Tempers flared at the United Nations on Tuesday amid ceasefire calls, as aid groups and doctors in Gaza warn that power shortages threaten the lives of vulnerable infants and patients.

Aid agencies have been calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, with one saying at least 2,000 children in Gaza have been killed in the past few weeks, as Israel intensified its bombing campaign in the besieged strip.

Israel’s defense minister Yoav Gallant said Monday the country is preparing for a “multilateral operation” on the militant group Hamas that controls Gaza from the “air, ground, and sea.”

The country’s leadership has vowed to wipe out Hamas in response to its October 7 deadly terror attacks and kidnap rampage in which 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.

Latest figures from the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said the death toll resulting from Israeli strikes on the strip has reached at least 5,087, including 2,055 children.

As the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deepens, the international community has struggled to find consensus.

China, Russia and Slovenia are some of the countries to have called for ceasefire, while Brazil and Ireland have proposed humanitarian “pauses” in the fighting.

‘Even wars have rules’

Emotions ran high at the UN Security Council on Tuesday after Secretary General António Guterres appealed for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.”

“Protecting civilians does not mean ordering more than one million people to evacuate to the south, where there is no shelter, no food, no water, no medicine and no fuel – and then continuing to bomb the south itself,” Guterres said.

“It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum,” Guterres also said. “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished.”

He said that the “appalling acts” of Hamas “cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people. Excellencies, even war has rules.”

The backlash from Israeli diplomats was swift.

Ambassador to the UN Gilad Erdan called on Guterres “to resign immediately” after his remarks and said he was “not fit to lead the UN,” writing on social media. And Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen, who was at the United Nations on Tuesday, said he would not meet with Guterres and that “there is no place for a balanced approach.”

“Hamas must be erased off the face of the planet!” Cohen wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Israel’s “right to defend itself” was affirmed in the Security Council by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. He added that “humanitarian pauses must be considered” to allow aid to reach civilians in Gaza – notably avoiding use of the word “ceasefire.”

Blinken also told the council that “Israel must take all possible precautions to avoid harm to civilians” and called on Hamas to cease using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

Fuel is a lifeline

Fuel means life in Gaza. Without fuel, water cannot be pumped or desalinated, generators that power hospitals – that keep incubators, ventilators and dialysis machines running and to sterilize surgical equipment – will fail.

Six hospitals in Gaza have been forced to close due to a lack of fuel, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday.

“In addition to the hospitals that have had to close due to damage and attacks, six hospitals across the Gaza Strip have already shut down due to lack of fuel,” the WHO’s statement reads.

“Unless vital fuel and additional health supplies are urgently delivered into Gaza,” the WHO warned “thousands of vulnerable patients risk death” unless “vital fuel and additional health supplies” were delivered.

Save the Children said Monday that over 1 million children are “trapped” in Gaza with no safe place to go and warned of the devastating impacts of lacking medication and electricity to power vital health infrastructure in the enclave.

And a major United Nations agency in Gaza warned that it will have to stop aid operations in Gaza on Wednesday unless fuel is allowed into the enclave.

“If we do not get fuel urgently, we will be forced to halt our operations in the #GazaStrip as of tomorrow night,” the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) wrote on social media Tuesday.

Gaza needs at least 160,000 litres (42,267 gallons) of fuel a day, not just to fuel UNRWA facilities, but also to power hospitals, bakeries, and other basic necessities, a spokeswoman for the organization, Juliette Touma, said.

Despite the urgency, no fuel trucks have entered Gaza as part of a humanitarian aid convoy from Egypt’s Rafah border crossing over the weekend, according to Israeli and UN authorities.

However, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) chief of staff provided a glimmer of hope on Tuesday, saying efforts will be made to provide access to fuel to alleviate the humanitarian crisis. He reiterated Israel’s position that it would “not allow” the fuel to reach Hamas “so they can continue fighting against the citizens of Israel.”

“We will make sure there will be fuel in places where they need fuel to treat civilians,” said Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said, without providing further detail on how the IDF might get fuel to those most in need.

“At the moment we have no interest in more fuel going to the Hamas military machine and we have not authorized fuel, we have authorized medicine, we have authorized water. We’ve authorized foodstuffs, we’ve not authorized anything else,” Regev said.

“The government decision is that fuel doesn’t go in because it will be stolen by Hamas and it’ll be used by them to power rockets that are fired into Israel to kill our people.”

The UN is “watching closely” for signs that Hamas is diverting humanitarian aid meant for civilians in Gaza, and have not reported any such signs to date, the US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Monday.

On Monday, Hamas freed two Israeli citizens – both older women – amid growing international pressure to secure the release of the rest of those abducted and taken to Gaza. One of the recently freed captives, 85-year-old grandmother Yocheved Lifshitz later described her ordeal after she was kidnapped by gunmen and taken to Gaza, saying she “went through hell.”

Their release follows that of two American hostages, Judith Tai Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie Raanan, who were freed on Friday.

Hospitals could become ‘mass graves’

In Gaza, outbreaks of chickenpox, scabies, and diarrhea have emerged due to the deteriorating health environment, lack of sanitation, and consumption of water from unsafe sources, according to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health based in the occupied West Bank.

Hospitals are nearing collapse, operating at more than 150% of their capacity and situations have become so dire that surgeries are being conducted without anesthesia, and in some cases, under the illumination of phone lights, the Palestinian Authority health ministry added.

Around 50,000 pregnant women are struggling to access health care, with about 166 unsafe births happening daily, and more than 5,000 women due to give birth in the next month, it said.

The Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City – the largest hospital in the enclave – has enough fuel to last a maximum of two days, according to senior surgeon Marwan Abusada on Monday.

Conditions in Al-Shifa are dire, with another doctor saying that without electricity, the hospital “will just be a mass grave” and “there’s nothing to do for these wounded.”

fire and a proper humanitarian corridor, “there’s going to be an even larger catastrophe that the one that already exists here.”

The overwhelmed hospital has run out of burns dressings for the more than 100 patients in the facility with burns covering over 40% of their bodies, Abu-Sittah said. More than 150 patients on ventilators with critical injuries are relying on electricity to stay alive, he said.

Hospitals across Gaza are facing similar situations.

Hatem Edhair, head of Neonatal ICU at Nasser Medical Complex, said all non-emergency facilities have been turned off, as well as lights and air conditioning.

He said 11 babies – most weighing under 1.5 kilograms – are in his neonatal intensive care unit, with admission rates rising as residents from northern Gaza flee south.

Twenty more trucks carrying vital relief aid crossed into Gaza Monday, but aid agencies warn that the current rate of delivery will do little to address the needs of more than 2 million people living in the enclave.

That’s half of 1% – or one two-hundredth – of the amount of aid it ordinarily receives.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect that chickenpox, not smallpox, has emerged in Gaza according to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health

Seventy-six people were arrested for attending a birthday party for gay people in northern Nigeria, the country’s paramilitary agency said on Monday, adding that the organizer had also planned to hold a same sex wedding, which is illegal.

These are the latest arrests targeting LGBTQ Nigerians after police in August raided a gay wedding in the southern city of Warri in Delta state, and arrested dozens of people. The accused are out on bail.

In Nigeria, like in most parts of Africa, homosexuality is generally viewed as unacceptable, and a 2014 anti-gay law took effect despite international condemnation.

Buhari Saad, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) spokesperson for the largely Muslim Gombe state, said after receiving a tip off, the agency raided a party on Saturday night that was being attended by “homosexuals and pimps”.

He said 59 men had been arrested, including 21 who confessed to being homosexual, and 17 women.

The Gombe NSCDC said in a statement that the organizer of the birthday party had also planned to wed another man, who was still at large, before police raided the event.

The anti-gay law in Africa’s most populous nation includes a prison term of up to 14 years for those convicted, and bans gay marriage, same-sex relationships, and membership of gay rights groups.

The case was expected to be heard in the Gombe state High Court on Tuesday, Saad said.

China’s Defense Minister Li Shangfu was fired on Tuesday two months after he disappeared from public view, becoming the second high-profile minister to lose his job recently without any official explanation.

Li was also removed from his positions as a member of the Central Military Commission – a powerful body headed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping who ultimately commands the armed forces – and as one of China’s five state councillors – a senior position in the cabinet that outranks a regular minister, state broadcaster CCTV reported Tuesday.

The decision was approved by the standing committee of the country’s rubber-stamp legislature, the National People’s Congress, according to CCTV. The committee did not name any successor to Li.

Li, who was appointed defense minister in March, has not been seen in public since late August, fueling intense speculation about his fate.

The general’s disappearance follows a series of unexplained personnel shakeups that have roiled the country’s upper ranks, including the dramatic ousting of former Foreign Minister Qin Gang in July.

Qin was also removed as a state councillor on Tuesday, CCTV reported.

The disappearance and dismissal of two senior ministers in quick succession has raised questions about the governance of Xi, who has made China’s political system even more opaque as he concentrates power and enforces strict party discipline.

Xi has also ramped up a campaign to bolster national security, seeking to eliminate any perceived threats and vulnerabilities to the ruling Communist Party amid rising tensions with the West.

Li’s ousting, ironically, has removed a major roadblock for the resumption of high-level military talks between China and the United States.

Li was sanctioned by the US in 2018 over China’s purchase of Russian weapons, and Beijing has repeatedly suggested that the US defense secretary won’t get a meeting with Li unless the sanctions were revoked.

Unexplained disappearance

Weeks before Li vanished from public view, Xi convened the military’s top brass in Beijing for a meeting, where he emphasized political loyalty, discipline and the party’s “absolute leadership” over the armed forces.

Days after that meeting, Xi sacked the two top generals of the PLA Rocket Force, an elite unite overseeing the nation’s arsenal of nuclear and ballistic missiles, sparking concerns of a broader purge in the military.

The Chinese government has repeatedly declined to comment on Li’s whereabouts and reasons behind his absence.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Li was taken away in September by authorities for questioning, citing a person close to decision making in Beijing.

The Financial Times also reported that the US government believes the defense minister has been placed under investigation, citing American officials. Neither of the reports cited a reason for the investigation.

Asked whether Li was under investigation last month, a Defense Ministry spokesperson said he was “not aware of the situation.”

It’s unclear if any disciplinary actions have been or will be taken against Li.

Li, 65, cut his teeth at one of China’s main satellite-launch sites in the southwestern province of Sichuan, rising through the ranks to become its director.

After three decades at the launch center, he was promoted to work in the PLA’s headquarters on armaments in 2013, soon after Xi rose to power.

Li is believed to be a protege of General Zhang Youxia, Xi’s childhood friend and closest ally in the military. In a sign of his prominence, Zhang was promoted to first vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) during the leadership reshuffle last October despite having well passed the unofficial retirement age.

From 2017 to 2022, Li was in charge of China’s weapon procurement as the head of the CMC’s Equipment Development Department, a position Zhang previously held.

In July, days before the two top generals at Rocket Force were abruptly removed, the Equipment Development Department announced a fresh crackdown on corrupt procurement practices, calling for tips on questionable activities dating back to 2017 – coinciding with the time Li took the helm of the department.

Li was last seen in public on August 29, when he delivered a keynote speech at the China-Africa Peace and Security Forum in Beijing. He last traveled outside China in mid-August on a trip to Russia and Belarus.

Nigeria’s government is celebrating a “landmark victory” after a UK court ruled it was not liable for a multibillion-dollar payout earlier awarded to a private firm over a failed gas project.

The West African nation was previously ordered by an arbitration tribunal in 2017 to pay $6.6 billion, plus interest in damages to a British Virgin Islands-based engineering firm, Process and Industrial Developments Limited (P&ID).

The company had sued for compensation over lost profits following the collapse of a 20-year deal with Nigerian authorities in 2010 to build a gas processing facility.

The awarded sum and accumulated interest had now exceeded $11 billion, nearly half of Nigeria’s federal budget for this year.

If upheld by the London court, the tribunal’s $11 billion payout to P&ID would have taken a devastating toll on Nigeria’s already struggling economy, which owes billions of dollars in debt and grapples with high inflation and a cost-of-living crisis.

What went wrong?

Disagreements after both parties blamed each other for defaulting on obligations led to the failed deal and sparked a lengthy legal battle.

Lawyers for the Nigerian government had argued that P&ID induced the country’s officials with bribes for the contract to be awarded to the firm. P&ID denied this allegation.

Delivering judgment on Monday, Judge Robin Knowles set aside the earlier ruling by the tribunal and concluded that the gas deal was “obtained by fraud” and “procured … contrary to public policy.”

Knowles added: “This case has also, sadly, brought together a combination of examples of what some individuals will do for money. Driven by greed and prepared to use corruption; giving no thought to what their enrichment would mean in terms of harm for others.”

Nigeria’s Attorney General Lateef Fagbemi told state media after the ruling that the deal with the P&ID did not follow due process.

“The purported agreement by P&ID was conceived, nurtured, and executed purportedly in fraud,” he said, adding that the Nigerian government had been under pressure to reach a settlement prior to Monday’s ruling.

“There was so much pressure to settle … but the president insisted he was not going to allow corruption any place in his administration … and his insistence on this has proven him right.”

Nigeria’s President Bola Tinubu welcomed Knowles’ ruling, describing it as a “landmark victory” that “is not for Nigeria alone” but “for our long exploited continent and for the developing world at large, which has for too long been on the receiving end of unjust economic malpractice and overt exploitation.”

Mohammad Al Shanti is forced to travel nearly four miles to Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza to fill up plastic bottles with water. It’s only enough for his family’s most basic needs.

Finding clean water is becoming an all-consuming – and increasingly difficult – challenge for many Gazans.

Hamas’ brutal attacks in Israel on October 7 killed at least 1,400 people and the group took more than 200 hostages, according to Israeli authorities. In the wake of the assault, Israel launched an aerial bombardment of Gaza that Palestinian health officials say has killed more than 5,000 people. Israel also announced a “complete siege” on the enclave, withholding vital supplies of water, food and fuel.

Israel has since allowed some water to flow through one of the three pipelines that run into Gaza, but experts say it covers only a tiny percentage of the enclave’s needs. Most of Gaza’s water comes from local sources – but the fuel required to pump and clean it is fast running out.

As the water system collapses, some Gazans have been forced to drink dirty, salty water, sparking concerns of a health crisis and fears that people could start dying from dehydration.

A ‘humanitarian catastrophe’

Water production in Gaza is currently at 5% of normal levels, according to a UNICEF report from October 17, citing the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA).

Gazans are now living on less than 3 liters of water a day, according to the UN, far below the World Health Organization’s (WHO’s) recommended 50 liters as the absolute minimum needed to meet basic needs, including drinking, cooking and hygiene.

“The only water people have is essentially non-potable seawater mixed with sewage,” said Natasha Hall, a senior fellow with the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Some are being forced to drink from farm wells, according to the non-profit Oxfam.

Mazen Ghunaim, head of the PWA, said that without large-scale intervention, the lack of water will trigger a “humanitarian catastrophe.”

There was a glimmer of hope this weekend when the first convoy of aid trucks loaded with water, food and medical supplies entered south Gaza through the Rafah crossing, on the border with Egypt.

These first aid efforts are “just the initial drop in the ocean,” said Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative for the West Bank and Gaza.

‘Fuel is water’

One vital supply missing from the aid convoys has been fuel. Without it, Gaza’s water system has crumbled.

“Fuel is water,” said Hall of CSIS. “Cutting off fuel is cutting off water.”

For Gazans, no power means taps have run dry. “Even if you are lucky and have a well, you will not be able to pump (water) to high floors because we don’t have electricity,” Al Shanti said.

Many of the water trucks Gazans rely on to fill water containers are unable to reach people’s homes because they lack fuel, and because of the bombardment, said Omar Shaban, founder and director of the Gaza-based independent think tank PalThink for Strategic Studies.

Making water drinkable also relies on fuel.

All five wastewater treatment plants and two of the three desalination plants have stopped working. The enclave’s last remaining major desalination plant, which had been shut down for almost a week, resumed operations on Saturday but is at less than 7% of its usual capacity. While some smaller desalination units remain operational, these are local and far from sufficient.

Gaza’s fuel supplies could be exhausted in as little as 48 to 72 hours, Ghunaim, from the PWA, said on Monday.

Concerns are mounting about disease. People are resorting to filling up containers and storing water as they try to eke out supplies. “That water can become re-contaminated so quickly,” Schwab said. Sewage is accumulating in the streets and displaced Gazans are crowding into shelters that lack adequate sanitation.

Experts fear the spread of waterborne diseases like cholera and dysentery, which would put more pressure on a health system already teetering on the edge of collapse.

Hospitals face “an imminent water and sanitation crisis,” Peeperkorn, from the WHO, said. Some have so little water, they are struggling to sterilize surgical equipment. 

However, chief of staff of the Israel Defence Forces, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, has since suggested a softening of this position. “We will make sure there will be fuel in places where they need fuel to treat civilians. We will not allow the fuel for Hamas so they can continue fighting against the citizens of Israel,” he said in a live TV address Tuesday afternoon. But he shared no details of when or how they would distribute the fuel.

International agencies warn that without fuel, safe drinking water will run out. “People will start dying of severe dehydration, among them young children,” said Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner general of UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

A crisis decades in the making

Access to clean water has long been one of the hardest challenges for those living in the Gaza Strip. The 140-square-mile territory is one of most densely populated places on Earth.

Gaza has three main sources of water: desalination plants, pipelines that carry in water purchased from Israel and groundwater wells.

Most of Gaza’s water comes from a coastal aquifer, a body of underground water that stretches along the coastline of the eastern Mediterranean from Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula up to Israel.

Around 97% is undrinkable; it’s salty, brackish, and contaminated by untreated wastewater and pollution.

The aquifer has been over-extracted to serve Gaza’s growing population. More than twice the amount of water is removed than is naturally replenished each year, and as the levels of freshwater drop, salty water from the Mediterranean has seeped in.

The climate crisis is also having an impact. Sea level rise will increase the salinity of the groundwater and more intense and frequent extreme weather events such as heat and drought further threaten water resources.

Israel’s control over Gaza’s water system has made the situation harder, Hall said, especially in terms of parts allowed into the enclave.

Items that are considered “dual use” – meaning they could also be used for military purposes – require special permission to be brought into Gaza. “Getting anything built, either in the West Bank or Gaza, in terms of water infrastructure is really, really difficult,” Hall said.

Even before the conflict, many experts were saying the water situation would be “catastrophic in the future,” Hall said.

‘We have been humiliated’

For people in Gaza, there is no escape as the crisis becomes more acute. Water shortages happen in conflicts around the world, but the reality is a lot of people just leave, Hall said. “When water dries up, they move and Gazans can’t move.”

For Um Haitham Hassan, who is living in an UNRWA tent in the southern city of Khan Younis, the situation is becoming untenable – she cannot wash her family’s clothes or bathe her children. There is no water, the fuel is “completely cut off,” she said.

“Where do we get water?” she asked.

Thousands of women across Iceland – including the prime minister – went on strike Tuesday as part of a campaign pushing for greater gender equality in the country.

It marked the seventh time that women in Iceland have gone on strike in the name of gender equality, campaign organizers said on their official website. The first strike took place on October 24, 1975.

The strike, known as the “Women’s Day Off” or “Kvennafrí” in Icelandic, was organized to raise awareness about the “systemic” wage discrimination and gender-based violence faced by women in Iceland, according to organizers.

Some schools and libraries in the Scandinavian country did not open their doors on Tuesday, according to Icelandic public service broadcaster RÚV. Only one bank branch opened on the entire island, RÚV reported, warning readers that its own coverage had been reduced due to its female journalists participating in the strike. Medical clinics in the capital area were only treating emergencies during the strike, due to end at midnight local time (8 p.m. ET), according to RÚV.

In the capital of Reykjavík, a crowd of thousands of women gathered on Tuesday afternoon on Arnarhóll, a hill next to the city center, according to RÚV.

Jakobsdóttir postponed a cabinet meeting originally scheduled for Tuesday, the spokesperson said, reiterating that she wanted to show her solidarity with Icelandic women.

Female employees who make up two thirds of staff in the Icelandic prime minister’s office all participated in the strike and did not come into work on Tuesday, the spokesperson added.

During an interview with the public service broadcaster’s radio station on Tuesday, Jakobsdóttir stressed that the fight for gender equality is going too slowly. “Looking at the whole world, it could take 300 years to achieve gender equality,” she said.

“As you know, we have not yet reached our goals of full gender equality and we are still tackling the gender-based wage gap, which is unacceptable in 2023. We are still tackling gender-based violence, which has been a priority for my government to tackle,” Jakobsdóttir also told news site Iceland Monitor in an interview on Friday.

The strike was acknowledged by government departments on Tuesday, and was backed by the country’s largest federation of public workers unions, the Federation of the Public Workers Union in Iceland (BSRB), the Icelandic Nurses’ Association and the Icelandic Association of Women’s Associations, among others.

“Women in Iceland are striking today, for the 7th time since the famous #womensdayoff in 1975,” Iceland’s President Gudni Johannesson posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, accompanied by a black and white photo of a huge crowd. “Their activism for equality has changed Icelandic society for the better and continues to do so today.”

Iceland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a tweet Tuesday: “Today we repeat the event of the first full day women’s strike since 1975, marking the day when 90% of Icelandic women took the day off from both work and domestic duties, leading to pivotal change including the world’s first female elected president of a country.”

For 14 years in a row, Iceland has been ranked the best nation for gender equality by the World Economic Forum (WEP), which said the country has closed 91.2% of the gender gap.

Strike organizers wanted to draw particular attention to the plight of immigrant women whose “invaluable” contribution to Icelandic society they say is “rarely acknowledged or reflected in the wages they receive.”

Jakobsdóttir’s government has previously committed to eradicating the gender pay gap by 2022.

Washington state senator Jeff Wilson was arrested on Saturday at Hong Kong International Airport and charged with possession of a firearm without a license, the charge sheet states, an offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison and a fine of more than $12,000.

Wilson appeared in the Sha Tin Magistrates’ Court on Monday and was granted bail, according to public broadcaster RTHK.

The Republican state senator, whose full name is Stephen J. Wilson, said he did not realize he had packed his pistol in his briefcase while he and his wife were traveling for a five-week vacation to Southeast Asia, according to a statement posted on his website.

“It was an honest mistake. And I expect the situation to be resolved shortly,” Wilson said in the statement.

Wilson said he “discovered the weapon mid-flight between San Francisco and Hong Kong.”

He “did not realize his pistol was in his briefcase when he passed through airport security in Portland, and baggage screeners failed to note it,” the statement added.

Wilson said in the statement that when the plane landed in Hong Kong, he “immediately went to customs officials and called their attention to the issue.”

Wilson faces his next court hearing in Hong Kong on October 30, RTHK reported.

Under Hong Kong’s strict gun control laws, no one is allowed to possess any arms or ammunition unless they have a license from the Commissioner of Police. Licenses are only given to police officers, armed security guard services and operators of exclusive shooting range clubs.

Gun violence is very rare in Hong Kong, unlike in the United States where firearms are now the No. 1 killer of children and teens.

In Washington state, open carry is allowed for both long guns and handguns without a license, which means individuals can carry a firearm in many public areas, although private property owners may prohibit firearms on their property. However, a license is needed to carry concealed firearms in the state.

Wilson noted in his statement that his pistol was registered in Washington state and that he holds a concealed pistol license.

A resilient crop that’s packed with fiber and minerals, beans are a vital source of protein for millions of Africans, and a key source of income for farmers. But climate change means this staple is under threat.

Up to 60% of areas that grow beans in sub-Saharan Africa might not be suitable by the end of this century, according to a 2016 study.

In an effort to future-proof and maximize the potential of this essential crop, the Pan-African Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) has facilitated the research, development, and distribution of over 650 new bean varieties across Africa.

In September PABRA was awarded the $100,000 African Food Prize, for its work to improve food security, and incomes for farmers.

From sugar beans in Zambia, to snap beans in Nigeria, 32 countries across Africa have seen improved and varied beans reach their markets, according to PABRA. It says that not only are these new beans more nutritious, but they are also more resilient, efficient and profitable for farmers.

Better beans

In Ethiopia, beans with shorter harvest times have more than doubled productivity, says Jean Claude Rubyogo, director of PABRA, which was founded in 1996.

“It means you can get food before other crops have harvested, you can sell these beans to bring the cash when you don’t have any other crops,” Rubyogo explains.

PABRA’s beans also use less water and are more resilient to increasingly irregular weather patterns. Better able to withstand prolonged dry and wet periods, it means more income for the 37 million farmers who grow them across the continent.

The group’s research is mostly conducted in Cali, Colombia, and then shared with national programs in Africa, with certain bean types selected and developed based on consumer demand.

It says that 300 million people across the continent eat its beans regularly. “These beans have 22-23% protein, so it is a very good source of protein for those who cannot afford other sorts. They provide fiber, carbohydrates, and very little lipid (fat compounds),” says Rubyogo. They are also high in iron and zinc, deficiencies in which affect more than two billion people worldwide, according to the World Health Organization.

PABRA says that more than five million households across 10 countries have seen a 30% increase in their income as a result of its beans, and that farmers who grow, eat and sell its beans are 6% more likely to be food secure and 6% less likely to be poor.

Diversifying crops

Providing a set of resilient, diverse beans is crucial for Africa’s agricultural development and future, according to Chike Mba, deputy director of plant production and protection at the UN Food and Agricultural Organization.

He says that a fifth of sub-Saharan Africa is malnourished and food insecure, and that to address this, farmers must grow a wider range of crops, including beans.

“The higher the diversity of crops you have on a farm, the higher the resilience of that cropping system … it enhances the ability to withstand shock,” says Mba.

He notes that the Coronavirus pandemic and war in Ukraine both impacted Africa, with less rice coming from Asia in 2020 and drops in grain imports from Eastern Europe.

“If it [Coronavirus] had continued, we would have had hunger and starvation on a massive scale. There is a need for African countries to diversify, to enhance their own ability to produce food,” he says.

“Government policy needs to be supportive for research and for partnerships within the region and globally,” adds Mba. “It needs to be supportive for farmers to access technologies and finance.”

PABRA says that governments are heavily involved in its work. Rubyogo explains that while his organization facilitates connections between developers and consumers, the national programs themselves are run by research institutions set up by governments.

The motivation is there for states to introduce improved beans to their markets, Rubyogo adds. “They need to improve nutrition … they need to empower women economically, they need to develop their economy.”

Looking ahead, PABRA is researching how to reduce the cooking time of beans by up to 30%. “Boiling beans can take between two to three hours. This takes up time and energy,” says Rubyogo. He estimates that if the research is successful it could save consumers $1.5 billion a year.

But Rubyogo notes that adapting increasingly extreme weather patterns is crucial. “Climate change remains a key issue so we need to invest into deep, deep research,” he says. “We really see a change when these products are in the hands of the vulnerable.”

Aid agencies are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as doctors warn an Israeli blockade on fuel means many more vulnerable babies and wounded people in hospitals will soon die. One agency says at least 2,000 children in Gaza have been killed in the past few weeks.

Israel has intensified its bombing campaign in the besieged strip as its defense minister Yoav Gallant said Monday the country is preparing for a “multilateral operation” on the militant group Hamas that controls Gaza from the “air, ground, and sea.”

Israel’s leadership has vowed to wipe out Hamas in response to its October 7 deadly terror attacks and kidnap rampage in which 1,400 people, mostly civilians, were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.

On Monday, Hamas freed two Israeli citizens – both elderly women – amid growing international pressure to secure the release of the rest of those abducted and taken to Gaza.

Save the Children said Monday that over 1 million children are “trapped” in Gaza with no safe place to go and warned of the devastating impacts of lacking medication and electricity to power vital health infrastructure in the enclave.

“At least 2,000 children have been killed in Gaza over the past 17 days, and a further 27 killed in the West Bank,” the aid agency said on Monday.

“We call on all parties to take immediate steps to protect the lives of children, and on the international community to support those efforts,” Save the Children said, adding that Israeli airstrikes are “killing and injuring children indiscriminately.”

Latest figures from the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said the death toll resulting from Israeli strikes on the strip has reached at least 5,087, including 2,055 children.

“The health system [in Gaza] has reached the worst stage in its history,” said health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra in a statement early Tuesday.

Fuel is a lifeline

Fuel means life in Gaza. Without fuel, water cannot be pumped or desalinated, generators that power hospitals – that keep incubators, ventilators and dialysis machines running and to sterilize surgical equipment – will fail.

Twelve hospitals and 32 medical centers are now out of service after Israeli strikes and fuel depletion, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza. Early Tuesday, the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza had no electricity due to the fuel shortage, Hamas said.

Despite the urgency, no fuel trucks have entered Gaza as part of a humanitarian aid convoy from Egypt’s Rafah border crossing over the weekend, according to Israeli and UN authorities.

Israel has repeatedly said fuel would be purloined by Hamas for its own war effort, including rocket attacks.

“At the moment we have no interest in more fuel going to the Hamas military machine and we have not authorized fuel, we have authorized medicine, we have authorized water. We’ve authorized foodstuffs, we’ve not authorized anything else,” Regev said.

“The government decision is that fuel doesn’t go in because it will be stolen by Hamas and it’ll be used by them to power rockets that are fired into Israel to kill our people.”

However, US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said Monday that while the UN is “watching closely” for signs that Hamas is diverting humanitarian aid meant for civilians in Gaza, they have not reported any such signs to date.

Hospitals could become ‘mass graves’

In Gaza, outbreaks of smallpox, scabies, and diarrhea have emerged due to the deteriorating health environment, lack of sanitation, and consumption of water from unsafe sources, according to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health based in the occupied West Bank.

Hospitals are nearing collapse, operating at more than 150% of their capacity and situations have become so dire that surgeries are being conducted without anesthesia, and in some cases, under the illumination of phone lights, the Palestinian Authority health ministry added.

Around 50,000 pregnant women are struggling to access health care, with about 166 unsafe births happening daily, and more than 5,000 women due to give birth in the next month, it said.

The Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City – the largest hospital in the enclave – has enough fuel to last a maximum of two days, according to senior surgeon Marwan Abusada on Monday.

Conditions in Al-Shifa are dire, with another doctor saying that without electricity, the hospital “will just be a mass grave” and “there’s nothing to do for these wounded.”

The overwhelmed hospital has run out of burns dressings for the more than 100 patients in the facility with burns covering over 40% of their bodies, Abu-Sittah said. More than 150 patients on ventilators with critical injuries are relying on electricity to stay alive, he said.

Hospitals across Gaza are facing similar situations.

Hatem Edhair, head of Neonatal ICU at Nasser Medical Complex, said all non-emergency facilities have been turned off, as well as lights and air conditioning.

He said 11 babies – most weighing under 1.5 kilograms – are in his neonatal intensive care unit, with admission rates rising as residents from northern Gaza flee south.

Twenty more trucks carrying vital relief aid crossed into Gaza Monday, but aid agencies warn that the current rate of delivery will do little to address the needs of more than 2 million people living in the enclave.

That’s half of 1% – or one two-hundredth – of the amount of aid it ordinarily receives.

Hostages released

Family members welcomed the release of two elderly hostages from Hamas custody Monday, while relatives of the hundreds of others captives in unknown conditions in Gaza face an agonizing wait for news of loves ones being held at gunpoint.

Israeli citizens Nurit Cooper, 79, and Yocheved Lifshitz, 85, were released following Qatari and Egyptian mediation, according to two Israeli officials and two other sources briefed on the matter.

The women were abducted from their homes in Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, a statement from Israel’s prime minister’s office said. Their spouses – Cooper’s 85-year-old husband Amiram and Lifshitz’s 83-year-old husband Oded – were kidnapped alongside them and are still held by Hamas, it added.

Around a quarter of residents from Nir Oz were killed or taken hostage in Hamas’ onslaught.

Their release follows that of two American hostages, Judith Tai Raanan and her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie Raanan, who were freed on Friday.

“She is talking, she can walk, she can hug her grandchildren, which we are very happy from that,” Daniel Lifshitz said after meeting his grandmother in Tel Aviv.

Asked about the fate of his grandfather held by Hamas, Lifshitz said, “now my grandmother is back but still now I’m more afraid about my grandfather that he’s still there, and still no men being released.”

“We don’t believe that this is the time for a ceasefire. Israel has a right to defend themselves. They still have work to do to go after Hamas leadership, we’re going to keep supporting them or giving them more security assistance,” Kirby said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Sweden inched a step closer to joining NATO on Monday after Turkey’s president sent accession protocols to parliament.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted both Sweden and Finland to seek NATO membership but the former’s entry had been stymied by Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s sign off on the accession protocols comes after months of delays but it is unclear how long the process will take.

Erdogan’s proposal must make its way out of a parliamentary commission and then be opened up for a general vote on the main floor of the assembly where the Turkish president and his allies have the majority needed to ratify Sweden’s bid.

Finland, which applied for membership in May 2022 along with Sweden, joined NATO in April 2023.

Erdogan accused Sweden of being too lenient on militant groups, most notably the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and harboring people associated with a 2016 Turkish coup attempt.

Turkish officials have also accused Swedish officials of being complicit in Islamophobic demonstrations, such as the burning of the Quran.

Since applying for membership, Sweden has tightened its anti-terror legislation and agreed to work more closely with Turkey on its security concerns.

In July, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg announced that Erdogan had agreed to send the accession protocols to Turkey’s parliament for ratification, but did not specify a time frame. The announcement represented a stunning about-face for Erdogan, who had previously suggested Sweden could only join the alliance after Turkey was accepted into the European Union.

The United States welcomed the news that Erdogan had signed and sent Sweden’s NATO accession protocols to the Turkish parliament on Monday.

“Obviously we have been calling for ratification of Sweden accession for some time,” State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said.

“We look forward to that bill being considered in the Turkish parliament and passed as soon as possible,” he said at a department briefing.

Erdogan’s actions represent a step forward in Sweden’s quest to join NATO but does not mean that Sweden will immediately become the next member of the alliance.

Hungary also has not voted to approve Sweden’s membership. In September, Hungary’s Prime Minister said the country was in no rush to approve Sweden’s bid, according to Reuters.