Britain’s beleaguered Prime Minister Rishi Sunak carried out a dramatic reshuffle to his Cabinet on Monday, firing his divisive home secretary and bringing back former premier David Cameron to the heart of government after a seven-year absence from politics.

The hardline Home Secretary Suella Braverman was sacked early on Monday morning, after making inflammatory comments about the policing of pro-Palestinian protests in central London over the weekend. Her tenure had wrought with scandals and divisive remarks, which had long caused fractures in Sunak’s government.

Sunak then announced he was bringing Cameron back to frontline politics as foreign secretary, in a stunning move that has few parallels in recent British political history.

Cameron served as prime minister from 2010 to 2016, resigning after Britain voted to leave the European Union in a referendum that he had called.

His premiership set the course of 13 years of Conservative rule, but the self-inflicted chaos of the Brexit referendum and its aftermath threw his party into years of instability from which it is still struggling to emerge.

Downing Street confirmed that James Cleverly, formerly the foreign secretary, will take over from Braverman, a shift that made space for Cameron’s remarkable return to Cabinet.

Braverman had served as Sunak’s interior minister throughout his tenure in Downing Street, but her confrontational rhetoric towards migrants, protesters, the police and even the homeless had caused rifts in the government and sparked speculation that she was plotting a future leadership bid.

She most recently courted criticism by accusing London’s police force of applying “double standards” in the way they manage protests, in an op-ed in the Times of London newspaper condemning a pro-Palestinian march that Downing Street said had not been cleared by Sunak.

On Saturday, far-right counter-protesters clashed with police in central London after Braverman called the pro-Palestinian demonstration a “hate march,” stoking tensions around a rally taking place on Remembrance Sunday.

Braverman’s comments on policing and her severe criticism of Saturday’s pro-Palestinian rally were criticized by figures across the political spectrum.

“You have a chance of inflaming both sides when you make such divisive remarks,” Neil Basu, the former head of counter-terrorism policing in the UK, told the BBC on Monday morning. “Making comments that are potentially divisive is a very dangerous thing to do… no home secretary we’ve served under would have done the same thing.”

Her departure from government comes as Sunak’s party remains deeply unpopular among voters with polls suggesting the Conservatives are drifting towards a potentially catastrophic electoral defeat next year.

Sunak has apparently gambled that bringing Cameron back into the fold would project a stability that has been missing from Westminster for some time. But it risks deepening a view among large swathes of the public that the party has run out of ideas.

Cameron resigned as an MP shortly after leaving Downing Street, meaning that King Charles was required to rapidly approve his ascension to the House of Lords on Monday in order for him to become a minister.

In recent decades, the move can only be compared to Alec Douglas-Home – prime minister for a year from 1963 – who returned as foreign secretary in 1970 under Edward Heath’s government.

Cameron makes stunning comeback

Cameron wrote on Monday that he “gladly accepted” Sunak’s offer to become foreign secretary, but acknowledged criticisms he has made of the Prime Minister — such as when Sunak scrapped a long-awaited and expensive high speed rail project that Cameron had championed.

“Though I may have disagreed with some individual decisions, it is clear to me that Rishi Sunak is a strong and capable Prime Minister, who is showing exemplary leadership at a difficult time,” Cameron said.

His return to Cabinet is a staggering twist in an influential political career that had seemingly and abruptly ended seven years ago.

Cameron returned the Conservative Party to government in 2010 in a coalition with the centrist Liberal Democrats, having repaired the Tories’ then-broken image as an out-of-touch and antiquated political group.

He melded liberal social policies — pushing his party to approve the legalization of same-sex marriage — with austere economics, drastically cutting back the budgets of Britain’s public services and reducing the size of the state.

But Cameron stepped down after unsuccessfully campaigning to remain in the EU.

His appointment as foreign secretary suggests that the Tories’ experiment with populism — which first flourished during the Brexit campaign and captured the heart of the party during the tenures of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss — has been ditched in the run-up to next year’s general election.

Barely a month ago that Sunak, addressed the Conservative Party membership at their annual conference, describing himself as the change candidate and directly attacking aspects of his own party’s past 13 years in office. He signalled that he was ready to lean into culture war politics on trans rights and climate change.

Now, two of his three most senior Cabinet posts are filled with moderate veterans of 21st century Conservatism — in Cameron and Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor.

Unlike Braverman, neither Cleverly nor Cameron are likely to go off script and lash out at the police or protesters. It would be hard to imagine, for example, either man advocating for the UK to leave the European Convention on Human Rights so it can more easily send refugees to Rwanda –- a key Braverman policy that courts have been blocking for months.

But Braverman’s influence is unlikely to disappear. Sunak has made a powerful enemy of Braverman and handed ammunition to critics who will see today as confirmation of something they’d already suspected: that the Prime Minister is a centrist sellout who is more comfortable surrounded by other centrist Conservatives than pushing populism.

Braverman dismissed after string of controversies

Braverman has long been a controversial figure within the Conservative Party. She has attempted to excite the group’s right-wing grassroots with populist messaging, and become the face of Britain’s hardline stance against asylum-seekers and illegal immigrants, but her rhetoric and controversy-ridden tenure in government has appalled many moderate members of the party.

Days before her comments on Saturday’s protest deepened discord between her office and the police, she claimed in a post on the social media platform X that rough sleepers were “living on the streets as a lifestyle choice,” and advocated a policy to stop homeless people accessing tents.

Sunak had insisted as recently as Thursday that he had confidence in Braverman. But her dismissal sets up a potential power battle at the top of the ruling party, pitching Britain towards yet another spell of political infighting and instability.

While a leadership challenge against Sunak would be a dramatic risk for a party that has already cycled through five prime ministers in seven years, there is a growing murmur of discontent in its ranks at Sunak’s inability to reverse the Conservatives’ fortunes.

Alternatively, Braverman may be eyeing a run for leadership after the impending general election, expected late next year, should the Conservatives lose power to the buoyant opposition Labour Party.

But even in that scenario, Braverman will be expected to use the coming months to position herself as a radical alternative to Sunak – a pitch that could complicate the prime minister’s electoral campaign in the new year.

Monday marks the second time in just over a year that Braverman has been sacked as home secretary. She served in the post for six weeks during Liz Truss’s shambolic premiership last year, before resigning for breaching ministerial rules by using a private email address.

But she was back in the same position just days later; her resignation sparked Truss’s downfall, and her successor Sunak speedily reinstated her after seizing power.

Under Sunak, Braverman spearheaded a heavily publicised push to clamp down on small boat crossings made by asylum-seekers. The government’s flagship illegal migration bill, approved by MPs earlier this year, would essentially hand the government the right to deport anyone arriving illegally in the United Kingdom.

She is an equally furious culture warrior, borrowing rhetoric from the American right when lambasting “woke” culture, transgender rights and climate protesters.

Her frequent headline-snatching remarks have given ammunition to the government’s critics. Last week, after Sunak’s government unveiled its plan for the new session of Parliament, opposition leader Keir Starmer told Sunak in the House of Commons to “think very carefully about what she is committing your Government to do.”

“Without a serious Home Secretary, there can be no serious Government and he cannot be a serious Prime Minister,” Starmer said.

The battle for dominance in the Black Sea raged on this week between Ukraine and Russia, as elsewhere each side’s forces continued the bitter fight for control in Ukraine’s east with winter looming.

Ukraine claimed it hit small Russian naval vessels with sea drones, demonstrating its determination to keep striking Russian positions at depth in occupied Crimea.

Meanwhile, a blast in Russian-occupied territory in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine, killed a pro-Moscow official, with a Ukrainian intelligence agency taking credit for the assassination.

Here’s what you need to know about developments this week in Ukraine.

The Black Sea front

Ukrainian Defense Intelligence (GUR) claimed it hit two small Russian naval vessels in the Black Sea on Friday, the latest display of Ukraine’s ability to hit Russian targets in occupied Crimea.

Defence Intelligence released grainy, grayscale video showing what it claims is the moment of the strikes.

Russia has not officially commented on the incident. But Russian military bloggers said unmanned boats had targeted Russia’s Black Sea fleet vessels.

Ukraine has been aggressive in going after targets in occupied Crimea as a part of a broader effort to hit Russian logistics, fuel, maintenance and command centers, in order to disrupt their ability to supply the front lines. Kyiv has also focused on breaking Russia’s dominance in Ukraine’s territorial Black Sea waters.

Moscow unleashed more missiles and attack drones on Odesa over the past week in an effort to hamper Ukraine’s ability to maintain a shipping route out of its Black Sea ports, Ukraine’s military said.

On Wednesday, a Liberian-flagged cargo ship was hit just as it approached port in the Odesa region, killing the ship’s pilot and injuring four others, according to Ukraine’s Operational Command South.

It is thought to be the first time a civilian vessel has been hit since Ukraine established the shipping route – what it calls a humanitarian corridor – from its ports out to the Black Sea, following the collapse of a UN-brokered deal allowing safe passage.

Ukrainian authorities have said the corridor remains open despite the attacks this week.

Russian train derails

Russia has launched a formal investigation into the apparent derailment of a train by an improvised bomb, its Investigative Committee announced Saturday.

The bomb was placed on a section of track in Russia’s Ryazan region, according to a statement from the agency. The statement said that the incident caused 19 cars of a freight train to derail.

Photos posted by Moscow Railways showed rescue workers at the scene.

According to a statement from the railway operator on Telegram, a train operator’s assistant received minor injuries in the incident.

It is unclear who is responsible, but Russia has accused Ukraine of a series of cross-border strikes. Russian fighters aligned with Ukraine have also staged sporadic raids inside southern Russia. Typically Ukraine has not taken direct responsibility.

Fight for Avdiivka

The eastern town of Avdiivka is enclosed on three sides by Russian forces. They have been launching waves of assaults over the past month to complete the siege but Ukrainian soldiers continue “standing their ground and inflicting major losses on the occupiers,” according to Ukraine’s military.

The weather has been unfavorable for Russian assaults with tracked vehicles. That has made the Russians change tactics, according to the Ukrainian military. Russia’s forces have been using more drones to target heavily defended Ukrainian positions and carrying out more assaults on foot using infantry.

Ukrainian defenses are well dug-in in the town. Ukraine has been fortifying defensive positions since 2014, when pro-Moscow separatists seized a large portion of the Donbas region, including the nearby city of Donetsk. Avdiivka has been under fire since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Those defensive positions are allowing the Ukrainian military to resist waves of relentless Russian attacks for now. A loss of territory at this point would be a blow to morale in Ukraine, where the summer’s much-vaunted counteroffensive delivered few gains.

Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of the Tavria Joint Forces Operation, said in a post on Telegram: “We are still standing. And we will continue to stand. Because Avdiivka is not just a territory on the map, but a part of Ukraine, a part of the soul of Ukrainians and the Ukrainian Donbas.

“Let the enemy remember that we will continue to fight. For every building, terricone or lake…”

There has been little movement on the frontline despite Ukraine launching a counteroffensive earlier in the year.

Assassination claimed

In occupied Luhansk, a car explosion killed a pro-Moscow former head of police on Wednesday.

Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence took credit for the blast, saying it was an operation conducted jointly with pro-Ukrainian partisans.

Russian authorities launched an investigation into the explosion, which killed the former head of the so-called People’s Militia of the Russian-backed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) Mikhail Filiponenko. Moscow-backed separatists proclaimed a breakaway republic in Luhansk in 2014.

Defense Intelligence issued a warning to other pro-Russian officials in occupied areas, saying: “All addresses of traitors and places of their service to terrorist Russia in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine are known! Defense Intelligence of Ukraine states that all war criminals and collaborators will receive a fair retribution!”

There have been several assassination attempts against Russian-backed officials in occupied Ukraine. In May, the acting interior minister of the LPR, Igor Kornet, was “severely” wounded in an explosion.

European dream advances

In a milestone for Ukraine’s long and challenging quest to join the European Union, the bloc’s executive arm signaled it is politically ready for accession talks to formally begin.

Nearly 18 months since the bloc gave Ukraine conditional candidate status, the European Union’s executive body said the country is ready for detailed accession talks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who applied for EU membership in February 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, welcomed the announcement. “Today, the history of Ukraine and the whole of Europe has taken the right step,” he said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen call it “a historic day.” In a speech to the Ukrainian parliament last weekend, she said that Ukraine had “already completed way over 90%” of the bloc’s demands.

But there are caveats. The war remains a big obstacle. EU membership normally takes nearly a decade to achieve. Ukraine needs to continue to make progress on addressing corruption, limiting the influence of oligarchs and greater transparency.

Ukraine has held ambitions to join the EU for more than a decade. The aim of joining the bloc – along with NATO – has formally been part of Ukraine’s constitution since 2019.

When Xi Jinping last set foot in the United States, former-President Donald Trump welcomed the Chinese leader to his palm-tree-lined home at Mar-a-Lago. In the glow of warm candlelight, the two leaders bonded over the “most beautiful piece of chocolate cake” and a popular Chinese folk song serenaded by Trump’s grandchildren.

Touting the “great chemistry” between them, Trump lavished praises on Xi after their first personal meeting and predicted that “lots of very potentially bad problems will be going away.”

More than six years after that honeymoon summit in the Florida resort, the US is preparing to host the Chinese leader again – this time in a much less intimate setting and with the world’s two largest economies looking more like a distrustful couple on the verge of divorce.

Xi, who is set to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Franscisco and meet with US President Joe Biden on the sidelines, will find himself arriving in an America that has significantly hardened its view against him. Being tough on China has become a rare point of convergence in the increasingly polarized politics of his host country.

And these hard feelings are mutual. In Beijing, those officials who have long suspected America’s intentions and resented its influence now feel vindicated in their belief that the US is out to contain and suppress China.

Much has happened in between Xi’s two visits: a bruising trade war, a global pandemic and a raging war in Europe – each dealing deep blows to the US-China relationship as it deteriorated to its worst in decades.

What started as a Trump-era fight over trade quickly spilled over into other areas, from technology, national security and geopolitics to visions for the global order – competitions that have only intensified under the Biden administration.

Relations plunged to a new low last August, when Beijing cut off major communication channels with Washington in retaliation for a high-level US visit to Taiwan. Attempts to restore dialogue were derailed this February by an alleged Chinese surveillance balloon shot down over US airspace.

The US has since spent months seeking to engage its biggest strategic rival, including dispatching four cabinet-level officials to Beijing over a busy summer in the Chinese capital.

Beijing has played it cool. When Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi finally reciprocated with a visit to Washington DC last month – seen as a hopeful sign for the Xi-Biden summit, he warned Americans that “the ‘road to San Francisco’ will not be a smooth one.”

In addition to the bumpy journey to get there, the setting of the meeting is also telling.

Xi is arriving in the US this week along with nearly two dozen world leaders for the APEC summit, an event that is much more formal and business-like than the get-to-know-you meeting at Trump’s private residence in 2017.

Back then, the Mar-a-Lago summit was aimed at building a personal relationship, said Yun Sun, director of the China program at the Stimson Center think tank in Washington.

“The (US-China) relationship was not tanked, yet,” Sun said. “When he visited, the Chinese were still hoping (for) leadership diplomacy and that they could potentially have a very good relationship.”

Xi and Biden had already known each other for more than a decade and spent dozens of hours together across the US and China before Biden became President. The two met for the first time as state leaders last year in Bali, Indonesia, on the sidelines of the G20 summit.

Diplomacy with personal touch

Diplomacy with a personal touch has been a central feature in visits by Chinese leaders to the US.

When diplomatic relations were restored in 1979, US President Jimmy Carter invited China’s paramount leader Deng Xiaoping on a groundbreaking trip to America – and the two leaders established a personal rapport.

In his personal diary, Carter described Deng as “smart, tough, intelligent, frank, courageous, personable, self-assured, friendly,” calling his visit “one of the delightful experiences of my Presidency.”

During that trip, the Chinese Communist leader famously donned a 10-gallon cowboy hat at a Texas rodeo in front of a cheering crowd – a moment that captured the imagination of the American public.

Deng’s successor Jiang Zemin, known for his larger-than-life personality and many musical talents, often surprised his American hosts by bursting into impromptu songs and dances.

On his maiden visit to the US in 1997 – the first by a Chinese leader after the Tiananmen Square massacre, Jiang softened the edges of his image by singing Peking opera at a gala banquet in California and playing the ukulele at a dinner in Hawaii.

Five years later, President George W. Bush invited Jiang to his ranch in Texas before the two attended the APEC summit in Mexico.

That personal approach was at work again when Xi met President Barack Obama for the first time in 2013, months after he took the helm of China.

At Sunnylands, a lush Californian desert retreat, the two leaders chatted and smiled as they strolled along a manicured lawn and over a small bridge. In fitting with the informal setting, they left their ties and suit jackets behind. At the end of that summit, Obama declared the visit “terrific.”

That friendly stroll at Sunnylands also inspired the famous meme comparing Xi to Winnie the Pooh, after pictures juxtaposing Xi and Obama with the honey-loving bear and his tiger friend Tigger went viral on Chinese social media. As a result, Winnie the Pooh has become an unlikely target of censorship in China.

Sun, the expert at the Stimson Center, said this type of personal diplomacy between top leaders was regarded as very important in shaping and consolidating bilateral ties.

“But I think we have passed that stage now. I can hardly imagine that Biden invites Xi Jinping to his private residence,” she said.

“San Francisco will be very business. And it will be very official.”

Disillusionment grows

A few years into Xi’s presidency, American officials began to realize that they could not always count on the Chinese leader’s promises made during personal diplomacy.

A major sore point was a 2015 promise by Xi during a US state visit that he would not “pursue militarization” of the South China Sea, a vow that stood in stark contrast to what then happened.

“Those four years of the Obama administration really had tremendous damage on American confidence about what China’s behavior looks like under Xi,” Sun said.

It was notable that Xi’s visit to Mar-a-Lago came within three months of Trump’s inauguration. 
 
“(Xi) wanted to establish a good relationship with Trump at an early stage to keep that momentum,” said Suisheng Zhao, director of the Center for China-US Cooperation at the University of Denver.

“But Trump is a totally different animal.”

Within months Trump was accusing China of doing “NOTHING” to thwart North Korea’s quest for nuclear weapons and soon after that the trade war began.

“Now, we’re at a place where both sides have had a lot of damage on their trust in each other, and both sides are discovering that our national interests fundamentally do not align,” Sun said.

Iowa farms, Golden Gate portrait

This week’s visit will be Xi’s fifth trip to America as China’s top leader, and the tenth US trip in his life.

Xi first came to the US at age 31 in 1985, in what is believed to be his first trip outside China. Back then, the fresh-faced, little-known official was serving as the party boss of an impoverished county in central Henan province.

He led a five-men agricultural delegation to learn about crop and livestock practices in Iowa, where he visited farms, picnicked on a cruise on the Mississippi River and stayed with an American family.

As part of the trip, Xi also made a stop in San Fransisco and posed for a photo in front of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge.

In the ensuing decades, Xi visited the US four more times before he took power in late 2012.

Before bilateral relations took a sharp turn for the worse, Chinese official propaganda often paraded those visits as an example of the deep, long-standing friendship between the US and China.

Experts say it’s hard to know whether or how Xi’s early visits to the US might have impacted his views of America.

Zhao, the scholar at University of Denver, said Xi’s personal experience is likely to have a very superficial impact. “That might have affected his thinking if he was (an ordinary person and) not the strongman leader he is today,” he said.

Sun said while Xi has tried to strike the image as a great power statesman, he is “primarily a domestic politician.”

“I don’t know if Xi Jinping’s earlier visits of the United States had a major impact on his foreign policy. I think his foreign policy style is decided by his domestic political style, which is: I’m the Emperor and I decided it all.”

A lion that escaped from a circus in the Italian town of Ladispoli, near Rome, on Saturday has been recaptured after several hours on the loose, the local mayor has announced.

Just after 10 p.m. local time (5 p.m. ET) on Saturday, Ladispoli mayor Alessandro Grando announced on his Facebook page that the lion had been caught.

The animal had been on the loose for at least 5 hours, causing concern and confusion among local residents.

“The lion has been sedated and captured. It will now be handed over by the circus staff. I thank the State Police, the Carabinieri, the Fire Department, the local and provincial police, the Asl [Local Health Authority], and all the volunteers who served during these hours of great apprehension,” Grando said on social media on Saturday evening.

“I hope that this episode will stir some consciences, and that we can finally put an end to the exploitation of animals in circuses,” he added.

Circus staff found broken lock

Earlier on Saturday, Grando alerted local residents immediately after the animal’s escape, urging people to stay vigilant and advising them to stay at home.

It was around 5 p.m. local time (11 a.m. ET) when it was announced the lion had escaped from the circus and that the animal was immediately tracked down within the adjacent waterway.

“Circus personnel are implementing the capture operations, with the support of Law Enforcement who promptly responded to the scene. Please exercise caution and avoid movement until further notice,” the mayor said.

But the lion managed to disappear again in a very dense reedbed and reappeared in town. The lion ran away again after spotting the police car, Grando told Italian national broadcaster RAI.

When asked how the animal managed to escape from the circus, the mayor said a member of the circus’ staff saw three people running away and that they found a broken lock at the circus.

“They are talking about sabotage,” Grando said, adding that the incident will now be investigated.

After escaping, the lion wandered around the streets of Ladispoli, a seaside town some 50km from Rome, and was filmed by many people from their homes or cars. Several videos on social media show the lion wandering around among parked cars and in front of the gates of houses.

In order to catch the lion, veterinarians used a dart equipped with a geolocator, thanks to which the animal was eventually found and surrounded near a school, RAI reported.

According to those at the scene, the lion was in good condition, although frightened and in a state of mild hypothermia, RAI also reported.

The Carabinieri are investigating the incident.

The Organization for the Protection of Animals (OIPA) said Saturday that this story “highlights the danger of circuses with animals from the point of view of public safety and, above all, the discomfort of poor creatures forced into captivity to be used for entertainment purposes,” adding that it hopes that a law banning circuses with animals will be introduced.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday refused to answer whether he would take responsibility for failing to prevent the October 7 attack on Israel, saying that there would be time for such “difficult” questions once the war is over.

“We’re going to answer all these questions,” the prime minister said, adding that, “Right now, I think what we have to do is unite the country for one purpose; to achieve victory.”

“Let’s focus on victory – that’s my responsibility now.”

Netanyahu has been criticized for failing to anticipate the deadliest attack on Israel since the country’s founding in 1948, when Hamas militants killed more than 1,200 people and took more than 200 hostages last month, according to Israeli authorities.

During a Saturday demonstration in Tel Aviv, families of hostages held by the militant group in Gaza called on Netanyahu and the government to do more to secure the release of their loved ones.

He also reiterated his stance regarding international calls for a ceasefire, saying the only halt in fighting he would accept is “one in which we have our hostages released.”

“If you’re talking about stopping the fighting, that’s exactly what Hamas wants,” Netanyahu said, arguing that Hamas would use those extended pauses to replenish its supplies.

“Hamas wants an endless series of pauses that basically dissipate the battle against them,” he said.

‘No reason why we can’t just take the patients out of there’

Since the October 7 attacks, Israel has been bombarding Gaza, killing at least 11,025 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws figures from the Hamas-controlled territory.

This toll includes 4,506 children and 3,027 women, according to the ministry, which said that over 27,000 other individuals have sustained injuries.

“We have designated routes to a safe zone south of Gaza City,” he said. “We want all civilians to be moved out of harm’s way.”

Netanyahu blamed Hamas for the civilian casualties and said that “100 or so” have already been evacuated from Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest healthcare facility. “There’s no reason why we can’t just take the patients out of there,” he said.

Palestinian authorities in Gaza and the West Bank claimed the Israeli military had fired at people who moved between hospital buildings — an allegation the Israeli military has denied.

Post-war Gaza

With fighting raging, it remains a major open question about who will run post-war Gaza.

This week, the US suggested that the Palestinian Authority – which exercises limited self-rule in the occupied West Bank – could play a role.

Netanyahu said Israel’s security role in a post-war Gaza would be an “over-riding, over-reaching military envelope,” but did not explain what that meant.

It would be accompanied by “a reconstructed civilian authority … some kind of civilian Palestinian Authority” in control of Gaza that is “willing to fight the terrorists” and educate children for a “future of peace, cooperation, prosperity, cooperation with Israel,” and “not the annihilation of Israel.”

“So far, that hasn’t happened,” he added.

“There has to be something else. Otherwise we’re just falling into that same rabbit hole and we’re going to have the same result. Remember the PA [Palestinian Authority] was already in Gaza,” Netanyahu continued.

The PA used to run both Gaza and the West Bank but was ousted after a brief civil war with Hamas.

When Laura Larocca visited Denmark in 2019, the climate scientist sifted through thousands of old aerial photographs of Greenland’s icy coastline, which were rediscovered in a castle outside Copenhagen about 15 years ago.

Now housed in the Danish National Archives, the historical images inspired her and other researchers to reconstruct the territory’s glacial history and how it has changed amid a rapidly warming climate.

After digitizing thousands of archived paper images dating back to the 1930s, Larocca’s team combined them with satellite images of Greenland today to measure how much its frozen landscape has changed.

The comparison found Greenland’s glaciers have experienced an alarming rate of retreat that has accelerated over the last two decades. The study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, found that the rate of glacial retreat during the 21st century has been twice as fast as the retreat in the 20th century.

The work was “very time consuming, and it took a lot of people, a lot of hours of manual labor,” said Larocca, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor at Arizona State University School of Ocean Futures. “The change is stunning — it really highlights the fast pace at which the Arctic is warming and changing.”

Over the past several decades, the Arctic has warmed four times faster than the rest of the world, a 2022 study showed. The fallout of that warming is mounting. For the first time on record, it rained at the summit of Greenland — roughly two miles above sea level during the summer of 2021. Earlier this week, scientists found that northern Greenland’s huge glaciers, which were long thought to be relatively stable, now pose potentially “dramatic” consequences for sea level rise.

What struck Larocca the most was how the Danish pilots who took the original photos had no idea they would be a major contribution to climate science nearly a century later.

“It is quite interesting that a lot of these photos were taken because of military operations,” she said. “So, they have ties with a lot of international and US history, as well. But it’s kind of neat how over 100 years later, we’re using these photos for science to document how much these glaciers have changed over time.”

Larocca said she hopes this new visual-heavy study will draw attention to the rapidly melting territory and the threat it poses to the world’s coastlines as sea level rises.

“[The paper] really reinforces that our choices over the next few decades and how much we reduce our emissions really matter to these glaciers,” Larocca said. “Every incremental increase in temperature will have significant consequences for these glaciers, and that swift action to limit global temperature rise will really help to reduce their future loss and contribution to sea level.”

Heavy fighting near Gaza’s largest hospital has left it in a “catastrophic situation,” with patients and staff trapped inside, ambulances unable to collect the wounded and life-support systems without electricity, health officials and aid agencies are reporting.

Hostilities around the hospital, Gaza’s largest, “have not stopped,” according to Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, with constant bombardment preventing evacuations and making it too dangerous for ambulance journeys, according to the organization.

Three newborn babies died after the hospital went “out of service” amid intense fighting in the area, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health, which claims the hospital is surrounded on all four sides by Israeli forces and under “complete siege.”

Ministry spokesman Dr. Ashraf al-Qidra said he was trapped inside the complex in northern Gaza, saying it was “out of service” after repeatedly being targeted by Israeli fire.

“The intensive care unit, pediatric department, and oxygen devices have stopped working,” al-Qidra said.

Medical charity MSF said it could not contact any of its staff at Al-Shifa Hospital who had described a “catastrophic situation” inside.

In a statement Saturday, the organization said “ambulances can no longer move to collect the injured, and non-stop bombardment prevents patients and staff from evacuating.”

The World Health Organization (WHO) also reported losing communication with contacts inside the hospital and described the situation on the ground as “deeply worrisome and frightening.”

“WHO is gravely concerned about the safety of health workers, hundreds of sick and injured patients, including babies on life support, and displaced people who remain inside the hospital,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement on Sunday.

The IDF has previously said Hamas is embedding itself in civilian infrastructure and that it will strike Hamas “wherever necessary.” It has also accused Hamas of using hospitals as cover — a charge doctors at Shifa and the militant group deny.

Senior Israeli Defense Ministry official Colonel Moshe Tetro said “there is no shooting at the hospital and there is no siege.” “The East Side of the hospital remains open. Additionally, [the military] can coordinate [with] anyone who wants to leave the hospital safely,” Tetro said in a statement.

In an IDF press briefing on Saturday, the military said it would help evacuate babies from the hospital’s paediatric unit on Sunday. “The staff of the Shifa Hospital has requested that tomorrow we will help the babies in the paediatric department get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed,” said Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari.

Israel has been stepping up its offensive inside Gaza as part of its response to the surprise Hamas attacks that left 1,200 people dead.

Since then, Israel has been bombarding and blockading Gaza, an already impoverished and densely packed territory, leaving more than 11,000 people dead, according to Palestinian health officials. The assault has sparked escalating warnings about healthcare in Gaza.

The Director General for the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC), Robert Mardini, said the organization was “shocked and appalled by the images and reports coming from Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.”

“The unbearably desperate situation for patients & staff trapped inside must stop. Now,” Mardini said in a post on X.

Staff and patients trapped

Al-Bursh at the health ministry said Al-Shifa Hospital was under “complete siege” with staff and patients unable to evacuate.

There are still more than 400 people being treated at the hospital and around 20,000 displaced people seeking shelter in the hospital complex, according to Al-Bursh.

“The situation is very difficult and dire. After a slowdown in shelling this afternoon, the shelling and gun fire resumed, heavily targeting anything that moves,” Sarsour said, adding that medics inside the facility were working by candlelight and that food is growing scarce for both doctors and patients.

Al-Bursh said people who had been injured were instead being transported to the Al-Ahli Hospital as Al-Shifa was inaccessible.

Humanitarian agencies have been sounding the alarm about the situation at Al-Shifa Hospital. Angelita Caredda, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Middle East director, said in a statement that the group was “horrified by reports of relentless attacks on Gaza’s hospitals.”

“Patients, including babies, and civilians seeking relief are trapped under attack. It is an affront to wage war around and on hospitals,” she said.

Martin Griffiths, head of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, condemned attacks on healthcare facilities, saying in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “there can be no justification for acts of war in health care facilities.”

Griffiths wrote that people using and working at Gazan healthcare facilities “must trust that they are places of shelter and not of war.”

UNICEF, the UN agency responsible for providing humanitarian aid to children, called for the protection of hospitals in Gaza amid the “deeply worrying” situation in Al-Shifa.

It also called for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip. In a statement released early Sunday, UNICEF said: “Al Shifa hospital in Gaza is without power and we are seeing deeply worrying reports of premature babies dying in incubators.”

Other hospitals have been caught up in the fighting. On Friday the director of two facilities said Israeli tanks had them encircled.

Early Sunday, Jordan’s air force used parachutes to air-drop medical aid to the Jordanian field hospital in Gaza, the country’s prime minister said in a statement. It is the second time the country has air-dropped an aid package this month.

The relief operation took place in cooperation with the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to “enhance and develop the hospital’s capabilities and increase the ability of medical personnel to provide health and treatment services to alleviate the burden of the people in the Gaza Strip,” the statement said.

This story is being updated with additional developments.

The Taurid meteor shower is not quite finished, with one of its two streams set to peak this weekend. When the Northern Taurids, an annual minor shower, is at its most active, sky-gazers could catch sight of a bright meteor or two streaking across the night sky.

The Southern Taurids peaked November 5, and the dynamic duo has been seen overlapping in the night sky since mid-October. The Northern Taurids are expected to peak at around 7:21 p.m. ET Sunday, according to EarthSky.

Some of the hefty meteors typically expected from the Taurids are brighter than the planet Venus, the second-brightest celestial object in the night sky after the moon, and are categorized as fireballs, according to NASA.

“If I was going to go outside to see the Taurids, I would prepare for a long observing session for most of the night,” Cooke said. “I would get as comfy as possible — maybe bring a sleeping bag or a cot out, and dress appropriately — and I would be prepared to spend hours outside.”

Peak activity for the Northern Taurids will span a few nights before and after Sunday, according to the American Meteor Society. Local weather conditions allowing, the best time to spot a meteor will be after midnight in any time zone. The meteor shower appears to originate from the radiant constellation Taurus, and it will be highest in the sky during the very early morning hours, Cooke said.

The moon will be in its new moon phase, at only 2% illumination, according to the American Meteor Society, and will provide ideal viewing conditions as its brightness will not interfere with meteor visibility.

Debris from a comet family

While the rates for the Taurids are low this year, the American Meteor Society noted that astronomers have observed an increase in the Southern Taurids’ activity every three or seven years that can produce double the rates. Scientists predict the next chance to see an outburst — known as a “Taurid swarm” — will be 2025, Cooke said.

The Northern Taurids are believed to be debris from several asteroids that were once part of Comet Encke but broke off along with other space rocks tens of thousands of years ago, according to Cooke.

When these celestial objects, known as the Encke Complex, take their orbital journey around the sun, they leave a debris trail that appears as the Taurid meteor showers when Earth’s orbit intersects with their path.

Occasionally, meteoroids that are bigger than usual, like the Taurids, can make their way through Earth’s atmosphere and survive intact. When meteoroids fall to the ground, they are called meteorites.

“Most meteoroids burn up well above your head and don’t make it to the ground. The larger ones — the ones meter-sized, the size of a boulder — they could break up and scatter meteorites on the ground,” Cooke said, adding that those will be small and not likely to cause any damage. Roughly 48.5 tons (44,000 kilograms) of this space debris fall on Earth daily, NASA estimates.

“By the time a meteorite hits the ground, it will be cool,” Cooke said. “They do not start fires — it will be cold; you can pick it up.”

Meteor showers yet to peak this year

Meteors from the Northern Taurids are expected to be seen blazing in the sky until the shower’s finality on December 2, according to the American Meteor Society. If you are eager to see more, here are the remaining meteor showers that peak in 2023:

● Leonids: November 17-18

● Geminids: December 13-14

● Ursids: December 21-22

Full moons

There are two full moons remaining in 2023, according to the Farmers’ Almanac:

● November 27: Beaver moon

● December 26: Cold moon

Arab and Muslim leaders decried Israeli “war crimes” in Gaza at a summit in Riyadh where Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a first public meeting.

The extraordinary summit, which gathered 57 leaders, demanded that the UN Security Council take a “decisive and binding decision” to impose a cessation of aggression with fighting deep in Gaza underway between Israel and Hamas.

“We condemn the Israeli aggression against the Gaza Strip, the war crimes and the barbaric, brutal and inhumane massacres committed by the colonial occupation government against the Palestinian people, including in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. We demand it be stopped immediately,” the final resolution said.

The summit rejected the characterization of this “war of revenge as [one of] self-defense” and demanded the entry of humanitarian aid convoys.

“Protection from cycles of violence and wars will not be achieved without ending the Israeli occupation… we hold Israel, the occupying power responsible for the continuation and aggravation of the conflict as a result of its aggression against human rights,” the resolution added.

Israel launched its offensive after surprise, cross-border attacks by Hamas left 1,200 people dead and took hostages.

The summit marks the first trip by an Iranian leader to Saudi Arabia in 11 years after the two countries restored diplomatic relations in March.

Raisi shook hands with Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), the heir to the Saudi throne and the country’s de facto ruler.

Iran is the principal backer of Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which has been engaged in daily cross-fire with Israeli forces on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon. It also backs Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have been firing missiles towards Israel, and maintains strong ties with Hamas.

Speaking at the summit, Raisi said that all attendees had gathered there on behalf of the Islamic world to “save the Palestinians.”

“We have gathered here today to discuss the focus of the Islamic world, which is the Palestinian cause, where we’ve witnessed the worst crimes in history…Today is a historic day in the heroic defense and support of Al-Aqsa Mosque,” he added.

In his opening remarks, MBS said the Kingdom “categorically rejects” the war to which Palestinians are being subjected.

“This summit is being held under exceptional and painful circumstances,” he said.

“We categorically reject this brutal war that our brothers and sisters are being subjected to in Palestine… we renew our demand for an immediate cessation of military operations.”

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said the US “bears responsibility for the absence of a political solution” as it has the most influence on Israel.

Syria’s leader also attends

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad also attended the summit, a further sign of Syria’s rehabilitation among Arab states, following his participation at a regional meeting in May.

In his remarks, Assad criticized normalization agreements between Arab countries and Israel. “More hands extended by us equals more massacres against us … what we have to do to help Palestine is use actual political tools, not rhetorial tools, and that firstly is stopping any political process with the Zionist entity,” he said.

The remarks by Assad – who is also accused of committing war crimes during his country’s civil war – may have been swipe against normalization talks between Saudi Arabia and Israel.

That dialogue, brokered chiefly by the US, was at an advanced stage when it was scuttled by the eruption of the Hamas-Israel war.

Qatar’s head of state, Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, also criticized the international community for failing to “stop war crimes and massacres” in Gaza.

“We wonder how long will the international community continue to treat Israel as if it is above international law, and how long will it be condoned to flout all international laws in its brutal, never-ending war on the country’s indigenous population,” said Al Thani.

The gas-rich country has brokered indirect negotiations between Hamas and Israel over the release of Israeli hostages held by Hamas, humanitarian aid into the besieged Gaza strip, as well as a possible ceasefire.

The cosmos is filled with unexpected surprises.

Observatories such as the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes and the Chandra X-ray Observatory see the universe in different wavelengths of light, showcasing new details that the human eye would never detect on its own.

But when their powerful capabilities are combined, the telescopes can unveil even more celestial mysteries, including the oldest black hole ever found and colliding galaxy clusters that twinkle like a Christmas tree.

Meanwhile, missions such as NASA’s Lucy spacecraft are revealing asteroids that would otherwise remain hidden from view. The probe’s cameras shared yet another new surprise about what’s orbiting around the space rock Dinkinesh in the main asteroid belt.

Also this week, a new telescope opened our eyes to a fresh perspective of the universe.

Across the universe

The first five images captured by the Euclid telescope showcase glimmering clusters of galaxies and stars.

The telescope, launched in July, was designed to create the most detailed 3D map of the hidden “dark side” of the universe. Though invisible, dark matter and dark energy are both believed to play crucial roles in the structure and expansion of the cosmos.

Euclid has a wide field of view, capable of capturing 1,000 galaxies within the Perseus Cluster as well as more than 100,000 additional distant galaxies in the background in a single image.

The telescope also shared a dreamy and highly detailed panoramic view of the Horsehead Nebula within the Orion constellation, where young planets may be hiding within the stellar nursery.

Force of nature

There is a sleeping giant beneath southern Italy that might be reawakening.

A supervolcano left a giant depression called a caldera about 2 million years ago, creating Campi Flegrei, or the Phlegraean Fields, which stretch for miles from the outskirts of Naples to the islands of Capri and Ischia.

Campi Flegrei’s last major eruption occurred in 1538, creating a mountain in the Bay of Naples.

Intensifying seismic activity has been detected since December 2022. With the possibility of an eruption looming over what has become a densely populated region, Campi Flegrei may be Italy’s most dangerous volcanic threat.

Wild kingdom

Colorful holes dug by fish, some playful leaping wolves and a moment where fall meets winter are just some of the winners of The Nature Conservancy’s 2023 Global Photo Contest.

The grand prize went to Hungarian photographer Tibor Litauszki, who captured an illuminated underwater image of an alpine newt floating on frog eggs.

Some of the images show the impacts of the climate crisis and humans intruding upon the natural world. This week, new research suggested that, due to changes in agricultural land use, thousands of plants and animals across Europe face the risk of extinction.

In the Southern Hemisphere, scientists are hopeful as Australia’s Great Barrier Reef enters coral spawning season, giving rise to the next generation of corals.

A long time ago

Bundles of letters intended for the crew of the French warship Galatée never reached their recipients 265 years ago after the men were captured during the Seven Years’ War.

Now, the sentiments and stories within their envelopes have been shared for the first time since they were sealed with red wax and tied with ribbon.

The “treasure box” of letters provides insights into what family dynamics were like during 18th century wartime — including the saga of a young sailor, his jealous mother and his fiancée.

The wonder

Mysteries surround the Great Sphinx of Giza, including why and how it was made.

Space scientist and geologist Farouk El-Baz first proposed in 1981 that if the ancient Egyptians discovered a natural landform called a yardang, they could have added surface details to create the massive limestone statue.

Yardangs can take shape when wind sculpts compact sand, and some resemble seated animals, occasionally referred to as “mud lions,” according to Leif Ristroph, an associate professor at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences.

Ristroph and his colleagues set out to recreate the landscape conditions from about 4,500 years ago and conducted erosion tests on clay-model yardangs. The new research adds evidence to the theory that suggests wind played a role in shaping the sculpture.

Curiosities

These intriguing reads are sure to capture your attention:

— A diver discovered more than 30,000 Roman bronze coins off the coast of Sardinia. The well-preserved artifacts, dated to the fourth century, could suggest the presence of an unknown shipwreck.

— Curious as to whether he “could build a wooden house on the moon or Mars,” Kyoto University researcher Koji Murata wants to test his theory by sending a wooden satellite into space.

— Scientists in China combined two DNA sets to create a chimeric monkey, named for the hybrid creatures from Greek mythology, in the name of medical research and conservation.

— More than half of all species live within Earth’s soil, and photographer Andy Murray’s images have captured the fascinating microscopic animals inhabiting the secret kingdom beneath our feet.