For the first time since the Israeli military began ground operations in Gaza in October, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has sent out messages to people’s phones and on social media saying that the residents of some areas can return to their neighborhoods.

The IDF posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday that people who had been ordered to leave three neighborhoods of Deir Al Balah in central Gaza could go home.

One man, Abdulfattah Al Bourdaini, said: “We came home and found nothing, no power, no gas, no house, and we cannot change our clothes.”

All he had been able to salvage was a teddy bear for the son he hoped one day to have.

“I am penniless like the day I was born,” Al Bourdaini said. “I have nothing. I came to check on my house, didn’t find a house or anything, nothing is left… There is nothing left to cry about.”

He said he had come home with a key to his own, neighboring building – but had found no house for it. “Now we will bring a tent, that is if we find a tent, and put it next to our house,” he added.

Several people said they had been displaced from the neighborhood about 10 days ago, when the Israeli military posted on X and dropped leaflets telling people to evacuate the area for their own security. Many Gaza residents have been displaced multiple times since October, worsening the ongoing humanitarian crisis; experts also warn that evacuation orders have complicated aid efforts.

In its post on X on Thursday, the IDF said that “following the operations against terror organizations in the (Deir Al Balah) area, the IDF is enabling the return to these blocks which are part of the designated Humanitarian Area.”

On Friday, the IDF announced that people in three more blocks in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza could also return home, saying on X: “‎After the IDF’s activities against terrorist organizations in the area, you can return to these blocks. In the meantime, the humanitarian zone will be adapted and those areas will from now on be classified as part of the humanitarian zone.”

In a statement Friday detailing its operations in recent weeks, the Israeli military said “troops of the 98th Division have completed their divisional operation in the Khan Younis and Deir Al Balah area, after about a month of simultaneous above and underground operational activity.”

Israeli forces had “eliminated over 250 terrorists,” and destroyed terrorist infrastructure including six underground tunnel routes in the course of the operation, the statement said. “In some of the tunnel routes the troops eliminated terrorists and located terrorist hideouts and weapons.”

Abdul Raouf Radwan said that he and his family had moved into a tent closer to the coast to escape the bombardment. They had returned hoping to reoccupy their home, “hoping to find a life, find something, find a room to live in,” he said. “We found nothing but destruction. Our dreams were destroyed, our memories were destroyed… The house that our ancestors built was all gone.”

His brother, Muhammad Ramzi Radwan, said he had already lost a son as a result of the Israeli military’s operations. “A young man of 30, who built himself up from scratch, education, marriage, a son. All is gone, nothing is left.”

“My message is to stop the war,” Radwan said. “There is no time left to rebuild ourselves… We have endured this. This is beyond our capacity.”

Yamen al Tabi’s house was also destroyed. He said the family had left the neighborhood out of fear and returned to find their home completely ruined.

Raouf Ayesh said he and his children had taken refuge in tents. “And we said, ‘Oh God, let us return to our homes and find our belongings, our clothes, our winter clothes.” But they returned to nothing but debris.

Ayesh appeared to place some of the blame on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. “Let Sinwar be satisfied,” he said. “Can you hear? They ruined us. We were not like this.”

Hanan Al-Arabeed, a widow who had returned to her home with her children, found it in ruins. “Should I go to a tent I am now in the street, I have two disabled children. I did not take anything with me from my house, there is total destruction as you can see,” she said.

Al-Arabeed had harsh words for Arab governments, saying: “We demand that the Arab countries stand with us, they make us feel that we are not Muslims…. The negotiations are at whose expense? At the expense of the martyrs, at the expense of the blood of children that is wasted.”

Her sister, Umm Kareem Al-Arabeed, said she was collecting whatever she could from the ruins of her apartment.

“Unfortunately, Israel has made its decision to eliminate the Gaza Strip. Indeed, it wants to eliminate the Palestinian people so that they do not raise their heads from here for 100 years. But you know, we are a steadfast people, coping people,” she said.

“We will start from the beginning and anew. We will start over,” she added.

Nearly 84% of the enclave has been placed under evacuation orders since the start of the war, according to the United Nations’ main agency for Palestinian humanitarian relief, UNRWA.

Russian authorities say they have detained two Colombian men suspected of fighting for the Ukrainian military – a shocking twist in the weeks-long case of their disappearance since mid-July.

The last time Cielo Imbachí heard from her husband was more than 40 days ago, while he was on a layover in the Venezuelan capital Caracas. At the time, Jose Aron Medina was on his way back to Colombia after spending around nine months in Ukraine, she says.

He never made it home.

On Friday, Medina and his friend, fellow Colombian Alexander Ante, appeared in a video released by the Russian Federal Security Service, which accused them both of “participating in hostilities on the side of Ukraine against the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation as mercenaries.”

The Colombians were carrying “documents confirming their illegal activities,” said the FSB statement, and clothing with the insignia of the Ukrainian Carpathian Sich battalion.

State TV channel Russia 1 reported that Ante and Medina were in Venezuela when they were detained and extradited to Russia. Their detention in Moscow was ordered by the city’s Lefortovsky District Court on August 28 and they are being held until October 22, the court’s press service told state news agency TASS.

The two men’s detention and apparent extradition highlight the strong economic and military ties Russia has with Venezuela while also serving as a warning to foreign fighters, estimated to number in the thousands, who flocked to help Ukraine in the war effort.

In the meantime, Imbachí says she received no information from any of the countries involved.

“Venezuela just took them and deported them to Russia, and we don’t understand the reason why they were deported,” she said.

‘We are desperate’

Imbachí and Medina, 36, have a nine-year-old daughter and a son from her previous marriage. Both men, Medina and Ante, come from the western Colombian city of Popayán, and they live close to each other, she said.

Imbachí said her husband left for Ukraine last November, joining Ante who was already there. Medina decided to return home this July. She said he flew from Warsaw in Poland to Madrid, Spain, and then onwards to Venezuela. His destination was Popayán.

It remains unclear why the two men traveled through Venezuela, as there are several direct flight options between Spain and Colombia. Traveling through Venezuela is difficult due to sanctions imposed by the United States against the Latin American country.

Imbachí thinks her husband went via Caracas as it was the cheapest option. “Flights from Spain to Colombia are really expensive, while I think Venezuela was cheaper.” She does not know how they were planning to get from Caracas to Popayán.

A missing-person flyer from Colombia’s attorney general, with photos of the two men, said that their last known location was a Venezuelan airport on July 18 where they were seen “wearing camouflaged clothing from the Ukrainian Army.”

Imbachí and Colombian congressman Jose Uscategui went to the Venezuelan embassy in Colombia’s capital Bogota on July 26 to “make a formal request for the safe return of these individuals to their home,” according to a tweet from Uscategui.

Venezuela has grown closer to Russia over the last several years as Nicolas Maduro seeks Russia’s support to shore up his embattled presidency. The two countries have signed several bilateral agreements, including an extradition treaty.

With one year left until graduation, 17-year-old Ziv Zinger hopes to begin the academic year on September 1 like other students across Israel. But that hope remains uncertain for him and others from the country’s Northern District, who are grappling with the reality of displacement as Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah in Lebanon drags on without resolution.

He is among more than a thousand students who, before the October 7 war, attended the Har VaGai Regional High School in the Dafna kibbutz (agricultural commune), less than two miles from the border with Lebanon.

The school was forced to shut when Israel ordered border communities to evacuate as the Israeli military and Hezbollah began exchanging fire. Just last month, a rocket burst through the empty school’s gym.

Some 62,000 Israelis have been displaced from their homes in the north of the country since the evacuation order almost a year ago.

Zinger said he feels “cheated” by not being able to return to his school in Dafna. After October 7, schools shut for a month, he said, after which students spent the rest of the academic year in hybrid learning that alternated between online classes and other school locations.

Hezbollah said its attacks are in response to Israel’s war in Gaza, which was launched after Hamas-led militants attacked the country on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. The war has killed more than 40,600 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry there.

The Israel-Hezbollah crossfire extending several kilometers into both countries’ territory, along with the subsequent evacuation order in Israel, has impacted more than 16,000 Israeli students, the country’s ministry of education said.

Across the border in Lebanon, where authorities say more than 94,000 people have been displaced, at least 70 schools have closed with around 20,000 students affected, according to UNICEF. The country’s education system was already “on the brink of collapse” before the conflict due to years of being overstretched, it said. As Lebanon faced a crippling economic crisis, public school teachers went on a months-long strike in late 2022, leaving classrooms empty. The war has only compounded the situation.

The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel started just a day before the Lebanese academic year was to start, leaving schools and teachers unable to find immediate alternatives, Khaled Al-Fayed, an official at the Lebanese education ministry, was cited as saying by Asharq Al Awsat newspaper. The government eventually made arrangements to move students to schools in safer areas and made distance learning available to those who were trapped in their villages.

Maysoun Chehab, UNESCO’s chief of education for Lebanon, told The National newspaper however that bad internet connectivity, the lack of electronic devices in some homes and inadequate teacher training are major hurdles for distance learning in the country. Twenty-two children have died in Lebanon from Israeli strikes since October, according to the ministry of health.

Makeshift schools in Israel

South of Israel’s evacuation zone, makeshift schools are now emerging nearly 11 months into the war as part of an effort to return children to classrooms.

In the northern town of Rosh Pina, some 46 kilometers (27 miles) from the Lebanon border, an empty factory is being repurposed to accommodate students of Har VaGai, where Zinger was a student for three years. He’s glad a new school is being built for them, but said it won’t “feel like home.”

Despite the efforts to move the students to relative safety, fears persist. The makeshift school is outside the evacuation zone but it’s still within range of Hezbollah’s projectiles. It is equipped with 18 external bomb shelters, as well as several safe rooms within each building. “We are afraid. I cannot say that I am not afraid,” Rosental said.

Children riding on school buses in the area are at risk of being hit by rockets, missiles, drones or even failed interceptions, she said. “We have a lot of problems on the roads,” she said.

The war shows no signs of abating. In a fresh round of escalation, the Israeli military launched what it called “preemptive” strikes against Hezbollah in Lebanon on Sunday, as the Iran-backed militant group said it carried out its own attacks in response to the killing of a top commander.

In a video statement that day, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that “what happened today is not the end,” while Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah said that further strikes could be carried out against Israel.

‘Russian roulette’ with children’s lives

Officials in the north of the country fear their district may never return to normalcy.

“We are playing Russian roulette with the lives of our children,” Amit Sofer, the head of the Merom HaGalil Council in northern Israel, told Israeli news outlet Ynet. “There is no protection, there is no security,” he said, adding that “in the current situation, I don’t see the education system resuming on the conflict line.”

Pressure has been mounting on the Israeli government to restore security in the north, bring evacuees home and resume the new academic year on time.

Far-right ministers of the ruling coalition have been pushing Netanyahu not only to press on with the war in Gaza, but to launch a “decisive war” against Hezbollah as well.

Some officials in the north share that sentiment. Mayors from the Northern District have threatened to cut contact with Netanyahu’s government unless their demands are met.

“For eleven months there has been a security strip within the territory of the State of Israel and the government is silent,” David Azoulay, the head of the Metula settlement council in the north, said in a statement. “Soon, another sad school year outside our homes and the government is silent.”

Azoulay said he wanted to see the government “act physically” and “act to remove the threat and return us to our homes.”

Hezbollah has vowed to continue attacking the Jewish state until Israel stops its war in Gaza.

Israel’s northern front was a point of contention in Netanyahu’s war cabinet before it was disbanded in June. The prime minister had reportedly told the cabinet that September 1 did not have to be the “goal date” to start the school year, according to Israel’s Channel 12.

“Why do we keep taking about this date, what will happen if they go back a few months later?” the prime minister reportedly said in response to pressure from former war cabinet member Benny Gantz to stick to the official date, according to Channel 12.

Parents of students who are forced to attend new schools say they hope their children experience a sense of normalcy soon.

Meirav Atmor, mother of 12-year-old Matan, said her son is longing to return to school, but that the war brings daily anxieties.

The war has had a huge effect on both parents and their children, Atmor said. It is “not normal” for a mother to be worried about the impact of war on her son, she said.

“It is not a normal reality for a young boy to deal with,” she added. “And that’s sad. That’s very sad.”

Zinger, the 17-year-old, said it has been a rough year for him. While previous generations in Israel have experienced war, for many young Israelis like him, it’s a new and unsettling experience.

“(For) everyone my age, this is the first real war,” he said, adding that the even younger generation will be forced to grow up “in the reality of war.”

“People’s lives have been changed.”

Truck driver Munir Ahmed was motoring along a darkened highway after a long day unloading sacks of rice in Pakistan’s Sindh province late Sunday, when he crossed over into Balochistan.

“When they got down from the trucks, they were asked to show their identity cards. After checking the identity card, four people were taken aside and armed men started firing indiscriminately at them,” the 45-year-old said.

Ahmed saw three men die in front of him before he lost consciousness, having taken five bullets to his arms and legs. In total, 23 people were executed on the highway that night.

The mass roadside executions were the biggest of six separate attacks by the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) on Sunday and Monday that killed 54 people in total, including 14 security personnel. The coordinated onslaught was sophisticated, with militants simultaneously targeting a police station and a military base, as well as highways and railway lines.

It was the deadliest day of the year so far for Pakistan, the latest flare-up in a long-running insurgency driven by inequality, ethnic resentments and colossal Chinese investments.

Somehow, Ahmed survived. The father of six young children had been assumed dead, but when his bullet-riddled body reached the hospital in Quetta, Balochistan’s biggest city, doctors quickly realized he was alive. He is still in critical condition.

History of mistrust

Balochistan is strategically important and rich in minerals. But its population is deeply disenfranchised, impoverished, and increasingly alienated from the federal government by decades of policies widely seen as discriminatory.

Monday’s bloodshed marked the anniversary of the killing of Akbar Khan Bugti, a popular Baloch tribal leader and an Oxford-educated politician, whose death in 2006 was blamed on Pakistan’s then military ruler Pervez Musharraf. Bugti’s death sparked a surge in separatism, and remains an open wound for the Baloch people, who have had their own richly distinct culture and language since long before Pakistan gained independence from the British in 1947.

Provincial security chiefs were seemingly unprepared for an attack on the important date for the BLA – the strongest separatist group in the province, with close to 4,000 fighters. That was a “grave mistake in intelligence” according to Abdul Basit, a research fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS).

But the violence came as no surprise to analysts who have been monitoring the region and blame what they say is the military’s interference in civilian affairs. “The political leadership in Balochistan has no roots with the people, genuine leadership has been sidelined, there is a political vacuum, and social media has allowed mobilization and organization,” Basit said.

The latest flare-up is a major challenge to the government’s authority.

“This attack shows that the militants are very active and can be lethal, demonstrates that the state has not been vigilant that these people have developed so strongly,” said Retired Lt. Gen. Talat Masood, a security commentator.

Most of the victims of Monday’s attack, like Ahmed and the murdered drivers, were from Punjab, Pakistan’s largest and most prosperous province. They were targeted because many separatist groups resent the perceived exploitation of their region and its resources. The BLA often refers to itself as warring with the “Punjabi establishment.”

In a statement released after the attacks, the BLA claimed all of their targets were linked to the military.

Though the insurgency has been running for decades, it has gained traction since Balochistan’s deep-water Gwadar port was leased to China, the jewel in the crown of Beijing’s ‘Belt and Road’ infrastructure push in Pakistan.

Beijing has invested tens of billions of dollars in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship Belt and Road project launched in 2015 that links China’s western Xinjiang region to Gwadar on the Arabian Sea with a network of roads, railways, pipelines and power plants.

Anti-China sentiment is rife among Baloch separatist groups. Militants are angered by what they say is the state’s exploitation of the region’s rich mineral resources, with little of the proceeds filtering down to people in what remains Pakistan’s poorest province. The port, often touted as “the next Dubai,” has become a security nightmare with persistent bombings of vehicles carrying Chinese workers, with many killed.

The state and security forces have responded severely, killing thousands of people in the last two decades. The government in Islamabad recently initiated a new military campaign, “Resolve for Stability,” to eliminate extremism, and has allocated millions of dollars’ worth of resources to the plan.

Severe economic crisis

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in a statement on Thursday “commended the sacrifices and contributions of the people of Balochistan towards national progress and development, and resolved that enemies of Pakistan, bent on creating unrest in Balochistan, would be defeated with full force and national support.”

Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said in a statement to parliament that the Balochistan attacks were “planned to ruin” the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation scheduled for October, which Pakistan is hosting under its rotating chairmanship. The SCO is a 10-member club of Eurasian countries spearheaded by China and Russia, acting as a counterweight to Western institutions led by the United States and its allies.

The military said in a statement Friday that three separate intelligence operations have been undertaken in Balochistan since Monday’s attack, adding that “five terrorists were sent to hell by the security forces.”

It emphasized that the “security forces of Pakistan, in step with the nation, remain determined to thwart attempts at sabotaging peace, stability and progress of Balochistan.”

But Fazi Zaka, an Islamabad-based political commentator, has questioned where the “attention of the state is going,” noting that the country is in the throes of a severe economic crisis that has “sapped the morale of the people.”

Pakistan is currently suffering high debt, low exports, energy inflation, and urgently needs a loan from the International Monetary Fund.

But as well as militancy, Balochistan’s alienation has also led to peaceful dissent, under a young generation of Baloch activists. The Baloch Yakjehti Committee (BYC), led by 31-year-old Dr Mahrang Baloch, held protests in Islamabad last January and in the summer led a sit-in in Gwadar city which lasted for more than 10 days.

Her family has suffered acutely. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Mahrang Baloch’s father was abducted in 2009, his mutilated body surfacing two years later. Her brother was also abducted in 2017.

Pakistani Taliban reappearing

It’s not just Balochistan that is testing the limits of central authority; this has been a long summer in parts of Pakistan far from the political heartland.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the country’s most militarized province, which also borders Afghanistan, thousands of young people came out to demonstrate after the government announced a new military campaign in the region.

Since Afghanistan returned to Taliban rule in 2021, the militant group’s Pakistani operation has increased activities along the border with a drastic uptick in attacks that have begun to worry locals already traumatized by years of violence at the hands of militant groups.

In some areas, the Taliban presence is testing the efficacy of state security forces, said Zulfikar Ali Shah, a shop owner from the northwestern town of Bannu. He said that “by late afternoon prayers, police stations are locked up with the police disappearing and rescue cars, police cars cannot roam in the evening in this area, the Taliban make check posts every other week in the tribal areas and search people despite the presence of the military.”

“The government does understand these issues but are not focusing on them,” said Masood. “They need a rethink, look at the way Pakistan is going downhill in terms of economy and prestige. Is the country democratic? Is the military’s involvement in politics helpful? These things need to be addressed.”

Basit agreed that “a reset in approach is needed,” but doubted such a reset is imminent.

“They will double down, their playbook is outdated, they don’t understand how this generation thinks, they don’t understand what makes them tick,” he said.

“When peaceful activists will see that peaceful gatherings are not allowed when there is a crackdown on peaceful activists then people will turn towards violence. “

Severe floods have killed at least 97 people in Yemen over the past month and deepened food shortages for millions of others already displaced by years of war, according to a United Nations body.

Deluges have impacted at least 56,000 homes across the country, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in its latest update on Friday, which added that more than 33,000 families had been affected since the monsoon season began in mid-July.

Damage caused in this round of flooding makes things worse for the 4.5 million Yemenis currently internally displaced and in urgent need of humanitarian aid, the UNHCR said.

A civil war broke out in Yemen in 2014, when rebel Houthi forces stormed the capital Sanaa and toppled the internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government.

In the intervening years the conflict has spiraled into a wider war between a Saudi Arabia-led coalition and the Iran-backed Houthis, giving rise to what the UN calls “one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.”

Complicating things further has been Houthi attacks on Israel over its war in Gaza, which Israel launched after Palestinian militant group Hamas’ deadly assault on October 7.

Displaced Yemenis are overwhelmingly food-insecure. According to the UN agency, 85% of the displaced families are unable to meet their daily food needs, with many cutting back on the size and frequency of meals.

In the Melhan district of the western province of Al-Mahwit alone, 33 people have been killed by intense flooding, which also damaged more than 200 houses, according to Ali al-Zikam, secretary-general of the local council, late Wednesday on Facebook.

Five cars were swept away in the floods, which left several people missing, he added.

The flooding began on Tuesday, when heavy rains inundated communities and unleashed rockslides in the area.

Yemen’s Red Crescent said Thursday that 38 people remain missing, and that the agency is actively searching for them.

“The magnitude of the disaster in Al-Mahwit is substantial,” the aid group said.

Editor’s Note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 to connect with a trained counselor, or visit the 988 Lifeline website.

Delivery driver Maung Maung’s wife and young daughter hadn’t eaten in three days, he recalled, when he walked into an internet cafe in his hometown of Mandalay, Myanmar, in late 2022.

He had recently been detained and tortured by the country’s military junta for weeks, he said, on suspicion of transporting goods for opposition forces, during which time his wife had been forced to take out loans to support the family.

When he was finally released, he had lost his job and the family found themselves penniless and ridden with debt. Desperate, Maung Maung went on Facebook and offered to sell his kidney.

“In that moment, I felt life was so harsh. There is no other way I could survive other than to rob or kill people for money,” he said. “My wife was the same, she didn’t want to stay in this world anymore. But only for the sake of our daughter we stayed.”

Months later in July 2023, Maung Maung, who asked to use a pseudonym for safety reasons, traveled to India for the transplant surgery. A wealthy Chinese-Burmese businessman had bought his kidney for 10 million Burmese kyat ($3,079), nearly twice the annual average urban household income in Myanmar, according to 2019 data from UN affiliated Myanmar Information Management Unit.

Maung Maung is not the only one.

When asked for comment, Meta, Facebook’s owner, said one online group had been removed, but the company declined to give further details or comment further. Facebook’s own rules do not allow content that lets users buy, sell or trade human body parts and breaches can be reported for review.

Coup sends poverty soaring

Three years since Myanmar’s military took power in a coup, nearly half of the country’s 54 million people live below the poverty line. That figure has doubled since 2017, researchers with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has found.

As various armed groups fought against junta control, violence spread across the country. Foreign investment dropped, unemployment skyrocketed and the cost of basic goods increased at a rate most people couldn’t keep up with. While sellers are poor and buyers relatively rich, both sides are in the illegal organ market because they find themselves in dire straits.

“To sell a part of your body is a difficult decision for everyone. Nobody wants to do it,” April, 26, who asked to go by a pseudonym, said shortly after advertising her kidney on Facebook in February. “The only reason I am doing this is because I have no choice.”

April said she abandoned her dreams of becoming a nurse and moved to Myanmar’s commercial capital Yangon when she was 18 to work in a garment factory and help support her family. But her monthly salary of $100 was not enough to keep up with rising costs exacerbated by the political crisis and medical bills that kept piling up as her aunt suffered from cancer.

A person can still live a healthy life with one kidney, which makes this trade possible, but it’s a major surgery that can have lasting consequences. The biggest risk is not having a backup in case anything happens to the remaining kidney, according to the National Kidney Foundation.

April quickly wrote up her own post: “I want to donate my kidney. My blood type is O. I need money for my aunt who has cancer and needs an operation. I’m 26 years old and I don’t drink. DM me.”

An illegal but accessible industry

In the online organ trade, buyers and sellers often work with agents, middlemen who match donors with recipients, to forge the necessary documents and arrange surgery.

Because the sale of organs is illegal in India and donations are permitted only among relatives, with a few rare exceptions, agents often forge household records, family trees and other documents with the help of lawyers and notaries. Myanmar’s embassy in New Delhi has to review the paperwork in order to pass the case to the state or hospital authorization committee.

The authorization committee is the final line of defense. It’s designed to catch anyone trying to cheat the system. Documents, family photos and bank statements are checked, and interviews conducted to expose strangers posing as family members or anyone trafficking organs.

Thiri Khine, who asked to use a pseudonym so she could speak safely, became a widow when her husband died eight years ago. Six years later, ravaged by kidney disease, she posed for new wedding photos. This time, the groom smiling next to her was the man whose kidney she was buying for 12 million kyat ($3,695).

Thiri Khine tried to get a transplant by getting on the official transplant waitlist, but said the process would’ve taken years, at which point she may have already died from her illness.

Between 1995 and 2022, there were only 308 successful kidney transplants in Myanmar, according to ruling junta chief Min Aung Hlaing’s office.

Since the coronavirus pandemic and the coup, transplants can only be performed at military hospitals, with a few exceptions, according to one current and one former doctor in Yangon who asked to remain anonymous out of fear for their safety.

The war has also created a shortage of doctors.

In the early days of the military takeover, doctors were often at the forefront of the resistance movement, treating injured protesters and staging strikes. For this, they paid a high price, with many medical professionals arrested or forced to flee the country, leaving Myanmar’s already fragile healthcare system on the brink of collapse.

‘Family photos’, a trip to India

In the weeks leading up to the surgery, Thiri Khine and her pretend husband practiced for the authorization committee interview, finding answers to questions such as how they met, each other’s favorite foods and their license plate number.

“It’s an interrogation to confirm whether we are a real couple or not. But the thing is they know that we are lying,” Thiri Khine says. “The law by definition is strict, and so are the hospital’s rules. However they make it possible for us to get the treatment by ignoring the red flags and forged documents.”

Scared and far from home, Maung Maung went through a number of medical tests and interviews in the days before his transplant surgery. He had never left Myanmar before, but now he found himself posing for photos in front of New Delhi’s famous Lotus Temple next to the family of the man who would soon have his kidney.

“If I die, I hope this money could help my wife and daughter for their food and survival, even if it would not last their whole lifetime.”

Myanmar’s military has a long and well-documented track record of rights abuses, and the civil war has unleashed new levels of violence on both civilians and rebel forces alike.

‘Saving a life’

One Yangon-based agent, who asked to remain anonymous due to the illicit nature of his work, said both the Burmese embassy in India as well as the authorization committees are aware that the document presented are forged.

“It is an act of saving a life. It is not a bad thing,” he says, having received a kidney transplant himself in a similar way last year.

Dr Sunil Shroff, a transplant surgeon and founder of the Multi Organ Harvesting Aid Network, a non-profit which promotes organ donation in India, said the issue of organ donation is complex.

“It is not an easy job for the (authorization) committee either. Then again, they’re not policing it. They’re looking at each case individually with some sympathy because there is a recipient suffering who needs an organ,” he said.

This is complicated by the fact that documents produced in another country are extremely difficult to authenticate.

“Once the embassy signs, what happens is that the local authorization committee thinks the responsibility was on the embassy. They might be coming with an unrelated donor we don’t know,” Dr Shroff said.

A ward filled with Burmese patients

A few days after the transplant surgery in August 2023, Maung Maung sat on the edge of his hospital bed and lifted his shirt to reveal a fresh scar on his left side.

“It seems it is healing from inside, but it still hurts on the outside,” he said, touching the purple mark.

As he walked through the hospital, he pointed out other Burmese patients in the recovery ward, each with the same four-inch scar on their abdomen.

“When you go to the toilet, you see Myanmar people and when you go somewhere nearby you see Myanmar people again,” he said.

For those trapped in a never-ending cycle of poverty, selling a body part often appears as a quick way to escape. It’s been a last resort taken by people in many other countries from Afghanistan to Nepal, but it’s one that comes with serious and sometimes fatal health consequences.

“The quality of life after selling the kidney is not good because once the money runs out, they’re back to square one. And then there’s a scar to see. They look at it, so they’re depressed,” Dr Shroff says.

Maung Maung predicts that with only one kidney left “the most I can live is 15 to 20 years and then I will be gone.”

Yet, he doesn’t regret his decision.

“If I had not done this at this moment, my life would be in chaos. No job, no food. My wife, my kid didn’t have anything to eat. All three of us could have been dead or gone crazy.” he says.

He has since returned home to Mandalay but hasn’t recovered enough to work. He spends most of his days at home, in pain, as the money he got for selling his kidney slowly runs out.

Documents were forged, family photos showing April as the man’s eldest daughter taken — the only thing left was the surgery.

As the transplant neared, April worried she might die on the operating table, but felt it was too late to back out.

April’s family still did not know about her plan to sell her kidney.

For mental health support outside of the US, a worldwide directory of resources and international hotlines is provided by the International Association for Suicide Prevention. You can also turn to Befrienders Worldwide.

Authorities in Argentina have arrested a man on decades-old allegations of involvement in a militant Marxist group responsible for the 1978 kidnapping and death of a former Italian prime minister, according to a government statement.

Leonardo Bertulazzi, identified in the statement as an Italian citizen, had been living in the country under refugee status since 2002. That status, which protected him from extradition to Italy, was revoked under the administration of Argentina’s current president Javier Milei.

He was arrested in Argentina’s capital city, Buenos Aires, on Thursday, according to the statement. It also described Bertulazzi as a former officer of the Red Brigades in Italy, a leftist militant group that operated in Italy from 1970 to 1980, gaining infamy for violent attacks in the country.

“Among the group’s most notorious crimes is the kidnapping and subsequent murder of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro in 1978. Bertulazzi, who held a high rank within the organization, was linked to the logistics of Moro’s kidnapping,” it said.

Bertulazzi was previously sentenced in Italy to 27 years in prison on terror charges, according to a statement by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni welcoming the arrest.

“The arrest of this fugitive member of the Red Brigades was made possible thanks to intense and fruitful collaboration between the Italian and Argentine judicial authorities and Interpol,” Meloni said.

An Israeli strike on a humanitarian vehicle in Gaza has left four people dead amid confusion over the convoy’s travel plans through the war-torn Palestinian enclave, according to aid organization American Near East Refugee Aid (Anera).

The victims were all local Palestinians involved with a transportation company contracted by Anera, according to the organization. They had decided to ride in the lead vehicle for the convoy’s security but had not been cleared by Israeli authorities, it also said.

Shortly after the convoy left the Kerem Shalom border crossing on Thursday, “four community members with experience in previous missions and engagement in community security” with the Move One transport company took control of the lead vehicle, “citing concern that the route was unsafe and at risk of being looted,” Anera said.

The humanitarian convoy’s mission and route had been coordinated with Israeli authorities, however, the Israel Defense Forces said it attacked the lead car because the men inside appeared to be armed – a breach of the agreed plan.

“After further confirmation that only the vehicle of the armed men could be attacked, an attack was carried out on them,” the IDF said in a statement Thursday.

On Friday, Israeli forces emphasized that the presence of “armed individuals” leading the convoy had not been coordinated with them.

Anera has said that the convoy’s transport plan called for unarmed security guards, and that the people who were killed had not been approved in advance. Humanitarian workers typically coordinate their routes with Israeli forces in order to move with relative safety.

“The four community members were neither vetted nor coordinated in advance, and Israeli authorities allege that the lead car was carrying numerous weapons,” Anera said.

The airstrike, which Anera said was carried out without any prior warning, did not injure any of its staff. One employee, who was in the second vehicle of the aid convoy, “witnessed the incident at close range,” it said.

The mission was carrying carry food and fuel to the Emirati Red Crescent Hospital in the south of Gaza. Anera has coordinated 24 prior shipments for the hospital with the United Arab Emirates since May.

The strike comes just days after a World Food Programme convoy was attacked close to an Israeli checkpoint, sustaining “at least ten bullets,” according to the UN agency. The incident prompted the United Nations to lodge a formal complaint with Israel, and the IDF is currently reviewing the incident.

In April, aid workers from another hunger relief group, the World Central Kitchen, were killed in an Israeli attack while traveling through Gaza by car, despite coordinating with Israeli authorities on their route and itinerary. The airstrikes hit three cars in their convoy, killing three Britons, a Palestinian, a US-Canadian dual citizen, an Australian, and a Pole.

Pressure is mounting on Hamas, which governs Gaza, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to seal a ceasefire and hostage release deal against the backdrop of severe starvation, dire water shortages, mass displacement and disease in the enclave.

Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has killed over 40,000 Palestinians and injured over 93,500 people, according to the Ministry of Health there. The Israeli military launched its aerial and ground assault in the isolated enclave after Hamas attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and abducting more than 250, according to Israeli authorities.

A deportation flight bound for Afghanistan carrying 28 Afghan nationals left Germany on Friday morning, a day after the German government pledged to strengthen its asylum regulations in the wake of a deadly knife attack.

Flight trackers show that a Boeing 787 from Qatar Airlines left Leipzig at 6.55 a.m., traveling to Kabul.

The flight marks Germany’s first deportation of Afghans back to their home country since the Taliban retook power there three years ago, in August 2021. According to German news magazine Der Spiegel, the deportations are the result of months of negotiations and planning.

Der Spiegel reported that each deportee, all of whom were male, received a payment of €1,000 ($1,100). The spokesperson for Saxony’s Interior Ministry was unable to confirm this.

In a news conference following the flight’s departure, government spokesperson Steffen Hebestreit emphasized to journalists that Berlin was not in direct talks with the Taliban. Rather, it secured the deportation through the mediation of key regional powers, he said.

Hebestreit added that the German government has made “intensive efforts” to deport migrants who have committed serious crimes back to Afghanistan and Syria in the wake of a knife attack in the southwestern city of Mannheim at the end of May.

A police officer was fatally wounded during that attack and several others were injured, with German authorities pointing to an Islamist extremism motive. The main suspect was identified as a 25-year-old Afghan refugee.

The deportations also come a day after the German government unveiled a new security package following the fatal attack in the western city of Solingen last week. Three people were stabbed to death in the incident on August 23, which took place during a street festival. The suspect was identified as a 26-year-old Syrian man with alleged links to ISIS, who had previously been due for deportation. He turned himself in and confessed to the attack, police said.

The attack in Solingen has sparked fresh debate in Germany over migration, with the country’s governing coalition, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, receiving criticism for its handling of the issue. It has also served to embolden Germany’s far-right ahead of key state elections this weekend.

The incident spurred Scholz’s government into action, with the chancellor declaring during a visit to Solingen at the start of the week that “we will have to do everything we can to ensure that those who cannot and are not allowed to stay in Germany are repatriated and deported,” Reuters reported.

The new security measures unveiled by the government in a news conference Thursday aim to speed up the deportation of rejected asylum seekers and undocumented immigrants, and also tighten laws on weapons.

Interior Minister Nancy Faeser pledged during the news conference to “step up the pace of repatriations” and “take further measures to reduce irregular migration,” while also strengthening the power of authorities to fight Islamic extremism.

Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) is targeting wins in elections in the eastern states of Saxony and Thuringia scheduled for Sunday. The AfD is currently leading in the polls in both states.

The anti-immigration party has seized on the attack in Solingen in its political campaigning, with Björn Höcke, the party’s regional leader in Thuringia, telling voters they have the choice of either “Höcke or Solingen.”

Migration has long been a topic of fierce debate in Germany. Scholz’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) has typically advocated for a more open migration policy in Germany.

During the 2015 European migrant crisis, then-Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU), adopted an “open-door” policy which saw hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing war in Syria and beyond arrive in Germany – a decision which attracted both praise and criticism.

Israel’s military said it killed three Hamas members, including a commander, as its offensive in the occupied West Bank entered its third day.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Friday it killed Wissam Khazem, whom it described as the Hamas leader in the city of Jenin, in an exchange of gunfire after he was identified “in a vehicle in the area.” The military said it had found weapons and money in the vehicle.

Two others were also killed as they tried to flee the vehicle, according to the Israeli military, naming them as Maysara Masharqa and Arafat Amer. The IDF said both men belonged to Hamas and “operated under the command of Khazem and took part in shooting attacks against Israeli communities.”

In a statement, the Al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, acknowledged the three men’s deaths and confirmed Khazem was one of its leaders in Jenin. The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a network of Palestinian armed groups, said Masharqa was its “most prominent field commanders” in Jenin.

As of Friday, 19 Palestinians have been killed during an expansive Israeli military operation in the West Bank that includes the cities of Jenin, Tubas and Tulkarem, according to the Palestinian ministry of health and Palestinian groups.

Friday’s firefight came after Israel launched one of the largest assaults on the occupied territory in years. Stressing the need to root out what he called “Islamic-Iranian terrorist infrastructure,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz called for a Gaza-style operation in the West Bank.

Katz warned that Iran was working in the West Bank to establish an “eastern front” against Israel, working alongside its proxies Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon.

Israel’s renewed offensive in the West Bank has sparked criticism from senior United Nations and Western officials. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that Israel’s operation is “deeply concerning.”

Clashes in the West Bank have become more frequent since Israel began its war in Gaza in response to Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on October 7.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported Tuesday that 652 Palestinians, including 150 children, have been killed in the West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem since October 7, with over 5,400 others injured.

Since Israel began its occupation of the West Bank in 1967, the number of Jewish settlements has swelled in the territory, despite being considered illegal under international law.

This is a developing story and will be updated.