Legal woes hang over the former president, who has called for several demonstrations in support of himself in recent months.

Facing serious legal jeopardy with potentially years of incarceration over an alleged coup plot being tried by the nation’s Supreme Court, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has attended a protest by his supporters.

Around 2,000 people attended the rally on Sunday in Sao Paolo.

On Saturday night, the far-right ex-leader told his followers on the AuriVerde Brasil YouTube channel that “Brazil needs all of us. It’s for freedom, for justice”. He urged supporters to march through Sao Paulo’s Paulista Avenue on Sunday.

“This is a call for us to show strength … this massive presence will give us courage,” he declared.

In February, Bolsonaro, 70, who led the country from 2019 to 2022, was charged with five counts of planning to remain in power and overturn the 2022 election result, which current president, the left-wing Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, won. Thirty-three of Bolsonaro’s closest allies were also charged.

Earlier this month, Bolsonaro testified for the first time before the nation’s Supreme Court, denying any involvement in the alleged coup plot.

The Supreme Court headquarters in Brasilia was one of the targets of a rioting mob known as “Bolsonaristas” – who raided government buildings in January 2023 as they urged the military to oust President Lula, an insurrection attempt that evoked the supporters of Bolsonaro ally United States President Donald Trump on January 6, 2021.

Police have referred to the demonstration as an uprising and an attempt to force military intervention and depose Lula.

Bolsonaro claims that the various cases against him are politically motivated, aimed at preventing him from making a comeback in the 2026 elections.

Brazil’s Superior Electoral Court ruled last year that due to an abuse of Bolsonaro’s political power and his baseless claims about the country’s electronic voting system, he would be banned from holding office until 2030.

‘An abominable thing’

Earlier this month, at Bolsonaro’s first testimony at the Supreme Court, the former president denied that there was a coup attempt.

“There was never any talk of a coup. A coup is an abominable thing,” Bolsonaro said.

“Brazil couldn’t go through an experience like that. And there was never even the possibility of a coup in my government.”

Bolsonaro was abroad in Florida in the US at the time of this last-gasp effort to keep him in power after the alleged coup planning fizzled. But his opponents have accused him of fomenting the rioting.

At the same time, Brazilian police have called for Bolsonaro to be separately charged with illegal espionage while president.

According to legal experts, the sentencing part of the coup plot case is expected in the second half of the year. If convicted, Bolsonaro could face up to 12 years in prison.

During his legal troubles, the former president has called for several protests, but his appearances at them have declined in recent months, as have the crowds.

According to estimates by the University of Sao Paulo, about 45,000 people took part in the most recent march on Paulista Avenue in April, almost four times fewer than in February.

Sao Paulo Governor Tarcisio de Freitas, a former Bolsonaro minister, is a top candidate to represent the conservatives in the 2026 presidential election.

Israel has ordered Palestinians to evacuate from parts of northern Gaza ahead of increased military action, as US President Donald Trump pushes for a ceasefire deal.

People in neighbourhoods across Gaza City and Jabalia have been told to move south towards the coastal area of al-Mawasi as Israeli military operations “intensify and expand westward”.

At least 86 people were killed as the result of Israeli attacks in the 24 hours before midday on Sunday, the Hamas-run health ministry said.

Three children were among those killed in a strike on the so-called “safe zone” of al-Mawasi, their parents said.

Trump has reiterated calls to “make the deal in Gaza” and “get the hostages back”.

On Saturday, Trump had said on Truth Social that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was in the process of negotiating a deal with Hamas “right now”.

Meanwhile, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Avichay Adraee said on Sunday that the Israeli military was operating in north Gaza “to eliminate terrorists and terrorist infrastructure”.

Medics and residents told Reuters that military bombardments increased in Gaza in the early hours of Sunday, destroying several houses.

Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defence agency told news outlets that at least 23 people had been killed on Sunday alone.

Medics said five people were killed in an Israeli air strike on a tent housing displaced people in al-Mawasi near the southern city of Khan Younis – an area where people in the north had been told to evacuate to.

Five members of the Maarouf family, including three children, were killed.

“They bombed us while we were sleeping on the ground,” their mother Iman Abu Maarouf said. “We didn’t do anything wrong. My children were killed, and the rest are in intensive care.”

Their father Zeyad Abu Maarouf told Reuters that the family had arrived in the “safe zone” a month ago after Israel told them to go to al-Mawasi.

When asked about the incident, the IDF told the BBC it could not provide a specific response without more information, but said it “follows international law and takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.

Also on Sunday, a 20-year-old IDF soldier, Sergeant Yisrael Natan Rosenfeld, was killed in northern Gaza.

The increased Israeli military action comes as mediators begin new efforts to end the war and release the remaining hostages held by Hamas.

On Thursday, a senior Hamas official told the BBC mediators have intensified their efforts to broker a new ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza, but that negotiations with Israel remain stalled.

Qatari mediators have said they hope US pressure could help to achieve a deal, following a truce between Israel and Iran that ended the 12-day conflict between the countries.

On Sunday, Netanyahu told members of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet that “victory” over Iran opened up many possibilities, “first and foremost, to rescue the hostages”.

“Of course, we will also need to resolve the issue of Gaza, to defeat Hamas, but I believe we will achieve both missions. Beyond that, broad regional opportunities are opening up, in most of which – almost all – you are partners,” he said.

Trump previously said he was hopeful a ceasefire in Gaza could be agreed in the next week.

In March, a two-month ceasefire collapsed when Israel launched fresh strikes on Gaza. It said it wanted to put pressure on Hamas to release its hostages.

Israel also imposed a total blockade on humanitarian aid deliveries to Gaza at the start of March, which it partially eased after 11 weeks following pressure from US allies and warnings from global experts that half a million people were facing starvation.

That partial easing included the creation of a US and Israeli-backed aid group, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), after Israel accused Hamas of stealing aid. Hamas has denied this.

GHF’s aid system has been condemned by UN agencies. There have been repeated incidents of killings and injuries of Palestinians seeking aid.

Juliette Touma, communications director for the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, told the BBC that the new mechanism was “a killing field”. She said the distribution of aid in an orderly way could only be done through the UN and other humanitarian organisations.

GHF boss Johnnie Moore previously told the BBC World Service’s Newshour he did not deny deaths near aid sites, but said “100% of those casualties are being attributed to close proximity to GHF” and that was “not true”.

The previous ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas – which started on 19 January – was set up to have three stages, but did not make it past the first stage.

Stage two included establishing a permanent ceasefire, the return of remaining living hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians imprisoned in Israel, and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Trump has called for ongoing corruption charges against Netanyahu to be dropped, describing proceedings as a “political witch hunt” delaying ceasefire negotiations.

On Sunday, an Israeli court accepted a request by the Israeli prime minister to delay his scheduled testimony for a week, due to diplomatic and security issues.

Netanyahu was charged in 2019 with bribery, fraud and breach of trust, all of which he denies.

Earlier in the week, Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said Trump should not “intervene in a legal process of an independent state”.

Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

Since then, 56,500 people have been killed in Gaza, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

US president denies multiple reports and accounts that say US strikes did not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

United States President Donald Trump has reiterated a vow not to allow Iran to get nuclear weapons following the end of Iran and Israel’s recent 12-day conflict, in which the US militarily intervened, and has stuck closely to his narrative as questions remain about the impact of US strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites.

On the Fox News programme Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo, Trump repeated his claim that Iran was “weeks away” from making the weapons before Israel attacked on June 13. Nine days later, the US targeted Iran’s top three nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.

Both US intelligence and the United Nations nuclear watchdog have ascertained that Tehran was not building a nuclear arsenal. Iran has long insisted that its nuclear programme is for civilian purposes only.

While Trump has said that the sites were “obliterated” by the US bombers, in the wake of the attacks, several major news organisations, citing intelligence sources, have reported that the US strikes did not destroy the facilities.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Monday that it was unclear what damage had been sustained at the Fordow plant, which houses the bulk of Iran’s most highly enriched uranium needed to make a nuclear weapon.

On Sunday, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said Iran could restart uranium enrichment in a matter of months, while Trump insisted over the weekend that the attacks had set Iran’s nuclear ambitions back “by decades”.

According to an IAEA report last month, Iran has more than 400kg (880lb) of uranium enriched to up to 60 per cent purity, close to the roughly 90 per cent weapons grade – which is enough, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons.

Trump told Fox News that the news outlets questioning the efficacy of the attacks he ordered and lauded were spreading “fake news”.

“It’s just horrible and I could see it happening, and they [news outlets] tried to build that into a story, but then it turned out, no, it was obliterated like nobody has ever seen before and that meant the end to their nuclear ambitions at least for a period of time,” Trump said.

On whether or not Iran would restart its nuclear programme following the end of the conflict, Trump said, “The last thing they want to do right now is think about nuclear.”

During the attack on the sites, reports emerged that Iran had removed the enriched uranium from Fordow, but Trump claimed that was false.

“It’s a very hard thing to do, plus we didn’t give them much notice because they didn’t know we were coming until just then and nobody thought we would go after that site because everybody said that site was impenetrable… it’s at the bottom of a mountain and it’s granite,” he said.

“[But] the bomb went through it like butter, like it was absolute butter,” he said.

Trade talks

Separately, Trump told Fox that US trade talks with Canada would be stopped “until such time as they drop certain taxes” after Canada pushed ahead with a new digital services tax on foreign and domestic technology companies.

Regarding a trade deal with China, Trump said that while Washington, DC has a large trade deficit with Beijing, the US was currently “getting along” with China.

The president added that he had found a buyer for the social media platform TikTok, by a group of “very wealthy people”, who he will reveal in about two weeks after he extended a ban on the app for the third time, for another 90 days.