King Charles III is making plans to install around 2,000 solar panels in the grounds of Sandringham Estate, in a sustainability drive that could see the entire country property powered by zero-carbon energy.

It’s an ambitious proposal, which, if approved, will produce enough power to meet the “current and predicted future electricity demands” of the 20,000-acre royal residence, according to a proposal submitted by a planning agent on behalf of Sandringham Estate earlier this month.

Sandringham has been the private home of four generations of British monarchs since 1862. It is also where the royal family traditionally gathers to celebrate Christmas.

The solar panels will be built on a secluded plot of land near Sandringham House, currently used as horse-grazing paddocks. This way, the development “would not result in the loss of any productive agricultural land,” according to the planning agent.

The site is surrounded by mature trees and sits just outside the estate’s formal gardens. Six meters (nearly 20 feet) of hedgerow will have to be destroyed to allow access to the site, if the development does get the green light, but the applicant says there would be no adverse impact on ecology.

The King’s latest venture follows the installation of a small number of solar panels on the roof of Sandringham House in early 2022. The monarch’s private residence, Highgrove House in Gloucestershire, also has some solar panels in its gardens.

It is one of the King’s boldest home environmental projects to date, despite questions being raised about how his ascent to the throne would affect the amount of time he can devote to climate issues.

Charles has been a long-time champion of environmental causes. Most recently, he used his platform at the World Climate Action Summit in Dubai, part of the COP28 climate conference, to call for a rapid increase in renewable energy.

“In 2050, our grandchildren won’t be asking what we said, they will be living with the consequences of what we did or didn’t do,” he said in December, adding: “The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth.”

The installation of solar panels on one of the royal family’s favorite estates could be viewed as a strong signal that Charles wishes to put his words into action.

However, some have raised concerns about the plans. In response to the planning application, Steve Gower, a police officer from Norfolk Constabulary, has warned that extra security measures could be needed to stop the solar panels attracting thieves to the area.

“The rate of thefts from such facilities has been increasing in recent years,” he said in a written response to the planning application. “The combination of the rise in the value of scrap metal and the remote locations of such venues in rural areas means that security needs to be appropriately considered.”

The King’s plans are subject to a consultation process, which will run until next Friday, after which they will also be assessed by the local planning authority. A final decision is expected to be made in early June.

If permission is granted, the solar farm will have a lifespan of 40 years before the land is returned to paddocks once again, according to the planning application.

Some Hamas officials are signaling that the militant group could give up armed struggle against Israel if the Palestinians get an independent state in territories captured by Israel in the 1967 war.

The messaging suggests a softening of Hamas’ position as its fate hangs in the balance with Israel’s pummeling of the Gaza Strip, which Hamas ruled before the war. The Palestinian militant group has long called for the Jewish state to be destroyed.

“If an independent state with its capital in Jerusalem, while preserving the right of return for refugees, (is created) Al Qassam could be integrated into (a future) national army,” he said, referring to the group’s armed wing.

Hamas has traditionally rejected a two-state solution that would see a Palestinian state established alongside Israel and has instead advocated the creation of a Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine that today encompasses Israel, the occupied West Bank, occupied East Jerusalem and Gaza.

Mustafa Barghouti, President of the Palestinian National Initiative, said he wasn’t aware of Hamas offering to lay down its arms before, but said it would be a significant move if true.

Offer criticized as PR stunt

Efraim Inbar, president of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, said the demand for Palestinian refugees’ return to their ancestral homes in what is today Israel would be a non-starter as it would amount to “the destruction of the state of Israel” where Jews form a majority.

He characterized Hamas’ offer as a public relations stunt aimed at Western nations.

“They see that there’s a lot of support in the Western world (for the Palestinians)… and they try to show that they’re the good guys, and Israel are the bad guys, and Israel will say no,” he said.

The United States and European states may use this to ask Israel “to give them a chance,” he said, but Israel is likely to take the gesture “with a grain of salt.”

The Netanyahu government has vowed to eliminate Hamas after it led an attack on Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and kidnapping another 250.

Indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel to release the remaining 133 hostages have stalled.

US President Joe Biden, along with leaders from 17 other countries called on Hamas to release the hostages in a rare joint statement on Thursday, urging the group to accept the terms of a deal they say “would bring an immediate and prolonged ceasefire in Gaza that would facilitate a surge of additional necessary humanitarian assistance to be delivered throughout Gaza and lead to credible end of hostilities.

On Wednesday, senior Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya told The Associated Press in Istanbul that the group would accept “a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions.”

Israel captured the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza in the 1967 war. Those territories are considered under international law and by most of the international community as occupied, and they are where the Palestinians want to establish a future state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long opposed such a prospect, arguing that it would endanger his country’s security.

Hamas has refrained from joining the PLO, an umbrella grouping of Palestinian factions that signed peace agreements with it in the 1990s.

Barghouti said Hamas indicated as far back as 2007, when it led a Palestinian national unity government, that it is willing to accept a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders. Hamas, he added, has also been in favor of joining the PLO, but such a move wouldn’t automatically amount to recognition of Israel or the Oslo Accords that the PLO signed with it in the 1990s.

Hamas has not issued an official statement outlining the concessions its officials have touted and it is unclear if statements made by its officials abroad reflect the thinking of its military wing on the ground in Gaza.

Israel has so far failed to achieve its stated goal of eliminating Hamas from the Gaza Strip, with no top leaders from the group captured or killed, but it has significantly diminished its military capabilities and its ability to rule there as its bombing campaign leaves the enclave in ruin.

Last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said at a news conference in the Qatari capital Doha that Hamas is willing to function solely as a political party once a Palestinian state is created, citing meetings between the group and Turkish officials.

He called on Hamas “to express their stances clearly.”

Inbar, from the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, said that after October 7, Israelis treat Hamas as a hostile entity and want to see it defeated. “We understand that they will try to rebuild the military infrastructure” after Israel destroys it, he said, adding that Israel will continue to “mow the grass,” a reference to occasional military operations to diminish Hamas’ military capability.

“I love you. Stay strong. Survive.” That has been the mantra of Rachel Goldberg-Polin since her son was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7 with a severe arm injury.

She was referring to a video Hamas released on Wednesday of her Israeli-American son – the first sign since October 7 that he was still alive. Speaking in Hebrew, with part of his left arm missing, Goldberg-Polin called on his parents to stay strong for him.

The undated video has given them hope but there are “mixed emotions,” his father Jonathan Polin said, because as a parent, Jonathan knows his son, who is left-handed, is not fine.

“He doesn’t look great, [his] coloring is off – but you’d expect that after 200 plus days in a tunnel,” he said, adding, “it lights a fire under us even more than we’ve already had” to bring him and the other hostages home.

Goldberg-Polin, who is almost certainly speaking under duress in the video, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ attacks on Israel, when more than 1,200 people died and more than 200 people were taken hostage.

Footage of his capture showed Hamas fighters leading the then-23-year-old away from the bomb shelter with part of his arm missing. The first time Goldberg-Polin’s parents saw that video was following an interview with Cooper in October. The pair were recalling eyewitness accounts of how their son was taken into captivity during a live TV interview, when Cooper realized he had heard details of the story before.

Not wanting to spring the news on them on live TV, Cooper contacted them after the interview and asked if they wanted to see the video. They later confirmed the man in the video was their son and asked that the video be shared more widely.

The family was told by an eyewitness that Goldberg-Polin lost his arm from the elbow down while helping to throw grenades out of a bunker where he and others were sheltering.

The Hamas video on Wednesday showed part of his left arm missing several inches above the hand and it appears to be healing. Rachel said surgeons have reached out to her to say that the wound needs treatment and rehabilitation.

While worried about Goldberg-Polin’s health, his parents have embraced the proof of his survival so far. “He’s alive and there are so many families that don’t have that proof,” Rachel said.

Their son is among the most recognizable of the 129 hostages who remain in Gaza. Banners and murals are displayed in Jerusalem, saying: “Bring Hersh Home,” and his parents regularly meet top US officials in Washington to press the case of the hostages.

‘Kissing someone through a veil’

In the video, Goldberg-Polin said he hoped he was able to give them his parents comfort on the holiday, in reference to the Jewish holiday of Passover that began on Monday night.

But it has been a struggle for his family to mark the holiday without him. “It’s normally a commemoration of the Jewish people leaving captivity, leaving Egypt and going on to be a free people,” his mother told Cooper. “And the idea that we were going to celebrate freedom when our entire being and soul and heart is being held captive just felt perverse.”

Goldberg-Polin also spoke in Hebrew in the clip, which Rachel called “interesting” as they never speak it with their children. “It was kind of like kissing someone through a veil, because that’s not the language that we use at home. But it’s his voice,” Rachel said.

The Goldberg-Polin family have called on the negotiating parties, including Qatar, Egypt, the United States, Hamas, and Israel, to intensify efforts to strike a deal that would reunite families and end their suffering.

Speaking to Cooper, Jonathan added: “This video plays one small piece in reminding the negotiators that you are dealing with real human beings with aspirations and families who love them and are working every day to bring them home. Maybe that’s a little bit of good that comes out of this for the process.”

Indian voters are battling sweltering conditions to take part in the world’s biggest election as a severe heat wave hits parts of the country and authorities forecast a hotter-than-normal summer for the South Asian nation.

The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said a heat wave will affect parts of south and east India until the end of the week, including four states that are voting on Friday.

Parts of West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka are among 13 states and union territories voting in the second phase of India’s mammoth elections, with temperatures forecast to exceed 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in some areas.

On Thursday, Baripada in the eastern state of Odisha hit 43.6 C (110.4 F) and Telangana’s Khammam in the south reached 43.4 C (110.1 F), according to the IMD, which warned last month that India would likely see stronger and longer heat waves this year due to above-normal temperatures.

Gandhi Ray, a farmer in his 60s from eastern Bihar state, said he lives in a small hut in the forest, and will walk to a nearby village to vote.

Temperatures above 41 C (105 F) are forecast every day until May 1 in his hometown of Banka district, according to the IMD.

High temperatures have raised concern this election cycle, as campaigns marked by outdoor political rallies draw thousands of people under the baking sun. The issue was underscored Wednesday, when one lawmaker collapsed from the heat while addressing supporters in western Maharashtra state.

The Election Commission, National Disaster Management Authority and IMD formed a task force to minimize the impact of heat waves ahead of polling days and Prime Minister Narendra Modi chaired a meeting earlier this month to review the country’s preparedness for the hot season.

The Election Commission has released guidelines for staying cool at polling stations, including drinking water and carrying an umbrella, and warned against leaving children or pets in parked cars.

And in Bihar, election officials have extended voting hours at some polling stations “in view (of the) prevailing heat wave.”

Ray said the heat isn’t going to stop him from voting on Friday.

“This is the one right we have so of course I will vote, everyone should vote for whomever they want to represent them,” he said.

“Of course it would be good if the election took place in a cooler time but whether I go to vote or not, I am still going to feel hot so that’s not going to stop me.”

Despite the heat warnings, the Election Commision said there are “no major concerns for heat waves” during Friday’s polling and weather forecasts indicate “normal conditions” for the constituencies voting.

Climate politics

India, the world’s most populous nation with 1.4 billion people, often experiences heat waves during the summer months of May and June. But in recent years, they have arrived earlier and become more prolonged, with scientists linking some of these longer and more intense heat waves to the climate crisis.

In 2022, a heat wave that killed 90 people across India and Pakistan was made 30 times more likely because of climate change, the World Weather Attribution initiative found.

Last year successive heat waves hit India again, closing schools, damaging crops and putting pressure on energy supplies. In June alone, temperatures in some parts of the country soared to 47 C (116 F), killing at least 44 people and sickening hundreds with heat-related illnesses.

The human-caused climate crisis is already threatening India’s development goals and putting millions of people at risk in a nation where more than 50% of the workforce is employed in agriculture, studies have found. By 2050, India will be among the places where temperatures have passed survivability limits, according to climate experts.

But analysts say climate has not featured as a major issue this election, despite being mentioned in the election manifestos of the two main parties — the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Indian National Congress.

“You can see it in farmers asking for loan waivers and irrigation facilities after years of drought, in urban families demanding reduced electricity prices to offset cooling bills and in calls for more penetrating social welfare.”

Regional impact

Extreme heat has already had an impact across the region this year with little respite from merciless heat and humidity for hundreds of millions of people living in areas most vulnerable to climate change.

Neighboring Bangladesh is sweltering through a heat wave this week with prolonged temperatures above 40 C in many districts and no relief during record hot nights, according to climatologist Maximiliano Herrera. The government declared a “heat alert” across the country on Thursday, in place for 72 hours.

Extreme temperatures are also soaring across Southeast Asia, with dozens of heatstroke deaths report by local media in Thailand, hundreds of schools closed in the Philippines, and droughts drying up rice fields and rivers in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta “rice bowl” region.

The weeks-long heat wave in Vietnam has forced three provinces to declare a state of emergency as salt seeps into fresh water sources, limiting access to drinking water for more than 70,000 households, according to Save the Children.

A report released Tuesday by the World Meteorological Organization found that Asia remained the world’s most disaster-affected region in 2023 and the region is heating up faster than the global average.

Editor’s Note: Warning: This story contains a graphic image.

Hamas released a video of Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin on Wednesday, the first proof that he survived being badly wounded during his capture on October 7.

Goldberg-Polin, then 23, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ attacks on Israel when more than 1,200 people died and more than 200 people were taken hostage.

He is shown in the undated video with part of his left arm missing several inches above the hand.

Video filmed on October 7 showed Goldberg-Polin being taken hostage with his arm severely injured. A firsthand account from a young woman, who was in a bunker with him when Hamas attacked, said he had helped to throw grenades out, before his arm was blown off from the elbow down.

The latest video shows Goldberg-Polin sitting in a chair, addressing the camera. Gesturing occasionally with his injured arm, he identifies himself and gives his date of birth and parents’ names.

He says he has been “here for almost 200 days,” suggesting the video was filmed shortly before Tuesday, the 200th day of the war.

Goldberg-Polin’s hair is cropped short in the video, which is edited with a number of cuts from wide shot to close up.

He criticizes the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as other Israeli hostages in Hamas propaganda videos have done. Held captive in Gaza for six months, he is almost certainly speaking under duress.

He mentions Israeli government ministers sitting down to holiday dinners with their families, an apparent reference to the Jewish holiday of Passover, which began Monday night and is traditionally celebrated with a family dinner.

He urges his own family to stay strong for him and finishes by saying he hopes he was able to give them some comfort on the holiday.

The Biden administration received the video Monday – two days before Hamas made it public – and officials have since been in contact with Goldberg-Polin’s family, according to a US official. The FBI’s Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell is running point on examining the video for any potential evidence and information that can be gleaned about Goldberg-Polin and his captivity, the official said.

Goldberg-Polin is among the most recognizable of the 129 hostages who remain in Gaza. Banners and murals are displayed in Jerusalem, saying: “Bring Hersh Home,” and his parents Rachel and Jonathan regularly meet top US officials in Washington to press the case of the hostages.

Of the 129 October 7 hostages still being held in Gaza, the Israeli government believes 33 are dead.

Following the release of the video, the Goldberg-Polin family demanded immediate action to release their son and the other hostages still held in Gaza.

“Seeing the video of Hersh today is overwhelming. We are relieved to see him alive, but we are also concerned about his health and wellbeing as well as that of all the other hostages and all of those suffering in this region,” his parents Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin said in a video statement.

The Goldberg-Polin family has called on the negotiating parties, including Qatar, Egypt, the United States, Hamas, and Israel, to intensify efforts and strike a deal that would reunite families and end their suffering.

They also sent a personal message to their son, “Hersh, we heard your voice today for the first time in 201 days. If you can hear us, know that we love you. Stay strong, survive.”

The hostage video released Wednesday of Goldberg-Polin was the first proof he had survived his injuries sustained on October 7. Previous footage, taken on the day of that attack, shows Hamas fighters leading him away from the bomb shelter with part of his arm missing.

Days earlier, an Israeli soldier at the site of the Nova music festival had shown Cooper a video of Hamas fighters lobbing grenades into a bomb shelter. The video also showed a young Israeli man – with his hand blown off and bone protruding from his wrist – being marched out of the shelter and thrown along with four others into the back of a truck. Cooper realized this was Rachel and John’s son.

Not wanting to spring the news on them on live TV, Cooper contacted them after the interview and asked if they wanted to see the video. They later confirmed the man in the video was their son and asked that the video be shared more widely.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin was told by eyewitnesses that as many as 29 people had huddled together in the shelter before Hamas began to throw grenades inside. Eight people survived by hiding under the bodies of the dead, while her son was one of several hostages taken.

Hersh, who is left-handed, was set to go on a round-the-world trip he had planned. On December 27, when he had been scheduled to leave, his mother went to the airport with friends and handed stickers of Hersh to passengers on his flight, asking them to send photos from places they visit.

After years of delays and a dizzying array of setbacks during test flights, Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft is finally set to make its inaugural crewed launch.

The mission is on track to take off from Florida as soon as May 6, carrying NASA astronauts Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore to the International Space Station, marking what could be a historic and long-awaited victory for the beleaguered Starliner program.

“Design and development is hard — particularly with a human space vehicle,” said Mark Nappi, vice president and Starliner program manager at Boeing, during a Thursday news briefing. “There’s a number of things that were surprises along the way that we had to overcome. … It certainly made the team very, very strong. I’m very proud of how they’ve overcome every single issue that we’ve encountered and gotten us to this point.”

Boeing and NASA officials made the decision Thursday to move forward with the launch attempt in less two weeks. However, Ken Bowersox, associate administrator for NASA’s Space Operations Mission Directorate, noted that May 6 is “not a magical date.”

“We’ll launch when we’re ready,” he said.

If successful, the Starliner will join SpaceX’s Crew Dragon spacecraft in making routine trips to the space station, keeping the orbiting outpost fully staffed with astronauts from NASA and its partner space agencies.

Such a scenario — with both Crew Dragon and Starliner flying regularly — is one for which the US space agency has long waited.

“This is history in the making,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said of the upcoming Starliner mission during a March 22 news conference. “We’re now in the golden era of space exploration.”

SpaceX and Boeing developed their respective vehicles under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, a partnership with private industry contractors. From the outset, the space agency aimed to have both companies operating at once. The Crew Dragon and Starliner spacecraft would each serve as a backup to the other, giving astronauts the option to keep flying, even if technical issues or other setbacks grounded one spacecraft.

NASA did not initially envision, however, that SpaceX’s Crew Dragon would operate on its own for nearly four years before Boeing’s Starliner reached its first crewed test flight.

In the earliest days of the program, which awarded SpaceX and Boeing contracts in 2014, NASA had favored Boeing — a close partner dating back to the mid-20th century — over SpaceX, which the federal agency saw as a relatively young and capricious upstart.

Boeing, SpaceX and NASA’s vision

As recently as 2016, NASA was planning its schedule with the view that the Starliner would beat the Crew Dragon to the launchpad.

But the race between Boeing and SpaceX took a clear turn by 2020. Missteps riddled a Starliner test flight the prior year, leaving NASA and Boeing officials scrambling to figure out what went wrong. The Starliner did not dock with the space station on that mission due to software problems, including an issue with the spacecraft’s internal clock, which was off by 11 hours.

Meanwhile, SpaceX made history in May 2020 with the launch of its Demo-2 test flight, carrying astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley on a two-month mission to the International Space Station.

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon has been flying routine trips ever since, carrying NASA astronauts and even paying customers and tourists. The spacecraft has now flown 13 crewed missions to orbit.

Boeing, however, has spent several years contending with a string of challenges, including a list of issues that were uncovered in 2022 during the spacecraft’s second uncrewed test flight. Boeing’s commercial airplane division also has faced a series of scandals — including the 737 Max crisis and the recent quality control issues highlighted after a door plug blew off during an Alaska Airlines flight in January — that have damaged the company’s brand.

NASA officials at one point in 2020 even admitted that they had turned more scrutiny toward SpaceX and its unorthodox ways, while issues with Boeing’s Starliner slipped through the cracks.

“Perhaps we didn’t have as many people embedded in that process as we should have,” Steve Stich, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager, said at a July 2020 news conference.

“When one provider (SpaceX) has a newer approach than another, it’s often natural for a human being to spend more time on that newer approach, and maybe we didn’t quite take the time we needed with (Boeing’s) more traditional approach.”

Starliner’s setbacks

Boeing’s space division operates separately from its commercial airline team, and officials at NASA and the US aerospace giant have routinely sought to make that distinction.

NASA officials have also made clear they are working more closely with Boeing than ever, with personnel on the ground at Boeing facilities overseeing some of the fixes the company has put in place ahead of the upcoming Starliner flight.

“This is an important capability for NASA. We signed up to go do this, and we’re gonna go do it and be successful at it,” Nappi said Thursday. “I don’t think of it in terms of what’s important for Boeing as much as I think of it as in terms of what’s important for this program.”

Still, Boeing and NASA have had a long list of issues to address.

During the last flight test in 2022, for example, engineers found that the suspension lines on the Starliner’s parachute had a lower threshold for failure than initially expected.

NASA and Boeing engineers tested a fix for that issue earlier this year, but parachutes will remain top of mind as they work through some last-minute checkouts before liftoff, Stich said Thursday.

Some tape that was also used to protect wiring harnesses was found to be flammable, and Boeing had to remove and replace about a mile’s worth of the material, according to Nappi.

Boeing may even need to implement a redesign of some of the spacecraft’s valves because of corrosion issues. That upgrade, however, is not expected to be in place until the second crewed flight, slated for 2025, at the earliest.

On May’s inaugural crewed flight, Boeing will instead use a “perfectly acceptable mitigation” that should prevent the valves from sticking, Nappi said in March.

Starliner and safety

Despite the long path to the launchpad, the two people at the center of the Starliner’s first crewed mission — Williams and Wilmore, two longtime NASA astronauts — said as they arrived at the launch site that they are as confident as ever.

“We want the general public to think it’s easy, but it’s not — it’s way hard,” Wilmore said after arriving at Starliner’s launch site in Florida on Thursday. “We wouldn’t be here if we weren’t ready. We are ready. The spacecraft’s ready, and the teams are ready.”

Wilmore mentioned at a March news conference that he is not expecting the Starliner spacecraft to enter any “failure modes.”

“But if something were to occur — because we’re all humans, we can’t build things perfectly — if something were to occur, we have several downgrade modes,” he said during the news conference, referring to modes that give the astronauts the ability to take more manual control over the spacecraft if something doesn’t go to plan.

Williams said during a March news event, “We wouldn’t be sitting here if we didn’t feel — and tell our families that we feel — confident in this spacecraft and our capabilities to control it.”

She added during the Thursday news briefing in Florida, “I have all the confidence in not only our capabilities and the spacecraft’s capabilities, but also our mission control team, who’s ready for the challenge.”

Authorities in Gaza have concluded their search of mass graves at a hospital in the south of the strip and said they have uncovered a total of 392 bodies, including some still wearing surgical gowns.

Speaking at a Thursday news conference, an official from the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza said workers have identified 165 bodies at the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, following the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the area earlier this month.

They are still examining the remaining 227 bodies to determine their identities, Mohammed Al Mighayyer said at the news conference in Rafah. “We found three mass graves, the first in front of the morgue, the second behind the morgue, and the third north of the dialysis building,” he added.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said any suggestion that it had buried Palestinian bodies in mass graves was false, and that a grave at the Nasser complex was dug by Palestinians in Gaza some months ago.

The Gaza Civil Defense acknowledged that around 100 bodies were buried in graves at the Nasser hospital before the IDF operation there.

Al Mighayyer said the Civil Defense “witnessed the presence of children’s bodies in the mass graves at the Nasser Medical Complex, which proves crimes of genocide.” While the group says it is still examining the bodies, they suspect at least 20 civilians were buried alive in the complex, but it did not explain how it knows this, or offer proof, while it continues to investigate.

Al Mighayyer also claimed there had been cases of executions of patients who had been receiving treatment at the hospital. He said several bodies were found with gunshot wounds to their heads and injuries to their bodies.

The man stared at his son’s lifeless body, pointing at him, and said, “that’s my son, I can tell from his blouse.” Footage shows him kneeling and holding his son’s head, inspecting it from the back and confirming once more that it’s his son. “Oh God, he’s dead. He’s dead,” he said, while wiping off his tears.

Israel’s Defense Forces (IDF) did not respond to specific questions about the allegations being made regarding the grave sites.

He added: “Any attempt to blame Israel for burying civilians in mass graves is categorically false and a mere example of a disinformation campaign aimed at delegitimizing Israel.”

The IDF has said it has removed dozens of bodies from Gaza for DNA tests in Israel, before returning the remains in containers.

The Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza called on the United Nations to form an international committee to investigate the mass graves at the Nasser complex.

Calls for an investigation

Asked about the mass graves at Nasser Hospital at a United Nations briefing in New York on Thursday, Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN Secretary General said the organization has called for an international investigation but said how that will take place is “unclear at this time”.

“Investigators wherever they come from would need to have access to Gaza which would require the permission of a number of countries including Israel,” he added.

Amnesty International has also called for an investigation into the mass graves at Nasser hospital and another hospital in Gaza, the Al-Shifa medical complex, saying there was an “urgent need to grant access to independent human rights investigators.”

“Mass grave sites are potential crime scenes offering vital and time-sensitive forensic evidence; they must be protected until professional forensic experts with the necessary skills and resources can safely carry out adequate exhumations and accurate identification of remains,” it added.

It added: “During the IDF’s operation in the area of Nasser Hospital, in accordance to the effort to locate hostages and missing persons, corpses buried by Palestinians in the area of Nasser Hospital were examined. The examination was conducted in a careful manner and exclusively in places where intelligence indicated the possible presence of hostages.”

The IDF continued: “At the end of February, IDF forces conducted a precise and targeted operation against the terrorist organization Hamas in the Nasser Hospital area. During the operation, about 200 terrorists who were in the hospital were apprehended, medicines intended for Israeli hostages were found undelivered and unused, and a great deal of ammunition was confiscated. The activity was done in a targeted manner and without harming the hospital, the patients and the medical staff.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Haiti’s Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced his resignation on Thursday, handing power over to a transitional council that will seek to gain control of the violence-ravaged nation.

Henry wrote in his resignation letter dated Wednesday that, “given the current state of affairs,” the time was right for him to step down. “We have served the nation in difficult times. I thank everyone who had the courage to face such challenges with me,” he said.

Haiti has been overrun by chaos and gang violence in recent weeks, with criminal groups attacking government structures and social order on the brink of collapse.

The Caribbean nation’s finance minister Michael Patrick Boisvert has been appointed as interim prime minister until a new government is formed, according to an X post from Henry’s office on Thursday.

“Haiti, our country, is at a crossroads in the search for solutions to overcome this multidimensional political crisis, that has lasted for so long, and the consequences of which are detrimental to the population, to property, and both public and private infrastructures,” Boisvert said at the swearing-in ceremony at the Prime Minister’s office, Villa d’Accueil.

A transitional council, composed of seven voting members and two non-voting observers, has been tasked with the responsibility of naming a new prime minister and cabinet. The committee will exercise certain presidential powers until a new president-elect is inaugurated, which must take place no later than February 7, 2026.

Henry announced in March his plans to step down once a decision on the country’s future leadership was made, and the transitional council was set up soon after.

The Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) welcomed the council’s formation in a statement earlier this month, hoping it would mark “a new beginning for Haiti.”

The United Nations Secretary General’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric also welcomed the news and called for the swift deployment of a multinational security mission to support Haiti’s police.

Since February, attacks by an insurgent alliance of gangs in the capital Port-au-Prince mean the city’s international airport and seaport have ceased to function, breaking vital supply lines of food and aid and triggering an exodus of evacuation flights for foreign nationals.

With the city virtually cut off from the outside world, hospitals have been vandalized while warehouses and containers storing food and essential supplies have been broken into as the social fabric frays.

According to the UN, nearly 5 million people in Haiti are suffering from acute food insecurity – defined as when a person’s inability to consume adequate food poses immediate danger to their lives or livelihoods.

The UN human rights office meanwhile described sexual violence in Haiti as “severely underreported and largely unpunished,” in a harrowing report that documented cases of rape and forced sexual relations with gang members, as well surging levels of gang violence in the country.

More than 100 prisoners have escaped from a medium security prison in Nigeria after heavy rainfall destroyed part of the facility, the Nigerian Correctional Service (NCS) said in a press release on Thursday.

A total of 118 inmates of the Medium Security Custodial Centres in Suleja, Niger state, fled the prison on Wednesday night, though 10 of the escaped inmates have been captured and taken into custody, the NCS said.

Parts of the prison facility, surrounding buildings and perimeter fence were destroyed by the rain, the NCS said, adding that much of the facility was “old and weak” and “built during the colonial era.”

“The Service wishes to assure the public that it is on top of the situation and that they should go about their businesses without fear or hindrance,” the NCS continued. “The public is further enjoined to look out for the fleeing inmates and report any suspicious movement to the nearest security agency.”

Recurring jailbreaks

Prison breaks are not uncommon in Nigeria which has witnessed a series of jailbreaks in recent years.

In 2022, more than 300 inmates broke free after Boko Haram militants raided a prison in Nigeria’s capital Abuja. Authorities said at the time that some operatives of the jihadist group who had been held in the prison escaped during the raid.

A year earlier, over 200 prisoners fled a prison in the neighboring Kogi State after gunmen invaded the correctional facility, killing a policeman.

Five months before the invasion, more than 2000 inmates escaped during a similar attack by armed men at another prison in the southeastern Imo State. The gunmen used explosives to blast parts of the prison, authorities said.

Flooding in Tanzania has killed 155 people and left at least 236 injured, the country’s Prime Minister Kassim Majaliwa said on Thursday.

More than 10,000 houses have been damaged and upwards of 200,000 people have been affected, Majaliwa told the Tanzanian parliament in the capital Dodoma.

The prime minister added that “the heavy El Nino rains, accompanied by strong winds and flooding and landslides in various parts of the country, have caused adverse effects.”

“These include deaths, damage to crops, homes property, infrastructure like roads, bridges and railways,” Majaliwa said.

The flooding has also affected Kenya, which shares a border with Tanzania in East Africa.

As of Tuesday, at least 32 people had died from the flooding in Kenya, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHR).

Kenya has registered heavy rain since mid-March but downpours have intensified over the past week, leading to mass flooding that has affected around 103,500 people.

The Kenyan Red Cross says it has carried out over 188 rescues since the onset in March. Some roads in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi were closed Wednesday and several neighborhoods remained submerged after another day of heavy rainfall. Kenya Railways also suspended commuter train services nationwide.