Vietnam elected Luong Cuong, a military general, as its new president on Monday, the fourth official to fill the largely ceremonial role in 18 months.

Cuong, 67, was elected by the National Assembly to replace To Lam, who remained president even after he was formally appointed as the general secretary of the ruling Communist Party in August.

The role of the general secretary is the most powerful position in Vietnam while the presidency is mostly ceremonial and involves meeting foreign dignitaries.

Cuong in a speech vowed to conduct foreign policies that sought independence and peace and to promote Vietnam “as a friend, a trusted partner, an active and responsible member of the international community.”

Cuong, who has served in the Vietnamese army for over four decades, has been a Politburo member since 2021.

His appointment took place after months of uncharacteristic tumult in Vietnam’s politics and the death of former party general secretary Nguyen Phu Trong, who had dominated the country’s leadership since 2011.

Trong was an ideologue who viewed corruption as the single gravest threat in maintaining the party’s legitimacy and launched a sweeping anti-graft campaign known as the “blazing furnace.” It singled both business and political elites, including former presidents Nguyen Xuan Phuc and Vo Van Thuong and the former head of parliament, Vuong Dinh Hue.

As Vietnam’s top security official at the time, Lam had led the campaign until May. When he became the new general secretary, he promised to maintain the anti-corruption fight.

The campaign, albeit popular with many Vietnamese citizens, had spooked investors and made the bureaucracy more cautious, slowing down decision-making in the country.

The appointment of Cuong as the new president was a “move to stabilize the system” after the period of turbulence, said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow in the Vietnam Studies Program at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute.

“Luong Cuong’s appointment represents a deliberate attempt to restore balance between Vietnam’s military and security factions, particularly ahead of the 2026 Party Congress,” he said.

“By ceding the presidency, To Lam shows his commitment to the collective leadership principle, while still retaining the decisive power in the system,” he said.

Vietnam’s leaders are next due to convene a Communist Party Congress in early 2026.

Critics said that Cuong’s appointment would expand repression in Vietnam.

Ben Swanton of The 88 Project, a group that advocates for freedom of expression in Vietnam, said that Cuong would be a “reliable deputy” to Lam.

“The installation of Luong Cuong as president is yet another example of the expansion of Vietnam’s police state,” he said.

Nearly three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine saw Moscow condemned by countries globally, leader Vladimir Putin is staging a summit with more than a dozen world leaders – in a pointed signal from the autocrat that far from being alone, an emerging coalition of countries stands behind him.

The three-day BRICS summit, starting Tuesday in the southwestern Russian city of Kazan, is the first meeting of the group of major emerging economies Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa since it expanded earlier this year to include Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, and Iran.

Leaders expected to attend include China’s Xi Jinping, India’s Narendra Modi, Iran’s Masoud Pezeshkian, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa as well as those from outside the club, like Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was expected to join but canceled his trip after suffering an injury at home.

Set to be by far the largest international gathering the Russian president has hosted since the start of the war in February 2022, the gathering of BRICS and other countries this week spotlights a growing convergence of nations who hope to see a shift in the global balance of power and – in the case of some, like Moscow, Beijing and Tehran – directly counter the United States-led West.

It’s this latter message that Putin – and close partner and most powerful BRICS country leader Xi – will project in the coming days: it’s the West that stands isolated in the world with its sanctions and alliances, while a “global majority” of countries support their bid to challenge American global leadership.

In remarks to reporters Friday, Putin hailed the growing economic and political clout of BRICS countries as an “undeniable fact” and said that if BRICS and interested countries work together, they “will be a substantial element of the new world order” – though he denied the group was an “anti-Western alliance.”

Putin’s messaging this week will be all the more poignant as the meeting comes just days ahead of the US elections, where a potential victory for former President Donald Trump could see the US shift its staunch support of Ukraine and strain Washington’s ties with its traditional allies more broadly.

“This BRICS summit is really a gift (for Putin),” said Alex Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center in Berlin. “The message will be: how can you talk about Russia’s global isolation when (all these) leaders … are coming to Kazan.”

Russia wants to portray BRICS “as the spearhead, the new organization that leads us all as a global community to a more just order,” Gabuev said.

But despite Russia’s sweeping rhetoric, the leaders meeting in Kazan have a wide range of viewpoints and interests – a reality of BRICS that observers say limits their ability to send a unified message – especially the kind Putin may desire.

Global crises

The Russian-hosted gathering poses a sharp contrast to last year’s BRICS summit in Johannesburg, when Putin participated from the other side of a video screen – unable to attend in person due to an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes over Ukraine.

This year, the Russian president is at the helm of the first summit since the organization nearly doubled in size – and the gathering is playing out before a very different global landscape.

While BRICS is primarily geared toward economic collaboration, its meeting last year took place in the shadow of the war in Ukraine. Now, even as that war rages on, the expanding conflict in the Middle East, where Israel is fighting Iran’s proxies, is also likely to dominate leaders’ conversations.

Putin last week confirmed that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas would join the event. The Russian leader and his officials will likely use the conflict – and the anger across the Global South toward the US and its support for Israel – to press his argument for a new world order without the US at the helm, observers say.

China and Russia have both called for a ceasefire in the spiraling conflict and criticized Israel’s actions, while the US has endorsed Israel’s right to retaliate against militant groups Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Many attending the summit see the conflict in the Middle East “as a prime example of why this particular grouping of countries should have more influence,” said Jonathan Fulton, an Abu Dhabi-based senior non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council. However, he said, countries are “using it mostly as a rhetorical point to criticize things they don’t like,” rather than showing interest in leading its resolution.

Observers will also be watching whether China and Brazil use the gathering as a platform to play up their joint six-point peace proposal on the war in Ukraine, as they did at last month’s meeting of the United Nations General Assembly. Then, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky slammed the effort, saying such plans would help Moscow, while warning Beijing and Brasilia: “you will not boost your power at Ukraine’s expense.”

Zelensky’s own challenges presenting his “victory plan” to end the war and the impending US elections mean China now has “a tremendous opportunity to beat the drum of its own format (on Ukraine) without sparing too much leverage,” according to Gabuev in Berlin.

The gathering in Kazan also gives Putin ample opportunity for one-on-one facetime with his fellow BRICS leaders and other friendly dignitaries in attendance.

Identity crisis

Leaders over the next few days are expected to discuss how to advance on-going efforts to settle payments outside the US dollar-denominated system using BRICS currencies and banking networks, a system that could have economic benefits, but also helps member countries like Russia circumnavigate Western sanctions. The countries are also likely to look for ways to boost economic, technological and financial cooperation across a range of areas from energy to sharing satellite data.

At the same time, however, they’ll be grappling with the divisions and differing agendas between countries within the group, which observers say limit how much BRICS can achieve.

That’s nothing new for the group, which held its first summit of Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2009 as a convergence of key emerging markets before expanding the following year to include South Africa. In 2015, BRICS launched its New Development Bank, seen as an alternative or supplement to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Loosely united by a shared interest in reforming the international system to ensure their voices were better represented, BRICS from its start has incorporated countries with deep differences in political and economic systems – as well as other frictions.

India and China, for example, have a long-simmering border conflict, but make up two key pillars of the club. Their divisions have become even more prominent in recent years as China-US have become increasingly fraught, while India and the US have become closer partners.

Today, even as BRICS has again expanded – and the Kremlin says more than 30 additional countries are interested in joining or cooperating with it – deepening geopolitical fault lines further complicate BRICS’ identity and direction, observers say.

“(China and Russia have) essentially tried to shift the group from the sense of (BRICS) being emerging economies to potentially being some sort of an expression of angst with regard to Western dominance,” said Manoj Kewalramani, who heads Indo-Pacific studies at the Takshashila Institution research center in the Indian city of Bangalore.

And new or aspiring members may not be wanting to choose between this vision or the West. Instead, they are looking to grow their economies and “engage non-ideologically and pragmatically,” he said.

Polio is once again spreading in Pakistan, where officials say more than 1 million children missed their vaccination doses last month, underscoring the challenges they face in eradicating one of the world’s most intractable diseases.

Pakistani officials reported more than a dozen new polio cases in October, bringing the total number of infections this year to 39, compared to just six last year when the South Asian country appeared to be on the verge of eliminating the virus.

Ayesha Raza, the Focal Person to the Pakistani Prime Minister on Polio Eradication, blamed the recent uptick in cases on low vaccine uptake. She said about 1 million children missed their polio vaccinations in September, compounding a pre-existing immunity gap that has been growing since Covid-19 disrupted immunization efforts.

Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that mainly affects children under age 5. It attacks the nervous system and can cause paralysis, respiratory issues and even death.

It spreads mainly through contaminated water or food and there is no cure. But it can be prevented with a vaccine: polio cases worldwide have been reduced by more than 99% since the 1980s thanks to immunization campaigns.

Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan are the only two countries where polio remains endemic, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), though the United Nations health agency has also recently warned of a resurgence of the deadly disease in Gaza following more than a year of Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian enclave.

Vaccination programs in Pakistan, home to more than 240 million people, have struggled in part due to a historical distrust of foreign health care providers. Allegations that US intelligence officials used a fake immunization program in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad as part of efforts to capture Osama bin Laden in 2011 inflamed those concerns.

Religious beliefs and a lack of awareness about the dangers of polio have also hindered public health efforts. International NGOs and Pakistani authorities have worked aggressively to dispel rumors and vaccinate children in recent years, but misinformation continues to spread.

Most of the recent cases in Pakistan are clustered in southwestern Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan, where local officials say parents are reluctant to vaccinate their children due to widespread misinformation and distrust of health care providers.

Most of the children recently infected with the disease had been partially vaccinated but did not complete all four required doses, said Raza, the official.

Reported cases will also likely rise further as Pakistan steps up its surveillance efforts, Raza said.

“A lot of work is being done to fill the gaps that we’ve missed in the past,” she said.

The uptick in polio cases in Pakistan also comes as violent attacks against vaccination clinics have ramped up, targeting police and security officials.

Militants have targeted anti-polio campaigns in Pakistan for decades, with some claiming vaccines are a Western conspiracy used to sterilize children.

In September, armed militants killed a police officer protecting a polio vaccination site in the northwest city of Bannu, prompting protests. A police officer and a polio worker were killed in another shooting that month in the northwest city of Bajaur.

Aftab Kakar, a representative for the Emergency Operation Center in Balochistan, said protests, insecurity and community boycotts had disrupted vaccine campaigns, “leaving a cohort of missed children who could sustain virus transmission.”

Health workers put a mark on a child’s finger to indicate if they’ve received the vaccine. But in some cases, children have been incorrectly marked as having been vaccinated when they haven’t, Kakar said.

Despite the recent surge in cases, Pakistani authorities are optimistic they can stop the spread of the disease. The country is launching a new nationwide polio vaccination campaign on October 28 with the aim of inoculating 45 million children under age 5.

“Polio eradication is Pakistan’s top priority,” Pakistan’s Polio Eradication Programme posted on social media.

“A unified plan with provinces aims to stop polio transmission by 2025.”

When scientists heard reports that a large, mysterious fish had been caught in Cambodia in 2020, excitement stirred. Could this be the “Mekong Ghost,” they asked – an elusive fish that hadn’t been seen since 2005 and was feared extinct?

Photos of the fish and its telltale identifiers – an odd-shaped mouth and a protruding knob at its jaw – seemed to confirm it.

But the fish, which can grow as large as 66 pounds, was sold before scientists could get a closer look. It didn’t “feel like definitive proof,” said Zeb Hogan, a research biologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, and head of the US government-funded Wonders of the Mekong project, an initiative to study and conserve one of the most biodiverse rivers in the world.

Three years later, they struck gold.

Cambodian fishermen caught two fish in the Mekong River, measuring between 11 and 13 pounds and two to three feet long. This time researchers were able to purchase and examine the fish for themselves.

“As soon as anyone who was part of this search for this fish saw the photos, we knew what it was.”

The researchers published their findings on Tuesday in a study in the Biological Conservation journal.

It was a moment of celebration for the team, which works to protect the Mekong, one of the world’s longest rivers and a lifeline to tens of millions of people.

Meaning “Mother of Rivers” in Thai and Lao languages, the Mekong winds through multiple Southeast Asian countries and is extremely rich in biodiversity. But it also faces various challenges including hydropower development, overfishing and habitat degradation.

These challenges are why scientists have long worried that the “Mekong Ghost,” a critically endangered giant salmon carp that can measure up to four feet long, could have been quietly wiped out as years passed without a sighting.

Shrouded in mystery

The fish, native to the Mekong, has been shrouded in mystery since it was formally named in 1991. Since then, fewer than 30 individuals have been recorded, making it a highly rare species, according to a press release from the University of Nevada, Reno.

Hogan’s team of researchers – who also study other species and parts of the Mekong’s environment – have kept an eye out for the giant salmon carp, perusing fish markets and doing outreach programs with local fishermen. Hogan himself, who has dedicated much of his career to studying fish in the Mekong River Basin, has only seen it once in the early 2000s.

“I’ve been looking for it since then, kind of fascinated by it because it’s a very unusual giant fish,” Hogan said. “I thought it was probably extinct, and so to hear that it had been found again – I’ve been waiting 20 years for that news.”

“It’s a sign of hope,” he added. “It means that it’s not too late.”

The study’s lead author, Bunyeth Chan from Cambodia’s Svay Rieng University, echoed this sentiment, saying in a press release: “The rediscovery of the giant salmon carp is a reason for hope, not just for this species but for the entire Mekong ecosystem.”

There’s a lot researchers still don’t know, like how many giant salmon carp actually exist or where those populations reside.

The three fish that were found between 2020 and 2023 were found outside their normal range – which could either mean there are more fish living in areas previously unknown or that they migrated there from neighboring Laos and Thailand.

And though it’s unusual to find three individual fish in quick succession after the species disappeared for nearly two decades, Hogan credits this to the work they’ve been doing on the ground – building good relationships with local communities who know to contact them if they spot anything out of the ordinary.

But researchers say more needs to be done as the Mekong fights off threats from various fronts, including climate change, with the region facing more severe flooding and drought each year as a result.

Human projects such as hydropower dams and sand mining have further degraded marine habitats and disrupted life for the Mekong’s more than 1,100 fish species, many of which are found nowhere else on Earth.

Nearly a fifth of the Mekong’s fish are threatened with extinction, according to a report released in March this year, a collaboration between 25 organizations including the World Wildlife Fund and Wonders of the Mekong.

Cambodia is also not an easy place to be an environmental activist. Many have been jailed or killed over the years as they seek to raise awareness about corruption and business projects that have impacted the environment in a nation where little political opposition is tolerated.

Earlier this year, 10 young activists from the group Mother Nature Cambodia were sentenced to up to six years in prison, each on charges of conspiring against the state, a conviction that was condemned by opposition politicians in exile and prominent youth environmentalist Greta Thunberg.

Researchers behind the latest report hope the giant salmon carp’s rediscovery can build momentum for more study and conservation action – including creating an international team across Cambodia, Laos and Thailand to further study the “Mekong Ghost.”

“This fish is an indicator of river health because it’s a large fish, it’s vulnerable,” said Hogan.

“But it’s also emblematic of all of these other fish that occur in the area that are key fishery species and that are very important for people’s livelihoods, and very important for people’s nutrition and food.”

A 3-year-old Palestinian boy was killed by air-dropped aid in the southern city of Khan Younis on Saturday, according to his relatives, as the humanitarian crisis spawned by the Israeli offensive compounds severe hunger across the Gaza Strip.

“I was sitting here with the boy, and the moment I left him … the package fell on him,” Ayyad said. “There was only a second between me and him. I carried him and started running.

“We have no hospitals. I ran like crazy, but the boy died instantly. I couldn’t save him. Blood started coming out of his nose and mouth,” he added.

A number of countries have air-dropped aid into Gaza, including the United States, United Kingdom, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates.

“We don’t want aid. We want dignity,” said Ayyad. “Enough with the humiliation and insult that we are receiving from the Arabs, not just the Israelis. Those who have no mercy on us — look at our children, our women, our elderly.”

“We are human beings, not animals to drop food (to) from the sky,” he added.

The United Arab Emirates airdropped 81 food packages into Khan Younis on Saturday, according to the Israeli agency which controls the flow of aid into Gaza. More than 10,000 packages have been airdropped in recent months, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT, added.

Israel’s sustained restrictions on aid entering the strip have sapped critical supplies, condemning the entire population of more than 2.2 million people to the risk of famine, according to a UN-backed report. About 1.84 million Palestinians are facing high levels of acute food insecurity, according to a report published Thursday by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, which assesses global food insecurity and malnutrition.

The Israeli military campaign in Gaza has leveled neighborhoods, erased entire families and spawned a crisis of severe hunger, displacement and disease. At least 42,603 Palestinians have been killed and another 99,795 injured since Israel launched its war in Gaza on October 7, the Ministry of Health there said on Monday.

Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities.

Sami and his loved ones had been staying in Khan Younis after they were displaced by the Israeli military campaign at least six times, according to his father, Mahmoud.

“There was an airstrike on people here, and he survived,” he added. “But his fate was to die from a parachute.”

Moldova’s crucial referendum on joining the European Union is too close to call, partial results showed Monday, as President Maia Sandu condemned an “unprecedented assault” on the country’s democracy.

With just over 1.4% of ballots still to be counted, 50.2% had voted “yes” in the referendum, according to the country’s Central Election Commission. The tight margin would come as a blow to Sandu, who had been hoping for a clear endorsement of the pro-EU path she has charted during her first presidential term.

Sandu, who framed the vote as a choice for the former Soviet country between pursuing its nascent European future or remaining lodged within the Kremlin’s orbit, also failed to secure enough votes to win outright in the country’s presidential election, held on the same day. A second round will be held on November 3.

In an uncharacteristically forceful statement issued late Sunday night, Sandu accused foreign groups of attempting to undermine Moldova’s democratic process and “using the most disgraceful means to keep our nation trapped in uncertainty and instability.”

Sandu said Moldovan authorities had “clear evidence that these criminal groups aimed to buy 300,000 votes – a fraud of unprecedented scale.”

In a video posted to his Telegram account last month, Shor had said he would pay voters the equivalent of $28 for registering with his campaign and more if they voted against the referendum.

Partial results also put Sandu first in the presidential race with 42.1% of the vote, ahead of her closest challenger Alexandr Stoianoglo – a former prosecutor general running for the pro-Russian Party of Socialists – with 26.3%.

The two will now face off in the second round. If other pro-Russian parties and voters throw their support behind Stoianoglo, the November 3 run-off could be extremely tight.

Editor’s note: This story includes details about suicide that some readers may find upsetting.

A 40-year-old father of four, Eliran Mizrahi deployed to Gaza after the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

“He got out of Gaza, but Gaza did not get out of him. And he died after it, because of the post-trauma,” his mother, Jenny Mizrahi, said.

The Israeli military has said it is providing care for thousands of soldiers who are suffering from PTSD or mental illnesses caused by trauma during the war. It is unclear how many have taken their own lives, as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has not provided an official figure.

One year on, Israel’s war in Gaza has killed more than 42,000 people, according to the health ministry in the strip, with the United Nations reporting that most of the dead are women and children.

The war, launched after Hamas killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage, is already Israel’s longest since the Jewish state was established. And as it now expands to Lebanon, some soldiers say they dread being drafted into yet another conflict.

For many soldiers, the war in Gaza is a fight for Israel’s survival and must be won by any means. But the battle is also taking a mental toll that, due to stigma, is largely hidden from view. Interviews with Israeli soldiers, a medic, and the family of Mizrahi, the reservist who took his own life, provide a window into the psychological burden that the war is casting on Israeli society.

Bulldozing ‘terrorists, dead and alive’

Mizrahi deployed to Gaza on October 8 last year and was tasked with driving a D-9 bulldozer, a 62-ton armored vehicle that can withstand bullets and explosives.

The reservist spent 186 days in the enclave until he sustained injuries to his knee, followed by hearing damage in February when a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) struck his vehicle, his family said. He was pulled out of Gaza for treatment, and in April was diagnosed with PTSD, receiving weekly talk therapy.

His treatment did not help.

“They didn’t know how to treat them (soldiers),” Jenny, who lives in the Israeli Ma’ale Adumim settlement, in the occupied West Bank, said. “They (soldiers) said the war was so different. They saw things that were never seen in Israel.”

When Mizrahi was on leave, he suffered from bouts of anger, sweating, insomnia and social withdrawal, his family said. He told his family that only those who were in Gaza with him could understand what he was going through.

Jenny wondered if her son killed someone and couldn’t handle it.

“He saw a lot of people die. Maybe he even killed someone. (But) we don’t teach our children to do things like this,” she said. “So, when he did this, something like this, maybe it was a shock for him.”

The former soldier has spoken publicly about the psychological trauma endured by Israeli troops in Gaza. In a testimony to the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in June, Zaken said that on many occasions, soldiers had to “run over terrorists, dead and alive, in the hundreds.”

“Everything squirts out,” he added.

Zaken says he can no longer eat meat, as it reminds him of the gruesome scenes he witnessed from his bulldozer in Gaza, and struggles to sleep at night, the sound of explosions ringing in his head.

He maintains that the vast majority of those he encountered were “terrorists.”

“The civilians we saw, we stopped and brought them water to drink, and we let them eat from our food,” he recalled, adding that even in such situations, Hamas fighters would shoot at them.

“So, there is no such thing as citizens,” he said, referring to the ability of Hamas fighters to blend with civilians. “This is terrorism.”

There was a “very strong collective attitude” of distrust among Israeli soldiers toward the Palestinians in Gaza, especially at the outset of the war, the medic said.

There was a notion that Gazans, including civilians, “are bad, that they support Hamas, that they help Hamas, that they were hiding ammunition,” the medic said.

In the field, however, some of these attitudes changed “when you actually see Gazan civilians in front of your eyes,” they said.

The IDF has said that it does all it can to minimize civilian casualties in Gaza, including by sending text messages, making phone calls, and dropping evacuation leaflets to warn civilians ahead of attacks.

Despite this, civilians in Gaza have been repeatedly killed in large numbers, including when sheltering in areas the military itself has designated as “safe zones.”

The mental health toll in Gaza is likely to be enormous. Relief groups and the UN have repeatedly highlighted the catastrophic mental health consequences of the war on civilians in Gaza, many of whom had already been scarred by a 17-year blockade and several wars with Israel. In an August report, the UN said the experiences of Gazans defy “traditional biomedical definitions” of PTSD, “given that there is no ‘post’ in Gaza’s context.”

After Mizrahi took his own life, videos and photos surfaced on social media of the reservist bulldozing homes and buildings in Gaza and posing in front of vandalized structures. Some of the images, which were purportedly posted on his now removed social media accounts, appeared in a documentary that he was interviewed for on Israel’s Channel 13.

His sister, Shir, said she saw a lot of comments on social media accusing Mizrahi of being “a murderer,” cursing at him and replying with unpleasant emojis.

“It was hard,” she said, adding that she tried her best to overlook it. “I know he had a good heart.”

Clearing dead people with debris

Ahron Bregman, a political scientist at King’s College London who served in the Israeli army for six years, including during the 1982 Lebanon War, said the Gaza war is unlike any other fought by Israel.

“It’s very long,” he said, and it is urban, which means soldiers fight among many people, “the vast majority of them are civilians.”

For many, the transition from the battlefield back to civilian life can be overwhelming, especially after urban warfare that involves the deaths of women and children, Bregman said.

“How can you put your children to bed when, you know, you saw children killed in Gaza?”

Despite Mizrahi’s PTSD, his family said he agreed to return to Gaza when he was called up again. Two days before he was meant to re-deploy, he killed himself.

In her home, Jenny has dedicated a room to memorialize her late son, with photos from his childhood and working in construction. Among the objects his mother has kept was the cap Mizrahi was wearing when he shot himself in the head, the bullet holes clearly visible.

Mizrahi’s family started speaking out about his death after the IDF did not grant him a military burial, saying he had not been “in active reserve duty.” They later reversed their decision.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported that 10 soldiers took their own lives between October 7 and May 11, according to military data obtained by the newspaper.

“The suicide rate in the army is more or less stable in the last five or six years,” Bechor said, noting that it has in fact been falling over the past 10 years.

Even if the number of suicides is higher, he said, the ratio so far “is quite the same from the previous year because we have more soldiers.”

Still, more than a third of those removed from combat are found to have mental health issues. In a statement in August, the Israeli defense ministry’s rehabilitation division said that every month, more than 1,000 new wounded soldiers are removed from fighting for treatment, 35% of whom complain about their mental state, with 27% developing “a mental reaction or post-traumatic stress disorder.”

It added that by the end of the year, 14,000 wounded fighters will likely be admitted for treatment, approximately 40% of whom are expected to face mental health issues.

More than 500 people die by suicide in Israel and over 6,000 others attempt suicide every year, according to the country’s ministry of health, which notes that “there is under-reporting of approximately 23% in the numbers mentioned.”

In 2021, suicide was the leading cause of death among IDF soldiers, the Times of Israel reported, citing military data that showed at least 11 soldiers had taken their own lives that year.

Earlier this year, the ministry of health sought to “debunk rumors of rising suicide rates since October 7,” saying that the reported cases are “isolated incidents in the media and in social media.” Without providing numbers, the ministry said that there was a “decrease in suicide in Israel between October and December in comparison with the same months in recent years.”

Bregman, the Lebanon war veteran, said that PTSD and other mental health issues are now easier to talk about than in the 1970s and 1980s thanks to the diminishing stigma. Still, he said, the soldiers coming out of Gaza will “carry (their experiences) for the rest of their lives.”

Normalizing the abnormal

Bechor, the IDF psychologist, said that one of the ways the military helps traumatized troops resume their lives is to try to “normalize” what they went through, partly by reminding them of the horrors committed on October 7.

“This situation is not normal for human beings,” Bechor said, adding that when soldiers come back from the battlefield with PTSD symptoms, they ask: “How do I get back home after what I saw? How do I get to engage with my kids after what I saw?”

For the tens of thousands of Israelis who volunteered or were called up to fight, the war in Gaza was seen not only seen as an act of self-defense but as an existential battle. That notion was touted by top Israeli political and military leaders, as well as Israel’s international allies.

Netanyahu has described Hamas as “the new Nazis” and US President Joe Biden has said that the “ancient hatred of Jews” endorsed by the Nazis was “brought back to life” on October 7.

The external threats to their country unified many Israelis, putting on hold domestic political squabbling that had for months divided society. Meanwhile, the suffering of Palestinians has largely been absent from Israeli television screens, which are dominated by news about the hostages in Gaza.

After the Hamas attacks, polls showed that most Israelis supported the war in Gaza, and did not want their government to halt the fighting even while negotiating to release the kidnapped hostages. On the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attack, a survey published by the Israel Democracy Institute found that only 6% of Israelis think the war in Gaza should be stopped due to the “the great cost in human life.”

Some soldiers, however, couldn’t rationalize the horrors they had seen.

When he returned from Gaza, Mizrahi often told his family that he felt “invisible blood” coming out of him, his mother said.

Shir, his sister, blames the war for her brother’s death. “Because of the army, because of this war, my brother is not here,” she said. “Maybe he didn’t die from a bullet (in combat) or an RPG, but he died from an invisible bullet,” she added, referring to his psychological pain.

Britain’s King Charles III had just finished giving a speech to Australia’s Parliament House on Monday when an Indigenous senator began yelling, “You are not my king.”

From the back of the room, Greens Senator Lidia Thorpe shouted at the royal couple, “Give us our land back, give us what you stole,” as security officers moved to escort her away.

The interjection came as King Charles and Queen Camilla visited the Australian capital Canberra to meet the nation’s leaders, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.

During his speech, King Charles acknowledged Australia’s First Nations people, who lived on the land for tens of thousands of years before the arrival of British settlers over 230 years ago.

“Throughout my life, Australia’s First Nations people have done me the great honor of sharing so generously their stories and cultures,” King Charles said.

“I can only say how much my own experience has been shaped and strengthened by such traditional wisdom.”

Earlier, a traditional Aboriginal welcoming ceremony was held outside Parliament House for the royal couple, but for many of the country’s Indigenous population, they are not welcome.

The arrival of British settlers to Australia led to the massacre of Indigenous people at hundreds of locations around the country until as recently as the 1930s. Their ancestors still suffer from racism and systemic discrimination in a country that has failed to reverse centuries of disadvantage.

Thorpe, a DjabWurrung Gunnai Gunditjmara woman, has long campaigned for a treaty and has previously voiced her fierce objections to the British monarchy.

Australian’s Indigenous people never ceded sovereignty and have never engaged in a treaty process with the British Crown. Australia remains a Commonwealth country with the King as its Head of State.

During her swearing-in ceremony in 2022, Thorpe referred to Australia’s then-Head of State as “the colonizing Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II,” and was asked to take the oath again.

She did so while raising one fist in the air.

On Monday, protesters stood with an Aboriginal flag as the royal couple visited the Australian War Memorial. A 62-year-old man was arrested for failing to comply with a police direction.

Before she yelled at the King, Thorpe turned her back during a recital of “God Save the King,” Australian media reported. Images showed her wearing a possum-fur coat, standing in the opposite direction of other attendees.

The Greens party said in a statement that the King’s presence was “a momentous occasion for some” but also a “visual reminder of the ongoing colonial trauma and legacies of British colonialism” for many First Nations people.

In the statement, Greens Senator Dorinda Cox, a Yamatji Noongar woman, called for the King to be clear in his recognition and support of “First Nations justice, truth telling and healing.”

“He now needs to be on the right side of history,” she added.

The Australian Monarchist League demanded Thorpe’s resignation after what it called a “childish demonstration.”

Royal supporters and a sneezing alpaca

King Charles and Queen Camilla arrived in Sydney on Friday, part of the monarch’s first tour to a Commonwealth realm since acceding the throne.

It’s the King’s first long-haul multi-country trip since his cancer diagnosis earlier this year, and his schedule is said to have been lightened on medical advice.

However, Monday’s outing was a blur of activity that began with a meet and greet with supporters, many waving Australian flags.

Among them was an alpaca by the name of Hephner, who caught the King’s eye and immediately sneezed on him.

Royal fan Chloe Pailthorpe, 44, said she was excited about the royal tour and had been writing to the royal household since age 10.

“We just love what the royals do and how they impact local communities, and support what we do with volunteering, and just community service work,” she told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A 21-gun salute heralded the King’s arrival at Parliament House, and in his speech, Albanese commended the royal couple for their charitable work.

He also commented on the King’s early appreciation of the “the grave reality of climate change” and the necessity for humans to “take meaningful and effective action against it.”

To reflect his interest in the environment, the King was invited to plant trees at Parliament House and the Botanic Gardens.

The royal couple’s next stop will be Sydney on Tuesday for a public reception outside the Opera House before they fly to Samoa for the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), the king’s first as head of the organization.

At least 87 people were killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit several multi-story buildings overnight Saturday on Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, the enclave’s health ministry said.

The number killed includes 27 bodies retrieved so far and 60 people under the rubble. More than 40 people had been injured, including a number of very critical cases, the ministry said.

Graphic footage showed the bodies of several children among the dead, many with extensive injuries. Other video showed numerous body bags at the hospital amid grieving relatives. Overnight footage showed rescue workers combing through tonnes of rubble in the search for survivors and victims. Daylight images appear to show that two or three substantial apartment buildings were flattened by the strike.

One unidentified man at the scene said Sunday morning that there were displaced people in four homes that were destroyed. “We call on the international community to end the war,” he said. “We beg you, we are civilians with no connection to anyone. We demand that you stop the war.”

Another woman, crying amid the damage, said a woman had held her legs while she was under the rubble. “We were sitting and talking to each other when suddenly a large concrete block fell on us,” she said. “What remains? They have killed all the people.”

The woman said that Israel “directed people to go to Beit Lahia and bombed them there.”

The Israeli military has issued a number of evacuation orders for northern Gaza this month where it has renewed its ground offensive.

The hospital’s director also said the area around the hospital is coming under “bombardment and direct gunfire.”

The United Nations’ Special Coordinator for the Peace Process in the Middle East, Tor Wennesland, in a statement expressed horror at the airstrike, saying that “the nightmare in Gaza is intensifying.”

“Horrifying scenes are unfolding in the northern Strip amidst conflict, relentless Israeli strikes and an ever-worsening humanitarian crisis,” Wennesland said, adding that “civilians must be protected wherever they are.”

The airstrike comes as the Israeli military ramps up its operations again in northern Gaza, saying Hamas was regrouping in the area, and as Israel presses on with its war against Hezbollah in southern Lebanon. The military said it targeted the Hezbollah intelligence headquarters early on Sunday.

Israel’s war on both fronts has shown no signs of abating despite the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Thursday after a year-long pursuit.

Sinwar’s death is the latest blow to the Palestinian militant group in Gaza, where the enclave’s health ministry says more than 42,000 people have been killed since October 7. But Western officials have said that the pivotal moment could be used to cement a ceasefire and bring back hostages still trapped in the besieged territory.

This story has been updated.

Indonesia’s Prabowo Subianto on Sunday took over as president of the world’s third-largest democracy, vowing to combat internal issues such as corruption that plague the country and to make it more self-sufficient.

The 73-year-old has undergone a remarkable transformation, from being a former military commander facing unproven allegations of rights abuses to sweeping the polls and now leading the country of 280 million people.

Wearing a traditional black hat and navy suit with a woven maroon and golden sarong, Prabowo officially became Indonesia’s eighth president on Sunday morning after he was sworn in during a ceremony at Indonesia’s parliament.

Prabowo, who unsuccessfully ran for the presidency twice before, said in a fiery speech to lawmakers he would be president for all Indonesians and challenged the nation to help him face down the country’s problems.

“We must always realise that a free nation is where the people are free,” Prabowo said, at times raising his voice.

“They must be freed of fear, poverty, hunger, ignorance, oppression, suffering,” he said.

In a wide-ranging speech lasting about an hour, Prabowo said self-sufficiency for food was possible within five years, while also pledging to become self-sufficient in energy.

The new president vowed to eradicate corruption and said that while he wanted to live in a democracy, it must be “polite”.

“A difference of opinion must come without enmity … fighting without hating,” he said.

Prabowo won the Feb. 14 contest with nearly 60% of the vote and has spent the past nine months building a formidable parliamentary coalition.

He was joined in the swearing-in ceremony by his running mate, Gibran Rakabuming Raka, 37, the eldest son of outgoing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo.

Later on Sunday, Prabowo announced his cabinet at the presidential palace. While it had of a mix of professional and political appointees, most of the economics-related ministers remained the same as those under Jokowi.

One key announcement was for the foreign ministry, which will now be led by Sugiono, a former member of the army’s special forces.

The cabinet will be sworn in on Monday morning.

Greeting supporters

After his speech, Prabowo wore a baseball cap and waved through a car sunroof as he made his way to the presidential palace, passing thousands of flag-waving supporters thronging Jakarta’s streets in a festival-like atmosphere.

Flower boards outside the palace either congratulated Prabowo and Gibran or thanked Jokowi for his decade of service.

Jokowi supporters are also attending the celebrations to bid farewell to Indonesia’s outgoing leader.

Anneta Yuniar, a bystander who had excitedly waved at Jokowi’s motorcade as it slowly made its way past supporters before the ceremony, said she would miss Jokowi but that Prabowo was a strong leader.

“Prabowo will continue the development that Jokowi started. There’s continuity. It’s what I want,” she said.

Jokowi has left an indelible mark on the nation of 280 million, presiding over a period of strong economic growth and massive infrastructure development.

Critics also say, though, his rule has been marked by a rise in old-time patronage and dynastic politics, and they warn about diminished integrity in courts and other state institutions.

Indonesian police and military have put in place strict security measures, deploying at least 100,000 personnel across the city, including snipers and anti-riot units.

Prabowo met with foreign dignitaries, including a number of heads of state, on Sunday at the presidential palace.

China sent Vice President Han Zheng to the inauguration, while the delegation from the United States is being led by US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Prabowo also touched on foreign policy during his speech, saying Indonesia was non-aligned on the global stage, but that he stood in support of the Palestinian people and said Jakarta was ready to send more aid to Gaza.

During his campaign, Prabowo billed himself to voters and investors alike as the “continuity candidate”.

Past allegations against Prabowo of involvement in the kidnapping of student activists and human rights abuses in Papua and East Timor, however, have also raised concern about Indonesia’s trajectory of democracy, human rights advocates say.

Prabowo has always denied the allegations that led to his dismissal from the military in 1998, the same year Indonesia broke free from the decades-long authoritarian rule of former President Suharto.