Tour operators and a company which owns the New Zealand island where a volcanic eruption killed 22 people and wounded many others have been fined $1.6 million (NZ$2.6 million), and ordered to pay victims and surviving families $6.2 million (NZ$10.2 million) in compensation.

The District Court in Auckland handed down its sentence on Friday, ending a criminal prosecution brought by WorkSafe, New Zealand’s health and safety regulators, to seek justice for 47 tourists who were on Whakaari or White Island on December 9, 2019.

The island, 48 kilometers (30 miles) off New Zealand’s North Island, was once a popular tourist destination for those wanting to trek up the slopes of an active volcano.

The weeks-long trial held last year revisited horrifying testimony of how the island turned into “an oven” for the holidaymakers on that fateful day as the volcano erupted.

Survivors scarred by severe burns testified against various companies – including Whakaari Management Ltd, which owned the island – accusing them of failing to warn them about the risks.

On Friday, Judge Evangelos Thomas found both Whakaari Management Ltd and the tour operators had failed to conduct adequate risk assessment, breaking health and safety laws with devastating consequences.

He said the operators had failed to seek advice from volcanological experts and failed to appreciate the unpredictability of an eruption, leading to an incorrect assessment of risk mitigation. The owner of the island, meanwhile, failed to make sure the operators had examined the risks properly, the judge added.

Whakaari Management Ltd, owned by brothers Andrew, Peter and James Buttle, was convicted after trial, having previously pleaded not guilty to a charge under the country’s Health and Safety at Work Act. They were fined $636,034 (NZ$1,045,000) and ordered to pay reparation of $2.9 million (NZ$4.8 million), in total the most substantial amount of all the defendants in the case.

The four other operators are White Island Tours Ltd, Volcanic Air Safaris Ltd, Aerius Ltd and Kahu (NZ) Ltd.

Thomas noted that all defendants have either stopped trading, have no assets, were in liquidation, or were in a weak financial position.

For Whakaari Management Ltd – which claims to have “no assets” – the judge said the Buttles family appeared to “have profited handsomely” from the tour operation, even though he cannot order shareholders to pay out of their own pockets.

But he warned: “There may be no commercial basis for doing so, but many would argue there is an inescapable moral one.”

“We wait to see what the Buttles will do. The world is watching,” he said.

The 47 people on Whakaari that day included honeymooners and families from countries such as Australia, the United States and Malaysia.

During the trial in July last year, survivors described the extreme conditions and searing pain they found themselves as they fled for their life following the eruption.

Tourist Annie Lu, who suffered from burns to 38% to her body, recalled feeling like “sand and rocks everywhere that were being thrown” at her.

“It was just like someone heated up some needles until it was iron hot and then shoving it all onto you,” she testified from Australia through a video link in July last year.

“Think of, if you open an oven and the heat just rushes at you. It’s kind of like that but 1,000 times worse,” she added.

American tourist Matthew Urey said he struggled to breathe as they were enveloped by waves of heat that prosecutors estimate reached 100 degrees Celsius (212 degrees Fahrenheit), or more.

“I don’t know whether it was steam or hot ash, but it was all over us,” he testified during the trial.

Video replayed during the trial showed huge plumes of ash dwarfing the group of tourists, who had been escorted by tour guides from the jetty, where their boat had docked, to the crater.

In the judgment Friday, the judge acknowledged the “harm,” noting the “excruciating and traumatic injuries” from which many victims still suffer and the grief “felt by those who lost loved ones.”

“Even if it is difficult for someone who has not endured it to possibly imagine it, we admire and respect those who are so courageously learning to rebuild themselves, their lives, their families,” he said.

Britain’s opposition Labour Party, widely expected to win a general election due to be held within months, has lost one of its safest parliamentary seats to a pro-Palestinian former party member in a chaotic by-election.

Veteran left-winger George Galloway was elected to represent the constituency of Rochdale by a majority of nearly 6,000 votes, pledging to be a thorn in the side for Labour over the Gaza war.

The by-election, a special election held outside of the general election cycle, had attracted particular attention because Labour was forced to withdraw support from its candidate, Azhar Ali, after videos emerged of him claiming that Israel was complicit in the October 7 Hamas attacks.

The comments turned the campaign, sparked by the death of the local MP, on its head. Labour initially stood by Ali, only to withdraw their support but too close to the by-election to put forward another candidate.

This created an opportunity for Galloway, who has a long history of campaigning in areas that have a large Muslim population and appealing, critics say distastefully, for their votes.

In the days running up to the byelection, the political editor of the Sun, a popular British tabloid, discovered campaign material from Galloway that had been sent specifically to Muslim voters, saying: “The political class has failed Rochdale, failed Britain and failed Gaza … the Labour Party under Keir Starmer have betrayed Muslims, choosing instead to support Israel’s genocide in Gaza … I, George Galloway, have fought for Muslims at home and abroad all of my life. And paid a price for it.”

The Labour Party has been walking a difficult tightrope since the start of the Israel-Hamas war of calling for a pause in violence without wanting to criticize Israel. The issue of Israel is particularly sensitive, because Labour was until very recently embroiled in an anti-Semitism scandal under previous leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Galloway was expelled from the Labour Party in 2003 after he opposed then Prime Minister and Labour leader Tony Blair’s support for the war in Iraq.

He made a memorable and defiant appearance at a US Senate panel to answer accusations he had profited from Iraqi oil sales, accusing the panel’s Republican chairman of making a “schoolboy howler.”

While Galloway can claim to have always been a supporter of Muslim causes and Palestinians, he has been accused of using anti-Semitic tropes. He was sacked by the radio station TalkSport after he tweeted: “No #Israël flags on the Cup!” after English soccer team Tottenham Hotspur, who have strong links to the North London Jewish community, were defeated in the Champion’s League final in 2019. Galloway has previously denied allegations of anti-Semitism.

He has also worked for state-funded media, RT and Press TV, owned by Russia and Iran respectively. Both channels have had their broadcast licences banned in the UK and been accused of peddling propaganda.

Galloway’s victory is noteworthy for the context in which it took place, but doesn’t necessarily tell us much about the general election that will take place at some point this year. Had Labour not had to abandon its candidate, it is likely the seat would have held.

It does send a warning, however, to Starmer and the Labour Party about the need to properly screen candidates, as it could be badly hurt by similar stories emerging in the run up to the general election.

Navalny, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most formidable opponent, died aged 47 in an Arctic prison on February 16, sparking condemnation from world leaders and accusations from his aides that he had been murdered. The Kremlin has denied any involvement in his death.

Navalny’s team encountered difficulty in retrieving his body from Russian authorities and hiring a venue for his funeral, which began at 2 p.m. local time (6 a.m. ET) Friday at the Church of the Icon of the Mother of God in Moscow’s Maryino district, where the Kremlin critic lived. He will then be buried at Borisov Cemetery.

Crowd control barriers were erected along the route to the cemetery ahead of the service, flanked by dozens of police vans. Police officers have been deployed on rooftops overlooking the growing line of mourners, video from the scene showed.

Ahead of the funeral, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov warned Russians against unauthorized memorials for Navalny, saying those attending would be “in violation of the law.”

Despite the risks, mourners clapped and chanted Navalny’s name as his coffin arrived at the church. Another video showed people shouting: “You were not afraid and we are not afraid.”

Maria Pevchikh, a close aide to Navalny, said the chants for Navalny will continue. “People are chanting ‘Navalny! Navalny!’ in loud voices. This chanting we will hear in months’ time, in a year’s time,” she said.

“He was a true hero … I want to say to him ‘farewell,’” she said, adding that she was not surprised that the Kremlin had denied any involvement in Navalny’s death. “They demonstrate to the whole world we do what we want to do,” she said. “We can repress you.”

Another woman, Tatiana, 82, said she had attended several of Navalny’s meetings and was a longstanding supporter.

“I always supported their [Navalny’s] policy, their ideas. I share these ideas,” Tatiana said.

Neither woman said they were deterred by the potential risk of coming to the funeral.

But Yulia Navalnaya, Navalny’s widow, had said ahead of the funeral that she is concerned police will crack down mourners.

“I’m not sure yet whether it will be peaceful or whether police will arrest those who have come to say goodbye to my husband,” she told the European Parliament on Wednesday.

Navalny’s death was met with grief and anger across the world as well as inside Russia, where the smallest acts of political dissent carry huge risks. More than 400 people were detained at makeshift memorials for Navalny across 32 Russian cities, according to human rights monitoring group OVD-Info.

He was immediately arrested upon his arrival and spent the rest of his life behind bars on charges he dismissed as politically motivated.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Pixelated in the thermal drone imagery, the quad bike races down a dirt track, its destination unclear. It swerves and is hit by a grenade, dropped from a Ukrainian drone. Russian soldiers appear to stagger away from it, one rolling.

The use of drones by both Ukrainian and Russian forces has become so widespread across the front line now, the soldiers said, that most maneuvers – from troop rotations to assaults – occur in darkness when the cheap, single-use weapons, which fly explosives into their targets, are less effective.

Kokos, a former children’s entertainer turned drone pilot in the 15th National Guard unit, said quad bikes were “more maneuverable than tracked vehicles. It’s hard for artillery to hit them, so we have to use drones.”

He said some of the captured Russians had seemed intoxicated. “We heard from prisoners of war how they are given pills before assaults. After capture, they won’t eat or sleep for a day.” He added of the assaults at night: “They just keep coming.”

Bohdan, the driver of a Belgian-donated armored vehicle, said Russian drones had limited the use of his protected “box” to evacuate casualties from the front line. “Our job got harder because of numerous drones flying around. The guys have to carry the injured to the extraction point between 2 and 8 kilometers (1.2 and 5 miles) away. It depends on the shelling.”

Ukrainian forces along the Robotyne front line are facing a painful Russian resurgence aimed at taking the tiny village that became one of the main gains on the southwestern front of the summer counteroffensive.

Weeks of intense fighting preceded the Ukrainian flag being hoisted inside the village, and periodic battles continued around its rubble over the winter.

Like many Ukrainian soldiers along the Robotyne front line, he said the lack of ammunition caused by a delay in US financial and military aid was “forcing them to underperform.” He said there is a “dramatic lack of ammo. It affects how many rounds we can spend on a target.”

His commander, Anton, said the unit used to fire 80 rounds a day, during the NATO-financed and aided counteroffensive, but now fired about 10.

He has spent more time thinking about Republican procedural dysfunctionality than you might expect for a man cheating death by shellfire in an underground bunker.

“I hardly understand the Republican policy on aiding Ukraine,” he said.

“The biggest problem is lack of ammo. We are waiting, we wait for it very much. We urgently need it. More ammunition equals saving more lives of our soldiers and civilians.”

On the drone monitors flickering near him, another grenade drops into a trench. Two Russian soldiers can be seen clambering inside the ruins of a dugout, one manhandling a shovel.

Ukrainian drone pilots now face Russian counterparts who have replaced their units but at a much larger scale, they said. “We don’t have their numbers, they mass produce everything. The quality is lower but they have lots of them. They send one, it gets suppressed by our jammers, and they instantly send another one.”

He said a new threat was so-called FPV (first-person view) attack drones, controlled from a gaming headset and equipped with night vision. In the background of the small farming cottage in which the unit was based whirred a 3D printer, churning out components for drones. Kokos estimated they could “print” parts for about 10 drones a day, but were crowdfunding as supplies were limited.

Saint, another drone pilot, 22, from Lviv, held up a captured Russian FPV drone, which he said was “manufactured much better than ours. Ours are made from carbon. Theirs are aluminium. That means extra shrapnel and a bigger payload.”

When observing a hoard of golden-backed frogs at a roadside pond in Karnataka, India, a group of naturalists noticed something odd about one of the amphibians — the animal had a tiny mushroom sprouting out of its side.

How the seemingly healthy frog came to grow its fungi companion — an occurrence that’s never been documented before — has left scientists baffled, according to a note published in January in the journal Reptiles and Amphibians.

“When I first observed the frog with the mushroom, I was amazed and intrigued by the sight,” said Lohit Y T, a rivers and wetlands specialist with World Wildlife Fund-India in Bengaluru, via email. Y T was a part of the group that discovered the frog. “My thought was to document it, as this phenomenon is something we have never heard of. We just wanted this to be a rare incident and not a dangerous phenomenon for the frog.”

The species — known as Rao’s intermediate golden-backed frog, or the scientific name Hylarana intermedia — is found in abundance in the southwestern Indian states of Karnataka and Kerala. The frogs are small, growing to be only up to 2.9 inches (7.4 centimeters) in length.

As the naturalists watched the frog with the fungal growth, the animal moved from the center of the twig it sat upon to the very tip, turning around and changing positions, but the mushroom remained perfectly in place, Y T said. The group did not touch the frog.

The authors discovered the amphibian in June 2023 and did not collect it, so neither the cause of the phenomenon nor the fate of the frog is known.

But through pictures, mycologists later identified the mushroom growing out of the frog’s flank as a common bonnet, part of the Mycena genus, a type of fungi that mostly grows on rotting wood from dead trees, the authors wrote in the published paper. The fungus is a saprotrophic decomposer, a mushroom that typically gets its nutrients from dead or decaying organic matter — but a 2023 study found the mushroom could evolve to thrive on living plants as well.

The 2023 study further suggested that the Mycena fungus could develop to have a symbiotic relationship with living plants or trees, meaning that both the plant and the fungus growing on it would benefit from the arrangement — the fungi would both take nutrients from and transfer them to the plant host. In trees, Mycena could be helpful by pruning dead branches, the authors added.

The prognosis of the frog with the mushroom hitchhiker is unknown, but there are a handful of theories as to the cause of its condition.

Fate of the mushroom frog

Upon first seeing the report of the frog with a mushroom attached to its flank, Alyssa Wetterau Kaganer, a postdoctoral associate in the department of public and ecosystem health at the Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, found the discovery fascinating.

“Fungi are dynamic organisms that adapt to changes in their environment, and with exposure to new potential hosts in different environments or climates they may grow in places we hadn’t previously expected,” she said in an email.

While it is difficult to predict the fate of the frog without further study of its condition, it is possible that “an otherwise healthy frog may be able to withstand mild colonization of its skin by this fungus without any adverse health effects,” Kaganer said. Fungal infections in frogs are very common, however, and if the mushroom were to “grow extensively on the skin or burrow within the animal’s body, the animal may develop signs of a fungal disease,” she added. Kaganer was not involved with the discovery.

There are many types of fungi that can infect frogs, and it is possible there are fungus-frog interactions yet to be discovered. A frog with signs of fungal disease, such as “altered behavior of the frog” or “skin damage including ulceration or tumor-like nodules,” has an infection that can often result in death for at least some of the infected animals, Kaganer said.

Anything out of the ordinary, including a fungal growth like this, is of concern for frog species, said Karthikeyan Vasudevan, chief scientist for the Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Telangana, India. Vasudevan was not involved with the discovery and was also surprised by the find.

“Sick animals in the wild have very little chance of survival. To notice a sick animal is difficult, as they die or get eaten up quickly. Therefore, something like this is interesting and should be followed up with observations and screening of frogs,” Vasudevan said in an email.

Initially, Vasudevan had thought the mushroom was stuck on the frog’s skin rather than a growth, but photos of the critter convinced him otherwise. “It is indeed the case of a live mushroom on a live frog,” Vasudevan said. “But one of the possibilities is that there is a small piece of woody debris under the skin of the frog after it got lodged in the skin and it has sprouted a mushroom from it.”

Chytrid disease caused by fungus

India is currently facing an epidemic of a frog-killing disease known as chytridiomycosis, a fungal infection that affects more than 700 species of amphibians worldwide. The disease has been observed in low levels in all the frog hotspots across India, the authors of the new note wrote.

Chytrid disease is an example of a common amphibian and fungi interaction. But the authors do not know whether it is related to this discovery, Y T said.

“This specific type of mushroom is not closely related to the species of fungus that cause chytridiomycosis, so I am not concerned that this mushroom is a direct sign of chytridiomycosis,” said Kaganer, who studies the disease. “However, it is possible that a frog with Mycena might have altered susceptibility to a chytrid infection.”

The frog with the mushroom in its side could either have an increase in susceptibility to chytridiomycosis from being compromised by the Mycena, or it could be more immune “because the Mycena has kicked the frog’s immune system into high gear,” she added.

“We don’t have any hope of pursuing the frog, as this is not a common phenomenon,” Y T said. The authors will visit the spot again during the next monsoon season, when the weather is warm and rainy and the frogs are most abundant, he added.

“If we manage to find it, it’ll be great,” Y T said. “The spot has been frequented by many enthusiasts and experts alike. It would be great if some researcher gets their hands on it and can further the investigation, but again, it’s all highly unlikely to happen.”

One of the worst single tragedies to occur during Israel’s war with Hamas took place Thursday, when scores of Palestinians were killed trying to access food aid in Gaza City.

The incident took place amid a backdrop of vast hunger and dire poverty in the besieged enclave, where food aid has been so rare as to frequently elicit panic when it arrives.

But there are competing narratives surrounding the devastation that have been put forward by Israel and by eyewitnesses on the ground.

Here’s what we know.

What happened?

The deaths occurred amid scenes of chaos on Haroun Al Rasheed Street in western Gaza City, where crowds of hungry Palestinians had gathered for food aid.

A convoy of at least 18 food trucks arrived at around 4.30 a.m. on Thursday morning, sent by countries in the region including Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to eyewitnesses.

Civilians swarmed around the newly arrived aid trucks in the hope of getting food, and Israeli forces soon started shooting, witnesses said.

The majority of the casualties occurred as a result of people being rammed by aid trucks trying to escape Israeli fire, according to a local journalist in Gaza, Khader Al Za’anoun.

Al Za’anoun, who was at the scene and witnessed the incident, said that while there were large crowds waiting for food to be distributed from aid trucks, the chaos and confusion that led to people being hit by the trucks only started once Israeli soldiers opened fire.

“Most of the people that were killed were rammed by the aid trucks during the chaos and while trying to escape the Israeli gunfire,” Al Za’anoun said.

What is Israel saying?

Israel offered an evolving account of the incident as the day progressed.

Later on Thursday, an Israeli military spokesperson claimed in a briefing that there were two separate incidents involving aid trucks in Gaza Thursday.

First, he said trucks entered northern Gaza and were rushed by crowds, with trucks running over people. Subsequently, he said, a group of Palestinians approached Israeli forces, who then opened fire on the Palestinians.

“The truckloads went into the north, then there was the stampede, and then afterwards, there was the event against our forces. That’s how things transpired this morning,” the spokesman said.

That timeline directly contradicts the eyewitness accounts, which suggested that the Israeli military opened fire on people near the trucks, causing drivers to pull away in panic.

In a briefing Thursday, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hargari denied there had been a strike on the convoy. He said that Israeli tanks had fired warning shots to disperse a crowd around an aid convoy in Gaza, after seeing that people were being trampled.

He insisted that the tanks were there “to secure the humanitarian corridor” so the aid convoy could reach its destination.

The IDF released a short video, which appears to show a tank driving parallel to the crowd, several meters away.

“As you can see in this video, the tanks that were there to secure the convoy sees the Gazans being trampled and cautiously tries to disperse the mob with a few warning shots,” Hagari said.

When the crowd started to grow and “things got out of hand,” the tank retreated to avoid harming Gazans, he added.

“I think, as a military man, they were backing up securely, risking their own lives, not shooting at the mob,” he said.

What is the humanitarian situation in Gaza?

More than a half a million people in Gaza are on the brink of famine, United Nations agencies warned on Tuesday, as the war in the enclave stretches towards the five-month mark.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said at least 576,000 people across Gaza are “facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation.” Meanwhile, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) warned “of a real prospect of famine by May, with 500,000 people at risk if the threat is allowed to materialize.”

“Today, food aid is required by almost the entire population of 2.2 million people. Gaza is seeing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world,” Carl Skau, WFP Deputy Executive Director, told the Security Council during its Tuesday session. “One child in every six under the age of 2 is acutely malnourished.”

“The chaos, yes, around the aid line is becoming worse and worse because there’s so little aid coming in,” he said.

“Today, I’m pretty shaken actually from what I saw,” he went on. “The minute we crossed the border … you see the aid trucks going full speed down the road, being chased by gangs of youth who jumped the trucks and before our eyes, loot mattresses, blankets, food, et cetera, to the desperate people outside who want to get some aid.”

What have the international community said?

The US State Department expressed condolences for those killed and injured and said the US was pressing Israel for answers.

“Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed over the course of this conflict, not just today, but over the past nearly five months,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said at a press briefing.

“We have been in touch with the Israeli government since early this morning and understand that an investigation is underway,” he said.

Miller said the US is aware of “conflicting reports” about what happened and would only say the US knows that a commercial convoy not associated with the UN was delivering the aid.

“If there’s anything that the aerial footage of today’s incident makes clear, it is just how desperate the situation on the ground is,” said Miller, calling for Israel to “allow the entry of more assistance into Gaza, through as many points of access as possible, and to enable safe and secure distribution of that aid throughout Gaza.”

The UN has condemned the incident and said it must be investigated. UN Secretary General António Guterres said he was “appalled” by the growing death toll in Gaza and reiterated calls for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire and unconditional release of all Israeli hostages in Gaza.

His spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement: “The desperate civilians in Gaza need urgent help, including those in the besieged north where the United Nations has not been able to deliver aid in more than a week,”

Saudi Arabia also condemned the incident, calling on the international community “to take a firm stance by obliging Israel to respect international humanitarian law,” while the United Arab Emirates called for an “independent and transparent investigation.”

Colombia announced it would suspend the purchase of weapons from Israel following the deaths. “This is called genocide and is reminiscent of the Holocaust even if the world powers do not like to recognize it,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said in a post.

French UN Ambassador Nicolas de Riviere described the incident as “an unprecedented disaster,” and said France would continue to work towards an immediate ceasefire.

What this means for the war

Thursday’s tragedy represented one of the deadliest single incidents in Gaza since Israel’s war against Hamas began.

And it came at a critical time for the conflict, with negotiations between Israel and Hamas on a deal to pause fighting and allow humanitarian aid into Gaza reaching a potentially pivotal moment.

Hamas senior member Izzat Al-Risheq warned that the killing of people collecting aid from trucks in Gaza could lead to the failure of ongoing talks.

“Negotiations are not an open process,” he said in a statement published by the Hamas on Telegram.

“We will not allow for the pathway of the negotiations…[to become] a cover for the enemy’s continued crimes against our people in the Gaza Strip,” Al-Risheq said.

At the State Department briefing, Miller also said the incident indicated how necessary it was to reach “a potential temporary ceasefire as part of a hostage deal” to allow more aid in.

“We continue to work day and night to achieve that outcome, including through calls (President Joe Biden) held this morning with President Al Sisi of Egypt and the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim, as well as one Secretary Blinken held earlier today with Qatari Prime Minister Al Thani,” Miller said.

“Every leader on those calls agreed that this terrible event underscores the urgency in bringing the hostage talks to a close.”

President Biden said Monday during an appearance at an ice cream shop in New York City that he hoped there would be a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict by “next Monday,” though officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar – which is helping mediate negotiations – distanced themselves from that timeline.

More than 100 people were killed amid devastating scenes in northern Gaza, where Israeli troops opened fire Thursday, triggering panic as hungry Palestinian civilians were gathering around food aid trucks, Palestinian officials and eyewitnesses said.

People had swarmed around newly arrived aid trucks in western Gaza City in the hope of getting food, when Israeli forces started shooting, according to witnesses. Many of the victims died when they were run over by trucks in the ensuing panic, according to one account.

In a briefing on Thursday, an Israeli military spokesperson said he couldn’t confirm the death toll. “I don’t have any figures,” he said, adding that “it was a limited response.”

The tragedy comes as the death toll in the Gaza war surpasses 30,000, with more than a half a million people in the enclave on the brink of famine, according to United Nations agencies, and as negotiations between Israel and Hamas reach a potentially pivotal moment.

The incident unfolded early on Friday when a group of trucks carrying desperately needed aid arrived at Haroun Al Rasheed Street in western Gaza City, in the Sheikh Ajleen neighbourhood.

A local journalist in Gaza, Khader Al Za’anoun, who was at the scene and witnessed the incident, said large crowds had gathered waiting for food to be distributed from aid trucks. But he said that the chaos and confusion that led to people being hit by the trucks only started once Israeli forces opened fire.

Israel confirmed its forces fired on people, saying crowds had threatened their troops, but disputed the account given by the ministry.

An Israeli military spokesperson later said in a briefing that there were two separate incidents involving aid trucks.

First, he said trucks went to the north and were swarmed by crowds, with trucks running over people. Subsequently, he said, a group of Palestinians approached Israeli forces, who then opened fire on the Palestinians.

“The truckloads went into the north, then there was the stampede, and then afterwards, there was the event against our forces. That’s how things transpired this morning,” the spokesman said.

At a press conference Thursday, the IDF spokesperson Daniel Hargari denied there was an IDF strike on the aid convoy. However, he said Israeli tanks had fired warning shots to “cautiously” disperse a crowd after seeing that people were being trampled, sharing a short video, which appeared to show a tank driving parallel to the crowd, several meters away.

He insisted that the tanks were there “to secure the humanitarian corridor” so the aid convoy could reach its destination.

Aid deliveries have dwindled since Israel launched its ground offensive in Gaza, leaving many in the already impoverished enclave on the brink of starvation. Drone footage taken by the IDF showed thousands of Palestinians gathering around the aid trucks in northern Gaza.

The US State Department said Thursday that the US was pressing Israel for answers as they conduct an investigation. “Far too many innocent Palestinians have been killed over the course of this conflict, not just today, but over the past nearly five months,” said State Department Spokesperson Matthew Miller at a press briefing.

Meanwhile, there are fears – acknowledged by US President Joe Biden – that the killings on Thursday will complicate hostage and truce talks.

“Negotiations are not an open process,” senior Hamas member Ezzat Al-Risheq said in a statement published by Hamas on Telegram. “We will not allow for the pathway of the negotiations…[to become] a cover for the enemy’s continued crimes against our people in the Gaza Strip.”

International outcry

Various members of the international community have condemned the incident, described by the Palestinian United Nations Ambassador as “an outrageous massacre.”

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said “desperate civilians in Gaza need urgent help, including those in the besieged north where the United Nations has not been able to deliver aid in more than a week,” according to his spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.

Colombia announced it would suspend the purchase of weapons from Israel after the bloody incident, with Colombian President Gustavo Petro posting, “This is called genocide and is reminiscent of the Holocaust even if the world powers do not like to recognize it.”

Saudi Arabia also condemned the incident, calling on the international community “to take a firm stance by obliging Israel to respect international humanitarian law,” while the UAE called for “an independent and transparent investigation.”

Oxfam said the deaths will “only exacerbate an already critical humanitarian crisis.”

The incident comes as the death toll for those killed in Gaza since the October 7 attacks passed 30,000. Gaza’s health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters but has said in recent updates that around 70% of the casualties are women and children.

The conflict in Gaza began when Hamas launched surprise cross-border attacks into Israel, killing at least 1,200 people and taking more than 250 others hostage.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Astronomers have discovered three previously unknown moons around Uranus and Neptune, the most distant planets in our solar system.

The find includes one moon spotted orbiting Uranus — the first discovery of its kind in more than 20 years — and two detected in Neptune’s orbit.

“The three newly discovered moons are the faintest ever found around these two ice giant planets using ground-based telescopes,” said Scott S. Sheppard, astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, in a statement. “It took special image processing to reveal such faint objects.”

The revelations will be helpful for missions that may be planned to explore Uranus and Neptune more closely in the future, a priority for astronomers since the ice planets were only observed in detail with Voyager 2 in the 1980s.

The three moons were announced on February 23 by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center.

Finding faint moons

The newfound Uranian moon is the 28th to be observed orbiting the ice giant and is also likely the smallest, measuring 5 miles (8 kilometers) across. The moon, called S/2023 U1, takes 680 Earth days to complete one orbit around the planet. In the future, the tiny satellite will be named after a Shakespearean character, in keeping with the tradition of Uranus’ moons bearing literary names.

Sheppard spotted the Uranian moon in November and December while carrying out observations using the Magellan telescopes at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. He worked with Marina Brozovic and Bob Jacobson of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to determine the moon’s orbit.

The Magellan telescopes also played a key role in helping Sheppard find the brighter of the two new Neptunian moons, S/2002 N5. The Subaru telescope, located on Hawaii’s dormant volcano Mauna Kea, helped Sheppard and his collaborators astronomer David Tholen at the University of Hawaii, astronomer Chad Trujillo at Northern Arizona University, and planetary scientist Patryk Sofia Lykawka at Kindai University in Japan, to focus in on the other extremely faint Neptunian moon, S/2021 N1.

Both moons, which bring the total of Neptune’s known natural satellites to 18, were first spotted in September 2021, but required follow-up observations with different telescopes over the past couple of years to confirm their orbits.

“Once S/2002 N5’s orbit around Neptune was determined using the 2021, 2022, and 2023 observations, it was traced back to an object that was spotted near Neptune in 2003 but lost before it could be confirmed as orbiting the planet,” Sheppard said.

The bright S/2002 N5 moon is 14 miles (23 kilometers) in diameter and takes nearly nine years to complete an orbit of Neptune, while faint S/2021 N1 is about 8.7 miles (14 kilometers) across and has a lengthy orbit of about 27 years. Both will eventually get new names that reference the Nereid sea goddesses from Greek mythology. Neptune was named for the Roman god of the sea, so the planet’s moons are named after lesser sea gods and nymphs.

Finding all three moons required dozens of brief, five-minute exposures over the course of three or four hours on different nights.

“Because the moons move in just a few minutes relative to the background stars and galaxies, single long exposures are not ideal for capturing deep images of moving objects,” Sheppard said. “By layering these multiple exposures together, stars and galaxies appear with trails behind them, and objects in motion similar to the host planet will be seen as point sources, bringing the moons out from behind the background noise in the images.”

A chaotic solar system

By studying the distant, angular orbits of the moons, Sheppard hypothesized that the satellites were pulled into orbit around Uranus and Neptune due to the gravitational influence of the giant planets shortly after they formed. The outer moons orbiting all the giant planets across our solar system — Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune — share similar configurations.

“Even Uranus, which is tipped on its side, has a similar moon population to the other giant planets orbiting our Sun,” Sheppard said. “And Neptune, which likely captured the distant Kuiper Belt object Triton — an ice rich body larger than Pluto — an event that could have disrupted its moon system, has outer moons that appear similar to its neighbors.”

It’s possible that some of the moons around the giant planets are fragments of once larger moons that collided with asteroids or comets and broke apart.

Understanding how the giant planets captured their moons helps astronomers piece together the chaotic early days of our solar system.

More than 30,000 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel’s war with Hamas began in October, the health ministry in the besieged enclave said Thursday, a bleak milestone that comes amid growing international pressure on Israel to halt fighting and fears of further bloodshed in the southern city of Rafah.

The towering figure underscores a horrific, months-long ordeal for Palestinians inside the strip, during which Israel’s bombing and ground campaigns have displaced the vast majority of the population and created a dire humanitarian crisis.

Israel is facing mounting pressure globally to halt the conflict, but its campaign in Gaza has retained the support of the United States, its key ally and largest supplier of military aid. The US proposed a “temporary ceasefire” at the United Nations earlier this month, but has vetoed calls for an immediate halt in the conflict.

The new milestone highlights fears of more suffering in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city where more than 1 million people are crammed, and where Israel is expected to launch a fresh offensive.

Gaza’s health ministry does not distinguish between civilians and fighters but has said in recent updates that around 70% of the casualties are women and children.

Israel estimates about 10,000 Hamas fighters have been killed since October 7, when Israel declared war on the militant group. More than 1,200 people in Israel were killed during Hamas’ attacks on that day, and more than 250 were kidnapped and taken hostage in Gaza.

Nearly five months on, Israel has said that more than 100 hostages remain in captivity. Its political and military leaders have pledged to press ahead with their objectives to return those hostages and “destroy” Hamas, despite international pressure to reduce the intensity of their campaign.

Israeli war cabinet minister Benny Gantz on February 17 warned that Israeli forces will expand military operations in Rafah if hostages are not returned by Ramadan, which is expected to begin on March 10 or 11.

“The world must know, and Hamas leaders must know – if by Ramadan our hostages are not home – the fighting will continue to the Rafah area,” Gantz said at a gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem.

Israel’s Western allies have grown increasingly concerned over the nature of its bombing and ground campaigns in Gaza, with even its most important partner, the United States, raising with increased regularity the plight of the millions of Palestinians caught in the path of its offensive.

President Joe Biden remarked earlier this month that the Israel Defense Forces’ conduct has been “over the top,” his most direct rebuke to date.

Biden subsequently told Netanyahu that the military action in Rafah “should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the civilians,” according to a readout of a phone call between the two leaders, and the US later proposed a UN resolution on a “temporary ceasefire,” though it has not supported calls by other countries for a ceasefire to be immediately implemented.

As well as displacing the majority of Gaza’s 2.2 million people, the war has drastically diminished supplies of water, electricity and food, and cut off access to vital life-saving care. The hospitals in the enclave have become battlegrounds, with dozens of facilities no longer functional.

The UN Humanitarian Affairs Coordination Office, OCHA, said on Tuesday that at least 576,000 people across Gaza are “facing catastrophic levels of deprivation and starvation” and are “one step away from famine.”

Almost the entire population of 2.2 million people require food aid, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), which added one in six children under the age of two is acutely malnourished.

“Gaza is seeing the worst level of child malnutrition anywhere in the world,” Carl Skau, WFP Deputy Executive Director, told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

A sprawling tent city has meanwhile been formed around Rafah, as more and more displaced Palestinians make the trek to the city – the last place to which they can flee north of the shuttered border with Egypt.

In recent weeks, hopes for a ceasefire-for-hostages deal have repeatedly risen and then fallen, as high-stakes diplomatic efforts to secure a pause in the fighting continue.

Biden said that he hopes there’ll be a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict by “next Monday,” saying that a deal was “close” but “not done yet.”

However, officials from Israel, Hamas and Qatar have cautioned against Biden’s optimism, suggesting that differences remain as negotiators work to secure an agreement.

This is a developing story. More to follow.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the West of the risk of nuclear war if they send their own troops to fight for Ukraine, saying Moscow had the weapons to strike Western targets.

In his annual state of the nation address to Russia’s elite on Thursday, Putin said claims that Russia intends to attack Europe are “nonsense” but warned that his country might strike Western countries with nuclear weapons.

Putin referenced an idea floated by French President Emmanuel Macron, who on Monday said the possibility of sending Western troops to Ukraine “cannot be ruled out.” Several European leaders swiftly rejected the suggestion.

“Everything that they are coming up with now, with which they threaten the entire world – all this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and therefore the destruction of civilization – don’t they understand this, or what?” Putin said.

“They must ultimately understand that we also have weapons – and they know about it, just as I now said  – we also have weapons that can hit targets on their territory,” he warned.

His address lasted more than two hours – breaking his previous record, according to Russian state media TASS – and came shortly before Russians vote in the March 17 presidential election, when Putin is expected to sweep to a fifth term and extend his rule until at least 2030.

He lauded the progress of Russia’s military, which he said was “confidently advancing in a number of operational areas and liberating more and more territories” and now “firmly holds the initiative” in Ukraine, after Kyiv’s recent retreat from the eastern town of Avdiivka.

He confirmed Russia will bolster its military presence along its Western border to “neutralize the threats” of NATO expansion after Finland and Sweden joined the alliance following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.

This is a developing story and will be updated.