Trump testifies in Gaza’s Health Ministry blames Israeli troops for deadly shooting

NEW YORK — He testified for under three minutes. But former president Donald Trump still broke a judge’s rules on what he could tell a jury about writer E. Jean Carroll’s sexual assault and defamation allegations, and he left the courtroom on Thursday bristling to the spectators: “This is not America.”

Testifying in his own defence in the defamation trial, Mr Trump didn’t look at the jury during his short, heavily negotiated stint on the witness stand.

Because of the complex legal context of the case, the judge limited his lawyers to asking a handful of short questions, each of which could be answered yes or no — such as whether he’d made his negative statements in response to an accusation and didn’t intend anyone to harm

Carroll.

But Mr Trump nudged past those limits.

“She said something that I considered to be a false accusation,” he said, later adding: “I just wanted to defend myself, my family and, frankly, the presidency.”

After Judge Lewis A. Kaplan told jurors to disregard those remarks, Mr Trump rolled his eyes as he stepped down from the witness stand. The former president and current Republican frontrunner left the courtroom during a break soon after, shaking his head and declaring to spectators — three times — that “this is not America.”

Carroll looked on throughout from the plaintiff’s table. The longtime advice columnist alleges that Mr Trump attacked her in 1996, then defamed her by calling her a liar when she went public with her story in a 2019 memoir.

While Mr Trump has said a lot about her to the court of public opinion, Thursday marked the first time he has directly addressed a jury about her claims.

But jurors also heard parts of a 2022 deposition — a term for outof-court questioning under oath — in which Trump vehemently

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Gaza’s Health Ministry and witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire as a crowd of Palestinians gathered for humanitarian aid in Gaza City on Thursday, killing at least 20 and wounding dozens.

The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports. The Associated Press could not independently confirm the details of what happened.

Witnesses and health officials said the shooting took place at a roundabout on Gaza City’s southern edge, where a large crowd had gathered for distribution of food. Footage posted online and confirmed to have been taken on the main road near the roundabout showed hundreds of people fleeing, some carrying boxes of aid, as fire rang out in the background. Men loaded wounded Palestinians onto horse and donkey carts that took off charging down the avenue.

At Shifa Hospital, where casualties were treated, Mohammad al-Reafi lay on the floor, his bloodied leg bandaged, as medics worked on other wounded around them. He said Israeli troops fired into the crowd.

“We were going to get flour, young people were martyred and other young people were injured,” he said.

Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qidra said 20 people were killed and 150 others wounded by the shooting.

A number of aid agencies distribute food and other supplies in Gaza. It was not immediately known which one was operating in the area at the time of the incident. The UN refugee agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, and the UN World Food Program both said they were not involved.

Israeli troops and tanks pushed into Gaza City shortly after the ground invasion began in October and have been battling Palestinian militants there for nearly two months. The military says it has largely dismantled Hamas in northern Gaza but is still facing pockets of resistance, and large swaths of Gaza City and surrounding areas have been reduced to rubble by Israeli bombardment.