Drones deliver drugs, food to French prison cells

Five people were killed and several others injured - including a small child - when a knife-wielding attacker rampaged through a busy Sydney shopping centre on Saturday, Australian police said.

Multiple people were stabbed by the unidentified assailant, who was shot dead by a policewoman at the scene.

The incident occurred at the sprawling Westfield Bondi Junction mall complex, which was packed with Saturday afternoon shoppers.

“I’m advised that there are five victims who are now deceased as a result of the actions of this offender,” said New South Wales police assistant commissioner Anthony Cooke.

The motive was not immediately clear, but Cooke said “terrorism” could not be ruled out at this stage.

“I do not know at this stage who he is. You would understand this is quite raw. Inquiries are very new and we are continuing to make attempts to identify the offender in this matter,” said Cooke.

A New South Wales Ambulance spokesperson told AFP that eight patients were taken to various hospitals across Sydney, including a young child who was taken to the city’s Children’s Hospital.

“They all have traumatic injuries,” official said.

Security camera footage broadcast by local media showed a man wearing an Australian rugby league jersey running

the around Police the cordon shopping off the Westfield centre with Bondi a Junction large shopping Pranjul mall Bokaria after a stabbing had just incident finished in Sydney up work on April other 13, shoppers 2024. - Australian and staff, police which on April took 13 them said they had She received told reports AFP the that people “multiple were people” saying knife were stabbed and injured at a busy people shopping lying centre lifeless in Sydney.. on and was doing some shopping when the to a back street. someone had been stabbed so she ran into the floor. stabbing occurred. She described a scene of “chaos”, with a nearby hardware shop with 10 to 12 other

Eyewitnesses described a scene of panic, She ended up running to a nearby shop people running, and police swarming the people with shoppers scrambling to safety and and taking shelter in a break room. area. “They took us down [to police trying to secure the area. “It was scary, there are some people who “I am alive and grateful,” she said. closed the shop,” she said.

Several people took shelter in shops as were emotionally vulnerable and crying,” Reece Colmenares was on her way to the “It’s scary, there are they tried to protect themselves and their she told AFP. gym when she saw “people running and and elderly and people families. She escaped using an emergency exit with screaming” past her. everywhere.” (AFP)

The United States, Egypt and Qatar put together a framework for a deal that would include a halt in fighting for six weeks and the exchange of about 40 hostages for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners.

It would also see increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza and many displaced people returning to their homes.

The proposals ultimately aim to secure the release of all 129 hostages believed to still be alive in Gaza, along with the eventual exit of all Israeli troops.

But now “negotiations are at an impasse”, said Hasni Abidi of the Geneva-based Centre for Studies and Research for the Arab and Mediterranean World. However, no side has yet given up.

“Hamas is studying the offer... It has not responded yet,” a Hamas spokesman in Doha, Hossam Badran, told AFP.

Hamas wants a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, which at this stage is unacceptable to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to “eliminate” all Hamas battalions.

He said four battalions continue to operate in Rafah, the last stronghold of Hamas in southern Gaza, where some 1.5 million Palestinians have taken refuge.

Netanyahu has vowed to launch a ground invasion of Rafah, ignoring an international outcry against it, including from the United States, Israel’s strongest ally.

The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas militants carried out an unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, targeting several Israeli communities in southern Israel.

That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

In retaliation Israel vowed to destroy Hamas, and its blistering military campaign since then has already killed 33,482 people, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. Tactical truce

Analysts feel that Israel would benefit from a truce, even if it was just a tactical move, given that it has lost 260 soldiers inside Gaza already with thousands more injured.

On Sunday, Israel said it had withdrawn all its troops from southern Gaza, but had one brigade holding a central strip running across the territory.

Daniel Byman of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service said pulling out those soldiers, including from the city of Khan Yunis, was all about preparing for an assault on Rafah.

As Israel is increasingly isolated diplomatically over the high civilian casualties in Gaza, Abidi said, the drawdown gives it much needed breathing space, especially when it comes to handling Washington, which it “has failed to convince” when it comes to its war strategy.

While Washington is working to avoid an escalation

aroom]

and little children in wheelchairs

in Lebanon, Syria and Iran, an April 1 strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus that was widely blamed on Israel risks “shattering” this strategy, he said.

An exasperated US President Joe Biden has vowed to continue supporting Israel, but this is dependent on its military restraint and improvement in humanitarian assistance to Gazans.

Netanyahu is also under immense pressure from desperate and angry families of the hostages still being held in Gaza.

Some 250 Israelis and foreigners were seized during the October 7 attack by Palestinian militants, of whom 129 are still being held. The military says 34 of them are dead. However, a truce could “shatter” the ruling Israeli coalition because of opposition from its far-right members to any concessions to Hamas, said Byman.

This is a real dilemma “for someone like Netanyahu who is not known for putting the country before his political ambition,” he said.

Abidi said “I don’t see how Netanyahu could claim victory if none of the top” Hamas operatives in Gaza are captured or killed.

Israeli officials are particularly targeting Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas in Gaza, and Mohammed Deif, the military leader of the group there.

Sinwar has been accused of being mastermind of the October 7 attack.

But for Hamas a truce would symbolic victory.

It would also allow it “to reorganise and carry out ambushes against the (Israeli) army”, said Omer Dostri of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security.

(AFP)

the

be

aIn the dead of night a drone hovers over a prison in southern France, secretly dropping packages to inmates inside.

But one parcel becomes stuck in the railing outside a cell window, and guards seize three others.

Across France, prisoners have been making orders online for drones to illegally bring them everything from drugs and phones to their favourite fast food, often just outside their window.

The botched delivery in southern France in early 2023 led authorities to bring down a business called “Drone2france” that had been delivering goods to more than a dozen prisons in France and Belgium.

Inmates from late 2022 to December 2023 had been making orders via social media app Snapchat, paying an average of 450 euros ($490) per package, weighing a maximum 350 grams (12 ounces).

The service provider required a minimum order of four packages per delivery, and they often fell from the drone’s claws in potato sacks.

Another setup called “Air Colis” (“Air parcel”), busted in western France in September, lowered down contraband stuffed in socks on the end of fishing line.

And in another incident in southern France, authorities found parcels containing more than 100 grams of cocaine and 700 grams of cannabis.

Hundreds of such deliveries are made a year, prison guards say.

“There isn’t a day when there isn’t a drone flying over, whether on the mainland or in overseas territories,” said Dominique Gombert of prison guard union FO Justice.

Last year, more than 1,000 drones were detected in flight over penitentiaries, 400 of which were “blocked”, a source close to the case said.

The prisons authority did not reply to a request from AFP for comment, but union representatives provided details of how the drone deliveries worked.

Wilfried Fonck, the secretary-general of another prison guard union called UfapUnsa Justice, said the deliveries were becoming increasingly precise.

“They make it almost right window,” Fonck said.

Most orders are for cannabis and mobile phones, but also kebabs, spicy merguez sausages, ceramic knives or religious books, he explained.

Delivery services advertise directly on social media and can pick up the goods from an inmate’s friend or relative.

Most drones are the smaller ones sold online, which is why packages cannot be too heavy.

The drone operator is usually located within a radius of two to five kilometres (1.2 to three miles) from the prison, with accomplices on the lookout.

The drone often flies with all its lights off, guided by a light the inmate shines out of their window.

The detainee then only needs to stretch their arm through the bars to catch the goods.

With fewer guards at nighttime, there is less chance of being caught.

“At most, you can conduct surprise searches the next morning,” Fonck said. But that was often complicated because those storing the contraband were often the more discreet inmates.

‘Tom and Jerry’

Drone security breaches are not as serious in France as in Ecuador, where police in September defused an explosives-laden aircraft on the roof of a maximum-security jail. (AFP)

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