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Cannes Film Festival Takes Extra Security Precautions to Prevent Disruptions by Anti-Israel Protesters
Greta Gerwig, Jury President of the 77th Cannes Film Festival interacts with fans while arriving at the Hotel Martinez on the eve of the opening of the 77th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Ahead of the opening night of the 77th Cannes Film Festival on Tuesday, organizers opened up about security measures being taken to protect jurors and festival-goers from anti-Israel activists and protesters who might try to cause havoc at the event.
“This year, we’ve had 15 security briefings compared with only four or five last year, so I can tell you it’s a very serious matter,” Cannes Film Festival General Secretary Francois Desrousseaux said at a pre-festival press conference, as reported by Variety. “We also have AI-powered cameras around the Palais for the first time, and we’ve also starting using new AI safety gates.”
The festival is taking extra steps this year to prevent activists from causing unrest that could disrupt the event, which is what happened at the recent Eurovision Song Contest in Malmo, Sweden. Thousands of anti-Israel demonstrators took to the streets of Malmo to protest Israel’s participation in the international competition and even protested outside the hotel of Israeli contestant Eden Golan. Her performances in the Eurovision semifinals and grand finals were also booed by pro-Palestinian supporters in the audience, one of whom waved a Palestinian flag and as a result was escorted out of the venue. Golan ultimately finished the Eurovision Song Contest in fifth place.
The short film “It’s Not Time For Pop” by Amit Vaknin is the only film from Israel taking part in the Cannes Film Festival this year. It will compete in the La Cinéf section, which highlights projects from film schools.
At the press conference before the festival’s opening night, Cannes Film Festival Director Thierry Frémaux was asked about a possible threat of anti-Israel protests disrupting the festival and why no Israeli films are in the main competition this year. He replied, “The selection is based on the films we see. It’s an artistic choice, made independently of anything that doesn’t have to do with cinema.”
Organizers of the Cannes Film Festival have also hired private security personnel to follow jurors of the competition — which include Greta Gerwig, Eva Green, and Lily Gladstone — to keep activists from getting near them, Variety noted. The festival additionally announced that it will not participate in the distribution of pins that show support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and also pins that pay tribute to the hostages taken by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7 that remain in captivity.
“There is no polemic this year,” said Frémaux. “There are polemics outside the festival, but they do not come from the festival.”
The city of Cannes banned protests along the Croisette and its surrounding areas during the 11-day film festival, which will take place from May 14-25. The Israeli Pavilion at the Cannes Film Festival is expected to remain open and the annual Shabbat dinner in Cannes for members of the film industry will also take place as planned, its organizer Gadi Wildstron told Variety.
“In 2014, when there was another war in in Gaza, and we had a Shabbat dinner at the kosher restaurant called Tovo,” Wildstrom told the publication. “And the French army blocked off the road and were standing at both sides of the street with machine guns. The French are unlike the American authorities and European authorities. They don’t accept anything.”
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
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