Police in the British capital shot dead a man who was reportedly trying to enter a property armed with a crossbow in the early hours of Tuesday, according to a statement.

Officers were called to an address in Bywater Place in southeast London at around 4.55 a.m. local time (11.55 p.m. Monday ET) after occupants reported that a man armed with weapons including a crossbow was attempting to force his way in, said the city’s Metropolitan Police.

The man, who police say is thought to be in his 30s, “was threatening to harm residents inside the address,” reads the statement.

“Local officers attended and attempted to speak to the man but, after being threatened, armed officers were called and quickly attended the scene,” added police.

“The man had got inside the property, and a police firearm was discharged,” continues the statement.

Police and paramedics provided first aid but the man died at the scene, said police, adding that two people at the address suffered minor injuries.

The Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has launched an independent investigation into the incident, and the Metropolitan Police Directorate of Professional Standards has been informed, according to the statement.

Detective Chief Superintendent Seb Adjei-Addoh, who is responsible for policing in Southwark, the borough where the incident occurred, said his thoughts were with those affected.

“I understand the local community will be concerned at the events that have taken place this morning,” said Adjei-Addoh.

It is rare for police in England and Wales to shoot suspects dead.

Figures compiled by the charity Inquest show that there were 27 fatal police shootings in England and Wales between 2013 and 2023.

Of that number, 13 were carried out by the Metropolitan Police, which is the largest force in the UK.

Israeli special forces, dressed as civilians and medical staff, infiltrated the Ibn Sina hospital in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on Tuesday and killed three Palestinian men, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials.

CCTV footage shared on social media appeared to show around a dozen commandos disguised as nurses, women in hijabs, and others, with one pushing a wheelchair and another carrying a baby car seat, as they stormed a hospital corridor carrying assault weapons.

Hamas said the men were Jenin Brigades fighters, an umbrella group of armed Palestinian factions in the West Bank city. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they were terrorists linked to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and an Israeli government minister praised the operation.

The disguised special forces “infiltrated the hospital individually, headed to the third floor, and assassinated the young men,” Palestinian state news agency WAFA reported, citing sources from inside the hospital.

The IDF said it targeted Hamas fighter Mohammed Jalamneh who “had recently been involved in promoting significant terrorist activity and was hiding in the Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin.”

Two brothers were also killed in the raid, the IDF said: “Mohammed Al-Ghazawi from the Jenin Camp, a terrorist operative of the Jenin Battalions who was involved in numerous attacks including firing at IDF soldiers in the area, and Basel Al-Ghazawi from the Jenin Camp, Mohammed’s brother, an Islamic Jihad terrorist organization operative involved in terror activities in the area.”

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir shared the CCTV footage on social media and praised the raid.

“I congratulate and strengthen the naval commando forces of the Israeli police on their impressive operation last night in cooperation with the IDF and the Shin Bet in the Jenin refugee camp, which led to the elimination of three terrorists,” Ben Gvir said alongside the video on X.

Hamas’s military wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, claimed Jalamneh as a member and released a photo of him. It said he had been “martyred by the bullets of a special force from the occupation army that infiltrated Ibn Sina Hospital in Jenin with his comrades Mohammed and Basil Ayman Al-Ghazawi,” calling them “fighting martyrs.”

The Ibn Sina hospital said Basil Al-Ghazawi had been receiving treatment for injuries sustained in a rocket explosion inside the cemetery of Jenin in October, when he was killed by the special forces Tuesday morning. The hospital said the three men were sleeping at the time of the attack.

There were no reports of other casualties in the raid.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health condemned the attack and the targeting of a health center and called on the UN General Assembly and NGOs to provide the necessary protection for medical treatment centers and emergency crews.

“This crime comes after dozens of crimes committed by the occupation forces against treatment centers and crews. International law provides general and special protection for civilian sites, including hospitals,” the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Pakistan’s former leader Imran Khan has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for leaking state secrets, his political party Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) said in a statement Tuesday.

The hearing took place Tuesday in a closed court established under the Official Secrets Act in Rawalpindi’s Adiala Jail, where Khan and former Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi are already incarcerated on corruption convictions.

The pair “have been sentenced 10 years each in a sham case with no access to media or public in Cypher Case,” PTI said, adding their legal team “will challenge the decision in a higher court” as they hope to get the sentences suspended.

The sentencing is the latest in a string of legal battles faced by Khan and comes ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for February 8 – a vote the ousted former leader is unable to contest due to his previous conviction.

Tuesday’s sentencing in what is popularly known as the “cypher case” comes after Khan was accused of leaking an encrypted diplomatic cable written by a Pakistani diplomat in March 2022, based on a meeting with a US State Department official.

Khan had claimed the document proved that his ouster in a parliamentary no confidence vote in 2022 was a conspiracy to remove him from power.

The former prime minister repeatedly alleged that Pakistani officials conspired with the country’s powerful military and the US to remove him from office. All parties deny Khan’s accusations.

In the weeks after his ouster, Khan drew tens of thousands to nationwide rallies that became a fixture in the country’s volatile political scene, with his supporters thronging the streets in his defense.

Since then, the cricket icon turned politician has faced a litany of legal issues — and has dozens of pending cases against him.

Khan has been behind bars since August after he was found guilty of corruption and sentenced to three years in prison.

Despite being unable to stand in the upcoming vote, he remains a major political force owing to his widespread popularity. Khan maintains the charges against him are politically motivated, an allegation authorities deny.

TV stations are banned from running Khan’s speeches, and many of his PTI party colleagues have been arrested.

The suspension of funding by a growing number of Western countries for a United Nations agency for Palestinians has raised questions about the fate of the 5.9 million refugees it serves.

The United States and at least 13 of its allies have pulled funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), following allegations by Israel that some of its staff were involved in Hamas’ October 7 attack, which killed 1,200 and saw more than 250 others taken hostage.

Israel subsequently launched a war on the militant group that killed more than 26,000 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry there, and displaced the vast majority of the enclave’s 2.3 million inhabitants, who are in need of humanitarian aid.

UNRWA fired several employees after the allegations and launched an investigation, promising that anyone involved in the October 7 attacks will be held accountable “including through criminal prosecution” if found to be responsible.

But beyond the allegations of recent days, Israel has longstanding issues with UNRWA, accusing it of aiding Hamas and calling for it to be entirely dismantled.

Here’s what that could mean for the millions of Palestinians that rely on UNRWA for sustenance.

What does UNRWA do?

UNRWA was founded by the United Nations a year after the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, which marked the creation of Israel and the displacement of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their homes in an event known by Palestinians as the Nakba (catastrophe).

The agency provides a wide range of aid and services to Palestinian refugees and their descendants. It is a major source of employment for the refugees, who make up most of its more than 30,000 employees across the Middle East, and has representative offices in New York, Geneva and Brussels. Over 13,000 of its employees are stationed in the Gaza Strip.

UNRWA is unique in that it is the only UN agency dedicated to a specific group of refugees in specific areas. While its purpose is to support Palestinian refugees, UNRWA does not have a mandate to resettle them, a mandate that the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) does have. The UNHCR does not, however, have a mandate over Palestine refugees within UNRWA’s areas of operation.

Last year, the agency had a budget of $1.6 billion, most of which is earmarked for education and healthcare, followed by other services such as infrastructure and refugee camp improvement.

Since the Gaza war, UNRWA has issued a flash appeal for $481 million in additional funding for critical humanitarian needs.

What is likely to happen if UNRWA’s operations stop?

UNRWA is the primary humanitarian aid group in Gaza. Some 2 million Gazans rely on the agency for aid, with 1 million people using UNRWA shelters for food and healthcare amid the fighting in the enclave.

The agency has provided Gazans with everything from food and healthcare to education and psychological support for decades.

Along with the Palestinian Red Crescent, UNRWA handles almost all distribution of UN aid coming into the territory. The agency has 11 food distribution centers for 1 million people in Gaza.

The UN has warned that current funding is insufficient and that UNRWA may run out of funds by February.

“(If) you stop these trucks, people will die of hunger and very quickly,” he said.

The repercussions of UNRWA halting its operations could however be felt far beyond Gaza. Millions more Palestinian refugees live in neighboring countries like Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, and rely on aid from the agency.

For Palestinians on the ground in Gaza, prospects of life without UNRWA look grim. At one UNRWA school shelter in Deir al Balah, Gazans said they were worried about the suffering to come if UNRWA’s aid is suspended.

Alaa Khdeir, a university professor, called the move “an oppressive decision towards the Palestinian people.”

“This will mean more starvation, poverty, and deprivation, which ultimately means death,” added Khdeir. “This is not just an issue; this is a crime. It wipes out the people.”

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday appealed to the countries that suspended funding to UNRWA, urging them to reconsider their decisions.

“I strongly appeal to the governments that have suspended their contributions to, at least, guarantee the continuity of UNRWA’s operations,” he said. “The dire needs of the desperate populations they (UNRWA staff) serve must be met.”

It is unclear which organizations could replace UNRWA should the agency be forced to halt its operations. Yuval Shany, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s faculty of law, said that even if UNRWA is forced out of Gaza, Israel likely wants a phased-out exit to avoid a worsened humanitarian shock on the ground.

Why does Israel oppose UNRWA?

Israeli leaders have campaigned against UNRWA long before October 7, criticizing the organization’s role in Gaza and elsewhere as well as its definition of which Palestinians are eligible for refugee status. More recently, officials have sought to delegitimize the agency and have proposed dismantling it altogether.

In 2018, the US, under the administration of President Donald Trump, ended all funding for the agency at Israel’s behest, with the State Department at the time describing the body as “irredeemably flawed.” When Joe Biden became president in 2021, he reversed his predecessor’s decision and restored UNRWA’s funding.

The US has long been the biggest single donor to UNRWA.

In 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to dissolve UNRWA and merge it with the main UN refugee agency, the UNHCR.

More recently, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz has suggested that Israel will seek to stop the UN agency from operating in post-war Gaza, saying it “will not be a part of the day after.”

“We have been warning for years,” Katz said. “UNRWA perpetuates the refugee issue, obstructs peace, and serves as a civilian arm of Hamas in Gaza.”

UNRWA has repeatedly denied Israeli allegations that its aid is being diverted to Hamas, and that it teaches hatred in its schools, and has questioned “the motivation of those who make such claims, through large advocacy campaigns.” It has condemned the October 7 attack as “abhorrent.”

The threat to remove UNRWA from the besieged Gaza Strip has caused UN officials and those who rely on the agency to sound the alarm.

“Israel doesn’t see UNRWA as something which is conducive to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict,” said Shany of the Hebrew University.

The right of return refers to the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return to their ancestral homes in what is now Israel, which was recognized by the 1948 UN General Assembly Resolution 194. The fate of refugees is one of the most contentious issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Israel also sees UNRWA as biased against it, Shany said, adding that it is “regarded by Israel as one of the more hostile UN agencies against it in international arenas.”

The agency defines Palestinian refugees as those who were dispossessed from their homes during Israel’s creation in 1948, as well as their descendants. That amounts to 5.9 million people today. Israel opposes their return, arguing that such a large influx of Palestinians would nullify its Jewish character.

UNRWA perpetuates “the narrative of the so-called right of return, whose goal is the elimination of Israel. For these reasons, UNRWA should be shut down,” Netanyahu said in 2018.

Of Gaza’s more than 2 million people, 1.6 million are refugees, according to UNRWA.

“According to Israel, this (UNRWA) perpetuates a narrative that the people who live in Gaza would someday go back to Israel, and this motivates them to resist,” Shany said.

A large void fills the space where rows of graves once stood.

The gaping hole is all that is left after the Israeli military excavated the western side of the Bani Suheila cemetery, near Khan Younis in southern Gaza, claiming a Hamas tunnel ran directly through the site and that Hamas militants attacked Israeli troops from here.

But Israeli commanders failed to prove their claim during a three-hour visit to the Bani Suheila cemetery and the surrounding area.

However, IDF commanders declined to show reporters the tunnel shaft they said emerged inside the cemetery, claiming there was sensitive machinery underground and that the structure was unstable.

“The whole thing can collapse,” said Brig. Gen. Dan Goldfuss, the commander of the IDF’s 98th Division. “You have to walk to the edge. The edge is not secure, it can collapse.”

A spokesman for the Israeli military said they would provide video of the tunnel shaft in the enormous hole, but never did.

The Israeli military stood by its claims, insisting in a press release that a tunnel ran directly through the religious site.

But that press release also undermined Goldfuss’ claim that the underground command center was directly below the cemetery. A map released by the military placed the command center outside the graveyard.

“My forces – at the beginning we tried to flank this area – were fired from this area, again, and again,” Goldfuss said. “They couldn’t understand why. Once we… found the military compound underneath the graveyard, we took all the measures to attack that compound.”

The Israeli military subsequently bulldozed and excavated the western section of the cemetery, where dozens of graves once stood.

Pressed on how his forces dealt with dead who were buried there, Goldfuss said, “We try and move them aside as much as we can, as much as possible.”

“But remember, this place, when you’re fighting here and your enemy is flanking you again and again and again using these compounds to hide in, there’s not much you can do,” he added.

Goldfuss maintained that the heavy damage to the cemetery was necessary to uncover what he claimed was a tunnel beneath its surface.

Medical staff at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza have also alleged that Israeli soldiers used bulldozers to dig up bodies buried in the hospital’s courtyard, after concluding a raid in the hospital.

According to international law, an intentional attack on a cemetery could amount to a war crime, except under very limited circumstances relating to that site becoming a military objective.

Inside the tunnel

A dark, humid and seemingly endless labyrinth awaited us once inside. Without a light on, the tunnel was pitch-black and it was impossible to hear the outside world.

There were tiled floors, painted walls, plus electricity and plumbing. Large frames also hung on the walls, which the Israeli military said once displayed maps. A large map that would fit one of the frames was sprawled on a table.

Goldfuss, standing inside the command center, said he was surprised at the scale of the tunnels he said the IDF had found.

Detained Palestinians

The men, kneeling or sitting on the wet, cold ground, had been detained by the Israeli military in Gaza. Israeli soldiers, their faces obscured by balaclavas, stood guard around them.

Some of the men appeared to be physically exhausted, with their heads falling and swaying as they attempted to remain kneeling. One detainee lay on the ground before an Israeli soldier arrived to rouse him, propping him back up. The men appeared to be wearing nothing more than disposable white coveralls, despite the 10 degree Celsius temperature (50 degrees Fahrenheit).

The Israeli military said the men were “suspected of terrorist activity and were arrested in Gaza and transferred to Israel for further interrogation.”

“As part of the IDF activity in the combat area in Gaza, individuals suspected of involvement in terrorist activity are being detained and questioned. It is often necessary for terror suspects to hand over their clothes such that their clothes can be searched and to ensure that they are not concealing explosive vests or other weaponry. The suspects are given jumpsuits, and are provided with clothes upon arrival to the detention facility,” the IDF said in a statement.

“Relevant suspects are taken for further questioning within Israel. Individuals who are found not to be taking part in terrorist activities are released back into Gaza, as soon as possible,” the statement added.

Of the 13 UNRWA employees alleged to have been associated with the attack, the Israeli document alleges 10 were Hamas operatives, two were Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives and one is unidentified.

Israel believes that six UNRWA employees infiltrated Israel as part of the attack, four were involved in kidnapping Israelis, and three additional UNRWA employees were “invited via a SMS text to arrive at an assembly area in the night before the attack and were directed to equip with weapons,” but their presence on October 7 was not confirmed.

It also alleges that at least one UNRWA employee supplied logistic support to the attack.

This summary is part of what was provided to US Ambassador to Israel, Jack Lew, and Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues, Ambassador David Satterfield, in a Friday briefing with Israel’s head of military intelligence, according to the Israeli official.

When asked about the allegations, the spokesperson for UN Secretary General, Stephane Dujarric, said the UN had not received the intelligence shared with news outlets, and that UNRWA operates in Gaza with the mandate of the UN General Assembly, a voting body of member states.

“That information has not been given to us officially by the Israeli authorities,” he said.

UNWRA has already fired several employees in the wake of the allegations, which first emerged last week, hours after the UN’s top court ordered Israel to act immediately to prevent genocide in Gaza. UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini also ordered an investigation into the claims, to be conducted by the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services.

In a statement Sunday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres said nine UNRWA staff members at the center of the allegations had been fired. One other was dead and the identities of two others were still “being clarified.”

“Any UN employee involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution,” Guterres said, adding that an independent review is forthcoming.

UNRWA has long been a target of Israeli criticism. Israel has accused the agency of anti-Israel incitement, which UNRWA denies. In 2017, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to dismantle the UN body, saying it should be merged with the main UN refugee agency.

Israel has also accused Hamas of using UN facilities in Gaza, alleging in its intelligence summary that operatives of the militant group have used a UNWRA school as a hideout and used mass evacuations to conceal themselves among the fleeing civilians. The UN has reported several strikes on UNWRA schools and shelters since the war began.

UNRWA denies allegations that its aid is being diverted to Hamas or that it teaches hatred in its schools, and has questioned “the motivation of those who make such claims.” The agency has condemned the Hamas attack on October 7 as “abhorrent.”

The fallout of the allegations has seen several of the agency’s top donor countries, including the US, Germany and the UK, pull funding from UNRWA. Norway, Ireland, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are among the countries to have not halted funding.

UN officials warn that UNRWA would run out of money if countries suspend payment, threatening the organization’s humanitarian relief for millions of people.

As Israel’s offensive enters its fourth month, entire neighborhoods in Gaza have been wiped out, critical supplies are dwindling, and the entire Gaza population – about 2.2 million people – face starvation, dehydration and deadly disease.

At least 152 UNRWA staffers have been killed in Gaza since the Israel-Hamas war began, according to the agency.

A growing chorus of world leaders have warned against the mounting Palestinian death toll. Israel has strongly opposed calls for a ceasefire, maintaining that it needs to press on with its aim of eliminating Hamas.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

As Houthi rebels continue their assault on commercial shipping in the Red Sea, the deepening crisis is posing a fresh test to China’s much-touted ambitions of becoming a new power broker in the Middle East.

The attacks on one of the world’s most important shipping routes have upended global trade and stoked fears of a wider regional conflict nearly four months into the Israel-Hamas war.

So far, China’s public response to the Red Sea crisis has been limited to calls for an end to the attacks on civilian ships and veiled criticism of US-led military operations against the Houthis – which analysts say has fallen well short of Beijing’s global aspirations.

“The cautious or hesitant Chinese response casts a heavy shadow on its ambitions to be a responsible global power,” said Mordechai Chaziza, a senior lecturer at the Ashkelon Academic College in Israel who specializes in China’s relations with the Middle East.

With Beijing showing no appetite of getting directly involved in the crisis, the United States has sought to prod China into pressuring Iran – which trains, funds and equips the Houthis – to rein in the attacks.

The stakes are high for China, the world’s largest trading nation. Most Chinese exports to Europe are shipped through the Red Sea, while tens of millions of tons of oil and minerals transit the waterway to reach Chinese ports.

It also presents a diplomatic challenge for Chinese leader Xi Jinping, who in recent years has vowed to “contribute Chinese wisdom to promoting peace and tranquility in the Middle East” as part of his initiative to offer an alternative to the Western-led security order.

China’s response

The Houthi rebels in Yemen started firing missiles and drones at ships in the Red Sea in mid-November, in what they say is an act of solidarity with Palestinians. But many vessels with no link to Israel have been targeted.

For weeks, China’s public response was notably muted. It did not condemn the Houthis, nor did its warships respond to distress calls from nearby vessels under attack.

China also spurned a US-led multinational coalition to protect ships transiting the Red Sea, even though the People’s Liberation Army Navy has an anti-piracy task force sailing in the Gulf of Aden and a support base in nearby Djibouti.

More recently, as the US and Britain started military strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen, Beijing became more vocal in raising concerns about the tensions.

It called for an end to the attacks on civilian ships and urged “relevant parties to avoid adding fuel to the fire,” noting that the United Nations Security Council has never authorized the use of force by any country in Yemen.

Chinese officials repeatedly stressed that the Red Sea crisis is a “spillover” from the conflict in Gaza, citing an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas as the top priority.

Since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, China has sought to present itself as a champion of the Global South and an alternative to American power by voicing support for the Palestinian cause and criticizing Israel and the US for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Beijing’s reluctance to wade into the Red Sea crisis reflects these geopolitical calculations.

“China has no interest in joining a Western coalition led by the US; such an action would strengthen the position of the US as a regional hegemon and weaken the Chinese position in the region,” Chaziza said.

In meetings with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Bangkok over the weekend, US national security adviser Jake Sullivan urged Beijing to use its “substantial leverage with Iran” to stop the attacks, a senior White House official told reporters Saturday.

“This is not the first time we’ve called on China to play a constructive role. Beijing says they are raising this with the Iranians, and I think you’ve seen that reflected in some of the press reporting. But we’re certainly going to wait to see results before we comment further on how effective we think — or whether we think they’re actually raising it.”

Citing Iranian sources, Reuters reported Friday that Chinese officials asked their Iranian counterparts at several recent meetings to help rein in the Houthis or risk harming business relations with Beijing.

“Basically, China says: ‘If our interests are harmed in any way, it will impact our business with Tehran. So tell the Houthis to show restraint,’” one Iranian official briefed on the talks told Reuters.

The Chinese government readout of the meeting between Wang and Sullivan did not mention the Red Sea.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said last week China had “actively deescalated the situation from day one” and had “been in close communication with various parties and worked actively to alleviate the tensions in the Red Sea.”

Under pressure

Although the Houthis have said they won’t target Chinese or Russian vessels, China’s interests have nevertheless been threatened by the crisis.

Like many global shipping firms, Chinese state-owned shipping giants COSCO and OOCL diverted dozens of ships from the Red Sea to a much longer route around the southern tip of Africa, according to data compiled by Kuehne + Nagel, a logistics company based in Switzerland. Such detours typically add more than 10 days to the journey, delaying deliveries and sending shipping costs soaring.

San Francisco-based global logistics firm Flexport says historically 90% of cargo shipped from China to Europe would have moved through the Red Sea, but now 90% of that traffic is taking a detour around Africa.

Due to the disruption, ocean freight rates from Shanghai to Europe surged more than 300% between November to January, according to the Shanghai Shipping Exchange – posing a big challenge to Chinese exporters in an already slowing economy.

The pressure to act may be coming from China’s regional partners too.

Jonathan Fulton, an Abu Dhabi-based senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council, said China’s inaction undermined its credibility with regional actors.

“The perception that it is an emerging extra-regional power doesn’t hold up if it doesn’t try to involve itself,” he said.

“The US-UK-led coalition does the heavy lifting, while China watches. That is a bad look. Regional leaders probably see China as a paper tiger.”

The disruption of trade hits everyone in the wallet. Egypt is losing millions of dollars per day from the reduced traffic at the Suez Canal at the northern end of the Red Sea. Saudi Arabia, which is in peace talks with the Houthis after nine years of war in Yemen, “can’t directly do anything without becoming a Houthi target so wants others to do something,” Fulton said.

That leaves China in a tricky position: it has to strike a delicate balance between Iran, an anti-US ally, and the Gulf countries, arguably China’s more important economic partners in the region.

Global ambitions

Last year, Beijing brokered a historic rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Iran, two longtime regional rivals, but stopping the Houthi attacks could prove a thornier task for China, analysts say.

“There was so much momentum of this idea that China is becoming a major diplomatic, political and security actor,” Fulton said. But events since the Israel-Hamas war “really demonstrated that China’s approach to the region is still pretty much driven by its economic interests, and it doesn’t really have the willingness or the capacity to play a very significant role in those other areas yet.”

China has been Iran’s biggest trading partner for the past decade and buys 90% of Iran’s oil exports. But how much that can be translated into influence will be a test of Beijing’s political capital.

“The reality is that China has limited leverage to actually impact Iran’s behavior,” said William Figueroa, an assistant professor at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

“Chinese investment in Iran is relatively low, and the politics and logistics of completely shutting down the oil trade would be complicated. It doesn’t mean that China can’t or won’t actually cancel any deals or reduce oil imports to punish Iran, but it does mean it’s unlikely unless Chinese ships are explicitly targeted or the escalation continues.”

The escalation of conflict in the Middle East has also raised questions over Xi’s Global Security Initiative (GSI), which has been touted by Beijing as “Chinese solutions and wisdom for solving security challenges.”

The initiative, launched by Xi in 2022, advocates an assembly of broad Chinese foreign policy principles, including “resolving conflicts through development and eliminating the breeding ground for insecurity.”

“The GSI is very normative driven, it’s this idea that economic solutions to insecurity will transform these problems,” Fulton said.

The concept was well received among regional governments that wanted economic development and more foreign direct investment. And for a while, things appeared to be moving in that direction.

In August, Wang, China’s top diplomat, declared that a “wave of reconciliation” was sweeping through the Middle East with the help of China. But that narrative was shattered only a little more than a month later, when Hamas unleashed its attack on Israel, plunging the region into renewed conflict.

“You see what’s happened since then, when there are actual material security threats, in the form of terrorism and attacks to global shipping, the normative stuff doesn’t count anymore. They need actual, hard security solutions,” Fulton said.

Drone footage shot off the coast of Southern California may have revealed the first ever glimpse of a newborn great white shark in the wild.

The 1.5-meter-long (5-foot-long) white shark was spotted on July 9, 2023, 400 meters (1,300 feet) off the coast of Carpinteria, California, by wildlife filmmaker Carlos Gauna and Phillip Sternes, a doctoral student in the department of biology at University of California Riverside, while they were shooting aerial video and images.

Its pale coloring and size immediately struck the duo as unusual. Adult great white sharks are gray on top and white underneath.

Gauna and Sternes examined the images and video in the viewfinder of the drone camera and noticed a thin, white film covering the shark that was sloughing off the animal as it moved.

“We enlarged the images, put them in slow motion, and realized the white layer was being shed from the body as it was swimming,” Sternes said in a news release. “I believe it was a newborn white shark shedding its embryonic layer.”

The case for the baby great white sighting

While in utero, embryonic sharks feed on unfertilized eggs for protein. The mothers offer additional nourishment to the growing shark pups with a milk secreted in the uterus. It’s some of this material that Gauna and Sternes believe gives the shark its unusual coloring.

They documented their observations in a study published Monday in the peer-reviewed Environmental Biology of Fishes journal.

“Given that white sharks produce uterine milk, it is within the realm of possibility that either this fluid or another fluid could have adhered to the shark right before birth,” the authors noted in the study.

If their assessment is correct, it’s the first time that a newborn great white shark has been observed in the wild.

“Where white sharks give birth is one of the holy grails of shark science. No one has ever been able to pinpoint where they are born, nor has anyone seen a newborn baby shark alive,” Gauna said in the news release. “There have been dead white sharks found inside deceased pregnant mothers. But nothing like this.”

An alternative explanation for the shark’s whitish color could be that it was cause by an unknown skin disorder, according to the study. However, Gauna and Sternes said they believe the most plausible answer is that the creature they observed is a newborn great white, according to the news release.

Its shape and size were indicative of a newborn: thin with rounded fin apexes, the study noted. In addition, other researchers have suggested this location off the coast of central California is a birthing ground for great white sharks.

Gauna and Sternes also noted in the study that mature sharks were spotted in the same area on the same day and the day before the footage was captured.

“In my opinion, this one was likely hours, maybe one day old at most,” Sternes said.

Speculative finding?

Gavin Naylor, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the University of Florida and a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History, said it is possible the sighting was a newborn great white shark, but added that the finding is “highly speculative.”

“White sharks typically have between 8 and 12 pups at a time, so where are all the others,” Naylor, who wasn’t involved in the study, said via email.

Nicholas Ray, a researcher at Nottingham Trent University in the UK, who has studied great white shark population dynamics in South Africa, called the sighting documented by Gauna and Sternes “fantastic.”

“This observation is hugely significant and is at the start of scientists’ understanding of the elusive reproductive cycles of this endangered species. It could unlock the door as a new discovery and reinforce the need for greater protection in these areas,” said Ray, who wasn’t involved with this study, in an email.

That the shark pup was filmed so close to the coast could be significant because its age means it was likely born in shallow waters. Other shark experts believe great whites are born farther out at sea, according to the news release.

“It has been hypothesized by other researchers that white sharks are born in shallow, coastal waters in this region, but never observed,” said Greg Skomal, senior fisheries scientist at the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries and author of the book “Chasing Shadows: My Life Tracking the Great White Shark.”

“While the presence of this young white shark in this area supports this hypothesis, the actual birth was not observed. We cannot rule out that the shark, which is quite mobile, could have moved a great distance from the birthing area. Regardless, this is a very exciting observation.”

The observations require “further investigation and additional evidence for support or refutation,” according to the study.

“Nevertheless, in either case, the use of the aerial drone has provided shark science with another interesting set of information,” the study authors added.

Japan’s “Moon Sniper” robotic explorer is back in action after a power issue forced the spacecraft to shut down hours after landing on the moon 10 days ago, the country’s space agency said Monday.

The explorer executed a precise landing just after 10:20 a.m. ET on January 19 (12:20 a.m. January 20 Japan Standard Time), making Japan the fifth country ever to put a spacecraft safely on the lunar surface — but faced a critical issue almost immediately.

The spacecraft landed facing the wrong direction after one of its engines failed during landing, meaning its solar cells couldn’t generate electricity and it had to rely on limited battery power, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

The agency shut off the lunar explorer to conserve its battery, saying it would automatically be restarted if its solar panel began generating power as the angle of the sun changed.

On Monday, JAXA announced on the social media platform X that it had “succeeded in establishing communication with (Smart Lander for Investigating Moon, or SLIM) last night and have resumed operations!”

The explorer has also captured new images of the lunar surface and returned them to the mission team on Earth.

The lander is equipped with a multi-band camera to capture images of the lunar surface. The mission team previously combined 257 images captured by SLIM right after landing to create a mosaic showcasing the landing site. Team members also nicknamed rocks of interest, choosing monikers that correspond to their size estimates.

A new image shared by the agency on Monday is a closeup of the rock “Toy Poodle.” The lander is designed to briefly study rocks that could reveal insights into the moon’s origins.

The SLIM lander’s mission can be considered at least a “minimum success” because it achieved a precise and soft lunar landing using optical navigation, the agency has said. Now, Japan aims to use the lander to collect unprecedented information about a region of the moon called the Sea of Nectar.

The spacecraft touched down near a crater called Shioli — a Japanese female first name pronounced “she-oh-lee” — which sits about 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of the Sea of Tranquility, the region near the lunar equator where Apollo 11 first landed astronauts on the moon.

When meteorites and other objects strike the moon, they create craters as well as rocky debris that litters the surface. These rocks intrigue scientists because studying them is effectively like peering inside the moon itself. Minerals and other aspects of the rocks’ composition can potentially shed more light on how the moon formed.

On Friday, NASA shared an image of SLIM’s landing site captured by the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has been circling the moon since 2009. The image was captured five days after the Moon Sniper landed from an altitude of about 50 miles (80 kilometers).

Other space agencies and countries have attempted moon landing missions over the past year, leading to a historic first as well as some failures.

India became the fourth country — after the United States, the former Soviet Union and China — to execute a controlled landing on the moon when its Chandrayaan-3 mission arrived near the lunar south pole in August.

The new lunar space race is partly driven by countries’ desire to access water trapped as ice in permanently shadowed regions at the lunar south pole. It could be used for drinking water or fuel as humanity pushes the bounds of space exploration in the future.

The lone victim of Sunday’s ISIS-claimed shooting at the Santa Maria Catholic Church in Istanbul was a Muslim, according to a local official.

Sukru Genc, mayor of the Sariyer district where the church is located, told Turkish independent newspaper BirGün that the man was by the entrance to the church at the time of the attack, which saw two masked gunmen open fire during Sunday service.

“During the attack, a citizen from Bayburt at the entrance, a Muslim citizen, lost his life,” said the mayor. Turkey’s interior minister Ali Yerlikaya identified the man as Tuncer Murat Cihan in a post on X.

“According to the priest, he was constantly going to church and the priest knew this person and referred to him as ‘a good person,’” added Genc.

The priest who was leading mass at the time said one of the attackers’ guns had jammed, according to Genc.

“When the first gun went off, everyone threw themselves on the ground. After the second explosion, the gun jammed and they [the attackers] came out. It is unknown what would happen next, whether the attack would continue,’” Genc told BirGün.

Genc said around 35 to 40 people were inside the church at the time, including the Polish Consul General in Istanbul, Witold Lesniak, who was there with his children.

“Nothing happened to them because they were in the front, but their children and everyone at the service were seriously affected,” he said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office posted a video on X, showing part of his call with Lesniak.

“I would be grateful if you would convey my condolences to the entire community,” Erdogan says in the video.

The man was the only person to die in the attack. There were no further injuries, according to Istanbul Governor Davut Gul.

ISIS has claimed responsibility for a shooting, according to a statement from the ISIS-affiliated Amaq news agency, citing a security source from the terror group.

At least 47 suspects have been arrested, according to Turkish state news agency Anadalou, citing Yerlikaya.

Two of the arrested suspects are believed to be affiliated with ISIS, reports Anadalou, which reports that one is from Tajikistan and the other is from Russia, citing Yerlikaya.

The attack appears to be the first ISIS attack in Turkey since 2017, when 39 people were killed at a nightclub on New Year’s Eve.