Venezuela is battling a record number of wildfires, according to data released on Monday, as a climate change-driven drought plagues the Amazon rainforest region.

Satellites registered more than 30,200 fire points in Venezuela from January to March, the highest level for that period since records started in 1999, according to Brazil’s Inpe research agency, which monitors all of South America.

That includes fires in the Amazon, as well as the country’s other forests and grasslands.

Man-made fires that are often set to clear land for agriculture are spreading out of control thanks to high temperatures and low rainfall in northern South America, as well as a lack of prevention planning, researchers say.

Scientists blame the drought on climate change and El Niño, a natural warming in the eastern Pacific that roils global weather patterns.

While the rainy season has brought relief in recent months further south in Brazil’s Amazon, the fires in Venezuela could be a worrying sign for what’s ahead once the dry season arrives there, said Manoela Machado, a fire researcher at University of Oxford.

“Everything is indicating we’re going to see other events of catastrophic fires — megafires that are huge in size and height,” Machado said.

The region’s most intense fires typically occur in Brazil in August and September along the southeastern edge of the Amazon, where deforestation for agriculture is most aggressive.

In Venezuela, roughly 400 firefighters fought a major blaze over the Easter holiday weekend that is threatening the lush Henri Pittier National Park, a beachfront preserve with rare cloud forests, according to the national park service.

“I am shocked, if not to say alarmed, by this fire,” said Carlos Carruido Perez, who lives nearby. “I had never seen a fire of this magnitude and this damage to the environment.”

Venezuela’s environment ministry said last month it had launched a coordinated effort with helicopters and additional equipment to fight the fires in Henri Pittier.

The ministry said last week it was mounting further firefighting efforts along a highway that cuts through the park.

In Venezuela’s Amazon region further south, there are 5,690 active fires as of late March, according to NASA data. That accounts for more than half of all the blazes burning in the entire Amazon across nine countries.

The fires are blanketing with smoke Guayana City, Venezuela’s largest urban center in the Amazon, according to a Reuters witness.

In the nearby town of Uverito, authorities evacuated 315 families from their homes due to the threat of fire, local media reported.

Some 360 square kilometers have burned in Uverito, an area six times the size of Manhattan, according to Jose Rafael Lozada, a forestry engineer and retired professor at Universidad de Los Andes in Merida, Venezuela.

Miracle-working firefighters

The same hotter, drier weather helping to feed fires in Venezuela is driving fires across the border in Brazil’s Roraima state, which are threatening indigenous reserves there.

Venezuela and Roraima have seen only 10% to 25% of their normal rainfall levels in the last 30 to 90 days, said Michael Coe, director of the tropics program at the US-based Woodwell Climate Research Center.

The region is in a vicious cycle in which climate change contributes to dry and hot conditions that worsen fires, with those fires in turn releasing greenhouse gasses that further drive climate change, Lozada said.

Fires generally do not occur naturally in the wet rainforest. Humans set the vast majority of fires to clear forest for farms and ranches, a long-held practice, he said.

“People burn the same, but the drought is more extreme. The vegetation is drier, the rains are scarce and we see the consequences: a small burn turns into a fire of great magnitude,” Lozada added.

The Amazon drought has upended life in the world’s largest rainforest since last year as it pushed river levels to record lows, killed endangered dolphins and disrupted boats carrying food and medicine to dozens of cities.

Despite a wealth of information tracking fires and flagging the climate risks that lie ahead, governments throughout the region are still failing to mount a robust response to prevent and combat the fires, Oxford’s Machado said.

Governments should ban setting fires during dry periods, mount faster targeted response to stop fires before they get out of control and hire firefighters year-round instead of temporarily, she said.

In Venezuela, Lozada, firefighters and other experts said the government response was lacking.

Venezuela’s information ministry and parks service did not respond to requests for comment.

“The forest is unprotected due to a lack of equipment to fight forest fires,” said William Lopez, a union leader with the state-owned forestry company Maderas del Orinoco.
“Firefighters have to work miracles to be able to fight fires without equipment.”

Foreign nationals were among seven aid workers killed in an Israeli military strike as they were delivering food to starving civilians in Gaza, according to non-profit group World Central Kitchen and authorities in the besieged enclave.

World Central Kitchen said its aid workers were traveling in a “deconflicted zone” in two armored cars branded with the charity’s logo as well as “a soft skin vehicle.”

“Despite coordinating movements with the IDF, the convoy was hit as it was leaving the Deir al-Balah warehouse, where the team had unloaded more than 100 tons of humanitarian food aid brought to Gaza on the maritime route,” the group said in a statement.

Those killed include a dual US-Canada national, as well as people from Australia, Poland, the United Kingdom, and a Palestinian, the group said.

“I am heartbroken and appalled that we – World Central Kitchen and the world – lost beautiful lives today because of a targeted attack by the IDF,” World Central Kitchen CEO Erin Gore said in the statement.

“The love they had for feeding people, the determination they embodied to show that humanity rises above all, and the impact they made in countless lives will forever be remembered and cherished,” Gore added.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it is “conducting a thorough review at the highest levels to understand the circumstances of this tragic incident.”

IDF spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Tuesday that he had spoken to World Central Kitchen founder Jose Andres to express “the deepest condolences of the Israel Defense Forces to the families and the entire World Central Kitchen family.”

World Central Kitchen said it was pausing its operations following the deadly strike and assessing the future of its operations in Gaza.

The Washington headquartered charity provides meals to disaster-struck regions and communities around the world. It is one of the few aid organizations delivering desperately needed food in Gaza where 2.2 million people do not have enough to eat, and where aid agencies warn half of the population is on the brink of starvation and famine due to Israel’s throttling of aid and widespread destruction.

“Today @WCKitchen lost several of our sisters and brothers in an IDF air strike in Gaza,” Andres, the charity’s founder, wrote on X. “I am heartbroken and grieving for their families and friends and our whole WCK family.”

“The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon,” he added.

“These are people…angels…I served alongside in Ukraine, Gaza, Turkey, Morocco, Bahamas, Indonesia. They are not faceless…they are not nameless.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese identified the Australian victim as Lalzawmi “Zomi” Frankcom.

“This is someone who volunteered in Australia to help people during the bushfires. This is someone who was volunteering overseas to provide aid through this charity for people who are suffering tremendous deprivation in Gaza,” Albanese said.

“Australia expects full accountability for the deaths of aid workers, which is completely unacceptable.”

He said the Australian government has already contacted the Israeli government directly, and that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade had requested a “call-in” from the Israeli ambassador to Australia.

Polish authorities confirmed that one of its nationals, Damian Sobol from the town of Przemysl, was killed as well.

Radoslaw Sikorski, Poland’s foreign minister, said he personally asked Israel’s envoy to the country to deliver an “urgent” explanation. Sikorski said he was assured “that Poland would soon receive the results of the investigation into this tragedy.”

Saif Issam Abu-Taha, a Palestinian driver and translator working with World Central Kitchen, was named as one of the victims by Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Gaza.

Hamas condemned the attack in a statement on Tuesday, urging the international community and the United Nations to “take action.”

“This crime once again confirms that the occupation continues its policy of deliberate killing of innocent civilians, international relief teams, and humanitarian organizations, in its efforts to terrorize those working in them and prevent them from carrying out their humanitarian duties,” it said in the statement.

US National Security Council spokeswoman Adrienne Watson said on X that the White House was “heartbroken and deeply troubled” by the killings. Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said Beijing was “shocked” by the attack.

Other charities were quick to mourn the losses and praise World Central Kitchen’s commitment to helping those in need in the face of danger.

Matthew Hollingworth, the World Food Programme’s Palestine director praised the “life-saving work” of those killed, while Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary General Jan Egeland called for an immediate ceasefire.

“Nowhere else are so many aid workers killed,” Egeland said.

Aid workers under attack

World Central Kitchen was “an NGO that that the IDF worked very closely with, because part of what World Central Kitchen did was to bring food to Gaza through the sea,” Ravid said.

“The IDF wanted to show that by working with this organization, it is addressing the food shortages in Gaza,” he added. “And now a few days later, the IDF allegedly hits … aid workers from this organization.”

Ravid pointed out that this isn’t the first time aid workers have allegedly come under fire by Israeli forces. The vast majority of aid workers who have been killed have been Palestinians and their families.

Since the latest war began following Hamas’ October 7 murder and kidnap rampage through southern Israel, at least 165 workers with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) have been killed, the agency said last month.

The World Central Kitchen has made headlines in recent years for coordinating food relief for thousands of people after an earthquake devastated Haiti, Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, wildfires scorched Southern California, and a refugee crisis intensified on the Venezuelan border.

In March, the non-profit led an initiative to ship 200 tons of food aid to Gaza – which it said was the first maritime shipment of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian enclave.

The shipment included enough ingredients for 500,000 meals that World Central Kitchen planned to distribute in the strip, where hundreds of thousands people are on the brink of famine.

This is a developing story and has been updated.

A child has died and two others have been seriously injured in a school shooting in Finland, according to the country’s national police.

The victims were 12 years old. A suspect, also aged 12 and a student at the same school, fled on foot but was later caught by police in a suburb north of the Finnish capital Helsinki, according the country’s public broadcaster, YLE.

Officers were called to Viertola school in the city of Vantaa at around 9 a.m. local time (2 a.m. ET) Tuesday, YLE said.

The handgun used in the shooting was licensed to a close relative of the shooter, YLE reported, adding that police said they have no details about the motive. The suspect has been charged with murder and attempted murder.

Pupils were kept inside their classrooms after the shooting and authorities urged people to avoid the school and remain indoors.

Viertola primary school lies about 18 kilometers (11 miles) north of Helsinki. It has around 800 students between 1st and 9th grade and around 90 staff members.

Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said the shooting was “deeply shocking.”

“My thoughts are with the victims, their families and the other students and staff of the Viertola school,” Orpo wrote on X.

Finland enjoys a strong tradition of hunting and its gun ownership rates are among the highest in the world, but school shootings are extremely rare.

In 2007, Pekka-Eric Auvinen, an 18-year-old schoolboy, opened fire at his high school in the southern Finnish town of Tuusula, killing eight people and wounding 10 others before turning the gun on himself. He had left a suicide note saying goodbye to his family.

In 2008, just months after the Tuusula shooting, Matti Juhani Saari, 22, opened fire at another school in the country, killing 10 before also shooting himself.

After the shootings, the Finnish government issued new guidelines on the use of firearms, particularly handguns and revolvers.

As scientists scramble to understand why the world’s oceans are in their second year of record-breaking heat, one of the most important programs to gather ocean data in the US is in danger of going dark and cutting off research at a critical time for the planet.

Known as the “eyes” of the oceans off US coasts, the Integrated Ocean Observing System, or IOOS, is a little-known but vital program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It uses over 1,000 monitoring instruments to track currents, water temperature, oxygen levels, acidification, algae and more in the oceans and the Great Lakes, providing data to users inside and outside the federal government.

Its data is used in everything from hurricane forecasting and fisheries to Coast Guard search and rescue – IOOS data can help the Coast Guard narrow down a search area by two-thirds.

Despite President Joe Biden’s ambitious climate goals, his recent budget proposal would slash the program’s funding from $42.5 million to $10 million. That cut – more than 75% – is far steeper than cuts proposed during the Trump administration.

Unless Congress adds more money, that level of funding would devastate the program, researchers say; not only would new instruments not be added, but buoys that have been measuring data for years would literally get pulled out of the water.

“Essentially, we would have to go dark,” said Gerhard Kuska, a marine scientist who heads up the program’s mid-Atlantic region. “That means years of continuous data sets would be in jeopardy of stopping.”

Kuska said his reaction was “shock” when he heard how much Biden’s budget allotted for the program. In his first year in office, Biden’s budget proposed close to $70 million for IOOS.

“It is completely inconsistent with the priorities of this administration,” Kuska said. “These are the kinds of things in their ocean justice and climate policies. It seems very out of character; it seems very illogical and for us, indefensible, to pull the rug out from under us.”

Inexplicable ocean changes

Scientists who work with the IOOS program say it’s an especially critical time to maintain the instruments, which transmit data used to understand changing ocean conditions on short and long timescales.

Ocean data collection is “the only way we can really understand what is happening,” said Kristen Yarincik, executive director of the IOOS Association, the nonprofit that works with NOAA collecting data.

The data from IOOS instruments is also critical for hurricane forecasting and predicting how rapidly a storm could intensify.

“We always talk about the models; well, where do you think the data comes from?” said marine scientist Ellen Prager. “Those are ocean observations, and we improve those forecasts by having them.”

Tracking the impact of sea level rise

Another important function of the program is stationing low-cost flooding sensors in multiple communities around the country, helping them track water levels in real time.

IOOS has added 97 water level stations along the coasts of the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida in the last few years. That is triple the 32 sensors NOAA installed in the Southeast region as part of its National Water Level Observing Network – a sophisticated system that measures sea level rise.

The IOOS water level sensors are cheaper and more rudimentary than NOAA’s instruments, but that means they can be installed in more places, filling the gaps and giving more communities data on flooding in real time.

“We’re just getting to a lot more places,” said Debra Hernandez, executive director of the Southeast regional association running ocean observations.

The benefits to communities are vast, Hernandez said. The sensors can help police and emergency responders track the water’s rise and plan their response, alerting community members if they need to evacuate. They can also let people know when the water has receded and it’s safe to return home.

The sensors can also track just how high the water can get in some areas.

“It gives them a local reality check,” Hernandez said. “What we’re trying to do is to enable communities to tell their own stories, to have data that engineers and town officials can listen to. Sometimes an emotional plea doesn’t make your case as effectively as holding up a graph or chart, something with some scientific rigor.”

Hernandez is worried the water level sensors would be some of the first things to go if IOOS funding is slashed in the budget.

“We would not be able to maintain most of those systems,” Hernandez said. “At least half of the water level sensor network would be compromised with this funding cut.”

Iran has vowed to retaliate after it accused Israel of bombing its embassy complex in Syria on Monday, in a deadly escalation of regional tensions over the war in Gaza that once again appeared to raise the risk of a wider Middle Eastern conflict.

The airstrike destroyed the consulate building in the capital Damascus, killing at least seven officials including Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a top commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), and senior commander Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi, according to Iran’s Foreign Ministry.

Zahedi, a former commander of the IRGC’s ground forces, air force, and the deputy commander of its operations, is the most high-profile Iranian target killed since then-US President Donald Trump ordered the assassination of IRGC Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in 2020.

Iran and Syria accused Israel of authoring the attack, with Tehran warning of a “serious response,” and the powerful Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah saying the strike will be met with “punishment and revenge.” Iran also said it would hold the United States “answerable” due to its support of Israel.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Tuesday blamed Israel for the attack and said it will “not go unanswered,” state news agency IRNA reported.

Four unnamed Israeli officials acknowledged that Israel carried out the attack, the New York Times reported.

The US considers its own embassies and consulates abroad, as well as foreign countries’ embassies and consulates in the US to have a special status. According to the US State Department, “an attack on an embassy is considered an attack on the country it represents.”

Significant attack

Israel has intensified its military campaign against Iran and its regional proxies following the October 7 attack on Israel by Tehran-backed Palestinian group Hamas, which killed about 1,200 people and saw more than 200 taken hostage.

Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza has killed more than 32,800 people, according to the Ministry of Health in the besieged enclave, wrought widespread destruction and brought more than 1 million people to the brink of a man-made famine.

While Israel has long targeted Iran and its proxies in Syria, its latest apparent attack in Damascus is a significant escalation due to both the location and the target. The consulate building, which includes the ambassador’s residence and is located next to the Iranian Embassy, is considered sovereign Iranian territory.

“This is perhaps the first time that the Zionist regime allows itself to attack an official building of the Islamic Republic of Iran embassy, which had the flag of the Islamic Republic raised on top of it,” said Iran’s ambassador to Syria Hossein Akbari.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani warned that Tehran “preserves the right to take reciprocal measures and will decide the type of response and punishment against the aggressor.”

And the country’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian called the attack a “violation of all international obligations and conventions” that demanded a “serious response” from the international community.

Amir-Abdollahian also held the United States responsible given its support for Israel, underscoring the increasing strain between Tehran and Washington.

“The United States should be answerable,” Iran’s top diplomat said in a post on X.

Tehran summoned the Swiss chargé d’affaires in the early hours of Tuesday local time to discuss the incident, Amir-Abdollahian added. Switzerland represents US interests in Iran.

“The dimensions of the Israeli regime’s terrorist attack and crime were explained, and the American administration’s responsibility underlined,” Amir-Abdollahian said.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad meanwhile described the strike as a “gross violation of international regulations, especially the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”

Braced for escalation

Analysts say one of the most immediate fallouts of the consulate strike could be a rise in attacks by Iran’s proxies, particularly against US troops.

Since the outbreak of war in Gaza, Iran’s proxies have launched attacks on Israel and its allies, while demanding a ceasefire in the Palestinian enclave.

Iran-backed forces in Iraq and Syria have launched dozens of attacks aimed at US military positions in those countries — in January, three US troops were killed in a drone attack on a US outpost in Jordan, near the border with Syria.

In retaliation, the US carried out strikes on dozens of Iran-backed targets in Iraq and Syria.

Meanwhile, Houthi rebels have launched a series of attacks on commercial ships and Western military vessels in the Red Sea, a major artery for international trade.

“It’s very clear that these escalations by the Iraqi militias who are supported by Iran, no doubt, are coming as a response to what is happening in Gaza,” Parsi said.

Increasing pressure

As the Middle East braces for a potential Iranian response, Tehran is under pressure to show strength in the wake of the consulate attack while not drawing the region into a wider war.

Iran’s most powerful paramilitary ally, Hezbollah could be the most likely tool.

The Lebanese Shia militant group has been embroiled in daily crossfire with Israeli forces for nearly six months. It has walked a fine line between trying to limit its field of militant operations to the border area, while trying to enforce tit-for-tat rules of engagement.

Its involvement has also increased fears that Israel’s war in Gaza could spill over into a wider regional conflict.

Hezbollah on Tuesday warned that Israel would pay for the consulate attack and hailed Zahedi and others killed as “great martyrs.”

In a statement, the group said the assassination would not stop the “roaring tide of people’s resistance” and that the enemy would face “punishment and revenge.”

In Israel, Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu is also facing significant pressure domestically to secure the release of all the hostages taken captive during the October 7 terror attack.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem over the weekend in the largest protests the country has seen since the start of the war against Hamas, with banners calling on the prime minister to resign and for Israel to hold new elections.

However, Israeli military spokesman Hagari blamed Iran for escalating tensions in the region.

“[Iran] is the main actor that makes atrocities in this region using the proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen.”

When the total solar eclipse traces a path across Mexico, the United States and Canada on April 8, spectators can anticipate a multitude of awe-inspiring moments.

During a total solar eclipse, the moon completely blocks the face of the sun for a brief period known as totality — and 32 million people in the US who are located along the 115-mile-wide (185-kilometer-wide) path of totality for April’s event will have a chance to enjoy this full expression of the celestial spectacle.

It’s worth taking some time to stop and take in this historic celestial event because a total solar eclipse won’t be visible across the contiguous US again until August 2044 and an annular eclipse, in which the moon can’t completely block the sun, won’t appear across this part of the world again until 2046.

“Until you’ve actually seen (a total eclipse), it’s almost impossible to describe,” said Dr. John Mulchaey, Carnegie Institution for Science’s deputy for science and the director and Crawford H. Greenewalt Chair of the Carnegie Observatories. “When you see totality, you can see how it’s had such a huge impact on humans through thousands of years. It’s one of the most beautiful things most people will ever experience.”

But the phases surrounding totality — including a couple phenomena stunning enough to have earned their own names — are pretty memorable, too, eclipse experts say. Here’s what to look out for.

What to watch for during the eclipse

The moon doesn’t suddenly appear between Earth and the sun — the event begins with a partial eclipse, in which the moon appears to take a “bite” out of the sun. Depending on your location, the partial eclipse can last between 70 and 80 minutes, according to NASA.

For those living outside of the path of totality, a crescent-shaped partial eclipse, rather than a total eclipse, will be the main event.

Within the path, the partial eclipse is the longest phase, but as the time for totality nears, look for changes in the sky’s appearance.

“About 15 to 20 minutes before totality, the sky starts getting this really weird gloomy color,” Mulchaey said. “It’s almost like a gray because the sun’s way high in the sky, but it’s almost entirely blocked out. It’s not like twilight, sunset or sunrise when (the sun is) low in the sky. It’s above you. And all of a sudden, you’re losing most of the sun’s light, and it feels very weird.”

The eerily darkening sky is a cue for skywatchers that the stellar show is about to begin. Just make sure you have eclipse glasses handy to safely view the sun before the event gets underway.

Two breathtaking phases occur within the final moments before totality, Mulchaey said.

When the moon begins to cross in front of the sun, the star’s rays will shine around valleys on the moon’s horizon, creating glowing drops of light around the moon called Baily’s beads. The phenomenon was named for English astronomer Francis Baily, who noted them during an annular eclipse on May 15, 1836.

As totality nears, Baily’s beads will quickly disappear and make way for the “diamond ring,” a nickname for how it looks when a single point of light remains — like a glistening giant diamond ring.

Both of these phases last less than a minute, Mulchaey said.

Then, it’s time for totality.

Prepare for totality

The totality phase of the April 8 eclipse is expected to last twice as long as it did in 2017 because the moon is currently closer to the sun. Those squarely along the center line of the path will see a total eclipse that lasts between 3½ and 4 minutes, according to NASA.

“All of a sudden, totality happens, and the corona shows up,” Mulchaey said. “Even though it’s dark out, it’s somehow glorious.”

The corona is the sun’s ultrahot outer atmosphere, which emits a glow that can be seen around the moon during the eclipse. Typically, the corona is hard to see because the sun’s surface is so much brighter. During the total eclipse, the corona will resemble white streams of light, according to NASA.

During the 2017 eclipse, the sun was approaching solar minimum, or the quiet phase of our star’s 11-year activity cycle. Now, the sun is nearing solar maximum, when the sun is exceptionally active, Mulchaey said. The corona will likely appear brighter and fuller, and there may be a chance to spot flaring loops of solar activity resembling streamers within the corona during the eclipse.

Spectators may also be able to see a region of the solar atmosphere called the chromosphere, which will appear as a thin, pink circle around the moon.

Bright stars or planets like Venus may shine in the dark sky, and the air temperature will drop as the sun disappears. The sudden darkness also causes animals to behave in unusual ways.

“We may start to see nocturnal behavior, like crickets chirping or bats emerging, and animals stopping daytime behaviors, like birds going to roost or flying insects landing,” said Dr. Andrew Farnsworth, visiting scientist at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

After totality ends, the diamond ring and Baily’s beads will briefly reappear before the partial eclipse returns as the moon slowly moves across the sun.

Why we have eclipses on Earth

It has only been six years since a total eclipse crossed the US, the path of the April 8 eclipse is a very different one, trekking from west to east.

On average, an eclipse occurs in the same place every 375 years, Mulchaey said.

And we’re living at the right time to truly enjoy the sight of a total eclipse on Earth, he said.

While eclipses occur throughout the solar system, none of them are exactly like the ones experienced on our world.

The moon is about 400 times smaller than the sun, but the moon is also about 400 times closer to Earth than the sun is, creating a “beautiful coincidence” that results in eclipses when the three celestial bodies align, Mulchaey said.

This alignment is called syzygy, or when three objects line up in space.

In the distant past, the moon was much closer to Earth, which means totality likely didn’t appear as it does now. And within another 60 million years or so, the moon will be so far away that it will never cover the sun, making this a rare moment in time, Mulchaey said.

Top Iranian military commanders were among the seven Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) officials killed in an airstrike on the country’s consulate building in Damascus, Syria, according to Iranian officials and state-affiliated media, which blamed Israel for the attack.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry said that senior IRGC commander Mohammed Reza Zahedi was killed in the attack. Haji Rahimi was named as the second commander killed in the attack, according to the IRGC statement shared by state news agency IRNA later on Monday.

The IRGC statement named five other officials who were killed: Hossein Aman Elahi, Mehdi Jalalati, Mohsen Sedaghat, Ali Aghababaee, and Ali Salehi Roozbahani.

People gathered around the flattened building in Syria’s capital, according to photographs of the scene. Footage of the aftermath of the blast, published by Iranian state media Press TV, showed extensive damage, fire and smoke at the scene.

Speaking on camera to reporters in Damascus, Iranian ambassador Hossein Akbari alleged that the consulate building, located next to the Iranian embassy, “was targeted with six missiles from Israeli F-35 warplanes.”

In a separate interview, Akbari added that two Syrian policemen were also among the injured in the attack, which he said “is perhaps the first time that the Zionist regime allows itself to attack an official building of the Islamic Republic of Iran embassy, which had the flag of the Islamic Republic raised on top of it.”

When asked if Israel was involved in the attack, Hagari said, “I’m not going to comment on that strike but I want to tell you that in the last six months, Iran is making this region escalate. She’s the main actor.”

“[Iran] is the main actor that makes atrocities in this region using the proxies in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen,” Hagari said.

“Even this morning, an Iranian UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] has hit an Israeli base in Eilat,” Hagari claimed. “Iran is an actor that brings escalation.”

Four unnamed Israeli officials acknowledged that Israel carried out the attack in Damascus, the New York Times reported.

Warnings of ‘reciprocal measures’

Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Nasser Kanaani, warned of possible “reciprocal measures,” following the incident.

“Iran preserves the right to take reciprocal measures and will decide the type of response and punishment against the aggressor,” Kanaani said, according to IRGC-affiliated Fars News.

The foreign ministers of Iran and Syria also accused Israel of authoring the attack, with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian calling it a “violation of all international obligations and conventions” and demanding a “serious response” from the international community.

Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad described the strike as a “gross violation of international regulations, especially the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” according to a readout of his call with Amir-Abdollahian.

Zahedi, the slain commander, was previously the commander of IRGC’s ground forces, the commander of IRGC’s air force, and the deputy commander of the IRGC’s operations.

Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group issued a statement on Tuesday local time, accusing Israel of the strike, and warned that Israel would pay, vowing revenge.

United States State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US did not “have confirmation either of the target or the responsible party” at a briefing on Monday.

“Before we have gathered information about what exactly this was, I don’t want to speak to it specifically,” Miller added. “But of course, we’re always concerned about anything that would be escalatory or cause an increase in conflict in the region.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry “strongly condemned” the attack in a statement published on its website on Monday, saying “any attacks on diplomatic and consular facilities to be categorically unacceptable.”

It also called on “the Israeli leadership to abandon the practice of provocative military actions in Syria and other neighboring countries, which can lead to the extremely dangerous consequences throughout the region.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on Monday may be the most dangerous escalation outside of Gaza since the start of the Hamas-Israel war nearly six months ago.

Syria and Iran blamed Israel for the airstrike that destroyed a consular building, killing Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a top commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), and several other officials, including another senior commander Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi. Israeli officials have not commented on the incident.

The attack is the latest in a recent string of apparent Israeli strikes in Syria that targeted the IRGC and Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. So far, the attacks have not provoked a response outside the scope of months-long skirmishes on Israel’s border with Lebanon — despite repeated threats by Iran and Hezbollah’s leadership to respond to Israeli attacks in kind.

Monday’s incident, however, may be the last straw. Technically, Iran’s consulate is sovereign Iranian territory, making this the most overt attack on Iranian soil in years. And Zahedi is the most high-profile target since former US President Donald Trump ordered the killing of the IRGC’s storied general Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in January 2020.

“Events in Damascus today indicate that Israelis have (Iranian Supreme Leader) Ali Khamenei in a box,” wrote Mohammad Ali Shabani, Iran analyst and editor at the online magazine Amwaj.media, in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Iran’s supreme leader is being embarrassed before his own praetorian guard, and Quds Force will have increasingly hard time justifying Khamenei’s indecisiveness before Iran’s regional allies.”

It is difficult to envisage an Iranian response that does not involve its most powerful paramilitary ally, Hezbollah. The Lebanese Shia militant group has been embroiled in daily cross-fire with Israeli forces since October 8. For nearly six months, it has walked a fine line between trying to limit its field of militant operations to the border area, while trying to enforce tit-for-tat rules of engagement. This has become harder as Israel strikes targets much further afield than the border area with growing frequency (Israeli airstrikes hit a major city in eastern Lebanon last week).

Iran’s regional allies say they entered confrontations with Israel on behalf of Palestinians in Gaza, where over 32,000 people have been killed, according to local authorities. This has boosted their regional popularity and shored up their political positions domestically. But they have sought to avoid an all-out conflagration, a relief to Washington, which has thrown its weight into preventing a regional war.

That may be an untenable position after today’s strike, which has again brought the region to the brink of an expanded war.

A key Ukrainian defensive line on the eastern front appears to have partially fallen to Russian forces in the past week, according to a British defense intelligence statement and military bloggers quoting sources on the ground.

The United Kingdom’s defense intelligence agency on Saturday released an unusually negative assessment of Kyiv’s fortunes near the city of Avdiivka, which fell to Russian forces in mid-February. The UK statement, which was shared on X, said: “Russian forces have maintained a gradual advance West of Avdiivka. In late March 2024, they almost certainly took control of two villages – Tonenke and Orlivka – and are continuing to contest others in the area.”

The agency added that Russia had significantly more personnel and munitions in the area than Ukraine and was able to replenish their forces by 30,000 troops a month.

While the villages are not in themselves of strategic significance and struggled to hold a few hundred residents before the war, they formed part of the defensive line that Kyiv has fought bitterly to hold after their forced withdrawal from Avdiivka. Their apparent fall in just over a month after a prolonged and brutal Russian assault is indicative not only of Russian momentum, but also the fragility of Ukraine’s defensive lines.

The UK statement marks a particularly dire analysis of Ukraine’s fortunes, at a time when Kyiv’s prospects in the conflict are looking increasingly bleak.

The Ukrainian military is desperate for weapons and money, as some $60 billion worth of military aide has been held up in Washington by isolationist Republicans aligned with former US President and current frontrunner for the GOP nomination Donald Trump.

President Zelensky told the Washington Post on Friday that no US aid “means we will go back, retreat, step by step, in small steps.”

Kyiv’s soldiers on the front lines are in pressing need of ammunition to fend off Russia’s latest salvos. While the European Union has attempted to fill the void created by partisan bickering in Congress, the bloc must overcome its own internal disagreements on military aid to Kyiv.

Ukraine’s General Staff has not directly commented on the British assessment, but their Monday update discussed fighting for the village of Umanske, about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) to the west into Ukrainian territory from Tonenke.

Ukrainian journalist Yuriy Butusov posted on social media what he said was footage from a battle to the west of Tonenke.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a US think tank, reported Sunday that Russian forces had conducted a “large-mechanized assault” near Tonenke on Saturday, committing 36 tanks and 12 armoured personnel carriers. The ISW said the Ukrainian forces appeared to have repelled the Russian mechanized assault, an apparent reference to the Umanske attack.

Further indications of Ukraine’s worsening position came when both Ukrainian and Russian bloggers said Russian forces made significant progress towards Chasiv Yar, the main Ukrainian stronghold outside the city of Bakhmut, which Russia captured after a months-long and grueling battle in May last year.

Multiple Ukrainian military bloggers wrote Sunday about the tough fight for Chasiv Yar, with one, named Chameleon, warning the distance “to the enemy positions is about 650 meters (2,000 feet).” The same distance between forces was reported by pro-Russian blogger Operation Z.

Turkey’s local elections on Sunday marked a major defeat for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, as the main opposition party claimed victory in key cities including Istanbul and Ankara.

Turkey held nationwide elections on Sunday for city mayors, district mayors, and other local officials who will serve for the next five years. The setback for the ruling party came after Erdogan was re-elected as president in a knife-edge May election, defeating opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in a close runoff vote. After his presidential victory, Erdogan had his sights on reclaiming cities lost to the opposition in 2019.

Preliminary official results showed the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) had won 49 out of 81 municipalities including 14 out of 30 urban areas in the country, Turkey’s High Electoral Council said.

With 99.8% of the votes counted, unofficial results showed Erdogan’s chief political rival Ekrem Imamoglu of the CHP re-elected as mayor of Istanbul with 51.1% of the votes, according to state broadcaster TRT. Nationwide, the CHP won the most votes, with 37.7%.

In the capital, Ankara, CHP candidate and incumbent mayor Mansur Yavas secured 60.4% of the vote. In Izmir, the CHP’s Cemil Tugay won with 48.9% of the vote.

“The period of one-man rule is over today,” Imamoglu, the 53-year-old businessman-turned-politician told cheering crowds in Istanbul on Sunday night.

“As we celebrate our victory, we send a resounding message to the world: the decline of democracy ends now,” the Istanbul mayor wrote Monday on X. “Istanbul stands as a beacon of hope, a testament to the resilience of democratic values in the face of rising authoritarianism.”

For Erdogan, Istanbul is a strategic and personal crown jewel that he was determined to take back in Sunday’s election. The city was for 25 years run by religiously inclined parties – first by the Welfare Party, of which Erdogan was a member, and then by the AK Party – until the secular CHP won its mayorship in 2019 under Imamoglu.

The AK Party lost 10 Istanbul districts to rivals in the latest election. Beyoglu, the district of Istanbul where Erdogan was born, was lost to the CHP.

Erdogan was not a candidate in this election, but the vote was largely seen as a test of whether the AK Party could win back the cities it lost in the 2019 elections.

The 70-year-old leader conceded defeat on behalf of his party, saying he plans to respect the will of Turkish people.

“Unfortunately, we could not get the result we wanted and hoped for in the local election test,” Erdogan said in a speech delivered Monday at AK Party headquarters in Ankara. Regardless of the results, he added, “the winner of this election is primarily our democracy, the national will, and all 85 million people, regardless of their political views.”