The James Webb Space Telescope has snapped a glowing new portrait of Uranus that showcases the ice giant’s typically hidden rings, moons, weather and atmosphere — features that were nowhere to be seen in the planet’s first close-up more than three decades ago.

Webb is known for capturing stunning perspectives of distant cosmic objects in great detail, but the space observatory is also capable of revealing new insights in our own celestial backyard.

Humanity’s first good look at Uranus came when Voyager 2 flew by the seventh planet from the sun in 1986. Through the spacecraft’s camera, which viewed the solar system in visible light, Uranus appeared to be a bright blue world.

But Webb, which views the universe through infrared light invisible to the human eye, captured all of the facets often missing in other telescope images, revealing the planet’s dynamic nature.

Sending a dedicated mission to study Uranus has become a priority for astronomers, according to a report released in 2022.

And that means mission planners need as much information about the icy planet as possible — such as this detailed Webb image — before sending a spacecraft to investigate. Released by NASA on Monday, the image includes more detail than a previous version released in April.

The normally faint inner and outer rings of Uranus shine in the latest image, including the planet’s closest yet incredibly dim and diffuse Zeta ring. Nine of Uranus’ 27 known moons can also be seen as blue dots, including some of the smaller ones that exist within the rings.

The “literary moons,” named for Shakespearean characters, include Rosalind, Puck, Belinda, Desdemona, Cressida, Bianca, Portia, Juliet and Perdita.

Uranus’ unusual seasons

One of the brightest features in the new image is Uranus’ seasonal white north polar cap, which takes center stage as the pole points toward the sun during the planet’s approach to solstice, expected to occur in 2028.

Uranus is an unusual world that spins on its side with a 98-degree tilt, which means the icy planet experiences seasons in an extreme way.

One year on Uranus lasts around 84 Earth years, and for about a quarter of the Uranian year, the sun shines directly over one of the planet’s poles, which means the other half of Uranus experiences a dark winter that lasts 21 Earth years.

Storms can also be seen near and beneath the polar cap in Uranus’ atmosphere. Astronomers will eagerly watch how the polar cap and the planet’s weather and atmosphere change as Uranus approaches solstice. Scientists want to determine what seasonal and meteorological forces influence the storms, which could also reveal insights into Uranus’ complex atmosphere.

While a year on Uranus may take decades from our perspective, one day on Uranus passes very quickly, only taking about 17 hours.

The planet’s quick spin makes spotting storms and other atmospheric features on Uranus very difficult because they appear to move within minutes.

But Webb was able to take long and short exposures of Uranus that allowed astronomers to see unprecedented details.

Revisiting the ice giants

Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft that has flown near Uranus and Neptune on the edge of our solar system, which means that many mysteries remain about the ice giants. In recent years, researchers have detected X-rays coming from Uranus.

A team of scientists also found a weird “blip” in Voyager 2 data indicating the spacecraft flew through a plasmoid, a giant magnetic bubble that likely pinched off part of the planet’s atmosphere, sending it out into space.

Understanding more about Uranus can also aid astronomers as they study the thousands of ice giant-size exoplanets discovered outside of our solar system to shed light on how those worlds may have formed.

US warships in the Red Sea have been battling a growing number of weapons fired by Houthi forces in Yemen over the past several weeks, including an incident on Saturday when a US destroyer shot down more than a dozen drones.

And US faceoffs with the Houthis, who say they are targeting commercial ships headed for Israel after its invasion of Gaza, could grow after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Monday a new US-led operation focusing on protecting merchant ships operating in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.

The US Navy has not said what weapon systems its ships are using against the Houthi attacks, but the experts said a US destroyer has a range of weapons systems at its disposal.

These include surface-to-air missiles, explosive shells from the destroyer’s 5-inch main gun and close-in weapons systems, the experts said. They also said US ships have electronic warfare capabilities that could sever the links between drones and their on-shore controllers.

Whatever systems US destroyer captains use, they face decisions on cost, inventory and effectiveness as the mission grows, the experts said.

“The drones are slower and can be hit with the cheaper missiles or even the ship’s gun. Faster missiles must be intercepted with more sophisticated interceptor missiles,” said John Bradford, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratman School of International Studies in Singapore.

Ship attacks in vital channel take global economic toll

Iran-backed Houthi forces have launched numerous attacks against US interests in the region, and Israel, since the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, as fears continue to ripple across the region that the Israel-Hamas war could widen.

The group has said any ship heading to Israel was a “legitimate target” as it puts pressure on Israel to stop its Gaza offensive. They have staged several drone and missile attacks on commercial shipping, and even tried landing commandos by helicopter on one vessel to hijack it.

The world’s biggest container shipping companies have paused transit through one of the world’s trade arteries, which experts say could snarl supply chains and drive up freight costs.

MSC, Maersk, CMA CGM and Hapag-Lloyd all said in recent days that they would avoid the Suez Canal over safety concerns. Oil giant BP followed suit, prompting oil and gas prices to surge on Monday.

US Navy’s main asset – the guided-missile destroyer

With the attacks, the US Navy has said it will come to the aid of commercial shipping that finds itself in trouble.

The main US asset involved in the Red Sea to counter the attacks on shipping is the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, like the USS Carney, which downed the 14 Houthi drones on Saturday. The missiles in its magazine include:

– The Standard Missile-6 (SM-6), an advanced weapon that can shoot down ballistic missiles high in the atmosphere, other lower trajectory missiles and target other ships with a range of up to 370 kilometers, according to the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). These cost more than $4 million each.

– The Standard Missile-2 (SM-2), less advanced than the SM-6 with a smaller range of 185 to 370 kilometers, depending on the version, according to the CSIS. They cost about $2.5 million each.

– The Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM), designed to hit anti-ship cruise missiles and lower speed threats like drones or helicopters at a range of up to 50 kilometers, the CSIS says. Each one costs more than $1 million.

Experts think the US is using the SM-2 and/or ESSM missiles against the Houthi threats so far.

Pricey munitions and the cost-benefit ratio

But as they are facing drones that can be produced and deployed in large numbers for unit prices under $100,000, a prolonged campaign could eventually tax US resources, the experts say.

“These are advanced air intercept capabilities with an average cost of around $2 million – making the intercept of drones not … cost effective,” said Alessio Patalano, professor of war and strategy at King’s College in London.

Houthi forces are funded and trained by Iran, so they have resources for an extended fight, the experts point out.

It’s also a question of to what lengths the US wants to go to protect merchant shipping, the experts said.

A US destroyer’s Phalanx close-in weapons system – Gatling guns that can fire up to 4,500 rounds a minute – could handle drone or missile threats that get within a mile of the warship, said Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain and a former director of operations at the US Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Center in Hawaii.

That’s a relatively low-cost defense. But if drones do get that close, it is the last line of defense and a miss could cost US lives.

“A single missile or single drone does not sink a US warship, but it can kill people and/or do damage that required the ship to withdraw for repairs in port,” Bradford said.

Defense of warships vs. protection of merchants

And the Phalanx system can’t protect merchant ships the US destroyer may be watching over, sailing miles away from the warship.

“To provide wide area air defense (as opposed to self-protection) vessels rely primarily on anti-air missiles,” said Sidharth Kaushal, research fellow for sea power at the Royal United Services Institute in London.

Kaushal said US anti-aircraft interceptor missiles on US warships are fired from vertical launch system (VLS) cells on the deck.

Each cell can contain a mix of armaments (exact numbers are classified), but the number aboard any one vessel is finite, Kaushal said.

And if the Houthis can deplete a ship’s inventories with successive attacks, the warship could find itself short on munitions to protect the merchant vessels it’s watching over, said Salvatore Mercogliano, a naval expert and professor at Campbell University in North Carolina.

“While the navies are well equipped to swat down what the Houthi are currently throwing, the fear is that the scope and scale increase and the escorts cannot keep up a level of defense to protect commercial shipping,” he said.

The Houthis have not yet tried a true drone swarm attack – similar to what Russia has deployed repeatedly in Ukraine – one that could involve dozens of incoming threats at one time, the experts said.

“A swarm could tax the capabilities of a single warship but more importantly, it could mean weapons get past them to hit commercial ships,” Mercogliano said.

US warships also face the question of how to replenish missile inventory in the region, he said.

“The only site to reload weapons is at Djibouti (a US base on the Horn of Africa) and that is close to the action,” he said.

US looks for allied help

Patalano said the US-led operation to expand the number of warships protecting merchant vessels will help defensive efforts.

Speaking at a virtual ministerial meeting on Tuesday addressing Red Sea maritime security with representatives of 42 other countries, Defense Secretary Austin said “these reckless Houthi attacks are a serious international problem… and they demand a firm international response.”

“These attacks threaten the free flow of commerce and endanger innocent mariners. They must stop,” he added.

A day earlier, Austin announced the establishment of Operation Prosperity Guardian in the Red Sea, a multinational operation that also includes the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain.

“It would seem that more ships (will be) in position to support each other, de facto expanding the range and volume of capabilities available in the area to deal with the challenge,” Patalano said.

Possible threats in an evolving battlespace

While increased allied cooperation could help, the experts said deployment of anti-ship cruise or ballistic missiles could present a new challenge.

Anti-ship cruise missiles “can come in low and penetrate a ship’s hull above the waterline.  These are the type of weapons that sunk several British ships during the Falklands War and hit USS Stark (in the Persian Gulf) in 1987,” Mercogliano said.

Ballistic missiles could present an even greater danger, he said.

“The terminal velocity of the weapon and its payload could inflict serious damage” on a warship or commercial vessel, he said, and may need the best US interceptors, like the SM-6, to shoot it down.

Mercogliano said the battlespace is not static and the Houthis will have something to say about what they will deploy.

“The Houthi are watching and seeing how the navies are responding to these attacks,” he said.

And the experts say the US may at some point decide it has to go on offense.

“There is another course of action which is striking at the source. This would shift the emphasis from intercepting the capabilities once they’re in the air to strike them at the source to prevent their use in the first place,” Patalano said.

“Given a choice and capability, it is always cheaper to take out the archers than to intercept the arrows,” Schuster said.

Apes can recognize old friends they haven’t seen for decades, according to new research, and it’s the longest-lasting social memory ever documented outside humans.

Researchers found that chimpanzees and bonobos were able to recognize photos of former groupmates more than 25 years after last seeing them in the flesh, with photos of old friends eliciting an even more positive response, according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In order to test this, Krupenye and lead author Laura Lewis, a biological anthropologist and comparative psychologist at University of California, Berkeley, used photographs of apes who had died or left groups at Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland, Planckendael Zoo in Belgium and Kumamoto Sanctuary in Japan.

The team selected individuals whom the participating apes hadn’t seen for time periods ranging from nine months to 26 years, who had high-quality images available on file, and noted what kind of relationship the participants had had with the individuals.

Researchers then left two photographs — one of the ape they had known and another of a stranger — accessible to the apes, and used a noninvasive eye-tracking device to measure where they looked and for how long.

Results showed that the apes looked “significantly longer” at those they knew, no matter how long it had been since they last saw them, and even longer still at those they had been friendly with.

Krupenye likens the experience to bumping into someone from high school in the street after not seeing them for years.

Ability to miss loved ones?

One bonobo, Louise, had not seen sister Loretta or nephew Erin for 26 years at the time of the test, but she “showed a strikingly robust looking bias toward both of them over eight trials,” according to a news release.

Researchers believe that apes’ social memory could extend beyond 26 years and could even be comparable with that of humans, who start to forget people after 15 years but can remember them for as long as 48 years, the release added.

This is also a new record for the length of social memory in nonhuman animals, after previous research showed that dolphins remembered individuals they hadn’t seen for 20 years, according to the researchers.

The results show that social memory is a more broadly ape trait that we share with our closest relatives, rather than something that evolved separately in humans, Krupenye said.

The study also raises the possibility that apes are capable of missing their loved ones.

“The idea that they do remember others and therefore they may miss these individuals is really a powerful cognitive mechanism and something that’s been thought of as uniquely human,” Lewis said in the news release.

“Our study doesn’t determine they are doing this, but it raises questions about the possibility that they may have the ability to do so.”

The authors hope the study will raise awareness around how poaching and deforestation can affect ape communities by separating groupmates, and boost conservation efforts.

Next up, the team plans to investigate if apes can recognize former friends as they look now, rather than when they left the group, as well as whether other primates such as gorillas and orangutans also possess long-lasting social memories.

“I would be very surprised if we didn’t see similar effects in other apes,” said Krupenye, who added that their method could be used to investigate social memory in other animals, such as sheep and dogs.

The searing heat from wildfires can transform metals found naturally in the soil into cancer-causing airborne particles, according to a new report.

While a growing body of research has focused on the impacts of the gases and particles carried by wildfires, less attention has been paid to the effect they could have on naturally-occuring metals within soil and plants.

But the blistering heat from wildfires can transform one metal, chromium, from its benign version into toxic airborne particles that put firefighters and people living nearby at risk, according to the study published in the journal Nature Communications in December.

“In the complex mixture of gasses and particles that wildfires spew out as smoke and leave behind as dust, heavy metals such as chromium have largely been overlooked,” Scott Fendorf, co-author of the study and professor at the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability, said in a press release.

Chromium is common in soils across the western United States, Australia, Brazil, Europe, Indonesia and South Africa.

Certain natural chemical processes can trigger a transformation of the metal from a benign form, called chromium 3, into a carcinogen called hexavalent chromium, or chromium 6. The toxin — which became infamous through the 2000 film “Erin Brockovich” — can cause cancer, organ damage and other health issues.

After previous research, from Australia published in 2019, found that intense wildfire heat could be a trigger for this transformation, Stanford scientists set out to test the theory by collecting samples from the chromium-rich soils of four ecological preserves in California’s North Coast Range, which had been scorched by wildfires in 2019 and 2020.

They tested soil from areas that had burned and areas that had been spared, separating out the smallest particles most likely to become airborne. In chromium-rich areas where vegetation had allowed fires to burn intensely and for a long period, the researchers found toxic chromium levels were around seven times higher than in unburned areas.

Even after a fire has been fully contained, the study found that local communities downwind could still be exposed, due to strong winds carrying fine particles of the chromium-laced soil.

Fendorf said much of the health risk typically wanes after the first big rainfall washes the metals away. But it could take weeks or months for rain to arrive after a fire, especially as climate change increases the likelihood and frequency of drought.

California, at the time the samples were taken, was experiencing a historic, multi-year drought. Without much-needed rainfall to wash away the contaminants, when researchers returned nearly a year later, they found the toxic chromium persisted in the soil, continuing to pose health risks for nearby communities.

“This kind of metal composition explanation is complementary to what we already know and is definitely going to help us understand the health impacts in human populations,” said Benmarhnia, who was not involved in the study.

The research adds to growing evidence of the hazardous impacts of wildfire smoke, which also carries fine particulate matter, or PM 2.5, a tiny but dangerous pollutant. When inhaled, it can travel deep into lung tissue and can even enter the bloodstream. PM 2.5 has been linked to a number of health problems, including asthma, heart disease, chronic bronchitis and other respiratory illnesses.

The scientists also say that other metals like manganese, nickel and iron nanoparticulates could pose similar threats, but more research is needed.

Wildfires serve a vital ecological purpose. They increase the soil’s nutrients and remove decaying matter. Without these fires, overgrown foliage like grasses and shrubs can prime the landscape for even worse flare-ups.

But as the climate crisis intensifies drought and extreme heat, wildfires are burning longer and expanding further. A recent UN report predicted the number of extreme wildfire events will increase by 30% by 2050, even with the most ambitious efforts to slash planet-warming pollution.

“The bigger picture is that we know we are going to have more extremes and within that, we’re seeing more frequent fires and more severe fires,” Fendorf said. “That’s the big, troubling outcome because more frequent fire means we’re getting exposed to smoke and dust — and that’s not a good recipe.”

The world’s forests are under threat. As well as being logged for timber and cleared to make way for agriculture, rising global temperatures are causing more intense wildfires. This year is set to be the hottest on record and has been the worst on record in terms of fires in boreal forests worldwide.

Re-forestation is essential in the fight against climate change and to protect biodiversity, but planting saplings by hand can be slow and labor-intensive.

In recent years, drones have begun to be used to drop seeds onto land deforested by wildfires; a company called Mast Reforestation, formerly DroneSeed, has applied this method in the western United States and beyond, and World Wildlife Fund has used specialized drones to restore rural bushland in Australia. But for a reforest to regrow, dropped seeds have to get into the soil and germinate, and that can be a challenge.

Researchers from Morphing Matter Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pennsylvania, might have an answer. Inspired by nature’s own design, the lab has created an “E-seed” carrier that is intended to be dropped by drones and drill into the soil.

But remarkably, the carrier doesn’t need an energy source to drill into the ground – it’s made from a material that “self-drills” in response to rain.

Lab director Lining Yao and her colleagues looked at erodium seeds for inspiration.
The seeds of this genus of plants have a coil-like “drill” that changes shape when wet, using a “tail” to prop itself up and push more effectively into the ground.

The team created a seed carrier based on the same principle, made from white oak wood that naturally responds to changes in humidity. They chemically treated the wood to make it more flexible when wet, as well as softer and denser so it expands more effectively. Erodium has a single tail, but the seed carrier has three, making it easier to drill into soil.

According to research Yao published in the journal Nature, the carrier has an “80% drilling success rate on flat land,” making it more effective than erodium seeds in the same conditions. After the carrier burrows, the seed is protected from animals and the natural elements, improving its chances of germination.

Tailor-made

In August, the design won the Falling Walls breakthrough of the year award — which is given annually to scientific breakthroughs in academic disciplines — in Engineering and Technology.

So far, Morphing Matter has only tested the seed carriers at sites in Pittsburgh and Changxing, China, but Yao says the lab has received interest from venture capitalists and government agencies around the world wanting to use the seed carriers in reforestation projects.

But she notes that specific types of seed carriers must be developed for different locations, to accommodate different soils and humidity levels, amongst other variants. “We have to tailor the design to local conditions and the seeds of their interest,” explains Yao.

“Desert is very different from the Amazon rainforest and coastal lines around Hawaii.
The partnership has to be very collaborative with local practitioners so we always request them to send seeds and soil for us to validate.”

Providing the technology to projects around the world would require production to be scaled up.

“Most people who reach out want thousands of seeds, they want to grow millions of trees in a year,” says Yao. “I started a small team in the lab to think about mass production strategy, but we definitely want to get more financial and personnel support to make this a larger effort.”

Shu Yang, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, has been heavily involved in the E-seed carrier project. She says the question of large-scale distribution is an important one.

“You have to look at the efficiency. Right now it is 80% and then once you do a large area, what is the efficiency versus the costs? … Whether people are interested in doing this, I think the success rate is critical.” says Yang.

But in terms of the manufacturing process, Yang believes it will be possible to produce enough carriers to meet demand.

Seed shortage

According to Matthew Aghai, vice president of bio research and development at Mast Reforestation, the e-seed project is a “phenomenal development,” but he adds that for seed distribution to be truly effective, better drones must be made more widely available for reforestation. Typically, with conventional drones, “The technology is not in a place where you can operate with a great degree of control and precision,” he says.

Mast formerly manufactured and used drones for reforestation and still utilizes them in research and development, but doesn’t currently use them in reforestation projects. It also produces millions of seeds annually at the largest seed bank in the western United States, and although it isn’t connected with Morphing Matter Lab, it has consulted with it. Aghai adds that using drones to for reforestation in remote areas requires infrastructure, such as charging stations, which often isn’t available.

But an even bigger challenge could be a shortage of seeds to plant, he says, because storing seeds in banks takes time and seed nurseries need more funding. “There’s actually a broader seed shortage in our industry, a very serious one. That’s the bottleneck for reforesting, not technology.”

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to clarify Mast Reforestation’s use of drones.

A volcano dramatically erupted in Iceland on Monday, with spectacular bursts of lava and smoke illuminating the night sky after weeks of seismic activity prompted the evacuation of a nearby town.

The eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula began at around 10 p.m. local time, following an earthquake around an hour earlier, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said in a statement.

The office reported that the eruption was located close to Hagafell, about 3 kilometers (about 2 miles) north of the town of Grindavík.

Iceland’s Coast Guard posted a video on Facebook showing one of its helicopters at the scene, hovering over a long line of glowing lava spurting from the fissure in the ground. The air is shrouded by smoke and lit in glowing hues of orange and red.

In a statement Tuesday, Iceland’s government said the fissure opening is almost 4 kilometers long. It is the fourth eruption in the area since 2021 and the largest so far, the statement added.

Last month, an evacuation order was issued for Grindavík and nearby settlements preventing residents from staying in their homes overnight as the threat of a volcanic eruption loomed, public broadcaster RÚV reported.

The town of more than 3,000 people, which at one point risked being in the path of flowing lava, is now clear of residents, RÚV reported, citing police. It is a popular place for tourists because it lies some 7 kilometers from the famous Blue Lagoon geothermal spa.

The eruption does not pose a threat to life, Iceland’s government said in its statement. The area is closed to all traffic, it added, while strongly warning people not to approach the area.

While the eruption is not expected to impact populated areas or critical infrastructure in the coming days, and is no longer expected to reach Grindavík, it is releasing “considerable” toxic gases, said the Icelandic Tourist Board on Tuesday.

“People are strongly advised against visiting the site of the eruption while responders and scientists assess the situation,” the Tourist Board added.

There are currently no disruptions to flights to and from Iceland, and international flight corridors remain open, the government said.

It added that the eruption is classified as a fissure eruption, which does not usually result in large explosions or significant production of ash dispersed into the stratosphere.

In the first two hours of the eruption, hundreds of cubic meters of lava were being released per second, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office. But the eruption’s intensity, and the level of seismic activity in the area, had decreased by early Tuesday, with lava spreading laterally from either side of the newly opened fissures.

The intense wave of hundreds of earthquakes last month prompted a national state of emergency after the country’s Civil Protection Agency said a magma tunnel was forming that could reach Grindavík.

“It is clear that we are dealing with events that we Icelanders have not experienced before, at least not since the eruption in Vestmannaeyjar,” the agency said, referencing a 1973 eruption that began without warning and destroyed 400 homes.

The Blue Lagoon, which draws tourists to its steaming water, had closed for a period last month after the initial signs of a potential eruption. It had just reopened to guests on Sunday – but said on Tuesday that it was temporarily closing again due to the eruption.

Authorities also said in November they were preparing a protective trench around a geothermal power plant about 7 kilometers from Grindavík that provides electricity and geothermal water to heat homes for a population of 30,000 on the peninsula.

Home to volcanoes

Iceland sits on a tectonic plate boundary that continually splits apart, pushing North America and Eurasia away from each other along the line of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. It is home to 32 active volcanoes.

As such, the island nation is accustomed to volcanic eruptions, though they often occur in the wilderness, away from populated areas. The Bárðarbunga volcanic system situated in the center of the country erupted in 2014, producing lava that covered 84 square kilometers (32 square miles) of highland that didn’t damage any communities.

The Fagradalsfjall volcanic system erupted in 2021 for the first time in more than 6,000 years. It also didn’t threaten populated areas and even become a tourist attraction as people flocked to witness the eruption.

Experts don’t expect a volcanic eruption to cause the same level of chaos as that seen in 2010 when the Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted, since it is unlikely to involve the glacial ice that led to a huge ash cloud.

About 100,000 flights were canceled, affecting 2 million people, as a result of the ash spewed out by the 2010 eruption, which threatened to stall aircraft engines and cause electrical failure.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Israel is reeling from the Israel Defense Forces’ admission that it shot and killed three Israelis in Gaza on Friday. The three had been taken hostage by Hamas during the group’s October 7 terror attack. The IDF says the shooting was against its rules of engagement and that the soldiers involved would face disciplinary procedures.

Here’s what we know.

What the Israeli military said happened

The three men were killed during an IDF operation around the Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya on Friday.

On Saturday, an IDF official said the trio had emerged from a building tens of meters away from a group of Israeli troops. They were shirtless and were waving a white flag, according to the official, who spoke to journalists on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about an ongoing investigation.

At least one soldier felt threatened and opened fire, killing two of the men immediately. The third was wounded and ran back inside the building. The Israeli unit overheard a cry for help in Hebrew, at which time the brigade commander ordered his troops to stop shooting. However, there was another burst of gunfire. The third hostage died later. Their shooting while waving a white flag was in violation of IDF rules of engagement, the official added.

It’s unclear which hostage survived initially and when he was killed, the official added.

Israeli soldiers did not anticipate that they would be approached by hostages, but instead thought they would find them either in a building, in a tunnel or handcuffed, according to IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari.

He said at a news conference Saturday that Israel’s military did not have intelligence about the three hostages mistakenly killed, adding: “This is a mistake and a malfunction.”

“Following the tragic incident where three Israeli hostages were mistakenly killed by IDF soldiers, searches were conducted in a building adjacent to where the incident took place,” the IDF said.

In a statement released late Sunday accompanied by pictures, the IDF said the three men had tried to use leftover food to create signs calling for help.

“Signs calling for help, apparently using leftover food were located. Based on a field investigation, it appears that the three hostages were in the building where the signs were located, for some period of time,” the IDF said.

One of the photos shows a white sheet with the words “help” and “three hostages” written on the sheet in Hebrew.

“The incident is under review,” the IDF said, adding “The IDF has notified the families with the additional findings that have been found so far, and will continue to do so.”

Shejaiya has been the scene of fierce fighting in recent days, with Israeli forces confronting ambush attempts and attacks that involved suicide bombers or assailants dressed in civilian clothes, according to the IDF.

Hagari said on Friday that the shooting was “a sad and painful incident.” The IDF assumed the three men had either escaped or been abandoned by their captors due to the fighting in Shejaiya.

What the IDF is doing to prevent similar tragedies

“What we have told our troops is to be extra vigilant and do one more safety check before dealing with kinetics with any threat that they face on the battlefield,” Conricus said, “but it is a very challenging environment that our troops are in.”

The IDF alleged earlier Friday that Hamas has attempted to use dolls and backpacks with speakers playing sounds of crying or children speaking in Hebrew to lure Israeli soldiers into a trap.

Who were the hostages?

All three hostages were young men. Yotam Haim and Alon Shimriz were kidnapped from Kibbutz Kfar Aza, while Samer Talalka was taken near Kibbutz Nir Am.

Talalka, 25, was a member of Israel’s Bedouin community and the eldest of 10 children. He lived in the town of Hura and worked with his father and brothers at a chicken hatchery near Kibbutz Nir Am.

On October 7, he was with his father at the chicken hatchery and told his sister in a phone call that he had been injured by terrorist gunfire, until the call disconnected, according to the Israeli Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.

Haim, 28, was gifted musician and heavy metal fan. He had played the drums for 20 years and was supposed to perform at a Metal Music Festival in Tel Aviv on October 7th with his band, Persephore. Yotam last spoke with his family that morning. He told them his house had burned down before losing contact with them at 10:44 a.m., soon after which he was kidnapped by Hamas, according to the family forum.

Less is known about Shimriz, but his family, like those of Talalka and Haim, had spoken publicly about their ordeal

Haim’s mother, Iris, had told Israel’s Channel 11 earlier this week that she had faith her son would return even without raising her voice at the government.

“Some people think that if they don’t shout, no one will bring their children back. I tell them: we can do it peacefully and through a respectful dialogue. The children will come back, I have no doubt,” she said.

What’s the reaction been?

Some of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s critics see the killings as proof that the Israeli government is more concerned with eradicating Hamas than it is with freeing the remaining hostages held by the group – the two key goals of the military operation in Gaza.

Before news of three hostages’ deaths broke, 132 captives were believed to still in Gaza, of whom 112 were thought to still be alive, Israeli authorities said Friday.

Rallies were held on Friday night in Tel Aviv to demand immediate action to bring back the rest of those being held in Gaza. Demonstrators chanted “everyone now” and temporarily blocked a main road that runs through the city, during the three-hour demonstration.

“We want to do everything can to bring back the hostages,” one said “We are asking our government our cabinet to do the best they can to find more solutions because our friends and our family now

Among the demonstrators was Noam Tibon, a retired IDF major general who made headlines for personally driving south on October 7 to rescue his family from Hamas militants.

“The clock is ticking, and it’s against the hostages,” he said.

How the government is responding

Netanyahu has been under pressure domestically, both over his failure to anticipate the attacks and to bring the hostages home, but so far there seems little appetite to remove him with the conflict ongoing.

While the killing of the three hostages has added urgency to the conversations, the source said, it’s unclear if it incident will cost the Netanyahu politically or lead to any major changes in either government or the military.

Speaking for the first time since the killings, the longtime Israeli prime minister on Saturday told the Israeli nation, “We are in a war for our existence.”

Netanyahu said the war “must continue until victory, despite the international pressure and despite the unbearable cost that the war is exacting from us in our fallen sons and daughters.”

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called their deaths “a painful incident for every Israeli,” while lawmaker Benny Gantz, a former rival of Netanyahu’s and now part of a wartime coalition government, said his heart was “shattered after learning about this tragedy.”

Both leaders indicated that the war would continue. Gallant said Israel “must remain resilient and continue operating,” while Gantz said the country’s “responsibility is to win the war, and part of that victory would be to return the hostages home.”

The front lines where Ukraine and its allies had hoped for a summer breakthrough now epitomize the bleak, dark winter ahead — of Russian resurgence and Kyiv’s mounting losses.

“Heavily injured,” the radio operator shouts at him. A Russian drone has hit a large gas fuel tank used for heating in a trench close to Russian positions, leaving one soldier hurt.

Ihor grabs the handset: “Begin the evacuation, begin the evacuation. Evacuate with a small vehicle… Did you move out already?”

The voice on the radio replies. They cannot evacuate, as they lack transport. Ihor’s face tightens in frustration – all he can do is wait for news in agonizing silence.

Minutes later, the radio crackles again. The soldier is “already 200” – military code for dead.

“It’s over,” Ihor tells his men. “No rush. We can’t help him.”  The body of Sergei, aged 48, will now be collected after dark, when it is safer.

He is one of four Ukrainian soldiers killed that day, and about 50 that week in this area alone, according to a Ukrainian official in the area.

Waves of Russian convict recruits

“Every casualty makes a difference,” said Ihor. “It affects everyone’s morale. It is very painful for me.”

The winter fight is beyond bleak. North of Robotyne, where fierce fighting raged months ago, Ukrainian drones are outnumbered by Russian ones, with 40 of the latter hitting one Ukrainian trench network in a day recently.

CS gas, a riot control agent also known as tear gas, is a chemical compound that can render people temporarily unable to function by irritating the eyes, nose, mouth, lungs and skin, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The use of riot control agents in warfare is prohibited under the United Nations’ Chemical Weapons Convention.

There have been periodic reports of Russian soldiers using gas across the battlefield in recent months, yet its use around Orikhiv appears to be abnormally persistent.

The second soldier added: “You inhale it twice, then you cannot breathe.”

The men said they suffered injuries including burns and welts to their face, and inside their mouths and throats. Both men still had redness on their faces, residual signs of their injuries.

The alleged use of chemical agents on the battlefield marks another sign of the brutality and mendacity of Russia’s renewed fight for the terrain it lost. Ukraine had hoped for greater advances during the summer toward the Azov Sea, yet now must defend its minor gains.

“Colossal changes are taking place,” said the commander, Ihor. “[The Russians] started making their own attack drones and outnumber ours. But they use them badly, like a kid’s toy.”

The sheer number of Russians now at the front is disconcerting, multiple Ukrainian soldiers said. “Usually, more meat means more mince,” Ihor said, a reference to Russian generals throwing their forces into the “meatgrinder” of the front line without concern for their losses. “But sometimes the machine gets it right. And they have success.”

Ihor’s challenges are legion, and even evacuating the injured puts his limited vehicles at risk from Russian drone attacks. The crisis in US and EU funding for Ukraine is at the forefront of their minds here, as a series of grainy drone images show bare tree lines, injured Russian soldiers lolling in a crater, and a landscape so cruel it seems remarkable any human life emerges from it.

“Without support, we won’t make it,” he said.

In the end it was the thriving online scam centers that finally forced China to lose patience with Myanmar’s brutal military rulers.

The impoverished Southeast Asian nation has long been a trouble spot on China’s southwestern border. For decades Beijing’s leaders have played a careful game of backing Myanmar’s military regimes – lending them much-needed economic, military and diplomatic support, including at the United Nations – whilst also maintaining close ties to powerful rebel militias along its borders.

But Beijing’s frustration has been building with Naypyidaw’s generals who seized power in 2021, overthrowing a democratically elected government that Beijing had built close relations with, and resurrecting the kind of isolated junta rule that Myanmar’s people had spent decades living under.

The deeply unpopular regime has since been busy fighting a vicious civil war, struggling to govern growing swathes of its territory or deliver on Beijing’s economic and strategic interests there, including an ambitious infrastructure corridor aimed at connecting China’s landlocked southwest with the Indian Ocean.

In recent months, that displeasure has reached new heights as the junta dragged its feet on a pressing security priority for Beijing: shutting down the infamous online scam centers that have proliferated along its border with Myanmar.

The country’s mountainous borderlands have long been a haven for gambling, drugs and the trafficking of both humans and wildlife. But since the Covid-19 pandemic, online scam operations – many run by Chinese organized crime bosses – have flourished.

In heavily guarded compounds controlled by local warlords, tens of thousands of people, mainly Chinese, have been trapped and forced by criminal gangs to defraud strangers with sophisticated schemes over the internet.

Beijing has pressed Myanmar’s military government to rein in the scam operations with little success.

Things started to change in late October, when an alliance of ethnic rebel groups launched a major offensive – dubbed Operation 1027 – against the junta.

As the ethnic militias captured towns and military posts in the northern Shan state, numerous scam compounds near the Chinese border were liberated. Thousands of trafficked victims have been sent back to China, along with suspected ringleaders, according to Chinese authorities and the triumphant militias.

Powerful warlord families, backed by the junta and once deemed untouchable by the law, are now in the custody of Chinese police.

“China has been leveraging Operation 1027 in order to maximize pressure on the military regime to compel it to begin a crackdown on cross-border crime that targets Chinese nationals,” said Jason Tower, Myanmar country director of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP).

Last week, Beijing said it helped the junta broker a temporary ceasefire with the rebels, after arranging for the two sides to meet in China for peace talks.

But Beijing’s assistance has carried a heavy price tag – the downfall of the remaining crime families the junta had relied on to rule the border region.

‘Tacit support’

China’s growing frustration with the junta over its failure to tackle the scam industry was not lost on the ethnic rebels as they planned their attack for October 27.

In announcing the offensive, the armed ethnic groups – collectively called the Three Brotherhood Alliance – cited the need to take out the massive scam operations as a major justification.

The alliance pledged to not only overthrow the military dictatorship, but also “eradicate telecom fraud, scam dens and their patrons nationwide, including in areas along the China-Myanmar border” – a message experts say was clearly intended for Beijing.

China began publicly pushing the junta to crack down on cross-border crime targeting Chinese nationals in May, when then Foreign Minister Qin Gang visited Myanmar’s capital Naypyidaw and raised the issue with army chief Gen. Min Aung Hlaing.

“For that to fall on deaf ears for several months, and for the criminal activity to continue, I think it ultimately played a role in China giving some tacit support to Operation 1027,” said Tower, the expert at USIP.

For much of this year, Chinese officials have urged the ethnic armed groups to restrain from escalating the conflict and to sit down for negotiations with the military – which led to a few meetings between the two sides, according to Tower.

“This seems to have changed pretty dramatically after October. China’s frustration (with the junta) is ultimately what led to it lifting that pressure. And once that pressure was lifted, something like Operation 1027 became possible,” he said.

One key hub for the scam syndicates was Kokang, a region home to many ethnic Han Chinese and controlled by the Myanmar military through the Kokang Border Guard Force. The militia was established by junta chief Min Aung Hlaing to rule Kokang after he led a military operation in 2009 to oust the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA).

The MNDAA, a predominantly ethnic Chinese armed group, is now a key player in the Three Brotherhood Alliance taking back territory in the region.

‘Last straw’

Experts say a particularly brutal incident in Kokang’s capital Laukkaing, a glistening casino city bordering China’s Yunnan province that has descended in recent years into a lawless hub for internet fraud, was another major test of Beijing’s patience.

According to local media reports in Myanmar and Thailand, in the small hours of October 20, multiple Chinese citizens were shot and killed by guards during an attempted escape from a scam center in Laukkaing.

Those reports soon began circulating on Chinese social media.

Four undercover Chinese police officers were rumored to be among the victims – a claim that was shared online by Hu Xijin, former editor-in-chief of state-run tabloid Global Times.

According to Chinese state media, the compound, Crouching Tiger Villa, was run by Ming Xuechang, a former Kokang official and head of a powerful family whose members hold prominent positions in the local government and junta militia.

“I think that was kind of the last straw that led to China more or less greenlighting this operation,” Tower said.

Four days after the launch of Operation 1027, China’s Minister of Public Security Wang Xiaohong arrived in Naypyidaw. In a meeting with Min Aung Hlaing, the Chinese police chief said law enforcement agencies in both countries would strengthen cooperation to crack down on cyber scams and online gambling.

Then in mid-November, Chinese police issued arrest warrants for Ming and his three relatives, including his son, who is a leader in the Kokang Border Guard Force. They were accused of running scam hubs that target Chinese citizens and openly using armed forces to protect their operations.

Days later, the three relatives were handed over the border and taken into Chinese custody, while Ming reportedly took his own life before he could be arrested, according to China’s state broadcaster CCTV.

As of late November, authorities in Myanmar had handed over 31,000 suspects to China since authorities from both countries launched a crackdown on online scams in September, according to China’s Ministry of Public Security. The vast majority of those suspects were handed back after Operation 1027.

Richard Horsey, senior adviser on Myanmar for the International Crisis Group, said the crackdown on scam centers had in the short term assumed a higher priority than peace on the border for China.

“China has calculated that it is worth a short-term period of instability and conflict on the border in order to shut down the scam centers,” he said. “But I don’t think China wants this conflict to continue longer than necessary…(or) to spread wider than necessary.”

Peace talks

In public, China has repeatedly called for de-escalation of the conflict in Myanmar. Announcing the temporary ceasefire on Thursday, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said Beijing had been making “relentless efforts to promote talks to end the fighting” since it broke out in October.

But experts say in practice, Beijing had taken a largely hands-off approach until earlier this month.

China’s sudden involvement in peace talks may reflect Beijing’s calculation shifting again, experts say. The rebel offensive in Shan was hugely successful – and other insurgent groups launched their own attacks elsewhere across Myanmar, spreading the junta’s already stretched forces even thinner.

“Chinese authorities likely did not expect that the operation would result in the complete disruption of the lucrative China-Myanmar border trade, nor did they expect that it would ripple across the entire country, causing the Myanmar military to lose hundreds of posts and suffer unprecedented battlefield losses,” said Tower.

Beijing is increasingly concerned that the prolonged disruption to border trade would deal a serious blow to the already struggling economy in southwest China, especially the border province of Yunnan; the ongoing conflict could also undermine China’s energy security, as many of its southwestern provinces rely on the China-Myanmar pipeline for access to oil and gas, according to Tower.

Those concerns have likely played a role in China’s decision to help the junta broker the peace talks with the Three Brotherhood Alliance. But Beijing’s help came at a heavy price.

On December 10, the day before the military government revealed it held talks with the rebels with the help of China, the Chinese police issued a fresh batch of arrest warrants for 10 alleged “ringleaders” of Kokang’s online scams syndicates accused of fraud, murder and trafficking.

The 10 hail from powerful families in Kokang, including leaders in the Border Guard Force that controls what remains of one of the junta’s most important border zones with China.

The most prominent figure among them is Bai Suocheng, who defected from the MNDAA and partnered with Min Aung Hlaing to establish Myanmar army control over the region back in 2009.

Experts say China is effectively using the warrants to force the junta to quietly exit Kokang and hand the territory back to the MNDAA.

“These warrants put the Myanmar army in an extremely difficult position. As the Myanmar army cannot control Kokang without its Border Guard Force leaders, handing them over to the Chinese side amounts to surrendering Kokang over to the MNDAA and its allies,” Tower said.

Horsey at the International Crisis Group said the ceasefire could be the final act in MNDAA’s dramatic takeover of Kokang.

“The Myanmar military is now constrained from launching any counterattack, but able to safely withdraw its forces,” he said. “But there are many moving parts and whether this will result in a bloodless MNDAA takeover of Laukkaing remains to be seen.”

Meanwhile the ceasefire already looks shaky.

On Wednesday, the Three Brotherhood Alliance reaffirmed its commitment to defeat the military dictatorship. It made no mention of peace talks or a ceasefire.

And fighting has continued in Shan state. The Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), an ethnic rebel group under the Three Brotherhood Alliance, told AFP news agency it captured the trading hub of Namhsan on Friday, a day after Beijing announced the temporary ceasefire.

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels are stepping up their strikes on ships in the Red Sea, which they say are revenge against Israel for its military campaign in Gaza.

The attacks have forced some of the world’s biggest shipping and oil companies to suspend transit through one of the world’s most important maritime trade routes, which could potentially cause a shock to the global economy.

The Houthis are believed to have been armed and trained by Iran, and there are fears that their attacks could escalate Israel’s war against Hamas into a wider regional conflict.

Here’s what we know about the Houthis and why they are getting involved in the war.

Who are the Houthis?

The Houthi movement, also known as Ansarallah (Supporters of God), is one side of the Yemeni civil war that has raged for nearly a decade. It emerged in the 1990s, when its leader, Hussein al-Houthi, launched “Believing Youth,” a religious revival movement for a centuries-old subsect of Shia Islam called Zaidism.

The Zaidis ruled Yemen for centuries but were marginalized under the Sunni regime that came to power after the 1962 civil war. Al-Houthi’s movement was founded to represent Zaidis and resist radical Sunnism, particularly Wahhabi ideas from Saudi Arabia. His closest followers became known as Houthis.

How did they gain power?

Ali Abdullah Saleh, the first president of Yemen after the 1990 unification of North and South Yemen, initially supported the Believing Youth. But as the movement’s popularity grew and anti-government rhetoric sharpened, it became a threat to Saleh. Things came to a head in 2003, when Saleh supported the United States invasion of Iraq, which many Yemenis opposed.

For al-Houthi, the rift was an opportunity. Seizing on the public outrage, he organized mass demonstrations. After months of disorder, Saleh issued a warrant for his arrest.

Al-Houthi was killed in September 2004 by Yemeni forces, but his movement lived on. The Houthi military wing grew as more fighters joined the cause. Emboldened by the early Arab Spring protests in 2011, they took control of the northern province of Saada and called for the end of the Saleh regime.

Do the Houthis control Yemen?

Saleh agreed in 2011 to hand power to his Vice President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, but this government was no more popular. The Houthis struck again in 2014, taking control of parts of Sanaa, Yemen’s capital, before eventually storming the presidential palace early the next year.

Hadi fled to Saudi Arabia, which launched a war against the Houthis at his request in March 2015. What was expected to be a swift campaign lasted years: A ceasefire was finally signed in 2022. It lapsed after six months but the warring parties haven’t returned to full-scale conflict.

The United Nations has said that the war in Yemen has turned into the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Nearly a quarter of a million people have been killed during the conflict, according to UN statistics.

Since the ceasefire, the Houthis have consolidated their control over most of northern Yemen. They have also sought a deal with the Saudis that would bring the war to a permanent end and cement their role as the country’s rulers.

Who are their allies?

The Houthis are backed by Iran, which began increasing its aid to the group in 2014 as the civil war escalated and as its rivalry with Saudi Arabia intensified. Iran has provided the group with weapons and technology for, among other things, sea mines, ballistic and cruise missiles, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones), according to a 2021 report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The Houthis form part of Iran’s so-called “Axis of Resistance” – an Iran-led anti-Israel and anti-Western alliance of regional militias backed by the Islamic Republic. Along with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis are one of three prominent Iran-backed militias that have launched attacks on Israel in recent weeks.

How powerful are the Houthis?

But they have made progressive modifications that have added up to big overall improvements, the official said. In a novel development, the Houthis have used medium-range ballistic missiles against Israel, firing a salvo of projectiles at Israel’s southern region of Eilat in early December, which Israel said it intercepted.

While the Houthis may not be able to pose a serious threat to Israel, their technology can wreak havoc in the Red Sea. They have used drones and anti-ship missiles to target commercial ships – some of which aren’t believed to be linked to Israel – prompting the USS Carney, a warship in the Red Sea, to respond to distress calls.

Why are the Houthis attacking ships in the Red Sea?

While, through a combination of geography and technology, the Houthis may lack the capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah, their strikes on commercial vessels in the Red Sea may inflict a different sort of pain on Israel and its allies.

The global economy has been served a series of painful reminders of the importance of this narrow stretch of sea, which runs from the Bab-el-Mandeb straits off the coast of Yemen to the Suez Canal in northern Egypt – and through which 12% of global trade flows, including 30% of global container traffic.

In 2021, a ship called the Ever Given ran aground in the Suez Canal, blocking the vital trade artery for nearly a week – holding up as much as $10 billion in cargo each day – and causing disruptions to global supply chains that lasted far longer.

There are fears that the Houthi drone and missile attacks against commercial vessels, which have occurred almost daily since December 9, could cause an even greater shock to the world economy.

Four of the world’s five major shipping firms – Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd, CMA CGM Group and Evergreen – have announced they would pause shipping through the Red Sea amid fears of Houthi attacks. The oil giant BP said on Monday it would do the same – a move that caused oil and gas prices to surge.

The attacks could force ships to take a far longer route around Africa and cause insurance costs to rocket. Companies could pass on the increased cost of moving their goods to consumers, raising prices again at a time when governments around the world have struggled to tame post-pandemic inflation.

The Houthis say they will only relent when Israel allows the entry of food and medicine into Gaza; its strikes could be intended to inflict economic pain on Israel’s allies in the hope they will pressure it to cease its bombardment of the enclave.

Championing the Palestinian cause could also be an attempt to gain legitimacy at home and in the region as they seek to control northern Yemen. It could also give them an upper hand against their Arab adversaries, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, who they accuse of being lackeys of the US and Israel.

How has the world reacted?

The attacks could be intended to drag more countries into the conflict. Israel has warned that it is ready to act against the Houthis if the international community does not. National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi said this month that there needs to be a “global arrangement” to address the threat “because it is a global issue,” referring to the Houthi attacks as a “naval siege.”

The US on Monday announced a new multinational naval task force comprising the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Norway and others, to “tackle the challenge posed by this non-state actor” that “threatens the free flow of commerce, endangers innocent mariners, and violates international law.”

Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, a Houthi spokesperson, told Al Jazeera on Monday that the group would confront any US-led coalition in the Red Sea.

Just as the Biden administration is beginning to yield to pressure for it to push Israel to wind down its campaign in Gaza, the US may find itself being pulled more deeply into the Middle East by the ragtag – but effective – Houthi rebels who have made themselves impossible to ignore.