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Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado emerged from hiding on Saturday to appear at an anti-government rally in Caracas, despite a violent crackdown on dissent by the socialist government of Nicolás Maduro.

Machado, who had not been seen in public since Wednesday after Maduro and members of his inner circle publicly called for her jailing, waved a Venezuelan flag from atop a small lorry to the cheers of thousands of supporters.

“We have never been as strong as today, never,” Machado said. “The presence of every one of you here in the streets shows the world the magnitude of our strength and our determination to reach the end.”

Protests broke out in the South American country on Monday after Maduro claimed victory in a presidential election by a seven point margin over opposition candidate Edmundo González. The National Electoral Council, which is controlled by Maduro’s allies, has refused to publish a detailed breakdown of the results.

The opposition declared González as the real winner with 7.1mn votes compared to Maduro’s 3.2mn, and posted thousands of polling station receipts as evidence. The US on Thursday recognised González as the winner, a move followed by Ecuador, Uruguay, Costa Rica, and Panama. Maduro’s victory was recognised by key allies China, Russia, Iran and Cuba, among others.

González, a retired diplomat, stood as a surrogate of the charismatic Machado, who was banned from running in January, months after she won a primary in a landslide. The Carter Center, a US non-profit organisation and the only independent body in Venezuela to evaluate the election, said the vote “did not meet international standards of electoral integrity at any of its stages”.

Maduro has referred the election dispute to the supreme court, which is controlled by the government. On Friday González did not show up to a hearing in which all 10 candidates in the election were summoned.

On Saturday, supporters from poorer neighbourhoods and the middle classes turned out in the well-to-do Las Mercedes neighbourhood to see Machado, apparently unbent by a crackdown on sporadic protests that began in downtrodden neighbourhoods of the capital on Monday. 

Since Monday, at least 19 people have been killed according to rights group Provea, and Maduro has claimed that 2,000 people have been arrested. Machado wrote in US media on Thursday that she had gone into hiding amid fears of her imminent arrest. The opposition’s campaign offices were broken into and vandalised in the early hours of Friday morning.

“We are all scared, but what scares me more is continuing under this tyranny,” said Luis Guersi, a 43-year-old engineer at the rally on Saturday.

Colonia Pérez, 34, a street vendor and mother of three, said she had turned out “for the future of my children”.

Maduro, who has presided over an economic crisis, deepening repression, and the exodus of 7.7mn Venezuelans since succeeding the late populist Hugo Chávez in 2013, has framed the protests against his self-declared re-election as a Washington-backed “fascist” coup attempt.

“The extreme right means hatred, vengeance, foreign interventionism and war,” he told supporters and public sector workers at a rival rally in central Caracas on Saturday.

Earlier on Saturday morning, US assistant secretary of state Brian Nichols said cases of arbitrary arrest, vandalism of opposition officers and violence towards peaceful protesters will be referred to the UN Human Rights agency.

“Having seen the will of the Venezuelan people at the ballot box, Maduro and his representatives have resorted to repression,” Nichols wrote on X. “These acts are unacceptable and demonstrate Maduro’s reliance on fear to cling to power.”

At Machado’s rally, supporters said they would continue to demonstrate in support of González’s victory.

“We want a free Venezuela,” said Deysi Barrios, a publicist whose family has fled the country. “If we don’t rid ourselves of this dictatorship now, we never will.”

With protests and encampments taking over universities around the state, Shapiro took a particular hardline with the activists. When video surfaced of members of the Philly Palestine Coalition protesting outside Israeli-owned businesses in Philly, Shapiro called it “blatant antisemitism.”

“This hate and bigotry is reminiscent of a dark time in history,” he later said. He also called for a student encampment at the University of Pennsylvania to be disbanded and, after it was, said it was “past time” for it to happen and made a reference to “people dressed up in KKK outfits or KKK regalia” on campus. He also came out in support of a bill that would punish colleges and universities that boycott Israel or make financial decisions to penalize that country.

These positions have caused concern among progressive Democrats who otherwise appear very supportive of a Harris candidacy. Alan Minsky, executive director of Progressive Democrats of America, calls Shapiro’s comments “irresponsible” and says they should disqualify him from the ticket.

“These are classical expressions of the peace movement in the United States,” he told WHYY News, adding that Jewish-Americans have also been active in the protests, such as those affiliated with Jewish Voice for Peace. “To just sweepingly condemn them as ‘antisemitic’ and endangering students on the university campus, I think was incredibly misguided and sharp contrast to the other governors who have been named as potential running mates.”

After being contacted for comment Wednesday, Jewish Voice for Peace responded Friday by pointing to a social media post the group wrote that morning that said “Josh Shapiro has a damning history of smearing and attacking Palestinian rights advocates and free speech.”

“Opposition to choosing him as the VP candidate isn’t about his identity, it’s about his policies and rhetoric over the years,” the post on X, formerly known as Twitter, reads.

Minsky, who identifies as Jewish and said he strongly condemns Hamas and “all forms of antisemitism,” argues that the bigger issue is how Shapiro may affect Harris’ candidacy among progressives who previously threatened Biden’s prospects over his support for Israel but appear energized by Harris.

“I think he would damage the ticket,” he says. “There is this new enthusiasm among voters who will help Harris carry swing states and win the election and naming Governor Shapiro will jeopardize their support for her.”

Minsky was one of 45 progressives from around the country who signed a letter to Harris suggesting Governors Tim Walz and Andy Beshear as better alternatives given Shapiro’s stand on other issues including past support for school vouchers.

“Democrats need a credible and respected voice that has a track record of winning over and exciting an electorate, especially the ability to turn out young voters, immigrants, and independents in swing states,” they wrote.

Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

Iran said Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh was killed by a “short-range projectile” that was fired into the official residence where he was staying in Tehran, and vowed to “punish” Israel.

The country’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday that the assassination was “orchestrated and executed” by Israel and accused the “criminal” US of complicity in the strike by providing support for the Jewish state.

Haniyeh and his bodyguard died early on Wednesday morning, hours after he participated in the inauguration of Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian. Haniyeh, who lived in exile in Qatar but travelled regularly to Tehran, also met Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday.

Israel has neither confirmed nor denied carrying out the killing, and typically does not comment on its assassination attempts in the Islamic republic.

The attack on Haniyeh has stoked fears that the Middle East is at risk of sliding into a full-blown war.

It dealt a humiliating blow to the republic, which backs regional militants that have launched missiles and drones against Israel since Hamas’s October 7 attack triggered the war in Gaza.

The guards said an “appropriate” Iranian response to Haniyeh’s killing “will come at the time and place of our choosing”.

The day before Haniyeh’s death, Israel said it carried out an attack in Beirut that killed Fuad Shukr, the military commander of Hizbollah, the Iranian-backed Lebanese militant movement. Hizbollah has also promised retaliation for that assassination.

The guards said the investigation into Haniyeh’s assassination revealed that a short-range projectile, with a warhead weighing about 7kg, was used. It said in Iran’s first official account of the attack that the projectile caused a powerful explosion “from outside the area where the guests’ residence was located”.

The republic was certain to “avenge the blood” of Haniyeh and deliver a “severe punishment” to the “adventurous and terrorist Zionist regime”, the statement said.

Khamenei had previously said “we consider it our duty to avenge the blood of a revered guest” killed “on the territory of the Islamic republic”.

The assassinations of Haniyeh and Shukr have increased the risk of a co-ordinated response from the so-called axis of resistance, which in addition to Hizbollah and Hamas includes the Houthis in Yemen and Shia militias in Iraq and Syria.

Israel and Hizbollah have exchanged fire regularly since Hamas’s October 7 attack. But tensions rose sharply after a rocket strike killed 12 youngsters on a football pitch in the occupied Golan Heights last week, which Israel blamed on Hizbollah.

The US, which had pledged to defend Israel, has boosted its military presence by deploying warships and fighter jets to the Middle East in anticipation of an attack against its ally.

Haniyeh’s assassination on home territory is considered a security breach for Iran and has revived fears about enemy agents penetrating the country’s intelligence apparatus.

Hosseinali Haji Deligani, an Iranian lawmaker, said the possibility of “hired agents having played a role in Haniyeh’s assassination cannot be ruled out”.

The latest incident has raised the stakes in the stand-off between the Islamic republic and Israel. In April, after a decades-long shadow war, Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones against Israel, in a widely telegraphed attack in response to a deadly Israeli strike on its consulate building in Syria. Israel responded with a raid on a military base near the Iranian city of Isfahan, but tensions had eased since then.

Ismail Kosari, a member of the Iranian parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, insisted Tehran would respond more forcefully this time.

“Exacting revenge is a question of [defending] our honour and territory,” he said on Saturday. “Avenging Haniyeh’s blood will entail a heavier response.”