Israeli authorities recalled their team of negotiators from Qatar after reaching a “dead end” in talks to release hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, according to a statement released by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.

The talks in the Gulf nation had led to a tenuous truce between Hamas and Israel that lasted seven days before collapsing on Friday morning.

In the statement, Israel blamed Hamas for failing to “fulfill its part of the agreement, which included the return of all women and children held hostage.”

The negotiators were from Israel’s Mossad intelligence service and the statement said it was the head of the agency, David Barnea, who recalled the team.

As the diplomatic process stood at an impasse, Hamas pushed to begin discussing the release of men – possibly on a different set of terms, according to the source. Israel rejected that idea, insisting that it was imperative that all women be released first.

Hamas in a statement held Israel and the United States responsible for ending the dialogue. The militant group said Israel refused its offers to exchange prisoners and hand over the bodies of hostages it said had died during the bombardment of Gaza.

Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas’ political bureau, confirmed to Al Jazeera TV on Saturday that negotiations had ended, adding there would be no more hostages released until there is a ceasefire.

The remaining hostages still being held by Hamas are current or former soldiers, Al-Arouri said, adding that adult males will be subject to different standards by Hamas.

“We said from day one that the price for releasing Zionist prisoners is the liberation of all our prisoners, after the ceasefire,” Al-Arouri said.

Qatari and American mediators are still working to find a way to bring back a temporary stop in the fighting, Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters on Saturday after speaking with the Emir of Qatar on the sidelines of the COP28 climate summit in Dubai.

“Our work is ongoing to support some ability to reopen the pause and to have a deal going forward where there will be a pause so that we can get hostages out and get aid in,” Harris said at a news conference.

Harris also said that while the US supports Israel’s “legitimate military objectives” in Gaza, the civilian suffering inside the enclave has been too high.

“As Israel defends itself, it matters how,” she said. “Too many innocent Palestinians have been killed. Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering, and the images and videos coming from Gaza are devastating.”

Israeli offensive resumes

The Israel Defense Forces said it carried out more than 400 strikes in the first 24 hours of renewed fighting that began Friday morning, targeting both Hamas and Islamic Jihad, another militant group in Gaza.

The Hamas-run Ministry of Health in Gaza said Saturday that most of the victims were women and children, and dozens are feared dead after the apparent bombardment of a multi-story concrete building in the Jabalya refugee camp.

Among the victims was Dr. Sufyan Tayeh, a prominent Palestinian scientist and the president of the Islamic University of Gaza, according to a statement by the Palestinian Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. He was killed alongside his family, the statement said.

Al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, said in a statement late Saturday that it had launched a barrage of rockets from northern Gaza toward Tel Aviv.

The group claimed the attack was in response to what it called “Zionist massacres against civilians.”

Despite the resumption of hostilities, the two sides on Friday continued to negotiate in Qatar through mediators to pause the fighting in exchange for the release of more hostages, sources said.

However, negotiators began expressing concern before Friday’s collapse that Hamas may no longer be holding enough women and children to get Israel to continue pauses in fighting.

Israel had agreed to extend the truce daily for every 10 hostages Hamas released. It released three Palestinian prisoners in exchange for every hostage.

The Israel Defense Forces said Friday that there are 136 hostages still being held in Gaza, including 17 women and children. It is unclear how many of those are being held by Hamas as opposed to other militant groups that operate in the territory.

Israeli and US officials believe that Hamas continues to hold hostage a number of women in their twenties and thirties, many of them kidnapped from the Nova music festival. Hamas has insisted that some of the remaining women they were holding hostage were considered a part of the IDF, which Israel denies.

When the United States Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June 2022, French women were paying close attention. They watched with alarm as those across the Atlantic lost their long-standing right to abortion, seemingly overnight. What if France came next?

A year and a half later, France is en route to enshrine the right to abortion in its constitution, a move that would make it very difficult for future parliaments to chip away at it with restrictive legislation.

Left-wing lawmakers like Vogel are leading the charge, but the bill has garnered rare cross-party support. It’s backed by the French government itself, with President Emmanuel Macron recently promising that “in 2024, women’s freedom to have an abortion will be irreversible.”

If the bid is successful, the French constitution will become the first in the world to include the right to abortion, according to Stephanie Hennette-Vauchez, a public law professor and constitutional expert..

Although the motion has garnered broad support in France, there has been no shortage of criticism from right-wing lawmakers. Politicians such as Jordan Bardella, president of the far-right National Rally party, have suggested constitutionalization is pointless, as abortion rights in France are not under threat.

“France is not the United States’ 51st federal state,” Bardella said on French TV, “there is no serious widespread political movement in France calling into question the [abortion] law.”

Meanwhile, women’s rights advocates insist that enshrining abortion rights in the constitution, while important, will do nothing to facilitate access, a growing issue in rural parts of France.

If the US isn’t safe, are we?

For many women in France, the overturning of Roe v. Wade last summer hit too close to home. Popular French TV host Enora Malagré, who has spoken openly about her own abortion aged 20, said she was distraught when she heard the news.

Currently, abortion rights in France are protected by a 1975 law which has been amended on numerous occasions, most recently in 2022, to lengthen the time frame for legal abortions from 12 to 14 weeks of pregnancy. Like all laws, however, it could be revoked by a vote in the French parliament.

Changing the constitution, on the other hand, is a much more challenging process, requiring either a national referendum or a 3/5th majority vote in the French Congress — a special body composed of both chambers of parliament. According to backers of the bill, therefore, constitutionalization would safeguard abortion rights even if a pro-life majority were to be voted into office.

Rossignol believes that the overturning of Roe v. Wade had a huge impact on public opinion in France, instilling a fear that abortion rights could be placed under threat at any moment.

The sentiment is echoed by organizations in France on the front line of the fight for reproductive rights, who are fearful of further reversals globally.

“When the far right came into power in certain countries, one of the first things they attacked was… the right to abortion,” said Sarah Durocher, president of Planning Familial, the French branch of Planned Parenthood International. “I don’t see why France would be an exception,” she added.

Last year, Hungary’s hardline nationalist government made it mandatory for women to listen to the fetal heartbeat before an abortion. In Poland, where abortions are only allowed in the event of rape, incest or a threat to the mother’s health, further restrictions were passed in 2020, when abortions on the grounds of fetal defect were outlawed by the conservative Law and Justice party. Just last week, Argentina elected a far-right president who has pledged to reverse the abortion rights the country acquired in 2020.

‘Now or never’

In France, recent polling data suggests 86% of people are now favorable to the constitutionalization of abortion rights.

On November 3, the French government presented a draft text to France’s highest administrative court. Once the text is approved, the Congress will convene in the Palace of Versailles to vote on it. If a majority vote is achieved, the amendment will be added to the constitution.

Macron’s government currently holds enough support in parliament to presume a positive vote.

“We have to do it now,” said Vogel, who submitted the first draft proposal in August 2022. “We have a majority in parliament. We have a majority in society. So it’s now or never,” she concluded.

Many, including Vogel, fear that the growing popularity of right-wing political parties in France might make a similar amendment impossible to pass as early as the next French elections in 2027.

Despite voting in favor of the bill, right-wing political leader Marine Le Pen, who won 41.5% of the French vote in the 2022 presidential election, has traditionally supported rollbacks on abortion rights.

Just last year, the National Rally lawmaker opposed the extension of the legal abortion time frame from 12 to 14 weeks. In those two weeks “the medical act completely changes in nature,” Le Pen told French media outlet Brut, “it is much more traumatizing for women.”

Like other right-wing leaders, Le Pen has also said the proposal to constitutionalize abortion rights is “completely useless.”

Earlier this year, an anti-abortion campaign group called Les Survivants (The Survivors) brought this sentiment into the public domain, plastering stickers with anti-abortion messages onto Paris’s public rental bikes.

In a statement issued in May, the group said this move was a direct response to the efforts to enshrine abortion rights in the French constitution.

Symbolic gesture or real change?

Even among those advocating for the constitutionalization of the amendment, there has been debate over its exact wording.

The current draft submitted by the government accords women the “freedom” to access abortions rather than the “right” to do so, as had been the case in Vogel’s first draft.

The exact phrasing of the article reads: “The law determines the conditions under which a woman’s freedom to resort to a voluntary interruption of pregnancy, which is guaranteed to her, is exercised.”

Hennette-Vauchez, the constitutional expert, is wary that this “watered-down” version of the text might not be as effective at safeguarding abortion rights as the original. While the article guarantees the freedom to have an abortion, it also gives lawmakers leeway to determine the conditions under which this freedom can be exercised, she explained, a power that could be abused in the future.

Additionally, the constitutional amendment per se will do nothing to address France’s growing problem with abortion access, according to Hennette-Vauchez. “You can put it in the constitution,” she said, but that’s “not going to open up a service that actually does abortions … less than 120 km (75 miles) from where you live.”

Recent cuts to public health funding have led to the closure of hundreds of maternity clinics in France, making access to abortions, although legal, difficult for many, said Durocher. Her organization, Planning Familial, has assisted several women needing to travel to different areas of the country to get abortions, she added.

The closure of maternity clinics has also limited the access to surgical abortions, which made up just 22% of abortions in France in 2022. According to Durocher, this predominance of medication abortions is evidence of a lack of choice when it comes to reproductive rights and care.

At the moment, there are only three constitutions in the world that mention abortion, all  with the purpose of outlawing it, Hannette-Vauchez explained. “If we are the first country to gesture towards a freedom to have an abortion in the constitution,” she said, “it opens up a conversation about why we have been living in a world where reproductive issues are silenced by constitutions globally.”

Vogel is determined to continue to speak up.

“Anti-choice movements and reactionary forces are organized and they are strong, but we are stronger and we should never give up on fighting for abortion rights,” said Vogel. “It’s at the core of having an egalitarian society.”

North Korea has warned any potential interference or attack on its “space assets” by the United States will be “deemed a declaration of war,” the state media outlet KCNA reported on Saturday.

“The US Space Force’s deplorable hostility toward the DPRK’s reconnaissance satellite can never be overlooked as it is just a challenge to the sovereignty of the DPRK, and more exactly, a declaration of war against it,” the country’s defense ministry said in a statement reported by KCNA.

DPRK stands for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the official name of North Korea.

The warning came less than two weeks after Pyongyang said it had put its first spy satellite into space, in a move which analysts predicted could enable the country to more accurately target opponents’ forces, if the spacecraft works.

Neither South Korea, the United States nor Japan, all of which are experiencing increasing military tensions with North Korea, could confirm “Malligyong-1,” had made it into orbit.

Just days after the North Korean launch, the South sent its own first spy satellite into orbit with the help of space company SpaceX.

The KCNA report claimed that Pyongyang’s warning followed an alleged comment from a US Space Command official who “spouted rubbish hinting at a military attack on the DPRK’s reconnaissance satellite.”

KCNA said that the unnamed American official allegedly claimed the US “can decrease the enemy country’s outer space operation capabilities” by employing “diverse reversible and irreversible methods.”

It’s unclear who that US official may be.

Pyongyang says its satellite is for reconnaissance and “is not regarded as a space weapon by international law for its technical features aimed at observation.”

However, analysts claim the spacecraft is meant for spying and increasing North Korea’s military capabilities.

In response to the November 21 launch, the US Department of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) on Thursday sanctioned eight foreign-based DPRK agents “that facilitate sanctions evasion, including revenue generation and missile-related technology procurement that support the DPRK’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.”

It also sanctioned what it called a cyber espionage group called Kimsuky for “gathering intelligence to support the DPRK’s strategic objectives,” according to a statement on the Treasury Department’s website.

The November launch was condemned by North Korea’s neighbors Japan and South Korea, with Seoul calling it a “clear violation” of a UN Security Council resolution that prohibits North Korea from using ballistic missile technology.

However, Pyongyang warned that if its reconnaissance satellite is regarded as a “military threat” that “must be gotten rid of” then it should also destroy “countless spy satellites of the US flying above the Korean peninsula region every day, exclusively tasked with monitoring the major strategic spots of the DPRK.”

It also called the US “chief culprit of evils” for allegedly turning space “into a theater of war.”

Pyongyang’s move has led the South Korean government to partially suspend an agreement it had with North Korea that limited the South’s reconnaissance and surveillance activities along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) that separates the two countries.

North Korea subsequently vowed to deploy new military hardware along the military demarcation line.

The Biden administration has finalized a rule to significantly cut the US fossil fuel industry’s emissions of methane, a powerful planet-warming gas that scientists and climate advocacy groups have pressed nations to rapidly reduce as global temperature soars.

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan and White House National Climate Adviser Ali Zaidi will unveil the rule at the COP28 climate summit in Dubai on Saturday – a day where cutting methane emissions will be a major theme and several multi-lateral announcements are expected to be made.

Methane, the main component of natural gas and a byproduct of fossil fuel drilling, is a potent source of climate pollution with more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide during its first two decades in the atmosphere. The oil and gas industry is one of the main sources of global methane emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.

The new US rule, which will be implemented by the EPA, is expected to slash methane emissions by nearly 80% through 2038, compared to what they would have been without the rule. The EPA estimates it will stop about 58 million tons of methane from escaping into the atmosphere during that period – the equivalent of taking more than 300 million gas-powered cars off the road for a year.

The rule will crack down on methane leaks from industry in several ways. In a major new development, it will end routine flaring of the natural gas that is a byproduct of drilling oil wells and will phase in a requirement for that gas to be captured instead of burned. The rule will also require stringent leak monitoring of oil and gas wells and compressors, and cut down on leaks from equipment like pumps, storage tanks and controllers.

It will also rely on independent, third-party monitoring – using satellites and other remote-sensing technology – to find very large methane leaks.

Regan said the US rule signified “strong action” from the Biden administration by “significantly slashing methane emissions.” The US is the world’s largest oil producer, drilling and selling 21% of the world’s oil last year.

“From mobilizing billions in investment to plug orphaned wells, patch leaky pipes, and reclaim abandoned mines to setting strong standards that will cut pollution from the oil and gas sector, the Biden-Harris Administration is putting the full weight of the federal government into slashing harmful methane pollution,” Zaidi added in a statement.

Methane emissions surged in recent years, to the surprise of scientists and energy experts, who are now advocating for capping leaks and ending flaring and venting as easy ways to pump the brakes on the pace of global warming.

The EPA’s plan to end routine flaring is a major step forward, said Jon Goldstein, senior director for regulatory and legislative affairs at the Environmental Defense Fund, who focuses on methane pollution.

“The latest science is showing that flares are not just sources of waste, they’re also large sources of pollution because they’re just not working right,” Goldstein said. “The easiest way to stop that pollution is to stop sending it to flares in the first place. It doesn’t seem logical, why are you burning off this product you can sell?”

Correction: The oil and gas industry is one of the main sources of global methane emissions. This story has been updated.

The eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka is increasingly becoming a flashpoint in the conflict, where fighting remains intense even when the front lines have barely moved for months.

Russia appears to have made tactical advances in the outskirts of the embattled town as Ukraine claims it is inflicting heavy losses on assaulting troops.

With the weather getting colder and both sides struggling for a breakthrough, Ukraine’s president also announced he would shore up his country’s defenses.

Here is what you need to know about the past week in Ukraine.

Zelensky bolsters front line defenses

Ukraine is stepping up efforts to bolster defenses and fortifications across the country.

President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a countrywide initiative to strengthening defensive positions on Thursday, outlining the main areas of focus.

The primary effort will be where heavy fighting is taking place on front lines in the Avdiivka-Mariinka direction in eastern Donetsk, and the defensive line near Kupiansk in the north-eastern Kharkiv region.

Defensive fortifications will be bolstered along all of Ukraine’s northern territory which borders Belarus and Russia.

Positions will also be strenegthened in the southern Kherson region where Ukrainian troops are continuing their attempts to widen a bridgehead in the Russian occupied bank of the Dnipro River.

Analysts warn that building up fortifications with active shelling in some areas and harsh winter conditions can pose a challenge.

Zelensky’s announcement comes as the war enters what Ukraine’s top military chief called “positional war”— a maturing phase of the conflict where neither side has the ability to generate force overmatch or significant breakthrough leading to more static and solidified frontlines.

Analysts have pointed to Russian defensive positions which managed to keep Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive from gaining ground as an example of the effectiveness of fortified lines.

As both side dig in, it makes seizing significant territory without huge attrition – where depth of manpower and equipment becomes a determining factor – harder and harder.

‘It gets worse and worse’: The fight for Avdiivka

Russian forces continued their attempts to fully encircle the town of Avdiivka in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region where harsh winter conditions have reportedly complicated maneuvers for both Ukrainian and Russian forces.

Pro-Russian bloggers have reported tactical advances in the industrial zone in the southeast and the rail lines in the northwest of the town throughout the week as the Ukrainian military claimed they are holding defensive positions.

Russia maintains air superiority and has been making use of guided aerial bombs, retrofitted Soviet-era munitions with high explosive loads that are released by Russian warplanes outside the range of air defenses, as high velocity winds and snow limit the use of drones.

A local official said Russia has been focusing on trying to get the high ground in the industrial zone in Avdiivka but has not been successful. Ukraine claims defensive actions in and around the town are inflicting heavy losses on Russian troops and equipment.

Ukrainian police have been helping locals evacuate. Some 1,300 civilians remain in Avdiivka, which has been a front line town since 2014.

An elderly couple who were evacuated from Avdiivka this week recounted the decision to leave. “It gets worse and worse day after day… we get almost no sleep. Shelling and shelling and shelling…We thought we could wait, that things would get better, but we have run out of patience,” she said. “At least now, we can get some sleep.”

Some essential workers are in the city to provide services for the remaining civilians, including two doctors and four nurses, according to the head of local military administration Vitalii Barabash. If needed “most of them have already packed their bags and are ready to leave within an hour.”

Ukraine claims it sabotaged two Russian trains in Siberia

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) is responsible for explosions on two trains traveling along a strategic rail route in eastern Russia this week, a Ukrainian defense source claimed Friday.

If confirmed, the strikes show Kyiv’s intent and ability to disrupt Russian logistics thousands of miles away from the frontlines of Moscow’s war in Ukraine.

With train traffic rerouted around the tunnel, the SBU on Thursday targeted the second train as it passed over the nearby Devil’s Bridge, according to the source.

Both explosions were the result of planted “explosive devices,” the source claimed.

“The Russians have fallen into the SBU’s trap twice,” the source said. The twin bombings were a “special operation to disable this important railroad,” the source added.

Russian Telegram channels reported news of two train fires in the area. Videos circulated by some Russian telegram channels show wagons on fire along a rail track, although it is not immediately clear which incident the videos are from.

Russia has not immediately called Wednesday’s explosion an attack or blamed Ukraine for what it has so far characterized as “a cargo train fire.” Unofficial Russian media reported investigators are looking into the possibility of “sabotage.”

The Ukrainian source said the Russians use the railroad for “military logistics” and characterized the route as “the only major railroad connection between Russia and China.” The targeted trains were carrying fuel, the source said.

Ukrainian analysts said the route is critical for Russian deliveries from North Korea and China.

Finland closes border with Russia after migrant surge

The warning light turned from green to red at the last operating checkpoint on the Finnish side of the border with Russia this week as Moscow’s international isolation continues to grow.

Finnish television announced the closure: “The entire eastern border of Finland is now closed.

The crossing was one of the few entry points for Russians after many Western countries shut their air space and borders to Russian planes in response to the Ukraine invasion.

The 1,340-kilometer- (833-mile-) long border will be closed for at least two weeks.

Finland’s decision came as more and more third country nationals started arriving from Russia. Helsinki accused Russia of weaponizing refugees and asylum seekers and called the arrivals a “Russian hybrid operation.”

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg accused Russia of using migration as a “tool” to create “pressure” along its border with Finland. “We have seen them using energy, we have seen them using cyber attacks, we have seen them using different kinds of clandestine operations to try and undermine our democracies. The fact that Russia is using migration as a tool is now another example of the attempt to put pressure on neighbors,” Stoltenberg said at a news conference in Brussels.

Russia called Finland’s decision to close all border checkpoints “irrational.”

Ukrainian spy chief’s wife hospitalized after apparent poisoning

Marianna Budanova, who is married to Ukraine’s defense intelligence (GUR) chief Kyrylo Budanov, was hospitalized with apparent heavy metals poisoning the GUR said, raising concerns that Russia may have the capacity to target senior Ukrainian leadership.

The seriousness of Budanova’s condition was not immediately apparent.

Russia — and the Soviet Union before that — has been known to carry out extra-territorial poisonings against its enemies.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog spent his day on Friday meeting with high-profile leaders at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai. The same day, his country’s army dropped leaflets around southern Gaza, warning residents to flee — its combat operations against Hamas were resuming after a seven-day pause.

Herzog was supposed to give an address that day calling for action on the climate crisis. His slot came and went; he didn’t speak. He was instead meeting with the likes of King Charles III and leaders of the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the European Union, the United Kingdom and India, as well as the United Nations Secretary General.

The discussions were private, but no doubt the top of Herzog’s agenda was soliciting support, or at least tolerance, for Israel’s part in the war with Hamas, and helping secure the release of the remaining 136 hostages who were abducted from Israel by the armed group in its October 7 attack. Since then, Israel has retaliated with enormous military might, in a war that has killed more children than all the conflicts around the world in a year put together.

The Israel-Hamas war is casting a shadow over the COP28 climate talks. Friday only marked Day 2 of proceedings, yet the subject has been unavoidable in press conferences, speeches and even in the optics of photos and handshakes.

Some participants walked around the summit venue wearing lanyards in the colors of the Palestinian flag. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa openly accused Israel of committing war crimes in formal speeches that were supposed to be about climate to thousands of delegates, in remarks publicized well beyond Dubai.

Meanwhile, Israel’s allies, like UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, repeated the line that Israel “has the right to defend itself.” Sunak met with at least four leaders about the war —  it’s unlikely he had much time left for climate.

It’s not surprising or even untoward that Herzog would spend his time at COP28 with influential leaders — there are few opportunities as awash with powerful players as the first two days of the UN-backed talks. But it is symbolic of an ongoing problem — the world struggles to make room for the drudging issue of climate change when conflicts happening in the now use up so much time, money and attention.

Already, the heat of the war has entered the talks. The Iranian delegations left the summit because Herzog and the Israeli delegation were present, according to Iranian state media IRNA. Iran doesn’t recognize Israel. It’s not clear if its delegation plans to return.

As 2023 is on track to be the hottest year on record, there is a growing sense of urgency that countries need to put aside their differences for the climate crisis — the consequences of feuding while the planet fries in record heat and crumbles from deadly extreme weather events are just too grim to ignore. The US and China, for example, agreed to resume a climate working group last month and pledged a major ramp-up of renewable energy after a freeze since August last year.

But in reality, the scourges of conflict and climate change have become so intertwined — even horrifically similar in their outcomes — that addressing them together may be an inevitability.

That point was made clearly by Jordanian King Abdullah II, who in his speech Friday warned that war would only worsen the Middle East’s acute water stress and food insecurity, already fuelled by the climate crisis.

“My friends, this year’s conference of the parties must recognize even more than ever that we cannot talk about climate change in isolation from the humanitarian tragedies unfolding around us,” he said.

“As we speak, the Palestinian people are facing an immediate threat to their lives and well-being. In Gaza, over 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, tens of thousands have been injured or killed in a region already on the frontlines of climate change. The massive destruction of war makes these environmental threats of water scarcity and food insecurity even more severe.”

North-South ‘trust deficit’

The wider, longer-running Israel-Palestinian conflict has caused divisions globally along the lines of race, religion and ethnicity since the state of Israel was established in 1948. But at COP, the current war is also causing a Global North-South divide, according to Ulrich Eberle, Director of Climate, Environment and Conflict at the International Crisis Group, a Brussel’s-based think tank.

In the early days of the war, US President Joe Biden was one of the most emphatic supporters of Israel and its right to defend itself. But his administration has been cornered into softening that tone, as gruesome images of the toll on civilians in Gaza draw outrage against Israel from many corners of the world.

The Middle East has long been wracked with conflict, but the climate crisis was one area that was helping repair old rifts. The UAE — a long-standing supporter of a Palestinian state — had recently begun cooperating with Israel on climate.

In 2021, Israel and the UAE signed a water for energy deal with Jordan that would involve an exchange of solar power for desalinated water. Last month, Jordan pulled out of the deal, with its foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, telling Al Jazeera it couldn’t possibly ratify it “while Israel continues to kill children in Gaza.”

The question now is whether the heat of the war will leave the summit along with the world leaders — who typically fly home after making big, bold statements at the start of talks — or if two weeks of painstaking negotiations around the viability of our planet may just add to tensions among the war’s key players, and their allies and foes.

It’s early days, but so far, the actual negotiations haven’t been too clouded by the conflict, according to Alden Meyer, a senior associate with the climate consultancy E3G.

“It’s not like this is a new dynamic, but it’s obviously a very intense issue right now.”

Conservationists have discovered two kiwi chicks in Wellington, the first wild births recorded for the bird in the New Zealand capital in over 150 years.

The two new chicks come just a year after the Capital Kiwi Project reintroduced the country’s iconic national bird to the city of around 400,000 people.

Their birth in Makara, a suburb just 25 minutes from Wellington’s city center, takes the local total to 65 North Island brown kiwi.

The brown kiwi is one of New Zealand’s most common kiwi species, but according to New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, the birds could be extinct in the wild within two generations without adequate conservation and support.

Another 18 brown kiwi chicks are expected to hatch as part of the Capital Kiwi Project, which hopes to restore a large-scale wild population of kiwi to New Zealand’s capital. The project plans to use transmitters to monitor the two new kiwi chicks as well as any others that hatch.

The flightless birds, which once numbered around 12 million in New Zealand, have seen their population plummet to just 68,000, according to the Save the Kiwi charity. The charity is among approximately 90 Kiwi conservation programs aiming to boost the population.

In 1991, the New Zealand Department of Conservation launched the Kiwi Recovery Plan, which focused on predator control and community engagement.

According to New Zealand’s Department of Conservation, the country’s kiwi population is declining at an average of 2% a year, mostly due to predators like stoats, cats, dogs and ferrets.

95% of wild born kiwi in New Zealand are killed before they reach adulthood, according to Save the Kiwi.

Ward expressed optimism about the project, after the release of the 63 kiwi near Wellington last November which marked the first time in about a century that wild kiwi have lived in the area.

Iranian dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi was rearrested in northern Iran on Thursday, less than two weeks after his release from prison, according to his official social media channel.

The rapper had previously been detained for more than a year and held in solitary confinement for most of that time, on charges related to supporting the widespread protest movement in Iran last year.

Local sources and witnesses said that Salehi and his acquaintances were violently arrested while walking down a street in the city of Babol on Thursday. A group of armed men suddenly approached Salehi and his friends and, without identifying themselves, started attacking the group, witnesses said.

The plain-clothed men repeatedly struck the rapper with the ends of their rifles before blindfolding him and taking him into custody, they added.

Salehi, 32, had expressed support online and in his songs for protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who died after being detained by the “morality police” and taken to a “re-education center,” allegedly for not wearing her hijab properly.

When nationwide protests started in mid-September last year, Salehi called for Iranians to protest against the government.

Salehi, who is of Bakhtiari ethnic background, has long rapped about Iran’s multi-ethnic makeup, encouraging unity among Iranians of different backgrounds.

After his arrest in October 2022 at the height of the protests, he was sentenced to six years and three months in prison. But he was released on bail from a prison in Isfahan on November 18, after his attorney filed a successful appeal with Isfahan’s Revolutionary Court, according to Iran’s pro-reform news outlet Shargh Daily.

Shargh reported the attorney had filed a complaint citing Salehi’s treatment in detention, saying that authorities were not providing proper medical care for his client’s broken leg.

The supreme court also took into consideration the general amnesty order announced by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in February when granting the appeal for Salehi’s case.

Salehi recently recorded a video in which he detailed his treatment in prison.

“I was tortured a lot during my detention,” Salehi says in the video, posted on social media. He described how he was repeatedly struck in the head and face, and claimed his fingers were broken as he tried to protect his face from blows.

“It’s not a pleasant thing to explain, but it continued for a long time,” he says.

The Iranian judiciary news agency Mizan said Thursday Salehi was arrested for making false claims publicly on social media without supporting documentation, and on charges of spreading lies and disturbing public opinion.

Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7 left Israel flat-footed, sparking a backlash that is still rippling through the country.

The operation saw at least 1,500 Hamas fighters pour across the border into Israel, in an assault that killed at least 1,200 Israelis, while others are still held hostage by the militant group.

But a report from the New York Times claimed Israel obtained Hamas’ plan for the attack more than a year in advance.

The report says Israeli officials dismissed the plan as aspirational, and deemed it too complex for the group to carry out. Other outlets, including Israeli newspaper Haaretz, have also reported the claim.

Here’s what we know about Israel and the US’ advance knowledge of the attack.

What did Israel reportedly know about the attack?

Israeli officials obtained a document describing Hamas’ battle plan for its October 7 terror attack more than a year before the militant group carried out the assault, the New York Times reported Thursday, citing documents, emails and interviews.

The roughly 40-page document did not give a date for the attack, but outlined “point by point” the kind of deadly incursion that Hamas carried out in Israeli territory in October, according to the Times, which reviewed the translated document.

Israeli military and intelligence officials dismissed the plan, assessing that it would be too difficult for Hamas to carry out, according to the Times.

The document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” detailed an assault that would overwhelm fortifications around the Gaza Strip, take over Israeli cities and target key military bases. It was followed with precision by Hamas on October 7, the Times said.

On that day, Hamas militants struck across the border from Gaza in a coordinated assault in what was the deadliest single-day assault on Israel since the country’s founding in 1948.

What has Israel’s government said about its intelligence?

The attack was widely seen as a major Israeli intelligence failure, with a number of top defense and security officials coming forward in October to take responsibility to some extent for missteps that led to the attacks.

Later that month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received sharp public criticism after he accused security chiefs in a later-deleted social media post of failing to warn him about the impending attack.

“On the contrary, all the defense officials … assessed that Hamas was deterred,” Netanyahu wrote at the time. 

According to the Times, the “Jericho Wall” document was circulated widely among Israeli military and intelligence leaders, but it was unclear whether Netanyahu or other top political leaders saw the document.

What did the US know before the attack?

The US intelligence community produced at least two assessments, based in part on intelligence provided by Israel, warning the Biden administration of an increased risk for Palestinian-Israeli conflict in the weeks ahead of the seismic attack on southern Israel, sources familiar with the intelligence said in the days after October 7.

One update from September 28 warned, based on multiple streams of intelligence, that the terror group Hamas was poised to escalate rocket attacks across the border.

An October 5 wire from the CIA warned generally of the increasing possibility of violence by Hamas.

Then, on October 6, the day before the attack, US officials circulated reporting from Israel indicating unusual activity by Hamas — indications that are now clear: an attack was imminent.

None of the American assessments offered any tactical details or indications of the overwhelming scope, scale and sheer brutality of the operation that Hamas carried out on October 7, sources say. It is unclear if any of these US assessments were shared with Israel, which provides much of the intelligence that the US bases its reports on.

“There are no indicators at this time that the intelligence community was provided the purported ‘Jericho Wall’ document reported last night by the New York Times,” the official said. “The intelligence community will certainly continue to review its information.”

How was Hamas able to hide some of its plans?

During the two years of planning, the small cell operating in the tunnels used the hardwired phone lines to communicate and plan the operation but stayed dark until it was time to activate and call on hundreds of Hamas fighters to launch the October 7 attack, the sources said.

They avoided using computers or cell phones during the two-year period to evade detection by Israeli or US intelligence, the sources said.

The intelligence shared with US officials by Israel reveals how Hamas hid the planning of the operation through old-fashioned counterintelligence measures such as conducting planning meetings in person and staying off digital communications whose signals the Israelis can track in favor of the hardwired phones in the tunnels.

Israel and Hamas continued to negotiate through mediators Friday over the potential release of hostages from Gaza that would prompt another pause in hostilities, sources said, despite the ending of the week-long truce and the resumption of fighting.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said earlier it had “resumed combat operations” and accused Hamas of violating the truce first by firing rockets toward Israeli territory.

A total of 178 people have been killed, with hundreds more wounded, since military operations restarted early Friday, according to a spokesman from Gaza’s Hamas-run Ministry of Health.

But efforts to revive the truce continued, with Israel and Hamas – in consultation with Qatar, the United States and Egypt – actively discussing the release of the rest of the women hostages, according to a source familiar with the discussions.

The IDF said Friday that there are 136 hostages still being held hostage in Gaza, including 17 women and children.

If the remaining civilian women were to be successfully released, the parameters of the negotiations would quickly turn to the release of civilian men as well as both male and female military reservists, two sources said. The negotiating parties believe securing the release of Israeli soldiers will be the most difficult.

The young women still held by Hamas are of particular concern to Israel. In hostage negotiations with Israel on Thursday and in the hours after fighting resumed, Hamas has been insisting that that they did not have any more non-military female hostages to release, claiming that some of the remaining women in their captivity were considered a part of the Israel Defense Forces, the sources said.

The resumption of fighting early Friday morning marked the end of a brittle truce between the warring parties that allowed for the release of 110 Israeli women and children, as well as foreign nationals, who had been taken hostage by Hamas during its October 7 attack, and for the release of about 240 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.

Netanyahu’s office said Hamas “didn’t respect its obligation to release today all the abducted women and launched rockets towards the citizens of Israel.”

Netanyahu said his government remained committed to achieving its war aims, which he said were releasing the hostages, eliminating Hamas and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to Israelis.

The Hamas-controlled Government Media Office in Gaza blamed the international community – and the United States in particular – for the resumption of fighting, saying they bear “responsibility for the crimes of the ‘Israeli’ occupation and the continuation of the brutal war against civilians, children and women in the Gaza Strip.”

With the resumption of fighting came an expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza, which have until now been concentrated in the north. The IDF dropped leaflets in the southern city of Khan Younis on Friday, calling it a “fighting zone” and telling residents to “evacuate immediately.”

Israel repeatedly told residents of northern Gaza to move south of Wadi Gaza – the wetlands that roughly split the territory – for their safety. Khan Younis is located south of that line.

Before the truce began last week, Israel defense minister Yoav Gallant had warned Israel will aim to “dismantle Hamas wherever it is,” which “will include both the north and the south” of Gaza.

The IDF released a new map Friday showing Gaza divided into hundreds of numbered districts showing “evacuation zones” to be used in the “next stage of the war.” It said the map “enables the residents of Gaza to orient themselves and to evacuate from specific places for their safety if required.”

Later Friday, the IDF confirmed it was conducting offensive operations in southern parts of the territory, including Khan Younis and Rafah.

In a video statement, Israel war cabinet member and former Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Israel had “prepared for widening the framework” of its operation in order to bring the remaining hostages home.

Hours before the latest fighting erupted, the United States pressured Israel to shield Palestinian civilians in one of the most significant diplomatic moves yet in the more than 50-day conflict.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken laid out American requirements in private talks in Jerusalem with Netanyahu and his war cabinet. But he also made the Biden administration approach clear in unmistakable language in public.

“I underscored the imperative of the United States that the massive loss of civilian life and displacement of the scale that we saw in northern Gaza not be repeated in the south,” Blinken said in a televised press conference in Tel Aviv.

End of brief respite

Israel had repeatedly stated it would resume its military assault in Gaza if Hamas could not produce 10 hostages for each extra day of pause.  As the 7 a.m. local time deadline (midnight ET) passed, the hostilities resumed almost immediately.

Meanwhile, three additional Israeli hostages have died in Hamas captivity, their kibbutz and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum announced Friday.

They include Arye Zalmanovich, 85, the oldest Israeli held in Hamas captivity, Maya Goren, 56, a mother of four children and Ronen Engel, a resident of Kibbutz Nir Oz whose wife and two children were released this week.

Both Israel and Hamas had indicated earlier they were prepared for fighting to resume. “We should be prepared for a quick transition into full scale fighting at any point, today, tomorrow, at any moment. As soon as we maximize the move to return hostages we will resume fierce fighting across the whole Gaza Strip,” Gallant said Thursday.

Hamas’ armed wing on Thursday also told their forces to “remain on high combat readiness” in the final hours of the truce, the Al-Qassam Brigades said on Telegram.

The hard-negotiated truce, which came into effect on November 24, marked the first major diplomatic breakthrough in the latest conflict which began when Hamas gunmen stormed into Israel on October 7, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing more than 200 hostages, in the deadliest such attack faced by the country since its founding in 1948.

Since October 7, more than 14,800 people, including 6,000 children, have been killed in Gaza after Israel launched attacks from the air and the ground, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the West Bank, using data from Hamas-run health authorities in the Strip.

The brief pause in hostilities allowed for more than 2,700 trucks carrying thousands of tons of desperately needed aid to cross from Egypt into Gaza since October 21, according to an Egyptian official. But even that was completely inadequate to meet the needs of the more than two million people in Gaza, many of whom are displaced, aid agencies said.

Renewed fighting threatens once again to shut off that one supply line into Gaza – where residents were already struggling to find shelter, food and clean water while under constant bombardment from Israeli airstrikes.

Fighting resumes, but negotiations continue

There had been hopes that the truce, originally slated to last just four days, could be extended into an eighth. But negotiators had warned that extending the truce would be mired in logistical and strategic challenges.

Hamas claimed on Thursday it was having trouble locating 10 women and children hostages – a condition that Israel insisted must be met – to extend the truce.

In the seven-day pause in fighting, 86 Israelis and another 24 foreign nationals were released. Another Israeli dual citizen was also freed outside of the agreed-upon deal.

As of Thursday, 240 Palestinians had been freed from Israeli prisons – mainly women and minors. Under the terms of the truce deal, Israel has to free three Palestinians for every Israeli hostage released.

This is a developing story and will be updated.