Indian authorities are exploring new ways to rescue 40 construction workers trapped underground for more than a week.

The workers became stranded when a highway tunnel they were building partially collapsed in the northern state of Uttarakhand last Sunday.

Although they are being supplied with food and water, a doctor said some of the men were getting ill, and had been vomiting and getting headaches.

State authorities have approved buying equipment and more manpower to implement options such as constructing escape tunnels from the left and right sides of the tunnel, officials said.

Drilling vertically from the upper hill – which is already being implemented – still remains a consideration.

Rescue teams had been drilling non-stop to reach the stranded workers since acquiring a high-powered drilling machine on Thursday, but given the fragile mountain terrain, there were concerns of more debris falling and further complicating the rescue efforts.

“We have decided to go with a pause-and-go approach to maintain the equilibrium,” Anshu Manish Khalkho, director of state-run highway management company National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) said Friday.

Khalkho told reporters that rescuers, with the help of the high-powered drilling machine, have so far drilled about 25 meters (82 feet) inside the collapsed Uttarkashi tunnel – that’s about one-third of the way to the trapped workers.

The rescuers have 60 meters of debris between themselves and the trapped men. According to Khalkho, pipes designed for the rescue mission have been successfully inserted into approximately 25 meters (82 feet) of the debris. However, there remains an additional stretch to cover before reaching the 40 workers.

Pipes are being inserted into the freshly drilled hole and being welded together, Khalkho explained.

These interconnected pipes will provide an escape passage for the stranded men, enabling them to move beyond the section of the tunnel that has collapsed.

“It may look easy from the outside, but on-site we have to factor in the effects of the drilling vibrations on the fragile terrain,” Khalkho told reporters when questioned on the duration of the rescue mission, which entered its seventh day on Saturday.

He also confirmed that a backup drilling machine is being airlifted from Indore city in the central state of Madhya Pradesh in India, to assist in the rescue operations. Reuters reported Saturday that the initial drilling machine broke on Friday and needed to be replaced.

Separately, Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami also assured the press that the rescue work is on track with the “engineers and experts from NHIDCL working relentlessly,” and that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “reviewing the situation.”

In an update Sunday, Dhami told Indian news agency ANI that “saving everyone’s life is our first priority…the state government is ready to give all the help required to all the agencies,” adding that expert teams are working on all the possibilities available to rescue the men.

Dhami later visited the site to “conduct on-site inspection and review of the ongoing relief and rescue work,” according to his post on X on Sunday. He was joined by India’s Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari.

A special team from the Prime Minister’s office arrived at the tunnel collapse site to review the situation on Saturday.

The tunnel is part of Modi’s ambitious Himalayan Char Dham Highway project, a multimillion-dollar infrastructure plan to improve connectivity in the state of Uttarakhand and better access to important pilgrimage locations.

A French senator has been placed under formal investigation over suspicions that he drugged a member of parliament with the intention to sexually abuse her, the senator’s lawyer and the Paris prosecutor’s office said.

Conservative senator Joel Guerriau, 66, is under investigation for administering to MP Sandrine Josso, 48, “a substance liable to alter her discernment or control over her actions, in order to commit rape or sexual aggression, as well as for possession and use of substances classified as drugs,” Guerriau’s lawyer Remi-Pierre Drai told Reuters late on Friday.

In a separate statement, Guerriau denied the charges.

“My client will fight (to) prove that he has never wanted to administer to his colleague and longtime friend a substance to abuse her,” his lawyer said in a statement cited by French broadcaster BFM.

Josso’s lawyer Julia Minkowski has told French media that the MP for ruling coalition party Modem had felt ill after drinking a glass of champagne at Guerriau’s flat this week and had seen him handling a small plastic bag with a white substance, leading her to believe her drink had been spiked.

It was not clear why Josso was in the senator’s flat at the time of the alleged incident.

Josso or her lawyer could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Paris prosecutor confirmed late on Friday that an investigation has been opened, adding that Guerriau had been placed under judicial control and is not allowed to contact Josso or witnesses.

A spokesman for the senator’s conservative Horizons party, which is also part of French President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling coalition, told Radio France Info on Saturday that Guerriau had been suspended with immediate effect.

Rescue efforts in India have stretched into a seventh day as emergency response teams race to retrieve 40 construction workers trapped underground since Sunday.

The workers became stranded when a highway tunnel they were building partially collapsed in the northern state of Uttarakhand.

Rescue teams had been drilling non-stop to reach the stranded workers since acquiring a high-powered drilling machine on Thursday, but given the fragile mountain terrain, there were concerns of more debris falling and further complicating the rescue efforts.

“We have decided to go with a pause-and-go approach to maintain the equilibrium,” Anshu Manish Khalkho, director of state-run highway management company National Highways and Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) told the media on Friday evening local time.

Videos posted on social media show rescue work paused with no drilling activity reported overnight Friday into Saturday.

Khalkho told reporters that rescuers, with the help of the high-powered drilling machine, have so far drilled about 25 meters (82 feet) inside the collapsed Uttarkashi tunnel – that’s about one-third of the way to the trapped workers.

The rescuers 60 meters of debris between themselves and the trapped men. According to Khalkho, pipes designed for the rescue mission have been successfully inserted into approximately 25 meters (82 feet) of the debris. However, there remains an additional stretch to cover before reaching the 40 workers.

The 25 meters of pipe, which are approximately 900 millimeters in diameter, are being inserted into the freshly drilled hole and being welded together, Khalkho explained.

These interconnected pipes will provide an escape passage for the stranded men, enabling them to move beyond the section of the tunnel that has collapsed.

“It may look easy from the outside, but on-site we have to factor in the effects of the drilling vibrations on the fragile terrain,” Khalkho told reporters when questioned on the duration of the rescue mission, which entered its seventh day on Saturday.

He also confirmed that a backup drilling machine is being airlifted from Indore city in the central state of Madhya Pradesh in India, to assist in the rescue operations. Reuters reported Saturday that the initial drilling machine broke on Friday and needed to be replaced.

Separately, Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami also assured the press that the rescue work is on track with the “engineers and experts from NHIDCL working relentlessly.”

He added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is “reviewing the situation.”

A special team from the Prime Minister’s office has also arrived at the tunnel collapse site to review the situation.

The tunnel is part of Modi’s ambitious Himalayan Char Dham Highway project, a multimillion-dollar infrastructure plan to improve connectivity in the state of Uttarakhand and better access to important pilgrimage locations.

To say that space is a challenging environment is putting it lightly.

During a recent spacewalk outside the International Space Station, a tool bag got away from NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara. The bag has gone into orbit around Earth and may be visible through binoculars until it disintegrates in our planet’s atmosphere.

Meanwhile, Mars and Earth are now orbiting on the opposite sides of the sun, temporarily disrupting communications between NASA and its robotic explorers investigating the red planet.

Until the solar conjunction ends on November 25, the fleet of orbiters and rovers have sizable to-do lists they can work through before it’s time to check in with ground control once more.

Zero gravity, harsh radiation and vast distances are just some of the obstacles to space exploration that require years of technological development and research to overcome.

And after months of rebuilding following an explosive initial launch in April, SpaceX made a second attempt at launching its deep-space rocket system Starship, but not all went according to plan.

Defying gravity

The uncrewed Starship spacecraft launched aboard the most powerful rocket ever built on Saturday morning, but both were lost shortly after liftoff.

The Super Heavy rocket booster ignited its 33 massive engines and Starship experienced a safe liftoff. SpaceX tried “hot staging” for the first time, essentially a step in which the spacecraft separated from the rocket booster by blunt force trauma.

After hot staging, the rocket booster exploded in a fireball over the Gulf of Mexico. Starship initially continued on just fine before SpaceX lost the spacecraft’s signal and triggered the system’s software to terminate the flight so it didn’t veer off course.

Starship was intended to fly nearly a lap around the planet before returning to Earth, but data from this second test flight will be used to determine SpaceX’s next steps in making humanity “multiplanetary.”

A long time ago

Pests such as head lice have existed as long as humans have — and analysis of their DNA is providing an unexpected window into the first people to live in the Americas.

When modern humans ventured from Africa and began to settle around the globe, head lice hitched a ride with them. Two distinct populations of head lice emerged.

But scientists recently discovered evidence of hybrid lice that may represent a “signal of contact between Europeans and Native Americans,” said Marina Ascunce, a research molecular biologist at the US Department of Agriculture.

Ocean secrets

The puffadder shyshark is just one of the many unique marine creatures that dwell only within the Great African Sea Forest off the coast of South Africa.

While the diminutive shark’s markings resemble a venomous South African snake, it is anything but confrontational.

True to its name, the shyshark wraps its tail over its eyes and curves its bodies to protect itself from predators. But the tiny shark species is disappearing and listed as endangered.

Now, conservationists are hoping that using artificial intelligence called Fin Spotter will protect the population before it reaches a critical tipping point.

Force of nature

Seismic activity in Iceland — home to 32 active volcanoes — suggests that an eruption may be imminent, according to the nation’s civil protection agency.

Experts are tracking a corridor of subterranean molten material now spanning 9 miles (15 kilometers) in the island’s southwestern peninsula that could affect the coastal town of Grindavík.

While the country is no stranger to volcanic eruptions, there are concerns over the nature of the potential explosion, which could occur underwater or on land.

Separately, the world’s newest island, formed by an undersea volcanic eruption, has appeared off the coast of Japan’s Iwo Jima in the Pacific Ocean.

Across the universe

Astronomers have spotted a highly unusual stellar corpse that came back to life in violent throes that continued for months after it initially exploded.

The rare cosmic phenomenon, called a luminous fast blue optical transient, is brighter and fades more quickly than a typical supernova. But the subsequent flares released by the stellar remnant were just as powerful as the explosion that resulted in the star’s death.

Nicknamed the “Tasmanian devil,” the event reveals the afterlife of stars, according to Anna Y.Q. Ho, assistant professor of astronomy in Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Explorations

Take a closer look at these riveting reads:

— Ancient hunter-gatherer communities may have provided mothers with more childcare support than modern mothers have, according to a new study.

— Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to spy a surprising Milky Way-like galaxy that formed shortly after the big bang, and it’s changing the way they think about galactic evolution.

— The colorful ornate boxfish is covered in striking hexagonal spots, and its intricate pattern inspired researchers to update the theory on how animals get their spots and stripes.

— The Leonid meteor shower peaked early Saturday morning, but blazing meteors will still be visible streaking across the night sky for the next few days.

The Wonder Theory team is taking some time off for Thanksgiving. While there won’t be a new edition on Saturday, November 25, expect a fresh helping of space and science wonders in your inbox on December 2. See you then!

Waving Israeli flags, with posters of hostages draped on their backs, families of Gaza hostages and thousands of their supporters walked through the foothills of Jerusalem and towards the residence of Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose government many of them blame for the fate of their loved ones.

The march began five days ago in Tel Aviv as an effort to pressure Netanyahu and his government to prioritize the safe return of the nearly 240 people kidnapped by Hamas during its murderous October 7 attack on Israel.

Freeing hostages should be at the top of the Israeli war cabinet’s agenda, he said. “Right now, in Netanyahu’s current political situation, this could be a real victory for the state of Israel, for the people of Israel, and for Netanyahu personally,” he added.

Winds have been shifting against the prime minister as Israel’s war in Gaza drags past its sixth week. Multiple opinion polls suggest national favor toward Netanyahu and his governing coalition is collapsing, despite continued overwhelming support in Israel for the war on Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that controls Gaza.

Cracks emerge

Opposition parties initially rallied behind Israel’s war effort, with National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz joining the wartime government ­­– but cracks have begun to emerge.

On Wednesday, the country’s opposition leader Yair Lapid said it was time for the six-term prime minister to resign, and called for Netanyahu’s Likud party to oust him. But Lapid did not go as far as to call for new elections, saying instead that Likud should put forward an alternative leader.

“We cannot allow ourselves to have a prime minister who has lost the public’s trust, whether from a social or a security point of view,” Lapid told Israel’s Channel 12.

An unruly cabinet

Israel, Hamas and the United States, with the Gulf state of Qatar acting as mediator, have been struggling to reach an agreement on a number of sticking points over a pause to allow for hostages to be released.

Sticking points include how many days a potential pause in fighting would last, the number of hostages that would be released, and Hamas’ demand that Israel stop flying surveillance drones over Gaza, according to several sources familiar with the talks.

Gestures to relieve pressure on the besieged enclave’s civilian population have already drawn the ire of Netanyahu’s unruly governing cabinet – the most right-wing in Israel’s history.

After Israel’s war cabinet on Friday approved two fuel tankers to enter Gaza per day to support water and sewage systems, far-right members of his governing coalition raged over what they saw as concessions to Hamas in the absence of a deal to release hostages.

In a letter to Netanyahu posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said the decision went against the views of the governing cabinet, which is separate to the war cabinet.

His colleague, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, posted on social media around the same time saying that “as long as our abductees (hostages) are not even visited by the Red Cross, there is no sense in giving the enemy ‘humanitarian gifts,’” while calling it an insult to soldiers, the bereaved and families of the missing and kidnapped.

Netanyahu defended the decision in an address late Saturday, saying that the tankers are a minimal emergency amount to operate water and sewage pumps in Gaza, and denied there had been any change of policy.

He also said he had invited representatives of the hostages’ families to a meeting with his war cabinet later this week.

Hostage negotiations

Some families have demanded that the government should consider an “everyone for everyone deal,” which was floated by Hamas. Such a deal would involve exchanging the hostages for all Palestinians currently held in Israeli prisons – some 6,630 people, according to estimates by the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

Though such a swap might cause concern in the current environment, a 2011 prisoner exchange saw kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit swapped for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners.

Some of those marching on Saturday backed such a move. Asher Elyahol said he did not care how, or how much was needed to get the hostages returned. Freeing hostages from Hamas was worth it, “whatever the cost,” he said.

“You cannot make differences between nationalities, woman and children or Israeli soldiers,” she added.

Blame falls on Netanyahu

The families of hostages have largely attempted to stay apolitical in their growing campaign, but many in the crowd on Saturday blamed Netanyahu for failing to anticipate Hamas’ attack that led to the murder of 1,200 people.

The October 7 attack is seen by many as a breach of Netanyahu’s security contract with Israeli voters, after he spent years framing himself as the only person who could protect the country that has clashed with its neighbors for most of its existence.

While the search for Waiss ended in tragedy, Dagan said there is still hope for other families to get their loved ones back.

In the aftermath of the tragedy, commentators accused Netanyahu of a lack of empathy; Israel watchers say he spent more time at photo opportunities with troops near Gaza than apologizing for past failures.

Elyahol said he believed Netanyahu was not “connected to the people,” adding that he hopes that when the war is over, and the hostages returned, “we’ll also have a new government.”

SpaceX’s gargantuan deep-space rocket system, Starship, safely lifted off Saturday morning but ended prematurely with an explosion and a loss of signal.

The Super Heavy booster and Starship spacecraft successfully separated after liftoff, as the Starship lit up its engines and pushed away. That process ended up destroying the Super Heavy booster, which erupted into a ball of flames over the Gulf of Mexico. But the Starship spacecraft was able to briefly continue its journey.

The Starship system made it much farther into flight than the first attempt in April. The rocket and spacecraft lifted off the launchpad at 8 a.m. ET, with the Super Heavy booster igniting all 33 of its Raptor engines. Even during ground tests, SpaceX has had a hard time getting all of those engines, clustered together at the base of the rocket, to power on consistently at the same time.

The Starship upper stage had begun its trip Saturday morning strapped to the top of the Super Heavy first stage, a 232-foot-tall (70.7-meter-tall) rocket. About two and a half minutes after roaring to life and vaulting off the launchpad, the Super Heavy booster expended most of its fuel, and the Starship spacecraft fired its own engines and broke away.

The Starship spacecraft used its own six engines to continue propelling itself to faster speeds. SpaceX aimed to send the spacecraft to near orbital velocities, typically around 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour). Starship climbed to an altitude of about 93 miles (150 kilometers) above the Earth’s surface, reaching the edge of space.

The US government considers 50 miles (80 kilometers) above Earth’s surface the edge of outer space. Internationally, the Kármán line, located 62 miles (100 kilometers) above sea level, is often used to mark the boundary between our planet and space — but there’s a lot of gray area.

The SpaceX team awaited acquisition of signal from the spacecraft, but shared during the livestream that the “second stage was lost.”

“The automated flight termination system on second stage appears to have triggered very late in the burn as we were headed down range out over the Gulf of Mexico,” aerospace engineer John Insprucker said.

The flight termination system is essentially a self-destruct feature that SpaceX engaged to prevent the Starship from traveling off course.

“The booster experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly shortly after stage separation while Starship’s engines fired for several minutes on its way to space,” SpaceX shared on X, formerly known as Twitter. “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.”

The Federal Aviation Administration, which licensed the Starship’s test flight today, issued a statement after the test flight.

“A mishap occurred during the SpaceX Starship OFT-2 launch from Boca Chica, Texas, on Saturday, Nov. 18. The anomaly resulted in a loss of the vehicle. No injuries or public property damage have been reported,” according to an FAA spokesperson.

The agency will conduct a mishap investigation to determine the root cause of the loss of Starship, which is standard procedure.

“A return to flight of the Starship Super Heavy vehicle is based on the FAA determining that any system, process, or procedure related to the mishap does not affect public safety,” according to the FAA.

It took more than four months for the FAA to complete the last mishap investigation after Starship’s test flight in April.

Starship goals

NASA is investing up to $4 billion in the rocket system with the goal of using the Starship capsule to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface for its Artemis III mission, currently slated to take off as soon as 2025.

The endeavor is aiming to return humans to the moon for the first time in five decades, and the successful completion of this test flight would have brought the US space agency and SpaceX one step closer to that goal.

“Congrats to the teams who made progress on today’s flight test,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson shared on X. “Spaceflight is a bold adventure demanding a can-do spirit and daring innovation. Today’s test is an opportunity to learn — then fly again. Together @NASA and @SpaceX will return humanity to the Moon, Mars & beyond.”

“Each test represents a step closer to putting the first woman on the Moon with the #Artemis III Starship human landing system. Looking forward to seeing what can be learned from this test that moves us closer to the next milestone,” Jim Free, NASA associate administrator for exploration systems development, shared on X.

The failure could spell significant delays for Starship’s development and the key missions lined up on its manifest, most notably NASA’s Artemis III mission. The US space agency tapped Starship in 2021 to serve as the lunar lander for that mission.

‘Hot staging’ process

The root cause of the Starship rocket’s failure on Saturday was not immediately clear.

But the booster explosion occurred after a phase called “hot staging” that SpaceX tried for the first time Saturday.

The method was used to separate the Starship spacecraft and Super Heavy rocket after liftoff.

Almost all rockets go through a process during launch called “stage separation,” in which the bottommost rocket booster diverges from the rest of the rocket or spacecraft.

When SpaceX launches its workhorse Falcon 9 rocket, for example, the first-stage booster — or the bottommost portion of the rocket — breaks away from the upper part of the rocket less than three minutes into flight. The Falcon 9 does so using pneumatic pushers that are housed within the rocket’s interstage, or black band around the center.

Instead, the Starship spacecraft fired up its own engines to push itself away from the Super Heavy booster — and it’s essentially separation by blunt force trauma.

It marked a crucial moment for SpaceX, as hot staging was expected to be “the riskiest part of the flight,” SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said in October.

SpaceX had already said it would consider the mission a success if Starship made it past hot staging.

But after hot staging, the Super Heavy booster began tumbling out of control and exploded over the Gulf of Mexico just moments later. SpaceX had hoped to reignite the Super Heavy’s engines and guide it to a controlled landing.

“We did know that hot staging was going to be incredibly dynamic,” said Kate Tice, senior manager of SpaceX Quality Systems Engineering, during the livestream. We knew that there was a chance that the booster would not survive, but we’re going to take that data and figure out how we can make the booster better for the next hot stage.”

Initially, the Starship spacecraft continued moving along after separation.

About eight minutes after liftoff, cheers could be heard echoing throughout mission control as the Starship was approaching the end of its engine burn — putting it on a path toward Earth’s orbit. But nine minutes after launch, SpaceX made it clear that it lost video signal with Starship.

And about 11.5 minutes into the flight, the company confirmed it had lost data, indicating Starship wasn’t flying as planned. Then, the spacecraft’s flight termination system was triggered to prevent it from veering off course, bringing an early end to the test flight.

If all had gone according to plan, Starship would have continued accelerating toward space. The Starship spacecraft was then slated to complete nearly one full lap of Earth, aiming to splash down in the Pacific Ocean near Hawaii.

The destruction of the vehicle shortly after liftoff was reminiscent of the Starship’s first launch attempt in April. During that test flight, several of the Super Heavy’s engines unexpectedly powered off and the rocket began spiraling out of control just minutes after liftoff. SpaceX was forced to trigger the system’s self-destruct feature, blowing up both stages over the Gulf of Mexico.

SpaceX took several months to recover from the April mishap. The company was forced to rebuild its launch site, which had been torn to pieces by the sheer force of the rocket powering its engines. The company also implemented upgrades to both the Starship spacecraft and the Super Heavy booster.

SpaceX typically embraces fiery mishaps in the early stages of rocket development. The company has long maintained that it can learn how to build a better rocket more quickly and cheaply by flying — and occasionally exploding — early prototypes rather than relying solely on ground testing and computer modeling.

After April’s explosive first test flight, SpaceX noted “success comes from what we learn, and we learned a tremendous amount.”

Editor’s Note: This story contains graphic and disturbing accounts of sexual violence.

Israeli police are using forensic evidence, video and witness testimony and interrogations of suspects to document cases of rape amid the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel.

Women and girls caught in the rampage were brutalized sexually, as well as physically tortured and killed, witnesses to the aftermath say.

Police Superintendent Dudi Katz said officers have collected more than 1,000 statements and more than 60,000 video clips related to the attacks that include accounts from people who reported seeing women raped. He added that investigators do not have firsthand testimony, and it is not clear whether any rape victims survived.

About 1,200 Israelis were killed and more injured that day in villages and farms near Gaza when Hamas militants struck across the border in coordinated attacks, taking more than 240 hostages and precipitating the current war. More than 11,000 Palestinians have been killed, according to authorities in Hamas-controlled Gaza.

Police Commissioner Shabtai Yaakov said the investigation could potentially lead to prosecutions, but for now, documentation is the primary mission.

She pointed to a United Nations statement just a week after the terror attacks that did not mention sexual violence.

“It’s much worse than just silence or an insult to us as Israeli women and to our children and to our people,” she said of the UN. “When they are failing to acknowledge us, to acknowledge what happened here, they are failing humanity.”

Harrowing reports

A paramedic from the elite 669 Special Tactics Rescue Unit said he had encountered all kinds of casualties before, but the violence from October 7 was unimaginable.

In Kibbutz Be’eri, he went house to house looking for anyone still alive after the carnage and found the bodies of two young teenage girls in a bedroom.

The combat paramedic, who did not want his name published, said the girl on the floor was on her stomach. He had no doubt the teenager was raped, but he did not know if she died first.

“Her pants are pulled down toward her knees and there’s a bullet wound on the back side of her neck near her head,” he recounted.“There’s a puddle of blood around her head and there’s remains of semen on the lower part of her back.”

The girl on the bed had bruises all over her body and a bullet wound to the chest, he said.

Others reported similar horrors at the Nova music festival where hundreds of young people were killed by terrorists.

Rami Shmuel, an organizer of the festival, said he saw female victims with no clothes as he made his escape, and has no doubts about what happened.

He added that it appeared women were specifically targeted for sexual violence.

“Why didn’t they [take] clothes off men?” he asked. “Only women, only young girls, beautiful girls, why?”

A long investigation ahead

Israel’s police acknowledge their investigation may take months, and Elkayam-Levy said it remains unclear how or where any prosecutions would be handled, though she noted that some families of dual nationals could seek justice in countries other than Israel as well as pursue cases in international courts.

But officials provided a stark window into the evidence they have been gathering at a press briefing, which included a statement from a woman who witnessed the Nova festival attack from her hiding place on October 7.

“They bent someone over and I understood he was raping her, and then he was passing her on to someone else,” the woman, who was not identified, said of what she saw.

“She was alive, she stood on her feet and she was bleeding from her back. I saw that he was pulling her hair. She had long brown hair. I saw him chop off her breast and then he was throwing it toward the road, tossed it to someone else and they started playing with it.”

The witness added: “I remember seeing another person raping her, and while he was still inside her he shot her in the head.”

Ukraine this week claimed to have “gained a foothold” on the left bank of the Dnipro River, a welcome boost after its much vaunted counteroffensive failed to make major gains.

But it has been worse news elsewhere for Kyiv, after Germany admitted European targets for providing ammunition would fall short.

Here are the main developments from Ukraine this week.

‘Foothold’ in the south

Ukrainian forces say they have have “gained a foothold” on the left (eastern) bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine.

“Thanks to their courage and professionalism, the Ukrainian marines in cooperation with other units of the Defense Forces, managed to gain a foothold in several bridgeheads,” the statement said Friday. “Ukrainian marines are conducting strikes on the left bank of the Kherson region and are carrying out activities to destroy the enemy.”

The development marks a potentially significant advance for Ukraine across a natural defensive barrier for Russian forces.  

Russia acknowledged the presence of Ukrainian troops on the Dnipro River’s east bank on Wednesday. The Russian-appointed acting head of the Kherson region administration, Vladimir Saldo, made the announcement in a Telegram post, citing the Russian military operating in the area.

According to Saldo, “small groups” of Ukrainian soldiers are spread “from a railway bridge,” that is located in the area of the east bank to Krynky, a village east of Kherson.

Ukraine has staged cross-river raids before but the announcement signals Kyiv has a sustained presence in the region that could theoretically give a launching place to push further south toward occupied Crimea.

Ukraine launched a broad counteroffensive along the front lines in the country’s east and south earlier this summer, but made only incremental gains and recaptured relatively small settlements.

EU ammunition targets fall short

The European Union’s goal of supplying Ukraine with 1 million rounds of artillery ammunition is unlikely to be achieved, Germany’s defense minister warned.

“It can be assumed that the 1 million rounds will not be reached,” Boris Pistorius said ahead of an EU defense ministers meeting in Brussels. EU member states are working with industry to ramp up production, he added.

In March, EU member states agreed to provide Ukraine with 1 million rounds of artillery ammunition for Ukraine to be delivered within 12 months.

Pistorius’ warning came after Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said the bloc may not meet targets for ammunition production to supply Kyiv by the end of the year, but said efforts were underway to increase production capacity.

Both Ukraine and Russia need to replenish extraordinary amounts of ammunition as a grinding war of attrition continues in Ukraine’s east and south.

According to South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, North Korea has exported more than 1 million shells to Russia since early August. The US has also been ramping up ammunition production to supply Ukraine.

Russian convict pardoned

A former Russian detective convicted for his role in orchestrating the 2006 assassination of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya has been pardoned by Russian President Vladimir Putin after being recruited to fight in Ukraine, his lawyer told state media TASS.

Sergey Khadzhikurbanov was sentenced to 20 years in prison for organizing the killing of Politkovskaya, a columnist for the investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta and one of the Kremlin’s fiercest critics, who was shot dead in Moscow on October 7, 2006 – Putin’s birthday.

Khadzhikurbanov’s lawyer, Alexey Mikhalchik, told TASS on Monday that his client had “signed a contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense, subsequently receiving a pardon from President [Putin].”

Mikhalchik said after the completion of his initial contract with the Russian military, Khadzhikurbanov had continued to serve and currently holds a “leadership position” in one of the combat units after being offered a new contract.

Khadzhikurbanov, formerly a Moscow police officer, was sentenced in 2014 by a Moscow court for his role in Politkovskaya’s murder. Before being pardoned by Putin, his original prison term was due to conclude in 2034.

UK foreign minister visits Kyiv

British Foreign Secretary David Cameron arrived in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv on Thursday, where he met with Zelensky, just a few days after his appointment as the UK’s top diplomat this week.

The visit was previously unannounced and comes amid concerns that the Israel-Gaza conflict will divert international attention from the war in Ukraine.

“I wanted this to be my first visit, personally. I admire the strength and determination of the Ukrainian people,” Cameron told the Ukrainian president, according to a video of the meeting posted on Zelensky’s social media accounts.

Zelensky thanked Cameron for his support, telling the foreign secretary that the world is “not focused on the situation on our battlefield and in Ukraine,” and that the “divided focus really doesn’t help.”

Cameron – a former UK prime minister – was on his first overseas trip since his shock appointment.

“We will continue giving you the moral support, the diplomatic support, the economic one, but above all the military support that you need. Not just this year, next year but for however long it takes,” the UK foreign minister said.

Russia jails artist

A Russian artist was sentenced to seven years in jail on Thursday for replacing price tags with anti-war messages in a supermarket.

According to the press service of St. Petersburg courts, Alexandra Skochilenko was found guilty of “public dissemination of deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.”

Despite Skochilenko pleading not guilty and the defense seeking acquittal, the court imposed a seven-year sentence with a three-year ban on activities related to using “electronic or information and telecommunication networks,” the press service said in a Telegram post.

The prosecution claimed that in March last year, Skochilenko “placed paper fragments containing deliberately false information about the use of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in places for attaching commodity price tags” in a chain supermarket in St. Petersburg.

Skochilenko, who has been kept in pretrial detention since April 2022, has had deteriorating health, according to the independent investigative newspaper Novaya Gazeta. Her health issues requiring medications and a special diet include celiac disease, heart disease, gastrointestinal diseases and bipolar disorder.

Renewed fighting between the Myanmar Armed Forces (MAF) and the Arakan Army (AA) has displaced more than 26,000 people in the country’s western Rakhine state since Monday, according to the United Nations.

In a statement Friday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) said the latest figures bring the total number of internally displaced people due to conflict between the two sides to approximately 90,000.

Eleven deaths and more than 30 injuries have been reported since an informal ceasefire agreed a year ago broke on November 13, the statement read.

More than 100 people have reportedly been detained by the MAF and five by the AA, it added.

Battles between the military and resistance groups have unfolded almost daily across Myanmar since army general Min Aung Hlaing seized power in February 2021, plunging the country into economic chaos and fresh civil war.

The most recent fighting began when the AA reportedly attacked two border posts near the Maungdaw township, which is near the border with Bangladesh.

The two parties had previously established an informal ceasefire in November 2022, according to the UN body.

It added that there have been reports of MAF shelling in AA-controlled areas and that the military had conducted at least one operation backed by air and naval support.

Most humanitarian activities have been suspended due to the fighting and “virtually all roads and waterways” between Rakhine townships have been blocked, the statement read.

Airstrikes and ground attacks on what the MAF calls “terrorist” targets have occurred regularly since 2021 and killed thousands of civilians, including children, according to monitoring groups.

Whole villages have been burned down by junta soldiers and schools, clinics and hospitals destroyed in the attacks.

Liberia’s President, George Weah, has conceded defeat to opposition candidate Joseph Boakai after a tight run-off election.

Weah, a former soccer star, called Boakai after the country’s National Elections Commission (NEC) released provisional results on Friday.

With nearly all ballots counted, Boakai, a 78-year-old former vice president of Liberia, won 51% of the votes, the country’s electoral commission said.

In an address to the nation, Weah said: “The results announced tonight, though not final, indicate that Ambassador Joseph N. Boakai is in a lead that we cannot surpass. Therefore, a few minutes ago, I spoke with President-elect Joseph N. Boakai to congratulate him on his victory.

“Tonight, as we acknowledge the results, let us also recognize that the true winners of these elections are the people of Liberia,” he added.

President Weah was voted into office in 2018 and will step down in January.

A run-off was triggered when Weah, 57, secured a victory in an earlier October poll with a margin of just 7,000 votes over his political rival, Boakai. However, he fell short of the required 50% threshold necessary to clinch an outright victory.

Weah was seeking reelection for a second six-year term after a tumultuous first tenure tainted by corruption scandals and allegations of mismanagement.

He has been praised for immediately conceding ensuring, a peaceful transfer of power – a significant milestone in Liberia’s fragile democracy, which has seen civil war and previous leaders killed in office.

There have also been a spate of coups in West and Central Africa in recent years.

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu was among the first to congratulate the new President-elect while also commending Weah’s “sterling example, undiluted patriotism, and statesmanship. He has defied the stereotype that peaceful transitions of power are untenable in West Africa,” a statement from Nigeria’s presidency said.