Paris attacks suspect Salah Abdeslam has told a court he is “a soldier of Islamic State”.
Abdeslam is among 20 men on trial accused of being involved in the 2015 atrocities at the Bataclan music theatre and other venues.
The so-called Islamic State (IS) terrorist attacks, which took place on 13 November 2015, killed 130 people and injured hundreds more.
Nine gunmen and suicide bombers struck within minutes of each other at France’s national football stadium, the Bataclan concert hall, and restaurants and cafes in the city.
Police secured the area near the courthouse, on the Ile de la Cite, during the arrival of a convoy believed to be carrying the defendants, and a heavy security presence remains in place.
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The alleged lone survivor of the IS group, Abdeslam, is expected to be the key defendant in the trial and is the only one charged with murder.
The same IS network went on to strike Brussels months later, killing another 32 people.
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Abdeslam, who abandoned his rental car in northern Paris and allegedly discarded a malfunctioning suicide vest before fleeing home to Brussels, has refused to speak to investigators.
He will be questioned several times throughout the trial, which is expected to last around nine months.
The 31-year-old arrived in court on Wednesday, dressed in black, and was seated behind a reinforced glass partition in the purpose-built courtroom.
He is thought to hold the answers to key questions about the attacks and the people who planned them, both in Europe and abroad.
Lawyers, journalists, victims and families who lost loved ones have packed out the court for the opening of the country’s biggest criminal trial in history.
France’s justice minister Eric Dupond-Moretti has called for the trial to follow “centuries-old rules”, saying “the whole world is watching us” and the country must “live up to the logistic challenge”.
He added: “13 November 2015 plunged all of France in horror. There was a before and an after. These events, in effect, have become part of our history and of course, our collective memory.
“The justice system must not be lacking, concerning these events.”
Six of the 20 men accused will be tried in absentia, with five believed to have likely died in Syria.
The modern courtroom was constructed within the 13th-century Palais de Justice in Paris, where Marie Antoinette and Emile Zola faced trial, among others.
Throughout September, the trial is expected to focus on laying out police and forensic evidence before moving on to the testimonies from victims in October.
From November to December, officials including the former French president Francois Hollande are due to give evidence as will relatives of the attackers.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Mr Hollande said: “I will answer any questions about my decisions during that terrible night. I will answer any questions if they are asked, about what our intelligence was.
“What is the goal of the terrorists? Of course, to try to harm our way of life, and fight the war because we are waging one against them, but what they want the most is to divide us. That is why I am proud of the French because they didn’t divide after November 13th.”
Dominique Kielemoes, whose son bled to death at one of the cafes that night, said the month dedicated to victims’ testimonies at the trial will be crucial to both their own healing and that of the nation.
“The assassins, these terrorists, thought they were firing into the crowd, into a mass of people. But it wasn’t a mass – these were individuals who had a life, who loved, had hopes and expectations, and that we need to talk about at the trial. It’s important,” she said.
France’s interior minister Gerald Darmanin said there have been around 50 attacks since President Emmanuel Macron was elected in 2017, out of which 36 have been thwarted by intelligence services.
He added that the threat of terrorism in the country is “particularly high” and where there is “pressure in media and politics focusing on the trial of radical Islamism, clearly the threat is even higher”.
For the first time, victims have been given the option to listen to the trial from home using a secure audio link with a 30-minute delay.
The proceeding will not be televised but will be recorded for archival purposes – which has only been used in a handful of cases in the country that are considered to be of historical value.
The parents of an Israeli hostage have told him “we love you, stay strong, survive” after he appeared with part of his arm missing in a video released by Hamas.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped at the Nova musical festival when Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October.
The video shows him with his lower left arm missing; witnesses said it was blown off when he helped throw grenades out of a shelter where people were hiding.
He reportedly used his shirt as a tourniquet to stem the bleeding, but was captured.
Clearly under duress in the undated video, the 23-year-old criticises Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government, saying they should be “ashamed” for not securing the hostages’ release.
He also claims Israeli bombings have killed “about 70 detainees like me” and that the rest are living in an “underground hell without water, food, or sun”.
Mr Goldberg-Polin, who wears a red shirt and sits against a plain white wall, finishes with an appeal to his parents, telling them “stay strong” and “I love you so much, and miss you so much”.
His parents responded to Wednesday’s video by filming their own emotional response.
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Jon Polin says hearing his son for the first time in more than 200 days is “overwhelming”.
“We are relieved to see him alive but we are also concerned about his health and wellbeing as well as that of all the other hostages, and all of those suffering in this region,” he says.
Mr Polin calls for the countries involved in negotiations to “be brave, lean in, seize this moment and get a deal done to reunite all of us with our loved ones and end the suffering in this region”.
His mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, stares resolutely into the camera and tells him: “Hersh, if you can hear his, we heard your voice today for the first time in 201 days… I am telling you – we are telling you – we love you, stay strong, survive.”
The 23-year-old was born in California but moved to Jerusalem with his family when he was younger.
He was among about 250 Israelis and foreigners kidnapped in the initial Hamas attack, which also killed around 1,200 people.
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Israel’s aim to wipe out Hamas has so far killed more than 34,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health authority.
Hundreds of thousands are also said to be on the brink of starvation and have been forced to flee the violence.
Fears are growing that a ground assault on the southern city of Rafah – where more than a million people are sheltering – is imminent after Mr Netanyahu said Israel was “moving ahead” with its plans.
“Because it’s built to withstand both biological and chemical attacks,” Dr Yehezkel Caine told Sky News as we entered the complex, “we have an airlock which is built of two separate sets of blast doors”.
Beyond they have installed a whole new level of wards below the existing underground hospital, ripping out a logistics floor and installing more beds and equipment.
The bunkers would be activated should other hospitals closer to the front need evacuating.
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They are planning for worst-case scenarios here like an all-out war with Hezbollah.
“The hospitals in the north will be overwhelmed with casualties and they themselves will come under fire, in which case they would have to evacuate their patients to the centre of the country, the same as we did in the first weeks of the war in the south,” said Dr Caine.
He and his staff know the 7 October attack last year by Hamas and Iran‘s missile and drone barrage earlier this month have changed everything for the people of Israel.
“For the civilian population since the war of independence we’ve never been in a situation where the threat to the civilian population has been as great,” he said.
Above ground, the Herzog Medical Centre continues with its peacetime specialisms.
It has Israel’s largest ventilator unit, treating adults and children, but also excels in psycho-trauma treatment and geriatric rehabilitation.
Many of those suffering PTSD from the trauma in this conflict are treated here.
A 16-year-old boy has been arrested by anti-terrorism police in France after he allegedly said on social media he wanted to “die a martyr” at the Olympic Games in Paris this summer.
A spokesperson said on Wednesday the boy was arrested after he “publicly announced on social media that he planned to create an explosive belt to become a martyr”.
The teenager was arrested at his parents’ home on Tuesday after the alleged posts on Telegram the day prior, BFMTV reported.
The French outlet also reported that a search of the teenager’s home found handwritten papers in which he allegedly declared support for Islamic State.
The spokesperson said that an investigation was under way into whether he had genuine intentions to commit a terrorist act.
The government also asked 45 foreign countries to contribute several thousand extra military, police and civilian personnel to help safeguard the games, Reuters reports.
Earlier this month, Mr Macron said he was confident the opening ceremony, planned to take place on the River Seine, would go ahead but that France had “plan Bs, and even plan Cs” just in case.
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This came in the face of concerns over potential security threats to the Games.
The 26 July event is set to be the first Olympic opening ceremony held outside a stadium setting and will see about 10,500 athletes parade through the heart of the French capital on some 160 boats on the Seine along a 3.7-mile route.
But if issues did arise, Mr Macron said that the ceremony could be restricted to the central Paris Trocadero square, facing the Eiffel Tower.
Another option would be to move the event indoors, to the Stade de France.