An oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden is on fire after Yemen’s Houthi militants fired missiles at the tanker on Friday amid ongoing attacks on the key shipping route.

The Marlin Luanda oil tanker was struck by a missile, the commodities group Trafigura, which is operating the vessel, said on Friday.

In a statement, Trafigura said the vessel “was struck by a missile in the Gulf of Aden after transiting the Red Sea,” adding that “firefighting equipment on board is being deployed to suppress and control the fire caused in one cargo tank on the starboard side.”

The Iran-backed militants claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement they fired missiles toward the tanker in response to the “American-British aggression against our country [Yemen]” and in support of the Palestinian people.

Trafigura, which has offices in Britain, said it is monitoring the situation and that military ships in the region are “underway to provide assistance.”

The British government has yet to comment on the attack.

Earlier on Friday, US Central Command said the Houthis also fired an anti-ship ballistic missile towards a US destroyer in the Gulf of Aden.

The US and UK have been carrying out strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen after Biden administration and its allies warned that the group would bear the consequences of its attacks in the international shipping lane.

The Houthis have said that they won’t stop their attacks until the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza comes to an end. Houthi leader Abdul Malek al-Houthi said in a speech on Thursday that it is “a great honor and blessing to be confronting America directly.”

The attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The UN relief agency operating in Gaza said Friday that Israel had accused some of its staff of being involved in the October 7 attacks, and that their contracts would be “immediately” terminated.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said Israeli authorities provided the agency “with information” alleging several of its employees participated in Hamas’ murderous rampage into southern Israel, when the militant group killed at least 1,200 people and abducted more than 250 others.

An investigation is being launched into the alleged involvement of the employees and those involved will be held accountable “including through criminal prosecution,” added Lazzarini. The commissioner-general said he made the decision in order to protect the agency’s ability to deliver humanitarian aid.

The news came hours after the UN’s top court ordered Israel to act immediately to prevent genocide in Gaza but stopped short of calling for a ceasefire, in a ruling that was largely welcomed by the three main parties involved.

In the wake of the allegations against UNRWA, the US State Department announced it had “temporarily paused additional funding” to the agency – a move praised by Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to “emphasize the necessity of a thorough and swift investigation of this matter,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said in a statement on Friday.

The US has contacted the Israeli government for more details on the allegations, added Miller. They have also briefed member of Congress.

“These shocking allegations come as more than 2 million people in Gaza depend on lifesaving assistance that the Agency has been providing since the war began,” said Lazzarini. “Anyone who betrays the fundamental values of the United Nations also betrays those whom we serve in Gaza, across the region and elsewhere around the world”.

On Friday, Republican US Senator Jim Risch, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, described the allegations as “unconscionable.”

“For years, I have warned the Biden Administration about resuming funding to UNRWA, which has a history of employing people connected to terrorist movements like Hamas. Today’s news is yet another example that underscores how corrupt this organization truly is.”

Deepening divides

Israel’s relations with the UN have deteriorated in recent months, after the organization’s senior officials repeatedly condemned the country’s military approach to the war in Gaza.

In December, Israeli diplomats lashed out when UN Secretary-General António Guterres invoked a rarely used but powerful tool in his determined push for a ceasefire. At the time, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said the UN chief’s tenure was “a danger to world peace” and that his call for a ceasefire in Gaza amounted to supporting Hamas and the October 7 attack.

As Israel’s offensive enters its fourth month, entire neighborhoods in Gaza have been wiped out, critical supplies are dwindling and more than 2.2 million people face starvation, dehydration and deadly disease. At least 1.7 million Palestinians have been internally displaced, many of them multiple times, according to the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

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.

A satellite designed to study Venus from top to bottom and a trio of gravitational wave-surfing spacecraft are two of the latest missions that the European Space Agency has adopted.

The agency previously had selected the missions, but the official adoption process means that contractors will be chosen so construction can begin to bring the mission designs to life.

ESA will partner with NASA for both missions, which will launch from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana in the 2030s.

“These trailblazing missions will take us to the next level in two extraordinarily exciting areas of space science and keep European researchers at the forefront of these domains,” said Carole Mundell, ESA director of science, in a statement.

A new voyage to Venus

The EnVision Venus explorer will study that planet in unprecedented detail, from inner core to the top of its atmosphere, to help astronomers understand why the hot, toxic world didn’t turn out like Earth. Venus is similar in size and distance from the sun when compared with Earth, and some researchers believe the planet might have even had an Earth-like climate at some point.

But “Earth’s twin” is now an inhospitable world, with surface temperatures capable of melting lead and intense, crushing pressure as a result of a runaway greenhouse effect.

Scientists hope the mission will answer key questions about Venus, including how the world evolved over time and if it ever had oceans, how geologically active it is and why the runaway greenhouse effect began.

EnVision is expected to launch in 2031 and will be the first mission to gather data on how the Venusian atmosphere, surface and interior interact. The mission builds on ESA’s first spacecraft sent to map the planet’s atmosphere, Venus Express, which orbited Venus from 2005 to 2014.

After a 15-month journey to Venus, EnVision will spend 15 more months orbiting the planet and flying through its atmosphere.

The satellite will have two deployable solar arrays and will carry a suite of instruments that can observe the Venusian surface and atmosphere as well as probe beneath the planet’s thick, obscuring clouds with radar and radio wavelengths.

It’s one of several missions in development to study Venus, including NASA’s DAVINCI and VERITAS expeditions set to launch within the next decade.

Unraveling the history of the universe

When massive celestial objects such as black holes collide, they send out ripples called gravitational waves that spread across the universe and reveal information about its history.

These waves have been detected with ground-based observatories, but the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, or LISA, will be the first space-based observatory to study the cosmic phenomenon. Ground-based observatories are limited in what they’re able to detect based on size and sensitivity, so they can only pick up on high-frequency gravitational waves.

But a space-based observatory can be much larger, and LISA will be able to detect waves that range from tiny to giant as well as low-frequency ones emitted by supermassive black holes that merge at the centers of massive galaxies.

The LISA mission includes three spacecraft that will fly 2.5 million kilometers (about 1.6 million miles) apart in a triangle-shaped formation. Free-floating gold cubes within each spacecraft will be used to detect gravitational waves.

The mission was born from the success of LISA Pathfinder, which ESA launched in 2015 to demonstrate the technology that the LISA mission will rely on to search the universe for cosmic ripples.

The new mission will look for evidence of black hole mergers across the universe, study the formation of thousands of pairs of stars called binary systems, peer inside dense star clusters within galaxies and try to measure the rate at which the universe is expanding. And LISA will be used to study the history of the universe by locating the first black holes ever formed after the big bang.

Together, the three spacecraft will fly behind Earth as it orbits the sun, about 50 million kilometers (31 million miles) from our planet. The agency expects the mission to last four years, with the possibility of extending it.

The UN’s top court ordered Israel to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, but stopped short of calling for Israel to suspend its military campaign in the war-torn enclave, as South Africa had requested.

In a hearing in The Hague, the Netherlands, on Friday, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said Israel must “take all measures” to limit the death and destruction caused by its military campaign, prevent and punish incitement to genocide, and ensure access to humanitarian aid.

South Africa had accused Israel of violating international laws on genocide, written in the wake of the Holocaust, and wanted the court to order Israel to cease fire in Gaza.

While the ICJ did not order Israel to end its war, the ruling represents a blow to Israel, which had hoped the case would be dismissed outright.

Friday’s decision related only to South Africa’s request for emergency measures, which act like a restraining order while the court considers the full merits of the genocide case, which could take years.

“The catastrophic humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is at serious risk of deteriorating further before the court renders its final judgment,” Judge Joan Donoghue, the ICJ’s president, said Friday.

By an overwhelming majority, the court’s 17-judge panel voted in favor of six emergency measures, ordering Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts which could fall foul of the 1948 Genocide Convention, and to ensure its military does not commit genocidal acts in Gaza.

It also ordered Israel to “prevent and punish the direct and public incitement to commit genocide,” and to guarantee the “provision of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance” in the enclave.

Israel was also ordered to preserve evidence related to allegations of genocide and report back to the court on its compliance with these measures in a month.

The ICJ’s decisions are binding and cannot be appealed, but it has no way of enforcing them. In 2022 it ordered Russia to immediately suspend its invasion of Ukraine, but Moscow’s war rages on nearly two years later.

Israel had already indicated it would not accept the ICJ’s orders. “Nobody will stop us – not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anybody else,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office wrote on X.

The court’s panel ordinarily comprises 15 judges, but was expanded in this case by additional judges from South Africa and Israel.

Israel’s judge Aharon Barak, an 87-year-old Holocaust survivor and former president of the country’s Supreme Court, voted in favor of two of the emergency measures, ordering Israel to curb incitements to genocide and to ensure aid can enter the enclave.

Both sides hail ruling

Apart from its call for a halt in fighting, the bulk of South Africa’s nine requests to the court were granted.

The Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister, Riyad al-Maliki, said the ICJ had “ruled in favor of humanity and international law” and thanked South Africa for bringing the case to the court.

South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa called the ruling a “victory for international law, for human rights, and above all for justice.”

While South Africa said it was “disappointed” that the court did not order a ceasefire, its Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said she believes Israel will have to observe one if it is to comply with the other measures ordered.

“In exercising the order, there would have to be a ceasefire,” she said after the hearing. “Without it the order doesn’t actually work.”

Despite the court’s ordering emergency measures, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hailed the ruling as a rejection of discrimination against his country.

“Like every country, Israel has an inherent right to defend itself,” he said in a short video message. “The vile attempt to deny Israel this fundamental right is blatant discrimination against the Jewish state, and it was justly rejected.”

However, not all members of Netanyahu’s cabinet welcomed the ruling. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant criticized the court’s decision to hear the case altogether, claiming the ICJ “granted South Africa’s antisemitic request to discuss the claim of genocide in Gaza, and now refuses to reject the petition outright.”

Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz said, “Those truly needing to stand trial are those that murdered and kidnapped children, women and the elderly,” referring to those killed and taken hostage by Hamas on October 7.

Palestinian militant group Hamas also welcomed the court’s decision in a statement on Friday, saying it anticipates further court decisions convicting Israel “of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity.”

‘A very significant rebuke’

Legal experts have said that, while the court did not grant the most explosive of South Africa’s requests, in finding that Israel is “plausibly” violating laws on genocide, its decision is damning.

“The world court looked at (Israel’s) actions in Gaza and said it is not implausible that it’s violating the Genocide Convention. I don’t see how that can possibly be a victory. In some sense it’s a rebuke, and it is also a rebuke to the governments of the world that support Israel in its actions in Gaza,” she said.

In the initial hearing two weeks ago, South Africa alleged that Israel’s leadership was “intent on destroying the Palestinians as a group in Gaza,” and that its aerial and ground assaults aimed to “bring about the destruction” of Palestinians in the enclave.

South Africa and Israel are both parties to the Genocide Convention, meaning they are obliged not to commit genocide and to prevent and punish it.

Israel reacted furiously to the accusation and rejected what it called South Africa’s “grossly distorted story,” telling the court its war in Gaza was fought in self-defense, that it was targeting Hamas rather than Palestinian civilians, and that its leadership had not displayed genocidal intent.

It said the accusation of genocide was an attempt to “pervert the meaning” of the term and empty it of its “unique force.”

Israel claimed if genocidal acts had been committed, they were “perpetrated against Israel” on October 7, when Hamas fighters stormed into the country from Gaza, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 240 hostage, according to Israeli officials. Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza has since killed more than 26,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the enclave.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Editor’s Note: The video above contains graphic and disturbing images. Viewer discretion is advised.

Sara Khreis replays the last day she spent with her mother over and over in her mind.

Their family had spent weeks agonizing over whether to flee as Israeli troops moved into Gaza City’s al-Rimal neighborhood, tanks rolling past their front door and a terrifying cacophony of bombs, quadcopter drones and gunfire thundering all around them.

After two nights of bombardment so intense they thought it might blow their home apart, they were resolved: they had to go.

That morning was messy, she said. More than 20 people, relatives and neighbors, had holed up at their house as the war worsened. Sara’s 57-year-old mother, Hala, always so focused on taking care of everyone but herself, cooked a quick breakfast amid a flurry of packing up bags and made time to pray. Suddenly, they heard their neighbors outside screaming that an evacuation route had been organized: “Come on, get out, come on, get out!”

The next thing Sara knew, they were throwing on shoes, and rushing out the door. She had a brief argument with her mother – now agonizing to recount – over whether she could help to carry her bag. Then they were on the street outside, joining a wave of other people holding white flags aloft: a universal symbol of surrender.

Out in front, a few paces ahead of the others, Hala was walking with her grandson, Tayem, then 4, holding hands as they navigated a street littered with debris, a white flag in his other hand. Seconds later, a shot rang out and Hala slumped to the ground.

That unthinkable moment was captured on camera. The video surfaced earlier this month in a report by UK-based news website Middle East Eye. Watching it makes Sara and her siblings feel sick.

The incident in al-Mawasi, a coastal town in southern Gaza previously designated a “safe zone” by the IDF, took place earlier this week. Ramzi Abu Sahloul, 51, was among a group of five men, their hands raised and brandishing a white flag. Sahloul told Ahmed Hijazi, a Palestinian journalist, that they were trying to get back to a house where his brother was being held back by Israeli soldiers to plead for his release. Moments after interviewing him, Hijazi filmed two Israeli tanks in the distance, beyond a raised bank, and then Sahloul being fatally shot in the chest. The impact of the first round is visible in the footage and appears to come from the direction of the tanks.

My mother was going to be 58 years old on December 30, and had her grandson with her. So why would you shoot her? What’s between you and her? You made us feel like it’s safe to leave, we had white flags in our hands as instructed.”

Sara Khreis

Sara and the rest of her family say that Hala was shot by Israeli forces despite what they described as an agreement to provide them with safe passage out of the besieged neighborhood.

The Khreis family say they were told that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had organized an evacuation route on a road running south, but as they fled, the message changed to go east. Hala didn’t hear the shouts calling for her to turn until it was too late.

The ICRC said it had never agreed to help with the evacuation, underlining the challenges families face in getting clear information about how to escape. “Given how dangerous and unsafe the situation was and continues to be, it’s not within the ICRC’s role to give instructions on evacuation, as we would not be able to guarantee their safety,” the humanitarian organization said in a statement. “According to international humanitarian law (IHL), it is the responsibility of the warring parties to ensure safe passage to civilians irrespective of the arrangements for evacuations, safe zones, or humanitarian pauses. Even if people chose to stay, they remain protected.”

The story of how the Khreis family decided to flee sheds light on the confusion shrouding evacuation plans and the impossible choices that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have had to make as fighting has drawn closer to their homes, shattering lives, breaking up families and destroying dreams for the future.

Hala walking with her son, Mohammad, smiling and waving to the camera.

‘My mother was all my life; she was my friend and my everything’

The months before the war broke out were happy ones for Hala and her family. Having retired four years earlier as an Arabic teacher after over 35 years working at a local school, Hala and her husband had bought a new home and were settling into the joys of watching their children and grandchildren grow up.

Sara had just gotten engaged to her boyfriend, Faisel, and was beginning to plan their wedding, organizing details with her mother for the extended family to travel to Turkey for the ceremony. Hala’s 22-year-old son, Mohammad, had graduated from university, and the family held a big party at one of their favorite restaurants to mark the occasion. Hala had been intent on helping Mohammad, her only son, find his life partner. They had planned to announce his engagement on October 7. Then everything changed.

Hala clapping and smiling next to her son, Mohammad, at a family celebration for his graduation.

“My mother was all my life; she was my friend and my everything. I didn’t do anything without consulting her or taking her opinion, she was with me in every step,” Sara said, swiping through family photos and holding back tears. “We all had plans, dreams, goals and it all included my mother. They stole our mom from us, all these dreams are now gone.”

Nour, another of Hala’s daughters, who is in Rafah, said that she had begged her mother for weeks to flee, but she refused, worried about how she and the rest of the family might survive the journey south amid reports that evacuation areas were being hit. Nour had fled after the Israeli military dropped leaflets urging Gaza City residents to evacuate to the south in mid-October.

We all had plans, dreams, goals and it all included my mother. They stole our mom from us, all these dreams are now gone.”

Sara Khreis

By the time the rest of the family decided to evacuate on November 12, the fighting had become relentless. But Sara said her mother seemed calm. As everyone prepared to leave, packing up their belongings, she was quietly reading the Quran. “She said if we are lucky to be part of this world, we would live. And if we die, we are martyrs,” Mohammad recalled.

When they walked out onto the street, there was uncertainty about which direction they should go, with Israeli forces positioned around the neighborhood. At the intersection, some members of the group said a soldier had waved them towards Palestine Stadium, but Mohammad wasn’t sure. “So I started calling on my mother, ‘come over here, come over here,’ but she didn’t hear, and she was walking to her fate,” Mohammad said, pausing to take a deep breath. “There were sounds of gunshots and she fell to the ground. I was shocked. I stood in place, frozen, and didn’t understand what had happened.”

He ran to Hala, a gaping gunshot wound in her chest, and called for others to help him carry her from the street. But they were terrified of the Israeli tanks, which Mohammad said he saw directly in front of the group, to the south; Israeli troops were also located to the west, satellite imagery showed. His father and a neighbor rushed to join him, dragging Hala back to their house where they tried in vain to resuscitate her.

In the turmoil, Hala’s grandson, Tayem, went missing. At first, his mother, Heba, who was in the back of the crowd, thought that her son had been shot alongside Hala. But then, when he wasn’t on the ground, and they couldn’t find him, she panicked. Heba and her husband, Youssuf Abdel A’atti, raced up and down the street asking people if they had seen Tayem, if they had seen a small child.

“His mother started asking me, ‘Where is Tayem, where is Tayem?’ And no one knows where Tayem is. We tried everything and called everyone, at this time my mother-in-law was a martyr, so we wanted to calm ourselves down at least to know where Tayem is,” Abdel A’atti said.

I felt like I was in a nightmare, until now I feel like I am still in denial from the whole thing, I am still waiting for my mom to send a message in the group chat to check on us, ‘How are you girls? What’s new? What did you do today?’”

Sara Khreis

It wasn’t until hours later, as the family was at home grieving Hala, that someone called to say Tayem had continued south with a group of acquaintances – a small comfort amid the horror. Heba and her husband are still waiting to be reunited with their son, who recently celebrated his fifth birthday without them. He is now in Rafah, southern Gaza, with his uncle, Mohammad.

“I am worried about him. Imagine the continuous shelling, and they claim these areas are safe. And now he is supposed to be in the safest area and every day we hear that there are strikes and shelling and targeting in Rafah,” Heba said. “His birthday came during the war, and he turned 5 years, and I didn’t see him … his younger brother every day is asking about Tayem, ‘Where is Tayem? Where is Teta?’” using a nickname for his grandmother.

The family later buried Hala outside their house, in a small sandy alleyway. They hope to go back to be able to give her a proper burial when the war is over and are calling for an investigation into her killing.

“I felt like I was in a nightmare, until now I feel like I am still in denial from the whole thing, I am still waiting for my mom to send a message in the group chat to check on us, ‘How are you girls? What’s new? What did you do today?’” Sara said.

She wants the world to know who her mother was: a devoted grandmother, a mother who still made Sara sandwiches to take to university for lunch, a retired teacher beloved by her students. “My mother was very loving, caring and giving… she had many amazing traits. I want to be exactly like her.”

China accused the United States military of “abusing international law” and continuing a pattern of “dangerous provocations” in East Asia Thursday, after a US Navy destroyer made the service’s first transit of the Taiwan Strait of 2024.

The movement on Wednesday of the USS John Finn through the waterway that separates democratically governed Taiwan from communist mainland China was also the first transit of a US warship through the strait since elections on the island two weeks ago.

The vote gave Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party a historic third consecutive presidential victory, with the island’s voters shrugging off warnings from Beijing that its reelection would increase the risk of conflict.

China’s ruling Communist Party views Taiwan as part of its territory, despite having never controlled it, and leader Xi Jinping has not ruled out the use of military force to “reunify” the island with the mainland.

The US meanwhile is obligated under the Taiwan Relations Act to provide Taiwan with the military means to defend itself, something Beijing regards as interference in its internal affairs.

US Navy 7th Fleet spokesperson Cmdr. Meagan Greene said in a statement Wednesday that the transit of the USS John Finn through the strait was made “in accordance with international law.”

“The ship transited through a corridor in the Strait that is beyond the territorial sea of any coastal State. John Finn’s transit through the Taiwan Strait demonstrates the United States’ commitment to upholding freedom of navigation for all nations as a principle,” Greene said.

While the John Finn’s transit of the Taiwan Strait was the first of 2024, US warships and warplanes regularly travel through and over the waterway. In 2023, US Navy and Coast Guard ships and Navy reconnaissance planes made 11 transits of the strait, according to a database kept by Collin Koh, research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

On Thursday, China’s Defense Ministry said Washington was courting danger with its military activities in the region, saying a change in behavior is “needed to avoid maritime and air accidents,” according to the state-run Xinhua news agency’s English-language website.

“The root cause of the China-U.S. maritime and air security issues lies in the U.S. military’s harassment and provocations on China’s doorstep, engaging in prolonged, extensive and high-frequency activities in the maritime and aerial areas surrounding China,” the Xinhua story said, citing Defense Ministry spokesperson Wu Qian.

“He urged the U.S. side to stop abusing international law, cease all dangerous provocations, and strictly discipline its troops on the ground,” the story said.

Earlier this month, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, Adm. John Aquilino, accused Beijing of ramping up tensions.

Aquilino told a defense forum in Hawaii that he expected a show of force from China against Taiwan in the wake of the election result.

“When something occurs that they don’t like, they tend to take actions,” Aquilino told the Pacific Forum’s Operationalizing Integration in the Indo-Pacific conference in Honolulu.

Koh, the Singaporean analyst, said Beijing may be a bit “miffed” at Washington at the moment, especially after agreeing to restart military-to-military talks in December.

“Given that Beijing very likely believes that it extended the olive branch by agreeing to reopen military-to-military communications and other high-level exchanges, it might have perceived a lack of reciprocity from the US,” Koh said.

Britain’s King Charles III was admitted to a London hospital on Friday morning ahead of a corrective procedure for an enlarged prostate.

Buckingham Palace said in a statement that the 75-year-old monarch had arrived at the facility for his “scheduled treatment.”

“His Majesty would like to thank all those who have sent their good wishes over the past week and is delighted to learn that his diagnosis is having a positive impact on public health awareness,” it added.

The palace revealed last week that the king was set to undergo treatment and said that his condition was “benign.”

Charles arrived at The London Clinic, a private healthcare facility near Regent’s Park, accompanied by his wife, Queen Camilla, the UK’s PA Media news agency reported. It is the same hospital where his daughter-in-law, Catherine, Princess of Wales remains following her abdominal surgery last week.

The king will postpone engagements for a short period while he recuperates after leaving hospital.

Specific medical conditions of members of the royal family are rarely divulged publicly. The palace’s perspective is that they are entitled to some level of medical privacy despite their positions as public servants.

And it would appear his approach worked. There was a surge in men seeing if they are at risk of prostate cancer, according to figures from NHS England.

Visits to its “enlarged prostate” webpage – which provides information on causes, symptoms and treatment options – saw traffic surge more than 1,000% above its daily average after the palace’s announcement.

It received 16,410 visits on the day of the announcement, compared to 1,414 visits the day before, according to the organization.

Prostate Cancer UK also said the number of individuals using its online risk checker had jumped 97%. The charity praised the monarch “for his openness that’ll inevitably raise more awareness about the condition.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

More than 40 senior former Israeli national security officials, celebrated scientists and prominent business leaders have sent a letter to Israel’s president and speaker of parliament demanding that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu be removed from office for posing what they say is an “existential” threat to the country.

The signatories on the letter include four former directors of Israel’s foreign and domestic security services, two former heads of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and three Nobel Prize winners.

The letter blasts the coalition Netanyahu assembled to form the most right-wing government ever in Israel, along with his highly controversial efforts to overhaul Israel’s judiciary that they say led to security lapses that resulted in the October 7 attacks, the deadliest day in Israel’s history.

“We believe that Netanyahu bears primary responsibility for creating the circumstances leading to the brutal massacre of over 1,200 Israelis and others, the injury of over 4,500, and the kidnapping of more than 230 individuals, of whom over 130 are still held in Hamas captivity,” it reads. “The victim’s blood is on Netanyahu’s hands.”

The letter was sent to Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Thursday and to Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana on Friday.

Netanyahu’s popularity has fallen dramatically since starting his sixth term as prime minister, just over a year ago. Critics have blasted his judicial reform efforts – which threatened to trigger a constitutional crisis and divided the country, with months of massive, regular demonstrations.

“Leaders of Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas,” the letter says, “openly praised what they correctly saw as a destabilizing and erosive process of Israel’s stability, led by Netanyahu, and seized the opportunity to harm and damage Israel’s security.”

Among the 43 signatories are former IDF chiefs Moshe Ya’alon and Dan Halutz, Tamir Pardo and Danny Yatom, who ran the Mossad intelligence agency, and Nadav Argaman and Yaakov Peri, who were directors of the domestic security service, Shin Bet.

Former CEOs, ambassadors, government officials and three Nobel laureates for chemistry – Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Dan Shechtman – also signed the letter.

A poll released this week by Israel’s Channel 13 suggests that Netanyahu’s political party, Likud, would now come in a distant second if elections were held today. The frontrunner in the poll was the National Unity party led by former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz, currently a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet.

The next elections aren’t planned until late 2026, though there have been protests and calls for early elections, including from one of Israel’s main opposition leaders, Yair Lapid.

“The situations that brought Israel to elections beforehand are almost nothing in comparison to what Israel is going through now,” said Haim Tomer, a longtime Mossad officer who retired after heading the agency’s intelligence division and who signed the letter demanding Netanyahu’s removal.

In the past week Netanyahu has repeatedly expressed his opposition to Palestinian sovereignty for security reasons, as Israel’s main ally, the United States, continues to call for a two-state solution.

The letter’s signatories accuse Netanyahu of spending years propping up Hamas in Gaza at the expense of the Palestinian Authority, which the US has argued should be revitalized to govern both the West Bank and Gaza.

To form his current government, Netanyahu brought together other parties well to the right of Likud and assembled the most right-wing government in Israeli history. Two of its most prominent members, Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, have been called out by the Biden administration for arguing that Palestinians should leave Gaza.

The letter accuses Netanyahu of refusing to take responsibility for the October 7 attacks, instead “blaming others and inciting against those who had fought to save the Israeli democracy from his destructive actions and plans, and now mobilize whole heartedly to support Israel’s national war efforts.”

It concludes with a plea to the Israeli president and Knesset speaker to replace the prime minister, as well as a warning: “The Israeli nation and Jewish history will not forgive you if you don’t fulfill your utmost national responsibility.”

Neither the president nor the speaker has the power to remove a prime minister from office unilaterally.

The right people need “to get their hands on the steering wheel,” said Tomer, the former Mossad official.

“I think people start to look from the outside towards Israel and ask themselves what happened to this country,” Tomer said. “What’s happened to this country with very, very smart people that are now being led with some idiots?”

“The word that we have been using in the circles that I’ve been participating in is: we need a restart, we need a restart.”

Israel has come under intense international criticism for its war in Gaza, which has killed more than 25,000 Palestinians and displaced almost two million people since the October 7 Hamas attacks.

Israel has repeatedly insisted that its war is not against the Palestinian people but Hamas militants who are holding more than 130 hostages in dire conditions in the war zone.

Netanyahu told a news conference last week that politicians who are asking him to step down are essentially asking for a Palestinian state.

Israel’s actions in Gaza are the subject of a genocide case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ), initiated by South Africa that accuses the country’s leadership of intending to “bring about the destruction of its Palestinian population.”

Israel denies the allegations, arguing that the war is being fought in self-defense and that its leadership has not displayed genocidal intent.

It was supposed to be a safe haven – a new life for those seeking refuge from the turbulence of war.

But when tens of thousands of Ukrainians fled to Israel in the wake of Russia’s invasion, they had no idea of what the future would hold.

With men aged 18 to 60 forbidden to leave Ukraine, the refugees were mostly women, children and the elderly. Among them, four courageous teenagers who arrived alone in Israel to start a new life as a result of Moscow’s assault on their homeland on February 24, 2022.

Little more than a year and a half later, these young people found themselves immersed in another conflict, as they study at a boarding school just 8 miles from Gaza.

“The day before was very peaceful,” recalled Artem Karpin, 18, of Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7. “I remember thinking I wasn’t really ready with my homework and wondering how to postpone my deadlines.”

Karpin lives and studies at Kfar Silver, a youth village near Ashkelon, close to where Hamas militants infiltrated the border that Saturday morning. He is one of about 40 Ukrainian refugees to enrol there since Russia invaded his country.

Run by the global education charity World ORT, the “village” is effectively a sprawling complex for 1,090 children from challenging backgrounds – including 250 boarders.

Originally from the southwestern city of Odesa, Karpin had been visiting relatives in Israel when Russia invaded Ukraine. His father gave him no choice but to stay put.

Nearly 2,000 miles from his parents, Karpin, then 16, enrolled at Kfar Silver, where he soon began to learn the language, make friends and settle in. That was until life was upended again on October 7.

“That morning we all ran from the dorms to the shelter in the school,” he said. “I was scared but not terrified. I was trying to talk it all through rationally and it really helped.”

Karpin was one of 63 of pupils on site that day, as was 18-year-old Michael Reider.

Originally from Kyiv, Reider arrived in Israel in March 2022 following a gruelling journey from his homeland to Poland, where he spent a week on his own before flying out.

On that “black Shabbat” of October 7, he said: “I woke up and there were a lot of sirens and rockets were flying.

“I had already experienced one invasion and now this was a second one. I don’t know how to explain it – I wasn’t really afraid. I felt kind of angry and like I had the energy to fight.”

Pupils and staff remained in the shelter for hours as the unprecedented terror raged around them.

“We were terrified. We knew very early that the situation was very bad, that there were a lot of terrorists.”

‘Thousands of rockets’

Friday had marked the end of a week-long religious holiday, so fortunately very few pupils were at school, said Gofer. Most of the Ukrainian students, however, had nowhere else to be.

“I was sure the terrorists were going to come here to kill us,” said Gofer, who keeps the remains of a rocket which exploded on the school grounds on his desk.

“I had three people with personal pistols, which was nothing compared to the heavy ammunition the terrorists had.

“We saw no helicopters, no police, no military – I still don’t understand why it took so long,” said Gofer, referring to widespread reports on October 7 that the army and security forces took hours to react to the incursions.

With no response to his repeated calls to the army and emergency services, who were dealing with ongoing attacks in multiple locations, Gofer finally called a bus company manager he knew.

“He told me none of his bus drivers were willing to come… everyone was terrified.”

Two drivers from the bus company eventually volunteered to evacuate the children to another village further north, he added. “They told me if they’re not out of here in two, three minutes they would go without the students.”

Karpin recalled: “We had several minutes to pack our clothes and run for the buses. I got the most essential stuff and that’s it. In an hour or two we were in Netanya.”

Four days later, Karpin’s parents, back in Ukraine, insisted that he leave Israel with other relatives for Europe.

“After three weeks I started to feel that I wanted to return (to Israel),” he said of his time in Greece and Germany. “I missed my studies and my friends. It was getting a little safer in Israel, so I convinced my family I needed to get back.”

‘I was scared’

In common with some other foreign boarders, 17-year-old Maria, who asked not to give her surname for privacy reasons, was staying with a nearby “host family” because of the religious holiday when Hamas launched its assault on October 7.

“At six in the morning we were all running to the shelter and you could hear sirens,” she said.

Originally from the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, Maria and her younger brother had moved to their father’s home in Kyiv following the Russian invasion. Eventually the two siblings left the country via Moldova and flew to Israel.

“When war broke out in Ukraine it was like life fell apart and this time it was very similar – I had flashbacks,” she said. “I was scared but also thought if I tried to distance myself as much as possible everything would be OK.”

She remained with the family, who live in Ashkelon, for several days before heading north to join the evacuees, including her brother. There they remained until last month when they returned to the school.

“My mum was worried about us,” she said, adding that their mother suggested they return home to Ukraine.

“I told myself I could go back but that I’d be going back to war and I couldn’t possibly know if it’s safer. At the same time, I didn’t want to leave Israel. I thought ‘do I need to flee again to start life again once more?’”

After lengthy family discussions, the siblings decided to stay.

“In some ways I’d rather be here,” said Maria. “I just wish for my family to be brought together again in peace.”

“I understood that it was better to live in a country with no war,” he said.

That all changed when he woke up at his friend’s house in Ashkelon on October 7.

“My mum was really afraid of me being in Ashkelon but I was trying to explain that I had a bomb shelter here,” he said, adding that Ukrainian homes are not equipped with so-called safe rooms. All Israeli homes built after 1993 must have such a shelter, designed to protect residents from rocket attacks.

‘Everyone’s on high alert’

With the village now at “95% operational,” according to Gofer, counsellors, social workers and psychologists are on hand to support pupils as they navigate the mental and emotional fallout of the war.

Kulyk said he feels safe but admitted that “sometimes it’s really hard for me to live in Israel.” However, he added: “I’m not sure I’ll go back to Ukraine. My main goal is to finish school right now.”

Many families and staff remain evacuated from their homes, while some teachers are serving in the IDF reserves.

Rockets continue to fly, though less frequently, while some staff – including Gofer – now have access to long-range rifles.

“Everyone’s on high alert,” he said. “People aren’t afraid of sirens – they’re afraid of terrorists.”

And yet the situation has not dented the optimism and determination of these four youngsters.

Both Maria and Kulyk are interested in studying international relations – something they are surely more qualified for than most teenagers.

Reider has other ideas. “When the war started here there was relative silence in Ukraine and my family felt more safe,” he said.

“They were very worried (about me) but I didn’t want to go back. I’m a Jew and Israel is my country. If Israel calls me to the army, I’ll go.” A period of military service is compulsory for most Israelis when they turn 18.

Karpin plans to study electrical engineering in Israel.

“I want to go back home once I have two university degrees so I can work on rebuilding and improving Ukrainian infrastructure and make my country a safe and better place,” he said.

Voting began on Friday in the tiny Pacific island nation of Tuvalu in a national election that is being closely watched by China, Taiwan, the United States and its ally Australia, amid a tussle for influence in the region.

Tuvalu, with a population of about 11,200 spread across nine islands, has campaigned at international conferences for greater action to help low-lying nations address climate change, because science shows its capital Funafuti risks being inundated by tides by 2050.

Most of Tuvalu is forecast to be flooded by high tides by 2100, says the United Nations Development Programme, which is working with Tuvalu to bolster its coastline.

A contest for influence in the Pacific between China and the United States has seen Tuvalu courted, with Washington recently pledging to connect its remote population by undersea cable to global telecommunications for the first time.

Tuvalu is one of three remaining Pacific allies of Taiwan, after Nauru cut ties this month and switched to Beijing, which pledged more development support.

Taiwan on Thursday said China was trying to influence the Tuvalu election and “seize our diplomatic allies.” China’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

China views democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory and not entitled to diplomatic ties. Taiwan rejects China’s sovereignty claim.

Contenders for Tuvalu’s leadership have all advocated for climate change action on the world stage, but differ in approaches to ties with Taiwan, a diplomatic ally since 1979.

Tuvalu’s Finance Minister Seve Paeniu, who has secured a seat in the new parliament as one of only two candidates for the Nukulaelae island electorate, told Reuters he expects Taiwan ties to be reviewed after the election.

The new government should decide whether Taiwan or China can best respond to Tuvalu’s development needs, he said.

Prime Minister Kausea Natano has told Taiwan he continues to support ties, Taiwan said.

Enele Sopoaga, ousted as prime minister by Natano at the 2019 election, and former foreign minister Simon Kofe, have previously pledged support for Taiwan.
There are no political parties, and two lawmakers will be chosen by voters in each of eight island electorates.

After votes are counted, government boats collect the new lawmakers from islands and bring them to the capital Funafuti, a journey that can take up to 27 hours. The prime minister is chosen by the newly elected lawmakers. Natano and Kofe are running in the seat of Funafuti.

Kofe attracted global headlines in 2021 when he delivered a speech to the United Nations climate change summit standing knee deep in water to highlight the plight of the low-lying nation.

Tuvalu signed a security and migration agreement with Australia in November that allows Canberra to vet security ties. Sopoaga has rejected the Australia deal, while Kofe said some aspects should be revised.