French Middle East expert defiant despite pro-Palestinian protest

DHAKA: Bangladesh has restored an “except Israel” inscription on passports, local media reported Sunday, effectively barring its citizens from traveling to that country.
Israel is a flashpoint issue in Muslim-majority Bangladesh, which does not recognize it.
The phrase “valid for all countries except Israel,” which was printed on Bangladeshi passports for decades, was removed during the later years of ousted prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s tenure.
Nilima Afroze, a deputy secretary at the home ministry, told Bangladesh Sangbad Sangstha (BSS) news agency on Sunday that authorities had “issued a directive last week” to restore the inscription.
“The director general of the department of immigration and passport was asked to take necessary measures to implement this change,” local newspaper The Daily Star quoted Afroze as saying Sunday.
In 2021, the words “except Israel” were removed from passports, although the then government under Hasina clarified that the country’s stance on Israel had not changed.
The country’s support for an independent Palestinian state was visible on Saturday when around 100,000 people gathered in Dhaka in solidarity with Gaza.
The Gaza war broke out after Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
A fragile ceasefire between the warring parties fell apart last month and Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday that at least 1,574 Palestinians had been killed since then, taking the overall death toll since the war began to 50,944.

LONDON: Two prison officers allegedly stabbed by one of the plotters of a deadly bomb attack at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, England, eight years ago are in a stable condition in the hospital, the union representing them said Sunday.
Hashem Abedi, who in August 2020 was convicted of 22 counts of murder and sentenced to at least 55 years in prison for helping plan the 2017 attack, threw hot cooking oil over three officers on Saturday before stabbing them with “home-made weapons,” according to the Prison Officers Association.
Two male officers sustained life-threatening injuries including burns, scalds and stab wounds in the “unprovoked” and “vicious” attack at Frankland prison in the northeast of England, it added.
A female officer was released from the hospital on Saturday.
The union’s national chairman, Mark Fairhurst, said the attack was carried out in a separation center where inmates are allowed to use cooking facilities.
“To allow that type of prisoner to access the kitchen and use of the utensils that can be used as weapons against staff, and can inflict serious harm on staff, that needs to be removed immediately,” he told the BBC. “We’re now worried about the knock-on effect of this and copycat incidents.”
Abedi was convicted of assisting with the Manchester terror plot, in which his suicide bomber brother Salman Abedi killed 22 people by detonating a a bomb hidden in a knapsack as fans were leaving the Grande concert. In addition to those killed, more than 260 people were wounded and hundreds of others were left with psychological injuries.
Counterterrorism officials are leading the investigation into the attack, with assistance from local police.