An Iranian protester with a mental health condition has been executed over the death of a local official during mass demonstrations that rocked the country in 2022, the Iranian judiciary’s news agency reported on Tuesday.

“The death sentence of Mohammad Ghobadlou for the crime of intentional murder of Farid Karampour Hassanvand was executed this morning after 487 days of judicial review of the case,” the Mizan news agency said.

Iranian authorities allege Ghobadlou ran over the official during a protest in Robat Karim, Tehran province, in September 2022, according to rights group Amnesty International.

Ghobadlou received two death sentences – one for “corruption on Earth,” issued by a Revolutionary Court and upheld by the Supreme Court, and one for murder, issued by a criminal court in Tehran province, according to Amnesty.

Mizan reported that the death sentence for “corruption on Earth” was suspended earlier this month until the intentional murder charge was investigated.

Ghobadlou’s lawyer Amir Raesian said he was not notified about a ruling regarding his client, and called on Mizan to release more information on the execution.

“If Mizan news agency is telling the truth, it should announce the number and date of issuance of this verdict,” Raesian said in a statement on X.

Amnesty has criticized the death sentences for following what it described as “grossly unfair sham trials, marred by torture-tainted ‘confessions’ and failure to order rigorous mental health assessments despite (Ghobadlou’s) mental disability.”

Ghobadlou had been under the supervision of a psychiatric hospital for bipolar disorder since the age of 15, Amnesty said. International law and standards prohibit using the death penalty against people with mental disabilities, according to the rights group.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, the director of Norway-based Iranian human rights group Iran Human Rights (IHR), called Ghobadlou’s execution an “extrajudicial killing.”

On X, formerly Twitter, he wrote that “the Islamic Republic’s leader Ali Khamenei and his Judiciary must be held accountable for this crime. This execution must be met with strong international condemnations!”

At least eight protesters are known to have been executed in connection to nationwide demonstrations over the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022.

Amini, a 22-year-old woman, died in the custody of Iran’s morality police after being arrested for allegedly not wearing her headscarf properly.

Protests spread like wildfire in the following weeks – which Iranian authorities responded to with brute force, mass arrests and hasty sham trials, drawing sharp global condemnation and sanctions from the US.

More than 300 people were killed in the months-long protests, including more than 40 children, the United Nations said. US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) placed the number of dead at more than 500, including 70 children. Thousands were arrested across the country, the UN said in a report last year, citing research from its Human Rights Committee.

Twenty-one Israeli soldiers were killed during fighting in southern Gaza on Monday, the military said, in the biggest single loss of life for Israeli troops inside the battered enclave since the war with Hamas began.

The soldiers were “removing structures and terrorist infrastructure,” the IDF said in a statement, when a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) was fired towards a tank protecting the unit.

Two two-story buildings then collapsed following an explosion, which likely was caused by explosives that had been laid by the Israeli troops, the IDF said.

Israeli media reported that two soldiers in the tank were killed. Most of the Israeli forces killed were in or near the buildings, IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a separate televised statement.

The incident came as Israel seemingly shifts into a new phase of fighting in the embattled enclave, with the IDF pulling out some soldiers from Gaza and officials promising a less intense, more targeted approach.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the deaths of the soldiers represented “one of the most difficult days since the outbreak of the war.”

In a post on X, Netanyahu said: “I wish to strengthen the dear families of our heroic warriors who fell on the battlefield. I know that for these families, their lives will be changed forever.”

“I mourn for our fallen heroic soldiers. I hug the families in their time of need and we all pray for the peace of our wounded.” Netanyahu said the IDF had launched an investigation into the incident.

All families have been notified but only 10 names have been released so far, he said.

Another soldier was seriously injured in the same incident, Hagari added.

The Israeli military’s large-scale bombing campaign in Gaza has been ongoing since the October 7 murder and kidnapping rampage by Hamas gunmen that saw some 1,200 people killed in Israel and more than 250 taken hostage, more than 130 of whom are still in captivity, alive or dead.

The fatal incident brings the number of Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza since operations there began to 219.

Khan Younis surrounded

In recent weeks, the Israeli military’s main focus has been in southern Gaza, with intense fighting around the city of Khan Younis.

The IDF said Tuesday that the city is now surrounded, while the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry says nearly 200 people have been killed in the past day.

In a statement Tuesday, the IDF said “dozens of terrorists” had been killed in the past 24 hours by IDF ground troops in coordination with the Israeli air force.

“Over the past day, IDF troops carried out an extensive operation during which they encircled Khan Younis and deepened the operation in the area. The area is a significant stronghold of Hamas’ Khan Younis Brigade,” the IDF said.

Medical facilities in the city have been battered amid an Israeli assault in the area Monday, Palestinian health officials said, as the number of people killed in Israel’s siege on Gaza continues to rise.

On Monday, the Hamas-controlled health ministry said Nasser Hospital is receiving more patients with serious injuries than it can accommodate and intensive care units have reached capacity.

This month, Israeli officials said its military will shift towards a new, less intense phase of operations in Gaza, but a humanitarian crisis in the enclave continues to deepen.

On Monday, the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza said the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7 has risen to 25,295, with at least 63,000 injuries recorded.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Tim Lister contributed to this report.

The death toll from a landslide in southwestern China has reached 25 as rescuers continue to comb mud, snow and rubble in search of survivors.

There are 19 people still unaccounted for, reported state broadcaster CCTV on Tuesday.

Authorities have mobilized more than 1,000 rescue workers and 45 rescue dogs for the search mission following the landslide, which hit the mountain village of Liangshui, in Yunnan province, shortly before dawn Monday, when most residents were asleep.

A total of 18 homes were buried, and more than 500 people evacuated, CCTV reported.

Drone footage of the disaster site carried by local state media showed a broad slope of dark mud unleashed onto mountain terraces and village roofs covered in snow.

Dozens of fire engines and pieces of earth-moving equipment were also deployed as part of rescue efforts, according to CCTV.

Footage aired on CCTV showed firefighters in orange jumpsuits climbing through the gray rubble of destroyed homes to search for survivors, against the backdrop of steep mountain ridges powdered with snow.

One man was pulled from the rubble shortly after 11 a.m. local time Monday, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

The area was hit by heavy snow on Sunday night, and although the snowfall has lightened since, the temperature still lingered below freezing Monday, CCTV said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping urged local officials to quickly ramp up rescue efforts in a statement published by CCTV.

Xi also called on officials across China to be on high alert to avoid any major accidents as Chinese New Year celebrations approach, according to CCTV.

The remote mountains of Yunnan are prone to landslides, due to steep slopes and unstable soil.

Much of southern China, including Yunnan, is in the middle of a cold snap, with temperatures dropping near or below freezing, according to China’s Meteorological Administration.

This story has been updated with further developments.

If you’ve ever “flipped the bird,” you have something in common with ancient Greeks.

It was around 2,500 years ago that the naughty Greeks developed a phallic gesture to offend, taunt and literally poke each other. While throwing up a middle finger today clearly communicates a resounding “f**k you,” in classical society, historians say a middle finger was more of a ribald sexual reference.

The middle finger has since become a frequently used emoji, an unintentional guest during a Super Bowl halftime show, a surprise live sign-off on the BBC and a crude gesture wielded by angry motorists. Here’s how it became the human hand’s most obscene digit.

The middle finger originated as a phallic gesture

The cheeky Greeks “probably relied on the use of the middle finger to represent an erect penis,” wrote Max Nelson, who teaches courses on classical civilizations at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada, in a 2017 piece on the gesture’s origins.

Proudly displaying a middle finger was usually a joke, an insult or a sexual proposition, Nelson and other classical researchers posit. A few sources from ancient Greece reference middle fingers being used to prod or poke people’s persons, from nostrils to, well, nethers.

The Greek playwright Aristophanes was also purportedly a fan of the gesture, referring to “the long finger” in several of his plays.

In his comedy “The Clouds,” written in 419 B.C., a caricature of Socrates attempts to instruct the debtor Strepsiades about poetic meter. Strepsiades makes a crude joke about using a different finger to create rhythm. Translators of the text usually conclude that Strepsiades gesticulates with his middle finger (or, in some translations, reveals his privates) to refer to masturbation, said Nelson. Whatever the intent, the Socrates character responds with disgust.

The gesture eventually made its way to ancient Rome, where locals likely called it “digitus impudicus” – the indecent digit. The Roman historian Suetonius reported that the emperor Caligula forced his subjects to kiss his middle finger – per anthropologist and leading middle-finger historian Desmond Morris, this was a demeaning gesture that represented the ruler’s member.

Morris has said that the middle finger we know today – the digit hoisted high in the air, other fingers bending to its will – represents a penis and testicles.

“It is saying, this is a phallus that you’re offering to people, which is a very primeval display,” Morris told BBC in 2012.

It’s not clear, though, whether the ancient Greeks and Romans extended their middle fingers vertically in the air. Nelson wrote that while ancient people did likely use their middle fingers to make obscene gestures, they may have pointed them horizontally or in other directions – a bit different from the typical “finger” we know today.

“In the end then it is perhaps best to keep ‘the finger’ to ourselves,” Nelson wrote.

‘Flipping the bird’ is perhaps even more offensive today

The middle finger’s popularity faltered, but did not entirely disappear, during the Middle Ages, likely due to the growing influence of the Catholic Church and its disapproval of sexual gestures, researchers have concluded. Morris has said that the middle finger landed in the US with Italian immigrants in the late 19th century.

The “finger” didn’t become the “bird” until the 1960s, writer Brian Palmer reported for Slate. Birds had apparently been synonymous with taunting long before the mid-20th century. When the middle finger’s popularity grew once more, it became known as a wordless version of the goose-like honks and hisses of displeasure preferred by Brits and other Europeans.

It’s since become a beloved gesture for anti-authority rebels. Johnny Cash flashed a defiant middle finger during a 1969 performance at San Quentin State Prison in California after a photographer reportedly asked him what he thought of the prison warden. (It wasn’t Cash’s first performance at a Golden State prison.)

Anti-establishment artists from Joe Strummer of The Clash to Tupac Shakur have pointed a middle finger at the ruling class in their work — and, in famous photos, literally.

But the “bird” is also a sign of someone reaching their breaking point.

Today, “flipping the bird” is considered so vulgar (it does represent the f-bomb, after all) that it’s frequently blurred in media and even sent the BBC into a tailspin when one of its presenters unknowingly pointed it towards viewers during a live broadcast.

And in 2012, a middle finger sent “Paper Planes” performer M.I.A. to arbitration. The singer appeared during Madonna’s Super Bowl Halftime Show and flexed her middle finger toward the camera, prompting the NFL and NBC to apologize. The NFL asked for $16.6 million in damages from M.I.A., claiming she breached her contract and sullied the league’s reputation. M.I.A. settled over two years later, though she never apologized.

In defense of her performance, she and Madonna were wearing leather studded skirts similar to the garments Roman gladiators assumedly wore into battle. Maybe M.I.A. was just keeping it classical.

Less than a week into the Israel-Hamas war, the United Nations appealed to the world asking for nearly $300 million in aid to assist Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Within a month, the figure nearly quadrupled as the entire Gaza Strip plunged into a humanitarian catastrophe.

Three months into the war, international donors, mostly governments, have provided just over half of the requested funds through the UN’s plan, according to data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ (OCHA) Financial Tracking Service.

The figures reveal that only four-fifths of the emergency funding needed to ensure food security and roughly a quarter of what’s needed for shelter, water and sanitation have been provided.

Aid organizations say that nearly the entire population of the Gaza Strip faces a humanitarian crisis. The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, a UN-backed food security agency, reported on December 21 that “virtually all households are skipping meals every day” in Gaza. The spread of diseases, including hepatitis, diarrhea and respiratory infections, is putting more lives at risk, according to the World Health Organization.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNWRA) is reporting that nearly 80% of Gaza’s civilian population of roughly 2.2 million has been displaced since Israel launched its military operation in response to Hamas’ assault on October 7, when militants killed around 1,200 people and took more than 200 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

Many are sheltering in tents or overcrowded accommodations in Rafah in southern Gaza, after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) told people to flee both northern Gaza and Khan Younis in the south. Displaced Palestinians, many of whom left their homes with little or nothing, say they are struggling to stay dry and warm as winter temperatures and rains set in.

Meanwhile, the UN agency which provides services to more than half of Gaza’s civilians is on the verge of collapse, its leader said in a letter to the President of the UN General Assembly on December 7. As of January 12, more than 150 staff members have been killed — more than in any other conflict — and at least 70% of the remaining staff are displaced, according to the UNRWA.

The IDF has begun pulling its soldiers out of Gaza, but has said it expects fighting to continue throughout 2024. On December 22, the UN Security Council passed a resolution calling for further extended humanitarian pauses to allow more aid into Gaza. There has been no pause in fighting since a seven-day span at the end of November which was negotiated as part of an Israel-Hamas hostage release deal.

Gaza’s long dependence on aid

Gaza has been among the world’s top recipients of aid per capita for years. Before the war, four in five people depended on international help and as many as 1.84 million people were food insecure, according to the World Food Program.

The unemployment rate for Gaza was as high as 45% in 2022, according to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics. In 2022, according to the World Bank, South Africa had the highest unemployment rate in the world at 29.8%, and Gaza and the West Bank together were third at 25.7%.

In 1993, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) signed the Oslo Accords. Under the agreement, the PLO gave up armed resistance against Israel in return for promises of an independent Palestinian state. The accords also established the Palestinian Authority (PA) as the limited self-rule government for Gaza and the West Bank. Hamas, an Islamist organization established in 1987, opposed the accords. Its charter calls for the destruction of Israel and the group sees Israel as an illegitimate state occupying the West Bank.

Rising frustration with the PA on a number of fronts, including the lack of change, led to Hamas winning the majority of seats in the 2006 Palestinian Legislative Council election. Fatah, the political party forming the backbone of the PA, and Hamas formed a short-lived coalition government. The latter forcefully took control of Gaza in June 2007. Since then, the PA only exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

“From mid-1990s to early 2000s, Palestine is in this state-building project and a lot of (development) aid goes towards that,” said Yara Asi, an assistant professor at the University of Central Florida who studies Palestinian health and human rights. “In the early 2000s, you start seeing disillusionment — the promises of Oslo did not come to fruition.”

In 2007, Hamas militants seized control of Gaza from forces loyal to the PA. Within months, Israel’s security cabinet would designate Gaza as “hostile territory.”

Israel then instituted an ongoing blockade, severely limiting the movement of people and goods by land, sea or air, which it argues is essential to prevent Hamas from arming itself. Restrictions extend to goods the Israelis consider as having a dual civilian and military use, such as concrete, agricultural fertilizer compounds and some medical equipment.

“Lots of everyday goods and especially building materials could not enter the Gaza Strip because they are on the so-called ‘dual-use material’ list,” said René Wildangel, an adjunct fellow at the International Hellenic University in Thessaloniki, Greece, and a former human rights expert for the Middle East at Amnesty International.

This makes reconstruction difficult, Wildangel said.

The UN said in a 2022 report that the restrictions have had a “profound impact” on daily living conditions in Gaza and “undermined Gaza’s economy, resulting in high unemployment, food insecurity and aid dependency.”

In the wake of the blockade, trade stalled, jobs disappeared, and more and more families fell into poverty, while the population in Gaza grew by nearly 60%, according to an analysis of Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics data.

With Hamas classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union, most of the international community cut off direct investment to Gaza after 2007.

But the magnitude of need in Gaza meant emergency and humanitarian assistance had to keep coming. Data published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) shows total foreign aid to the Palestinian territories has been notably higher since the Hamas takeover compared with the post-Oslo era.

But even as foreign aid to Gaza rose in the wake of the Hamas takeover, the amount of aid fluctuates annually, OECD data shows.

After 2007, the US bolstered its economic assistance to strengthen the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

In 2018, the Trump administration cut about $200 million in Palestinian aid and halted contributions to UNRWA. Though Biden reinstated assistance in 2021, the amounts have never returned to Obama-era levels, which reached as high as $1 billion in 2009.

Qatar has also been a major donor to Gaza, contributing about $1.3 billion since 2019, according to OECD data. The country has even provided cash to pay civil servants’ salaries and shipped fuel to help with generating electricity since at least 2018 with Israel’s approval.

Qatar maintains close ties with both Hamas and Western states, including the United States.

Qatar’s funding has been “a lifeline to the Hamas government” ever since its takeover in 2007, Wildangel said, but added that these funds — some of which have been delivered in suitcases full of cash — have been very hard to track.

Meanwhile, civilians in Gaza continue to face desperate hardship. The UN emergency relief chief said earlier last week that the “great majority” of 400,000 Gazans at risk of starving “are actually in famine, not just at risk of famine” while the enclave faces a continuing near-total communications blackout. Medicine for Israeli hostages and Palestinians entered Gaza last Wednesday after Qatar brokered a deal with Israel and Hamas. For every box of medication given to a hostage, Palestinians in Gaza would receive 1,000 boxes.

This story has been updated.

Israel has offered a two-month ceasefire to Hamas as part of a prospective hostage deal, Axios reported Monday, citing two unnamed Israeli officials.

The proposal comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected Hamas’ call for an end to the Gaza war in exchange for the release of hostages held there, as he faces increasing public pressure to bring the captives home.

In order to release the remaining hostages, Netanyahu said Hamas was demanding an end to the war, the release of Palestinian prisoners and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza. “I work on this around the clock. But to be clear: I reject outright the terms of surrender of the monsters of Hamas,” he said in a statement on Sunday, adding that agreeing to the terms goes against Israel’s security.

“If we agree to this, our soldiers fell in vain. If we agree to this, we will not be able to guarantee the security of our citizens,” the Prime Minister said.

Netanyahu has since told families of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza that Israel has an “initiative” to secure the release of those abducted – but that there is “no real proposal” from Hamas that would advance their freedom, according to the prime minister’s office.

According to the Axios report, Israel’s latest proposal envisions the release of all remaining hostages and hostage bodies in multiple phases, in exchange for Palestinian detainees imprisoned in Israel.

It would also see Israel move its forces out of main population centers and allow “a gradual return of Palestinian civilians to Gaza city and the northern Gaza strip.”

Out of the 253 hostages Israel says Hamas seized on October 7, Israel believes that 132 are still in Gaza, of whom 104 are thought to be alive.

The Wall Street Journal report has reported that the US, Egypt and Qatar want Israel to join a new phase of talks with Hamas that would start with the release of hostages and lead to the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.

These developments come amid deepening divisions within Israel’s war cabinet about whether to prioritize bringing hostages home over defeating Hamas, and as thousands protested over the weekend in Tel Aviv against Netanyahu’s handling of the war.

War cabinet minister Gadi Eisenkot last week suggested that the key war aim of defeating Hamas is unrealistic and called for elections within months. Eisenkot also said the government had failed to achieve what he says should be its highest priority: securing the release of the hostages.

‘You will not sit here while they die there’

Netanyahu is under mounting pressure from the Israeli public to secure the release of captives in Gaza. On Monday, more than a dozen people, including families of the hostages, forced their way into a meeting held by the Israeli parliament’s finance committee. The protesters held placards that read: “You will not sit here while they die there.”

Video of the scene showed security officers trying to remove the protesters amid shouting and jostling.

“It can’t go on like this. You’d better know. It can’t go on like this. You will not sit here while our children die there,” shouted one protester. There were no reports of arrests inside the parliament, known as the Knesset.

Israeli police said that in a separate demonstration dozens of protesters had blocked the entrance to the Knesset, “violating public order.” That protest called for an immediate election, and included some of the families of those killed on October 7.

After some refused to leave, a police officer announced a dispersal order, according to an Israeli police statement.

A slim majority (53%) said Netanyahu’s personal interests were the main consideration driving his conduct of the war and a third (33%) said the national interest was his main consideration.

It has been more than three months since Israel launched its war against Hamas, which came in response to the group’s brutal October 7 attack that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli authorities.

Meanwhile, the death toll in Gaza on Sunday surpassed 25,000, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry in the enclave.

Netanyahu reiterated his rejection of future Palestinian sovereignty over the occupied territories on Saturday after talks with US President Joe Biden about Gaza’s future. The White House has been pushing Israel to recognize the need for the Palestinians to establish an independent state in areas Israel captured in the 1967 war.

“I will not compromise on full Israeli security control over all the territory west of Jordan – and this is contrary to a Palestinian state,” Netanyahu said in a post Saturday on X.

The Prime Minister’s public rejection of a Palestinian state has placed him at odds with Israel’s staunchest ally, which has long advocated for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Several European foreign ministers have also joined the chorus of criticism directed at Netanyahu over Israel’s opposition to a two-state solution. Josep Borrell, the European Union’s foreign policy chief said on Monday that Israel’s opposition to a two-state solution is “unacceptable” and Israel cannot expect countries to drop the issue.

This story has been updated.

Medical facilities in Khan Younis in southern Gaza have been battered amid an Israeli assault in the area Monday, Palestinian health officials said, as the number of people killed in Israel’s siege on Gaza continues to rise.

Dozens of people have been killed and wounded in the latest offensive in western Khan Younis, according to the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza. Medical facilities including the Nasser Medical Complex, Al Amal Hospital and the Palestine Red Crescent Society headquarters are located in the area.

“The situation here is completely catastrophic. We didn’t sleep last night. The hospital is entirely besieged,” Ahmad Al Moghrabi, a doctor at the Nasser Medical Complex said in a video shared to his Instagram page Monday.

“There is no way for us to escape the hospital and no way for evacuation. The troops are all around, and the only roads for evacuation are filled with dead bodies,” he said.

The Nasser Medical Complex is receiving more serious injuries than it can accommodate, the health ministry said, adding that intensive care units are currently at capacity.

Health officials also said that Israeli forces Monday stormed the Al Khair Hospital, west of Khan Younis, and detained a number of its medical staff, amid an ongoing “siege” of the area.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said its headquarters and the Al-Amal Hospital, located in the same neighborhood, are “under siege” by Israeli forces, and soldiers are “targeting anyone who tries to move in the area.”

A field ambulance point has been established outside the Al-Amal neighborhood, where the medical facilities are located, to ensure a continuity of operations.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said he is “deeply concerned” by reports of the fighting, warning that that violence near Al-Amal hospital and the raid on Al-Khair not only “put patients and people seeking safety within these facilities at risk, but they also prevent newly injured people outside the hospitals from being reached and receiving care.”

Israel’s siege in Gaza has devastated swathes of the territory, diminished food, fuel and water supplies, and crushed the enclave’s medical system. Over 1.9 million Palestinians have been forcibly displaced, many multiple times, according to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

There are 16 out of 36 hospitals partially functioning across the strip, including nine in southern Gaza and seven in the north, the UN’s humanitarian affairs office reported on Sunday.

In southern Gaza, three hospitals – Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir El-Balah, and Nasser and Gaza European hospitals in Khan Younis – are “at risk of closure due to the issuance of evacuation orders in adjacent areas and the ongoing conduct of hostilities nearby,” OCHA said.

The Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza has been functioning to a “limited degree” since mid-January, added OCHA.

The Health Ministry said Monday that the number of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7 rose to 25,295, with at least 63,000 injuries recorded. At least 190 people were killed and 340 injured in the last 24 hours, the Ministry statement said.

Hamas’s militant wing, the Al Qassam Brigades, said in a statement Monday that they were fighting in the western Khan Younis area, killing a number of Israeli soldiers with anti-personnel missiles.

“There was heavy shelling in the area since the early hours of Monday. I could feel it intensely from the building I live in,” Nassem said. “We don’t even dare open the windows to see where these attacks are happening,” he said.

He said that he is “terrified of filming the scenes taking place nearby” because he fears he will be shot at, if a drone catches him in the act.

“We can’t even go to the rooftop because we cannot determine if drones will fire at us,” he said. “A few days ago water tanks were damaged, after drones fired right at them. My cousin, who was filling water at the time of the strike, was close to getting hit, but survived,” he added.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Seoul’s police chief has been indicted for negligence over the 2022 crowd crush that killed more than 150 people during Halloween festivities in the popular Itaewon neighborhood that left the nation reeling.

South Korean police on Monday confirmed that Kim Kwang-ho, head of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA), had been indicted in connection with the tragedy – the most senior police officer charged over the incident.

A statement released on Friday said Kim was charged with “professional negligence resulting in injury or death,” Reuters reported.

According to police emergency call logs from the night of October 29, 2022, multiple calls from members of the public were made about overcrowding as early as four hours before the situation gravely worsened.

Four police dispatches were sent out to Itaewon, which had hosted Halloween celebrations in Seoul for years.

But crowds had already swelled and the streets became so packed that partygoers were unable to move. Some slipped below the feet of others, unable to breathe. Most who died that night were young South Koreans – largely in their teens and early 20s.

In the aftermath of the crush, South Korean authorities maintained that they had no guidelines to handle the huge crowds that gathered for the Halloween festivities – stirring anger among survivors and families of the deceased.

Public outrage turned toward South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and his government – survivors and families of the victims remain strongly critical about what they see as a continuing lack of accountability on the part of South Korean authorities over the disaster.

Kim has not been dismissed from his position following the indictment, according to Seoul police.

His indictment comes after the arrest of two former officers in December on charges of destroying evidence relating to the disaster, authorities said.

The trauma of that night still haunts some survivors and bereaved families.

“For me, Halloween and the Itaewon tragedy are (inextricably) linked,” she said. “It’s impossible to see reminders everywhere and not think about the death of friends that night.”

Shelling killed at least 28 people and injured 30, including two children, near a market in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, according to Russian officials. Moscow blamed Ukraine for the attack, while Kyiv denied responsibility.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that a market and shops in the city’s Kirovsky district were targeted with multiple launch rocket systems, with the shelling reportedly coming from the direction of Avdiivka. Kyiv “once again committed a barbaric terrorist act against the civilian population of Russia,” the Russian ministry said. “There are a large number of victims.”

Ukraine’s armed forces said they were not responsible for the shelling attacks. “The Russians are spreading [mis-]information about the strike on a market in Donetsk. We responsibly declare that the forces under the control of the Tavria military formation did not engage in combat operations in this case,” a statement on the Facebook page of the armed forces’ Tavria command said.

“Russia must be held accountable for the lives of the Ukrainians taken,” it added.

Russia has responded with outrage to previous Ukrainian attacks but has been responsible for thousands of civilians deaths following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russia’s Investigative Committee has launched an investigation and “all those involved and responsible for this and other terrorist attacks on our soil will suffer inevitable punishment,” the ministry said.

Denis Pushilin, the head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, said that the attack came on the busiest day of the week for the area and that search teams were looking for fragments of weapons.

At least 27 civilians were killed and at least 25 were injured in the area of a market and shops in the Kirovsky district of the city of Donetsk, Pushilin said in a Telegram post.

Another man was also killed on Sunday in another part of Donetsk city as a result of shelling, Pushilin said. Five additional people were wounded in the city and elsewhere in Russian-occupied parts of the region on Sunday, he said.

Residential buildings, a school and shops in different Russian-occupied parts of the region were also damaged, he said.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the deadly attacks on Russian-controlled parts of Donetsk region, a UN spokesperson said on Sunday.

“The Secretary-General strongly condemns all attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, including today’s shelling of the city of Donetsk in Ukraine,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited under international humanitarian law, are unacceptable and must stop immediately,” the statement continued.

Static frontlines of war

Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow said in 2022 it would recognize as Russian territory – an annexation process which is illegal under international law.

The region, which is partially but not fully controlled by Russian forces, is on the frontline of fighting in the east.

The Donetsk attack comes with the frontlines of the war largely static.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive failed to deliver major gains and its troops are now under pressure from Russia at several points along the 1,000 kilometer-long frontline.

Kyiv’s troops have withdrawn from the village of Krokhmalne in the northeast of the country, close to the border between Kharkiv and Luhansk regions – with an army spokesman saying on Ukrainian TV that its troops’ position have been moved to “where it is more advantageous for them to destroy the enemy.”

In another indication of increasing Russian pressure, Ukraine’s military says it expects to see Russia’s forces step up operations around the embattled town of Avdiivka, as well as nearby Nevelske and Pervomaiske – which all lie to the immediate northwest of Donetsk city.

“The enemy is regrouping, and we are preparing for an increase in their activity,” a Ukrainian army spokesperson said.

In recent months, Avdiivka has become a focus of Russia’s fight, in much the same way that Bakhmut was in the first half of 2023. The Ukrainian army spokesman said Russia now had about 40,000 Russian personnel in the area.

Ukraine strikes oil terminal in Russia

A night-time video posted by Leningrad regional boss Alexander Drozdenko showed what appeared to be a significant fire at the Novatek facility in Ust-Luga, which sits on the Gulf of Finland. Later videos showed fire-fighters tackling the blaze. Authorities said there were no injuries.

According to Novatek’s website, the Ust-Luga complex sees the processing of liquified natural gas products into various types of fuel, including naptha, jet fuel, fuel oil and gasoil.

The Ukrainian defense source said the products are used to supply, among others, the Russian military, adding: “The successful attack on this facility will complicate the enemy’s logistics.” .

Elsewhere, Ukraine also carried out drone strikes in the Tula, Smolensk and Belgorod regions.

This story has been updated with further developments.

Rescuers have recovered the bodies of eight people as the race to reach at least 47 others buried in a landslide in southwestern China on Monday continues, according to state media.

“Rescue team found eight missing people, all of whom have no sign of life,” state media outlet CCTV reported.

The landslide hit the mountain village of Liangshui in Yunnan province shortly before dawn, when most residents were asleep. A total of 18 homes were buried, and more than 500 people evacuated, state broadcaster CCTV reported.

Drone footage of the disaster site carried by local state media showed a broad slope of dark mud unleashed onto mountain terraces and village roofs covered in snow.

More than 300 rescue workers were deployed along with dozens of fire engines and earth-moving equipment, according to CCTV.

Footage aired on CCTV showed firefighters in orange jumpsuits climbing through the gray rubble of destroyed homes to search for survivors, against the backdrop of steep mountain ridges powdered with snow.

One man was pulled from the rubble shortly after 11 a.m. local time, state-run news agency Xinhua reported.

The area was hit by heavy snow on Sunday night, and although the snowfall has lightened since, the temperature still lingered below freezing Monday, CCTV said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping urged local officials to quickly ramp up rescue efforts in a statement published by CCTV.

Xi also called on officials across China to be on high alert to avoid any major accidents as Chinese New Year celebrations approach, according to CCTV.

The remote mountains of Yunnan are prone to landslides, due to steep slopes and unstable soil.

Much of southern China, including Yunnan, is in the middle of a cold snap, with temperatures dropping near or below freezing, according to China’s Meteorological Administration.