The teenager charged with the murder of three young girls in a July stabbing attack at a dance class in northwest England will face a terrorism charge, British prosecutors announced Tuesday.

The suspect Axel Rudakubana, who was 17 at the time of the attack but is now 18, will be charged with the production of the biological toxin ricin, and possession of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing to commit an act of terrorism, the United Kingdom’s Crown Prosecution Service said in a statement.

Rudakubana will appear at Westminster Magistrates Court via videolink on Wednesday, police added.

The new charges he faces in relation to the attack in the town of Southport, England, are in addition to three charges of murder, 10 charges of attempted murder and one charge of possession of a knife. A trial is expected to begin in January 2025.

Three young girls – Bebe King, 6, Elsie Dot Stancombe, 7, and 9-year-old Alice da Silva Aguiar – were stabbed to death while attending a Taylor Swift-themed class in Southport in July, in one of the worst assaults against children in the country in decades. Eight other children also suffered stab wounds in the attack.

The fresh charges came after local police conducted searches of the suspect’s home, Merseyside Chief Constable Chief Constable Serena Kennedy said on Tuesday.

“Searches of Axel Rudakubana’s home address resulted in an unknown substance being found – testing confirmed the substance was ricin,” Kennedy told reporters at a news conference.

“We have worked extensively with partners to establish that there was a low to very low risk to the public – and I want to make that reassurance clear today.”

She added: “When the ricin was discovered, all necessary steps were taken so we could be sure that no one was at risk. This was a multi-agency response. Expert advice, and guidance was received and adhered to throughout the investigation.”

Dr. Renu Bindra, a senior medical adviser at the UK Health Security Agency, told the news conference that the authority was brought in to conduct a public health risk assessment and that “there was no evidence that any victims, responders or members of the public were exposed to ricin either as part of the incident or afterwards.”

The risk assessment “judged that the risk to the community and to the wider public was low,” Bindra said.

The attack on July 29 has not been declared a terrorist incident, the police chief said.

“I recognise that the new charges may lead to speculation. The matter for which Axel Rudakubana has been charged with under the Terrorism Act does not require motive to be established. For a matter to be declared a terrorist incident, motivation would need to be established,” Kennedy explained.

In the days after the tragic incident, dozens of protests erupted in several locations around the country. Several of the demonstrations erupted into riots after an anti-immigrant misinformation campaign stoked outrage and far-right agitators targeted hotels housing asylum-seekers.

It was the worst disorder seen in the UK in more than a decade, with more than 1,000 people arrested and hundreds sentenced to jail.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Iran rushed to downplay the impact of Israel’s strikes on its territory this weekend, suggesting that it has taken an off-ramp to avoid a wider war, but the attack set a precedent the Islamic Republic has tried to avoid since its inception 40 years ago.

The adversaries had spent decades avoiding direct confrontation, instead choosing to exchange punches in a shadow war. Israel used clandestine operations to assassinate key Iranian figures and execute cyberattacks on vital facilities as Iran continued activating its Arab proxy militias to attack the Jewish state.

Saturday’s attack marked the first time Israel has acknowledged striking Iran, bringing the shadow war into the open and crossing a threshold that has led some in the Islamic Republic to question the country’s deterrence capabilities.

In April, after Iran attacked Israel in retaliation for what it said was an Israeli attack on its diplomatic building in the Syrian capital Damascus, US officials said Israel responded by attacking Iran just days later. Israel didn’t publicly acknowledge that attack.

The latest attack, however, was different. Israel openly said it conducted “precise strikes” on military targets in Iran.

“Israel now has broader aerial freedom of operation in Iran,” Israel’s military spokesman Daniel Hagari said, touting achievements in the attack.

Shortly after the assault, Iran’s state media published images showing everyday life continuing as usual in its cities. Schools continued operating and Tehran’s streets were shown gridlocked with traffic. Hardline commentators mocked the attack on television and social media memes poked fun at the limited nature of the Israeli response.

Internal debate emerging

In his first comments after the attack, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei opted to give a measured response, saying the strikes should “neither be exaggerated nor downplayed.”

But that initial wave of dismissal eventually dissipated, and an internal debate emerged over whether Iran should deliver a harsh response to prevent Israeli strikes from becoming normalized against a regime focused on its own survival.

“The sense is that if they do not respond they will normalize the idea that Israel can strike Tehran without getting a response,” Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft in Washington, DC said, adding that there is a “fear if they don’t do something now Israel will start treating Iran as they did with Syria which means every once in a while, (Israelis will) strike.”

Iranian officials say some military sites sustained “minor damage” that was “swiftly repaired.” Five people were killed, including four army personnel, the Iranian government said.

Experts however say that the damage was more significant than Tehran has acknowledged.

“This (attack) was much more damaging than Iranian officials have led on, Iran’s air defenses and some of the radars that are crucial to identifying incoming missiles, it seems that those were destroyed in the first wave,” Nicole Grajewski, a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Tehran spent years building regional proxies designed to serve as a security umbrella and the first line of defense against Israel. These militias, stationed at Israel’s borders, also acted as a deterrent, discouraging Israel from directly striking Iran. The idea was that if Israel were to strike Iran, Tehran would retaliate by unleashing its militias against Israel.

The longstanding balance of power prevented a regional war – until Iran-backed Hamas attacked Israel from Gaza last year, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages. That prompted a fierce Israeli onslaught that has destroyed the enclave and killed more than 42,000 Palestinians. The expansion of that conflict to southern Lebanon led to Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, Iran’s most formidable proxy, and decimated the organization’s commanding hierarchy.

The degrading of Iran’s strongest allied militias, Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as the weekend strikes on Iran, have fueled another internal debate in Iran: whether regional proxies are an effective deterrence.

“There are certainly voices within the political establishment who question the efficacy of the ‘forward defense’ doctrine, or the notion that Iran’s regional alliance network can provide a security umbrella. If that is changing, one natural aspect of the debate is what could take place to restore deterrence,” Mohammad Ali Shabani, the editor of Amwaj.media, a London-based news site focusing on Iran, Iraq and the Arabian Peninsula.

The nuclear option

Since the Trump administration abandoned the nuclear agreement with Tehran in 2018, to put curbs on its nuclear program, the Islamic Republic has been gradually ramping up enrichment of uranium, a key ingredient of a nuclear bomb if purified to a high level. Its stockpiles have reached 60% purity, a short step away from weapons-grade, which is 90%.

Iranian officials have repeatedly stated that they have no intention of weaponizing the country’s nuclear program, while simultaneously using its potential as leverage in negotiations with the West.

As Israel continues disintegrating Iran’s deterrence capability, the minority voices in the Islamic Republic favoring the weaponization of its nuclear program are becoming stronger, Parsi said. “The trajectory and momentum are with those who are saying if Iran actually had a nuclear deterrence this would not be happening.”

Experts cast doubt over Iran’s ability to quickly build a nuclear weapon even if it can purify uranium to weapons grade. The process to build and test an atomic bomb may take years, leaving Iran vulnerable to Israeli attacks on its nuclear facilities.

The nuclear bomb option is “much more public now” and has become “normalized in conversation,” but Israel has been able to derail Iran’s nuclear program in the past and may be able to do it again, Grajewski said.

Parsi said if the Israelis were to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, regardless of whether the Iranians can get a bomb quickly or not, Tehran will seek to build a nuclear weapon.

“Even the more hawkish American presidents have not favored taking military strikes because the most likely outcome is that, at some point, that will make Iran turn nuclear,” Parsi said.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed Tuesday it had taken the Ukrainian town of Selydove, southeast of the key city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.

Russian forces have been advancing on Selydove in the last several weeks, according to frontline reports. It’s part of Russia’s ongoing assault and incremental territorial gains in eastern Ukraine.

Selydove was an important staging area for Ukraine’s defenses and a key foothold to prevent Russia’s advance toward Pokrovsk.

Ukrainian authorities have not yet commented on Russia’s claims of control.

“[Russia] continues to assault with very large troop numbers. They used reserves from the north of the frontline’s Pokrovsk section to increase pressure on Selydove,” 15th brigade national guard spokesman Vitaliy Milovidov said.

“At the same time, the enemy is not destroying the city’s infrastructure,” he added. “Most likely, they want to keep the town as a foothold for themselves in the future. Selydove is a large town where you can accommodate a large number of people and hide equipment.”

Video released by Russian state media TASS on Tuesday reportedly shows troops raising the Russian flag in Selydove.

Russia also continued aerial assaults on Ukrainian cities overnight into Tuesday.

At least nine Ukrainian people were killed and 46 injured across the country as Russian forces attacked the cities of Kharkiv, Kryvyi Rih and the capital Kyiv. In the Odesa region, a 71-year-old man was killed by falling debris following an intercepted Russian missile strike launched by a fighter jet from the Black Sea.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, a Russian bomb destroyed much of the Derzhprom building, one of the most celebrated landmarks, which is considered a cultural monument due to its modernist architecture.

North Korean soldiers may be being readied for a move to the front lines of Russia’s war against Ukraine after being taught basic Russian commands, South Korean lawmakers told news agency Yonhap on Tuesday, citing the country’s intelligence officials.

About 10,000 North Korean soldiers are receiving military training in eastern Russia, the Pentagon estimated on Monday – up from a previous estimate of 3,000 by the White House.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) is now watching for the possibility of “some North Korean personnel, including high-ranking military officials, moving to the front lines,” said lawmakers Lee Seong-kweun and Park Sun-won, who were briefed by the NIS during a closed-door meeting of a parliamentary intelligence committee.

Russia is teaching North Korean soldiers about 100 basic military words like “fire” and “in position,” the lawmakers told Yonhap.

However, they added, it’s clear that North Korean soldiers are struggling to communicate – and it’s not clear whether they’ll be able to bridge the language gap.

North Korea has also stepped up its security measures – both to protect its dictator Kim Jong Un and to prevent news of the North Korean deployments to Russia from spreading within the highly isolated, impoverished country.

To this end, North Korean officers involved in the Russian effort are banned from using phones, while families of soldiers are told that their loved ones are simply participating in a “military exercise,” the lawmakers told Yonhap.

Despite these measures, word has spread within North Korea of deployments to Russia – sparking “unrest” in some parts of the country, the lawmakers said, according to Yonhap.

Some residents and soldiers have voiced fears of possibly being sent to Russia themselves, while others have questioned why they are being sacrificed for a different country, Yonhap reported.

Last week, Ukraine intercepted Russian transmission channels and released audio, with Russian soldiers heard talking disdainfully about the incoming North Korean soldiers, calling them the “K Battalion” and referring to them as “the f**king Chinese.”

The intercepts also reveal plans to have one interpreter and three senior officers for every 30 North Korean men, which the Russian soldiers are heard in the audio condemning.

“The only thing I don’t understand is that there [should be] three senior officers for 30 people. Where do we get them? We’ll have to pull them out,” one Russian serviceman says.

This could mark the first time North Korea makes a significant intervention in an international conflict. North Korea has one of the world’s largest militaries with 1.2 million soldiers, but most of its troops lack combat experience.

The Kremlin had initially dismissed allegations of North Korean troop deployments, but at the BRICS summit in Russia last week, President Vladimir Putin did not deny that Pyongyang had sent soldiers to the country.

North Korea said on Friday that any troop deployment to Russia to aid the war in Ukraine would conform with international law, state media reported, without explicitly confirming such presence. North Korea had previously dismissed such reports.

North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui is now in Russia for her second trip there in six weeks, having departed Pyongyang on Monday. She likely traveled to discuss potentially dispatching more North Korean troops – and what Pyongyang would receive in return, the lawmakers told Yonhap.

The news also comes as South Korea’s foreign and defense ministers head to Washington to speak with their counterparts, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, for an annual ministerial meeting.

A year after Shanghai’s boisterous Halloween celebrations made global headlines, revelers dressed as Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and comic book superheroes were escorted away by police as authorities appeared to crack down on the festivities.

Videos on social media showed a heavy police presence in three busy Shanghai bar and restaurant areas, where partygoers typically celebrate the annual tradition more closely associated with the United States, raising concerns about further narrowing of personal freedoms in China.

Crowd control fences had been erected to restrict pedestrian traffic in some streets, according to images on social media, and a park near another popular nightlife area where costumed partygoers had congregated on Saturday was also shuttered the next day.

The tight controls in China’s most cosmopolitan city follow last year’s at times raucous celebrations, when young people came out in force to celebrate the first Halloween since the lifting of China’s stringent Covid-19 restrictions. Many donned costumes offering social critique – a rare phenomenon in a country where dissent is not tolerated in any form.

It was not clear whether they were detained or merely escorted from the immediate area. The circumstances leading up to these interactions with law enforcement were also not clear. As of Tuesday, some videos were still circulating China’s heavily censored internet, while others seemed to have been taken down.

While some officially sanctioned Halloween celebrations, such as those at Shanghai Disney Resort and the Happy Valley amusement park, went ahead as scheduled, the apparent tamp-down on some public Halloween gatherings this year caught the attention of Chinese social media users, with one user on Weibo, China’s equivalent of X, noting that her social media feed felt particularly empty.

Backlash against Western influence

Like other places in Asia, such as Japan and South Korea, many young people in China treat Halloween as an occasion to dress up and meet their friends in venues that put on themed events.

But Chinese state media have warned in recent years against citizens being “overly passionate” about Western festivals – part of a broader, nationalistic backlash against perceived foreign influence.

Last weekend’s celebrations appeared to end early for one young man who donned a blond wig and a bandage on his right ear to imitate former US President Donald Trump, a now-deleted post on Chinese social media platform Douyin showed. Trump wore the bandage after a bullet skimmed his ear during an assassination attempt in July.

Superheroes Spiderman and Batman, as well as a man who donned a yellow robe with a beaded necklace in the image of the Buddha, were all escorted away by police, according to online videos.

In China, crowd control measures are not unusual in public, especially during holidays, but some online users openly wondered what it would mean for future Halloweens.

“(I guess) there will never be any Halloween celebration in Shanghai as innovative as the one in 2023. It will slowly lose its edginess and become harmonized,” a user wrote.

Party like it’s 2023?

Celebrations last year in Shanghai were marked by huge crowds and revelers using the holiday to take tongue-in-cheek swipes at China’s strict Covid lockdowns and lackluster economy.

Some dressed as university graduates who had failed to land a job, a reference to China’s sluggish economy and high youth unemployment rates. Others rocked up in hazmat suits in a sarcastic swipe at China’s stringent Covid control measures, which saw Shanghai locked down for roughly two months and sparked rare protests.

That rare public critique in a country of heavy censorship both in online debate, media and entertainment was largely unimpeded by police last year, who practiced crowd control but did not appear to be proactively stopping people in costumes, based on media reports.

The Shanghai municipal government even praised last year’s Halloween celebration as “a sign of cultural tolerance.”

“The recent Halloween celebration in Shanghai, with its unique blend of western traditions and Chinese creativity, offered a glimpse into the evolving cultural landscape of a vibrant city,” it said in a statement last year.

Alfred Wu, an associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore, said last year’s celebration happened during “a vacuum” when the Shanghai authorities were working to return to normal less than a year after the lifting of Covid lockdowns.

“This year authorities are much more prepared, and they do not agree with these kinds of activities,” he said.

A Russian guided bomb attack on Kharkiv on Monday shattered much of the Derzhprom building, one of the most celebrated landmarks in Ukraine’s second city, dating from the 1920s.

Six people were injured in the 9 p.m. local time (3 p.m. ET) strike, adding to 13 wounded in an earlier overnight bomb attack on the city.

In the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, a Russian missile struck a three-story residential building, killing one person and wounding at least 11.

President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced the strike on Kharkiv’s Derzhprom (State Industry) building, one of the most striking examples of Soviet-era constructivism architecture and dubbed the Soviet Union’s first skyscraper.

Writing on X, he also deplored the attack on Kryvyi Rih, his hometown, and called for renewed efforts to force Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin to halt the more than two-and-a-half-year-old war.

“Every handshake with war criminal Putin boosts his confidence. Every pleasant smile convinces him that he can get away with his crimes,” Zelensky wrote.

“Instead of cozying up to him, we must force him into peace through our collective decisiveness.”

Reuters news agency video showed parts of the Derzhprom building reduced to rubble and virtually all of its windows shattered.

“The occupiers have struck an iconic symbol of the city, known to all residents of Kharkiv,” Oleh Syniehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, wrote on Telegram. He said several floors had been destroyed.

The Derzhprom building, placed on the “tentative” list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites, was completed in 1928 when Kharkiv was the capital of Soviet Ukraine.

The evening attack also hit a medical facility. Earlier strikes damaged an apartment building and storage space.

Eight were hurt in the city of Chuhuiv just to the southeast, Syniehubov said, an attack prosecutors said involved a multi rocket-launch system was used in Chuhuiv.

A German-Iranian national and longtime US resident has been executed in Iran after being convicted of terrorism offences, according to Iranian state media citing the country’s judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency.

Jamshid Sharmahd, 69, was executed Monday morning for “planning and orchestrating a series of terrorist acts,” state-run IRNA and Press TV reported. His execution sparked condemnation from the United States and Germany.

Sharmahd’s daughter Gazelle has repeatedly said her father is innocent and that he faced a sham trial due to his political activism and criticism of the Islamic Republic.

Sharmahd was arrested in 2020 by Iranian authorities who claimed he headed a group accused of a deadly 2008 bombing in the city of Shiraz, according to state-run news agencies ISNA and IRNA.

He was sentenced to death in 2022 for “corruption on Earth”, sparking widespread condemnation from human rights groups and Western governments.

“He has been sentenced to death after a legal proceeding that has been widely criticized as a sham trial,” Vedant Patel, the US State Department’s principal deputy spokesperson said in a briefing last fall. Amnesty International also described the trial as “grossly unfair.”

Following the news of his execution, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said that Sharmahd’s “murder” showed Tehran to be an “inhumane regime” that “uses death as a weapon.”

Baerbock said the execution would have “serious consequences.”

The United States’ Office of the Special Envoy for Iran said it was looking into reports of Sharmahd’s execution and said his killing would “represent the latest abhorrent act in the regime’s long history of transnational repression and accelerating rate of executions.”

Sharmahd’s “kidnapping and rendition, as well as sham trial and reports of torture, were reprehensible,” the envoy’s office added.

Abram Paley, the US Deputy Special Envoy, last year met with Sharmahd’s family to discuss his imprisonment and death sentence.

Israel’s parliament has voted to ban a nearly eight-decade-old United Nations agency that provides essential services for Palestinian refugees, a move that could have devastating consequences for millions of Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.

On Monday, the Knesset passed two bills; one barring UNRWA from activity within Israel, and another banning Israeli authorities from any contact with UNRWA – revoking the 1967 treaty that allows UNRWA to provide services to Palestinian refugees in areas under Israel’s control.

The move is expected to severely restrict the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) from operating in territories Israel occupies.

Following the passing of the first law, Boaz Bismuth, a member of Likud, the architect of the bill, said: “Anyone that behaves like a terrorist has no rights in Israel…. UNRWA equals Hamas, period.”

Before the passing of the second law, another member, Yuli Edelstein, claimed the directive “does not in any way harm humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip” and insisted Israel was acting within the framework of international law.

The move went ahead despite heated opposition from Arab members of the Knesset and strong international pressure from Western nations. The first law was approved with 92 votes in favor, 10 against. The second was approved with 87 votes in favor, 9 against.

Several countries, including the United States, have expressed deep concerns about the controversial ban, which could impact the education, food, healthcare and livelihoods of millions of Palestinians who depend on the agency.

Prior to the vote, the US State Department had urged Israel not to pass the legislation, saying the agency plays “an irreplaceable role right now in Gaza.” Secretary of State Antony Blinken has previously warned Israel that passing the legislation could “have implications under US law and US policy.”

Israel has long sought to dismantle the UN body, arguing that some of its employees are affiliated with Hamas, and that its schools teach hate against Israel. UNRWA has repeatedly denied these accusations, saying there is “absolutely no ground for a blanket description of ‘the institution as a whole’ being ‘totally infiltrated.’”

Here’s what we know about UNRWA, and the implications of the Israeli ban.

What is UNRWA and what does it do?

UNRWA was founded by the United Nations a year after the 1948 creation of Israel that led to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in an event known by Palestinians as the “Nakba” (catastrophe).

The agency, which began by assisting about 750,000 Palestinian refugees in 1950, now serves some 5.9 million across the Middle East, many of whom live in refugee camps in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

In the Gaza Strip, which has been ravaged by a devastating Israeli war for more than a year, UNRWA serves some 1.7 million Palestinian refugees. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it assists around 871,500 refugees.

The agency provides a wide range of aid and services to Palestinian refugees and their descendants, including shelter, healthcare, food and education. It is also a major source of employment for the refugees, who make up most of its more than 30,000 employees across the Middle East, and has representative offices in New York, Geneva and Brussels.

More than 13,000 of its employees are stationed in Gaza alone. In the West Bank and East Jerusalem, it employs nearly 4,000 workers.

UNRWA is unique in that it is the only UN agency dedicated to a specific group of refugees in specific areas. While its purpose is to support Palestinian refugees, UNRWA does not have a mandate to resettle them

The UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) is the body that is tasked with resettlement of refugees, but its mandate does not extend to areas UNRWA operates in.

Why does Israel want to ban UNRWA?

Israel has long opposed the agency and sought to dismantle it even before October 7 last year, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 hostages. Israeli officials have rejected UNRWA’s definition of which Palestinians are eligible for refugee status, arguing that descendants of the 1948 refugees do not qualify and thus don’t have the right to return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel.

An Israeli member of parliament behind the bills accused UNRWA on Sunday of “educating kids to hate Israel and spreading antisemitism.”

But since the war started, Israel has launched an intense campaign to delegitimize the UN body, including accusing some of UNRWA’s employees of association with Hamas’ attack, alleging they took part in varying capacities.

UNRWA strongly denied the allegations, but several governments, including the US, suspended funding for the agency earlier this year while the allegations were being investigated. In January, the agency terminated the contracts of those Israel named and launched an investigation into its claims. Most nations have since restored funding with the exception of the US, its biggest donor.

UNRWA said that that as of October 20 of this year, 233 of its workers were killed. And last month, the agency said that an UNRWA staffer “was shot and killed on the roof of his home by a sniper during an overnight Israeli military operation” in El Far’a Camp in the occupied West Bank, marking the first time a member of the UN agency was killed in the West Bank in more than 10 years, UNRWA said.

What would the impact of UNRWA’s banning be?

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said earlier this month that “in midst of all the upheaval, UNRWA – more than ever – is indispensable… is irreplaceable.”

The UN chief said he sent a letter to Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, telling him that the proposed bill would “suffocate efforts to ease human suffering and tensions in Gaza, and indeed, the entire Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

“It would be a catastrophe,” Guterres said, “in what is already an unmitigated disaster.”

But his calls appear to have fallen on deaf ears. The UN chief has been declared persona-non-grata, or an unwanted person, by Israel, whose officials have repeatedly accused Guterres of being sympathetic to Israel’s adversaries.

UNRWA is the primary humanitarian aid group in Gaza. Nearly 2 million Gazans rely on the agency for aid, with 1 million people using UNRWA shelters for food and healthcare in the enclave. The agency has provided Gazans with everything from food and healthcare to education and psychological support for decades.

Along with the Palestinian Red Crescent, UNRWA handles almost all distribution of UN aid coming into the territory. The agency has 11 food distribution centers for 1 million people in Gaza, more than half of whom UNRWA assesses to live below the abject poverty line of US$ 1.74 per person per day.

The agency has also helped implement an emergency polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, alongside other UN bodies, in a bid to stop the infectious virus that can cause paralysis from spreading. Last week, the third phase of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza was postponed due to escalating violence in north Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

In the West Bank, UNRWA provides services for 19 refugee camps, more than 90 schools and a number of health services, including prenatal care. It distributes basic food supplies, loans, as well as emergency cash grants and shelter, according to the agency’s website.

It is unclear who would assume assistance for the millions of Palestinian refugees who rely on UNRWA, if it wasn’t able to. Israel has previously tried to dismantle the agency and called for the merging of its responsibilities with the UNHCR.

Aida Touma-Suleiman, an Israeli-Arab politician and member of the Arab-majority Hadash party, said the “bills stem from a long time ambition of the Israeli right – to strip Palestinian refugees from their status.”

“Israel is in effect creating new refugees every day while questioning the legitimacy of that very status,” Touma-Suleiman said on X.

What is the international community saying?

On Monday, foreign ministers of seven countries – Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea and the United Kingdom – called on Israel to halt the legislation, expressing “grave concern” over its implications.

“UNRWA provides essential and life-saving humanitarian aid and basic services to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, East Jerusalem, the West Bank and throughout the region,” the foreign ministers said in a joint statement.

Despite its suspension of funding to UNRWA, the US has also opposed the ban. In a letter sent to two senior members of the Israeli government earlier this month, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the Biden administration was “deeply concerned” about it.

Georgia’s President Salome Zourabichvili has called on citizens to protest the results of a disputed election in an attempt to save the country’s “European future.”

Tens of thousands of Georgians massed outside the parliament on Monday night, calling for the annulment of Saturday’s parliamentary election that the opposition has said was rigged with Russia’s blessing.

Speaking soon after addressing crowds in the capital, Tbilisi, Zourabichvili said the protesters “are coming very peacefully to say, ‘We have voted, we want our votes to be defended, and we want our European future … to be defended.’”

The Russia-friendly Georgian Dream party, founded by the reclusive billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili, claimed victory after a day of voting marred by violence and disorder at polling stations across the country. The Central Election Commission (CEC) said it had secured nearly 54% of the vote.

Asked why she is refusing to recognize the results of the election, Zourabichvili said Georgian Dream had used “all the instruments” at its disposal to rig the election and called for an international investigation.

“We encourage Georgia’s governing officials to consider the relationship they want with the Euro-Atlantic community, rather than strengthening policies that are praised by authoritarians,” said State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller.

Zourabichvili said the election results were difficult to believe because actions taken this year by Georgian Dream have stalled the country’s bid to join the European Union, which polls suggest more than 80% of Georgians support.

“Every move the Georgian government has made this year is clearly designed … to make sure that we don’t get the approval of the European leaders,” Zourabichvili said.

In May, the government passed a “foreign agent” bill, referred to by Georgians as the “Russian law” because of its similarities to legislation passed by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Critics say the bill, which requires organizations receiving more than 20% of their funding from abroad to register as a “foreign agent,” is designed to shut down watchdogs who call the government to account.

European leaders criticized the bill and have since frozen Georgia’s accession process, just months after it was offered EU candidate status.

Zourabichvili disagreed. “The Europeans have clearly said to the Georgian authorities … that you cannot pretend that you will join the EU (while) doing what you are doing,” she said.

During the election campaign, Ivanishvili – who made his fortune in the years after the collapse of the Soviet Union – threatened to imprison his political rivals and ban the main opposition party, the United National Movement (UNM), if Georgian Dream won another term.

The UNM was founded by former President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has been jailed since 2021 for abuse of power while in office.

Asked if she feared similar political retribution, Zourabichvili said she is more worried about the fate of Georgia and what will happen “if things are in the hands of the Georgian Dream.”

“My personal future in that is not as important as the future of Georgia,” she said.

A sense of urgency has been growing after the role of women emerged as a dominant theme when Catholics from across the globe were canvassed for their views ahead of a meeting of bishops and lay people – a synod – which formally concluded Sunday.

The final Synod assembly document, approved by Pope Francis, said women must be given all the opportunities that church law provides to act as leaders, but left the possibility of ordaining women as deacons as an “open” question which needs further reflection.

Frustrations about the slow pace of reform bubbled into the open during the assembly when the pope’s doctrine adviser ruled out ordaining women as deacons and then failed to turn up to a meeting on the topic. He later apologized and held a 90-minute meeting with members of the assembly.

Some are unimpressed by what they see as the Vatican kicking the topic of deacons into the long grass.

Phyllis Zagano, a research professor at Hofstra University in New York and expert on female deacons, said that “there is abundant evidence of the sacramental ordinations of women as deacons in the Church, East and West, to the 12th century” and that “eventually a decision must be made.”

Francis has also faced criticism recently for expressing what one Belgian Catholic university denounced as “reductive” views on the role of women in the church. In an interview earlier this year, he ruled out the possibility of ordaining women deacons, who can carry out functions like a priest apart from saying Mass and hearing confessions.

The problem in the church is exacerbated given women make up a majority of churchgoers while an all-male hierarchy controls decision making. Furthermore, Catholic teaching bars women from ordination to the priesthood, a decision that Francis has maintained, although he has allowed studies of female deacons.

During previous papacies the question of ordaining women was not even up for discussion. The big difference now is that the 87-year-old Argentinian pontiff has shown he is willing to listen carefully to the voices of Catholics.

During his pontificate, Francis has also been trying to make cracks in the Vatican’s glass ceiling. He has chosen women to senior positions in the church’s central administration, including a religious sister to help run the synod and the first women members to sit on the board of a powerful Vatican department that decides on bishop appointments.

For the first time, women were also included as voting members, with 54 female voters among more around 360 delegates. One of those was Julia Oseka, 23, who is studying theology and physics at St Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and is the youngest woman ever to be a voting member of a Vatican synod.

Oseka added that while she sometimes felt “frustrated” about the “slow pace” of decisions, some parts of the church “struggle” when it comes to the inclusion of women, and it was important to maintain unity.

Francis’ approach is also informed by the resistance to any reform to women’s roles: The declaration from the Vatican assembly on women received 97 “no” votes, the most of any section in the final document.

She said the pope had recognized that the question of female deacons cannot be “closed” and that it was important for the Catholic Church to send a message to the world where there is rising discrimination and violence against women.  “If we don’t take a strong stand, it’s contradicting our own message,” she said.

Nevertheless, for a church which thinks in centuries what may seem like small steps to those on the outside are major leaps forward for many inside.