In the middle of October, Natalia Pitaichuk packed up her four children and left her family home in the town of Beryslav in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson. Two days later, her house was destroyed in a Russian strike.

The decision to leave was a difficult one. She lived through nine months of Russian occupation in Kherson region; her house was searched twice and Russian soldiers roamed the streets rounding up men of fighting age. She stayed through the vengeful Russian shelling which followed the jubilation of liberation in November 2022. “It was scary, but tolerable,” she said.

But over the past month, the situation had become unbearable.

A Russian strike targeted the Beryslav hospital where she worked. Hospital staff were huddled in the basement and emerged covered in dust after the all-clear was issued, Pitaichuk recalled. Two people were injured in that attack.

“The hospital where I worked was destroyed, the kindergarten was destroyed, everything was in ruins. So I decided to leave with my children. And literally two days later our house was hit,” she said.

Russian forces have been striking the western bank of the Dnipro River – on which Kherson City and Beryslav sit – since Ukraine regained control of the area a year ago.

But the Russian assaults are now more punishing than ever, according to Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, a spokesman for the Kherson Region Military Administration.

Over the past week, at least one person was killed in the liberated part of Kherson as a result of Russian attacks every day. “If a month and a half ago it was 300-350 shells, two to three bombs a day, and we thought it was a lot, now it is up to 750 shells a day. The number of bombs has increased many times over,” Tolokonnikov said.

The relentless strikes may be a Russian effort to hamper Ukrainian efforts to establish a presence across the Dnipro River, in the Russian-occupied eastern part of Kherson region.

The bulk of the Ukrainian military has been focused on front lines leading to the Sea of Azov in the Zaporizhzhia region, to the east of Kherson. But small cross-river raids by Ukraine have kept Russian troops busy, preventing them from being diverted for reinforcements elsewhere along the 1,300 km-long frontline.

If Ukraine manages to gain a strong foothold across the Dnipro, analysts say it could mean greater risk to targets in occupied Crimea and even more pressure on already strained Russian logistical routes.

Ihor Chornyi, a volunteer with the organization “Strong Because We Are Free,” has been helping civilians leave since the area was liberated.

The collapse of the Russian-controlled Nova Kakhovka Dam on the Dnipro in June killed dozens, destroyed villages, and changed fighting conditions in the area. The floodwaters halted Ukrainian ambitions to cross the river for some time.

But as the water receded and levelled off, Ukraine renewed its efforts. In mid-October, a Ukrainian cross-river raid managed to temporarily infiltrate occupied villages on the eastern — or left — bank of the river.

“It seems that Russians on the left bank are very worried that our brave soldiers will soon cross the river to them and start liberating the left bank. In this way, they are simply warning and intimidating the population and the Armed Forces of Ukraine that they are ready and will destroy and kill people if we make attempts to liberate the left bank,” Tolokonnikov said.

Since mandatory evacuation orders were issued on October 23 for children in 23 settlements in Kherson region, around 300 children and their families have been taken to safety, while 497 children are still waiting for their chance to leave, according to local officials.

But with the recent wave of attacks, even moving people out of harm’s way has become riskier. “Evacuation missions are becoming more dangerous. We have had situations where we gathered people, started moving them and were shot at. But thank God, they didn’t hit us,” Chornyi said.

Pitaichuk’s family has now settled in the Kirovohrad region of central Ukraine. After two weeks of living without daily shelling in their new, temporary home, the children – whose ages range from 5 to 14 – are finally feeling at ease.

But still, “whenever they see Ukrainian fighters or helicopters in the sky, the children are frightened and ask if they will be bombed,” Pitaichuk said.

Beijing has clarified that Israel remains marked on official maps issued by Chinese authorities after questions emerged over why the country’s name was not visible on online maps provided by two major Chinese companies.

The country name “Israel” does not currently appear on maps on popular mobile applications from leading search platform Baidu or the Alibaba-backed Amap, even though its territory and the names of neighboring countries are clearly shown in a view of the region. Countries of similar or smaller size to Israel such as Cyprus, Lebanon and Kuwait are visible in the same view, for example.

The maps also don’t include a country name marker for “Palestine,” which China recognized as a state in 1988 and is listed on its official maps alongside Israel.

Both names come up in word searches on the mobile versions of the platforms, which are not-state owned but operate in China’s heavily moderated online environment and are as ubiquitous as Google or Apple maps are outside the country.

“China and Israel have a normal diplomatic relationship … the relevant country is clearly marked on the standard maps issued by the Chinese competent authorities,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Tuesday in response to a question during a regular press briefing.

Attention to the apparent absence of the country name markers on the apps comes as Israel has launched a war against militant group Hamas, following an October 7 attack on its territory.

It’s not clear whether the missing country names are a new development.

China is known to pay stringent attention to detail on maps used around the world when it comes to how its own border and territorial claims are represented.

In recent years, the world’s second largest economy has pushed international companies to apologize and retract maps that do not show the self-ruling democracy of Taiwan as part of Chinese territory. It has also received backlash from neighboring countries that have accused Beijing of using cartography to legitimize disputed claims.

Treading a fine line

Since the Hamas attack — which killed some 1,400 people, mostly civilians — Israel has hit Hamas-controlled Gaza with weeks of air strikes and expanded ground operations in the strip. Tallies based on data from local authorities in the Hamas-controlled enclave say more than 8,000 people have died, including some 3,000 children.

China has criticized Israel’s response while neither naming nor explicitly condemning Hamas in its statements. It has instead called for a ceasefire and stressed the need for a two-state solution to establish an independent Palestine as the “fundamental way out” of the conflict.

That stance is in keeping with Beijing’s long-standing political support for the Palestinian cause.

China was one of the first countries to recognize Palestine as a sovereign state in 1988. It established formal diplomatic relations with Israel in 1992.

China’s official maps, as seen in an online catalogue from its standard maps services system, name both Israel and Palestine, which does not have full United Nations member-state status, but is recognized by more than 100 countries.

Despite receiving blowback from Israeli officials for its failure to condemn Hamas, Beijing has attempted to present itself as a potential peacemaker in the latest conflict, dispatching its special envoy for the Middle East, Zhai Jun, for a tour in the region to promote peace talks.

For nearly two weeks, Zhai has made stops in Qatar, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. It’s not clear if he will visit Israel during the tour.

The conflict comes as Beijing has been ramping up its engagement in the Middle East, but remains a relatively new player in the region where the United States has long been a dominant power.

Some analysts have expressed skepticism about the role China could play in resolving the latest conflict. They have suggested its diplomatic efforts may stem from an interest in aligning with the Arab world on this issue, while the US, Beijing’s key geopolitical competitor, has sided staunchly with Israel.

The conflict has also sparked a fierce debate on China’s tightly controlled social media, driving a wedge between those who support Israel’s right to retaliate and a variety of pro-Palestinian voices — including a surge in antisemitic views.

The planet is on track to heat up at a much faster rate than scientists have previously predicted, meaning a key global warming threshold could be breached this decade, according to a new study co-authored by James Hansen — the US scientist widely credited with being the first to publicly sound the alarm on the climate crisis in the 1980s.

In the paper, published Thursday in the journal Oxford Open Climate Change, Hansen and more than a dozen other scientists used a combination of paleoclimate data, including data from polar ice cores and tree rings, climate models and observational data, to conclude that the Earth is much more sensitive to climate change than previously understood.

“We are in the early phase of a climate emergency,” according to the report, which warns a surge of heat “already in the pipeline” will rapidly push global temperatures beyond what has been predicted, resulting in warming that exceeds 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in the 2020s, and above 2 degrees Celsius before 2050.

The findings add to a slew of recent research that concludes the world is hurtling toward 1.5 degrees, a threshold beyond which the impacts of climate change — including extreme heat, drought and floods — will become significantly harder for humans to adapt to.

“The 1.5-degree limit is deader than a doornail,” said Hansen on a call with reporters. “And the 2-degree limit can be rescued, only with the help of purposeful actions.”

Some other scientists, however, have cast doubt on the paper’s conclusions that climate change is accelerating faster than models predict.

Hansen, a director at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is a renowned climate scientist whose 1988 testimony to the US Senate first brought global attention to climate change.

He has previously warned that the Earth has an energy imbalance, as more energy comes in through sunlight than leaves through heat radiating into space.

The resulting excess heat is equivalent to 400,000 Hiroshima atomic bombs a day, with most of the energy absorbed by the ocean, Hansen’s research found a decade ago.

In this recent paper, Hansen and his co-authors say the energy imbalance has now increased, in part because of successful efforts to tackle particle air pollution, especially in China and through global restrictions on shipping pollution. While this kind of pollution is a serious health hazard, it also has a cooling effect, as particles reflect sunlight away from the Earth.

The imbalance is set to cause accelerated global warming, bringing disastrous consequences, according to the paper, including rapid sea level rise and the potential shutdown of vital ocean currents within this century.

Hansen said he is particularly concerned about the melting of the Antarctic ice sheet and especially the Thwaites Glacier, which acts as a cork, holding back the ice on land and providing an important defense against catastrophic sea level rise.

But the warming is not necessarily locked in, according to the paper, which calls for “extraordinary actions.”

Measures it recommends include taxing carbon pollution, increasing nuclear power to “complement renewable energies” and strong action from developed countries to help developing countries move to low carbon energy. While the highest priority is to drastically reduce planet-heating pollution, this alone will not be enough, the report found.

“If we’re going to keep sea level close to where it is, we actually have to cool the planet,” said Hansen.

One way to do this, the report suggests, is solar geoengineering. This controversial technology aims to cool temperatures by reflecting sunlight away from the Earth, or allowing more heat to escape into space. That can be done through injecting aerosols into the atmosphere or spraying clouds with salt particles to make them more reflective, for example.

Critics warn of unforeseen consequences, including impacts on rainfall and monsoons, as well as “termination shock” if geoengineering were suddenly halted and pent-up warming released.

But Hansen said it should be considered. “Rather than describe those efforts as ‘threatening geoengineering,’ we have to recognize that we are geoengineering the planet right now,” he said, by burning large amounts of planet-heating fossil fuels.

The paper’s findings are alarming and come as the world is experiencing unprecedented heat. This year is on course to be the hottest on record, with every month from June onwards breaking records for the hottest such month.

But while science is clear that the rate of global warming is increasing, the idea that it is accelerating beyond what models predict is controversial.

The findings “are very much out of the mainstream,” said Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at the University of Pennsylvania.

He also cast doubt on the role of pollution reduction in warming trends, saying the total impact is very small, and warned that solar geoengineering is “unprecedented” and “potentially very dangerous.”

“Whether or not the 1.5 degrees Celsius target is reachable is a matter of policy, not climate physics, at this point,” Mann said.

But Hansen rejected criticisms of the research, saying it’s based on hard numbers and straightforward physics.

“This is not fringe, this is the correct physics and it is the real world,” he said, “and it sometimes takes the community a while to catch on.”

An enormous sea snake from Norse legend that was fathered by the trickster god Loki and grew big enough to circle the globe is now the namesake for a different type of “monster” — a newly discovered species of a massive, meat-eating marine reptile known as a mosasaur, which lived about 80 million years ago.

Paleontologists recently described the previously unknown mosasaur from fossils found near the North Dakota town of Walhalla. The town’s name comes from Valhalla, the feasting hall of Norse mythology where dead heroes gather, so the scientists dubbed the mosasaur Jormungandr walhallaensis. Its name references Norse myths of Jǫrmungandr, the Midgard Serpent, as well as the site of the fossil’s discovery, the researchers reported Monday in the journal Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.

The fossil itself has a somewhat less poetic name: NDGS 10838. It includes a near-complete skull with a bony ridge over the eyes as well as jaws and some skeletal parts, including 11 ribs and 12 vertebrae. In life, the animal would have measured about 24 feet (7.3 meters) long and had a long face slimmer than those of its mosasaur cousins, said lead study author Amelia Zietlow, a paleontologist and doctoral candidate at the American Museum of Natural History’s Richard Gilder Graduate School in New York City.

Yet in other ways, the animal was one of a kind. A mix of features in the bones of its skull made it unexpectedly challenging for the scientists to classify the newcomer and hinted that the mosasaur group includes more diverse forms than expected, the study authors reported.

An unusual specimen

The fossil was collected in 2015 by the North Dakota Geological Survey, a state agency dedicated to geology and public education about minerals and fossils. In fact, Zietlow said, NDGS 10838 was discovered in a hillside by someone who had participated in one of the agency’s programs, and who was therefore able to recognize the object as a fossil and knew to alert agency officials.

When the scientists examined the skull, they quickly realized they had something unusual on their hands. Its ear bones, which were somewhat rectangular, resembled those of Mosasaurus, the genus of mosasaur giants. But the shape and high number of its teeth were a closer match to a genus of smaller mosasaurs: Clidastes. Meanwhile, the angle and number of teeth on a bony palate at the roof of its mouth were unlike anything seen in either of those two mosasaur groups.

“He’s got features that look in some ways like Mosasaurus, in some ways like Clidastes. And then in other ways, they’re completely unique to this individual,” Zietlow said. This combination of traits convinced the researchers that what they were looking at was a new genus and species.

However, fossilization often distorts bone, and it’s possible that oddities in the fossil were shaped by natural processes after the animal’s death, said paleontologist Takuya Konishi, an associate professor in the department of biological sciences at the University of Cincinnati. (The authors acknowledged this possibility; their study includes idealized illustrations of the intact skull showing what it may have looked like before it fossilized.)

When the researchers analyzed the data, their evolutionary tree showed an outcome called a polytomy — “when a bunch of different species kind of blur together into a single spot” — with Jormungandr walhallaensis and Clidastes, Zietlow said. “They’re closer to each other than they are to anything else. But within that group of things, it’s not quite sure how they’re related.”

Additional fossils of the newfound species could help fine-tune Jormungandr walhallaensis’ position on the mosasaur family tree, said Konishi, who studies mosasaur evolution and was not involved in the study.

Other unusual details in the fossil are punctures and scratches scarring the vertebrae; the researchers identified these as bite marks. The marks do not appear to have healed, suggesting that they happened toward the end of the animal’s life or were the work of a scavenger that ripped the mosasaur apart after it was dead.

“This might be why we don’t have the rest of the skeleton,” Zietlow said.

Further questions about what made the marks — and whether it was an attack that Jormungandr walhallaensis survived — will be addressed in future research by study coauthor Clint Boyd, a senior paleontologist with the North Dakota Geological Survey and a curator of the North Dakota State Fossil Collection, Zietlow said.

Mosasaurs and evolutionary enigmas

Mosasaurs were a diverse group of apex predators that swam the world’s oceans during the latter part of the Cretaceous Period, about 98 million to 66 million years ago. They lived alongside dinosaurs but are more closely related to modern lizards and snakes.

Some mosasaurs measured just a few feet long, while the largest — in the genus Mosasaurus — was nearly 60 feet (18.2 meters) long, and while mosasaur fossils are relatively plentiful, scientists “have just only scratched the surface of the ‘true’ mosasaur diversity,” Konishi said. New mosasaur specimens, such as NDGS 10838, help experts to unravel “the rich evolutionary history of these rather charismatic apex predators of the Cretaceous seas,” he said.

To that end, the new study makes a significant contribution by supplying “rich anatomical detail documented by a very able mosasaur worker, Ms. Zietlow,” he added.

“The authors clearly provided a very thorough and careful osteological description of the new specimen,” creating a treasure trove of exceptional data, Konishi said.

Though mosasaurs were aquatic, their ancestors lived on land and then evolved to return to the sea. They weren’t the only animal group to do so; many types of reptiles and mammals — including plesiosaurs, whales, sea turtles and seals — adapted to ocean life from terrestrial ancestors, long after their even more distant tetrapod ancestors left the seas for land. And mosasaurs are an important animal group for studying this transition because their fossils are so abundant, Zietlow said.

“There are a lot of them, literally thousands of specimens in the United States alone,” she said. “That makes them good for studying big picture, statistical-type evolutionary questions.”

Despite the plentiful pool of specimens, many mosasaur fossils were not documented as exhaustively as Jormungandr walhallaensis was (and in some cases, were barely illustrated at all when they were first described, Zietlow said).

Addressing this discrepancy in newfound fossils — and revisiting known specimens — will play a big part in helping scientists solve these evolutionary riddles.

“I spent a lot of time putting together these figures, showing the bones in every view and showing all of the little lumps and bumps and things, so that future people can look at these figures and recognize the anatomy and then apply that to making new characters and spotting new differences between this animal and other animals,” Zietlow said. “That just helps everyone overall to understand the anatomy of these things a little bit better.”

Mindy Weisberger is a science writer and media producer whose work has appeared in Live Science, Scientific American and How It Works magazine.

The Israeli military has completely encircled Gaza City, according to a spokesperson, as the United Nations’ main relief agency in the isolated enclave accused Israeli warplanes of lethally bombing UN-run schools sheltering civilians.

Nearly a week after Israel first began moving tanks, bulldozers, infantrymen and combat engineer units into Gaza, Israel Defense Force spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Thursday that Gaza City has been surrounded. The IDF’s engineering corps is working to locate and neutralize underground infrastructure, explosives and other threats so that troops can move freely, he said.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency meanwhile highlighted the civilian toll of the ongoing conflict, after agency chief Philippe Lazzarini announced that Israeli warplanes had hit several UN-run schools that had been sheltering civilians. More than 20 people were reportedly killed in the attacks, he said.

Chaos of the aftermath could be seen in a five-minute video posted to Telegram, which showed bloodied bodies strewn across the floor and people screaming at the UNRWA-sponsored Jabalya Elementary school.

The agency’s fuel stocks – crucial for moving aid and powering medical services – are also “completely completed” after weeks of an Israeli blockade on essential supplies entering Gaza, Lazzarini also said. UN independent experts have previously warned that the import blockade, which prevents fuel, water and food from entering in sufficient quantities, likely violates international law.

In total, Egypt is preparing to facilitate the evacuation of nearly 7,000 foreign citizens in Gaza from more than 60 countries via the Rafah Crossing, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Hamas’ political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, has proposed an immediate ceasefire including the exchange of prisoners and “opening of the political path to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.”

In a recorded video statement on Wednesday, Haniyeh said he had presented a “comprehensive vision” to end the war with Israel, but claimed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “deceiving” his people by convincing them they could defeat Hamas in Gaza.

‘Must be investigated as war crimes’

Israel’s weeks long bombardment of Gaza has killed at least 9,025 people and injured over 22,000, according to the latest figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.

The civilian casualties have continued to rise as Israel strikes large residential areas, schools and hospitals in Gaza, in what it says are military target strikes.

Amnesty International previously said it documented “unlawful Israeli attacks” that “must be investigated as war crimes.” On Friday, Human Rights Watch warned Israel’s ground assault “raises grave concerns for the safety of all civilians caught in the fighting.”

The devastation wrought by the strikes, which are part of Israel’s expanded offensive in Gaza, appeared to be a tipping point in the war for a number of countries who responded with diplomatic measures in condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the resulting humanitarian crisis.

Jordan on Wednesday became the latest country to recall its ambassador to Israel, following Chile and Colombia, due to the strikes on Gaza. Bolivia on Tuesday cut its diplomatic relations with Israel citing “crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people.”

The strikes continue amid increasingly urgent calls for a ceasefire by the UN and aid organizations, and despite a UN General Assembly resolution backed by over 100 countries calling for a “sustained humanitarian truce.”

Israel has also announced the death of more soldiers in their assault, bringing the total to 20.

‘It felt like the end of the world’

Hospitals in Gaza say they are overwhelmed by the influx of dead and injured, with staff working in constant fear of an air strike.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Wednesday attack targeted a Hamas command and control complex and “eliminated” Hamas terrorists “based on precise intelligence.” “Hamas deliberately builds its terror infrastructure under, around and within civilian buildings, intentionally endangering Gazan civilians,” the IDF added in a statement.

An earlier strike in the same camp also caused catastrophic damage, with survivors and eyewitnesses describing of apocalyptic scenes and family members buried under rubble. “It felt like the end of the world,” one eyewitness said.

The IDF said the first strike killed several Hamas members, including Ibrahim Biari, whom it described as one of the Hamas commanders responsible for the October 7 attack on Israel, in which more than 1,400 people were killed and hundreds taken hostage. Hamas, however, strongly denied the presence of one of its leaders in the refugee camp.

The United Nations Human Rights Office said on social media that the attacks on Jabalya, which is Gaza’s largest refugee camp, “could amount to war crimes” given “the high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction.”

Nearly half of all hospitals in Gaza are out of service due to bombardments and fuel shortages, including the leading cancer hospital in the strip, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. It warned Gaza’s largest hospital Al Shifa would be forced to stop operating in less than a day.

The hospital is considered a backbone in providing health services in northern Gaza and the outage has affected ventilation systems in the operating rooms, the hospital’s only oxygen station, and the hospital morgue refrigerators, Al Kahlout said.

Heading into Gaza through the Rafah crossing on Wednesday were 55 humanitarian aid trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent containing food, water, medicines and medical supplies. A total of 272 aid trucks have crossed into Gaza so far – a drop in the ocean of the assistance needed – but no fuel has been allowed to enter, it said.

This story is developing and is being updated.

In Al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, a dazed and drowsy woman sits on the floor with a bleeding leg. A younger man lies flat on blood-stained tiles, his neck and legs wrapped in bandages.

The rest of the emergency room on Tuesday was crowded with men, women and children of different ages – some crying, some trembling and some asleep on makeshift beds on the floor.

“There is no equipment, people are piled up on top of one another,” said Musleh, who is also Gaza’s country representative for the MedGlobal healthcare charity.

Musleh lost her home in Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and says that soon there won’t be any fuel left to power this hospital, which is housing both patients and the countless displaced who have nowhere else to go.

More than 1.4 million people in Gaza were internally displaced as of Wednesday, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). More than half a million are seeking refuge in facilities run by the UN’s Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which are accommodating numbers three times their intended capacity.

Piles of both trash and people line the hospital’s corridors, Musleh said, with many “sleeping on the floors because residents feel hospitals are safe.”

“The smell of death is everywhere,” she said. “The smell of blood is everywhere.”

The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah warned Wednesday that the medical complex would be out of service in less than 24 hours as it runs out of the fuel needed to power generators.

Located in Gaza City, Al-Shifa hospital is also becoming part of the frontline, as Israel last week claimed that the facility is the site of a major Hamas command and control center.

One of the most densely populated areas on earth, the 140-square-mile Gaza Strip is being pounded by the Israeli military, which seeks to wipe out the Hamas militant group that launched the brutal October 7 attack on Israel, killing 1,400 and kidnapping more than 200 others.

More than 9,000 people have so far been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli strikes, according to the Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry, quoting data sourced from within the Hamas-controlled territory. More than 22,000 others have been injured, it said.

‘Overloaded’

“You couldn’t, as a human being and a medical officer, bear this situation,” he said, standing in the emergency department, surrounded by patients.

Shitali has not seen his family for days, and has to spend his nights at the hospital to treat the massive crowd of patients constantly flowing in. “We are overloaded,” he said.

Doctors at Al-Shifa are also seeing children with the majority of their body and faces burned, missing limbs and other “catastrophic injuries,” said Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care and humanitarian doctor with the aid group Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières.

The few other remaining hospitals in Gaza are also suffering, with some completely shutting down.

Gaza’s leading cancer hospital, the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospital, has stopped operating due to Israeli bombardment and fuel shortages, the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health said in a statement Wednesday, adding that 16 out of 35 hospitals in Gaza are now shut.

Skaik said the “most severe damage is the anxiety and panic that afflicts patients,” adding that some fled the hospital after the airstrike.

In Gaza’s Indonesian hospital, the medical services backbone of the enclave’s northern section, the main generator ran out of power Wednesday, leaving the 16,000-square-meter (172,000-square-foot) facility running on a secondary generator in only some parts of the hospital.

The Indonesian hospital is the nearest medical facility to the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, which the Israeli military hit with airstrikes on both Tuesday and Wednesday, leading to hundreds of casualties – dead and wounded – medics said. The Israeli military said the strikes on Jabalya targeted Hamas commanders and the group’s infrastructure.

‘Hanging by a thread’

The strain on hospitals have also taken a toll on vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women and newborn children.

The humanitarian agency Care International warned Monday that the dire medical conditions in the enclave are “exacerbating the risk of maternal and newborn mortality, which are already disproportionately high in Gaza.”

The Geneva-based agency said that pregnant women in Gaza are being forced to undergo emergency C-sections without anesthetics. An average of 160 pregnant women are already expected to give birth every day over the next month in the Gaza Strip, Care International said, adding that there are around 130 newborn infants in incubators that also cannot operate without electricity.

Hospitals in the besieged and heavily battered enclave are “hanging by a thread,” the UN said Monday, adding that around 10 hospitals in Gaza are still operational.

But those facilities are constantly receiving evacuation orders, the UN added.

Dr. Bashar Morad, executive director of the Palestinian Red Crescent and director of the Al-Quds hospital, says that his facility has received several evacuation orders from Israel amid the conflict.

Up to 16,000 displaced people are sheltering at Al-Quds, he said, with many living in the building’s corridors as the facility was not built to house such numbers.

Fuel, medical supplies, food and water are diminishing, Morad said, adding that with the vast number of patients as well as those sheltering in the hospital, replenishments are direly needed. But aid has been slow as Israeli military actions separate the strip’s north from the south, he said.

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said Sunday that Israeli airstrikes have “caused extensive damage to hospital departments and exposed residents and patients to suffocation” at the Al-Quds hospital.  The medical organization accused Israel of “deliberately” launching airstrikes “directly next to” the facility in order to force an evacuation of the hospital, the second-largest in Gaza City.

The airstrike “filled all departments with dust and smoke,” Morad said, causing “panic and fear among women and children.”

Musleh, the woman sheltering at Al-Shifa, described the scenes of dead bodies being hauled out after the airstrikes as “similar to slaughtered animals being moved.”

Bodies in morgues have begun to smell, she said, and many unidentified corpses are being buried in mass graves. “Gaza has been left alone,” Musleh said. “It is being slaughtered from vein to vein.”

Israel bombed the densely-populated Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza for the second time in two days Wednesday, prompting warnings of war crimes as more nations took diplomatic measures and condemned Israel’s offensive in the besieged enclave.

It also came as the first sanctioned exodus from the besieged enclave in weeks began, with injured Palestinians and hundreds of foreign nationals crossing from Gaza into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing. More civilians are expected to cross on Thursday.

The massive second strike on Jabalya created further catastrophic damage, destroying several buildings in the Falluja neighborhood of the camp, with video from the site showing a deep crater and people digging through the rubble searching for bodies.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the Wednesday attack targeted a Hamas command and control complex and “eliminated” Hamas terrorists “based on precise intelligence.”

“Hamas deliberately builds its terror infrastructure under, around and within civilian buildings, intentionally endangering Gazan civilians,” the IDF added in a statement.

The airstrike came a day after Israeli jets hit the camp in an area near Falluja on Tuesday, killing or injuring hundreds of people according to medics and triggering fresh outcry over spiraling civilian casualties in Gaza.

Survivors and eyewitnesses spoke of apocalyptic scenes in the aftermath of Tuesday’s strike, with one eyewitness saying “It felt like the end of the world.”

The IDF said the first strike killed several Hamas members, including Ibrahim Biari, whom it described as one of the Hamas commanders responsible for the October 7 attack on Israel, in which more than 1,400 people were killed and hundreds taken hostage. Hamas, however, strongly denied the presence of one of its leaders in the refugee camp.

The United Nations Human Rights Office said on social media that the attacks on Jabalya, which is Gaza’s largest refugee camp, “could amount to war crimes” given “the high number of civilian casualties and the scale of destruction.”

The devastation wrought by the strikes, which are part of Israel’s expanded offensive in Gaza, appeared to be a tipping point in the war for a number of countries who responded with diplomatic measures in condemnation of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the resulting humanitarian crisis.

Jordan on Wednesday became the latest country to recall its ambassador to Israel, following Chile and Colombia, due to the strikes on Gaza. Bolivia on Tuesday cut its diplomatic relations with Israel citing “crimes against humanity committed against the Palestinian people.”

The strikes continue amid increasingly urgent calls for a ceasefire by the UN and aid organizations, and despite a non-binding UN General Assembly resolution backed by over 100 countries calling for a “sustained humanitarian truce.”

New strikes, a hospital goes dark

A barrage of new explosions was seen over Gaza City – the largest urban center in the enclave – in the early hours of Thursday, a live camera feed from AFP showed.

IDF commander Brigadier General Itzik Cohen said Wednesday that the Israeli military is “at the gates of Gaza City.” And IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari claimed Israeli forces had breached Hamas’ defensive frontline in northern Gaza and is expanding its fighting into the strip.

On Thursday, the IDF announced the death of another soldier who was killed in Gaza on Wednesday. The total number of Israeli soldiers to have died since the start of the ground incursion is now 17. Of that figure, 16 were killed inside Gaza.

The scale of the tragedy for the more than 2 million people, half of them children, trapped inside the war-torn enclave is “unprecedented,” the head of the United Nations’ Palestinian refugee agency said following a brief trip to Gaza Wednesday.

“Everyone was just asking for water and food. Instead of being at school, learning, children were asking for a sip of water and a piece of bread. It was heart wrenching. Above all, people were asking for a ceasefire. They want this tragedy to end,” said Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

Nearly half of all hospitals in Gaza are out of service due to bombardments and fuel shortages, including the leading cancer hospital in the strip, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah. It warned Gaza’s largest hospital Al Shifa would be forced to stop operating in less than a day.

On Wednesday, injured Palestinians and hundreds of foreign nationals started crossing from Gaza into Egypt through the Rafah border crossing.

Heading into Gaza through the Rafah crossing on Wednesday were 55 humanitarian aid trucks from the Egyptian Red Crescent containing food, water, medicines and medical supplies. A total of 272 aid trucks have crossed into Gaza so far – a drop in the ocean of the assistance needed – but no fuel has been allowed to enter, it said.

This story is developing and is being updated.

China is cracking down on weather stations it says are spying for foreign countries, the latest measure in a broad counter-espionage campaign under leader Xi Jinping amid intensifying geopolitical tensions.

The country’s civilian spy agency, the Ministry of State Security, said Tuesday it had discovered hundreds of what it said were illegal meteorological stations with foreign links that were sending real-time weather data abroad – breaking data rules and posing national security risks.

The facilities were found across more than 20 provinces, and some of them were “directly funded by foreign governments,” the ministry said in a statement on social media.

Some stations were set up around sensitive sites such as military bases and defense companies to locate altitude and GPS data, the spy agency said. Others were placed in major grain-producing regions to analyze crop growth and grain yield, according to the ministry.

It noted that some of the devices were small, easy to install and hard to detect, and could automatically collect data and transmit over a network in real-time.

Some stations transmitted real-time information to official meteorological agencies overseas at high frequency and at multiple points for a long period of time, the statement said, adding they served foreign countries’ “homeland security” and meteorological monitoring.

The ministry did not say which foreign countries were involved.

The authorities made the discovery after investigating more than 10 overseas meteorological equipment agents and inspecting more than 3,000 foreign-linked meteorological stations nationwide.

The involved foreign parties did not obtain administrative licences for their activities, the spy agency said, and had not submitted the data to Chinese meteorological authorities or transmitted the data overseas with approval. The ministry said the activities violated both China’s data security law enacted in 2021 and a separate set of regulations on how foreign organizations can collect, use and share Chinese weather readings.

“Meteorological data… is an integral part of data security and resource security. It’s closely linked to military, food, and ecological security, climate change, and public interests,” the Ministry of State Security said. “The illegal collection and cross-border transmission of meteorological data endangers China’s sovereignty, security, and development interests.”

Weather balloons and air quality

The collection of meteorological data by foreign parties has previously sparked controversy with Chinese authorities.

In 2012, Beijing demanded foreign governments stop releasing data on China’s air quality, after the US Embassy’s documentation of Beijing’s choking smog drew widespread public attention inside China. The Embassy recorded hourly air quality data with an air sensor on its rooftop and posted it on Twitter, raising public awareness that pressured Chinese officials to acknowledge the scale of the problem and start taking measures to clean up the air.

The latest crackdown on foreign-linked weather stations comes eight months after the United States shot down a Chinese surveillance balloon that had meandered across the continental US and hovered over sensitive military sites. China maintained it was a “civilian airship used for research, mainly meteorological, purposes” that had veered off its planned course – and accused the US of overreacting.

Since then, Beijing and Washington have accused each other of spying in a string of highly public allegations. The two countries have long spied on each other but the deterioration in ties has supercharged this rivalry.

China’s Ministry of State Security has in recent months taken on a much more high profile role in publicizing multiple cases of alleged espionage by the US, claiming it has caught several spies working for the CIA and taking the rare step of giving some details.

The usually highly secretive agency, which oversees intelligence and counterintelligence both within China and overseas, does not even have a website.

But in August, it took the unprecedented step of launching a public account on WeChat, China’s hugely popular social messaging app that boasts more than 1 billion users. In the weeks since, the ministry has used the platform to repeatedly urge the public to stay vigilant and report suspicious activity to authorities.

The apparent propaganda blitz comes just weeks after CIA Director William Burns said his agency had “made progress” in rebuilding its spy network in China after suffering major setbacks a decade ago.

Australian police have brought murder charges against a woman who served a lunch earlier this year that led to the deaths of three people from suspected death cap mushroom poisoning.

Victoria Police confirmed a 49-year-old woman was charged with three counts of murder and five counts of attempted murder after being arrested in connection with the case Thursday morning.

Detective Inspector Dean Thomas described the charges as the “next step” in a long investigation.

“Over the last three months, this investigation has been subjected to incredibly intense levels of public scrutiny and curiosity. I cannot think of another investigation that has generated this level of media and public interest, not only here in Victoria but also nationally and internationally,” he said in a statement issued by Victoria Police Thursday.

“I think it is particularly important that we keep in mind that at the heart of this, three people have lost their lives. These are three people who by all accounts were much beloved in their communities and are greatly missed by their loved ones,” Thomas added.

Patterson served a beef wellington meal in late July to her former parents-in-law and her mother-in-law’s sister and husband, who were guests at her home in Leongatha, according to police.

Just days after the meal, her former mother-in law Gail Patterson, 70, Gail’s sister Heather Wilkinson, 66, and Gail’s 70-year-old husband Don died in hospital.

A fourth attendee, 68-year-old reverend Ian Wilkinson, was left critically ill and reportedly in need of a liver transplant but made enough of a recovery to leave Melbourne’s Austin hospital in September.

Patterson has previously denied any wrongdoing, telling local media she had no idea the mushrooms she used in the recipe were dangerous.

“I am now devastated to think that these mushrooms may have contributed to the illness suffered by my loved ones. I really want to repeat that I had absolutely no reason to hurt these people whom I loved,” Patterson said in statement she gave to police, cited by public broadcaster ABC.

In the same statement she claimed she bought the mushrooms used in the meal from two separate stores.

When news of the investigation emerged in early August, Detective Inspector Dean Thomas with the Victoria Police homicide squad said Patterson was a suspect because she cooked the meal, and was the only adult at the lunch who didn’t fall ill.

The symptoms suffered by Patterson’s guests were consistent with poisoning by death cap mushrooms (Amanita phalloides), Thomas said in August, though no toxicology reports to show exactly what they consumed have yet been made public.

He said Patterson had separated from her husband, Simon, whose parents died after the meal, but described their relationship as “amicable.”

“We have to keep an open mind in relation to this. It could be very innocent,” Thomas said at the time. “But again, we just don’t know at this point … four people turn up and three of them pass away, with another one critical, so we have to work through this.”

A search warrant has been executed at the Gibson Street address where the woman was arrested, including the use of technology detector dogs from the Australian Federal Police, Victoria Police said in a statement.

Following the arrest, the investigation remains ongoing, police said.

“I know that people will no doubt have many unanswered questions about this matter, however I urge people to be especially mindful of unnecessary speculation and not sharing misinformation,” Thomas said in the statement issued by Victoria Police Thursday.

The small Persian Gulf state of Qatar is once again front and center in global diplomacy, this time for its efforts to mediate deals to free hostages taken by Hamas during its October 7 attacks in Israel, as well as evacuate foreign nationals from Gaza.

On Wednesday, Qatar brokered a deal between Israel, Hamas and Egypt, in coordination with the United States, to release foreign nationals and critically injured Palestinian civilians from Gaza to Egypt, according to sources familiar with the talks. The agreement was separate from any hostage negotiations, the source added.

At least 110 foreign passport holders left Gaza, according to officials on the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing. Al-Arish Hospital in Egypt also began receiving injured Palestinians who crossed from Gaza, according to Al-Qahera news.

Qatar finds itself in a delicate diplomatic position, one that experts say has so far acted in its benefit, making it an indispensable ally to Washington. But some have said that Qatar’s relationship with Hamas may become a liability.

“(Qatar’s) relationship with Hamas has been a key component of the mediation strategy,” said Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at King’s College London who focuses on Gulf states. “It’s a place where Qatar has a monopoly over that relationship, has a monopoly over that conflict because it can speak to both sides in a way that no other player in the world can.”

For now, the Hamas-Qatar relationship appears to be paying off. In addition to the Palestinian civilians and foreign nationals allowed to leave Gaza on Wednesday, four hostages held by Hamas – two Israelis and two American-Israelis – have also been freed through Qatari and Egyptian mediation.

Israel has acknowledged Qatar’s efforts, with National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi saying the Gulf state has become “an essential party and stakeholder in the facilitation of humanitarian solutions.”

“Qatar’s diplomatic efforts are crucial at this time,” Hanegbi wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

What is the nature of Qatar’s relationship with Hamas?

In the wake of the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, Qatar fell out with some of its Arab neighbors after it supported the protesters that sought to overthrow the regimes in several Arab nations.

Ties further deteriorated when Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt severed diplomatic ties with Qatar in mid-2017, accusing the country of supporting terrorism, which Qatar repeatedly denied. It took years for the countries to patch up relations.

In 2012, it allowed Iran-backed Hamas to establish a political office in Doha, which remains operative.

That relationship has made Qatar an important mediator with Hamas during its conflicts with Israel.

Qatar also pays public sector salaries in Gaza, part of a $30 million per month stipend for families and fuel for electricity, according to Reuters.

It has maintained close relations with Western nations, becoming an increasingly important energy supplier as one of the world’s biggest gas producers and is a major arms buyer from the US. It has for decades been home to a giant US air base and was declared a Major Non-NATO Ally by the Biden administration last year.

But Doha was also one of the first Gulf Arab nations to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, in 1996, breaking a long-held taboo in the region (it severed ties after Israel invaded Gaza in 2009). Its Al Jazeera network was the first pan-Arab news network to label Israel on a map and invite its officials for on-air interviews.

What is Qatar’s strategy in playing a mediator role?

Mediating to release the hostages kidnapped by Hamas is a useful avenue for Qatari diplomacy, Krieg added, as some of the hostages have European and American nationalities, giving several countries a vested interest in backing Doha’s efforts.

Mediation has long been one of Qatar’s most “marketable skills,” said Joost R. Hiltermann, director of the Middle East North Africa program at the International Crisis Group think tank in Brussels, referring to the Gulf state’s long history of negotiating between international players at odds with one another.

Doha mediated a landmark deal between Iran and the US in September, which saw the release of five Americans from Iranian detention. The prisoner release was part of a wider deal that included the US unfreezing $6 billion in Iranian funds.

Qatar also played mediating roles on Iran’s nuclear file, facilitating indirect talks between Tehran and Washington in late 2022.

In one of its most notable mediation efforts, Qatar in 2021 proved crucial to Washington’s eleventh-hour evacuation from Afghanistan, when the Gulf state not only facilitated the safe travel of Americans in the country, but also acted as a protecting power for them in the new Taliban-ruled state, with which Qatar maintains diplomatic ties.

Has Hamas become a liability for Qatar after October 7?

Doha has come under criticism from Israel and Western politicians for its ties with Hamas.

Despite its mediation efforts, Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen last week accused Qatar of financing Hamas and harboring its leaders.

“Qatar, which finance and harbor of Hamas’ leaders, could influence and enable the immediate and unconditional release of all, of all hostages held by the terrorists. You, members of the international community should demand Qatar to do just that,” Cohen said at a high-level UN meeting.

In response, Qatar said it was “surprised and dismayed” by the Israeli minister’s comments, especially “at a time when Qatar is seeking to ensure the release of captives and de-escalation.”

Qatar warned that “these provocative statements” could undermine mediation efforts and even “endanger lives.”

Krieg said that a lot of Qataris privately have their own reservations about Hamas, and that Qatar’s relationship with Hamas likely “needs a bit of a reality check.”

The Washington Post reported on Thursday that the US and Qatar have “agreed to revisit” Doha’s association with Hamas after the hostage crisis is resolved, citing four diplomats familiar with the discussions.

The agreement was forged during a recent meeting in Doha between US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the emir of Qatar, the Washington Post said, adding it is still undecided whether that reevaluation “will entail an exodus of Hamas leaders from Qatar.”

Krieg said it is unlikely that Qatar will kick Hamas out, but is likely to dissociate from the group, as it did with the Taliban, which also an office in the Qatari capital Doha.

“Qatar is playing an exemplary role” in its mediation efforts, Hiltermann said. “But there is a political bloc in the US that is unhappy with Qatar’s coziness with Hamas.”

Two Republican members of Congress have called on Qatar to “extradite Hamas’s leadership from Doha.”

Hiltermann said that despite the pressure on Qatar to push out Hamas, letting go of the group would be “a self-defeating move” for Qatar and might push Hamas further into Iran’s arms.

“You’ll lose that contact,” he said. “And these contacts can be useful in the future.”

Israel has however said that it seeks to destroy Hamas once and for all so that it doesn’t threaten it again, which could diminish Qatar’s utility as a mediator.