The sons of Pakistan’s jailed former prime minister Imran Khan fear authorities are concealing “something irreversible” about his condition after more than three weeks with no evidence that he is still alive, one of them said, Reuters reported.

As court-ordered prison visits stay blocked and rumours swirl about possible prison transfers, his son, Kasim Khan, told Reuters the family has had no direct or verifiable contact with Khan, despite a judicial order for weekly meetings.

“Not knowing whether your father is safe, injured or even alive is a form of psychological torture,” he said in written remarks, adding that there had been no independently confirmed communication for a couple of months.

“Today we have no verifiable information at all about his condition,” the son added. “Our greatest fear is that something irreversible is being hidden from us.”

The family has repeatedly sought access for Khan’s personal physician, who has not been allowed to examine him for more than a year, he added.

Pakistan’s interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Speaking on condition of anonymity, a jail official told Reuters that Khan was in good health, adding that he was not aware of any plan for a move to a higher-security facility.

Khan, 73, has been in jail since August 2023, convicted in a string of cases that he says were politically driven following his ouster in a 2022 parliamentary vote, read the report.

His first conviction centred on accusations that he unlawfully sold gifts received in office, in a proceeding widely referred to as the Toshakhana case.

Later verdicts added lengthy jail terms, including 10 years on accusations of leaking a diplomatic cable and 14 years in a separate graft case tied to the Al-Qadir Trust, a charity project prosecutors say figured in improper land deals.

Khan’s party, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), says the prosecutions aim to exclude him from public life and elections.

The family says the lack of communication has fuelled fears over what it calls a deliberate effort to push Khan out of public sight.

Television channels have been told not to use Khan’s name or image, leaving only a single grainy court picture on the internet as the only glimpse of him since his imprisonment.

“This isolation is intentional,” Kasim said, referring to the authorities he believes are keeping his father cut off. “They are scared of him. He is Pakistan’s most popular leader and they know they cannot defeat him democratically.”

Kasim and his older brother Suleiman Isa Khan, who live in London with their mother, Jemima Goldsmith, have kept a distance from Pakistan’s dynastic politics, Reuters reported.

The brothers, who call him “Abba”, have spoken publicly only sparingly mainly about Khan’s imprisonment.

Kasim added that the last time they saw their father was in November 2022, when they visited Pakistan after he survived an assassination attempt.

“That image has stayed with me ever since. Seeing our father in that state is something you don’t forget,” Kasim said.

“We were told he would recover with time. Now, after weeks of total silence and no proof of life, that memory carries a different weight.”

The family was pursuing internal and external avenues, such as appeals to international human rights organisations, and wanted court-ordered access restored immediately, he said.

“This is not just a political dispute,” Kasim said. “It is a human rights emergency. Pressure must come from every direction. We draw strength from him, but we need to know he is safe.”

The number of people confirmed killed in Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip has passed the 70,000 mark, the enclave’s health ministry said on Saturday.

A total of 301 people have been added to the toll since Thursday, taking it to 70,100, the ministry added. Two died in recent Israeli strikes, the rest were identified from remains buried for some time in the rubble, according to the statement.

There was no immediate comment from Israel, which has questioned the accuracy of the figures from Gaza, though it has not published its own estimate.

Israel’s bombardment of Gaza – triggered by the deadly October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel – has left much of the strip in ruins, making it difficult to gather accurate information on casualties.

In the first months of the war, officials counted bodies that arrived in hospitals and registered names and identity numbers.

In the later stages, Gaza health authorities said they held off including thousands of reported deaths in the official tally until forensic, medical and legal checks could be made.

Since a fragile ceasefire took hold on October 10, the reported death toll has kept climbing steadily as authorities there take advantage of the relative calm to search for bodies in the wreckage.

The war in Gaza began after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and seized 251 hostages in their attack on southern Israel.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has shattered whole families.

Moaz Mghari said he had lost 62 relatives, including his parents and four siblings, in a series of Israeli airstrikes that destroyed two residential buildings near the entrance to Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip.

He told Reuters he had been at a nearby clothing shop when he heard the sound of explosions and the sky turned dark with dust. He rushed home to find his family’s building turned to rubble.

“Then I began to realize what happened, I lost everything, I lost everyone,” Mghari, said.

Israel’s military has denied targeting civilians since the conflict started more than two years ago.

Pre-war Gaza had robust population statistics and better health information systems than in most Middle East countries, public health experts told Reuters.

The U.N. often cites the health ministry’s death figures and says they are credible.

Ten people were killed by Israeli fire in a village in southern Syria on Friday, Syrian state media reported, while the Israeli military said five soldiers were wounded in a clash during an operation to apprehend members of a militant group there.

Syrian state media reports suggested the Israeli raid in the Beit Jinn area had spiralled into one of the deadliest such incidents since President Bashar al-Assad was toppled a year ago. Israel has mounted regular incursions in southern Syria since then, citing goals that include keeping militants away from the frontier, according to Reuters.

The Israeli military said its troops came under fire from militants during an overnight operation to detain suspects belonging to a group it identified as the Jaama Islamiya. It described the raid as part of routine operations in the area in recent months.

VIOLENT CLASHES

The Israeli troops responded with fire “along with aerial assistance”, the Israeli military said in a statement, adding that three of the wounded Israeli soldiers had severe injuries. “A number of terrorists were eliminated,” it said.

The Syrian state news agency SANA, citing the head of the health directorate in the Damascus countryside governorate, reported 10 people were killed and dozens more wounded as a result of the Israeli attack. The dead included two children, SANA reported earlier.

The Israeli forces had shelled Beit Jinn at 3:40 a.m. (0140 GMT) and Israeli troops had entered the village, SANA said. Residents confronted the Israeli forces, which responded, leading to “violent clashes”, it added.

Israeli forces arrested two people, the military and a local Syrian official said.

The Israeli military declined to offer further details about the militant group it said was targeted in the raid. It accused the suspects of military activity, including planting improvised-explosive devices, and “planning future attacks on Israel including rocket fire”.

ISRAEL SUSPICIOUS OF NEW GOVERNMENT

Israel has voiced deep suspicion of Syria’s new government led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al Qaeda commander, and has said it wants a demilitarized southern Syria.

Sharaa has said Syria does not pose a threat to any state in the region or the world.

Israel has intervened militarily several times with the declared aim of protecting members of Syria’s Druze minority, notably during violence in Sweida province in July that pitted Sunni Muslim Bedouin fighters and government forces against Druze fighters.

Israel, which frequently bombed Syria when it was ruled by Assad, stepped up its military operations in the country after he was ousted, moving troops and military equipment past a 1974 buffer zone and into southern Syria, including the strategic overlook point of Mount Hermon.