out that this is the second occasion when he felt his son, serving in Israel with the IDF has been targeted. The first time was when the Canadian site The Maple published a list of 85 Canadian-Israelis in an article attacking the IDF, for "ethnic cleansing, war crimes, apartheid and now genocide". The February article included a list of the 85 Canadian Israelis, both current or former Israeli soldiers. Mr. Ellis found his son Eitan's name on the list. 

 

UN Watch's Montreal-born executive director Hillel Neuer, stated the investigation is "nothing less than a moral inversion. It turns Canadian values upside down. For good reason, Ottawa has never prosecuted dual citizens who served with British, French or American forces in fighting ISIS and al-Qaeda." It is, he said "unconscionable" the federal Liberals "were even contemplating the prosecution of Canadians who fought in defence of civilians against a genocidal terrorist group".

 

Foundation for Defense of Democracies

 

"How do you know what happened at what time, at what day, for what reason an IDF soldier did what you think they did? You have no clue. You couldn't tell what happened unless you had somebody's bodycam. Do you really think that they have all the necessary footage and resources that they need to make a judgement? No, like, stay in your lane. Focus on the issues that you have in Canada", responded Noy Leyb of Calgary, recently serving in Gaza. Noting that when Israeli authorities suspect soldiers of ill actions, they are  tried in a court of law. 

 

330 Gazans on the other hand, have arrived in Canada since the war began. "Did anyone check whether they were involved with war crimes of Hamas? I'll bet not." There are about 7,000 lone soldiers in Israel -- those serving from other countries -- while an IDF study showed that in 2022 before the current war began,there were 51 Canadians. 

 

Israeli soldiers walk through the destruction caused by Hamas terrorists in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, near the Israeli-Gaza border, in southern Israel, October 15, 2023. (credit: EDI ISRAEL/FLASH90)

 

"Any suggestion that Israeli-Canadians should be targeted for their service -- particularly in a war of self-defence waged by a close ally of Canada -- not only represents a cynical distortion of the law, but fuels the violent hatred faced by Israelis and Jews in North America."

"Authorities [should] carefully consider the impact on public safety of future statements, given the heightened threat environment faced by our community."

Noah Shack, interim president, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

 

"[His organization has] been advocating for such an investigation. The group sent a letter in January to Arif Virani, then Justice Minister, to seek action against] Canadian nationals in violations of international law in Gaza."

"[CJPME] cautiously welcome [the RCMP probe and felt there was] serious likelihood [that Canadians were] involved in the commission of crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide."

"[They want the Canada Border Services Agency to conduct] detailed interviews [with Canadian nationals returning from foreign military service to share with the International Criminal Court]."

Michael Bueckert, acting president, anti-Israel Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East 

Toronto television personality, Shai DeLuca, former IDF combat engineer, believes the investigations stemmed from "very loud fundamentalist voices that the government is trying to pander to. Nothing has been brought against any Canadian that served in the IDF from a year and a half ago until today. So, you know, I'm not concerned." At the same time there are war catastrophes in Sudan, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. "It's very important that people understand that service in the IDF during this war is not illegal in Canada, nor is it a war crime." 

"So the RCMP can pretend all that it wants that it's doing some investigation, but just like they said in that clarified statement, they're opening channels to people who want to send them stuff. Well, you know, people send me stuff all the time. Doesn't make it true."  

Israeli soldiers guard near the Gaza European Hospital near Khan Yunis, Gaza, on June 8, 2025. Photo by Amir Levy/Getty Images

 

"No other Western democracy is criminally investigating its citizens for fighting alongside an ally, let alone one  defending itself from a genocidal terror organization."

"The Canadian government] should focus its pressure on Hamas -- the party that initiated this war."

"[The Israel Law Center will provide] legal defence and advocacy for those targeted by politically-driven investigations."

"The Mounties have made an [unprecedented decision]." 

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, president, Israel-based Shurat HaDin -- Israel Law Center