Even in the darkness, the utter devastation in northern Gaza is clear as day. The empty shells of buildings, illuminated by the last shreds of light, lurch out of the landscape on the dirt roads across the Gaza Strip. At night, the only signs of life are the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) vehicles that rumble the landscape, tightening the military’s grip on the northern sector.

On Saturday night, we traveled with the IDF into Gaza to see the newly exposed tunnel shaft discovered at the compound of Al-Shifa Hospital, the enclave’s largest medical facility.

After crossing the border fence at around 9:00 in the evening, our convoy of Humvees turned off its lights, relying on night vision goggles to traverse the Gaza Strip. We would spend the next six hours inside Gaza, much of that time spent getting back and forth from the tunnel shaft.

Along our path, virtually every building bore the scars of wartime damage. Many structures were destroyed entirely, while others were hardly recognizable as anything more than twisted metal. If there was life here, it had long since departed. Residents had either moved south or been killed during six weeks of war.

Our first stop was a location on the beach where the IDF had set up a staging area. From there, we moved into armored personnel carriers with several other reporters for the last kilometer to the hospital. The only view outside came through a night-vision screen. But even in black and white, the level of destruction was shocking.

Inside Gaza City, the skeletal remains of apartment towers and high-rise buildings packed the otherwise vacant city streets. Even if we could speak to Palestinians while embedded with the IDF, there was no one around to talk to.

As we stepped out of the armored vehicle, we were enveloped by utter darkness. We were only allowed to use our red lights to navigate to a nearby building, where we waited until Israeli forces already on the ground secured the area. The tunnel shaft was very close by, but it was entirely exposed.

The commander in charge of our group, Lt. Col. Tom said this tunnel is significantly larger than others he had seen before. “This is a big tunnel,” he said. “I have encountered tunnels — in 2014 in [Operation] Protective Edge, I was a company commander — and this tunnel is an order of magnitude bigger than a standard tunnel.”

We had expected to hear fighting once we entered Gaza City itself. Instead, we heard almost complete silence. Only once during our roughly 45 minutes at the hospital did we hear the distant sound of small arms fire, and it was impossible to tell how far away it was in the midst of an urban environment. The rest of the time, the silence made the darkness feel even more oppressive.

It was nearing midnight as we walked the last few feet to the exposed tunnel shaft. The IDF had promised “concrete evidence” that Hamas was using the hospital complex above ground as cover for what it called terror infrastructure underneath, including a command and control hub.

The discovery of the tunnel shaft the next day was more compelling, showing an entrance to something underground. But even then, it was unclear what it was or how far down it went. This is what everyone has been trying to understand.

Standing on the edge of the tunnel shaft, it was apparent that the structure itself was substantial. At the top, the remains of a ladder hung over the lip of the opening. In the center of the round shaft, a center pole looked like a hub for a spiral staircase. The shaft itself extended down farther than we could see, especially in the meager light of our headlamps.

Video released by the IDF from inside the shaft showed what we could not see from the top of the opening. The video shows a spiral staircase leading down into a concrete tunnel. The IDF said the tunnel shaft extends downwards approximately 10 meters and the tunnel runs for 55 meters. At its end stands a metal door with a small window.

“We need to demolish the underground facility that we found,” said IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. “I think the leadership of Hamas is in great pressure because we found this facility, and we are now going to demolish it. It’s going to take us time. We’re going to do it safely, but we’re going to do it.”

It is arguably the most compelling evidence thus far that the IDF has offered that there may be a network of tunnels below the hospital. It does not establish without a doubt that there is a command center under Gaza’s largest hospital, but it is clear that there is a tunnel down below. Seeing what connects to that tunnel is absolutely critical.

For Israel, the stakes could not be higher. Israel has publicly asserted for weeks, if not years, that Hamas has built terror infrastructure below the hospital. The ability to continue to prosecute the war in the face of mounting international criticism depends to a large extent on Israel being able to prove this point.

As is so rarely the case in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this answer truly is black and white. Either there is an underground series of tunnels below the hospital. Or there is not.

Clarification: The headline on this story has been updated to reflect that the tunnel shaft was discovered on the grounds of the Al-Shifa hospital complex. 

An Italian court has sentenced more than 200 crime gang members to a total of 2,200 years in prison, following the country’s largest mafia trial in three decades.

During the trial, which began in January 2021 and took place in a purpose-built bunker in the southern Italian town of Lamezia Terme, more than 400 lawyers represented the defendants and some 900 witnesses provided testimony.

A panel of three judges, who had been deliberating the fate of the 338 accused since the trial ended on October 16, delivered their verdict Monday. It took the court one hour and 40 minutes to hand down its rulings, Italian news outlet Ansa reported.

Some 207 mobsters were jailed and more than 100 were acquitted. The total jail time includes five life sentences and three 30-year sentences.

Among those tried were 42 women – a record for a mafia trial – of whom 39 were convicted.

Many of the defendants had colorful nicknames – including “The Wolf,” “Fatso,” “Sweetie” and “Lamb Thigh” – that were caught on some 24,000 wiretaps, according to the testimonies presented during the trial.

The mobsters were affiliated with Italy’s notorious ’Nrangheta crime group and were convicted of mafia association, extortion, bribery and five murders.

The trial was referred to as the Rinascita Scott, named after the United States special agent Scott W. Sieben, who was credited with uncovering ties between Colombia’s cartels and the ’Nrangheta.

Based in the southern Italian region of Calabria, the ‘Ndrangheta is considered to be the most powerful mafia group in the country, and one of the most powerful criminal enterprises in the world, with thousands of members of members and affiliates globally, according to the Italian DIA (Anti-Mafia Directorate). It has a monopoly on European drug trafficking, according to Europol.

The three judges had been living under police protection during the trial, which lasted two years and 10 months.

The James Webb Space Telescope has looked into the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, unveiling new features and mysteries within the chaotic region that could help astronomers unravel more details about the early universe.

The space observatory’s ability to view the universe in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye, captured never-before-seen details in the image, released by NASA on Monday.

Astronomers used Webb to glimpse Sagittarius C, or Sgr C, an active region of star formation located about 300 light-years from the galaxy’s central supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. A light-year, equivalent to 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers), is how far a beam of light travels in one year.

“The image from Webb is stunning, and the science we will get from it is even better,” said Samuel Crowe, principal investigator of the observations and an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, in a statement. “Massive stars are factories that produce heavy elements in their nuclear cores, so understanding them better is like learning the origin story of much of the universe.”

Studying the Milky Way’s center with Webb could provide insights into how many stars form there and whether massive stars are more likely to form near the galactic center rather than the galaxy’s spiral arms.

“There’s never been any infrared data on this region with the level of resolution and sensitivity we get with Webb, so we are seeing lots of features here for the first time,” Crowe said. “Webb reveals an incredible amount of detail, allowing us to study star formation in this sort of environment in a way that wasn’t possible previously.”

Young stars and dynamic emissions

There are an estimated 500,000 stars glittering within the image, all ranging in size and age. Among them are a cluster of protostars, or dense masses of dust and gas that are still developing and growing into full-fledged stars — including a massive protostar at the cluster’s center that has more than 30 times the mass of the sun.

The protostars are releasing glowing material, creating balls of light that emerge from the formation, which appears dramatically dark in infrared light.

“The galactic center is the most extreme environment in our Milky Way galaxy, where current theories of star formation can be put to their most rigorous test,” said Jonathan Tan, research professor of astronomy and one of Crowe’s advisers at the University of Virginia, in a statement.

Additionally, the observatory’s Near-Infrared Camera spotted ionized hydrogen emissions surrounding the stellar region’s lower edge, depicted in cyan in the image.

Astronomers are still trying to determine what has created the vast amount of energized gas, which surpasses what would normally be released by young massive stars. The observation team is also intrigued by structures that look like needles within the ionized hydrogen that are arrayed without any order.

“The galactic center is a crowded, tumultuous place. There are turbulent, magnetized gas clouds that are forming stars, which then impact the surrounding gas with their outflowing winds, jets, and radiation,” said Rubén Fedriani, coinvestigator of the project and a postdoctoral research fellow at the Instituto Astrofísica de Andalucía in Spain, in a statement. “Webb has provided us with a ton of data on this extreme environment, and we are just starting to dig into it.”

Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, has become a flashpoint in Israel’s war against Hamas, which began when gunmen from the militant group crossed the border into Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people.

Palestinians and humanitarian agencies say the current fighting in and around Al-Shifa is proof of Israel’s wanton disregard for civilian life in Gaza, while Israel accuses Hamas of using the medical center as a shield for its operations. On top of providing medical care, the Al-Shifa Hospital had recently become a key shelter for thousands of Palestinian civilians fleeing Israeli bombardment.

Since launching its operation at the hospital on November 15, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have shown images of a tunnel shaft and military equipment, but have yet to show conclusive proof of the large-scale command and control center it alleges is there.

Hamas, the Gaza Health Ministry and hospital officials have denied Israel’s claims, saying that hospitals in the Strip have only been used to treat patients. Doctors in Al-Shifa have also sounded the alarm about deteriorating conditions inside the medical facility, which is struggling to meet patients’ needs amid supply shortages and the presence of Israeli troops.

The IDF is now under pressure to prove Israel’s long-standing assertion with its promise of “concrete evidence.” Its ability to continue its operation in Gaza, and the credibility of Israel, could be at stake as the number killed in Gaza surpasses 12,000, according to authorities in the Hamas-controlled Strip.

Here’s what we know so far.

What does Israel say?

For weeks, the IDF said Hamas has been using Gaza’s largest hospital as cover for what it calls terror infrastructure below ground. IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari said Hamas had a command and control center or headquarters underneath the hospital complex grounds, which other senior Israeli officials have also insisted on.

In a presentation to the media last month, Hagari claimed that Hamas was directing rocket attacks and commanding operations from bunkers underneath the hospital building, which he said were linked to a network of tunnels that Hamas had dug underneath Gaza City.

The IDF also published an “intelligence-based” illustrated video of what it claims the Hamas headquarters under Al-Shifa looks like. The video shows a 3D diagram of the hospital, which moves to show an animated network of purported tunnels and operation rooms.

The White House has backed Israel’s claims, saying that Hamas was storing weapons and operating a command node from Al-Shifa, citing US intelligence. But senior US officials have declined multiple times to expand on how they can corroborate Israel’s claims, as the US does not have a presence on the ground in Gaza.

What evidence has Israel provided?

The structure appeared to be substantial, with the remains of a ladder hanging over the opening and a pole that looked like a hub for a spiral staircase running through the middle of the shaft.

The IDF also released video – filmed on Friday – from inside the shaft, showing a staircase leading down into a concrete tunnel that the military said was 55 meters long and located 10 meters underground. At the end of the tunnel is a metal door with a small window, according to the video, which the IDF said it had not yet opened to the possibility that Hamas had booby-trapped it.

The video is arguably the most compelling evidence thus far that the IDF has offered that there may be a network of tunnels below the hospital. It does not, however, establish without a doubt that there is a command center under Al-Shifa.

The CCTV footage showed Hamas fighters moving a Nepalese hostage and a Thai hostage through the hospital on October 7, IDF spokesperson Hagari said. One appears to be frog-marched through the building, while another appears to be bleeding and is pushed on a gurney.

Hagari did not spell out how the IDF had acquired the videos, though he did say that Israeli intelligence officers were part of the operation inside the hospital to try to locate the hostages.

Hagari also dismissed suggestions that the hostages had been brought to the hospital because they were wounded, claiming that one of the two hostages in the videos was not injured and did not need medical treatment. They had been brought to the hospital first before being moved to hiding spots like nearby apartments, he said.

The shared CCTV footage comes after Israel’s military said it found the bodies of two Israeli hostages – a 65-year-old woman and an Israeli soldier – in the same neighborhood as Al-Shifa hospital.

The IDF had previously touted other alleged discoveries on the hospital grounds, saying soldiers located a room in Al-Shifa where they found “technological assets, along with military and combat equipment used by Hamas” for “terrorist purposes.”

Hamas has rejected those claims as “baseless lies.”

An IDF video on November 15 showed a military spokesperson touring the facility, during which an AK-47 gun is seen behind an MRI machine. Fox News and the BBC were subsequently granted access to the hospital. In their reports filmed after the IDF clip, two AK-47 guns are visible in the same location. It is unclear where the second assault rifle came from.

“Suggestions that the IDF is manipulating the media are incorrect,” it said.

The United Nations has called for access to the site for an independent investigation into the competing allegations and warned that hospitals should not be used as battlegrounds for any side.

How has Hamas responded?

Israel’s allegations have been vehemently denied by Hamas, the Gaza Health Ministry, and hospital officials.

The health ministry responded to the images of hostages inside Al-Shifa released Sunday by the IDF by questioning their authenticity – but went on to say that if true, the pictures showed that hospitals in Gaza provided medical care to anyone who needed it.

In a statement issued Saturday before the release of the CCTV videos, Hamas said it had brought several hostages to hospitals for medical treatment after they were injured in Israeli air strikes.

After Israel launched its operation, Hamas accused the US of giving Israel “a green light … to commit more massacres against civilians” by amplifying what it called a “false narrative” that a militant command center lies somewhere inside Al-Shifa.

Why Al-Shifa matters and what’s happening to its patients

More than five days since the IDF raided Al-Shifa hospital, Israeli troops are still on hospital grounds, and the facility is still filled with patients and medical staff operating in dire humanitarian circumstances.

Doctors who are still at the hospital cannot treat patients due to heavy shelling in the past week. Fuel shortages and a lack of electricity prevent them running incubators for the babies. ICU patients and several neonatal babies in Al-Shifa have died in recent days.

Dr. Ahmed El Mokhallalati, head of the burns unit, said the hospital is also running out of urgent requirements, including anesthetics, oxygen tanks, medicine and blood banks.

Israel’s Defense Ministry says it delivered more than 6,000 liters of water and 2,300 kg of food — including fish, canned food, bread, spreads and dates — over the weekend.

Several days ago, Israel’s army spokesman Hagari dodged a question about whether Israel had taken bodies out of the hospital complex as part of its efforts to determine the fate of hostages kidnapped from communities in southern Israel on October 7.

A group of UN humanitarian workers visited Al-Shifa on Saturday, describing the hospital as a “death zone” where “signs of shelling and gunfire” were evident.

The sprawling medical facility of Al-Shifa, which sits in the western part of Gaza City, was built in 1946 when Gaza was still under British rule.

It has long been seen as the backbone of medical services across the besieged Gaza Strip, and Israel’s operations there have compounded a grim humanitarian crisis, Palestinian health officials have said.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

A Palestinian writer and poet who had been contributing to The New Yorker and other publications with reflections on his life inside Gaza during the war has been detained by the Israeli military, according to his brother.

Mosab Abu Toha was taken into custody by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) “when he reached the checkpoint while leaving from the north to the south” of Gaza, his brother Hamza Abu Toha said in a Facebook post Monday.

“His wife and children entered the south, and the army arrested my brother Mosab,” Hamza Abu Toha wrote on Facebook. “We have no information about him. It is worth mentioning that the American embassy sent him and his family to travel through the Rafah crossing.”

An American Book Award winner and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for his debut poetry book, “Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear,” Mosab Abu Toha, 30, had written searingly about the Israeli airstrikes that have decimated Gaza since war broke out last month between Israel and Hamas.

In a New Yorker essay published on October 20, he described returning to his home in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, days after evacuating to Jabalia refugee camp, where he had stayed with relatives.

“On the main street leading to my house, I find the first of many shocking scenes. A shop where I used to take my children, to buy juice and biscuits, is in shambles. The freezer, which used to hold ice cream, is now filled with rubble. I smell explosives, and maybe flesh,” he wrote.

In a Facebook post five days ago – his most recent post on the website – Abu Toha wrote that he was “alive” and begged for an end to the bloodshed.

“Thanks for your prayers. We don’t have any access to food or clean water. Winter is coming and we don’t have enough clothes. Kids are suffering. We are suffering,” he wrote, adding, “the army is now at Al-Shifa Hospital. More death, more destruction. Who can stop this? Please stop it now.”

PEN International, the global association of writers, said Monday that it is “deeply concerned” about Abu Toha.

“We join calls demanding to know his whereabouts and the reasons for his detention,” PEN said in a statement posted to X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.

The New York Review of Books also posted about his reported detention on X, noting that “in May we published his poem “What a Gazan Should Do During an Israeli Air Strike.”

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Tens of thousands of people are heading to Dubai in early December for COP28, the annual international climate summit convened by the United Nations.

With time quickly running out to prevent fossil fuel pollution from causing irreversible harm, discussions between global leaders, negotiators, climate advocates and industry representatives have shifted to how the world should adapt to more deadly heatwaves, stronger storms and catastrophic sea level rise.

Despite the widespread impacts of the climate crisis, the annual negotiations have been contentious. The road to consensus on solutions has proven rocky, and has highlighted divisions between rich countries — which emit a majority of the world’s planet-warming pollution — and poor nations, which have contributed the least.

Here’s what to know about the world’s most critical climate change conference.

What is COP28?

A little over 30 years ago, more than 150 countries signed a UN treaty to limit the alarming rise of planet-warming pollution in the atmosphere. While the science behind human-caused climate change was still young, scientists knew even then it would be life-changing.

The first COP — the “Conference of the Parties” to that agreement — took place in Berlin in 1995. Member states have been convening on climate change almost every year since. In 2015, at COP21, more than 190 countries approved the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, but preferably to 1.5 degrees.

Although the Paris Agreement was a landmark moment and set the world on a path that scientists supported, it didn’t get specific about how countries should achieve its goal. Since then, COPs have sought to make the plans attached to the Paris Agreement more ambitious and to be more specific about the changes society would need to make.

The controversy at COP28

The climate summit is hosted at a different location each year. While there have been other host countries mired in controversy, the backlash to this year’s host — the United Arab Emirates — has been particularly sharp; not only is the UAE a major oil-producing nation, it has also appointed a top fossil-fuel executive as its COP president.

In May, more than 100 members of the US Congress and the European Parliament called for Al Jaber to step down, claiming that his role could undermine negotiations.

The big names attending COP28

Heads of states and governments deliver speeches in the first days of the summit. More than 160 member nations, including the UK, France, Germany and Japan, have confirmed their attendance.

Perhaps the highest-profile attendees will be King Charles III, who will deliver an address at the summit’s opening ceremony, and Pope Francis, who will be the first pontiff to attend a COP.

So far absent from the speaker list, which will be finalized November 27, are US President Joe Biden and China’s Xi Jinping — the leaders of the world’s top polluting countries. In mid-November, Biden and Xi pledged to significantly ramp up renewable energy in lieu of planet-cooking fossil fuels, and agreed to resume a working group on climate cooperation.

Leaders from major oil-producing countries, such as Saudi Arabia, Syria, Russia and Iran, are among those attending.

There are concerns that the Israel-Hamas war could overshadow action on climate this year, particularly in the Middle East. But representatives from both Israel and the Palestinian territories are listed to speak in the first week.

The UAE has also invited many fossil fuel executives to the climate talks, where they are expected to announce new commitments to decarbonize. A list of Wall Street financial heavyweights led by BlackRock CEO Larry Fink will also be present, after missing the summit in Egypt last year.

COP28’s global stocktake

It’s been eight years since the Paris Agreement, yet the world has made barely any progress on slashing climate pollution, and the window is “rapidly narrowing” to do so, according to the agreement’s first scorecard — the global stocktake — which was published in September.

COP28 will be the first time that countries will be going into the negotiation rooms with an analysis that shows how seriously off-track they are on their climate targets.

“But it also offers a really interesting concrete blueprint [and] mountain of evidence on how we can get the job done, so it should be a wakeup call of what we need to do but with a roadmap to get there.”

COP28’s biggest issues

Some of the biggest concerns that will take center stage in Dubai are continuations from COP27 in Egypt: finalizing a “loss and damage” fund and discussing how to ramp down planet-warming fossil fuels.

A major debate among the parties has been whether to “phase out” or “phase down” fossil fuels. At COP27, a number of nations, including China and Saudi Arabia, blocked a key proposal to phase out all fossil fuels — including oil and gas — and not just coal.

“The most important thing is the outcome at this COP sends a really strong signal that the world must rapidly shift away from fossil fuels,” Robinson said. “I would note that it’s important for the language to refer to all fossil fuels.”

Another focus this year will be on the so-called loss and damage fund, which countries included in last year’s agreement. The fund would help shuttle money from the richest countries, which are responsible for the vast majority of the climate crisis, to poor countries, where the impacts have hit hardest.

The goal is to get the fund up and running by 2024. With time running out, a special committee met in Abu Dhabi in early November and recommended the World Bank host the fund and serve as its trustee temporarily for four years.

Australia’s prime minister has accused the Chinese navy of “dangerous, unsafe and unprofessional” conduct after an incident in international waters near Japan, marking a potential friction point with Beijing weeks after he visited the Chinese capital to stabilize relations.

Australian divers aboard the long-range frigate HMAS Toowoomba were trying to clear fishing nets from its propellers on November 14 when a Chinese destroyer approached, Australia’s Defense Minister Richard Marles said in a statement Saturday.

Despite being warned that a diving operation was underway, the Chinese destroyer operated its sonar in a manner that “posed a risk to the safety of the Australian divers who were forced to exit the water,” the statement said.

Medical assessments found the divers had sustained minor injuries, the statement added.

Albanese refused to confirm whether he raised the incident with Chinese leader Xi Jinping when they met at the APEC summit in San Fransisco last Thursday.

“I can assure you that we raised these issues in the appropriate way and very clearly, unequivocally. And China, there’s no misunderstanding as to Australia’s view on this,” he said.

Asked about the incident at a regular news briefing on Monday, a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said the Chinese military had “always been highly disciplined” and had “always operated professionally on the basis of international law and international practices.”

“We hope relevant parties can stop causing troubles at China’s doorstep and work with China to jointly safeguard the momentum of improving China-Australia relations,” spokesperson Mao Ning said.

The incident took place a week after Albanese paid a landmark visit to Beijing – the first trip by an Australian leader in seven years – to stabilize rocky bilateral ties after years of economic tension.

In the Sky News interview, Albanese sidestepped a question on whether the incident will make bilateral relations “look shaky” now.

“Well, what I said when I was in China is that we will cooperate where we can but disagree where we must. And this is one of those times where we disagree with the action of China,” Albanese said.

“We’ve made it clear that we disagree with what occurred, that we have the strongest possible objection, and that this sort of event should not occur.”

‘Unsafe and unprofessional’ interaction

In his statement Saturday, Marles said the Australian government had expressed “serious concerns” to the Chinese government over what it called an “unsafe and unprofessional” interaction with a People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) destroyer.

Medical assessments found the divers had sustained minor injuries, “likely due to being subjected to the sonar pulses from the Chinese destroyer,” the statement said.

Military ships use sonar to detect and locate objects in the water. Divers exposed to high levels of underwater sound can suffer from “dizziness, hearing damage or other injuries to other sensitive organs,” depending on the frequency and intensity of the sound, according to the London-based Diving Medical Advisory Committee.

The HMAS Toowoomba had been in Japan’s exclusive economic zone conducting operations in support of United Nations sanctions enforcement and was enroute to commence a scheduled port visit to Japan, according to Marles’ statement.

“Australia expects all countries, including China, to operate their militaries in a professional and safe manner,” Marles said.

“Defense has for decades undertaken maritime surveillance activities in the region and does so in accordance with international law, exercising the right to freedom of navigation and overflight in international waters and airspace.”

China’s navy and air forces have been accused of unsafe practices by US and Canadian militaries in multiple close encounters in the East and South China seas in recent months.

Earlier this month, the Canadian military said a Chinese warplane fired flares in front of its helicopter over international waters of the South China Sea on October 29, an operation it said was reckless and could have resulted in the downing of the aircraft.

In response, China blamed Canada for carrying out “malicious and provocative” actions in the South China Sea.

Ray Powell, director of SeaLight at the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation at Stanford University, said it will likely never be known if the order to use the sonar came from commanders in Beijing or at a lower level, maybe the Chinese destroyer captain himself.

“Either is disturbing, as the former would indicate mendacity at very senior levels, while the latter would demonstrate a mendacious military culture,” said Powell, a former US Air Force officer.

“Were the roles reversed, it seems clear to me that an Australian naval commander who did the same thing would be relieved of command, or worse. Yet nobody believes such action is even being considered by Beijing,” Powell said.

If your morning can’t start without coffee, you’re not alone: globally, we drink over 2 billion cups of coffee each day, leading to 60 million tons of wet, spent coffee grounds every year.

Only a small portion of this is reused — mostly as soil fertilizer — with the vast majority being incinerated or ending up in landfill. There, like other organic compounds, coffee grounds decompose and release methane, a greenhouse gas 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide at trapping heat.

Now, researchers say coffee grounds could be used as an ingredient in concrete, and they could even make it stronger, according to a recent study.

“We thought of this idea over a cup of coffee,” says Rajeev Roychand, a research fellow in the School of Engineering at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, who led the study. “We roasted the spent ground coffee in the absence of oxygen, and obtained something called biochar. When we added it to concrete as a replacement of sand, it provided a 30% increase in the strength of the material.”

Tiny reservoirs

Concrete is made of four basic ingredients: water, gravel, sand and cement. It is the world’s most widely used building material, and we go through 30 billion tons a year, three times as much as 40 years ago.

Roychand and his team partially replaced sand with biochar — a material similar to charcoal — derived from coffee waste; they obtained their best result when they replaced 15% of the sand and baked the grounds at 350 degrees Celsius (662 degrees Fahrenheit). The resulting concrete was 30% stronger than regular concrete by compressive strength — the ability of the material to withstand a load.

In regular concrete, water, its second-largest ingredient by volume, is absorbed by the cement over time, reducing the amount of moisture that’s still inside the concrete, Roychand says. This drying effect, known as desiccation, causes shrinkage and cracking at a microscale, weakening the concrete.

Biochar from coffee waste can reduce this natural process. When the biochar is mixed with concrete, Roychand says, its particles act like tiny water reservoirs, distributed throughout the concrete. As the concrete sets and begins to harden, the biochar slowly releases the water, essentially rehydrating the surrounding material and reducing the impact of shrinkage and cracking.

“We’d be diverting this waste and transforming it into a valuable resource,” says Roychand. “There is also a scarcity of sand, and even if we replace some portion of it, we are still improving the sustainability aspect, and slowly we may come up to a stage where a significant chunk of the sand can be replaced with different waste materials.”

“High-value by-product”

According to Kypros Pilakoutas, a professor of construction innovation at the University of Sheffield in the UK, who was not involved with the work, the study is intriguing from a technological perspective.

However, he finds it improbable that concrete produced in this way will ever find widespread use in large-scale applications. “The main issue with waste is mainly collection and processing,” he says. “Whilst it would be great to collect all coffee grounds from around a country, the associated costs would be considerable and prohibitive.”

He adds that pyrolysis — the process through which the biochar is produced — is not cost-free, and he believes that it’s unlikely that high concentrations of carbon in concrete would enhance its long-term durability.

Roychad points out that waste collection is already mainstream, and that a number of companies in Australia are focusing on recycling coffee waste. He adds that the cost of pyrolysis is mainly related to the initial investment in equipment, and that biochar is produced at a much lower temperature than cement — 350 Celsius compared to about 1,450 Celsius. “But we are missing other benefits,” he argues, “as the waste material that ends up in landfills requires cost for its disposal. It can now be converted into a high-value by-product.”

The ingredient in concrete that contributes most to climate change is cement — which was responsible for 8% of global CO2 emissions in 2021 according to think tank Chatham House — and Roychand believes that increasing the strength of the concrete by 30% makes it viable to decrease the cement content by up to 10%, reducing its climate impact.

He says that the discovery has already attracted interest from both construction companies and organizations that recycle coffee grounds, and his team is now working with local councils in Australia to start field demonstrations.

“One of the things we will be doing is monitoring the concrete over time, for six months to one year,” he says. “This will make sure that the biochar maintains its properties over time.”

The world must “must act urgently” to stem the conflict in Gaza, China’s top diplomat said Monday during a meeting with officials from Arab and Muslim majority nations, as Beijing steps up its efforts to play a role in establishing ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi welcomed counterparts from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the Palestinian National Authority, and Indonesia, as well as the head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation for a two-day visit to the Chinese capital, the start of the delegation’s expected tour of several world capitals.

“The international community must act urgently, taking effective measures to prevent this tragedy from spreading. China firmly stands with justice and fairness in this conflict,” Wang told the visiting leaders in opening remarks ahead of talks, where he reiterated China’s call for an immediate ceasefire.

Visiting ministers voiced their own strong calls for an end to the conflict, with Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud saying: “The message is clear: the war must stop immediately, we must move to a ceasefire immediately, and relief materials and aid must enter immediately.”

Countries represented in the delegation hoped to cooperate with China and “all countries” that are “responsible and appreciate the seriousness of the situation,” he said.

Israel has launched weeks of bombardment and ground operations in the Hamas-ruled enclave of Gaza following a deadly attack on its territory by the group on October 7. More than 200 hostages were taken in that attack, according to the Israel Defense Forces.

Beijing has been at odds with Washington – an Israeli ally and long a major power broker in the region – over their approach to the conflict, including when it comes to an immediate ceasefire, which Washington does not support. Beijing has also criticized Israel’s retaliation and failed to condemn Hamas or name the group in its statements, sparking backlash from Israeli officials.

“Israel should stop its collective punishment on the people of Gaza, and open up a humanitarian corridor as soon as possible to prevent a humanitarian crisis of a larger scale from taking place,” Wang was cited as telling the delegation during the talks, according to a readout from China’s Foreign Ministry.

Israel has staunchly defended its actions as rooting out terrorism following a “barbaric invasion” and has rejected any ceasefire without the return of hostages.

China’s push for peace

China has been attempting to play an active role in finding a solution to the conflict as it seeks to expand its position as a major global power.

Beijing dispatched a peace envoy for a multi-country tour of the region last month and has acted as a strong voice pushing for an immediate ceasefire at the United Nations, including the Security Council, where China now holds the rotating presidency.

Last week the UN body passed its first resolution on the conflict, which called for the immediate release of all hostages held by Hamas and for extended humanitarian corridors throughout the enclave to protect civilians. The US and the United Kingdom abstained, citing the resolution’s failure to condemn Hamas.

“For reasons known to all, in particular, the repeated and persistent obstruction of a permanent member of the Council, this resolution at present can only serve as a first step based on minimum consensus,” Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun said following the vote, in an apparent veiled jab at the US. 

In his comments Monday in Beijing, Saudi Arabia’s minister commended the Security Council’s decision, under China’s leadership.

The conflict has also given China an opportunity to bolster its already strengthening ties with a number of countries across the Arab world — a region where observers say it hopes to drive a wedge between the US and the countries with which it has long-standing ties.

“We have always firmly defended the legitimate rights and interests of Arab and Muslim countries, and have always firmly supported the Palestinian people’s efforts to restore their legitimate national rights and interests,” Wang told the visiting delegation.

Engaging major players?

Immediate ceasefire and longer-term peace were also key topics during a roughly 10-day tour in the Middle East last month from China’s special envoy for the region, Zhai Jun, who visited Egypt, Qatar, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, according to China’s Foreign Ministry.

Last week the envoy visited and met with officials in Turkey and Bahrain, where Zhai also discussed the “regional situation” with representatives from Singapore, the US and Europe on the sidelines of an international conference.

So far there have been no apparent concrete outcomes from the diplomacy.

Zhai’s itinerary thus far has also not included stops in Israel, Palestinian-controlled territories, or Iran, per information released by China’s Foreign Ministry. Wang spoke with Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on the phone last month. It’s not clear if China has been in contact with Hamas officials during the latest conflict.

Visiting officials in Beijing this week include Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al-Maliki of the West Bank-based Palestinian National Authority.

China earlier this month dispatched the head of its Foreign Ministry’s West Asian and North African affairs department to Iran, where the conflict was part of discussions, according to a post on the department’s WeChat social media account.

Iran is a longtime backer of both Hamas and Lebanon-based Hezbollah.

In the talks, Foreign Minister Wang Yi said they’d already held discussions with the Iranians on the topic, the senior official said.

Biden also made clear to Xi that he viewed Hamas as separate from the Palestinians. The US views Hamas as a terrorist organization that has perpetuated the suffering of Palestinian people, and has upheld Israel’s right to retaliate against the group.

Beijing has not referred to Hamas in its statements, but instead frames the current situation as a Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Even in the darkness, the utter devastation in northern Gaza is clear as day. The empty shells of buildings, illuminated by the last shreds of light, lurch out of the landscape on the dirt roads across the Gaza Strip. At night, the only signs of life are the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) vehicles that rumble the landscape, tightening the military’s grip on the northern sector.

On Saturday night, we traveled with the IDF into Gaza to see the newly exposed tunnel shaft discovered at the compound of Al-Shifa Hospital, the enclave’s largest medical facility.

After crossing the border fence at around 9:00 in the evening, our convoy of Humvees turned off its lights, relying on night vision goggles to traverse the Gaza Strip. We would spend the next six hours inside Gaza, much of that time spent getting back and forth from the tunnel shaft.

Along our path, virtually every building bore the scars of wartime damage. Many structures were destroyed entirely, while others were hardly recognizable as anything more than twisted metal. If there was life here, it had long since departed. Residents had either moved south or been killed during six weeks of war.

Our first stop was a location on the beach where the IDF had set up a staging area. From there, we moved into armored personnel carriers with several other reporters for the last kilometer to the hospital. The only view outside came through a night-vision screen. But even in black and white, the level of destruction was shocking.

Inside Gaza City, the skeletal remains of apartment towers and high-rise buildings packed the otherwise vacant city streets. Even if we could speak to Palestinians while embedded with the IDF, there was no one around to talk to.

As we stepped out of the armored vehicle, we were enveloped by utter darkness. We were only allowed to use our red lights to navigate to a nearby building, where we waited until Israeli forces already on the ground secured the area. The tunnel shaft was very close by, but it was entirely exposed.

The commander in charge of our group, Lt. Col. Tom said this tunnel is significantly larger than others he had seen before. “This is a big tunnel,” he said. “I have encountered tunnels — in 2014 in [Operation] Protective Edge, I was a company commander — and this tunnel is an order of magnitude bigger than a standard tunnel.”

We had expected to hear fighting once we entered Gaza City itself. Instead, we heard almost complete silence. Only once during our roughly 45 minutes at the hospital did we hear the distant sound of small arms fire, and it was impossible to tell how far away it was in the midst of an urban environment. The rest of the time, the silence made the darkness feel even more oppressive.

It was nearing midnight as we walked the last few feet to the exposed tunnel shaft. The IDF had promised “concrete evidence” that Hamas was using the hospital complex above ground as cover for what it called terror infrastructure underneath, including a command and control hub.

The discovery of the tunnel shaft the next day was more compelling, showing an entrance to something underground. But even then, it was unclear what it was or how far down it went. This is what everyone has been trying to understand.

Standing on the edge of the tunnel shaft, it was apparent that the structure itself was substantial. At the top, the remains of a ladder hung over the lip of the opening. In the center of the round shaft, a center pole looked like a hub for a spiral staircase. The shaft itself extended down farther than we could see, especially in the meager light of our headlamps.

Video released by the IDF from inside the shaft showed what we could not see from the top of the opening. The video shows a spiral staircase leading down into a concrete tunnel. The IDF said the tunnel shaft extends downwards approximately 10 meters and the tunnel runs for 55 meters. At its end stands a metal door with a small window.

“We need to demolish the underground facility that we found,” said IDF spokesperson Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari. “I think the leadership of Hamas is in great pressure because we found this facility, and we are now going to demolish it. It’s going to take us time. We’re going to do it safely, but we’re going to do it.”

It is arguably the most compelling evidence thus far that the IDF has offered that there may be a network of tunnels below the hospital. It does not establish without a doubt that there is a command center under Gaza’s largest hospital, but it is clear that there is a tunnel down below. Seeing what connects to that tunnel is absolutely critical.

For Israel, the stakes could not be higher. Israel has publicly asserted for weeks, if not years, that Hamas has built terror infrastructure below the hospital. The ability to continue to prosecute the war in the face of mounting international criticism depends to a large extent on Israel being able to prove this point.

As is so rarely the case in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this answer truly is black and white. Either there is an underground series of tunnels below the hospital. Or there is not.