Footage of the burial ground showed the area bulldozed, with graves damaged and destroyed, and human remains left exposed, after the IDF conducted operations in the area.

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

“If not for Hamas’ reprehensible decision to take Israeli men, women, children and babies hostages, the need for such searches for our hostages would not exist,” the IDF added.

Reports about the IDF taking corpses from gravesites have been circulating on social media, shared by people outraged by the practice. This marks the first time the IDF has admitted to the exhumations.

Israel has said that 253 people were taken hostage during the Hamas attack and believes 132 hostages are still in Gaza – 105 of them alive and 27 dead.

A satellite image of the cemetery taken by Maxar on January 15 shows the area undisturbed, indicating that the damage happened between then and when the IDF moved into the area on January 17.

The IDF operation around the area of the cemetery, which also includes the Al Nasser hospital compound and a Jordanian field hospital, sparked panic, according to videos from the scene and local witnesses.

Around 7,000 people are sheltering at the Al Nasser compound, according to the World Health Organization.

Late on Tuesday, Israeli forces began moving towards the hospital, prompting crowds of people to flee. Multiple videos from the scenes showed people carrying blankets, mattresses and other personal belongings making their way out of the compound.

The IDF said on Tuesday that Hamas had recently carried out a launch from within the hospital compound towards Israeli forces in Khan Younis. It said that IDF “commando forces have been operating in the Khan Younis area in order to locate and dismantle terror infrastructure.”

The Jordanian Armed Forces said that the field hospital they run that is located next to the cemetery in Khan Younis sustained “severe material damage” as a result of “continuous Israeli bombardment in the hospital’s surroundings overnight and into Wednesday morning.”

A 10-year-old Maryland boy was bitten by a shark at a resort on Paradise Island in the Bahamas, authorities said.

The attack happened Monday afternoon while the child was “participating in an expedition in a Shark Tank at a local resort,” a news release from the Royal Bahamas Police Force states.

The boy was bitten on the right leg and taken to a hospital where his condition was listed as stable, police said.

The victim underwent a successful surgery at Doctors Hospital in Nassau, the Doctors Hospital Health System said in a statement on Thursday.

“He was airlifted yesterday evening to the United States in stable condition to continue his care,” the statement read.

The US State Department is “aware of reports of an injured US citizen minor in Nassau, Bahamas,” an agency spokesperson said in a statement.

“We are greatly concerned when any US citizen (is) harmed overseas, and we stand ready to provide all appropriate consular assistance,” the spokesperson said. “Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment.”

Cove, who owns Blue Adventures, said the company is “deeply saddened that a child suffered a shark bite during an in-water experience” in a statement on Thursday.

The company has begun an internal investigation and paused the in-water experience at the Atlantis resort during the investigation, according to Cove.

He said Monday’s shark attack was the company’s first guest-related incident since the experience began operating in 2006.

“Incidents like this involving interactions with marine life, even with the species of sharks included in this experience, are rare and never acceptable,” Cove said. “Our thoughts and support are with the child, parents and others impacted by the incident.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

Early human settlements in what is now Alaska tracked closely with the movements of a female woolly mammoth that lived 14,000 years ago, according to a new study. The animal ranged about 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) from northwestern Canada to interior Alaska during her lifetime.

The revelation sheds light on the relationship between the prehistoric giants and some of the first people to make their way across the Bering Land Bridge, suggesting that humans set up their seasonal hunting camps where woolly mammoths were known to gather.

Researchers from the United States and Canada established the connection between the two species thanks to a new tool for isotope analysis, an ancient tusk and a map of archaeological sites in Alaska. The tusk belonged to a woolly mammoth later named Élmayųujey’eh or, for short, Elma. The specimen was discovered in 2009 at the Swan Point archaeological site in central Alaska.

The research began, said lead author Audrey Rowe, a doctoral student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, after the arrival of a “cutting-edge,” high-precision tool at the institution’s Alaska Stable Isotope Facility that breaks down samples to analyze strontium isotopes — chemical traces that reveal details of an animal’s life.

Rowe’s adviser, Matthew Wooller, used the same method to identify the movements of an adult male mammoth for a paper published in August 2021. Wooller is the study’s senior study author, a professor at the university’s College of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, and the director of the isotope facility.

Strontium is a stable isotope created when the mineral rubidium, an extremely reactive metal, breaks down. It’s a slow process with a half-life of 4 billion years, Rowe said. As rubidium breaks down, it first turns to radiogenic strontium 87 and, many years later, stable strontium 86.

Out where the mammoths roamed, the rocks broke down into soil, plants grew, the animals ate those plants, and their tusks displayed the strontium level within their diet in each layer of ivory.

Woolly mammoth tusks grew at a consistent daily rate, with the earliest days of the animal’s life recorded in the tip of the tusks. The layers are clearly visible when a tusk specimen is split lengthwise.

That analysis can then be tracked to the mineral and strontium levels of rocks around Alaska to map where Elma had roamed.

“The US Geological Survey has done a pretty darn good job mapping rocks in Alaska,” Rowe said.

Then Wooller suggested the team overlay the local archaeological site locations on top of Elma’s movements.

“And lo and behold,” Rowe said, “you had a lot of overlap between the densest area of archaeological sites in Alaska from the late Pleistocene right on top of areas that Elma, our mammoth, was using during her life.”

The new isotopic data joins data sets created from radiocarbon and DNA analysis of two related juvenile mammoths also found at Swan Point to create a fuller picture of life 14,000 years ago.

“She was a young adult in the prime of life. Her isotopes showed she was not malnourished and that she died in the same season as the seasonal hunting camp at Swan Point where her tusk was found,” Wooller said in a statement.

Other researchers agreed. “This study significantly advances our understanding of mammoth behaviour, and also provides interesting clues regarding the interaction between humans and mammoths,” said Love Dalén, professor of evolutionary genomics at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden, via email. Dalén was not involved in the new research.

The revelations could also spur more scientists to look for new combinations of research tools to advance their understanding of science and history.

“Overall, I think the paper is a fantastic example of how the use of a combination of different molecular tools, such as isotope, DNA and radiocarbon analyses, can provide groundbreaking and novel insights into prehistory,” Dalén said.

The findings were published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

Changing the picture of hunter-gatherers

The new evidence advances more than an understanding of the early relationship between woolly mammoths and humans.

“(Elma) wandered around the densest region of archaeological sites in Alaska,” Rowe said in a statement. “It looks like these early people were establishing hunting camps in areas that were frequented by mammoths.”

The research also upended what Rowe, the lead researcher, thought should be the image that comes to mind when thinking about each of the species independently.

The study team commissioned natural history illustrator Julius Csotonyi to create a digital image of the two species. The final image includes all three woolly mammoths found in the Swan Point area, but instead of depicting the humans as aggressive hunters surrounding their prey, Rowe insisted that the artist feature a family instead.

“These people were just like us, but we only ever see the aggressive hunting times of their lives,” she said. Hunter-gatherers had to use “complicated” technology to kill mammals to survive “and it really required a lot of skill.”

Rowe wanted the image, which includes a woman, a man and children watching the mammoths, to demonstrate that “these people were spending tons of time teaching their children how to do everything.”

Jenna Schnuer is an Anchorage, Alaska-based freelance writer, editor and audio producer who focuses (mostly) on science, art and travel.

A SpaceX rocket took off for the International Space Station on another trailblazing mission operated entirely by the private sector. On board is a group of European astronauts, including the first person from Turkey to visit outer space.

The mission is the latest in a series of endeavors from the private sector — bolstered by NASA — that aim to churn up business activity in Earth’s orbit. The United States has for years aimed to increase commercial activity in space as NASA looks ahead to retiring the International Space Station and allowing private space stations to take over so the space agency can focus on missions deeper into the solar system, such as to the moon and Mars.

Liftoff of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was slated for Wednesday, but the company was forced to delay the mission as it worked to complete final checks before launch. Benji Reed, Space X’s senior director of human spaceflight programs, told reporters during a news briefing Tuesday that teams had to work through the weekend to address issues with parachutes on the Crew Dragon capsule, which sits atop the Falcon 9 during launch.

The rocket ultimately took off at 4:49 p.m. ET Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. After reaching space, the Crew Dragon capsule broke away from the Falcon 9 rocket and began navigating on its own, making a slow approach to the space station. The Crew Dragon is expected to dock at the orbiting outpost early Saturday morning.

The four-person crew on board Axiom-3, as this mission is called, includes Alper Gezeravcı — pronounced “Geh-zeh-rahv-juh” — a fighter pilot with the Turkish air force who is on track to mark a historic milestone as the first citizen of Turkey to reach low-Earth orbit.

Also on board is Walter Villadei, a member of the Italian air force, and Marcus Wandt, who was selected as a member of the European Space Agency’s astronaut reserve in 2022.

Leading the journey is Michael López-Alegría, a former NASA astronaut who now serves as a mission commander for Axiom Space, the Houston-based company that organized this trip with SpaceX and NASA.

Private vs. government astronauts

Axiom’s missions are designed to offer flights to the International Space Station to whomever can afford a ticket. The two previous Axiom missions — flown in 2022 and 2023 — have carried a mix of wealthy businesspeople and astronauts whose governments paid for their seats.

Thursday’s flight is the first Axiom mission in which a government or space agency has purchased all the seats. What’s more, each customer hails from a background as a military pilot, an occupation in which many astronauts have gotten their start.

The European Space Agency and the Swedish National Space Agency arranged Wandt’s ticket. The Italian air force paid for Villadei’s, and the Turkish government covered Gezeravcı’s fare.

“I’d like to underline how remarkably well-prepared they are based on their backgrounds as military aviators with many, many years of operational experience,” López-Alegría said during a December news conference. “Very similar to some of the crews that I was able to train with when I was a NASA astronaut.”

The flights operated by Axiom and SpaceX offer an alternative route to space for private citizens and astronauts from nations that are not a part of the routine crew rotation on board the International Space Station, where the staff is swapped out roughly every six months. NASA has a separate deal — worth roughly $5 billion — with SpaceX for the flights that support those crew changes, and the space agency hand selects which astronauts fly.

In contrast, Axiom organizes flights to the space station that last only a couple of weeks. Any private citizen or country can sign up, and seats have sold for $55 million each. (An Axiom executive declined to comment on pricing for this mission.)

While ESA does have deals with NASA to fly European astronauts as part of the normal space station crew rotation, this mission gave ESA a chance to grab an extra seat and add some of its research to this brief flight.

“This is also for the European Space Agency a first step to see how we can move to the post-ISS era,” noted Frank De Winne, the head of ESA’s European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany. “The ISS will come to an end at some point.”

The business model mapped out by Axiom — founded by CEO Michael Suffredini, a former ISS program manager at NASA — aligns with the US space agency’s current ethos for space exploration, which includes pushing private industry to invest in space travel and eventually develop a commercial space station that can replace the aging International Space Station. The latter has already operated for more than two decades and could be decommissioned as soon as 2030.

Axiom is one of several companies that has plans eventually to build its own private space station.

Research in space

The Axiom-3 crew is expected to spend 14 days on the space station, working alongside the seven astronauts already on board the orbiting laboratory.

The group will have “a full docket of research, over 30 experiments,” Axiom President Matt Ondler said during a December news briefing about the mission. “The crew will be continually working on experiments and research programs. In fact, we had more research than we could fit into the mission, which I think is a great example of how much demand there is.”

The science includes work that will research how astronauts might predict if they are at risk for motion sickness in space, studying lightning on the tops of clouds, tests on proteins linked to neurogenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, and an experiment that will explore how gene-edited plants respond in microgravity.

An Ecuadorean prosecutor, who was reportedly leading an investigation into an attack on a local TV network, was assassinated on Wednesday in Guayaquil, according to Ecuador’s Attorney General Diana Salazar.

Cesar Suarez was killed in the northern part of the city, known for being one of the most violent cities in the country. He was a prosecutor for the Guayas province and he focused on organized transnational crime, Salazar said in a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“I am going to be emphatic, the organized criminal groups, criminals, terrorists will not stop our commitment to the Ecuadorian society, we will continue with more strength and commitment,” Salazar said, adding, “we have to be clear; this atrocious event brings with it a message towards the work we are carrying out through justice in Ecuador.”

The storming of the TV network came as the country was rocked by explosions, police kidnappings, and prison disturbances after Ecuador President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency last Monday after notorious gang leader Adolfo “Fito” Macias allegedly escaped from a prison in Guayaquil.

Fito is the leader of Los Choneros, one of Ecuador’s most feared gangs – linked to maritime drug trafficking to Mexico and the United States – that also works with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel and the Oliver Sinisterra Front in Colombia, according to authorities.

The TV station attack led Noboa to declare an “internal armed conflict” in the country, ordering security forces to “neutralize” several criminal groups accused of spreading extreme violence in the Latin American nation.

The Ecuadorian Presidency said in a statement Wednesday that the country’s national police and armed forces had carried out a total of 20,849 operations against organized criminal groups, which have led to the arrest of 1,975 people since January 9.

Ecuador’s Armed Forces also captured six members of a terrorist organization in Guayaquil, and seven members of the terrorist organization in Los Tiguerones, including “Leo,” the alleged leader of a network of hitmen, in Victoria del Portete, the statement also said.

The operations will continue to be carried out in the 24 provinces of Ecuador to “ensure the safety of Ecuadorians,” it added.

This comes as rival criminal organizations fuel Ecuador’s worsening security situation in their battle to control drug trafficking routes.

Ecuador is nestled between two of the world’s largest cocaine producers, Peru and Colombia, and its deep ports have made it a key transit point for cocaine making its way to consumers in the United States and Europe. Its dollarized economy has also made it a strategic location for traffickers seeking to launder money.

Riot police fired tear gas, flash grenades and used batons to disperse demonstrators in Russia’s Bashkortostan region after a local activist was sentenced on Wednesday to four years in prison.

Videos showed supporters of Fail Alsynov clashing with police near the court where he had been convicted of inciting ethnic hatred, according to Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti.

Bashkortostan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs called the demonstrations an “unauthorized rally” and said police have begun investigating “mass unrest,” in a post on Telegram.

Thousands of demonstrators gathered outside a public building in the remote town of Baymak, with some waving the blue, white and green flag of Bashkortostan region, which neighbors Kazakhstan.

Protesters could be heard chanting “Freedom,” in a video posted on public Telegram channels and shared by OVD-Info. In another, protesters were seen throwing snowballs at police holding riot shields. Chants of “shame” could be heard after police fired tear gas.

Some social media accounts are reporting that internet connection was restricted in the area of the gathering.

Alsynov spoke at a rally in spring 2023 against the mining of a mountain considered to be sacred to the Bashkir people, a Turkic ethnic group concentrated in Bashkortostan and closely related to the Tatars.

The protests in Bashkortostan have become some of the most significant in Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly two years ago.

OVD-Info said Alsynov “faces a four-year sentence for speaking out against the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine.”

Pakistan and Iran have both conducted strikes on each other’s territories in an unprecedented escalation of hostilities between the neighbors, at a time when tensions have risen sharply across the Middle East and beyond.

The two countries share a volatile border, stretching about 900 kilometers (560 miles), with Pakistan’s Balochistan province on one side and Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province on the other.

Both nations have long fought militants in the restive Baloch region along the border. But while the two countries share a common separatist enemy, it is highly unusual for either side to attack militants on each other’s soil.

The latest strikes come as Iran’s allies and proxies in the Middle East – the so-called axis of resistance – launch attacks on Israeli forces and its allies against the backdrop of the war in Gaza.

Here’s what you need to know.

What happened?

The opening salvo in this fast-moving sequence of events began Tuesday when Iran conducted strikes on Pakistan’s Balochistan province – killing two children and wounding several others, according to Pakistani authorities.

Iran claimed it had “only targeted Iranian terrorists on the soil of Pakistan” and that no Pakistani nationals were targeted.

But the attack sparked anger in Pakistan, which called the strike “an egregious violation of international law and the spirit of bilateral relations between Pakistan and Iran.”

Iran’s state-aligned Tasnim news agency said it had been targeting strongholds of the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl, known in Iran as Jaish al-Dhulm, or Army of Justice.

The separatist militant group operates on both sides of the Iran-Pakistan border and has previously claimed responsibility for attacks against Iranian targets. Its ultimate goal is independence for Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is majority Sunni – the dominant branch of Islam – while Iran and its “axis of resistance” is largely Shia.

Pakistan struck back two days later with what it called a “series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes” on several alleged separatist hideouts in Sistan and Baluchestan.

In announcing the strikes on Thursday, Pakistan’s foreign ministry said a number of militants were killed. Iranian authorities said at least seven people were killed in a series of explosions – three women and four children.

Pakistan said it had for years complained that separatist fighters had “safe havens and sanctuaries” in Iran – and was forced to take matters into its own hands with Thursday’s strikes.

Why now?

Pakistan and Iran’s struggle against separatists operating on either side of each other’s borders is not new.

Deadly clashes along the turbulent border have happened regularly over the years. Just last month, Iran accused Jaish al-Adl militants of storming a police station in Sistan and Baluchestan, which resulted in the deaths of 11 Iranian police officers, according to Tasnim.

What is highly unusual, however, is each side’s willingness to hit targets across those borders, without informing each other first. And all this is happening against the backdrop of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, which has sent repercussions coursing through the region.

The larger regional conflict may have emboldened Iran to be more proactive in pursuing targets beyond its borders, experts say – especially as the United States walks a tightrope between de-escalating hostilities and flexing its own military might to deter further moves by Iran.

The day before the strikes in Pakistan, Iran launched ballistic missiles at Iraq and Syria, claiming to be targeting a spy base for Israeli forces and “anti-Iran terror groups.”

Meanwhile, heavy fighting continues between Israel and the powerful Iran-backed group Hezbollah across the Lebanon border; and the US is fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have attacked ships in the Red Sea in the name of revenge for Israel’s assault on Gaza.

“If you don’t censure Iran and its proxies … then there’s no cost for them to continue to pursue those activities,” said Karim Sadjadpour, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

He added that Iran’s dominant position in the Middle East, in contrast to conflict-ridden nations like Yemen and Syria, means it stands to gain from regional instability and “filling power vacuums.” And Iran’s activities now serve to further several of its main goals, which include empowering Palestinians and counteracting American influence in the Middle East, he said.

Retired US Army Gen. Wesley Clark, a former NATO supreme allied commander, said the various hostilities reflect Iran “striving to cement its role as a leader in the region.”

What’s with the border conflict?

The Baloch people, also spelled Baluch, live where Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran meet. They have long exhibited a fiercely independent streak and always resented being ruled by both Islamabad and Tehran, with insurgencies bubbling across the porous border region for decades.

The area they live in is also rich in natural resources, but Baloch separatists complain that their people, some of the region’s poorest, have seen little wealth trickle down to their communities.

Balochistan, Pakistan’s largest province by area, has witnessed a spate of deadly attacks in recent years, fueled by a decades-long insurgency by separatists who demand independence from the country, angered by what they say is the state’s monopoly and exploitation of the region’s mineral resources.

Iran has also faced a long history of insurgencies from its Kurdish, Arab and Baloch minorities.

Jaish al-Adl is just one of many separatist groups operating within Iran. It was originally part of a larger Sunni militant group called Jundallah, which fractured after its leader was executed by Iran in 2010, according to the US government’s National Counterterrorism Center. Jaish al-Adl emerged instead and has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the US State Department.

The group often targets Iranian security personnel, government officials, and Shia civilians, according to the National Counterterrorism Center.

In 2015, the group claimed responsibility for an attack that killed eight Iranian border guards, with militants reportedly crossing into Iran from Pakistan. And in 2019, it claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing that hit a bus carrying members of the Iranian military, killing at least 23 in Sistan-Baluchestan.

On Wednesday, a day after Iran’s strikes on Pakistan, Jaish al-Adl claimed responsibility for an attack on an Iranian military vehicle in Sistan and Baluchestan.

What’s next?

Iran’s strikes on Tuesday sparked a diplomatic spat, with Pakistan recalling its ambassador from Iran and suspending all high-level visits from its neighbor. And after Pakistan’s strikes, Iran on Thursday demanded “an immediate explanation” from its neighbor, Tasmin reported.

Nearby nations have weighed in, with India saying it has “zero tolerance towards terrorism,” and that the attack was “a matter between Iran and Pakistan.” China has urged both nations to exercise restraint and avoid escalating tensions further.

On Wednesday, US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Washington was working to prevent the Middle East from erupting into full-scale conflict.

“We’ve seen Iran violate the sovereign borders of three of its neighbors in just the past couple days,” he said, referring to Pakistan, Iraq and Syria. When asked about the potential for Pakistan – a longstanding US ally – to retaliate against Iran, Miller said, “We hope that that’s an issue that can be peacefully resolved.”

Pakistan’s subsequent strike on Iranian soil shows it has decided to respond with more than just diplomatic repercussions.

However, it is not clear whether either Iran or Pakistan would want to descend into full-blown hostilities over separatist groups that they both regard as an enemy.

Both sides issued statements after their respective strikes that hinted at a desire not to see things escalate.

Pakistan’s foreign ministry called Iran a “brotherly country” and emphasized the need to “find joint solutions.”

That echoed the Iranian foreign minister, who called Pakistan a “friendly country” earlier this week and said their strikes were proportionate and only aimed at militants.

For years, the fight against climate change has been symbolized by one number: 1.5.

Ever since countries agreed in 2015 to an ambition of restricting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, the number has become synonymous with staving off catastrophic climate change.

But what if the battle to keep global warming from overshooting this limit has already been lost?

Some prominent scientists argue it has and it’s irresponsible not to sugarcoat the truth. For others, that view is not only wrong, but even “dangerous.”

It was the renowned climate scientist James Hansen whose comments fueled the debate. In November, he declared the 1.5 degree-limit “deader than a doornail,” saying it was a shortcoming of the scientific community “to not make clear to the political leaders what the situation is.”

The rate of global warming is accelerating, he said at a news conference in November, and the world is certain to blow past 1.5 degrees of warming. “Anybody who understands the physics knows that.”

Hansen’s words have heft — he is widely credited as the first scientist to publicly sound the alarm on climate change in the 1980s. But other scientists have pushed back hard.

The response from Friederike Otto, a climate scientist at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute, was even blunter. “I think that’s a very stupid thing to say,” she told reporters in November. “At the moment, (1.5 degrees) is within reach and to pretend it’s not will just lead to doing nothing even longer.”

Disagreements over climate science are not uncommon — our planet is a highly complex system, and the nature of reaching consensus typically starts with scientists who disagree.

But as global warming fuels extreme weather — like heat waves, cyclones and even fierce winter storms, such as those that have torn through parts of the United States — the debate over the future of 1.5 is getting unusually heated.

Extraordinary heat

As many parts of the US and Europe deal with an Arctic blast of brutally cold air, it can be hard to recall just how hot 2023 was. Last year saw unprecedented global temperatures, with heat records around the world tumbling.

El Niño — a natural climate phenomenon that tends to boost the planet’s average temperature — collided with the long-term trend of global warming, making 2023 the hottest year on record. The year came within a whisker of breaching 1.5 degrees, according to data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service.

While scientists are most concerned about long-term warming over many years, not just one, 2023’s record heat was a stark warning sign. If the world breaches 1.5 degrees over the long term, scientists say the impacts of climate change will start to exceed the ability of humans and ecosystems to adapt.

But every fraction of a degree matters, and climate chaos is already emerging.

Over just a few years, the world has warmed from 1 degree Celsius above pre-industrial levels to around 1.2 degrees today — fractions of a degree that have translated to record breaking extreme weather.

He predicts that by May, the planet will have experienced a 12-month period with an average temperature 1.6 to 1.7 degrees higher than pre-industrial levels.

“For all practical purposes we are only going to be looking at 1.5 degrees in the rearview mirror,” he said.

Is climate change accelerating?

At the center of Hansen’s argument is his much-debated assertion that the planet is warming much faster than predicted.

He points to the imbalance between the energy coming in from the sun and what leaves through heat radiating into space. This imbalance has doubled, meaning global warming is escalating, he argued in a November paper he co-authored with more than a dozen other scientists.

The paper’s scientists attribute this mainly to successful global efforts to tackle shipping pollution.

Ships burn fossil fuels that produce carbon emissions, which have a significant impact on global warming. But ships’ exhaust fumes also contain sulfur dioxide. In what may seem a strange twist, the pollutant – which is highly hazardous for human health – has a global cooling impact, as the particles reflect sunlight away from the Earth.

Hansen’s research predicts the world will breach the long-term 1.5-degree benchmark this decade, and 2 degrees before 2050. That would mean the world has failed to deliver on the central goal in the Paris Agreement on climate change, under which countries pledged to limit warming to well below 2 degrees.

Bill McGuire, emeritus professor of Earth sciences at University College London, shares Hansen’s concerns about the pace of change.

But for many other scientists, there simply isn’t the evidence to say global warming is speeding up. At least not yet.

Last year’s unprecedented heat was boosted by El Niño, Mann said, and “does not constitute a change in the trend line.”

The rate of global warming did accelerate after the 1970s as clean air laws reduced air pollution, but since then, “the planet has warmed at a roughly constant rate,” he said. The reality is bad enough, he added. “There is no need to exaggerate.”

Samantha Burgess, deputy director of Copernicus, said there have been recent climate events that scientists are struggling to understand, including 2023’s record-shattering ocean temperatures.

But in terms of Hansen’s warning about the significant impacts on global warming of cleaning up shipping pollution, “we don’t see the signal,” she said.

Why 1.5 matters

Few scientists will dispute that the world faces a daunting path to limit warming to 1.5 degrees. Even with current climate policies, the planet is on course for nearly 3 degrees of warming.

In some ways, the split between them is, at its heart, a debate about the value of having the 1.5 degree limit in the first place.

If we say 1.5 degrees is dead, Otto said, “that means, for a lot of people, probably the conclusion is, ‘OK, then it’s not even worth trying.’”

Smith said it risks playing into a “fatalistic narrative that is actually quite dangerous,” potentially persuading leaders to think “we’ve failed, anything goes now.”

Mann said it was “irresponsible” to claim 1.5 degrees is dead when the world can avoid crossing the threshold by making substantial and immediate reductions in carbon pollution.

McGuire takes the opposite view. There is no feasible way the world can meet this limit which would require nearly halving emissions by 2030, he said. “To suggest otherwise is duplicitous and presents a false picture of where we are.”​ Framing 1.5 as a “target” to be reached, rather than a limit to stay under, has given the illusion we have more time than we do to tackle the crisis, he said, and has allowed countries and companies keep burning fossil fuels.

But one major concern is that if politicians abandon 1.5 degrees, they won’t strive to restrict global warming to 1.6 or 1.7 degrees, but will instead focus on 2 degrees — the upper limit countries committed to in the 2015 Paris Agreement.

“That is a huge danger, and that would really be catastrophic,” said Otto.

Between 1.5 and 2 degrees lies disaster: The risk of triggering a slew of climate tipping points, including ice sheet melting and mass coral reef death, and the lives and livelihoods of millions of people.

We will reach 1.5 degrees as a global average temperature, probably next year, Otto said. “Whether we stay there, or how much we go above that, really is still a political question and it is in our gift to change that.”

Pakistan carried out a series of deadly military strikes on what it said were separatist militant hideouts inside Iran, in the latest incident across their shared border that has sent tensions between the two neighbors soaring.

The new strikes mean both Pakistan and Iran have now taken the extraordinary step of attacking militants on each other’s soil this week at a time of expanding conflict in the Middle East and wider region.

Islamabad said Thursday its forces launched a “series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes” in Iran’s southeastern Sistan and Baluchistan province as part of an operation called “Marg Bar Sarmachar” — a phrase which loosely translates to “death to the guerrilla fighters.”

It said the hideouts targeted in the operation were used by the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) and the Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), two militant groups fighting for greater regional autonomy.

In a separate statement on Thursday, the BLF said it does not have any hideouts in Iran and that no BLF fighters had been killed in recent attacks. The BLA has not yet commented publicly on Pakistan’s strikes on Iranian territory.

A “number” of militants were killed during the operation, Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry added.

Tehran demanded “an immediate explanation” from Pakistan over the strikes, Iranian state-aligned Tasnim news agency reported, citing an official.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar, who is serving as caretaker leader until elections are held, cut short his visit to the World Economic Forum in Davos.

The caretaker Foreign Minister, Jalil Abbas Jilani, who is visiting Uganda, is also returning home.

Sistan and Baluchistan province’s deputy governor Alireza Marhamati said nine people were killed in the strikes, including three women and four children, Iranian state media IRNA reported.

“At 4:30 a.m. explosions were heard in a border village, several missiles were fired at the village,” Marhamati said.

The deputy governor said another explosion took place near the city of Saravan, but there were no casualties from that blast.

Both Pakistan and Iran have long fought militants in the restive Baloch region along their 900-kilometer (560-mile) border but the latest incident marks a major escalation between the two neighboring powers and comes as regional hostilities in the Middle East mount over Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza.

Pakistan on Thursday said it had expressed concern to Iran in recent years about the “safe havens and sanctuaries” of Pakistan separatist fighters, referred to as Sarmachar, living inside Iran, and that they had shared evidence of the presence and activities of the militants.

“However, because of lack of action on our serious concerns, these so-called Sarmachars continued to spill the blood of innocent Pakistanis with impunity. This morning’s action was taken in light of credible intelligence of impending large scale terrorist activities,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said.

Pakistan said it “fully respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” and that the “sole objective of today’s act was in pursuit of Pakistan’s own security and national interest which is paramount and cannot be compromised.”

Iranian strike on Pakistan

Pakistan’s operation comes a day after Iran said it used “precision missile and drone strikes,” to destroy two strongholds of the Sunni militant group Jaish al-Adl in Pakistan’s southwest Balochistan province, according to the Tasnim news agency.

The strikes killed two children and wounded several others, according to local officials and Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry, which described the attack as an “unprovoked violation of its airspace by Iran” and warned Iran of “serious consequences.”

It also kicked off a diplomatic spat with Pakistan on Wednesday recalling its ambassador from Iran and suspending all Iranian high-level visits.

A spokesperson for Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said the Iranian Ambassador to Pakistan should not return from a current visit to Iran and warned “Pakistan reserves the right to respond to this illegal act.”

Iran has defended the strikes and appeared to seek to calm tensions with its nuclear-powered neighbor.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said his country only targeted Iranian “terrorists” on Pakistan soil and that “none of the nationals of the friendly country of Pakistan were targeted by missiles and drones of Iran.”

An Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson earlier defended the strikes as a “precise and targeted” operation to deter security threats.

But the deadly attack inside Pakistani territory seriously damaged relations between the two countries, Foreign Minister Jilani told his Iranian counterpart.

“The Foreign Minister firmly underscored that the attack conducted by Iran inside Pakistani territory, on 16 January 2024, was not only a serious breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty but was also an egregious violation of international law and the spirit of bilateral relations between Pakistan and Iran,” the ministry said.

Jilani also warned that unilateral actions could undermine regional security, saying terrorism is a common threat that must be addressed through coordinated efforts, his office said.

Pakistan has also reiterated, however, that it considers Iran as “friends and brothers” and “have no interest in escalating any situation.”

The Baloch people live where Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran meet. They have a history of exhibiting a fiercely independent streak and have always resented being ruled by both Islamabad and Tehran, with insurgencies bubbling across the porous border region for decades.

The area they live in is also rich in natural resources and Baloch separatists complain that their people, some of the region’s poorest, have seen little wealth trickle down to their communities.

Jaish al-Adl, or Army of Justice, targeted by Iran on Tuesday, is a separatist militant group that operates on both sides of the border and has previously claimed responsibility for attacks against Iranian targets.

Its stated goal is the independence of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan province, which neighbors Pakistan.

On Wednesday, it claimed responsibility for an attack on an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) vehicle in Sistan and Baluchistan that Iranian state media says killed one of its colonels.

Attacks by Iran and its allies

The strikes came after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards launched ballistic missiles, targeting what it claimed was a spy base for Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad in Erbil, northern Iraq, and at “anti-Iran terror groups” in Syria.

Iran said the strikes in Iraq were in response to what it said were Israeli attacks that killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders, and claimed targets in Syria were involved in the recent dual bombings in the city of Kerman during a memorial for the slain Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani that left scores dead and wounded.

The international terror group ISIS has claimed responsibility for the attack on the Soleimani memorial.

Iran’s proxies in the region have also launched attacks on Israeli forces and its allies.

Houthi rebels have launched a series of attacks on commercial ships and Western military vessels in the Red Sea, a major artery for international trade. And Iranian-backed forces in Iraq and Syria have launched dozens of attacks aimed at US military positions in those countries.

Since Hamas’ October 7 attacks on Israel and the Israeli offensive in Gaza that followed, the militant group Hezbollah has engaged in daily confrontations with Israeli forces on the Lebanon-Israel border. On Wednesday, Israel’s military chief said the likelihood of war on the country’s northern border is now “much higher” than in recent times and Israel is increasing its readiness for “fighting in Lebanon.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Medicine for Israeli hostages and Palestinians has entered Gaza, Qatar said Wednesday, after the Gulf nation brokered a deal between Israel and Hamas to provide vital medication to the war-torn enclave.

The agreement mediated by Qatar Tuesday will see medication delivered to Israeli hostages held by Hamas in Gaza in exchange for medicine and humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians.

“Over the past few hours, medicine & aid entered the Gaza Strip, in implementation of the agreement announced yesterday for the benefit of civilians in the Strip, including hostages,” Qatari Foreign Ministry spokesperson Dr. Majed Al-Ansari wrote on X.

“Qatar, along with its regional and international partners, continues mediation efforts at the political and humanitarian levels.”

The medication left Doha on Wednesday and headed to Egypt before being transported to Gaza, the ministry previously said.

Osama Hamdan, a Lebanon-based Hamas official, said the agreement was dependent on there being enough medication for Palestinians in Gaza in addition to the Israeli hostages.

Hamas has stipulated that for every box of medication given to the hostages, Palestinians in Gaza must receive 1,000 boxes.

The deal follows calls by relatives of the more than 100 remaining hostages believed to be alive in Gaza for medicine to reach their loved ones.

Hostages in need

It has been more than three months since Hamas fighters attacked Israel on October 7, killing 1,200 people and taking more than 250 others hostage. Israel believes 132 hostages are still being held in the strip, 105 of whom are alive.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an advocacy group for the victims’ families, says that each new day in captivity further endangers their lives and health.

At least a third of the hostages have chronic illnesses and require medications, the forum said in a report released last week, adding that, “others suffer from illnesses related to the harsh captivity conditions, which include mental and physical torture.”

However, the Israeli military said it does “not have the ability to guarantee” that medicine will reach the hostages.

Speaking at a news conference Wednesday, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the military will work with Qatar to ensure medicine gets to the captives.

“What is important is that this effort happens, and currently the trucks are being checked. They will finish the checks, they will get in (to Gaza) and we need to do everything we can to ensure that the medications will indeed reach where they need to go,” Hagari said.

Spiraling humanitarian crisis

Since the end of a week-long truce in November, Israel has stepped up its military operations in the besieged enclave, where at least 24,400 people have been killed, including more than 10,000 children, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry.

Severe shortages of medicine and medical supplies in Gaza have led to operations being performed on children without anesthesia, according to UNICEF and a British surgeon who led an emergency medical team at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza.

Throughout the war, Israel has allowed a limited amount of aid and medicine to enter Gaza but it is a fraction of what is needed, humanitarian groups say.

This week, the United Nations’ emergency relief chief Martin Griffiths said Israel’s war in Gaza had brought famine with “such incredible speed” to the coastal enclave, and that the “great majority” of 400,000 Gazans characterized by UN agencies as at risk of starving “are actually in famine, not just at risk of famine.”

The UN has complained that Israel has been rejecting missions to deliver supplies to northern Gaza.

Nearly 90% of Gaza’s 2.2 million pre-war population has been displaced, according to the UN, while only about a dozen of the enclave’s overwhelmed hospitals remain operational.