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India Today
11-06-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
Moose Wala made unforgivable mistakes: Goldy Brar on hip-hop star's murder
Gangster Goldy Brar has spoken out about the killing of popular Punjabi singer Sidhu Moose Wala, three years after the artiste was gunned down in broad daylight. In an interview with the BBC World Service, Brar justified the killing, saying Moose Wala had committed "unforgivable" mistakes."In his arrogance, he [Moose Wala] made some mistakes that could not be forgiven," Brar told BBC Eye. "We had no option but to kill him. He had to face the consequences of his actions. It was either him or us. As simple as that."advertisementThe BBC released a two-part documentary series, coinciding with the singer's birth anniversary on June 11. The documentary, which includes an audio interview with Brar, delves into Moose Wala's life, controversies, and the circumstances surrounding his assassination. However, the documentary's release has sparked controversy, with Moose Wala's family moving court to halt its screening. Sidhu Moose Wala was fatally shot on May 29, 2022, in Punjab's Mansa district while driving his black Mahindra Thar SUV. CCTV footage showed two cars tailing him before one vehicle cornered his SUV. Moose Wala was hit by 24 bullets and declared dead on arrival at the hospital. A cousin and a friend accompanying him were injured but Brar, a Canada-based gangster linked to the Lawrence Bishnoi gang, claimed responsibility for the murder via a Facebook post hours after the killing. Although believed to be in Canada at the time, Brar has evaded arrest, and no one has been brought to trial so the BBC interview, which unfolded over a six-hour exchange of voice notes, Brar gave a detailed account of his alleged grievances against the late claimed Moose Wala had promoted a kabbadi tournament organised by the rival Bambiha gang, sparking tensions with Bishnoi's syndicate. Although an associate, Vicky Middukhera, later mediated a truce, his subsequent murder in August 2021 reignited alleged that Moose Wala's friend and former manager, Shaganpreet Singh, helped orchestrate Middukhera's murder. Singh later fled India and is reportedly in Australia. Though Punjab Police said there is no evidence linking Moose Wala to gang activities, Brar remains convinced of his complicity."Everyone knew Sidhu's role, the police investigating knew, even the journalists who were investigating knew. Sidhu mixed with politicians and people in power. He was using political power, money, his resources to help our rivals," Brar told the BBC."We wanted him to face punishment for what he'd done. He should have been booked. He should have been jailed. But nobody listened to our plea. So we took it upon ourselves. When decency falls on deaf ears, it's the gunshot that gets heard."When asked about bypassing the legal system, Brar said, "Law. Justice. There's no such thing. Only the powerful can... [obtain] justice, not ordinary people like us."advertisementBrar also denied that extortion was the motive behind the killing but acknowledged that it is central to how gangs operate. "We have to look after hundreds or even thousands of people who are like family to us. We have to extort people. To get money, we have to be feared."The BBC documentary features interviews with Moose Wala's old friends, journalists, and senior police officers from Punjab and Delhi. Initially scheduled for a private screening in Mumbai, it was later uploaded to YouTube following public backlash and legal objections from the singer's Wala's father, Balkaur Singh Sidhu, has filed a police complaint seeking a ban on the documentary. In his complaint to Maharashtra's DGP and Mumbai's Juhu Police Station, he alleged that the BBC documentary was an attempt to tarnish his son's claimed that the film, which features individuals named in the FIR related to Moose Wala's murder, was released without the family's consent and could misrepresent to India Today, Balkaur Singh confirmed that the family objected to the release and would soon approach the High Court after filing a petition in the Mansa court. The court is scheduled to hear the matter on June journalist Ritesh Lakhi described Moose Wala's killing as "the biggest" in decades and said it had emboldened extortion rackets. "The capacity of gangsters to extort money has gone up. [Goldy Brar]'s getting huge sums of money after killing Moose Wala.""The fear factor around gangsters has risen amongst the public. It's not just people in the music and film industry who are being extorted - even local businessmen are receiving calls," BBC quoted Deputy Editor of The Tribune, Jupinderjit Singh, as Moose Wala rose to global fame for his raw lyrics that touched on gang culture, political disillusionment, and Punjabi identity. With over five billion YouTube views, collaborations with international artists like Burna Boy, and a top-five UK chart spot, he became a symbol of pride for many in the Punjabi the accusations, police have reiterated that Moose Wala had no known ties to criminal gangs and denied any conclusive evidence linking him to the killing of Reel
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Yahoo
Gangster tells BBC why India's biggest hip-hop star was murdered
It was a killing that shocked India: Punjabi hip-hop star Sidhu Moose Wala shot dead through the windscreen of his car by hired gunmen. Within hours, a Punjabi gangster named Goldy Brar had used Facebook to claim responsibility for ordering the hit. But three years after the murder, no-one has faced trial - and Goldy Brar is still on the run, his whereabouts unknown. Now, BBC Eye has managed to make contact with Brar and challenged him about how and why Sidhu Moose Wala became a target. His response was coldly articulate. "In his arrogance, he [Moose Wala] made some mistakes that could not be forgiven," Brar told the BBC World Service. "We had no option but to kill him. He had to face the consequences of his actions. It was either him or us. As simple as that." On a warm May evening in 2022, Sidhu Moose Wala was taking his black Mahindra Thar SUV for its usual spin through dusty lanes near his village in the northern Indian state of Punjab when, within minutes, two cars began tailing him. CCTV footage later showed them weaving through narrow turns, sticking close. Then, at a bend in the road, one of the vehicles lurched forward, cornering Moose Wala's SUV against a wall. He was trapped. Moments later, the shooting began. Mobile footage captured the aftermath. His SUV was riddled with bullets, the windscreen shattered, the bonnet punctured. In trembling voices, bystanders expressed their shock and concern. "Someone get him out of the car." "Get some water." "Moose Wala has been shot." But it was too late. He was declared dead on arrival at hospital - hit by 24 bullets, a post-mortem would later reveal. The 28-year-old rapper, one of modern-day Punjab's biggest cultural icons, had been gunned down in broad daylight. A cousin and a friend who had been in the car with Moose Wala at the time of the ambush were injured, but survived. Six gunmen were eventually identified. They carried AK-47s and pistols. In the weeks that followed the murder, about 30 people were arrested and two of the suspected armed men were killed in what the Indian police described as "encounters". Yet even with arrests piling up, the motive remained murky. Goldy Brar, who claims to have ordered the hit, wasn't in India at the time of the killing. He is believed to have been in Canada. Our conversation with him unfolded over six hours, pieced together through an exchange of voice notes. It gave us a chance to find out why Moose Wala had been killed and to interrogate the motives of the man who claimed responsibility. Sidhu Moose Wala was born Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu in a Jat-Sikh family in rural Punjab, before moving in 2016 to Canada to study engineering - a journey familiar to hundreds of thousands in the Punjabi diaspora. But it was there, far from his village of Moosa - the inspiration for his rap name - that he reinvented himself as one of Punjabi music's most influential artists. In just five years, Moose Wala became the unmistakable voice of Punjabi hip-hop. With his signature swagger, flashy style, and lyrical grit, Moose Wala sang openly about identity and politics, guns and revenge, pushing the boundaries of what Punjabi music had been willing to say. He was fascinated by rapper Tupac Shakur, who had been murdered, aged 25, in 1996. "In terms of personality, I want to be like him," Moose Wala once told an interviewer. "The day he died, people cried for him. I want the same. When I die, people should remember that I was someone." Over a brief but explosive career, the singer spotlighted the darker undercurrents of India's Punjab region - gangster culture, unemployment, and political decay - while evoking a deep nostalgia for village life. Moose Wala was also a global force. With more than five billion views of his music videos on YouTube, a Top 5 spot in the UK charts, and collaborations with international hip-hop artists including Burna Boy, Moose Wala swiftly built a fan base stretching across India, Canada, the UK and beyond, powered by a diaspora that saw him as both icon and insurgent. But fame came at a cost. Despite his rising star and socially conscious lyrics, Moose Wala was drifting into dangerous territory. His defiant attitude, visibility, and growing influence had drawn the attention of Punjab's most feared gangsters. These included Goldy Brar, and Brar's friend Lawrence Bishnoi, who even then was in high-security jail in India. Not much is known about Brar, apart from the fact he is on the Interpol Red Notice list, and is a key operative in a network of gangsters operated by Bishnoi – orchestrating hits, issuing threats and amplifying the gang's reach. It is thought he emigrated to Canada in 2017, just a year after Moose Wala himself, and initially worked as a truck driver. Bishnoi, once a student leader steeped in Punjab's violent campus politics, has grown into one of India's most feared criminal masterminds. "The first [police] cases filed against Lawrence Bishnoi were all related to student politics and student elections… beating a rival student leader, kidnapping him, harming him," according to Jupinderjit Singh, deputy editor of Indian newspaper the Tribune. This led to a spell in jail which hardened him further, says Gurmeet Singh Chauhan, Assistant Inspector General of the Anti-Gangster Task Force of Punjab Police. "Once he was in jail, he started to get deeper into crime. Then he formed a group of his own. When it became an inter-gang thing, he needed money for survival. They need more manpower, they need more weapons. They need money for all that. So, for money, you have to get into extortion or crime." Now 31, Bishnoi runs his syndicate from behind bars - with dedicated Instagram pages and a cult-like following. "So while Bishnoi sits in jail, Brar handles the gangs," says Assistant Inspector General Chauhan. Securing BBC Eye's exchange with Brar took a year of chasing - cultivating sources, waiting for replies, gradually getting closer to the kingpin himself. But when we got through to Brar, the conversation cast new light on the question of how and why he and Bishnoi came to see Moose Wala as an enemy. One of the first revelations was that Bishnoi's relationship with Moose Wala went back several years, long before the singer's killing. "Lawrence [Bishnoi] was in touch with Sidhu [Moose Wala]. I don't know who introduced them, and I never asked. But they did speak," said Brar. "Sidhu used to send 'good morning' and 'good night' messages in an effort to flatter Lawrence." A friend of Moose Wala's, who spoke anonymously, also told us that Bishnoi had been in touch with Moose Wala as early as 2018, calling him from jail and telling him he liked his music. Brar told us that the "first dispute" between them came after Moose Wala had moved back to India. It began with a seemingly innocuous match of kabbadi - a traditional South Asian contact team sport - in a Punjabi village. Moose Wala had promoted the tournament which was organised by Bishnoi's rivals - the Bambiha gang - Brar told us, in a sport where match-fixing and gangster influence are rampant. "That's a village our rivals come from. He was promoting our rivals. That's when Lawrence and others were upset with him. They threatened Sidhu and said they wouldn't spare him," Brar told BBC Eye. Yet the dispute between Moose Wala and Bishnoi was eventually resolved by an associate of Bishnoi's called Vicky Middhukhera. But when Middukhera himself was gunned down by gangsters in a parking lot in Mohali in August 2021, Brar told us Bishnoi's hostility towards Sidhu Moose Wala reached the point of no return. The Bambiha gang claimed responsibility for killing Middukhera. The police named Moose Wala's friend and sometime manager Shaganpreet Singh on the charge sheet, citing evidence that Singh had provided information and logistical support to the gunmen. Singh later fled India and is believed to be in Australia. Moose Wala denied any involvement. The Punjab police told the BBC there was no evidence linking Moose Wala to the killing or to any gang-related crime. But Moose Wala was friends with Shaganpreet Singh, and he was never able to shake off the perception that he was aligned with the Bambiha gang - a perception that may have cost him his life. Although he can cite no proof of Moose Wala's involvement, Brar remains convinced that the singer was somehow complicit in the killing of Middukhera. Brar repeatedly told us that Shaganpreet Singh had assisted the gunmen in the days before Middukhera's shooting - and inferred that Moose Wala himself must have been involved. "Everyone knew Sidhu's role, the police investigating knew, even the journalists who were investigating knew. Sidhu mixed with politicians and people in power. He was using political power, money, his resources to help our rivals," Brar told BBC Eye. "We wanted him to face punishment for what he'd done. He should have been booked. He should have been jailed. But nobody listened to our plea. "So we took it upon ourselves. When decency falls on deaf ears, it's the gunshot that gets heard." We put it to Brar that India has a judicial system and the rule of law - how could he justify taking the law into his own hands? "Law. Justice. There's no such thing," he says. "Only the powerful can... [obtain] justice, not ordinary people like us." He went on to say that even Vicky Middukhera's brother, despite being in politics, has struggled to get justice through India's judicial system. "He's a clean guy. He tried hard to get justice for his brother lawfully. Please call him and ask how that's going." He appeared unrepentant. "I did what I had to do for my brother. I have no remorse whatsoever." Outside the UK, watch on YouTube, or listen on The killing of Moose Wala has not just resulted in the loss of a major musical talent, it has also emboldened Punjab's gangsters. Before the singer's murder, few outside Punjab had heard of Bishnoi or Brar. After the killing, their names were everywhere. They hijacked Moose Wala's fame and converted it into their own brand of notoriety - a notoriety that became a powerful tool for extortion. "This is the biggest killing that has happened in the last few decades in Punjab," says Ritesh Lakhi, a Punjab-based journalist. "The capacity of gangsters to extort money has gone up. [Goldy Brar]'s getting huge sums of money after killing Moose Wala." Journalist Jupinderjit Singh agrees: "The fear factor around gangsters has risen amongst the public." Extortion has long been a problem in the Punjabi music industry, but now after Sidhu's murder, Singh says: "It's not just people in the music and film industry who are being extorted - even local businessmen are receiving calls." When BBC Eye quizzed Brar on this, he denied this was the motive, but died admit - in stark terms - that extortion was central to the gang's working. "To feed a family of four a man has to struggle all his life. We have to look after hundreds or even thousands of people who are like family to us. We have to extort people. "To get money," he says, "we have to be feared."
Saudi Gazette
12-05-2025
- Saudi Gazette
Tense encounter with a sanctioned Israeli settler in West Bank
By Fergal Keane & Alice Doyard JORDAN VALLEY — Dust was rising on the track. It hung in the hot midday air as the white jeep came toward us. The driver was less than a minute away. "I think it's Moshe Sharvit," said Gil Alexander, 72, a devout religious Jew who tries to protect Palestinian shepherds from intimidation by Jewish settlers. Over the last year, we've been documenting his work with shepherds in the northern Jordan Valley, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The man approaching us was placed under sanctions by Britain and the EU last year after they said he had used "physical aggression, threatened families at gunpoint, and destroyed property as part of a targeted and calculated effort to displace Palestinian communities". In a case reported by our colleagues at BBC Eye Investigates last year, a Palestinian grandmother alleged that Moshe Sharvit had forced her to leave her family home in October 2023. Ayesha Shtayyeh also said he pointed a gun at her head and threatened to kill her. "We've been here for 50 have I ever done to him?" she asked when BBC Eye interviewed her. She said her family's troubles began after Moshe Sharvit established a so-called 'outpost' — a settlement that is illegal under both Israeli and international law — chasing away the family's sheep, damaging property and constantly threatening them. The alleged incident with the gun was the final straw. Moshe Sharvit did not respond to BBC Eye's requests for a response to Ayesha's account. Back on the mountainside, the man accused of this violence stopped his car and approached us. Nodding toward Gil Alexander he asked us: "Do you know he's a very dangerous guy?" When our translator explained to Moshe Sharvit we were from the BBC he said: "Ah the BBC... great lovers of Israel..." He went on to call us bad and dangerous people. Addressing our translator he said: "So, do you understand that they're the people who are most dangerous to the State of Israel?" Then he phoned the police, asking them to come to the scene. When he wasn't calling the police he filmed us filming him. Moshe Sharvit and Gil Alexander represent starkly different visions of Israel's future. Moshe Sharvit believes all of the West Bank — which settlers and the Israeli government call Judea and Samaria — were given by God to the Jews. In this he is supported by senior ministers in the government, including the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, and the Minister of Public Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Both men are settlers and leaders of far-right ultranationalist parties. Smotrich has said Gaza will be "totally destroyed" and that its people will be "totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places". The 'other places' he envisages are foreign countries. Ben-Gvir, who is responsible for the police, has convictions for inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organization. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, relies on the support of the far-right settler movement to keep his government in power. He criticized the sanctions imposed on Moshe Sharvit and other settlers, saying his government viewed the move "with great severity". US sanctions against Moshe Sharvit were dropped when President Donald Trump came to power. The UN's top court ruled last year that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is against international law and that all settlement activity is illegal. Israel rejects this and argues that settlements are necessary for security, citing lethal attacks by Palestinian gunmen on settlers, such as the killing of three people last January in the West Bank. Settlement expansion is anathema to Gil Alexander. He considers himself a Zionist, but within the existing borders of Israel. These are the frontiers that existed before it seized the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, after neighboring Arab countries launched a surprise attack. He is part of a network called the Jordan Valley Activists – Moshe Sharvit calls them "anarchists" — offering solidarity, and working for peaceful co-existence with the Palestinians. "What they [the settlers] want to see happen," Gil Alexander told us, "[is] that it will be an area completely free of Arabs. It isn't Moshe. It's all the people above him who sent him here. Meaning from the top". Moshe Sharvit's desire to have the Jordan Valley empty of Palestinians is shared by the leader of the regional council, a government-supported body, David Elhayani, who has visited the sanctioned settler. In his air-conditioned office about 15km (9 miles) from Moshe Sharvit's settler outpost he told us "the notion of settler violence is an invention of the anarchist, extreme left meant to harm the settlement image". As for the future of the Palestinians, he was emphatic. They should go to neighboring Jordan. "This country needs to be free of Arabs. It's the only way. It's a global interest. Why global? Because the minute there won't be Arabs here it will be a Jewish nation for the Jews who won't have to hurt each other, there won't be conflict, there won't be anything." Gil Alexander and Moshe Sharvit have a history of antagonism. During an altercation on a Palestinian farmer's land in January 2023, Moshe Sharvit says Gil Alexander tried to seize his firearm from its holster. While speaking to our translator he produced a video of the incident on his phone. "You can see Gil Alexander. Same hat and glasses. That's me. Here you see he grabs my gun." Gil Alexander says he was acting in self-defense after Moshe Sharvit had grabbed his walking stick, and the phone of his friend and violently pushing it. He says he feared Moshe Sharvit was going to use the weapon. As a result, Moshe Sharvit got a restraining order which forbids Gil Alexander from being within 2.5km (1.5 miles) of his farm. The police have charged Gil Alexander with illegal possession of a weapon (the one he allegedly tried to take from Moshe Sharvit) and assault. The issue will be considered by the Israeli courts. Moshe Sharvit himself is the subject of a restraining order forbidding him to approach a Palestinian family living near his outpost for six months, since March this year. During our encounter the settler claimed that Gil Alexander had breached his restraining order by taking us to the high ground overlooking the valley. The peace activist told us later that he had mistakenly strayed just over half a kilometer inside the area of the order. Although Moshe Sharvit's settlement is illegal, even under Israeli law, it has not been removed. Human rights organizations and numerous eyewitnesses testify that the Israeli army and police frequently stand by while settlers attack Palestinian villages. The violence has escalated sharply since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 kidnapped, and which triggered the Gaza war. According to a report issued by the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs, there were 1,804 attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the period January 2024 to March 2025. The Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din (There is Law), reported that only 3% of complaints made against settlers resulted in a conviction. In six days last month — from 22 to 28 April — the UN recorded 14 incidents involving settlers that left 36 Palestinians injured. In the tense atmosphere on the mountainside, and wanting to avoid any escalation, we decided to leave. As we walked away, Moshe Sharvit went to his jeep and drove ahead of us, stopping where the track turned down the mountain. Our way out was blocked. There was no one we could appeal to apart from the man preventing us from leaving. Again, he phoned the police asking them to come. Gil Alexander phoned the police and his lawyer. Our team was worried that more settlers would come. Then something surprising happened. I suggested to Moshe Sharvit that he should agree to be interviewed. After a brief pause, he said: "Bring the camera." What followed was less an interview, than a series of declarations. He was doing the work of God, he said. Why did local Bedouin shepherds say they were very afraid of him? I asked. "No, that is a lie. They're telling stories so the world will think we're crazy. It's not true. It's all lies that are built on lies of dozens of years of lying..." he said. "The Arabs, since the formation of the country and before — all the past 77 years they've been preoccupied with harming the people of Israel, harming the land of Israel and causing the nation of Israel to be miserable and pitiful. But they don't understand that the harder they try, the Lion will wake from his sleep and within one day we'll end this story." He repeated the analogy of the Lion later in the interview saying, in what sounded like ominous words, that the Palestinians were "pushing the lion so hard into the corner that there will be no choice left but to finish this story". "7 October was small. One day it'll be big." As for peaceful co-existence such as Gil Alexander supports, he said there was "no such thing as peace with enemies who try to destroy you". Moshe Sharvit's brother Harel was killed fighting in Gaza in December 2023. His world is the pastureland, the stony hills of the Jordan Valley, his sheep and cattle, the bed and breakfast he has opened. He produced a glossy video, replete with a backing track of American country music, to promote his venture. He spoke with contempt for the British sanctions against him. They were a new kind of antisemitism, he claimed. "The minute someone tries to hurt me I get stronger. My spirit...I receive energies, my spirit continues on its mission, I continue advancing forward and planting roots deep into the land of Israel. I'm not bothered by Britain or America or anyone." Then he drove away. We were free to move on. Later as we were having lunch in a café about 15km (nine miles) away, a policeman appeared, looking for Gil Alexander. He went with the police officer for questioning. After about an hour he returned, telling us he had been ordered not to enter the Jordan Valley for two weeks. He plans to lodge his own complaint against Moshe Sharvit over the incident. We went to Gil Alexander's home in a kibbutz inside Israel that overlooks the Valley. Gunmen from the Palestinian city of Jenin fired at the kibbutz two years ago. Gil Alexander is not a pacifist. If he is attacked by Hamas or any other group, he will defend himself. He said: "A son of our friends, two months ago he was killed here by a terrorist. He was a soldier in the reserves, 46 years old with six children. He volunteered for the reserves to protect me." "If the army hadn't been there, they would have come here. He was killed while defending me. And today he is buried next to my two sons." But Gil Alexander seemed weary as we sat drinking tea amid the bright red flowers of his well-tended garden, and the fluttering yellow flags that symbolize Israel's hostages held in Gaza. He spoke of a beloved nephew killed fighting in Lebanon in an earlier war. Did he not, I wondered, at the age of 72, think about retiring from the struggle and enjoying his garden? He laughed. There was no chance of that. After two of his sons took their own lives – one was in the army, the other was about to enter the military – he had found a purpose in working for what he calls the "humanitarian" ideals of Judaism. "After the tragedies of my sons, if I don't find meaning in life, I'll go crazy... And the things I do, are things I believe in. And these are things I also got from my father who was in the French underground during World War Two and fought for French liberation but was against any type of occupation and said, 'Occupation is Occupation.'" Two days after our encounter with Moshe Sharvit, a lone woman peace activist filmed him banging on the window of her car and rocking the vehicle. The woman is clearly frightened by the intimidation. Moshe Sharvit acts as if he has nothing to fear. — BBC
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Yahoo
BBC team's tense encounter with sanctioned Israeli settler while filming in West Bank
Dust was rising on the track. It hung in the hot midday air as the white jeep came towards us. The driver was less than a minute away. "I think it's Moshe Sharvit," said Gil Alexander, 72, a devout religious Jew who tries to protect Palestinian shepherds from intimidation by Jewish settlers. Over the last year we've been documenting his work with shepherds in the northern Jordan Valley, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The man approaching us was placed under sanctions by Britain and the EU last year after they said he had used "physical aggression, threatened families at gunpoint, and destroyed property as part of a targeted and calculated effort to displace Palestinian communities". In a case reported by our colleagues at BBC Eye Investigates last year, a Palestinian grandmother alleged that Moshe Sharvit had forced her to leave her family home in October 2023. Ayesha Shtayyeh also said he pointed a gun at her head and threatened to kill her. Confronting violent settlers in the occupied West Bank, together Extremist settlers rapidly seizing West Bank land "We've been here for 50 years…What have I ever done to him?" she asked when BBC Eye interviewed her. She said her family's troubles began after Moshe Sharvit established a so-called 'outpost'- a settlement that is illegal under both Israeli and international law - chasing away the family's sheep, damaging property and constantly threatening them. The alleged incident with the gun was the final straw. Moshe Sharvit did not respond to BBC Eye's requests for a response to Ayesha's account. Back on the mountainside, the man accused of this violence stopped his car and approached us. Nodding towards Gil Alexander he asked us: "Do you know he's a very dangerous guy?" When our translator explained to Moshe Sharvit we were from the BBC he said: "Ah the BBC… great lovers of Israel…" He went on to call us bad and dangerous people. Addressing our translator he said: "So, do you understand that they're the people who are most dangerous to the State of Israel?" Then he phoned the police, asking them to come to the scene. When he wasn't calling the police he filmed us filming him. Moshe Sharvit and Gil Alexander represent starkly different visions of Israel's future. Moshe Sharvit believes all of the West Bank - which settlers and the Israeli government call Judea and Samaria - were given by God to the Jews. In this he is supported by senior ministers in the government, including the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich, and the Minister of Public Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Both men are settlers and leaders of far-right ultranationalist parties. Smotrich has said Gaza will be "totally destroyed" and that its people will be "totally despairing, understanding that there is no hope and nothing to look for in Gaza and will be looking for relocation to begin a new life in other places". The 'other places' he envisages are foreign countries. Ben-Gvir, who is responsible for the police, has convictions for inciting racism and supporting a terrorist organisation. Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, relies on the support of the far-right settler movement to keep his government in power. He criticised the sanctions imposed on Moshe Sharvit and other settlers, saying his government viewed the move "with great severity". US sanctions against Moshe Sharvit were dropped when President Donald Trump came to power. The UN's top court ruled last year that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is against international law and that all settlement activity is illegal. Israel rejects this and argues that settlements are necessary for security, citing lethal attacks by Palestinian gunmen on settlers, such as the killing of three people last January in the West Bank. Settlement expansion is anathema to Gil Alexander. He considers himself a Zionist, but within the existing borders of Israel. These are the frontiers that existed before it seized the West Bank in the 1967 Middle East war, after neighbouring Arab countries launched a surprise attack. He is part of a network called the Jordan Valley Activists – Moshe Sharvit calls them "anarchists" - offering solidarity, and working for peaceful co-existence with the Palestinians. "What they [the settlers] want to see happen," Gil Alexander told us, "[is] that it will be an area completely free of Arabs. It isn't Moshe. It's all the people above him who sent him here. Meaning from the top". Moshe Sharvit's desire to have the Jordan Valley empty of Palestinians is shared by the leader of the regional council, a government-supported body, David Elhayani, who has visited the sanctioned settler. In his air conditioned office about 15km (9 miles) from Moshe Sharvit's settler outpost he told us "the notion of settler violence is an invention of the anarchist, extreme left meant to harm the settlement image". As for the future of the Palestinians, he was emphatic. They should go to neighbouring Jordan. "This country needs to be free of Arabs. It's the only way. It's a global interest. Why global? Because the minute there won't be Arabs here it will be a Jewish nation for the Jews who won't have to hurt each other, there won't be conflict, there won't be anything." Gil Alexander and Moshe Sharvit have a history of antagonism. During an altercation on a Palestinian farmer's land in January 2023, Moshe Sharvit says Gil Alexander tried to seize his firearm from its holster. While speaking to our translator he produced a video of the incident on his phone. "You can see Gil Alexander. Same hat and glasses. That's me. Here you see he grabs my gun." Gil Alexander says he was acting in self-defence after Moshe Sharvit had grabbed his walking stick, and the phone of his friend and violently pushing it. He says he feared Moshe Sharvit was going to use the weapon. As a result, Moshe Sharvit got a restraining order which forbids Gil Alexander from being within 2.5km (1.5 miles) of his farm. The police have charged Gil Alexander with illegal possession of a weapon (the one he allegedly tried to take from Moshe Sharvit) and assault. The issue will be considered by the Israeli courts. Moshe Sharvit himself is the subject of a restraining order forbidding him to approach a Palestinian family living near his outpost for six months, since March this year. During our encounter the settler claimed that Gil Alexander had breached his restraining order by taking us to the high ground overlooking the valley. The peace activist told us later that he had mistakenly strayed just over half a kilometre inside the area of the order. Although Moshe Sharvit's settlement is illegal, even under Israeli law, it has not been removed. Human rights organisations and numerous eyewitnesses testify that the Israeli army and police frequently stand by while settlers attack Palestinian villages. The violence has escalated sharply since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 kidnapped, and which triggered the Gaza war. According to a report issued by the UN office for Humanitarian Affairs there were 1,804 attacks by settlers against Palestinians in the period January 2024 to March 2025. The Israeli human rights group, Yesh Din (There is Law), reported that only 3% of complaints made against settlers resulted in a conviction. In six days last month - from 22 to 28 April - the UN recorded 14 incidents involving settlers that left 36 Palestinians injured. In the tense atmosphere on the mountainside, and wanting to avoid any escalation, we decided to leave. As we walked away, Moshe Sharvit went to his jeep and drove ahead of us, stopping where the track turned down the mountain. Our way out was blocked. There was no-one we could appeal to apart from the man preventing us from leaving. Again, he phoned the police asking them to come. Gil Alexander phoned the police and his lawyer. Our team was worried that more settlers would come. Then something surprising happened. I suggested to Moshe Sharvit that he should agree to be interviewed. After a brief pause, he said: "Bring the camera." What followed was less an interview, than a series of declarations. He was doing the work of God, he said. Why did local Bedouin shepherds say they were very afraid of him? I asked. "No, that is a lie. They're telling stories so the world will think we're crazy. It's not true. It's all lies that are built on lies of dozens of years of lying…" he said. "The Arabs, since the formation of the country and before - all the past 77 years they've been preoccupied with harming the people of Israel, harming the land of Israel and causing the nation of Israel to be miserable and pitiful. But they don't understand that the harder they try, the Lion will wake from his sleep and within one day we'll end this story." He repeated the analogy of the Lion later in the interview saying, in what sounded like ominous words, that the Palestinians were "pushing the lion so hard into the corner that there will be no choice left but to finish this story". "7 October was small. One day it'll be big." As for peaceful co-existence such as Gil Alexander supports, he said there was "no such thing as peace with enemies who try to destroy you". Moshe Sharvit's brother Harel was killed fighting in Gaza in December 2023. His world is the pastureland, the stony hills of the Jordan Valley, his sheep and cattle, the bed and breakfast he has opened. He produced a glossy video, replete with a backing track of American country music, to promote his venture. He spoke with contempt for the British sanctions against him. They were a new kind of antisemitism, he claimed. "The minute someone tries to hurt me I get stronger. My spirit…I receive energies, my spirit continues on its mission, I continue advancing forward and planting roots deep into the land of Israel. I'm not bothered by Britain or America or anyone." Then he drove away. We were free to move on. Later as we were having lunch in a café about 15km (nine miles) away, a policeman appeared, looking for Gil Alexander. He went with the police officer for questioning. After about an hour he returned, telling us he had been ordered not to enter the Jordan Valley for two weeks. He plans to lodge his own complaint against Moshe Sharvit over the incident. We went to Gil Alexander's home in a kibbutz inside Israel that overlooks the Valley. Gunmen from the Palestinian city of Jenin fired at the kibbutz two years ago. Gil Alexander is not a pacifist. If he is attacked by Hamas or any other group, he will defend himself. He said: "A son of our friends, two months ago he was killed here by a terrorist. He was a soldier in the reserves, 46 years old with six children. He volunteered for the reserves to protect me." "If the army hadn't been there, they would have come here. He was killed while defending me. And today he is buried next to my two sons." But Gil Alexander seemed weary as we sat drinking tea amid the bright red flowers of his well-tended garden, and the fluttering yellow flags that symbolise Israel's hostages held in Gaza. He spoke of a beloved nephew killed fighting in Lebanon in an earlier war. Did he not, I wondered, at the age of 72, think about retiring from the struggle and enjoying his garden? He laughed. There was no chance of that. After two of his sons took their own lives – one was in the army, the other was about to enter the military – he had found a purpose in working for what he calls the "humanitarian" ideals of Judaism. "After the tragedies of my sons, if I don't find meaning in life, I'll go crazy… And the things I do, are things I believe in. And these are things I also got from my father who was in the French underground during World War Two and fought for French liberation but was against any type of occupation and said, 'Occupation is Occupation.'" Two days after our encounter with Moshe Sharvit, a lone woman peace activist filmed him banging on the window of her car and rocking the vehicle. The woman is clearly frightened by the intimidation. Moshe Sharvit acts as if he has nothing to fear. With additional reporting by Oren Rosenfeld and Nik Millard. Extremist settlers rapidly seizing West Bank land Confronting violent settlers in the occupied West Bank, together
Daily Mail
23-04-2025
- Health
- Daily Mail
My nose turned black after a rhinoplasty gone wrong: This is my warning to other people having plastic surgery
A Chinese actress whose nose turned black after a rhinoplasty caused her flesh to rot has highlighted the terrifying rise in botched procedures in China. Gao Liu is just one of many women who have fallen victim to evolving beauty standards in China, which puts them under pressure to have plastic surgery to enhance - and in some cases, transform - their appearance. Liu's story is investigated in BBC Eye documentary Make Me Perfect: Manufacturing Beauty in China, after she visited a clinic called She's Times in Guangzhou in 2020 for a nose job. Her surgeon Dr He Ming was billed the clinic's 'chief surgeon' and a nose surgery expert, however, Liu's operation resulted in the tip of her nose turning black due to lack of circulation. After seven days of worsening symptoms, she was transferred to a top public hospital, but the damage was permanent. After four years and two repair operations, her nose remains damaged. The investigation found that, despite Guangzhou's Health Commission announcing sanctions on the clinic and surgeon, he still appears to be operating, but in a clinic with a different name. Liu's story is one of many explored in the documentary which delves into the disturbing rise of botched operations in China as people opt for ever more daring procedures in the name of beauty. In China, good looks are seen as the key to career success, with videos promoting controversial beauty standards like extreme weight loss flooding social media, and beauty apps making surgery a click of a button away. China is seeing a boom in cosmetic surgery, with 20 million people a year paying for cosmetic procedures in the world's most populous country. Of these people, 80 per cent are women and the average age of people seeking cosmetic enhancements is 25 years old. The industry was once seen as taboo in Chinese society, but has increased in popularity thanks to social media, a gradual change in attitude and people having more disposable income. With changing attitudes come changing beauty standards; with the once longed-for 'Western' traits now less popular among clients. However, in place of the previously sought-after aesthetic which valued symmetrical faces, a sculpted jawline and a prominent, sharp nose, some dark trends are instead on the rise. Women are now chasing the 'hyper-feminine' look, to the point of being childlike, the documentary finds. Among the bizarre procedures being requested in China are Botox injected behind the ears to tilt them forwards - which creates the illusion of a smaller, daintier face. Women are also opting for lower eyelid surgery to widen the eyes, creating a childlike look inspired by Anime characters. Meanwhile, upper lip shortening narrows the space between lip and nose - which is thought to signal youth. And cosmetic surgery is easier than ever to access with the rise of apps including SoYoung (新氧 'New Oxygen') and GengMei (更美 'More Beautiful'). The apps, which are now extremely popular, claim to analyse a person's face to highlight the 'imperfections' they should correct. Singer and actress Gao Liu, who has starred in multiple films and TV programmes in China, had a nose surgery at a Guangzhou clinic called She's Times (熙施时光) in 2020 After seven days of worsening symptoms, she was transferred to a top public hospital, but the damage was permanent. After four years and two repair operations, her nose remains damaged Singer and actress Gao Liu sparked a heated discussion online after sharing the images revealing the tip of her nose has rotted away and fallen off After assessing users' faces, they provide surgery recommendations from nearby clinics, taking a commission from each operation. As celebrities, such as Gao Liu, continue to undergo cosmetic procedures in their droves, demand for such operations has risen significantly. However, this surge in demand has created a shortage of qualified professionals to carry out the procedures - resulting in a rise in reported accidents in Chinese clinics. After Gao Liu posted photos of her rotting nose on Chinese social media site Weibo, they went viral and horrified people around the world - which prompted authorities to act quickly. Within weeks, Guangzhou Health Commission announced sanctions on the clinic Gao Liu had visited, and her surgeon Dr He Ming. It turned out to be the sixth time the clinic had been sanctioned and, worryingly, it was revealed that Dr. He Ming was not qualified to carry out plastic surgery unsupervised. He was barred from practicing for six months and the clinic closed down soon after it was sanctioned for the sixth time. However, in a mysterious development, weeks before She's Times officially closed its doors, a new clinic called Qingya (轻雅 'Light and Elegant') requested to register at the same address. Investigating the incident, BBC Eye uncovered strong links between the two clinics, which are registered under different legal representatives. The reporters found that She's Times' Weibo account had switched up and begun to promote Qingya after it opened, with similar social media approaches and styles. Dr He Ming was also listed as a senior staff member at the new clinic. Records on the national database of health professionals show that Dr He only obtained the licensed plastic surgeon qualification in April 2024. However, the qualification shouldn't have been granted to him according to Guangdong Provincial Health Commission rules, which disqualifies surgeons who have been sanctioned by any health commission from obtaining the qualification/status for five years. Dr He Ming was sanctioned in 2021 - three years before he obtained the license. The BBC Eye documentary reveals secretly recorded footage from a consultation at Qingya clinic, where a staff member says Dr He Ming has been working at the clinic for 'seven, eight years' and had been nicknamed 'Nose King of Guangzhou' for completing the highest number of nose surgeries in the province in 2023. While Dr He Ming could only meet the patient briefly between operations, he said he's been carrying out nose surgeries since 2012. In November 2024, Dr He Ming started a social media account as a nose surgery expert. He claims to have nearly 20 years of experience and to have carried out 10,000 operations. Since it opened, Qingya has expanded to now operate 30 branches across the province. Following the BBC Eye investigation, neither the Qingya clinic nor Dr He Ming responded to requests for comment. The Guangdong Provincial Health Commission also did not respond to questions about why Dr He Ming was able to btain the licensed plastic surgeon qualification against their rules. The Chinese Embassy in the UK said in a statement: 'The Chinese government consistently requires enterprises to operate in strict compliance with national laws, regulations, and relevant policy provisions.'
