Mahmoud Khalil Permitted to Hold Newborn Son for the First Time Despite Govt Objections 

22 May 2025, US, New York: A pro-Palestine demonstrator holds a placard of Mahmoud Khalil at a rally in Foley Square demanding Khalil's release. (dpa)
22 May 2025, US, New York: A pro-Palestine demonstrator holds a placard of Mahmoud Khalil at a rally in Foley Square demanding Khalil's release. (dpa)
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Mahmoud Khalil Permitted to Hold Newborn Son for the First Time Despite Govt Objections 

22 May 2025, US, New York: A pro-Palestine demonstrator holds a placard of Mahmoud Khalil at a rally in Foley Square demanding Khalil's release. (dpa)
22 May 2025, US, New York: A pro-Palestine demonstrator holds a placard of Mahmoud Khalil at a rally in Foley Square demanding Khalil's release. (dpa)

Detained Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was allowed to hold his 1-month-old son for the first time Thursday after a federal judge blocked the Trump administration's efforts to keep the father and infant separated by a plexiglass barrier.

The visit came ahead of a scheduled immigration hearing for Khalil, a legal permanent resident and Columbia University graduate who has been detained in a Louisiana jail since March 8.

Khalil was the first person arrested under President Donald Trump's promised crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters and is one of the few who has remained in custody as his case winds its way through both immigration and federal court.

Federal authorities have not accused Khalil of a crime, but they have sought to deport him on the basis that his prominent role in protests against Israel's war in Gaza may have undermined US foreign policy interests.

His request to attend his son's April 21 birth was denied last month by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The question of whether Khalil would be permitted to hold his newborn child or forced to meet him through a barrier had sparked days of legal fighting, triggering claims by Khalil's attorneys that he is being subject to political retaliation by the government.

On Wednesday night, a federal judge in New Jersey, Michael Farbiarz, intervened, allowing the meeting to go forward Thursday morning, according to Khalil's attorneys.

The judge's order came after federal officials said this week they would oppose his attorney's effort to secure what's known as a “contact visit” between Khalil, his wife, Noor Abdalla, and their son Deen.

Instead, they said Khalil could be allowed a “non-contact” visit, meaning he would be separated from his wife and son by a plastic divider and not allowed to touch them.

“Granting Khalil this relief of family visitation would effectively grant him a privilege that no other detainee receives,” Justice Department officials wrote in a court filing on Wednesday. “Allowing Dr. Abdalla and a newborn to attend a legal meeting would turn a legal visitation into a family one.”

Brian Acuna, acting director of the ICE field office in New Orleans, said in an accompanying affidavit that it would be “unsafe to allow Mr. Khalil's wife and newborn child into a secured part of the facility.”

In their own legal filings, Khalil's attorneys described the government's refusal to grant the visit as “further evidence of the retaliatory motive behind Mr. Khalil's arrest and faraway detention,” adding that his wife and son were “the farthest thing from a security risk.”

They noted that Abdalla had traveled nearly 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) to the remote detention center in hopes of introducing their son to his father.

“This is not just heartless,” Abdalla said of the government's position. “It is deliberate violence, the calculated cruelty of a government that tears families apart without remorse. And I cannot ignore the echoes of this pain in the stories of Palestinian families, torn apart by Israeli military prisons and bombs, denied dignity, denied life.”

Farbiarz is currently considering Khalil's petition for release as he appeals a Louisiana immigration judge's ruling that he can be deported from the country.

On Thursday, Khalil appeared before that immigration judge, Jamee Comans, as his attorneys presented testimony about the risks he would face if he were to be deported to Syria, where he grew up in a refugee camp, or Algeria, where he maintains citizenship through a distant relative.

His attorneys submitted testimony from Columbia University faculty and students attesting to Khalil's character.

In one declaration, Joseph Howley, a classics professor at Columbia, said he had first introduced Khalil to a university administrator to serve as a spokesperson on behalf of campus protesters, describing him as a “upstanding, principled, and well-respected member of our community.”

“I have never known Mahmoud to espouse any anti-Jewish sentiments or prejudices, and have heard him forcefully reject antisemitism on multiple occasions,” Howley wrote.

No ruling regarding the appeal was made on Thursday. Comans gave lawyers in the case until 5 p.m. June 2 to submit written closing arguments.

Columbia's interim president, Claire Shipman, acknowledged Khalil's absence from Wednesday's commencement ceremony and said many students were “mourning” that he couldn't be present. Her speech drew loud boos from some graduates, along with chants of “free Mahmoud.”



Israel Attacks Iran's Capital with Explosions Booming across Tehran

Israel Attacks Iran's Capital with Explosions Booming across Tehran
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Israel Attacks Iran's Capital with Explosions Booming across Tehran

Israel Attacks Iran's Capital with Explosions Booming across Tehran

Israel attacked Iran's capital early Friday, with explosions booming across Tehran as Israel said it targeted nuclear and military sites.

People in Tehran awoke to the sound of the blast. State television acknowledged the blast, The AP news reported.

It wasn't immediately clear what had been hit, though smoke could be rising from Chitgar, a neighborhood in western Tehran. There are no known nuclear sites in that area — but it wasn't immediately clear if anything was happening in the rest of the country.

An Israeli military official says that his country targeted Iranian nuclear sites, without identifying them.

The official spoke to journalists on condition of anonymity to discuss the ongoing operation, which is also targeting military sites.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz said that his country carried out the attack, without saying what it targeted.

“In the wake of the state of Israel’s preventive attack against Iran, missile and drone attacks against Israel and its civilian population are expected immediately," he said in a statement.

The statement added that Katz “signed a special order declaring an emergency situation in the home front.”

“It is essential to listen to instructions from the home front command and authorities to stay in protected areas,” it said

Iran halted flights Friday at Imam Khomeini International Airport outside of Tehran, the country’s main airport, Iranian state TV said.

Iran has closed its airspace in the past when launching previous attacks against Israel during the Israel-Hamas war.

For his part, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Israel took “unilateral action against Iran” and that Israel advised the US that it believed the strikes were necessary for its self-defense.

“We are not involved in strikes against Iran and our top priority is protecting American forces in the region,” Rubio said in a statement released by the White House.

Rubio said the Trump administration took steps to protects its forces and remained in contact with its partners in the region. He also issued a warning to Iran that it should not target US interests or personnel.