World Athletics will introduce mandatory testing for anyone entering female competitions to verify their biological sex, insisting they are necessary to protect women’s sport.

It is the latest move overseen by Sebastian Coe – as president of the governing body – to address the gender eligibility issue, two years after banning anyone assigned male at birth from female events.

Lord Coe said after a World Athletics Council meeting today that they could adopt non-invasive cheek swab tests or dry blood tests that only have to be carried out once on an athlete.

“This we feel is a really important way of providing confidence and maintaining that absolute focus on the integrity of competition,” he said.

The tests would seek to verify if someone has transitioned to a female after going through male puberty or if they had differences of sex development that provided testosterone advantages.

Testing providers are now being sought.

Lord Coe said: “The pre-clearance testing will be for athletes to be able to compete in the female category.

“The process is very straightforward frankly, very clear and it’s an important one and we will work on the timelines.

“Neither of these are invasive. They are necessary and they will be done to absolute medical standards.”

It follows US President Donald Trump, ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, saying there are only two sexes – male and female – while calling on sports to ban transgender women from women’s events.

The International Olympic Committee has previously called a return to sex testing a “bad idea”, but incoming IOC President Kirsty Coventry is not ruling it out, having also talked about protecting the female category.

“This is a conversation that’s happened and the international federations have taken a far greater lead in this conversation,” she told Sky News after her election last week.

“What I was proposing is to bring a group together with the international federations and really understand each sport is slightly different.

“We know in equestrian, sex is really not an issue, but in other sports it is.

“So what I’d like to do again is bring the international federations together and sit down and try and come up with a collective way forward for all of us to move.”

Reem Alsalem, the UN’s special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, last year called on the IOC to reintroduce sex testing or female athletes to protect them from injuries amid concerns about eligibility.

The IOC introduced “certificates of femininity” at the 1968 Mexico Games. But those chromosome-based tests were deemed unscientific and unethical and dropped ahead of Sydney 2000.

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Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter and France football legend Michel Platini have been cleared of fraud for a second time.

The former FIFA president and former UEFA president were accused of fraud, forgery, mismanagement and misappropriation of more than $2m (£1.5m) of FIFA money in 2011.

The attorney general’s office in Switzerland had challenged a first acquittal in July 2022 and asked for sentences of 20 months, suspended for two years.

Blatter, 89, and Platini, 69, once among the most powerful figures in football, have consistently denied wrongdoing.

They were cleared of fraud at the Extraordinary Appeals Chamber of the Swiss Criminal Court in the town of Muttenz, near Basel.

Blatter approved FIFA paying 2m Swiss francs (now $2.21m) to France football great Platini in February 2011 for supplementary and non-contracted salary working as a presidential adviser from 1998 to 2002.

The Swiss federal investigation emerged in September 2015 as Platini was a strong favourite to succeed his one-time mentor in an upcoming election.

The probe kicked off events which would ultimately bring to an end the careers of Blatter and Platini.

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Though federal court trials have twice cleared their names, Blatter’s reputation will likely always be tied to leading FIFA during corruption crises that took down a swath of senior football officials worldwide.

Platini, one of football’s greatest players and later Blatter’s protégé in football politics, never got the FIFA presidency he aspired to.

An Oscar-winning Palestinian filmmaker has been held by the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank, according to activists.

Hamdan Ballal had earlier been beaten up by Israeli settlers who were among dozens who attacked the Palestinian village of Susya in the Masafer Yatta area and destroyed property, said the Centre for Jewish Nonviolence.

The activist group said Mr Ballal suffered a bleeding head in the assault, and as he was being treated in an ambulance, he and another Palestinian man were detained.

“We don’t know where Hamdan is because he was taken away in a blindfold,” said 28-year-old Josh Kimelman, who was at the scene.

During the incident, around 10-20 masked settlers reportedly attacked Jewish activists with stones and sticks, smashing car windows and slashing tyres. One settler swung his fists at two activists before the pair rushed back to their vehicle, video provided by the Centre for Jewish Nonviolence showed.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said in a statement to Sky News that on Monday night “several terrorists hurled rocks at Israeli citizens, damaging their vehicles near Susya”.

The IDF also said a violent confrontation then broke out involving “mutual rock-hurling between Palestinians and Israelis at the scene”.

“IDF and Israeli Police forces arrived to disperse the confrontation, at this point, several terrorists began hurling rocks at the security forces,” according to the statement.

“In response, the forces apprehended three Palestinians suspected of hurling rocks at them, as well as an Israeli civilian involved in the violent confrontation. The detainees were taken for further questioning by the Israel police. An Israeli citizen was injured in the incident and was evacuated to receive medical treatment.

“Contrary to claims, no Palestinian was apprehended from inside an ambulance.”

Best documentary

Mr Ballal is one of the co-directors of No Other Land which won the best documentary Oscar this year.

The film follows Masafer Yatta residents as they struggle to stop Israel’s army from demolishing their villages.

No Other Land has two Palestinian co-directors, Ballal and Basel Adra, both Masafar Yatta residents, and two Israeli directors, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.

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Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank in Israeli military operations during the Gaza war, and there has also been a rise in settler attacks on Palestinians.

There has also been a surge in Palestinian attacks on Israelis.

Red Cross office damaged

Meanwhile, in the southern Gazan city of Rafah, a Red Cross office was damaged by an explosive projectile.

The Israeli military said its forces fired at a building belonging to the charity after identifying suspects and sensing a threat.

But it admitted it had opened fire due to an incorrect identification.

“The structure’s ownership was unknown to the force at the time of the shooting,” the military added.

No one was injured, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which said the attack had a direct impact on its ability to operate.