Extreme weather is contributing to undocumented migration and return between Mexico and the United States, suggesting that more migrants could risk their lives crossing the border as climate change fuels droughts, storms and other hardships, according to a new study.

People from agricultural areas in Mexico were more likely to cross the border illegally after droughts and were less likely to return to their original communities when extreme weather continued, according to research this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Across the globe, climate change — caused by burning fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas — is exacerbating extreme weather. Droughts are longer and drier, heat is deadlier and storms are rapidly intensifying and dumping record-breaking rain.

In Mexico, a country of nearly 130 million people, drought has drained reservoirs dry, created severe water shortages and drastically reduced corn production, threatening livelihoods.

Researchers said Mexico is a notable country for studying the links between migration, return and weather stressors. Its mean annual temperature is projected to increase up to 3 degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2060, and extreme weather is likely to economically devastate rural communities dependent on rain-fed agriculture. The US and Mexico also have the largest international migration flow in the world.

Scientists predict migration will grow as the planet gets hotter. Over the next 30 years, 143 million people worldwide are likely to be uprooted by rising seas, drought, searing temperatures and other climate catastrophes, according to a UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report.

The new migration research comes as Republican Donald Trump was reelected to the US presidency this week. Trump has called climate change a “hoax” and promised mass deportations of an estimated 11 million people in the U.S. illegally.

Researchers said their findings highlight how extreme weather drives migration.

Filiz Garip, a study researcher and professor of sociology and international affairs at Princeton University, said advanced nations have contributed far more to climate change than developing countries that are bearing the brunt.

Migration “is not a decision that people take up lightly … and yet they’re being forced to make it more, and they’re being forced to stay longer in the United States” as a result of weather extremes, Garip said.

The researchers analyzed daily weather data along with survey responses from 48,313 people between 1992 and 2018, focusing on about 3,700 individuals who crossed the border without documents for the first time.

They looked at 84 agricultural communities in Mexico where growing corn was dependent on weather. They correlated a person’s decision to migrate and then return with abnormal changes in temperature and rainfall in their origin communities during the May-to-August corn growing season.

The study found communities experiencing drought had higher migration rates compared to communities with normal rainfall. And people were less likely to return to Mexico from the US when their communities were unusually dry or wet. That was true for recent US arrivals and people who had been there longer.

People who were better off financially were also more likely to migrate. So were people from communities with established migration histories where friends, neighbors or family members who previously migrated could offer information and help.

These social and economic factors that influence migration are well understood, but Garip said the study’s findings underscore the inequities of climate adaptation. With extreme weather events, not everybody is impacted or responds in the same way, she said, “and the typical social and economic advantages or disadvantages also shape how people experience these events.”

For Kerilyn Schewel, codirector of Duke University’s Program on Climate, Resilience and Mobility, the economic factors highlight that some of most vulnerable people aren’t those displaced by climate extremes, but are rather “trapped in place or lacking the resources to move.”

Schewel, who was not involved in the study, said analyzing regions with migration histories could help predict where migrants will come from and who is likelier to migrate because of climate shocks. In “places where people are already leaving, where there’s a high degree of migration prevalence, … that’s where we can expect more people to leave in the future,” she said.

The survey data used from the Mexican Migration Project makes this study unique, according to Hélène Benveniste, a professor in Stanford University’s department of environmental social sciences. Migration data of its scale that’s community specific is “rarely available,” she said in an email. So is information about a person’s full migration journey, including their return.

The finding that return migration decisions were delayed by weather stress in origin communities is “important and novel,” said Benveniste, who studies climate-related human migration and was not involved in the study. “Few datasets enable an analysis of this question.”

But increased surveillance and enforcement along the US-Mexico border make returning home — and moving back and forth — more difficult, said Michael Méndez, assistant professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine. And once undocumented migrants are in the US, they often live in dilapidated housing, lack health care or work in industries such as construction or agriculture that make them vulnerable to other climate impacts, he said. Méndez was not involved in the study.

As climate change threatens social, political and economic stability around the world, experts said the study highlights the need for global collaboration around migration and climate resilience.

“So much of our focus has been, in a way, on the border and securing the border,” said Schewel from Duke. “But we need much more attention to not only the reasons why people are leaving, but also the demand for immigrant workers within the US.”

Queen Camilla has teamed up with an all-female production crew in a powerful new documentary, airing next week, in which she vows to eradicate domestic abuse.

“Her Majesty The Queen: Behind Closed Doors” follows Camilla as she meets survivors of abusive relationships, including a member of the UK parliament, a senior police officer and a former Miss England.

According to UK government data, on average, a woman is killed by a current or ex-partner every five days in England and Wales but the 77-year-old royal’s new film stresses that violence may not be part of the abuse until it is too late to save the victim.

The film’s campaigners highlight the role that coercive control plays in domestic abuse, with perpetrators not necessarily targeting the obviously vulnerable. One survivor who can attest to this is Chief Inspector Sharon Baker of Avon and Somerset Police, who features in the documentary.

When the chief inspector decided to share that she had also been in an abusive relationship, her colleague told her, “If this can happen to you, it’s OK that it’s happened to me.” Motivated by this, Baker shared a six-minute video within her police force and was astounded when more than 130 other survivors came forward. They began meeting monthly and still do.

Baker believes the issue is “much more prevalent than we think” and hopes Camilla’s documentary will raise awareness.

“Coercive control is the biggest indicator of future homicide. I didn’t suffer any violence until I tried to leave. The time you see violence could be too late.”

In 2015, coercive control became a criminal offense in England and Wales. Baker describes how her ex sowed seeds of doubt in her personal relationships, slowly isolating her from her support network. “There are red flags everywhere, but your perpetrator gives you rose-tinted glasses,” Baker continued. “You can’t see the red flags.”

She hopes part of the conversation to emerge as a result of the documentary will be around coercive control, as well as helping people to speak up when aspects of their relationships concern them.

For Camilla, she accepts that there has been progress but insists that there is still a lot of work to be done to eradicate domestic abuse.

It’s a promise she makes in the documentary, saying: “And I shall keep on trying until I am able to no more.”

“Her Majesty The Queen: Behind Closed Doors” airs on November 11 at 9 p.m. on UK broadcaster ITV1.

Getting help around the world

If you or someone you know is being affected by domestic violence, a worldwide list of directories is provided by UN Women. You can also find a list of national agencies on The Pixel Project.

France condemned the brief detention of two consulate members after it said Israeli police forced their way into a French-owned holy site in Jerusalem, in what is the latest diplomatic spat in a series of events that have sent relations between the two plummeting.

France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot was due to visit the French-owned Eleona church compound, which houses a sanctuary, on Thursday when the incident occurred.

Armed Israeli officers entered the site without authorization, France’s Foreign Ministry said, arresting the two consulate staff members “despite the fact that they are officials with diplomatic status” and prompting Barrot to abandon his visit.

The employees were later released following the intervention of the minister, France’s Foreign Ministry statement said.

In a separate statement, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said an argument arose between Israeli security forces and two French security guards “who refused to identify themselves.”

“The two were detained by the police and released immediately after identifying themselves as diplomats,” it said, adding that the Israeli security officers were accompanying the foreign minister on his official visit.

The Eleona church compound on the Mount of Olives is one of four French-owned sites in Jerusalem that make up the French national domain in the Holy Land and is administered by French authorities.

France’s Foreign Ministry said it would summon Israel’s ambassador in the coming days.

“This violation of the integrity of a site under French responsibility risks weakening the ties I had come to nurture with Israel at a time when we all need to move forward in the region on the path to peace,” Barrot told reporters while in Jerusalem.

Barrot was meeting with Israeli officials on Thursday where he urged for diplomatic solutions to end the wars in Gaza and Lebanon amid repeated calls for a ceasefire, following spiraling international alarm over huge civilian casualties over the last year.

The visit comes at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries following calls by French President Emmanuel Macron to end arms exports to Israel for use in Gaza.

Relations between Israel and France, as well as other European countries, which had been initially strained over Gaza, have further deteriorated since Israel’s ground operation against the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

European nations, including France, have expressed outrage over Israeli military strikes at posts of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL. Israel said it has no intention of harming the UN’s peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon but accused Hezbollah of using UNIFIL personnel as human shields.

Macron slammed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month of “sowing barbarism” in remarks at a conference convened by the French president to support the Lebanese people and military.

The French government also attempted to ban Israeli weapons firms from exhibiting at a trade fair in Paris later this month, which was later reversed by a French court, Reuters reported.

In recent years, there have been several incidents between French officials and Israeli security officers at French-administered sites in Jerusalem.

In 2020, Macron was involved in an altercation with Israeli security officers while visiting the Church of Saint Anne, another territory it owns, where he was seen shouting “I don’t like what you did in front of me.”

Israeli soccer fans were attacked in a “serious incident of violence in Amsterdam” overnight into Friday, Israeli authorities said, with the government saying it was sending planes to evacuate affected citizens.

Hundreds of fans of Israel’s Maccabi Tel Aviv soccer team “were ambushed and attacked in Amsterdam” on Thursday night as they left the stadium following a Europa League game against Dutch side Ajax, the Israeli embassy to the United States said on social media platform X.

Social media video shared by the embassy showed videos of what it said was violence against Maccabi fans.

Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar said 10 citizens were injured and advised citizens to stay in their hotels.

“The impression from the reports (are) that the situation is calming down in the last hour,” Sa’ar said.

In a statement from his office, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the violence “serious” and said he was ordering the “immediate release of two rescue planes” to assist Israeli citizens.

The Israeli leader also urged Dutch authorities to “act firmly and quickly against the rioters and ensure the peace of our citizens.”

Israel’s foreign ministry overnight Friday said about thirty people have been arrested so far. The statement did not say when those arrests were made or who was arrested.

Maccabi fans had been in the Dutch capital ahead of Thursday night’s Europa League game against Ajax.

Amsterdam’s police said it boosted its presence in the city’s center on Wednesday night, citing “tensions” in several areas, one day ahead of the soccer match.

Officers “prevented a confrontation between a group of taxi drivers and a group of visitors who came from the adjacent casino” on Wednesday night, the police said in a statement on X, noting another incident in which a Palestinian flag was torn down in Amsterdam’s center by unknown perpetrators.

The police also said a demonstration was planned on Thursday near the stadium ahead of the soccer match between Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Germany’s governing coalition has collapsed after disagreements over the country’s weak economy led Chancellor Olaf Scholz to sack his finance minister.

Christian Lindner’s dismissal prompted him to withdraw his Free Democrats Party (FDP) from a coalition with Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD), leaving Scholz in a minority government with the Green Party.

Scholz said he would now call a confidence vote for January 15, which, if he lost, could allow elections to be held by the end of March next year – six months earlier than the elections planned for September 2025.

Germany now faces turmoil at a time of broader uncertainty. The political crisis was triggered just hours after it was announced former US President Donald Trump will get a second term – an election outcome that could bring further woes to Germany’s economy as well as threaten Europe’s united front on key issues. Here’s what we know.

Is a snap election unusual for Germany?

Political stability is the norm for Germany, with power largely moving between the SPD and conservative rival, the CDU. The country’s previous leader, Angela Merkel, held power for 16 years and was a steady presence on the European stage as others came and went. She had a famously testy relationship with Trump.

Germany’s last snap election was in 2005. They were called by then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, who subsequently lost to Merkel.

Merkel retired from her position as German chancellor in 2021.

The center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) stepped up to fill the gap she left when it emerged as the largest party in Germany’s parliament, or Bundestag, in the 2021 federal election. Following the all-powerful and ever-popular Merkel was always going to be fraught with difficulties.

The SPD cobbled together a government with the FDP and the Greens, which have ruled as a “traffic light” coalition since December of that year, referring to the different parties colors.

How successful has Germany’s “traffic light” coalition been?

Bringing together three ideologically different parties into one coalition has not always made for a comfortable alliance, and the SPD-led coalition has faced challenges from the start.

The alliance brought together the FDP, a business-focused party that advocates for a free market and a fiscally conservative approach, with the SPD and the Greens, two left-wing parties that require government spending for social and environmental policies.

The coalition has been at loggerheads over how to revive Germany’s economy. It has also been under pressure from burgeoning far-right, as well as more recently, far-left forces.

The Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) made significant gains in recent years, becoming the first far-right party to win a state election since the Nazi era in September, when it emerged as the strongest in the eastern state of Thuringia.

In efforts to counter the AfD, Scholz’s government was spurred into action on migration, announcing new security measures aimed at speeding up the deportation of rejected asylum seekers and shoring up border controls.

Why have things collapsed now?

Months of tensions over Germany’s budget policy and economic direction boiled over on Wednesday. Essentially, Scholz’s demands for investment have clashed with Lindner’s more prudent approach to government borrowing.

Scholz said he fired Lindner for blocking his economic plans, telling reporters, “Lindner showed no willingness to implement any of our proposals” and, therefore, “there is no trust basis for any future cooperation.”

Lindner meanwhile accused Scholz of having asked him to pause the “debt brake” – a constitutional article that prevents the government from borrowing excessively and amassing debt – something Lindner said he was not willing to do.

The rhetoric coming from Scholz and Lindner was uncharacteristically pointed. The chancellor told reporters Wednesday night that Lindners’ “egoism is totally incomprehensible.”

Still looming over the government is the thorny issue of how to plug next year’s budget, which has a multi-billion-euro gap. With the FDP now not in the picture, its passage is even more complicated.

Carsten Brzeski, a senior economist at Dutch bank ING, cited “never-ending tensions” within the German government as well as “clear disagreement on how to get the German economy out of its current state of stagnation and structural weakness” as reasons for the collapse.

What problems is Germany’s economy facing?

Germany’s economy, Europe’s largest, shrank last year for the first time since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Over the last five years, it has grown only 0.2% , compared with 4.6% growth in the 20 countries that use the euro, 4.1% in France and 5.5% in Italy.

There are a number of reasons for Germany’s economic stagnation. The country’s energy-intensive businesses have suffered from the lingering impact of the energy crisis sparked by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Germany’s problems are also structural, ranging from high labor costs, a rapidly aging population and red tape to outdated physical and digital infrastructure.

It faces competition from China in the manufacturing of some of its main exports, which has delivered high-profile damage to Germany’s famous automobile industry. Volkswagen, Germany’s largest manufacturer, is considering factory closures in its home country for the first time in its 87-year history.

What happens now?

Scholz is expected to head a minority government. He would have to rely on cobbled-together parliamentary majorities to pass legislation, until the vote of confidence in January.

He will likely turn to Merz and the CDU – Germany’s most popular party – for support to pass legislation in the short term.

But piling pressure on Scholz, CDU leader Friedrich Merz, the leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) opposition party, has meanwhile said this is too long, and demanded a confidence vote by the beginning of next week “at the latest” rather than early next year.

The collapse of the governing coalition and political uncertainty may serve to bolster support for the far-right as people increasingly lose faith in the mainstream parties. Party leader Alice Weidel has already hailed the coalition’s collapse as a “liberation” for Germany.

“The end of the traffic light coalition is a liberation for our country. The end of the self-proclaimed ‘progressive coalition’ that took Germany to the brink of economic ruin was more than overdue,” Weidel wrote on X.

China is bracing for what could be a volatile and highly unpredictable path ahead in its escalating great power rivalry with the United States, after Donald Trump made a historic political comeback to win the race to the White House.

His return could bring tariffs as high as 60% on Chinese goods – which could devastate economic growth in the world’s second largest economy and upend global supply chains – more technology controls and fiery rhetoric on Beijing, heightening tension in already rocky relations between the superpowers.

But Trump’s protectionist trade posture and transactional approach to foreign policy may also weaken US alliances and global leadership, presenting opportunities for Beijing to fill the void of America’s retreat and shape an alternative world order.

“Trump’s return to power will certainly bring greater opportunities and greater risks for China,” said Shen Dingli, a foreign policy analyst in Shanghai. “Whether it eventually leads to more risks or more opportunities depend on how the two sides interact with each other.”

Officially, China has sought to present a neutral stance on Trump’s win. Its Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday it “respected” America’s choice.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping congratulated Trump on Thursday. Known for his fondness for autocrats, Trump has regularly praised Xi and called the Chinese leader “a very good friend,” even as US-China relations nosedived under his watch.

Xi told the president-elect that China and America can “find the right way” to “get along in the new era,” according to a readout from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

But beneath the calm surface, Beijing is likely bracing for impact – and uncertainties.

“Trump is a very mercurial person,” said Liu Dongshu, an assistant professor of international affairs at the City University of Hong Kong. “It remains to be seen whether he will implement, and to what extent, the policies he promised during the election campaign, and if he will stick to his first-term agenda.”

Sky-high tariffs

During Trump’s first term in office, the tough-talking populist who promised to make “America great again” launched a bruising trade war with China, backlisted Chinese telecom giant Huawei on national security grounds and blamed Beijing for the Covid-19 pandemic. By the end of his first term, bilateral relations had plunged to their lowest point in decades.

This time around, Trump has threatened on the campaign trail to slap 60% tariffs on all goods made in China and revoke its “permanent normal trade relations” status, which has given China the most favorable trade terms with the US for more than two decades.

This punitive measure, if carried through, could deliver a body blow to an economy already beset by a property crisis, flagging consumer demand, falling prices and mounting local government debts.

Investment bank Macquarie estimates that, at the sky-high 60% level, the tariffs are likely to cut the country’s growth by a full two percentage points, which would be just under half of China’s expected full-year economic expansion rate of 5%.

“Trade war 2.0 could end China’s ongoing growth model, in which exports and manufacturing have been the main growth driver,” Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie, wrote in a Wednesday research note.

Investors appeared to predict this outcome as Trump’s lead over Vice President Kamala Harris widened on Wednesday, causing Chinese stocks and the yuan to fall sharply.

Tariffs act as a tax on imports, hurting consumers in the country imposing them, as well as businesses that rely on imported raw materials and intermediate goods to make finished products. A significant escalation of global trade tensions will likely inflict pain not just on China and the US, but also on other countries involved in global supply chains.

Unlike his Republican predecessors who hailed from the establishment, Trump wields an erratic and unconventional approach to policy making, adding to Beijing’s sense of uncertainty.

“Trump began his first term as an enthusiastic admirer of Xi Jinping, before levying tariffs and then vilifying Beijing during the pandemic,” said Daniel Russel, vice president of international security and diplomacy at the Asia Society Policy Institute.

“So, Beijing is likely to approach the President-elect with caution — probing to ascertain which Trump to expect and where there may be opportunities to exploit,” added Russel, who previously served as the top Asia advisor to former President Barack Obama.

Challenges and opportunities

But Trump’s “America First” agenda and transactional worldview may also play in Beijing’s favor, experts say.

“Although Beijing is deeply concerned about the unpredictability of Trump’s China policy, it reminds itself that challenges also bring opportunities,” said Tong Zhao, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

“Despite fears of a renewed trade war, Beijing believes that Trump’s tough tariff policies would be deeply unpopular in Europe, creating an opening for China to strengthen economic ties with Europe and counter US efforts to intensify technology and supply chain decoupling between China and Western nations,” he said.

Trump’s longstanding distain for NATO (he said in February he would not defend NATO allies that fail to spend enough on defense from a future attack by Russia), as well as international alliances and institutions more broadly, also threatens to weaken American alliances that outgoing President Joe Biden has carefully cultivated to counter the threats of a rising China.

That would offer some timely relief to Beijing, which is increasingly irritated by what it sees as Washington’s strategy to encircle and contain China with an “Asian Nato.”

America’s potential inward turn under Trump will also be welcome news for Xi, who has ramped up efforts to claim leadership in the Global South and build a new world order no longer dominated by the West.

Taiwan and relations with Russia

Beijing may also be looking for ways to utilize Trump’s penchant for deal-making, including on the issue of Taiwan. China’s ruling Communist Party claims the island as its own, despite never having controlled it.

Under the previous Trump administration, which was staffed with China hawks, the US bolstered support for Taiwan through increased arms sales and diplomatic visits. But the former leader’s recent comments have fueled concerns about American commitment to the democratic island.

On the campaign trail, Trump accused Taiwan of “stealing” the chip industry from the US and said that the self-governing democracy should pay the US for protection.

Industry experts say Taiwan grew its own semiconductor industry organically through a combination of foresight, hard work and investment. And the island has purchased the vast majority of its weaponry from US arms manufacturers over recent decades. But Trump’s campaign rhetoric nonetheless hinted at a more transactional approach to Taiwan.

Asked by the Wall Street Journal in an interview if he would use military force against a blockade on Taiwan by China, Trump said it would not come to that because Xi respected him and knows he’s “crazy.” Instead, he said he would slap 150% to 200% tariffs on Beijing.

“With Trump’s relatively less strong interest in defending Taiwan, Beijing may seek greater concessions from Washington on the Taiwan issue, using both positive incentives and coercive leverage to push the United States to reduce its military and political support for Taiwan,” Zhao said.

Trump, who has touted his good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, has made comments that suggest the US could pressure Ukraine into an uneasy truce with Russia.

While ending the grinding war in Ukraine could remove a crucial sore point in China-Europe relations, it could also complicate Moscow’s alignment with Beijing, which has deepened since Russia’s invasion, said Liu at the City University of Hong Kong.

“If the US and Russia ease relations, it could create greater daylight between Russia and China, effectively driving a wedge between them.” Liu said.

“From everything he has said, it’s clear that Trump considers China, not Russia, as the main adversary.”

Three people have been charged in Argentina for crimes related to the death of Liam Payne, a former member of the boyband One Direction, according to the public prosecutor’s office.

A hotel employee and a suspected drug dealer are among the three individuals charged for the crimes of “abandonment of a person before a death, supply and facilitation of narcotics,” Argentina’s National Criminal and Correctional Prosecutor’s Office also said Thursday.

The British pop star, who was 31, died on October 16 after falling from the third floor of a hotel in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The late singer had alcohol, cocaine, and a prescription antidepressant in his system before his death, according to the prosecutor’s statement.

Toxicology analysis indicated that Payne “may have fallen into a state of semi or total unconsciousness,” it said.

The prosecutor’s office also said medical examinations confirmed that the singer’s injuries were “compatible with those caused by falling from a height.” Examinations ruled out self-inflicted injuries or the intervention of other people, the office added.

Who is being investigated?

Investigators are launching investigations into the three individuals after gathering and reviewing evidence, which included over 800 hours of video, the office added.

The first individual is someone whom authorities believe spent time with Payne “on a daily basis” during his visit to Buenos Aires. The suspect is being charged for “abandonment of a person before a death and the supply and facilitation of narcotics.”

The second suspect is a hotel employee who “must answer” for allegedly supplying cocaine to the singer on “two occasions” during Payne’s stay at the CasaSur Palermo Hotel, the statement read. The third person is someone believed by authorities to be a “narcotics supplier” and is suspected of providing drugs to the artist on October 14.

It is unclear if any of the three suspects are currently detained.

Payne’s cell phone also underwent a “forensic extraction,” and authorities were able to analyze calls, text messages, chats in messaging and social media apps, the prosecutor’s office wrote.

He had spoken openly about his struggles with substance abuse and his mental health. In the summer of 2023, Payne said he was marking six months of sobriety after completing treatment in a US facility. Payne’s tour was set to kick off in South America in September of that year, but he had to postpone the scheduled dates after suffering a kidney infection.

Payne rocketed to global stardom as part of One Direction, the massively popular boyband that was created on the British version of the X Factor in 2010. The group, which included members Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik, announced an “indefinite hiatus” in 2016.

An Israeli airstrike on a multi-story building in northern Gaza killed at least 27 people, relief officials said, as the Israeli military issued new evacuation orders in the area, where it is mounting a major offensive.

The home of the Mbahouh family in Jabalya was struck on Thursday afternoon, according to the spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense, Mahmoud Basal.

He said the four-story property was sheltering more than 50 displaced people, and some had been trapped in a warehouse at the bottom of the building.

The Israeli military campaign in Gaza since the October 7 Hamas-led attacks has demolished entire neighborhoods and rendered large swathes of the strip uninhabitable.

At least 43,469 Palestinians have been killed and another 102,561 people injured in Gaza, according to the Ministry of Health there.

Human rights agencies warned of “apocalyptic” survival challenges for Palestinians trapped in Jabalya, home to a large refugee camp, where the Israeli military ramped up aerial and ground attacks in early October that it says are targeting Hamas’ renewed presence in the area.

Israeli airstrikes and shelling reportedly killed at least 30 other people in Gaza since Wednesday. Most of those Palestinians were killed by Israeli attacks in the Beit Lahiya area of northern Gaza.

An Israeli airstrike struck a residential building in the Mashrou’ neighborhood of Beit Lahiya, killing six people and injuring several others, journalists and medics say, who added that a further six people were killed in second strike in the same area. Four others were killed in a separate drone strike in Beit Lahiya, they said.

In addition, six people had been killed, according to local journalists, as a result of Israeli artillery shelling west of Jabalya camp in northern Gaza.

New evacuation orders

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that “troops started to operate in the area of Beit Lahiya following prior intelligence information and a situational assessment indicating the presence of terrorists and terrorist infrastructure.”

The IDF said it also continues operations in Jabalya in northern Gaza and had killed some “50 terrorists” over the past day.

The military’s Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted on X a demand that residents leave several areas of northern Gaza, saying that “once again, terrorist organizations are launching rocket attacks toward the state of Israel.”

Adraee said that the “specified area has been warned multiple times previously. We inform you that the specified area is considered a dangerous combat zone, so for your safety, move south immediately.”

“They were at home when suddenly a missile hit their building… They have no connection to any organizations or anything like that. They were unarmed, poor people with difficult circumstances, who struggled to build this home.”

Among those in the building were orphans who had been raised by their grandmother, Abu Najeh said.

Israeli operations also continue in southern Gaza, where the IDF said Thursday that a “number of armed terrorists” had been killed in the Rafah area.

The Palestine Red Crescent said paramedics had transferred five bodies to hospital as a result of an Israeli drone attack in the Al-Janina neighborhood, east of Rafah city in the southern Gaza Strip. Journalists said four of those killed were from the same family.

Additionally, they said, two people were killed in a strike launched from an Israeli military quadcopter.

The mystery of the black balls that washed up on some of Sydney’s most iconic beaches last month has now been solved – and it’s more disgusting than you could ever imagine.

Australian beachgoers were turned away from seven beaches last month after lifeguards spotted thousands of black spheres, prompting closures and clean-up efforts.

Initially thought to be made of tar, a team of scientists at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) has revealed the black balls were actually mini “fatbergs,” made up of human feces, methamphetamine, human hair, fatty acids, and food waste, among hundreds of other vile and befuddling substances.

The New South Wales Environment and Protection Authority (EPA) first warned Sydney residents to avoid swimming or touching the balls on October 17, after they were spotted at seven beaches including Sydney’s famed Bondi Beach.

At that stage their contents were “a mystery” and local officials ordered a series of tests to find out what they were and where they came from.

Initial testing suggested they were made from unrefined oil, potentially from an oil spill, Beves and UNSW professor William Alexander Donald wrote in the Conversation.

“However, further testing indicated a different, more disgusting, composition.”

The balls were consistent with fatbergs, congealed masses of fats, oils and greasy molecules that can accumulate in sewage, the scientists wrote, noting their presence highlights the issue of pollution along Sydney’s coastline.

“I wouldn’t want to be swimming with them,” Donald told 9news.

Fatbergs come in all shapes and sizes. In 2021, a massive, 330-ton fatberg wreaked havoc in Birmingham, UK when it clogged a city sewer for weeks.

These Sydney fatbergs were no ordinary fatbergs, however. The blobs contained everything from fecal matter to medication and recreational drugs, the scientists wrote.

Where these gross balls came from still remains a mystery.

The balls likely originated from “a source that releases mixed waste,” according to a media release from the EPA Wednesday.

“Authorities have considered several possible causes, such as a shipping spill or wastewater outflow,” the statement said.

“However, due to the complex composition of the balls and the time they have spent in the water, testing has not been able to confirm their exact origin.”

Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Thursday the government would legislate for a ban on social media for children under 16, a policy the government says is world-leading.

“Social media is doing harm to our kids and I’m calling time on it,” Albanese told a news conference.

Legislation will be introduced into parliament this year, with the laws coming into effect 12 months after it is ratified by lawmakers, he added.

There will be no exemptions for users who have parental consent.

“The onus will be on social media platforms to demonstrate they are taking reasonable steps to prevent access,” Albanese said. “The onus won’t be on parents or young people.”

Communications Minister Michelle Rowland said platforms impacted would include Meta Platforms’ Instagram and Facebook, as well as ByteDance’s TikTok and Elon Musk’s X. Alphabet’s YouTube would likely also fall within the scope of the legislation, she added.

All four companies impacted were not immediately reachable for comment.

A number of countries have already vowed to curb social media use by children through legislation, though Australia’s policy is one of the most stringent.

France last year proposed a ban on social media for those under 15, though users were able to avoid the ban with parental consent.

The United States has for decades required technology companies to seek parental consent to access the data of children under 13, leading to most social media platforms banning those under that age from accessing their services.