The Israeli military said Sunday it was “increasing the urgency” of its calls for people in northern Gaza to flee south, a day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel had launched the “second stage” of its war against Hamas.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari made the call in a video posted Sunday morning — reiterating a warning the United Nations (UN) and humanitarian groups have criticized, pointing to the challenges of moving within Gaza while it is under attack.

It’s unclear how widely Gazans received that most recent call as communications severed across much of the territory since Friday night were only partially restored as of Sunday morning.

“The war inside the Gaza Strip will be long and difficult — and we are ready for it,” Netanyahu declared in a rare statement and press conference Saturday, after expanding ground operations inside Gaza where residents are scrambling to survive amid intensifying bombardments.

He said his government’s aims were to destroy the “military and governing capabilities” of Hamas and to rescue the more than 200 hostages that the militant group captured during the October 7 terror attack on Israel that sparked the latest conflict.

In a statement Sunday, IDF said it struck over 450 targets over the past day, including command centers, observation posts, and missile launch sites as it continues to expand its ground incursion into Gaza.

Israeli officials on Saturday confirmed a significant expansion of what it had described as “targeted raids” in the Hamas-governed Palestinian enclave of Gaza earlier in the week, saying ground forces had entered the territory overnight Friday.

However, it does not appear as though any major ground offensive aimed at seizing and holding significant amounts of the territory is yet underway.

“We attacked above ground and below ground. We attacked terrorist operatives at all levels, in all places. The instructions to our forces are clear: The operation will continue until a new order is given,” Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said in a joint appearance with Netanyahu Saturday.

The ground incursion and intensified bombardment come as international calls for a ceasefire grow louder, with 120 nations at the UN calling on Friday for a “sustained humanitarian truce” in Gaza.

Already dire conditions inside the strip cratered further after communications went down in the area Friday evening — deepening challenges for medical services in the densely populated territory that’s home to more than 2 million people and facing shortages of fuel, water and fuel.

At least 7,650 people have been killed and more than 19,450 more injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to the latest figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.

Hamas’ initial surprise attacks on Israel earlier in the month killed more than 1,400 people, most of them civilians.

Fate of hostages unclear

On Saturday, the United Nations said Israeli airstrikes had left healthcare facilities in Gaza without electricity and civilians across the enclave virtually “cut off from the outside world.”

A humanitarian ceasefire could facilitate the “necessary massive scale up” in delivery of aid to people in Gaza, the UN said.

While some aid trucks have been able to enter Gaza through Egypt since the crisis began, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees said on Friday these were doing little to address Gazan’s needs. Israel ordered the “complete siege” of Gaza in the wake of the October 7 attack.

IDF spokesperson Hagari said in a video posted to the group’s official social media on Sunday that “humanitarian efforts to Gaza, led by Egypt and the United States will be expanding” the following day, without providing further details.

Communications in Gaza were partially restored on Sunday morning, according to two service providers and a monitoring group, following a blackout that had left aid agencies out of touch with their staff on the ground and hampered medical communications.

In its Saturday statement, the UN added that a ceasefire could facilitate the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza.

Israel is still working to determine exactly how many people are being held hostage in Gaza, but the IDF said Saturday they had notified the families of 230 people believed to currently be captive there.

The Israeli government has been under public pressure to ensure the safety of the hostages amid its escalating campaign against Hamas, with senior officials portraying the intensifying campaign as part of a strategy to secure their release.

“The more the military pressure increases, the more we increase firepower and the more we hit Hamas, the closer we will be to a situation in which they will agree to reach solutions that will enable us to reach your loved ones, our friends, and our loved ones,” Gallant, the defense minister, said Saturday.

Earlier that day, Netanyahu had met with families of hostages calling for an “everyone in return for everyone” deal, which would secure the immediate release of all hostages in Gaza in exchange for Palestinians currently held in Israeli prisons.

“We spoke bluntly and made it clear to the prime minister in no uncertain terms that a comprehensive deal based on the ‘everyone for everyone’ principle is a deal the families would consider and has the support of all of Israel,” Meirav Leshem Gonen, mother of Romi Gonen, said on behalf of the families.

Yahya Al-Sinwar, the chief of Hamas in the Gaza Strip, said Saturday the group was ready to initiate a comprehensive prisoner swap to release all hostages held by his group in exchange for the estimated 6630 Palestinians in Israeli prisons — a proposition that could be hugely controversial in Israel.

‘Serious implications’ on regional peace

In the wake of the ramped up Israeli operations in Gaza, Saudi Arabia and Egypt have each warned of destabilization in regional security if Israel continues its ground operations.

Saudi Arabia “condemns and denounces any ground incursions” by Israeli forces into Gaza due to the impact on civilians, the country’s Foreign Ministry wrote in a Saturday statement.

Israeli military action “against (Saudi Arabia’s) brotherly Palestinian People” would have “serious implications on the stability of the area and the international and regional peace and security,” the statement said.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi warned on Saturday that the Middle East “will become a ticking time bomb” and that the “expansion of the conflict” was not in the region’s interest.

The country’s Foreign Ministry warned in a separate statement “of the grievous risks and the unprecedented humanitarian and security implications,” which it said would result from the Israeli incursion into Gaza.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas called on the leaders of Arab nations to convene an emergency Arab League summit in response to Israel’s operation in Gaza, according to a speech delivered from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank on Saturday.

Citing the UN resolution calling for a humanitarian truce, Abbas said Israel responded “with more bombing and destruction.”

This story is developing and is being updated.

The moon is our planet’s constant celestial companion, only shaded from view about once a month when its orbit takes it between Earth and the sun.

Earth’s biggest satellite has long been a source of awe and wonder, inspiring the imaginations of artists and writers for millennia. The moon’s gravitational pull is also the force behind ocean tides and partly why our planet has a 24-hour day.

Be sure to look up this Saturday evening, when a full hunter’s moon will shine in the night sky. Lucky sky-gazers in Europe, Africa, most of Asia and western Australia will also glimpse a partial lunar eclipse, when Earth’s shadow appears to take a “bite” out of the moon.

Although the moon is Earth’s nearest neighbor, many secrets remain — mysteries that could be solved by paying a visit to the lunar surface.

Lunar update

When Apollo 17 astronauts Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt scooped up rocks and dust from the lunar surface in 1972, they unknowingly brought back the answer to one of the biggest questions about the moon: its age.

More than 50 years after the sample was collected, scientists detected crystals in lunar dust that revealed the moon is 40 million years older than previously believed.

The moon was created when a Mars-size object crashed into Earth, flinging a large rocky piece into space that went into orbit around our planet. Zircon crystals formed as the moon cooled 4.46 billion years ago, and a new analysis traced them in the Apollo 17 samples.

“It’s amazing being able to have proof that the rock you’re holding is the oldest bit of the Moon we’ve found so far,” said Jennika Greer, a research associate in Earth sciences at the University of Glasgow.

Trailblazers

The beginnings of human life are still largely a mystery to scientists.

When sperm fuses with an egg, complex processes result in tiny cells that divide and reproduce enough to become a human body with more than 30 trillion cells.

But the early development of human embryos, especially within the first month, presents a big question mark scientists want to answer.

Advances in stem cells are being used to create embryo-like structures, or cells that mimic an embryo but don’t result in a fetus. But these breakthroughs are raising ethical questions about how the embryos can be used in the name of science and women’s health.

A long time ago

Engineers uncovered 125 million-year-old dinosaur footprints beside a beachside cafe along the Isle of Wight while investigating ways to reduce coastal erosion and flooding.

The three-toed prints were likely made by a mantellisaurus, an herbivorous dinosaur that lived during the early Cretaceous Period.

“Dinosaurs existing right where our team is working brings old and new together — the modern challenges of combatting climate change with a period of time we can only imagine,” said Nick Gray, the UK Environment Agency’s regional flood and coastal-risk manager.

Separately, the ruins of a 5,000-year-old Neolithic tomb were unearthed on Scotland’s Orkney Islands. The site contained more than a dozen skeletons of men, women and children, including a pair that seemed to be embracing.

Across the universe

Multiple telescopes witnessed a massive cosmic explosion that released a burst of light brighter than our entire Milky Way galaxy.

The explosion, called a kilonova, occurred when two neutron stars collided, releasing the energetic burst of light.

The James Webb Space Telescope also detected the signature of rare chemical elements in the aftermath of the explosion, such as tellurium, which is used to tint glass, and iodine, necessary for much of life on Earth.

Once upon a planet

An ancient landscape has been discovered beneath the East Antarctic ice sheet, thanks to ice-penetrating radar.

The area, equivalent to the size of Belgium, was formed by rivers and likely resembled the hills and valleys of North Wales before frozen layers covered it more than 14 million years ago.

“The land underneath the East Antarctic Ice Sheet is less well known than the surface of Mars,” said Stewart Jamieson, a professor in the department of geography at Durham University in the UK.

Understanding the hidden, well-preserved landscape could help scientists predict the evolution of the ice sheet and how it may fare as temperatures warm in the climate crisis.

Meanwhile, declassified photos captured by Cold War-era US spy satellites have revealed hundreds of previously unknown Roman-era forts across Iraq and Syria, but many of the structures may have already been destroyed.

Discoveries

These new findings may surprise you:

— The Webb telescope spied a never-before-seen, high-speed jet stream racing around Jupiter’s equator.

— Bittersweet tunes may be just what the doctor ordered to reduce the perception of pain, according to new research.

— Volcanic rocks on one of the world’s largest islands contain evidence that Earth’s core may have been leaking ancient helium for millions of years.

This week, Ukrainian forces continued to hold out against a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine as the White House claimed Russia is executing its own troops for disobeying orders.

In southern Ukraine, authorities issued evacuation orders for civilians where Russia has stepped up aerial attacks.

Strikes in a western Ukrainian city blew out windows at a nuclear power plant, once again raising safety concerns.

Here are the key developments…

Executing its own

The US says Russia is executing its own soldiers and has threatened entire units with execution for failing to obey orders.

National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told reporters: “We have information that the Russian military has been actually executing soldiers who refuse to follow orders, we also have information that Russian commanders are threatening to execute entire units if they seek to retreat from Ukrainian artillery fire.”

Kirby did not provide further details on the claim that Russia was executing its own. Russia has previously been accused of using “barrier troops” to keep soldiers from deserting the front lines.

“It’s reprehensible to think about – that you would execute your own soldiers, because they didn’t want to follow orders, and now threatening to execute entire units is barbaric,” he said.

Russia’s mobilized forces in the region “remain under-trained, under-equipped and unprepared for combat,” Kirby said, and have been largely used in what he called “human wave tactics” as it attempts to forge ahead with a renewed offensive.

While Russia continues to have some offensive capability and may achieve some tactical gains on the battlefield, it continues to show no regard for the lives of soldiers,” Kirby told reporters.

Tough battles in Avdiivka and Kupiansk

Russia continues its brutal offensive in eastern Ukraine.

In the city of Avdiivka, Ukraine claimed it had been successful in repelling assaults and taking out large numbers of Russian soldiers.

Rain over the last few days has slowed down Russian forces as they continue efforts to encircle the city and take over high ground. “Moving on foot on wet ground is difficult, let alone moving heavy equipment,” a local military official said.

“Our warriors stopped them and inflicted heavy losses on the enemy, who lost at least a brigade of personnel,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Avdiivka has been a front line city since 2014, when Moscow-backed separatists seized a large portion of the Donbas region. It has been under fire since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Most residents have fled the fighting. Some of the remaining civilians are trickling out of the city with the help of the police.

In Kupiansk, Ukrainian soldiers are fighting off Russian efforts to capture a strategic railway interchange.

Assaults are around the clock, according to Ukrainian military on the ground.

Kupiansk was occupied by Russian forces for nearly seven months early on in the war. Since its liberation in September 2022, the Ukrainian military has been trying to resist Russian assaults. The city is strategically important to prevent Russia from accessing the nearby Oskil River.

Zelensky said: “Kupiansk and Avdiivka are in heavy, tough battles, but our soldiers are holding their ground.”

Child evacuations

As Russian forces continue to pummel residential areas in the Kherson region with guided aerial bombs, officials have started mandatory evacuations of children.

Ninety children have been evacuated across 23 villages along the Ukrainian-controlled western bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson region.

Nearly 700 children still remain in areas that continue to come under heavy bombardment.

Since Wednesday, Russians have launched nearly 35 guided aerial bombs daily at settlements along the Dnipro River, killing at least eight civilians, including a 13-year-old boy in the town of Beryslav, according to Ukrainian officials.

Kherson region military administration Oleksandr Prokudin visited the most frequently shelled settlements to convince parents to take their children to safety. “Children need to be safe. To play in peace. Russian shelling deprives our children of all this,” he said.

At least 500 Ukrainian children have been killed and more than 1,000 have been injured since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine in February 2022, according to an official Ukrainian government database.

Ukraine has previously ordered mandatory evacuations of civilians, particularly children in areas close to front lines in the east and south.

‘Next time, we may not be so fortunate’

Shockwaves from explosions near the Khmelnytskyi Nuclear Power Plant in western Ukraine shattered many windows at the facility and temporarily cut off power to some off-site radiation monitoring stations.

“The fact that numerous windows at the site were destroyed shows just how close it was.

Next time, we may not be so fortunate,” IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a statement on Wednesday. “Hitting a nuclear power plant must be avoided at all costs.”

Two drones were shot down at a distance of approximately 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) and 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) from the site, Zelensky said, accusing Russia of targeting the nuclear facility. “It is highly likely that the target for these drones was the Khmelnytsky Nuclear Power Plant,” he said.

“This incident again underlines the extremely precarious nuclear safety situation in Ukraine, which will continue as long as this tragic war goes on,” Grossi said.

Fears of a nuclear incident have been raised since the start of Russia’s full scale invasion. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, close to the front line and occupied by Russian troops since March 2022, has been the main focus of concern. Located on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, the plant was put into cold shutdown in June to limit the chances of a large-scale nuclear disaster after the breach of the Nova Kakhova dam lowered water levels used for cooling.

Israeli ground forces are inside Gaza after entering the enclave overnight, as Palestinians experienced what they have described as the most intense round of airstrikes since Israel began its retaliation against Hamas’ October 7 terror attack.

Israeli forces “went into the Gaza Strip and expanded the ground operation where infantry, armor and engineer units and artillery with heavy fire are taking part,” Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Saturday morning.

“The forces are in the field and continue the fighting,” he added, without giving further details.

Hagari’s words confirm the military operation has undergone a significant expansion after what it had earlier described as two “targeted raids,” which took place on Wednesday night and Thursday night. Both those raids saw ground forces withdraw after a few hours.

However, it does not appear as though any major ground offensive aimed at seizing and holding significant amounts of the territory is yet underway. In a fresh call for Gazans to move south, the IDF spoke of an “impending” operation.

Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said his country had entered “a new phase in the war.”

“Tonight, the ground in Gaza shook,” he said in a statement.

“We attacked above ground and below ground. We attacked terrorist operatives at all levels, in all places. The instructions to our forces are clear: the operation will continue until a new order is given.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday that the goals of this stage of the war are to destroy Hamas and return the more than 200 hostages the militant group took on October 7 and still holds in Gaza.

Netanyahu confirmed he spoke with family members of the hostages and said he vowed to them that he would exhaust all options to return their loved ones home.

The IDF said on Saturday that its warplanes hit 150 underground targets in the north of the enclave, striking what it called terror tunnels and underground combat spaces and killing several Hamas operatives.

Hagari said Gazans who had moved south of Wadi Gaza, a waterway bisecting the center of the strip, were in an area he called a “protected space,” and would receive more food, water and medicine today, though he did not give any details.

More than 2 million people live in the enclave, which spans just 140 square miles and is one of the most densely-populated places on Earth. For weeks, people living in the territory have faced Israeli airstrikes and a growing humanitarian situation, with shortages of water, food and fuel.

At least 7,650 people have been killed and more than 19,450 more injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to the latest figures released by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.

Mourning in Gaza

Gazans mourned the loss of their loved ones on Saturday following a night of intense Israeli airstrikes, with many gathering at Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah in central Gaza.

Hospitals have lost contact with each other, he said, after communications networks were cut across the strip. “People are desperate to find some news about their loved ones and their families,” he added.

Al-Dikran said that after a pause of several hours, airstrikes had resumed again in central and northern Gaza, adding that artillery fire had continued uninterrupted through the night.

The IDF on Saturday conducted heavy artillery strikes against northern Gaza, with multiple explosions heard every minute.

Israeli troops have cleared out a large perimeter around the Gaza Strip, fearing incoming anti-tank weapons.

Aid agencies lose contact

Communications in the enclave have been severely disrupted, leaving aid agencies out of touch with their staff on the ground.

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday morning that reports of the intense bombardment are “extremely distressing.” He added: “We are still out of touch with our staff and health facilities. I’m worried about their safety.”

He said that it is “not possible” to evacuate patients or find safe shelter under such circumstances, and the “blackout is also making it impossible for ambulances to reach the injured.”

The WHO posted on social media that health workers, patients and civilians in Gaza spent the night “in darkness and fear” as they were “subject to a total communication and electrical blackout.”

The organization said hospitals across Gaza are operating at maximum capacity, unable to take in new patients whilst also “sheltering thousands of civilians.”

“There are more [people] wounded every hour,” the WHO said. “But ambulances cannot reach them in the communications blackout. Morgues are full. More than half of the dead are women and children.”

It reiterated a call for “immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” adding that safe passage must also be ensured for “desperately needed medical supplies, fuel, water and food into and across Gaza.”

Several United Nations agencies have also reported losing contact with their local staff in Gaza.

Elon Musk said SpaceX’s Starlink satellite communications network would support internet connectivity for internationally recognized relief organizations in the besieged enclave.

In response, Israel’s Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi said that the government “will use all means at its disposal to fight this.” In a statement posted on X, Karhi wrote there is “no doubt” that the service would be used by Hamas “for terrorist activities.”

While communications are largely severed within the territory, according to the local telecoms provider Jawwal, those with Israeli or international SIMs appear to have some patchy connections.

Fate of hostages remains unclear

The expanded operation has left families of the more than 200 hostages taken to Gaza fearful for their loved ones.

A group lobbying for the families of Israeli hostages spoke of “the most terrible of all nights” as emotions spiked with the IDF’s expansion of its ground operation.

“Anxiety, frustration, and especially enormous anger that none of the war cabinet bothered to meet with the families of the hostages to explain one thing – whether the ground operation endangers the well-being of the 229 hostages in Gaza,” said the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.

Hagari told reporters on Friday that the IDF had notified the families of hostages about the expanded operations and reiterated the military was “committed to the national task of returning all hostages.”

Qatar and Egypt have been mediating between Israel, the US and Hamas to release the hostages held by the militant group. Four hostages have been freed so far.

The White House said on Friday it was having “active conversations” with Israel about a humanitarian pause to help get hostages out of Gaza.

In a Saturday news conference, families of the hostages said they told Netanyahu in a meeting they would accept an “everyone in return for everyone” deal, which would secure the immediate release of all hostages.

“We clarified to the Prime Minister that an immediate exchange of everyone for everyone is a deal the families would consider and one that has broad support from all of Israel,” family representatives said in a statement. “Bring everyone home now.”

Such an agreement would involve the release of hostages in exchange for Palestinians currently held in Israeli prisons. The Palestinian Prisoner’s Club, a non-governmental organization dedicated to addressing the concerns of Palestinian detainees in Israeli detention centers, estimates that this amounts to 6,630 people.

On Saturday, Hamas released a statement stating the group was “immediately ready” to engage in such a comprehensive trade, though this type of deal would be hugely controversial in Israel.

This story is developing and will be updated.

Editor’s Note: Editor’s note: If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts or mental health matters, please call the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing 988 to connect with a trained counselor, or visit the 988 Lifeline website.

When fighting broke out in Kang Hyeon-joo’s elementary school classroom, her heart would beat so fast she could not breathe and her vision would blur.

“They were throwing punches and kicking faces, throwing chairs and tables around,” she recalled, adding she had been hurt trying to intervene.

For two years, Kang struggled to discipline her students – or cope with the parental backlash when she did. She claims her principal did nothing to help and would tell her simply to “just take a week off”.

The strain took a dangerous toll. Kang says she started feeling the urge to jump in front of a bus. “If I just jumped at least, I would feel some relief. If I just jumped off a tall building, that would at least give me some peace.”

Kang is currently on sick leave but is far from alone in her experiences.

Tens of thousands of teachers have been protesting in recent months, calling for more protection from students and parents. At one protest in Seoul last month, 200,000 gathered, according to organizers, forcing the government to take notice and action.

The catalyst

The unified stand by the country’s teaching staff comes after the suicide of a first-grade teacher, in her early 20s, in July. She was found dead in her classroom in Seoul. Police have mentioned a problematic student and parental pressure while discussing her case, but have not given a definitive reason for her suicide.

Several more teachers have taken their own lives since July and some of these cases have reportedly been linked to school stress, according to colleagues of the deceased and bereaved families.

Government data shows 100 public school teachers killed themselves from January 2018 to June 2023, 11 of them in the first six months of this year, but does not specify what factors contributed to their deaths.

Sung Youl-kwan, a professor of education at Kyung Hee University, says the speed and size of the protests took many by surprise. “I think there has been like a shared feeling that this can happen to me too,” he said.

Teachers point to a 2014 child abuse law, intended to protect children, as one of the main reasons they feel unable to discipline students. They say they are fearful of being sued by a small percentage of parents for causing emotional distress to their child and being dragged through the courts.

“School is the last barrier to let students know what is okay in society and what is not. But we couldn’t do anything, if we teach them, we could be accused,” said Ahn Ji-hye, an elementary school teacher who helped organize previous protests.

Ahn says parents have called her mobile phone some days from 6 a.m. until 11 p.m., wanting to talk about their child or complain.

Is this the solution?

South Korea’s education minister Lee Ju-ho initially warned teachers that a mass strike would be an illegal act. That position was swiftly reversed, and a set of legal revisions passed the National Assembly on September 21, a fast piece of legislation.

One of the key changes is providing teachers some protection from being sued for child abuse if their discipline is considered a legitimate educational activity. Also, the responsibility for handling school complaints and lawsuits brought by parents now rests with the principal.

“So far we have a culture where the school principal tended to pass those responsibilities to teachers,” said Professor Sung.

The new law will also protect teachers’ personal information, such as their mobile phone numbers, and require parents to contact the school with concerns or complaints rather than the teacher directly.

In the past, Ahn said, “If I could not give my personal phone number to them, sometimes some parents would come to the parking lot and watch and see and take a note of my phone number from my car, then they would text message me.” It is customary for Koreans to display their phone number in the bottom corner of their windscreen.

Ahn welcomes the legal changes as “meaningful,” but insists higher-level laws like the Child Welfare Act and Child Abuse Punishment Act also need to be revised. “It is still possible to report teachers based on suspicion alone according to these laws,” she said.

She says that, for now at least, the protests will continue.

One is planned for outside the National Assembly on October 28. Ahn says she would like to see penalties for parents who make unfounded accusations against teachers or practical measures put in place so that mandated changes can be adopted in classrooms, such as removing a disruptive student elsewhere to allow teaching to continue.

Professor Sung believes the revisions will help in the short term, but cautions that the law should be seen as a safety net not a solution.

A problem of law or culture?

Critics say South Korean society places a disproportionate level of importance on academic success so it should not be surprising that parents put teachers – and the wider education system – under so much pressure.

It is the norm for students to attend a cram school, called hagwon, after their regular school hours, not as an extra but as a basic and expensive requirement to succeed.

On the day of the national college entrance exam, known as Suneung in Korean, airplanes are grounded, and commuting hours are adjusted to ensure that students taking the exams are not disturbed.

“We have a culture in which parents have usually one child and they are ready to pour every financial resource and opportunity into this child,” Sung said.

“This pressure or obsession with education, sometimes with a high score, high achievement (mindset), is not a good environment for teachers (because) they are taking the pressure from the parents.”

Sung says the days of a teacher being automatically respected are long gone, not just in South Korea but elsewhere in the world, and the teacher-parent dynamic is unrecognizable from just a decade or two ago.

“In educational policies, parents are regarded as like a consumer, with consumer sovereignty, and school and teachers are regarded as service providers”, he said, adding parents believe they “have the right to demand many things from schools.”

In a country where education is considered central to success, teacher satisfaction is low. A survey by the Federation of Teachers’ Labor Union in April found 26.5% of teachers polled said they had received counseling or treatment for psychological issues due to their job. Some 87% said they have considered moving job or quitting in the past year.

Editor’s Note: The following story includes graphic material. Audience discretion is advised.

Yanir Ishay has thrown away three boxes of cigarettes in the past two weeks.

He said he thought he could smell death on them, having carried the packets in his pockets while collecting human remains from the sites of Hamas’ terror attack in southern Israel. Then his wife told him they were brand new — he’d just bought them.

Ishay is one of 120 volunteers – all of them men – working with ZAKA, a religious search and rescue organization, to recover the bodies of people killed near the Israel-Gaza perimeter by Hamas militants on October 7. Israeli authorities say more than 1,400 people were killed in the attack.

In response, Israel declared war on Hamas, pounding Gaza with airstrikes that have killed more than 6,850 Palestinians, according to information published by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.

Weeks on, as the war continues to rage, ZAKA volunteers are still collecting remains.

ZAKA has long worked in Israel and around the world, responding to terror attacks, accidents and disasters. Most of its members are deeply religious orthodox Jewish men and their mission is driven by the desire to ensure everyone, no matter what the circumstances of their death, can get a proper Jewish burial.

“We believe that the respect for the dead is no less important – and sometimes more important – than the respect for the living,” Elmalih said. “We know how significant the idea of burying the dead is because God himself was involved in the burial of Moses.”

On Friday morning, Elmalih was working at a cemetery in Ashdod, a city about 20 miles north of the Gaza Strip. A row of freshly dug graves in the burial grounds gets longer and longer each day, as more victims are identified and laid to rest. The cemetery has received so many bodies in the past two weeks that Elmalih needed to bring in extra refrigerated storage.

He was preparing yet another funeral when Yossi Landau, one of ZAKA’s founding members, came by to say hello and drop off a care package. They spent a few minutes chatting, then gave each other a hug.

Landau, chief of the group’s southern command, says he tries to provide emotional support for his men, but the trauma cuts deep and there is only so much he can do to help.

The aftermath of the attack is so gruesome that only the most experienced ZAKA volunteers are allowed to take part in body collection.

And even for them, it is often too much.

“You can cry and everybody will understand. It’s not stuff that I want to talk about and with these guys, I don’t need to talk. We understand each other,” Eli Landau said.

On Friday, he and other ZAKA volunteers were combing through homes in Be’eri for the second time, finding more victims and collecting remains left behind during their first visit.

Jewish tradition requires the body to be buried in its entirety, which means the volunteers painstakingly search sites for even the smallest fragments of the victims’ remains and traces of blood.

“It’s important to collect the whole body. Even the blood that has left the body. That’s why the work is not done yet. We’re going to go back to each and every community to clean everything, all the blood, so it can be buried,” Elmalih explained.

It’s a task that is becoming more and more difficult as time goes by. “These volunteers, they are exposed to the most difficult parts of the war. They are getting to the scenes, smelling the smells, seeing the horrific sights,” Elmalih added.

As ZAKA volunteers worked in Be’eri, several busloads of foreign journalists arrived, escorted by the IDF. Yossi Landau stood in front of them, repeating over and over again what he saw when he first got there, answering questions, occasionally pausing to collect himself. He said he has made it his mission to spread the message.

Eli, his son, watched from afar, crying. “I don’t know why is he doing what he is doing, talking about this again and again and again. He is going to lose his mind. It’s not healthy for him, it cannot be good for any soul,” he said.

ZAKA volunteers Yanir Ishay, Yitzhak Ben-Shibrit and his son Aharon spent much of their Sunday working just a few hundred feet from the Gaza border fence, trying to recover the remains of people who were killed there.

The job is dangerous – physically and mentally.

“The mental side is worse though,” Ishay said. “When you die, you die, there’s nothing after that. It’s different with your mind,” he said.

Ishay said he trusts his fellow volunteers completely – not just when they are dealing with a difficult scene, but also when they tell him it’s time to step away. Last week, he took a day off after spending his birthday collecting the dead. It was too much, he said.

Most ZAKA volunteers say that they haven’t begun to process the trauma, and when they can step away, they don’t want to think.

“We disconnect ourselves from the world. You come to the field, you start working and nothing else matters. You get home and then start crying,” Yitzhak Ben-Shibrit said.

Israeli airstrikes rocked Gaza during a night of heavy bombardment after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Friday it is “expanding ground operations” in the besieged enclave, where communications links have reportedly been severed.

In a statement Saturday, the IDF said its warplanes hit 150 underground targets in northern Gaza overnight, striking what it called terror tunnels and underground combat spaces and killing several Hamas operatives.

Among those killed was Asem Abu Rakaba, the man in charge of Hamas’ aerial assets, who had taken part in planning the October 7 attacks on Israel and “directed the terrorists who infiltrated Israel on paragliders,” the IDF said.

The IDF is “operating forcefully” on all fronts and will “continue striking Gaza City,” IDF spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said Friday, repeating previous warnings that civilians should evacuate as he announced the intensified ground operation.

“Don’t know if I (will) live to see the daylight tomorrow morning,” Ammar said. “I split from my wife, and the kids went to her parents’ house, and I came to the hospital here in the event we die in different places and maybe one of us would live and our kids will live. Difficult choices we are making.”

A substantial ground offensive has been expected ever since the attacks, in which Hamas killed more than 1,400 people and saw some 200 people taken to Gaza as hostages. However, it is not yet clear whether the IDF announcement of an expanded operation signals the start of that push.

This is the third night of Israeli ground actions in Gaza, as it amasses thousands of troops on the border with the enclave. It comes after weeks of bombardment and blockading Gaza, precipitating what aid agencies call a humanitarian crisis.

Hamas has vowed to retaliate if Israeli ground troops enter Gaza. Izzat al-Rishq, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, vowed that Hamas is ready to defeat Israeli soldiers if they enter the territory.

Ghazi Hamad, a senior Hamas official, told the Associated Press on Thursday that Hezbollah and other allies were expected to play a bigger role as the Israel-Hamas war rages. “Hezbollah now is working against the occupation,” he said, adding a rare public appeal: “We appreciate this. But … we need more in order to stop the aggression on Gaza … We expect more.”

Concerns have risen that Israel’s army may target Gaza hospitals after it alleged that the enclave’s largest medical center, Al Shifa, is the site of a Hamas command and control center – a claim that Palestinian authorities in Gaza and Ramallah, as well as doctors at the hospital, have denied.

Hagari claimed Hamas of directing rocket attacks and commanding Hamas operations from bunkers underneath the hospital building, and appeared to suggest such hospitals could be on Israel’s target list. “When medical facilities are used for terror purposes, they are liable to lose their protection from attack in accordance with international law,” Hagari said.

Mustafa Barghouti of the Palestine National Initiative based in Ramallah said Israel was lying. “They keep lying to justify criminal acts against a civilian population, now they want to justify attacking people in a hospital” he told Sky News.

And Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian physician who has worked at the Shifa hospital on several occasions, including during three periods of open hostilities between Hamas and Israel, called the allegations “old.”

‘The world is facing a historic moment’

Gaza appears largely cut off from the world, with communications in the enclave badly disrupted by airstrikes, according to Palestinian telecoms company Jawwal. London-based monitoring firm NetBlocks has also reported that the last standing major internet operator in the region, Paltel, has experienced damage to its international routes.

Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh accused Israel of cutting communications and internet to Gaza on Friday in an “attempt to create darkness so that crimes can be committed” in preparation for an IDF ground operation.

Several aid organizations and UN agencies say they have now lost contact with local staff in Gaza.

Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the organization had been unable to communicate with its staff and “health facilities, health workers and the rest of our humanitarian partners on the ground.”

Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, said on X, formerly Twitter, that she is “extremely concerned” about her team in Gaza after losing touch with them. “All humanitarians and the children and families they serve MUST be protected,” Russell added.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, said it had lost contact with some Palestinian colleagues in Gaza, while the International Committee of the Red Cross said it was “deeply worried” for the safety of its staff and civilians.

“Without information in a communication blackout, people don’t know where to go for safety. Blackouts impede humanitarian and medical personnel from working safely and effectively,” the Red Cross said.

International news agencies also expressed concern after the IDF said it cannot guarantee the safety of journalists reporting from Gaza, Reuters reported on Friday.

At least 29 journalists have been killed during the Israel-Hamas war since October 7, making it the deadliest period for reporters covering conflict in decades, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The continuous bombardment of Gaza since hostilities broke out after the bloody October 7 attack has led to a crisis in the impoverished and densely-populated enclave.

More than 2 million people are affected, the UN Relief Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) – the main UN agency in Gaza – warned on Friday, adding that amid food and water shortages, sewage is overflowing on the streets. More than 7,300 people have been killed and 18,500 more injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to figures released Friday by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.

The ministry says children, women and the elderly make up 70% of those killed.

Fifty-three UN staffers have also been killed since fighting began, with 14 dead in the past 24 hours, according to an UNRWA statement Friday.

Gaza hospitals have been forced to work with dwindling resources and power shortages; eyewitnesses at Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital said on Friday the institution had been plunged into darkness.

One eyewitness said Gaza has been “left in the dark with no connection to the outside world,” adding the hospital has received the bodies of 11 people killed and dozens injured from the intensified bombardment. They expect casualties to rise.

Another eyewitness, Alla Majhool, said she came to the hospital because her 4-year-old niece was injured in a previous strike.

“I am terrified and shaking, I can’t call my family and sisters to check on them, all we hear is explosions,” Majhool said. “It’s dark and there are no communications, we don’t know where the airstrikes and artillery shelling is hitting.”

The Palestine Red Crescent Society said it has “completely lost contact with the operations room in Gaza and all our teams operating there.”

Phillipe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA said earlier on Friday that while aid has begun to trickle into Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, deliveries so far amounted to “nothing more than crumbs.”

Efforts to free hostages ongoing

As the intensified bombardment began, Jordanian foreign minister Ayman Safadi urged nations to vote for a UN resolution calling for a halt to the fighting, saying on social media that the outcome of any Israeli ground operation “will be a humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions for years to come.”

“Millions will be watching every vote,” he said. “History will judge.”

An overwhelming majority of 120 nations voted for the resolution, which calls for an immediate cessation of hostilities in the war between Israel and Hamas and for aid to be allowed to flow unrestricted into Gaza. The US and Israel sharply criticized the resolution text, however, for not explicitly criticizing Hamas.

Israel’s ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan asked the assembly, “Why are you defending murderers?”

“Israel just endured the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, and according to a majority of the so-called family of nations, Israel has no right to defend itself,” he said.

Israel’s expanded ground operation comes amid ongoing efforts to free hostages held by Hamas in Gaza. Earlier on Friday, a source touted “significant progress” in negotiations.

When asked about a possible deal, IDF spokesperson Hagari told reporters to “disregard rumors.” He dismissed reports that a hostage deal was close to being brokered as “psychological terror and a cynical use of Israeli civilians by Hamas.”

The White House said it would not be appropriate to weigh in on Israel’s expanded military campaign.

“We have, of course, certainly seen Israel undertake varied operations on the ground in the last couple of days,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters Friday. “But again, we’re not going to get into the habit of chiming in from the sidelines here on what they’re trying to do on the ground.”

Kirby declined to say if Israel had informed the US before launching an expanded ground operation into Gaza Friday. He also declined to say if the Biden administration has confidence that Israel has fully considered the ramifications of a ground incursion.

This story is developing and will be updated.

A teenage Iranian girl who fell into a coma after she was allegedly assaulted by the country’s morality police for not wearing a headscarf has died, according to Iranian state media.

“Unfortunately, the brain damage led to the victim spending some time in a coma and they died a few minutes ago,” the statement from IRNA said.

Earlier this week, Armita was declared “brain dead” despite the efforts of medical staff to save her.

Armita Geravand, 16, was hospitalized with head injuries following the alleged assault at a Tehran metro station earlier this month, according to activists, just weeks after Iran passed draconian legislation imposing much harsher penalties on women who breach the country’s already strict hijab rules.

Earlier in October, the Norway-based Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, which focuses on Kurdish rights, said Geravand was “assaulted” by morality police and fell into a coma.

Another opposition network, IranWire, said Geravand was admitted to the hospital with “head trauma.”

“This request resulted in an altercation with the morality police officers physically assaulting Geravand. She was pushed, leading to her collapse,” Shekhi said.

Iranian authorities have denied the allegations, saying Geravand was hospitalized due to an injury caused by low blood pressure.

Geravand’s friends and family have echoed those denials in interviews with state media, though it is unclear if they were coerced into doing so. UN officials and rights groups have previously accused Iranian authorities of pressuring families of killed protesters to make statements supportive of the government narrative.

Iran’s parliament in September passed a so-called “hijab bill” on the wearing of clothing – which if violated can carry up to 10 years in prison – following the first anniversary of mass protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini.

Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, died last September after being detained by the regime’s infamous morality police, allegedly for not abiding by the country’s conservative dress code.

Israeli ground forces are inside Gaza having entered the enclave overnight, as Palestinians experienced what they have described as the most intense round of airstrikes since Israel began its retaliation against Hamas’ October 7 terror attack.

Israeli forces “went into the Gaza Strip and expanded the ground operation where infantry, armour and engineer units and artillery with heavy fire are taking part,” Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari said Saturday morning during a press briefing in Tel Aviv.

“The forces are in the field and continue the fighting,” he added, without giving further details.

Hagari’s words confirm the military operation has undergone a significant expansion after what it had earlier described as two “targeted raids,” which took place on Wednesday night and Thursday night. Both those raids saw ground forces withdraw after a few hours.

However, it does not appear as though any major ground offensive aimed at seizing and holding significant amounts of the territory is yet underway.

The IDF said on Saturday that its warplanes hit 150 underground targets in the north of the enclave, striking what it called terror tunnels and underground combat spaces and killing several Hamas operatives.

Hagari said Gazans who had moved south of Wadi Gaza, a waterway bisecting the center of the Strip, were in an area he called a “protected space,” and would receive more food, water and medicine today, though he did not give any details.

More than 2 million people live in the enclave, which spans just 140 square miles and is one of the most densely-populated places on Earth. For weeks, people living in the territory have faced Israeli airstrikes and a growing humanitarian situation, with shortages of water, food and fuel.

More than 7,300 people have been killed and 18,500 more injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza since October 7, according to figures released Friday by the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah drawn from sources in the Hamas-controlled enclave.

Mourning in Gaza

Gazans mourned the loss of their loved ones on Saturday following a night of intense Israeli airstrikes, with many gathering at Al Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al Balah in central Gaza.

Hospitals have lost contact with each other, he said, after communications networks were cut across the Strip. “People are desperate to find some news about their loved ones and their families,” he added.

Al-Dikran said that after a pause of several hours, air strikes had resumed again in central and northern Gaza, adding that artillery fire had continued uninterrupted through the night.

Aid agencies lose contact

Communications in the enclave have been severely disrupted, leaving aid agencies out of touch with their staff on the ground.

The World Health Organization’s Director-General, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Saturday morning that reports of the intense bombardment are “extremely distressing.” He added: “We are still out of touch with our staff and health facilities. I’m worried about their safety.”

He said that it is “not possible” to evacuate patients or find safe shelter under such circumstances, and the “blackout is also making it impossible for ambulances to reach the injured.”

He reiterated the WHO’s urgent appeal for a ceasefire, urging those who have the power to push for one to “act NOW.”

Several United Nations agencies have also reported losing contact with their local staff in Gaza.

Lynn Hastings, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Palestine, took to X to say that “Gaza has lost contact with the outside world amid reports of intensified bombardment.”

UNICEF’s executive director Catherine Russell said in a post on X that she is “extremely concerned” about her team in Gaza after losing touch with them.

“All humanitarians and the children and families they serve MUST be protected,” Russell added.

While communications are largely severed, according to the local telecoms provider Jawwal, those with Israeli or international SIMs appear to have some patchy connections.

Scientists have detected a surprising amount of a rare version of helium, called helium-3, in volcanic rocks on Canada’s Baffin Island, lending support to the theory that the noble gas is leaking from Earth’s core — and has been for millennia.

The research team also detected helium-4 within the rocks.

While helium-4 is common on Earth, helium-3 is more readily found elsewhere in the cosmos, which is why scientists were surprised to detect a larger amount of the element than had been previously reported from the rocks on Baffin Island. A study describing the discovery published recently in the journal Nature.

“At the most basic level, there is little 3He (helium-3) in the universe compared to 4He (helium-4),” said lead study author Forrest Horton, associate scientist in the department of geology and geophysics at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, in an email.

“3He is rare in Earth because it has not been produced in or added to the planet in significant quantities and it is lost to space,” Horton added. “As Earth’s rocky portion stirs and convects like hot water on a stove top, material ascends, cools, and sinks.
During the cooling stage, helium is lost to the atmosphere and then to space.”

Detecting elements that leak from Earth’s core can help scientists unlock insights into how our planet formed and evolved over time, and the new findings provide evidence to bolster an existing hypothesis about how our planet came to be.

A trove of ‘scientific treasures’

Baffin Island, located in the territory of Nunavut, is the largest island in Canada. It’s also the fifth-largest island in the world.

A high ratio of helium-3 to helium-4 was first detected in Baffin Island volcanic rocks by Solveigh Lass-Evans as part of her doctoral studies under the supervision of University of Edinburgh scientist Finlay Stuart. Their findings were published in Nature in 2003.

The composition of a planet is a reflection of the elements that formed it, and previous research found that trace amounts of helium-3 leaking from Earth’s core supports the popular theory that our planet originated in a solar nebula — a cloud of gas and dust that likely collapsed due to the shock wave of a nearby supernova — which contained the element.

Horton and his colleagues took it a step further when they conducted research on Baffin Island in 2018, studying the lava that erupted millions of years ago when Greenland and North America split apart, making way for a new seafloor. They wanted to investigate the rocks that may contain insights about the contents locked within Earth’s core and mantle, the mostly solid layer of Earth’s interior located beneath its surface.

The researchers traveled by helicopter to reach the remote, otherworldly landscape of the island, where lava flows have formed towering cliffs, giant icebergs float by and polar bears stalk the coastline. Local organizations, including the Qikiqtani Inuit Association and Nunavut Research Institute, provided the researchers with access, advice and protection from the bears, Horton said.

“This area on Baffin Island holds special importance both as sacred lands for the local communities and as a scientific window into the deep Earth,” he said.

The Arctic rocks that Horton and his team investigated revealed surprisingly higher measurements of helium-3 and helium-4 than was reported by previous research, and the measurements varied among the samples they collected.

“Many of the lavas are full of bright green olivine (also known as the gemstone peridot), so breaking off fresh pieces with a rock hammer was as thrilling as breaking apart geodes as a kid: each rock was a treasure to be discovered,” Horton said. “And what scientific treasures they turned out to be!”

Only about one helium-3 atom exists for every million helium-4 atoms, Horton said. The team measured about 10 million helium-3 atoms per gram of olivine crystals.

“Our high 3He/4He measurements imply that gases, presumably inherited from the solar nebula during solar system formation, are better preserved in Earth than previously thought,” he said.

Tracing Earth’s history

But how did the helium-3 end up in the rocks in the first place?

The answer may begin as far back as the big bang, which, when it created the universe, also released an abundance of hydrogen and helium. These elements were incorporated into the formation of galaxies over time.

Scientists believe our solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago within a solar nebula. As the dust cloud collapsed in a supernova, the resulting material formed a spinning disk that eventually gave rise to our sun and the planets, according to NASA.

Helium inherited from the solar nebula likely became locked in Earth’s core as the planet formed, making the core a reservoir of noble gases. As helium-3 leaked from the core, it ascended to the surface through the mantle in the form of magma plumes that eventually erupted on Baffin Island.

“During the eruption, the vast majority of the gases in the magma escaped to the atmosphere,” Horton said. “Only the olivine crystals that grew prior to eruption trapped and preserved the helium from the deep Earth.”

The new research supports the idea that helium-3 is leaking from Earth’s core and has been for some time, but the researchers aren’t entirely sure when this process began.

“The lavas are about 60 million years old, and the ascent of the mantle plume took perhaps tens of millions of years,” Horton said. “So, the helium we measured in these rocks would have escaped the core perhaps 100 million years ago or possibly much earlier.”

Helium leaking from Earth’s core doesn’t affect our planet or have any negative implications, he said. The noble gas does not chemically react with matter, so it won’t have an impact on humanity or the environment.

Next, the research team wants to investigate whether the core is a storehouse of other light elements, which could account for the why Earth’s outer core is less dense than expected.

“Is the core a major repository of elements like carbon and hydrogen, which are so important in terms of planetary habitability? If so, have fluxes of these elements from the core over (Earth’s) history influenced planetary evolution? I am excited to investigate links between helium and other light elements,” Horton said. “Perhaps helium can be used to track other elements across the core-mantle boundary.”