The recovery of the ozone layer — which sits miles above the Earth and protects the planet from ultraviolet radiation — has been celebrated as one of the world’s greatest environmental achievements. But in a new study published Tuesday, some scientists claim it may not be recovering at all, and that the hole may even be expanding.

The findings are in disagreement with widely accepted assessments of the ozone layer’s status, including a recent UN-backed study that showed it would return to 1980s levels as soon as 2040.

In 1987, several countries agreed to ban or phase down the use of more than 100 ozone-depleting chemicals that had caused a “hole” in the layer above Antarctica. The depletion is mainly attributed to the use of chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs, which were common in aerosol sprays, solvents and refrigerants.

That ban, agreed under the Montreal Protocol, is widely considered to have been effective in aiding the ozone layer’s recovery.

But the hole, which grows over the Antarctic during spring before shrinking again in the summer, reached record sizes in 2020 to 2022, prompting scientists in New Zealand to investigate why.

In a paper, published by Nature Communications, they found that ozone levels have reduced by 26% since 2004 at the core of the hole in the Antarctic springtime.

“This means that the hole has not only remained large in area, but it has also become deeper [i.e. has less ozone] throughout most of Antarctic spring,” said Hannah Kessenich, a PhD Student at the University of Otago and lead author of the study.

“The especially long-lived ozone holes during 2020-2022 fit squarely into this picture, as the size/depth of the hole during October was particularly notable in all three years.”

To reach that conclusion, the scientists analyzed the ozone layer’s behavior from September to November using a satellite instrument. They used historical data to compare that behavior and changing ozone levels, and to measure signs of ozone recovery. They then sought to identify what was driving these changes.

They found that the depletion of ozone and deepening of the hole were a result of changes in the Antarctic polar vortex, a vast swirl of low pressure and very cold air, high above the South Pole.

The study’s authors didn’t go further to explore what was causing those changes, but they acknowledged that many factors could also contribute to ozone depletion, including planet-warming pollution; tiny, airborne particles that are emitted from wildfires and volcanoes; and changes in the solar cycle.

“Altogether, our findings reveal the recent, large ozone holes may not be caused just by CFCs,” Kessenich said. “So, while the Montreal Protocol has been indisputably successful in reducing CFCs over time and preventing environmental catastrophe, the recent persistent Antarctic ozone holes appear to be closely tied to changes in atmospheric dynamics.”

Some scientists are skeptical of the study’s findings, which rely heavily on the holes observed in 2020 to 2022 and use a short period — 19 years — to make conclusions about the long-term health of the ozone layer.

“Existing literature has already found reasons for these large ozone holes: Smoke from the 2019 bushfires and a volcanic eruption (La Soufriere), as well as a general relationship between the polar stratosphere and El Niño Southern Oscillation,” Martin Jucker, a scientist at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales in Australia, told the Science Media Center.

“We know that during La Niña years, the polar vortex in the stratosphere tends to be stronger and colder than usual, which means that ozone concentrations will also be lower during those years. The years 2020-22 have seen a rare triple La Niña, but this relationship is never mentioned in the study.”

He noted the study’s authors said they removed two years in the record — 2002 and 2019 — to ensure that “exceptional events” did not skew their findings.

“Those events have been shown to have strongly decreased the ozone hole size,” he said, “so including those events would probably have nullified any long-term negative trend.”

Bats have long been the odd ones out among mammals.

They are the only creatures in this branch of the animal kingdom capable of powered flight. Now researchers say they have discovered another unique trait, with video revealing that the serotine bat may be the first mammal known to mate without using penetration.

Also known by the scientific name Eptesicus serotinus, serotine bats mate by touching their genitals together. The male bat uses its penis more like an arm to move a protective membrane away from the female bat’s vulva, according to a study published Monday in the journal Current Biology.

Bats have “incredible” reproductive biology that has been difficult to study given the nocturnal and secretive nature of many bat species, said study coauthor Nicolas Fasel, a bat specialist at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland.

“Most of the time you’ll see their backs on the wall, and you don’t see what’s really happening in front,” he said.

However, thanks to the efforts of a Dutch bat enthusiast who set up 18 video cameras in a church in the Netherlands that was home to a roosting colony of serotine bats, Fasel and his colleagues were able to analyze 93 mating events in detail. Video of an additional four mating events involving the same species came from collaborators at a bat rescue and rehabilitation center in Ukraine.

“You can really see the copulation and see that the penis is not going inside,” Fasel said.

The footage showed that half of the recorded mating episodes lasted less than 53 minutes, while on one occasion a pair of bats stayed together in a copulative embrace for more than 12 hours. The behavior is similar to a “cloacal kiss,” a way of mating used by many birds.

What Fasel and his colleagues observed on the videos may solve a long-standing puzzle about the reproductive biology of this species of bat, and others in the same family.

Mismatched genitalia

The male bat’s penis is around seven times longer than its female counterpart’s vagina, and it has a heart-shaped head that is seven times wider than the vaginal opening. These are features that appear to make penetrative sex difficult, if not impossible, Fasel noted.

Teri Orr, an assistant professor and specialist in bat reproductive systems at New Mexico State University, said she was initially “astonished” to see that males may be using their genitalia as a “copulatory arm” and “maybe transferring sperm much as birds do.” Orr was not involved with the study.

“Bats use their uropatagia (tail membranes) in many unique ways such as fishing nets, to catch pups during birth and so forth and thus they are useful in many ways but perhaps an impediment during mating,” Orr said.

“I agree that the male of this species may use his genitalia to navigate the female’s tail but there are some key things to be sorted out,” she added via email. “For one: how is the sperm transferred exactly and for another what is the female doing in this pair?”

The behavior of the serotine bat reported in the paper is “bizarre and unique” if true, said Alan Dixson, a biology professor at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand and the author of the 2021 book “Mammalian Sexuality: The Act of Mating and the Evolution of Reproduction.” However, in his view, the researchers hadn’t provided sufficient evidence to support their unusual claim, added Dixson, who also was not a part of the study.

‘Open question’

Study coauthor Susanne Holtze, a senior scientist at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, acknowledged that they had not been able to definitively prove the transfer of sperm from male to female bats and said that will be a focus of future research.

“It’s a bit of an open question how their semen really gets into the female reproductive tract. It might be that there’s kind of suction involved. We cannot fully answer this mechanism,” she said.

Holtze, who specializes in assisted reproduction in animals, said that the information they uncovered during the study would help with her work to come up with a way to artificially inseminate bats.

“There are more than 1,000 species of bats, and many of them are also endangered, she said. “So far, no sufficient strategy for assisted reproduction has been established.”

Orr, the bat specialist at New Mexico State University, said the study would inform her lab’s work on bat reproduction and whether the unusual reproductive behavior has any implications for understanding human infertility.

“Bats do a lot of extreme things during reproduction from storing sperm to extending the duration of a pregnancy,” she explained.

There are few bat biologists, and most tend to focus on the more obvious yet still fascinating aspects of bat biology such as flight and echolocation, “rather than what the bats are doing ‘behind closed doors,’” Orr said.

Mere moments after SpaceX’s Starship system — the most powerful rocket ever built — was lost in a test flight Saturday, a somewhat complicated narrative around the vehicle began to emerge.

The company immediately described the flight as a huge step in the right direction.

“What we did today will provide invaluable data to continue rapidly developing Starship,” SpaceX said Saturday in a statement. “With a test like this, success comes from what we learn, and today’s test will help us improve Starship’s reliability as SpaceX seeks to make life multiplanetary.”

Yet the loss of another Super Heavy rocket booster and Starship spacecraft highlights just how far they have left to go in the development process, even as significant progress is made. It also raises questions about whether SpaceX can meet some key deadlines on the horizon.

Enabling humans to colonize the cosmos is the ultimate goal for this vehicle: SpaceX intends to use it to send people to the moon, Mars and beyond.

Crucially, the Starship spacecraft is also the vehicle that NASA selected to land US astronauts on the moon for the first time in five decades as part of its Artemis program. The space agency is racing against China to get the job done, vying to become the first to develop a permanent lunar outpost and set the precedent for deep-space settlements.

The first lunar mission that would make use of Starship — Artemis III — is slated for late 2025. In the aftermath of the first failed test flight in April, NASA officials expressed concern that the vehicle wouldn’t be ready in time.

But federal officials reacted favorably to Saturday’s test launch. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson offered SpaceX his congratulations and noted “test is an opportunity to learn — then fly again.”

And to be clear, Starship is still an essential part of NASA’s moon-landing plan. However, there are numerous daunting technological hurdles left to clear before those lunar ambitions becomes reality.

What SpaceX has left to learn

Several key aspects of the second flight test went to plan: When the rocket took off from the SpaceX Starbase launch site in Boca Chica, Texas, just after 8 a.m. ET, it was able to ignite all 33 of its engines and continue firing them as the Super Heavy booster — which gives the initial burst of power at liftoff — burned through most of its fuel.

The Starship spacecraft was then able to ignite its own engines and break away from the Super Heavy rocket booster to continue the mission. And the launchpad that served as the starting point managed to survive the sheer force of a rocket generating up to 16.7 million pounds of thrust (7,590 tonnes of force).

None of those milestones were met during the vehicle’s inaugural integrated test flight in April.

But other important steps originally slated for Saturday’s mission didn’t happen. The Super Heavy booster experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” — or an unintentional explosion — shortly after Starship separated from it. The mishap prevented SpaceX from testing the maneuvers that will be necessary to land and reuse the launch vehicle.

Similarly, the Starship capsule made it roughly 10 minutes into its flight, reaching an altitude considered to be beyond the edge of space — about 93 miles (150 kilometers) above Earth’s surface — but SpaceX was forced to terminate the mission when ground control lost its signal.

The vehicle did not spend as much time in space as the company had hoped, collecting mere moments of flight data rather than the hour-and-a-half’s worth mapped out for the mission. John Insprucker, principal integration engineer at SpaceX, said during the livestream that the company had to trigger Starship’s self-destruct feature after contact with the vehicle was lost.

That meant SpaceX wasn’t able to test out Starship’s landing technique either.

“The hardest part about this — or the part that will take the longest — is solving for safe (Starship) reentry and landing,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk acknowledged in October during the International Astronautical Congress in Baku, Azerbaijian.

Starship and orbital refueling

Being able to recover and rapidly reuse both the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy booster are essential to SpaceX’s long-term goals. Such capabilities would make the rocket system affordable and nimble enough to rapidly conduct all the launches necessary to get the vehicle to the moon.

In order to reach lunar orbit, Starship must be refueled while it’s parked near Earth. That’s because the massive spacecraft won’t have enough propellant left over to traverse the 238,900-mile (384,472-kilometer) void between our home planet and the moon after the initial launch process.

As of now, SpaceX acknowledges it has to launch more than a dozen Starship tankers to refuel one spacecraft destined for the moon, said Wayne Hale — the chair of the NASA Advisory Council’s Human Exploration and Operations Committee — in a Saturday interview. That’s because of the Starship’s immense size: Just getting the vehicle into space requires it to burn through the majority of its fuel. And while Starship can hold up to 3 million (1,500 metric tons) of propellant, the spacecraft itself is only capable of hauling up to 55,000 pounds (250 metric tons) of extra cargo to orbit, according to data published by SpaceX and the FAA.

Starship and the Artemis timeline

With many milestones left to hit, it’s clear that even if the next Starship test flight is wholly successful, a moon landing will remain on the distant horizon.

Musk previously acknowledged in 2020 that he hopes SpaceX will launch “hundreds of missions” with satellites before attempting a flight with crew. SpaceX also must build and test the versions of Starship that will serve as refueling tankers. A lander must be outfitted with life support equipment. And NASA will require Starship to make an uncrewed test landing on the moon before allowing its astronauts on board.

Still, SpaceX emphasized that explosive failures can be integral to its development process, which embraces fiery mishaps in the early stages of designing a rocket in order to learn how to build a better rocket faster than if the company solely relied on ground tests.

Though SpaceX’s failed test flights garner plenty of critics, it does not mean that the company is moving more slowly or costing more money than if NASA had attempted to develop a lunar lander itself.

All told, NASA will pay SpaceX about $4 billion for two lunar landings. (The company has already invested more than $3 billion in developing its South Texas launch facility and the Starship Super Heavy launch system since 2014, according to an FAA court filing dated May 19.)

For comparison, the Space Launch System rocket and Orion spacecraft that NASA developed for the Artemis program have together cost more than $44 billion since 2006, according to data aggregated by the nonprofit Planetary Society. That rocket system had its first flight test last year. Under NASA’s current plans, SLS and Orion would transport astronauts from Earth to lunar orbit, while Starship would complete the final leg of the journey, ferrying them from the Orion spacecraft to the moon’s surface.

But Hale noted that SpaceX doesn’t use the same development approach as NASA. The space agency spends years on careful design and rigorous ground testing — all but guaranteeing success on the first flight. In contrast, SpaceX wants to put early prototypes in the air, accepting that they may explode but will likely provide valuable information for future testing.

“This is a different paradigm,” Hale said of Starship development. “The government — when you’re working with the taxpayers’ dollars — you really want to be careful and make sure you succeed.

“Whereas (SpaceX) is a private company,” Hale added. “Yes, they’re doing this work in support of the government, but their methodology is quite different. And I think you could be successful either way. But, this way certainly has its exciting moments.”

Another lunar lander: Starship vs. Blue Moon

Starship can also be compared with Blue Moon, another lunar lander under development by the Jeff Bezos-owned space company Blue Origin. NASA selected Blue Moon as an alternative lunar lander for future Artemis missions.

NASA expects to pay the company $3.4 billion for a single crewed lunar landing — the Artemis V mission currently slated for 2028 — with Blue Origin investing at least that much of its own money.

Lakiesha Hawkins, the deputy to the deputy associate administrator for NASA’s moon to Mars program, said at its advisory council’s Human Exploration and Operations Committee meeting last week that Blue Origin’s lunar lander won’t necessarily be simpler than SpaceX’s behemoth rocket and spacecraft system.

“Both of those providers have their challenges,” Hawkins said, referring to SpaceX’s Starship and Blue Origin’s Blue Moon lunar lander. “And they are equally — from my perspective — complex.”

Blue Origin declined to comment on where Blue Moon stands in the development process.

The companies are taking very different approaches in their moon landing strategies, but experts say both SpaceX and Blue Origin will be distinct from their predecessor in some key ways.

Why NASA isn’t just repeating Apollo

Hale, the committee chair, said it can be difficult for members of the public to wrap their heads around why all of these projects are costing so much development time and money if NASA already knows how to put humans on the moon.

Why not just repeat the same thing NASA did during the Apollo program?

“People ask what was wrong with Apollo,” Hale said during the committee meeting last week. “The thing that was wrong with Apollo was it ended.”

NASA and SpaceX are aiming to develop vehicles that don’t just go to the moon once. Apollo already accomplished the “flags and footprints” missions, Hale noted.

Now, the space agency is looking to develop rockets and spacecraft that can push exploration further. NASA aims to establish a permanent moon base and eventually reach Mars in a cost-effective manner.

“When you put those sustainable reusability requirements on the program — and the fact that it’s leading on to go to Mars — you do buy into perhaps a more complicated architecture than just repeating Apollo,” Hale said.

And, even as he acknowledged Starship has a long way to go, he added, “I think they made a big step forward.”

What’s next for Starship

Musk has already said the Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft will likely be ready for a third test flight in “3 to 4 weeks,” according to a Sunday post on social media, adding, “There are three ships in final production.”

It’s not clear, however, how long it will take SpaceX engineers to review the data gathered during Saturday’s flight and implement the necessary changes. And Musk is known to publicize unmet deadlines.

Also unclear is whether SpaceX will have the necessary regulatory approvals to launch another test flight in just a few weeks. The Federal Aviation Administration, which licenses commercial rocket launches, indicated its intentions to open a standard mishap investigation into Saturday’s test flight. After the first test flight in April, a similar investigation took over four months to complete.

Once the investigation is closed, the federal agency will then likely need to complete a safety review of SpaceX’s plans for a third launch before it will issue another permit. It’s not clear how long that process might take.

The FAA did not respond to a request for comment.

Israel, Hamas and the US are on the cusp of reaching a deal for Hamas to release 50 women and children hostages taken during the October 7 terror attack on Israel, in exchange for a four-to-five day pause in fighting and three Palestinian prisoners from Israeli prisons for every hostage released, according to sources familiar with the negotiations. The Palestinian prisoners are also expected to be women and adolescents.

Israel’s cabinet convened to consider the proposed deal on Tuesday, in a meeting that stretched into the early hours of Wednesday local time, following meetings of the country’s war cabinet and security cabinet.

“We are making progress. I don’t think it’s worth saying more, even at this moment, but I hope there will be good news soon,” Netanyahu said as he met with reservists on Tuesday.

US officials close to the negotiations have stressed that while the deal is not done, they are increasingly optimistic and believe the many weeks of difficult work is about to pay off with a hostage release.

An agreement would prompt the first sustained pause in fighting and major de-escalatory step from Israel since the war began.

The hostages that Hamas offered for initial release are alive, the group says, according to a source familiar with the talks.

Under the forthcoming agreement, Hamas would also gather up any additional women and children hostages during the period that fighting has paused – something the group has insisted that it cannot do until a sustained ceasefire is in place. The temporary ceasefire would potentially be extended beyond that for more hostages to be released. But Netanyahu has also made it clear that the war would continue after the end of the pause.

Speaking before the cabinet meeting Tuesday, Netanyahu said that Israel’s security agencies support the proposed deal.

“They have made it clear that not only will the war effort not be harmed, it will enable the IDF to prepare for the continuation of the fighting,” he said. Israeli intelligence efforts and the security of IDF troops will be maintained, he also said.

Hamas has demanded hundreds of trucks of aid, much of it fuel, as part of the negotiations. Fuel is key to running its military operations and ventilating the group’s network of underground tunnels in Gaza.

A source familiar with the negotiations said there is hope that with a hostage deal significantly more aid will be allowed into Gaza, with stakeholders working toward a goal of 400 trucks a day.

Weeks of negotiations almost over

The implementation of the agreement would not begin immediately and could take at least a day to start, the person familiar said, in part because there are legal procedures that Israel must follow before releasing any Palestinian prisoners.

The release of the prisoners needs to be approved by the Israeli government but that isn’t expected to be an obstacle, one source said. As cabinet officials met inside the Israeli Defense building to discuss the deal late Tuesday, families of the hostages gathered outside with banners and drums.

But two far-right Israeli parties, which are members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government, did later suggest that they would not support the hostage deal being considered by the government.

The Religious Zionism party, headed by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, said: “The suggested deal is bad and we must not agree to it. It’s bad for Israel’s security, for the hostages and for IDF soldiers,” adding, “The only way to return all the hostages is to continue applying military pressure on Hamas until its complete surrender.” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Jewish Power party also said it would “find it very difficult to support the deal.”

Both parties’ statement suggested they had not yet seen the full terms of the deal.

Diplomatic sources and government officials, including US President Joe Biden, over the last few days have struck a more optimistic tone about the progress of talks. But the various parties involved had also stressed that any agreement could be derailed by Hamas and developments on the ground in Gaza.

On Monday night, Hamas’ leader said in a statement that the sides are “close to reaching a truce agreement.”

The latest momentum comes just one day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the war cabinet met with hostage families.

Israel has said there are more than 200 hostages believed to be held by Hamas in Gaza. After the women and children are released, further negotiations to secure the release of other categories of hostages are likely to commence.

What to expect

Officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross are expected to be involved in the release process, including potentially verifying the identity of the hostages in Gaza and of the prisoners in Israel that are part of the exchange, and transferring them across borders. The Swiss organization has previously served as an intermediary in hostage exchanges, including in the release of two pairs of hostages by Hamas last month.

Gershon Baskin, a well-known Israeli peace activist involved in the 2011 release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit from Hamas custody, said the hostages in Gaza are likely to be moved in Red Cross vehicles to Egypt, where they would be met by Egyptian intelligence. From there they would likely be driven to Israel in ambulances or buses, Gaskin said.

Once in Israel, the hostages will “most likely be provided immediate medical attention,” according to National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby.

“We have to assume that many of them need some sort of medical attention and that they’re being held in abhorrent conditions,” Kirby said.

The president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Mirjana Spoljaric, met on Monday in Qatar with the political leader of Hamas, according to the aid organization.

The ICRC does not take part in negotiations but stands “ready to facilitate any future release that the parties to the conflict agree to,” the organization said.

Senior US officials have been working intensively to secure the release of hostages for several weeks, with the understanding that a handful of American hostages were taken hostage by Hamas. Biden has spoken directly with Netanyahu, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi about the issue.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said Tuesday that Biden has been “personally engaged in moving the process forward” and has been receiving updates from the US team involved in the negotiations “usually multiple times a day and jumping in as he felt appropriate to jump in personally.”

Netanyahu said he had asked Biden to help improve the proposed deal and “indeed, it has been improved to include more hostages and at a lower cost.”

Top Biden officials including national security adviser Jake Sullivan, NSC Middle East coordinator Brett McGurk and CIA Director Bill Burns have been engaged “almost hourly” on the efforts to get the hostages out of Gaza, sources said. McGurk most recently traveled to the Middle East for a multi-country trip aimed in large part at making progress on releasing the hostages.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Tensions are boiling over in Israel as frustrated families of hostages demand answers from the government about the fate of their loved ones and a deal for their release.

“I demand their commitment that everyone is returning home. All the hostages. We must get answers, and a commitment … in a written form,” said Shai Wenkert, who son Omer is being held hostage in Gaza by the militant group Hamas.

Wenkert spoke to media on Monday, before he and other relatives met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet in Tel Aviv.

So far only a handful of families have met with Netanyahu – infuriating hundreds of other relatives of hostages who say the government isn’t doing enough to free them.

But for some, the meeting only deepened their frustration. Udi Goren, whose cousin Tal Chaimi was taken captive, left the meeting early, saying he felt there was no new information on the hostages provided by the war cabinet, including details about a possible deal to release them.

An estimated 239 hostages are being held in Gaza, abducted during Hamas’ bloody October 7 attacks on Israel that killed around 1,200 people, according to the Israeli military – the largest such attack on Israel since the country’s founding in 1948.

Just a handful of hostages have been released so far. On October 20, two Americans – Judith Tai Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter Natalie Raanan – were freed on humanitarian grounds following negotiations between Qatar and Hamas.

Soon after, two Israeli women, Nurit Cooper and Yocheved Lifshitz, were also released.

Lifshitz said she “went through hell,” describing being snatched from her home, driven off on a motorbike before being taken to a network of tunnels.

Israel responded to the October 7 attacks by declaring war on Hamas and imposing a blockade of Gaza, plunging the strip into a dire humanitarian crisis. Around 12,700 Palestinians have died since the war began, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in the West Bank, which draws its data from Hamas-run health authorities in the Strip.

And while there is still overwhelming support in Israel for the war on Hamas, there is growing criticism of Netanyahu and his administration, who many blame for failing to anticipate the October 7 attack, and for the lack of progress in hostage releases.

Earlier on Monday, public anger spilled over during a committee meeting in the Israeli parliament, with family members of hostages clashing with National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and other far-right government figures.

Ben-Gvir, a divisive figure in Israeli politics who wants Israel to annex the Palestinian territories, is promoting legislation that would see the death penalty handed down to terrorists.

But many hostage families accuse Ben-Gvir of endangering their loved ones further, arguing that Hamas could be less willing to release hostages if there is suggestion that Israel might execute Palestinian prisoners.

In the parliament meeting, family members held pictures of their loved ones and vented their frustrations aloud. “Bring them home!” chanted Gil Dickmann, whose cousin is being held in Gaza.

“Maybe instead of talking about the dead, talk about the living. Stop talking about killing Arabs. Talk about saving Jews. This is your job!” shouted Hen Avigdori, whose wife and daughter were taken on October 7.

Almog Cohen, a colleague of Ben-Gvir in the Jewish Power party, fired back at family members. “You don’t have a monopoly on pain. We also buried more than 50 friends,” Cohen said.

Ben-Gvir’s proposed legislation is making its way through parliament. It still has several stages to pass before becoming law and could yet be withdrawn.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement on Telegram that the group was “close to reaching a truce agreement” with Israel, following weeks of negotiations between the United States, Israel and Hamas, mediated by Gulf state Qatar.

The statement came after Hamas had delivered a response to mediators in Qatar. “The movement delivered its response to the brothers in Qatar and the mediators, and we are close to reaching a truce agreement,” Haniyeh said.

Haniyeh did not provide additional details about the potential agreement.

Netanyahu has repeatedly expressed two goals of the war – the release of all hostages, and the destruction of Hamas. Israel has rejected international calls for any ceasefire without the return of hostages.

It can take years to fully train an F-16 fighter pilot. “Moonfish” – a Ukrainian military aviator – has about six months.

“The F-16 is a Swiss Army knife,” said Moonfish, who asked to be identified by his call sign for reasons of operational security. “It’s a very good weapon that can carry out any mission.”

The F-16 can provide air cover for troops, attack ground targets, take on enemy planes and intercept missiles.

But Ukraine’s ongoing war with Russia means the training has to be compressed, Moonfish said.

“We would have had a lot of time to study the jet completely in peacetime, but we do not have the time,” he said, adding there’s enough to master the basic capabilities that Ukraine needs.

In August, after months of lobbying by Kyiv, the US committed to approving the transfer of fourth-generation fighter jets to Ukraine. But Kyiv doesn’t expect to receive the planes until early next year, and pilots and ground crews need to complete formal training to operate the jets.

More than 20 months after its full-scale invasion, Russia maintains air superiority over Ukraine. And Ukrainian troops have been fighting – and dying – in a grinding counteroffensive without the kind of air support its leaders say they need.

“Even assuming the war ends tomorrow, we all understand it will be just a waiting period for the next round,” Moonfish said. “We must build proper air power with Western jets and effectively trained staff. This will be the biggest deterrent – so that 24 February [the full-scale invasion by Russia last year] doesn’t happen again.”

Yurii Ihnat, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force Command, says that six months is enough to train pilots to support troops on the ground and help gain air superiority against Russia.

Ukraine also needs the new fighters to help tackle another set of threats: Russian missiles and drones. Last winter, Moscow waged an extensive campaign to cripple Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, targeting generating facilities and forcing electricity shutdowns. As winter closes in, concerns remain high that Russian missiles and drones will wreak havoc again.

“We desperately need additional air-defense systems – short-, medium- and long-range, as well as modern aircraft – to protect the country and achieve air superiority over the occupied territories,” Oleshchuk said.

Ukraine’s inventory of Soviet-era jets is aging, with some of the Air Force’s aircraft in service about twice as old as their pilots.

“We still keep these jets in good condition, but we need to understand that missions [flown by] our pilots in Soviet equipment are deadly,” Oleshchuk said. “And we are losing the best of them.”

“For the infantry, these aircraft are extremely important, first and foremost, in offensive operations and advances,” he said. “The jets will allow us to gain dominance in the air and support the infantry that move forward. An F-16 can hit enemy ground targets and destroy or disrupt enemy logistics.”

Moonfish, previously the commander of a squadron of Soviet-designed MiG-29 fighters, said he had moved out of the simulator and into the cockpit of the real aircraft. It’s taking some getting used to, he said.

“The cockpit is quite cramped,” he said.

Ergonomics aside, the Ukrainian pilot said the aircraft was more sophisticated in terms of avionics and very simple in terms of control and interface.

“[The] F-16 is very maneuverable. It encourages you to pilot in an aggressive style,” he said.

Moonfish said that if the F-16s were in Ukraine right now, one of the main tasks would be repelling waves of Russian drone and missile attacks.

“The software [on the F-16] is constantly being improved,” he said. “At the same time, the software [systems] on [Soviet-designed] MiG-29 and Su-27 are still from the late 1980s, when these planes were being developed. That period, drones existed only in science fiction books. I mean that, at the time, no one considered drones to be a serious threat that could be destroyed by fighter aircraft.”

Some of the main selection criteria for training on the long-awaited jets were English language proficiency, experience and age. Because of the ongoing war, the program is intensive.

Flying F-16s has been a longstanding dream for Moonfish, but it was also a dream of his good friend and comrade Andriy Pilshchikov, a legendary Ukrainian pilot who went by the call sign “Juice.”

Pilshchikov, who had helped lobby for the US to transfer F-16s to Ukraine, died in a plane crash during a combat mission in August.

Moonfish was abroad when he found out about his friend’s death. He couldn’t attend the funeral or say goodbye but says he continues the F-16 training for the sake of Pilshchikov as well as for his comrades.

“Andriy was the ‘ideas man’ and the main driving force behind it all,” Moonfish said. “And I feel responsible to him for ensuring these planes arrive.”

As a red alert alarm sounded in the busy hotel dining hall, many of the children scattered in fear, as the horrors of the Hamas massacre on October 7 came flooding back.

Thousands of families who survived the attacks on the Israeli collective communities known as kibbutzim are now homeless and sheltering in hotels along the beaches of the Red Sea resort town of Eilat. But even now, they face a new threat from a different militant group, the Iran-backed Houthis.

“Everyone thought that Eilat, southern tip of Israel, would be safe from attacks,” said Jonathan Dekel-Chen, 60, a resident of the Nir Oz kibbutz. “We have had to endure several alerts and some impacts from missiles and attack drones coming from the Houthis in Yemen.”

In recent weeks, the Houthis have claimed several missile and drone attacks against Israel and warned further strikes would come. Israeli jets and its Arrow defense system have been deployed to counter missiles and other “aerial threats” in the Red Sea area.

One alarm sounded in Eilat on November 9 when a suicide drone landed on a school a few miles from the hotel, although thankfully there were no children in the building at the time. While the Houthis claimed responsibility for that attack, Israel later said the drone had come from Syria and struck a site there in response.

“It’s been absolutely awful,” said Dekel-Chen of the repeated alerts. “All of the kids from a very young age, up to and including teenagers, (you) could see the absolute terror in their eyes, because it just transported them back to that absolute visceral fear of death that they experienced.”

As they face this continued threat, the displaced residents are also burying their dead, and campaigning to have their loved ones released from captivity in Gaza.

Dekel-Chen’s 35-year-old son Sagui disappeared on October 7, and the family believes he was kidnapped by Hamas.

“It’s excruciating,” Dekel-Chen said. “We don’t know if he’s healthy, or wounded. We know nothing… Hope is hard to come by right now.”

Dekel-Chen is now helping to care for his two granddaughters and his pregnant daughter-in-law, who is due to have a third child within the next few weeks.

Following the October 7 attacks, Israel declared war on Hamas and it has been pounding Gaza with missiles from the air, land and sea, along with a ground offensive which began in late October. Israel says it is targeting the Hamas leadership and network of subterranean tunnels, but the impact on the Palestinian civilian population has been catastrophic, with more than 12,000 killed and at least 30,000 injured and many hospitals unable to function due to a fuel blockade.

The worsening humanitarian disaster has caused a global outcry and calls for a pause in fighting, but Israel has insisted that there will be “no ceasefire” without the release of the more than 200 hostages held by Hamas.

Hotel of horrors

In Eilat, around 160 survivors from Nir Oz are now living in the Isrotel Yam Suf, a hotel which overlooks the beach and the rust-colored mountains of Jordan just a few miles across the narrow Gulf of Aqaba.

But the beauty and tranquillity of this location is shattered by the tales of terror from those living inside. More than a quarter of the community of 400 people in Nir Oz were either killed or kidnapped, residents say, making it one of the worst affected kibbutzim.

And 12-year-old Uri Barr doesn’t have enough fingers to count the number of his friends who were taken.

“Wow, there is a lot,” Uri said, eyes widening, as he worked out that his family knows at least 20 people who were kidnapped, 12 of them children.

Uri and his youngest brother, 8-year-old Noam, and their parents all barricaded themselves into the safe room of their house for six hours in silence, as hundreds of Hamas militants went from house to house, murdering the residents and burning their houses.

“We heard them breaking into our house and smashing it up, trying to open our safety room door,” Yonathan said. “They were shooting at houses. RPG on houses, grenades on civilians.”

The Barr family were lucky to have a safe room which locked from the inside. Most of the residents didn’t, as the shelters were designed for protection from Hamas rockets.

Uri’s main concern during those long hours trapped in the room was for his other little brother, 10-year-old Yoav, who had been at a friend’s house on a sleepover the night before.

“It was terrible,” Yonathan said. “(Uri) was crying in the safe room because of that.”

The family with whom Yoav was staying also survived in their safe room, and the Barrs were reunited later that day, after the Israeli military arrived.

“I collapsed, I broke down that moment,” Yonathan said. “(Uri) said it was the first time he saw me cry.”

Now Uri’s main worry is for his close friend Eitan, who was taken hostage by Hamas.

“He is a very good friend and we (were) playing soccer in the kibbutz,” Uri said, adding that he plans to “hug him” if he escapes from captivity.

Uri tries to take his mind off his missing friends by taking part in sports and playing in the water. He’s old enough to be accustomed to hearing the missile alerts, but said some of the younger children panic when they hear the warnings.

Nir Adar, a 35-year-old from Nir Oz, said he tries to stay relaxed when the alarms go off, in the hope that his two young daughters understand that they are safe.

“They see all the people around running and afraid, so this is what’s really affecting them,” Adar said.

Adar and his daughters, 6-year-old Noga and 4-year-old Rani, survived October 7 by hiding in their safe room. The door did not have a lock, so he pulled the handle shut with all of his strength, he said.

“The terrorists came to my house, breaking the door and shooting around 10 bullets at the door of the safe room, which at the same time I was holding,” Adar said, adding that the bullets luckily did not penetrate the door.

The community’s WhatsApp group chain from that day, now posted online, shows the abject terror the residents were experiencing, minute-by-minute.

As Adar sent panicked messages and watched his phone battery drain down, he told his daughters fairy tales and pretended that a tree had fallen on the house to explain why they were trapped.

“(My daughter) asked me if this is soldiers in our house, so I said yeah, this is soldiers and they (are) keeping us safe,” he said. “I tried to create them an alternative reality.”

When they finally emerged from his home in the late afternoon, Adar realized that his brother’s house – just 20 meters away – had been set ablaze.

His brother, 38-year-old Tamir, was kidnapped by Hamas, while his wife and children escaped capture. But Adar fears that even if Tamir has survived to this point, he’ll now never get out.

“I’m afraid that the men will stay left behind,” he said, partly because the negotiations for hostage release are currently focused on women and children.

Adar said his brother’s children are struggling to cope without their dad. “It’s very hard for them, especially at night,” Adar said. “They’re crying a lot there. They miss him.”

Adar has also learned that his 85-year-old grandmother was kidnapped by Hamas. “She’s sick, she needs medicines,” Adar said. “I’m not sure if she will be able to survive.

‘We were abandoned’

Before October 7, Nir Oz was “a kind of garden of Eden in the middle of the desert, thriving community, multigenerational, and what’s left after the Hamas attack is a smoking hole,” Dekel-Chen said.

The kibbutz is now largely deserted, apart from a handful of locals who have been managing the site by retrieving valuables and possessions, boarding up houses, and ensuring that damaged water pipes and electricity cables are made safe.

As anger grows among Israelis about the failures of their government, Connecticut-born Dekel-Chen flew to the United States last week, to attend a march in the capital and meet with White House officials, including National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, to advocate on behalf of the families of the hostages.

“As a country (this) will take us generations to really work through, not just because of the monumental failures of our government and army as well on that day, but just the ripple effects of the damage done,” Dekel-Chen said.

“We were abandoned at our moment of need.”

“I don’t think we can go back to Nir Oz because what we’ve been through is horror,” Yonathan Barr said. “All the security and safety that we felt in our home is gone. And I won’t do it again to my children.”

“The country should protect the civilians and if they can’t do it, (the) deal is broken between the citizens and the state,” Adar said. “How can you live here if you’re not safe?”

As they work out their next steps, the families hope that staying together as a community in Eilat will help the grieving process.

“Children are resilient, if surrounded by love,” Dekel-Chen said. “(But) most of them are terrified to be more than a meter or two from their parents,” he added, and they are “incredibly fearful of any sound that isn’t normal, or any person that they don’t know.”

The families are receiving psychological therapy and the children are attending a kids’ club, but they haven’t been in school for a month – and their uncertain future is unsettling the whole community.

The key focus for the families now is to grieve their loved ones, and to bring back the hostages.

“The main idea is that we want our people to come back,” Yonathan said. “It’s like we need them, (for) us to be whole again.”

Russia has put a Ukrainian singer who won the Eurovision Song Contest in 2016 on a wanted criminal list, according to state media.

Jamala, whose full name is Susana Jamaladynova, is “on the wanted list for criminal charges,” Russian state media outlet TASS reported on Monday.

TASS cited the search database of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs, which reportedly said that the performer is referenced “under an article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.”

However, the database did not specify which article it was referring to, according to TASS.

Law enforcement agencies told TASS that it “may be related to the case of disseminating fake news about the Russian army.”

The outlet also reported that Jamala was added to a list of Ukrainian artists who are banned from entering Russia for 50 years in April 2022.

In 2016, she won the hugely popular Eurovision Song Contest with a somber, controversial tune that evokes Moscow’s deportation of members of her Crimean Tatar ethnic group during World War II.

Jamala said that she wrote the song because she was inspired by a story her great-grandmother told her about the deportation of her family and others in Crimea.

The performance of the song, called “1944,” was considered a strong rebuke to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2014 military push into Ukraine, when Russia annexed Crimea, according to European media reports.

Russian state media called it anti-Russian and Moscow said it violated Eurovision rules.

In 2022, Ukraine won Eurovision again thanks to folk-rap group Kalush Orchestra’s song “Stefania,” which was written about the frontman’s mother.

The country surfed a wave of goodwill from European nations to clinch its third contest win, beating out competition from main rivals the United Kingdom and Spain at the competition held in the Italian city of Turin.

While the winning nation normally hosts the following year’s contest, Ukraine was unable to do so due to the Russian full-scale invasion.

The UK, the second-placed nation, stepped in, and Liverpool triumphed over bids from other British cities to stage the contest in May.

Sweden’s Loreen won the 2023 event, becoming just the second performer to win the competition more than once, clinching victory with pop ballad “Tattoo.”

Twenty-eight premature babies arrived in Egypt in a convoy of ambulances from Gaza on Monday, according to an Egyptian government official, after the infants were evacuated from Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza.

Four mothers and six nurses accompanied the babies, who will be sent to two separate hospitals in Egypt for treatment, the government source said.

Two of the babies stayed at the Emirati’s ICU unit – with one infant said to be in good health – and a third baby did not transfer to Egypt as his parents are currently in northern Gaza. The other 28 will be treated at the Al-Arish Hospital in Sinai and the New Capital Hospital in Cairo.

“We have been waiting for them during the past few days. We have made all the preparations to receive the newborn babies with all the medical equipment needed for that,” a doctor at Al-Arish, named Ahmad, told Egyptian state broadcaster Al Qahera Monday, adding some of the babies are in need of “more advanced medical measures.”

A mother of one of the premature babies transferred to a hospital in Egypt said it was the “best place on earth” for her daughter to be. She told Egyptian state run pool that after a “difficult birth” on September 28, her daughter had been placed in an incubator in Al-Shifa.

“On the seventh of October, I was supposed to go and see my daughter. She was reliant on artificial respiration. Then they asked us to leave our house, then they bombed our house. So I went to Al Shifa Hospital. It never occurred to us that the hospital would be targeted and that those children would have to go through what they went through,” Lubna El-Seik said Monday.

After Israel announced a “precise and targeted” operation in Al-Shifa and fighting began in the hospital complex, Al Seik said her daughter’s condition deteriorated. “She relied solely on artificial oxygen,” she said.

Citing doctors at the Rafah hospital, the World Health Organization said earlier the babies were fighting serious infections and 11 were in “critical condition,” due to a lack of medical supplies at Al-Shifa.

UNICEF, which worked with UN agencies and PCRS to carry out the evacuation, warned Sunday that the babies’ condition was “rapidly deteriorating.” It said the evacuation took place in “extremely dangerous conditions” and followed the “tragic death of several other babies, and total collapse of all medical services at Al-Shifa.”

Al-Shifa, the largest hospital in Gaza, has become a flashpoint in Israel’s war in the besieged enclave. The Israeli military alleges the facility is being used by Hamas as a shield for its operations and raided the hospital last Wednesday. Hamas and hospital officials have denied Israel’s claims.

For days, relentless bombardment near the hospital trapped thousands of staff, patients and civilians sheltering inside, prompting public outcry, fueled by the details of the plight of newborn babies fighting for their lives.

The WHO described Al-Shifa as a “death zone” with corridors “filled with medical and solid waste,” after a United Nations team visited the hospital for an hour on Saturday to assess the deteriorating humanitarian situation.

Palestinian authorities said several newborns have died due to power outages and a shortage of medical supplies; hospital staff described having to move babies by hand from incubators after running out of fuel and wrapping them in foil to keep them warm.

Under growing pressure to provide evidence for its claim that Hamas is using Al-Shifa for military purposes, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Sunday released CCTV videos and still images it says show Hamas fighters bringing hostages into Al-Shifa on October 7, when Hamas launched its attack on southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking some 240 people into Gaza as hostages.

Dr. Ahmed Mokhallalati, the head of the hospital’s burns unit, accused Israeli forces of pushing around staff, questioning them about Hamas and restricting staff movements after the raid last week.

“The common question (staff keep being asked): Do you know anything about the Hamas groups? Do you know anything about the tunnels within the hospital?” the doctor said.

Egyptian health workers were photographed on Monday standing beside ambulances and incubators, waiting for the babies to arrive at the Rafah border, which has been used to bring in limited aid and evacuate foreign nationals.

It was hoped that the parents of the newborns would be able to travel to safety with their children, but the WHO said very few of the infants were accompanied by family members.

Gazan officials had “limited information” and were not able to find close family members, the WHO said.

One father, Ali Sbeiti, was reunited with his young son Anas, who was born three days before the war began.

The intense fighting between Israel and Hamas, and a communications blackout across the enclave due to a lack of fuel, has complicated aid delivery efforts and made it more difficult for Palestinians to reach relief services.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Sunday further missions were being planned to evacuate the remaining patients and staff from Al-Shifa, “pending guarantees of safe passage by parties to the conflict.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Javier Milei won Argentina’s presidential elections on Sunday, wrenching his country to the right with a bombastic anti-establishment campaign that drew comparisons to that of former US President Donald Trump – all against the backdrop of one of the world’s highest inflation rates.

His rival Sergio Massa conceded the run-off vote on Sunday evening in a brief speech even before official results were announced. “Milei is the president elected for the next 4 years,” said Massa, adding that he had already called Milei to congratulate him.

Following his election victory, Milei told a local radio station that he will visit the US and Israel before his inauguration in December.

His trip to the US will have “a spiritual connotation” since he is aiming to visit his “rabbi friends,” he said.

When asked about his schedule, Milei said that he would take a plane to the United States and then go to Tel Aviv, via New York, in the next few days.

“We discussed this yesterday with the Israeli Ambassador in Argentina,” he said, adding that he intends to visit the Organization of American States (OAS) during his time in the US.

Milei’s victory marks an extraordinary rise for the former TV pundit, who entered the race as a political outsider on a promise to “break up with the status quo” – exemplified by his rival Sergio Massa, a career politician.

His campaign promise to dollarize Argentina, if enacted, is expected to thrust the country into new territory: no country of Argentina’s size has previously turned over the reins of its own monetary policy to Washington decisionmakers.

Shortly after the results were announced, Milei was greeted by cheers and thunderous applause from his supporters as he took to the stage and gave a fiery speech, pledging to take the country into a new political era.

“Today we turn the page on our history and we return to the path that we should never have lost,” Milei said. “Today we retake the path that made this country great.”

Milei, a social conservative with ties to the American right, opposes abortion rights and has called climate change a “lie of socialism.” He has promised to slash government spending by closing Argentina’s ministries of culture, education, and diversity, and by eliminating public subsidies.

“Make Argentina great again!” Trump posted on his platform Truth Social Sunday, in reaction to Milei’s win. “I am very proud of you,” he wrote.

Similarities to Trump have not gone unnoticed in the United States as it prepares for its own presidential elections. Milei succeeded in attracting attention at home not only because of his political style – including wielding chainsaws and raging outbursts – but also because of the novelty of his positions and eagerness to upset the status quo.

Echoing the Trumpian slogan, ‘Drain the swamp’, Milei’s supporters shout “¡¡Qué se vayan todos!!” which translates as “May they all leave!” – an expression of fury at politicians from both sides of the spectrum. Argentina’s left is currently in government, following rule by the right from 2015 to 2019.

Outside of his controversial plan for dollarization, Milei’s political program includes slashing regulations on gun control and transferring authority over the penitentiary system from civilians to the military; both measures part of a tough-on-crime approach. He proposes using public funds to support families who choose to educate their children privately and even privatizing the health sector, which in Argentina has always been in public hands.

Several outspoken comments landed Milei in hot water, without deterring his most ardent supporters. He triggered an uproar when it appeared Milei was in favor of opening a market for organ transplants, although he later retracted his declarations. He was similarly forced to apologize after calling Pope Francis, who is from Argentina and is seen as an icon of progressive politics in South America, “an envoy of Satan” in 2017.

Milei’s unexpected political ascent will be closely scrutinized around the world as a potential sign of a resurgence of far-right populism in the region. Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro endorsed Milei’s candidacy, while leftist leaders in the region – including current Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Colombia’s Gustavo Petro – abandoned a tradition of non-intervention to back Massa in the election run-up.

Public opinion polls had shown the two candidates neck-and-neck in recent weeks.

The candidacy of Massa, a lifelong politician, came to represent Argentina’s political establishment over the course of the race against Milei. Inflation reached painful heights during his tenture as economy minister, at 142% year on year, but Massa argued that the current government’s actions were working to temper the pain – an argument that failed to convince voters exhausted by a cost-of-living crisis.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.