Christchurch, New Zealand – When classes ended at Cashmere High School early on Monday afternoon, there was only one place Okirano Tilaia was headed to.

The 17-year-old student had a date to keep. In fact, he had thousands.

Looking out over a massive crowd of teenagers gathered at a park near Christchurch’s Al Noor mosque, he said: “Wow, it was just one idea, and it turned out to be this. Amazing.”

Tilaia’s plan had been simple. In a Facebook post on Sunday, he invited students from schools across the city to meet up and honour the 50 Muslims who were killed on Friday when a gunman opened indiscriminate fire on worshippers at the Al Noor and Linwood mosques. 

Carrying candles, guitars and paper chains adorned with messages of peace and solidarity, students by their thousands came out to answer Tilaia’s call.

“We are letting everyone know that these horrific events do not define who we are, who we are as students, who we are as friends, who we are as families,” he told them, from the centre of the crowd.

“We are not turning to hatred … we are turning to love and peace.”

Local school loses seven

Cashmere High students, 14-year-old Sayyad Milne and 16-year-old Syrian refugee, Hamza Mustafa, are believed to be among those killed in the mass shootings, which New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern branded a well-planned “terrorist attack”.

Neelofar Jaffari, Milne’s classmate, described him as “kind and caring”. 

“He was so quiet … but he loved football; he loved sport,” the 15-year-old said.

According to local media reports, at least seven people associated with Cashmere are believed to have died or been wounded in Friday’s attack, the deadliest in New Zealand’s modern history. Authorities on the Pacific Island are yet to name the victims.

Noorin Ikthtiari, a fellow Cashmere High student, described the sobriety of the first day of classes since the mosque attacks.

“It was really sad this morning to come to school and not see some of the students that used to go there,” Ikthtiari, 15, said. “They just weren’t there any more … [and] we were devastated.”

‘Giving grief a place to be’

Schools, universities and other institutions across New Zealand have all held ceremonies in recent days to remember the lives robbed by Friday’s attack.

In Christchurch, the outpouring of public grief has been constant.

Brooke Taylor, who attends Christchurch’s Avonside Girls High School, said she came to Monday’s vigil to show respect.

“Everyone here is standing together in order to support the victims, the families of people that have been hurt or killed, and the entire Muslim community,” she said. 

Margaux Halvac, a teacher at Cashmere, said the students wanted “to take positive action”.

“Grief is only love with no place to go, so that’s what this event was about, giving grief a place to be.”

‘The youth have a voice’

At the memorial, some sung, while others gave speeches calling for “unity” and “humanity”. They lit candles, passing the flame from one to another in a ripple towards the outer parts of the circle.

There was a moment of silence, too, ended by an incandescent Haka, a ceremonial dance of the indigenous Maori people.

Then, many drifted off to lay flowers alongside the already abundant bouquets placed at a makeshift roadside memorial for the victims of the shootings.

Watching them go, organiser Tilaia’s thoughts turned to those who he would never again see in class or pass in school corridors.

“Those students had so many aspirations in life, one wanted to be an engineer, another an architect, one was an amazing footballer,” he said.

“Every morning that I wake up from now on, I’ll thank God that I’m able to live another day,” he added.

“The youth have a voice, and a positive one, we are not going to point fingers or blame others, we are going to focus on making sure those families [of the victims] are all right.”

Golda Meir, Israel’s only female prime minister, once commented on her fairly advanced years upon securing the country’s top job, saying “Being 70 is no sin, but it’s not a joke either.”

But Meir, who was confirmed by the Knesset as prime minister 50 years ago on Sunday, was also renowned for her more xenophobic remarks, particularly at the expense of Palestinians.

“There were no such thing as Palestinians,” she was quoted as saying in the Sunday Times and Washington Post in June 1969.

“When was there an independent Palestinian people with a Palestinian state? … It was not as though there was a Palestinian people in Palestine considering itself as a Palestinian people and we came and threw them out and took their country away from them. They did not exist,” Meir said.

For her critics, Meir’s jingoistic comments concerning Palestinians remain one of her defining – and most damning – legacies.

She didn’t think of her [premiership] as an achievement for women. She thought of it as an achievement for Golda.

Elinor Burkett, author

Meir, said Elinor Burkett, author of Golda Meir: The Iron Lady of the Middle East (2008), “was not a subtle thinker.”

Indeed she was, according to many observers, incapable of contemplating that the creation of Israel had given Palestinians, who lost their homes in the wake of its rise, a different narrative of events.

“[Meir] was intent on ethnically cleansing the indigenous population from Palestine to make room for Jewish immigrants,” the American Muslims for Palestine, a US-based group dedicated to educating the American public about Palestine and its heritage, said. “She had no problem with forcibly removing people from their homes and kicking them out of their country in order that Israel may exist.”

Jonathan Ofir, an Israeli musician, conductor and blogger based in Denmark, wrote of Meir’s observations about Palestinians: “If one wanted to be apologetic, one could attempt to see Meir’s comments as a mere reference to national definition, as I have heard even liberal Israelis seek to do.

“But, as mentioned, the view of the nationality and local connection as ‘non-existent’ played a part in the Israeli-Zionist ideology of dispossession.”

Meir grabbed the reins of the prime minister’s post and held on tight for five years.

Her tenure saw her make headlines for her terse and aggressive comments, but also for those events that happened on her watch – not least the 1972 Munich massacre in which 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team were killed and the 1973 October War.

But, according to Burkett, this Jewish immigrant to the United States and Israeli stateswoman was certainly no feminist.

“American feminists loved to adopt Golda, but she was not interested,” Burkett told Al Jazeera. “It wasn’t that she was hostile to women’s achievements, it was that she ignored gender prejudices. And she was like a bulldozer … She didn’t think of her [premiership] as an achievement for women. She thought of it as an achievement for Golda.”

Born into poverty in what is today Ukraine, in 1898, she emigrated to the US as a child with her family and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where she completed her education and eventually became a teacher.

In 1921, after marrying, she and her husband immigrated to Palestine, then under British mandate. From then on, her political trajectory took flight and by 1948, when the state of Israel was established after the British mandate expired, she had already cemented her place in Israeli history.

Prior to her assuming the most powerful job, Meir, a socialist Zionist, cut her teeth as a cabinet minister, not least as minister for labour and then as foreign minister.

In the former role, and as Jewish immigrants flocked to settle in the new nation-state as Palestinians were forced from their homes, she oversaw the construction of housing and a new welfare system.

“As foreign minister, [her activities] with Africa kept Israel popular at the UN, much, much longer than would have been expected,” Burkett, the biographer said, referring to Meir’s foreign policy overtures in supplying aid and technical know-how to emerging African states.

But it was her alliance with the US that many of her advocates see as her ultimate achievement as the state’s top diplomat.

“People forget that the alliance between the United States and Israel, coming from the top of the US government, was not so clear before Golda was foreign minister,” continued Burkett. “But Golda made that happen.”

By the time this mother of two took over as prime minister in March 1969, Meir’s fire was fading – and she was at an age where many, even today, would consider calling it a day.

Her perceived successes as a politician – and her role in 1948 in raising millions of dollars in funds from the US to aid Israel’s evolution – had given her national clout like few others as the rise of Israel saw the rights of Palestinians become ever-more superfluous.

However, Meir, who was secretly undergoing cancer treatment at the time and who often played up to her craggy appearance as a good-natured Jewish grandmother, now faced a very different kind of role in the hot seat, which opened up following the death of then-Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol.

In this time of turmoil, Meir, tempted back having previously retired from politics, found favour with her Labour Party as a “consensus candidate”.

“Her motive as prime minister was ‘don’t rock the boat’,” said professor Meron Medzini, author of Golda – A Political Biography, to Al Jazeera of Meir’s “temporary” job that lasted half a decade.

“No revolutions, no changes, no experiments – both at home and overseas. This had partly to do with her age and partly to do with the fact that she had lost her revolutionary zeal … Her achievements were before she became prime minister.”

That said, Meir was, as political leaders the world over, at the mercy of events.

Arguably, the most contentious of all was the 1973 October War, which saw Egyptian and Syrian forces launch a surprise attack against Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Israel soon turned the tide – but at great military cost.

Meir, whose government was lambasted for its lack of preparedness and who remains the subject of fierce criticism from some in Israel for allegedly ignoring previous peace overtures from then Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, stepped down amid the political fallout in April the following year.

Shunned by Palestinians who recall her indifference to their rights, Meir, who died in Jerusalem in 1978 at the age of 80, is not beloved by all Israelis, despite many in her country recalling her with fondness.

Ofir, himself born in the early 1970s, told Al Jazeera that, while he felt pride for Meir in his younger days, his views of Israel’s uncompromising stateswoman had changed rapidly over the years.

“In the end, her attitude towards Palestinians was basically a macho, chauvinist, denialist attitude, which is intrinsically inherent in Zionism,” he added.

Follow Alasdair Soussi on Twitter: @AlasdairSoussi

President Donald Trump bashed Joe Biden on Monday after the former vice president let it slip this past weekend that he is running for president.

“Joe Biden got tongue tied over the weekend when he was unable to properly deliver a very simple line about his decision to run for President,” Trump tweeted. “Get used to it, another low I.Q. individual!”

Story Continued Below

Biden on Saturday accidentally said he was running for president, signaling the former vice president will likely announce his bid soon. He has been toying with a presidential run, and has been leading in a number of polls despite not officially announcing.

While giving a keynote at the First State Democratic Dinner in Dover, Delaware, Biden said he gets criticized, including by those on “the new left.”

“I have the most progressive record of anybody running for the — anybody who would run,” he said, which was overwhelmingly met with cheers.

“I didn’t mean,” the former vice president said while raising his hands to calm the attendees. Then he went on to chuckle, look down and make the sign of the cross on his chest.

“Of anybody who would run,” Biden said.

Trump, who has said other lawmakers have a low IQ, has insulted Biden’s intelligence in the past.

The president last March tweeted that Biden was “weak, both mentally and physically,” after the former vice president claimed he would “beat the hell” out of Trump for disrespecting women.

The death toll has risen to at least 215 after Cyclone Idai tore into central Mozambique last week before continuing on to Zimbabwe and Malawi, bringing flash floods and ferocious winds.

At least 126 people were killed in Mozambique and Malawi, according to the Red Cross, and Zimbabwe’s information ministry on Monday put the number of dead at 89 in the country.

Most of the deaths in Mozambique happened in the central port city of Beira, 90 percent of which was destroyed, according to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

A large dam burst on Sunday in the city, cutting off the last road to the city of about 530,000 people, the IFRC said in a statement.

“The scale of damage caused by cyclone Idai that hit the Mozambican city of Beira is massive and horrifying,” it said. 

The IFRC warned that the death toll could rise once the full scale of the devastation is known, with further heavy rains expected.

Hundreds are missing and more than 1.5 million people have been affected by the widespread destruction and flooding.

“First came ferocious winds and torrential rain that lasted almost four days. It only eased up a short while ago,” said Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb, reporting from central Mozambique.

“The damage is extensive even 300km [from the cyclone’s landing area] where we are. Hundreds of houses are destroyed in this district alone. People are sheltering in schools or with neighbours.”

Euloge Ishimwe, the IFRC’s Africa region communications manager, told Al Jazeera from Kenya‘s capital Nairobi that the shelters were immediate needs, but healthcare, clean water supply and sanitation also were high priorities.

“These are some of the things we are trying to provide. Mozambique Red Cross volunteers are already on the ground as well as the IFRC’s international team,” he said.

Neighbouring Zimbabwe

In Zimbabwe, Idai tore across the eastern and southern parts of the country, a government official said on Monday, creating a humanitarian crisis in a nation grappling with economic woes and a drought.

Chimanimani district has been cut off from the rest of the country by torrential rains and winds of up to 170km an hour that swept away roads, homes and bridges and knocked out power and communication lines.

Rescuers are struggling to reach people in Chimanimani, many of whom have been sleeping in the mountains since Friday after their homes were flattened by rock falls and mudslides or washed away by torrential rains.

Many families cannot bury the dead due to the floods.

The government has declared a state of disaster in areas affected by the storm, the worst to hit the country since Cyclone Eline devastated eastern and southern Zimbabwe in 2000.

The country of 15 million people is already suffering a severe drought that has wilted crops.

A United Nations humanitarian agency says 5.3 million people will require food aid.

More than a year before the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Saudi Arabia’s powerful Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved a secret campaign to silence dissenters, The New York Times reported on Sunday.

The campaign included surveillance, kidnapping, detention and torture of Saudis, said the report which cited US officials who have read classified intelligence reports about the effort.

American officials referred to it as the Saudi Rapid Intervention Group, the Times said.

One of the victims of this group was a university lecturer who reported on the situation of women and was tortured last year, prompting her to attempt suicide.

Saudi Arabia has a long history of pursuing dissidents, including those based outside the country, but this practice has seen a major upsurge following Prince Mohammed’s (also known as MBS) promotion to the post of crown prince in 2017.

At least some of the clandestine missions were carried out by members of the team that killed and dismembered Khashoggi in October at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, suggesting his murder was part of a wider campaign against dissidents, the report said, citing the US officials and associates of some Saudi victims.

These members were involved in at least a dozen operations beginning in 2017, the officials said, including forcibly repatriating Saudis from other Arab countries.

Authorised by MBS

The murder of Khashoggi, a Washington Post contributing columnist, generated global outrage including an order from US senators for President Donald Trump to designate and punish those responsible.

Trump did not comply.

The senators, briefed by the heads of US intelligence agencies, said they were convinced that Prince Mohammed was responsible for the Khashoggi killing.

Saudi Arabia has stressed the prince was not involved.

The kingdom initially said it had no knowledge of Khashoggi’s fate but later blamed rogue agents for his grusesome murder.

Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor has charged 11 people over his murder.

The Rapid Intervention Group was authorised by Prince Mohammed and overseen by Saud al-Qahtani, a royal court insider, American officials told the Times.

US intelligence reports did not specify how involved Prince Mohammed was with the group’s work, but said that the operatives saw Qahtani as a “conduit” to the prince, the report said.

Qahtani has been sacked over Khashoggi’s murder but Saudi authorities have not said if he was among those charged. Five of the accused face the death penalty.

Harassing rights’ activists

According to the New York-based newspaper, the Rapid Intervention Group has been involved in the harassment of prominent detained human rights activists and women rights defenders, including Loujain al-Hathloul, Aziza al-Yousef and Iman al-Najfan.

Alia al-Hathloul says that Qahtani attended several such sessions to torture her sister. He also threatened to kill Loujain and throw her body into the sewers, Alia says.

According to the newspaper, the women were beaten, subjected to electric shocks, waterboarding, and threatened with death and rape during interrogation.

Al-Hathloul’s sister says that at first, the Saudi authorities did not detain the women in a prison after their arrests, but in a secret location in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

According to US intelligence assessment, the brutal interrogations prompted university professor al-Najfan to attempt suicide.

The women’s trial began last Wednesday after nearly a year in detention, but the Saudi government did not announce the charges against them.

Saudi denial

The intervention team was so busy that in June its leader asked a top adviser to Prince Mohammed whether he would give them bonuses for Eid al-Fitr, a major holiday at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Saudi officials declined to confirm or deny that such a team existed, or answer questions from the Times about its work.

According to a spokesperson for the Saudi embassy in Washington, the kingdom “takes any allegations of ill treatment of defendants awaiting trial or prisoners serving their sentences very seriously”.