The decade between 2011 and 2020 was the hottest on record for the planet’s land and oceans as the rate of climate change “surged alarmingly,” according to a new report from the World Meteorological Organization.

The report, released Tuesday at the COP28 conference in Dubai, found rising concentrations of planet-heating pollution in the atmosphere fueled record land and ocean temperatures and “turbo charged” dramatic glacier loss and sea-level rise during this period.

This year is also expected to be the hottest year, after six straight months of record global temperatures.

Scientists have said this year’s exceptional warmth is the result of the combined effects of El Niño and human-caused climate change, which is driven by planet-warming fossil fuel pollution. A separate analysis released Monday by the Global Carbon Project found that carbon pollution from fossil fuels is on track to set a new record in 2023 – 1.1% higher than 2022 levels.

WMO’s findings on the hottest decade continue a 30-year trend. “Each decade since the 1990s has been warmer than the one before it, and we see no immediate sign of this trend reversing,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement. “We have to cut greenhouse gas emissions as a top and overriding priority for the planet in order to prevent climate change spiralling out of control.”

While the concentration of all planet-heating gases grew over this decade, the UN agency highlighted the increase in methane as particularly concerning.

“The alarming trend here is that the rate of the growth of methane almost doubled during this decade,” Elena Manaenkova, WMO’s Deputy Secretary General, said in a news conference Tuesday.

Climate pollution from all fossil fuel types — coal, oil, and natural gas — increased around the world, the Global Carbon Project found, but some proved to be more dominant than others. Coal and oil emissions, for instance, have increased significantly in India and China, while the US and the EU showed strong declines in coal. Emissions from natural gas are increasing in the US, China and India, but decreasing in the EU.

At the rate at which emissions are rising, researchers estimate a 50% chance of global temperatures regularly breaching 1.5 degrees Celsius in about seven years. That temperature – the goal of the Paris climate agreement, and a threshold above which scientists warn it will be more difficult for humans and ecosystems to adapt – was crossed briefly this year as warming from El Niño merged with the climate crisis.

Climate shocks are threatening food security and displacing people around the world, the WMO report warned, and there is a “particularly profound transformation” taking place in the polar regions and high mountains. “We are losing the race to save our melting glaciers and ice sheets,” Taalas said.

There was one piece of good news: The report found the ozone layer is on track to recovery thanks to international efforts to phase out ozone-depleting chemicals.

The WMO report comes partway through the UN-backed COP28 climate summit, on the day focused on energy and industry. The future role of fossil fuels — the main driver of the climate crisis — is one of the main sticking points at COP28.

“The impacts of climate change are evident all around us, but action to reduce carbon emissions from fossil fuels remains painfully slow,” said Pierre Friedlingstein, a professor at the University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute. “It now looks inevitable we will overshoot the 1.5°C target of the Paris Agreement, and leaders meeting at COP28 will have to agree rapid cuts in fossil fuel emissions even to keep the 2°C target alive.”

In just two short years, the DJ known as Uncle Waffles has transformed her entire life – from taking her first steps behind the turntables, to becoming an internationally acclaimed DJ and producer.

Leveraging social media, Uncle Waffles has quickly become a sought-after star in Amapiano – one of the fastest-growing music genres out of Africa, known for its deep house sound fusing kwaito, jazz, and percussive basslines. She garnered the nickname “Princess of Amapiano,” and although the performer is grateful for her title, the self-proclaimed “girl’s girl” doesn’t feel like she truly owns it.

“I always feel like, yes, I’m the princess of Amapiano, but so are you,” she explained.

“I don’t want it to ever make people feel like women have to always be up against each other. We can all coexist, and we can actually all shine together.”

An overly animated child-turned-superstar

Born Lungelihle Zwane in Eswatini, a small country formerly known as Swaziland, between South Africa and Mozambique, she was known to be overly animated as a child.

“My mom used to let me do plays, and she used to encourage me to do anything creative that I wanted,” she said. “I used to be that girl who wants to do the leading role in the play and be the most exaggerated.”

Noting influences from South African singers Lebo Mathosa and Chomee, that animated young girl was destined for the big stage.

“They were such great performers,” she said. “They were unapologetically themselves; I would see it, and I was like, ‘I want do this; I want be there.’”

The performer says that although she didn’t know how to sing, she knew she’d eventually make it to the stage.

She made her first steps on the music scene in 2021, during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

She began learning to DJ, “eight hours a day for nine months, just sitting and practicing and falling in love.”

Once she gained confidence, she adopted a stage name, “Uncle Waffles.”

“In high school, they used to call me Waffles because of a song from the [animated American TV series] ‘Teen Titans,’” she said. “It was an inside joke, and then it carried out throughout my entire life. So, when I got Instagram after high school, they were like, ‘it should be Uncle Waffles.’”

With her stage name locked in, at just 21 years old, she moved from Eswatini to South Africa and started advertising her DJ services.

“I knew that I needed to move to a space where they are more accommodating of creative skills, where creatives get paid, where creatives can live out of their creativity,” Uncle Waffles said.

Initially, she received a lot of small or unpaid gigs, but then a chance opportunity arose to fill in for another DJ at Soweto’s Zone Six Venue in 2021. No one had heard of Uncle Waffles at the time, so the DJ felt she needed to do something to stand out.

“I got off stage, started dancing with people, and realized that that made the performance,” she recalled.

The next day, she posted a video of herself dancing to South African singer Young Stunna’s song “Adiwele.” The post went viral after Canadian rapper Drake shared it on Instagram, and Uncle Waffles was catapulted into stardom.

“I didn’t expect it to completely change my life, because how does that happen?” the DJ said. “How do you go from doing free shows to being booked internationally in the next week?”

The international language of dance

Since her viral moment, Uncle Waffles has made dance a central part of her sets. Acknowledging language as one of the most significant barriers faced in popularizing Amapiano music around the globe, she started to understand how dance could be used to break it down.

“Even if you’re hearing the song for the very first time in the distance, there’s always something that compels you to dance,” said Uncle Waffles. “Very recently, I saw someone saying that (Amapiano music) gave them an ancestral feeling.

“People will understand dance, even if they don’t understand the lyrics.”

The new approach worked, and the trailblazing DJ made history this past April as the first Amapiano DJ to perform on the main stage at the Coachella music festival in the US. Then she earned a Best International Act nomination at the 2023 BET Awards. By September, Uncle Waffles was headlining and curating a sold-out show at the Avant Gardner in Brooklyn, New York.

The DJ has also added producer to her resume, after spending three months perfecting her debut single “Tanzania.” The track has more than 12 million streams on Spotify as of this writing, and was featured during a dance break on Beyoncé’s Renaissance Tour. The producer has released three Eps in the last two years.

“It takes a lot of vulnerability to release music because it comes with so much criticism,” she said. “But it was the best decision I ever made because now I have multiplatinum music.”

Uncle Waffle’s success has helped to define a clear path for female DJs who aspire to become global stars.

“It’s very possible for your dream to be valid as a woman in male-dominated spaces,” Uncle Waffles said, while showing the world that a DJ can command the stage.

“Being a DJ doesn’t limit it,” she added. “If you want it to be on a big stage, (you’ll) accommodate that big stage.”

More than 2,400 people connected to the fossil fuel industry registered to attend the COP28 climate summit in Dubai — a massive representation that’s nearly four times the number that signed up for last year’s climate gathering, according to an analysis published Tuesday.

Fossil fuel employees and representatives outnumber every country’s delegation except for the United Arab Emirates, the host of COP28, and Brazil, according to the report from a coalition of corporate watchdog and climate advocacy groups, including Global Witness.

Overall attendance at the summit has also skyrocketed in recent years, with more than 80,000 people registered for the Dubai meeting — more than twice the number who registered for last year’s summit in Egypt. The report was not able to count how many fossil fuel representatives are actually in attendance, though it has shown registration numbers have been increasing over the years.

The findings are likely to fuel tensions at the already controversial climate summit, where the future role of fossil fuels, the main driver of the climate crisis, is shaping up to be one of the key sticking points.

COP28 President Sultan Al Jaber, also an oil executive, has argued the fossil fuel industry should be involved in the summit.

The analysis from the coalition, which this year organized under the name Kick Big Polluters Out, looked at the provisional list of COP participants to identify registrants with self-declared ties to fossil fuel companies or organizations with fossil fuel interests or foundations owned or controlled by a fossil fuel company.

It found an “unprecedented” 2,456 fossil fuel employees and representatives registered to attend COP28, significantly more than the 636 who signed up for COP27 in Egypt in 2022.

This year’s analysis was made easier by the United Nations’ decision in June that for the first time it would require fossil fuel lobbyists to disclose their affiliations when registering for the summit.

Fossil fuel employees and representatives received more passes to COP28 than all the delegates from the 10 most climate-vulnerable countries combined, according to the research.

“The hallways and negotiating rooms of this climate conference are flooded with the largest number of fossil fuel lobbyists ever,” said Lili Fuhr, director of the fossil fuel energy program at the Center for International Environmental Law.

Some scientists and advocacy groups have expressed increasing concerns about the ambition levels of the summit after recently resurfaced comments made by Al Jaber in the run up to COP28. In a recorded panel session last month, he told participants there was “no science” that said phasing out fossil fuels was necessary to meet the goal of limiting warming to 1.5 degrees.

After the remarks came to light on Sunday, Al Jaber fiercely defended his commitment to climate goals and science. At a news conference Monday, he told reporters his remarks had been misinterpreted and that a phase-down and phase-out of fossil fuels was “inevitable” and “essential.”

The number of fossil employees and representatives at COP summits has been increasing over the years, according to the annual report. Attendees connected to fossil fuel companies have attended COP summits at least 7,200 times over the last two decades, according to a KBPO report in November.

Popular Taiwanese rock band Mayday is being investigated by Chinese authorities over allegations of lip-synching during recent concerts, an accusation the band’s label has denied in a controversy that has dominated Chinese social media since the weekend.

The accusations centered on Mayday’s recent shows in Shanghai, where it performed eight times over 10 days in mid-November, to a combined audience of more than 360,000 fans.

The band, which has been going for more than two decades and is sometimes dubbed the “Asian Beatles,” boasts a huge fan base in China, where its shows often sell out quickly.

The Shanghai Culture and Tourism Bureau, a municipal government department overseeing commercial performances, said it attached great importance to the public backlash against the “lip-synching” claims and had required the concert organizer to cooperate with an investigation, state news agency Xinhua reported Monday.

In a statement on Monday evening, Mayday’s record company B’in Music dismissed the online accusations as “malicious attacks, rumors and slander,” saying they had seriously damaged the band’s image.

“Our company is actively cooperating with relevant law enforcement authorities to carry out investigations. We believe the relevant authorities will give us a fair result to set the record straight,” said the statement posted on Chinese social media site Weibo.

Live shows routinely use pre-recorded background vocals and music to bolster artists’ live singing performances, especially acts that involve vigorous choreography.

Chinese government regulations explicitly ban performers from “deceiving audiences with lip-synching,” and organizers from arranging for performers to lip synch. Violators can face a maximum fine of 100,000 yuan (about $14,000). A government guideline on how the regulations should be implemented defines lip synching as “using pre-recorded songs in place of live singing.”

The controversy started last Thursday when a music vlogger on Bilibili, one of China’s biggest video-sharing platforms, posted a video in which he used computer software to analyze the vocals of 12 songs recorded live by a fan at Mayday’s concert in Shanghai on November 16.

The vlogger claimed his analysis found the band’s lead singer, Ashin, lip synced at least five songs during the three-hour gig, saying the vocalist’s singing was precisely in tune for those numbers, while drifting in and out of pitch drastically in the other songs.

The vlogger’s allegations quickly gained traction on Weibo. By Sunday, the controversy had become the top trending topic, garnering more than 300 million views.

Some Mayday fans said they were disappointed, while others defended the band, including by posting snippets of their live performances where Ashin could be heard clearly singing out of tune.

State broadcaster CCTV reported Monday that video and audio recordings of Mayday’s concerts in Shanghai had been submitted to local authorities for “scientific evaluation and analysis,” and that the result would be announced.

Mayday primarily sings in Mandarin with some songs in the Hokkien dialect.

Their songs are catchy and addictive, happy-go-lucky, pop-infused anthemic rock, akin to U2 or One Direction. And with titles like “Party Animal,” “Cheers” and “Here, After Us,” they project the innocence of a younger generation, with all its accompanying hope and heartbreak.

The band is well known for hosting energetic marathons of music, with each show typically lasting two to three hours.

Since their debut in the late 1990s, the band has captured a following not only among millennials but also with a youthful fanbase of gen-Zs who are almost half its members’ age.

Other artists from Taiwan have encountered difficulties in China for being outspoken about the self-governing island, which Beijing views as its own territory. But Mayday has largely steered clear of politics and maintained huge popularity among mainland Chinese.

They were among the first Taiwanese musicians to hold large-scale concerts in China after the country lifted its stringent zero-Covid policy and travel restrictions.

In May, when Mayday’s concerts in Beijing went on sale, nearly 300,000 tickets for six shows were sold out within five seconds, Chinese state media reported at the time.

The AFP news agency first reported the Israeli assessment on Monday, citing a briefing for foreign media by senior Israeli military officials. Asked about reports that about 5,000 Hamas militants had been killed since October 7, one of the officials replied, according to AFP: “The numbers are more or less right.”

According to figures compiled by the Hamas-controlled health ministry in Gaza, almost 16,000 people have died since October 7. The ministry’s figures don’t distinguish between combatants and civilians. Conricus’ statement implied that more than 10,000 civilians have died in the conflict.

Conricus added: “I can say that if that is true – and I think that our numbers will be corroborated – if you compare that ratio to any other conflict in urban terrain between a military and a terrorist organization using civilians as their human shields, and embedded in the civilian population, you will find that that ratio is tremendous, tremendously positive, and perhaps unique in the world.”

According to the AFP report, an unidentified Israeli official said that it was hoped the ratio will be “much lower” in the next phase of the war. “I’m not saying it’s not bad that we have a ratio of two to one,” the official was quoted as saying.

The IDF estimates that Hamas was comprised of around 30,000 fighters before October 7, when it launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostage. In response, Israel has vowed to eliminate the group once and for all.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told journalists during a press conference on Saturday that the military has killed “thousands of terrorists.” The Israeli military has not officially published any estimates of those killed.

AFP reported that the Israeli military official, when asked to confirm reports that around 5,000 Hamas militants had been killed, replied: “The numbers are more or less right.”

Conricus said the IDF aims ultimately to obtain accurate numbers of civilians and combatants killed, and said he thought the figures would be known before the end of the war.

He clarified the definition of Hamas militants, saying that when the Israeli military reported how many fighters it had killed, it was referring to combatants. “Our definition is combatants, people who are fighting,” he said. In Gaza, thousands of residents are employed in Hamas-run administrative agencies but carry out civilian duties.

More people have died in the current war than in any of Israel’s past conflicts with either Hamas or other Islamic militants in the Gaza Strip.

During the 50 days of hostilities in Gaza in 2014, 2,251 Palestinians were killed, of whom 1,462 were believed to be civilians, according to the United Nations. That equates to a ratio of 1.8 civilians for every non-civilian.

A top US State Department official told Congress last month that while it was difficult to assess casualty figures while conflict was ongoing, she believed that the true death toll could be even higher than what is being publicly discussed.

“It is very difficult for any of us to assess what the rate of casualties are,” said Barbara Leaf, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. “We think they’re very high, frankly. And it could be that they’re even higher than are being cited. We’ll know only after the guns fall silent.”

The US is piling pressure on Israel to limit civilian casualties as outrage about the death toll grows globally and at home in the US.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Saturday emphasized that the protection of civilians in Gaza is crucial to Israel’s long-term success against Hamas.

“In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population,” he said. “And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat.”

Austin’s comments came the day after Israel resumed its combat operations against Hamas in Gaza.

Austin added that he has “personally pushed Israeli leaders to avoid civilian casualties” and “shun irresponsible rhetoric” while expanding access to humanitarian aid.

Nearly two years after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, civilians remaining inside the country and those who’ve left their homes still need humanitarian aid.

Some 5.9 million refugees from the war-torn nation have fled across Europe while an estimated 3.7 million are internally displaced, according to UN data.

You can find out how to help here or by using the form below.

“Anybody who meets Tarek can tell immediately he has special needs,” Diaa Abu Abed said. “His brain works like a child’s does.”

Diaa Abu Abed identified the men who stopped his brother as Israeli soldiers. Some Israeli settlers are also known to wear military fatigues and have access to military assault rifles.

When Tarek Abu Abed told the men that he did not have identification, an argument ensued, according to his brother.

That is where the video, which is filmed down a street from the incident, begins. It shows three men in military fatigues standing over a man who is on his hands and knees, and next to a man in a red shirt, identified by Diaa as Tarek’s friend.

“The man in the video wearing red came to defend him to tell the Israeli soldiers that my brother has special needs,” Diaa Abu Abed said. “He’s known amongst the community for his mental disabilities. The soldiers refused to listen.”

The men had their rifles aimed at Tarek Abu Abed, and shouting can be heard. Abu Abed appears to be attempting to stand up as several local residents look on. He then stands up and approaches one of the men, seemingly agitated. A second man then approaches Abu Abed from behind.

A gunshot rings out, and Abu Abed collapses to the ground. He writhes in pain, as two of the men continue to point their weapons at him.

Diaa Abu Abed said that an onlooker called him, and he arrived on the scene soon after.

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a statement on Tuesday that it had transported a 34-year-old man with a bullet wound in his leg from Qalqas to the hospital.

Tarek Abu Abed suffered heavy bleeding and has undergone surgery on his leg, his brother said.

The Israel-Hamas war has increasingly spilled over into the West Bank with settler attacks and clashes leaving hundreds of Palestinians dead.

At least 256 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli troops or Israeli settlers in the West Bank and east Jerusalem since October 7, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops were operating in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis Tuesday as top officials at the United Nations warned of an “apocalyptic” situation in war-torn Gaza with “no place safe to go” for civilians.

“Every time we think things cannot get any more apocalyptic in Gaza, they do,” said Martin Griffiths, the top UN emergency relief official, in a statement on Monday. “People are being ordered to move again, with little to survive on, forced to make one impossible choice after another,” he said.

“Such blatant disregard for basic humanity must stop,” he also said.

Israel has been intensifying its aerial bombardment of southern Gaza in pursuit of Palestinian militant group Hamas and said over the weekend that it would expand ground operations to the whole of the territory.

The chief of general staff of the IDF, Leutenant General Herzi Halevi, said Tuesday its forces were “now encircling” Khan Younis. Halevi said that the IDF was now entering the “third phase of the ground operations,” though he did not specify what that meant.

Meanwhile, in central Gaza, video and witness accounts indicated there had been multiple strikes in the area of Deir al-Balah, with many casualties being taken to the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital.

“Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital is the only hospital in the central area and cannot accommodate such a large number of people, especially considering that massacres against our people are still ongoing,” Dr. Khalil Al Daqran said.

“Many are still trapped under rubble and are being rescued and brought to the hospital,” Al Daqran added. “We are appealing to the world to put an end to this aggression against our people and allow medical aid and supplies to enter Gaza.”

In northern Gaza, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health said 108 people had been killed at the Kamal Adwan hospital, with dozens more injured, after heavy explosions and gunfire rocked the facility.

Also in the north, the IDF said Tuesday its troops had “completed the encirclement” of the Jabalia refugee camp.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday appealed to the IDF to spare civilians more suffering. “Civilians – including health workers, journalists and UN personnel – and civilian infrastructure must be protected at all times,” Guterres’ statement said, noting that despite evacuation orders, “there is nowhere safe to go in Gaza.”

Overall, 15,800 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks in Gaza since October 7, according to a report published Tuesday by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which cites sources from the Hamas-controlled enclave.

Senior US officials have urged Israel to make its operations more surgical and deliberate to minimize civilian casualties. Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters on Sunday she believed “that they have listened.”

US officials’ recent conversations with their Israeli counterparts about not replicating in the southern part of the strip the devastation it caused in the north had been “hard,” “firm” and “direct,” they said.

Palestinian civilians have been told to flee large swaths of Gaza, with the IDF releasing QR codes that show several online maps detailing areas it deems unsafe. However it is unclear how many residents the warnings are reaching, given damage to the enclave’s telecommunications services and electricity shortages.

‘There is no safe area’

As of last week, 1.8 million people in Gaza were estimated to be internally displaced, according to the UN – roughly 80% of the population.

Scores of wounded people could be seen in footage being taken from rubble, to hospitals in southern Gaza throughout Monday. One Reuters video showed a baby being rushed from a civilian car into Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis. The 2-month-old lies on a stretcher, apparently unconscious, as doctors remove his clothes and connect him to an oxygen supply.

“They told us to leave Gaza, there’s a war in Gaza, so we left (the north) and came here to the south just like they asked. But this is what we’ve found in the south,” Ibrahim Esbeitan, the baby’s father said in the video, pointing at this child.

In Salah Al-Arja, in Rafah, residents were seen trying to rescue their loved ones from the rubble with their bare hands. “We were asleep and safe, they told us it was a safe area, Rafah and all, but at twenty past ten, they struck it with barrels, destroying all the block, there were children, women, and martyrs,” an unnamed local resident told Reuters.

“There is no safe area, neither Rafah, nor Khan Younis, nor Gaza, nor Dier, they are all liars, they say it is a safe area, they let us seek refuge, they evacuated Khan Younis and Gaza and still they bomb.”

The Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said Tuesday his non-governmental organization was forced to halt nearly all of its aid operations in Gaza.

He issued a strong statement arguing that the “pulverising of Gaza now ranks amongst the worst assaults on any civilian population in our time and age.”

The head of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, Philippe Lazzarini, also warned against “horrors” that could follow in the wake of Israel’s expanding military operation, noting that an additional 60,000 people are now seeking shelter in overcrowded UN facilities.

“The evacuation order pushes people to concentrate into what is less than one-third of the Gaza Strip. They need everything: food, water, shelter, and mostly safety. Roads to the south are clogged,” Lazzarini said Monday, noting that access to water is limited in Gaza.

To resupply humanitarian aid efforts in Gaza, 180 humanitarian aid trucks carrying food, water, shelter materials and medical supplies were sent to the Rafah crossing on Monday at the request of the US Administration and in coordination with Egypt, according to Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. Two diesel fuel tankers were also sent from Egypt to aid agencies operating in the strip, it said.

A US State Department spokesperson said Israeli officials “need to do more” to increase the amount of humanitarian assistance entering Gaza. He noted that the number of aid trucks going into the Palestinian enclave was lower than it was before the Israel-Hamas truce.

“We don’t think Israel is doing enough,” Matt Miller told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. “There is not enough fuel, there’s not enough food, there’s not enough water getting in.”

Meanwhile, Pentagon spokesman Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder said the US military had on Tuesday airlifted another 36,000 pounds of “vital supplies to the people of Gaza.”

Health system struggling

What remains of the health system and infrastructure in Gaza is far from sufficient for the battered population’s needs as it enters a third month of siege, experts say.

Eighteen of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are still functioning, but can only provide partial services, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday, adding that the 12 operational hospitals in the south are “the backbone of the health system.”

A WHO team visiting Nasser Hospital said the conditions there were “catastrophic” amid a flood of patients on Monday. “The building and hospital grounds [are] grossly overcrowded with patients and displaced people seeking shelter,” the statement said. “The emergency ward is overflowing…Many patients are being treated on the floor.”

In a voice message posted on Monday, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder also described harrowing conditions in Nasser Hospital rooms after a blast less than 100 meters away.

“There must be a hundred people, children now have been woken up by the bombs and explosions,” Elder said as babies’ cries could be heard in the background.

“Parents just have that look of… the feeling no parent ever wants to experience, which is helplessness,” he said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Just a few pieces of debris stood between Munna Qureshi and dozens of laborers who his team had been tasked with rescuing from deep inside a Himalayan tunnel after all previous attempts to free them had failed.

“I could hear the laborers gasping on the other side with excitement,” the 29-year-old said. “My heart was racing as I removed the last rock between us.”

Qureshi is among 12 specialized workers who were called by Indian authorities to help with last month’s rescue of 41 construction workers trapped in the collapsed tunnel in northern Uttarakhand state.

For nearly three weeks the construction workers were cut off from the world, some 60 meters inside the mountain, receiving food and air through a thin tube and frequent updates from rescuers outside.

Engineers worked round the clock to drill a safe passage through the broken rock using a state of the art machine, while officials flew in experts to help with rescue efforts. But ultimately, after 17 days, it was Qureshi and his colleagues who succeeded in bringing the men to safety after the drill broke beyond repair just meters from the trapped workers.

Known locally as “rat hole miners”, they belong to a niche group of highly skilled, but poorly paid excavators who typically crawl through narrow tunnels to extract coal from deep within the ground.

It is a profession so dangerous it has been banned in some parts of the country. But it has been thrust into the spotlight in recent weeks, and the men celebrated as heroes by many across the country.

“Rat hole mining may be illegal,” Lt General Syed Ata Hasnain, a retired official from India’s National Disaster Management Authority told reporters shortly after the rescue. “But a rat miner’s talent and experience is not.”

Bottom of the hierarchy

Workers employed in the dangerous profession are among the most vulnerable and marginalized in India, hence the unflattering local moniker. Mostly migrants from some of India’s poorest states, they are paid about $5 for a day’s work, according to local reports.

Slimly built and nimble, they are expected to enter tiny crevices in mines, often deprived of oxygen and at risk of being buried under loose soil.

Most coal mining in India takes place in northeastern Meghalaya state, home to some of the country’s largest coal deposits, amounting to more than 576 million metric tons.

Rat hole mining was banned in the state by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in 2014 due to health and environmental risks, but it’s still carried out illegally in secluded pockets of the region.

According to Hasina Kharbhih, the founder of Impulse, a non-profit that advocates for the safety of these workers, an estimated 225 “rat hole miners” died between 2007 and 2014, before the practice was banned.

In 2018, four years after the ban was implemented, another 15 died after becoming trapped in an illegal coal mine for two weeks.

“This number however is the tip of the iceberg,” Kharbhih said. “I am sure if other regions where this happened were thoroughly researched, these numbers would go up.”

Most of the men called to rescue the laborers said they knew the risks when they joined the profession.

“I always thought this job would take my life someday,” one of the workers, Nasir Khan, said. “I never thought it would earn me respect.”

However, retired judge B.P. Katoki, who set up the tribunal that banned rat mining in Meghalaya, said India shouldn’t “normalize” such a dangerous profession.

Already forgotten

Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami announced 50,000 rupees ($600) will be handed out among the workers as a token of appreciation. But some of the “rat miners” said they are still waiting for details of the compensation.

And despite the media attention, they said they had not been thanked or rewarded by the authorities.

Just two hours after the men were rescued, a list of 90 men who took part in the effort was circulated by an Uttarakhand government official on a media WhatsApp group. Conspicuously missing were the names of the 12 “rat miners” who put their lives on the line to complete that final breakthrough.

“This does not surprise me,” said Mohammad Irshad Ansari, one of the “rat miner” workers. “A laborer is and will only be seen as a laborer. Whatever we may have done, it does not change that we are poor.”

One of the men, Monu Kumar, said he received a hero’s welcome when he arrived home in northern Uttar Pradesh state.

“There was music playing, we were garlanded, and my family and neighbours distributed 30 kilograms worth of sweets to everyone,” he said.

“People (in the village) are saying that we did so much, put our life on the line, but we did not get anything in return.”

‘Unlike anything we have seen’

To get to the trapped workers, the “rat miners” had to crawl through an 80-centimeter (2.6 feet) diameter pipe inserted into the debris, crouch for hours in the small space and dig through the final 12 meters (about 40 feet) of rubble with their bare hands.

Khan said it was “unlike anything we have ever seen before.”

“It was not just debris, stone, or a mountain; there were steel pipes, water, and ropes in there. We used many tools to slowly get them out,” he added.

Two “rat miners” went in at a time on rotating four-hour shifts, with one cutting the stone and the other pulling the debris out of the pipe.

“It was difficult. It was risky,” said Kumar. “There is no doubt about that.”

Ansari wants to keep going to rescue more men should the situation arise, but Khan’s family has urged him to quit his job, saying the risk is not worth the low pay.

Despite working for three decades in the industry, he cannot afford to send his three children to school.

“This work is also seasonal. We do not have it in summer months as access to oxygen is a problem, and in monsoons as the water makes it unsafe,” he said. “By working for only four months in a year, how can I afford to send my children to school? I did not go to school and nor will they.”

Kumar feels the media attention won’t last long.

“Soon, these calls will stop coming,” he said. “No one is going to remember us.”

Friends and relatives gathered Monday to mourn the death of Yuval Castleman, the Israeli civilian who responded to a deadly terror attack in Jerusalem, shooting and killing the perpetrators before he himself was shot dead by an Israeli reservist soldier.

Dozens traveled to Castleman’s parents’ home in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Tiv’on to attend his shiva, the traditional seven-day Jewish mourning period, as anger has grown across the country at the circumstances leading to his death.

Castleman, a former police officer, was driving to work Thursday when he saw two gunmen open fire at a bus stop in Jerusalem. Moments later, he had rushed to the scene.

A video showed two uniformed soldiers scrambling out of a red car and grabbing their guns. A third person, an army reservist according to Israel’s military, appears to have mistaken Castleman for an attacker and began shooting at him. Bullets from one of the Israeli soldiers may have also struck Castleman, the IDF said.

“When the soldiers saw him I’m assuming they thought he was a terrorist. But then when Yuval realized that that’s what they’re thinking, he opened his jacket to show he had nothing underneath, and got down on his knees. He opened his hands, so they could see he had nothing in his hands,” said Itkovich.

“He was shouting in Hebrew. He was shouting ‘I’m an Israeli.’ He threw his wallet, his identification, on the way so they could see he’s an Israeli. And they just shot him. They gunned him down,” he said.

Castleman died at the Shaare Zedek medical center later Thursday. Three other victims were killed in the attack, for which Hamas claimed responsibility.

At Castleman’s shiva Monday, his father Moshe praised his “heroic” son.

Moshe said there should be an investigation into his son’s fatal shooting “to prevent such a thing happening again.”

Itzkovich, who served in the police alongside Castleman, accused the soldier who shot him of violating protocols.

“There’s certain things that you’re not supposed to do. Even if Yuval was a terrorist – even if the citizen that they thought was a terrorist was a terrorist – the man had surrendered,” Itzkovich said. “By these protocols, they’re supposed to arrest him. He should never have been shot.”

Itzkovich expressed his disbelief that the soldier had “ignored” the protocols he said are drilled into those serving in the Israeli police and military.

“They taught us in the army, and in the police force, that the protocols are very, very strict. It’s like a mantra,” he said.

“If you wake me up at 4 in the morning, I will tell you exactly what those protocols are. I trust the army, and I trust the police force, and I know that they gave the orders exactly as they gave it to me, when I was there. And this guy, this soldier – he ignored them. It’s not that he didn’t know them, he just ignored them. And that was what my friend got killed for. It’s devastating.”

The IDF originally said it would not investigate the incident. But, amid widespread media coverage of Castleman’s death, Israel Police said they would investigate it, and the IDF then said it would join the investigation because the suspect in the killing is a soldier.

IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said he felt “deep sorrow” for Castleman’s “tragic death.”

“The IDF has clear instructions on how and when to shoot, and all of this is very clear. And there’s a clear moral rule – when someone puts their hand up – he should not be shot,” he also said, cautioning that “until the investigation is not over, we cannot indict a person. We have to wait for its outcomes.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday called for a “thorough inquiry” into the shooting, describing Castleman as “a hero of Israel.”

But that call followed an earlier statement by Netanyahu that prompted fury in parts of Israel. In a widely panned comment on the incident, Netanyahu defended the right for Israeli citizens to bear arms and suggested that some civilian deaths were the “price” that came with such a policy. “That’s life,” he said.

“We know that during upticks of terror over the past decade, and even before that, having armed civilians often saved lives and prevented a bigger catastrophe,” Netanyahu said in a press conference to Tel Aviv on Saturday night. “Under the current circumstances, we should continue with this policy, I surely support it. We might have to pay prices, but that’s life.”

Asked for his response to Netanyahu’s comments, Castleman’s father said he would not discuss them “because the Prime Minister spoke later and corrected what he had said, and after he understood what had happened, he said that my son was a hero – and that’s exactly how it was.”

Applications to carry private firearms in Israel surged in the month following the Hamas attack on October 7, according to the Ministry of National Security. As of October 30, the ministry had received 180,500 new applications with its centers receiving an average of 10,000 new requests per day – compared to 850 new requests per week prior to the terror attacks.

Israel’s Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir has voiced his desire for more Israelis to carry firearms.