Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said on Friday she had separated from her television journalist partner Andrea Giambruno, who has drawn criticism in recent weeks for sexist comments made on and off air.

“My relationship with Andrea Giambruno, which lasted almost 10 years, ends here,” Meloni wrote on her social media accounts. “Our paths have diverged for some time, and the time has come to acknowledge it,” she added.

The couple have a 7-year-old daughter.

Giambruno is the presenter of a news program transmitted by Mediaset, part of the MFE (MFEB.MI) media group owned by the heirs of the late Silvio Berlusconi, the former prime minister and Meloni ally.

On two days this week, another Mediaset show broadcast off-air excerpts from Giambruno’s program showing him using foul language and appearing to make advances to a female colleague.

“Why didn’t I meet you before?” he tells her.

In the second, more explicit recording aired on Thursday, Giambruno is heard boasting about an affair and telling female colleagues they can work for him if they take part in group sex.

The TV journalist had already been widely criticized in August for apparent victim-blaming comments following a gang rape case.

“If you go dancing, you have every right to get drunk – there shouldn’t be any kind of misunderstanding and any kind of problem – but if you avoid getting drunk and losing your senses, you might also avoid running into certain problems and coming across a wolf,” he said during his program.

Meloni had said after that episode that she should not be judged for comments made by her partner, and that in future she would not answer questions about his behavior.

A US navy ship intercepts missiles launched by Houthi rebels in Yemen. Two American bases in Syria come under fire. In Iraq, drones and rockets fired at US forces.

Gaza may be where the war is happening now, but across the Middle East the warning lights of more trouble to come are blinking red.

The US has deployed two carrier groups to the eastern Mediterranean to deter Iran and its allies Syria and Hezbollah from opening new fronts against Israel. Two thousand US Marines are on hard standby for deployment to the region.

US President Joe Biden spent seven hours in Israel Wednesday, voicing full support for Israel’s campaign against Gaza, albeit urging Israeli leaders, and repeating it in his Thursday evening speech from the White House, not to be blinded by rage. Biden is pledging to provide Israel billions of dollars in additional aid.

Prior to that, Secretary of State Antony Blinken spent seven hours meeting with Israel’s war cabinet – not the regular Israeli cabinet, the war cabinet.

All the while the US is airlifting massive amounts of ammunition and equipment to help the Israeli war effort.

It all amounts to this: the United States is careening closer to the very real possibility of direct involvement in a regional Middle Eastern war. This is not the 1991 campaign to expel Saddam Hussein’s army from Kuwait or the 2003 invasion of Iraq, both preceded by months of planning and preparation. Then, the US and its allies determined the time, place, and scale of attack.

Now, at best, the US is scrambling to respond to events largely out of its control.

And in this dangerous terrain, suddenly the vulnerabilities of the sprawling American military presence across the Middle East are glaringly obvious.

Regional rivalries

The US has troops in northeastern and southeastern Syria, a country where Bashar al-Assad’s army, and forces from Russia, Turkey, Iran, Hezbollah, an array of anti-regime factions, and Kurdish militias are all operating, as well as the still active remnants of the Islamic State. Israel regularly bombs targets in Syria, most recently, it is widely believed, the airports of Aleppo and Damascus, with the aim of stopping Iran from flying in weapons and ammunition.

The US also has a military presence in Iraq, where a myriad of well-armed and battle-hardened Iranian-backed militias operate largely independent of the government in Baghdad.

And then there’s Iran.

Despite decades of draconian US-inspired sanctions, Iran has succeeded in developing an array of sophisticated weaponry. Its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has gained valuable combat experience in Syria and Iraq. It has provided training and arms to the Houthis in Yemen, the Syrian regime, Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

In the aftermath of the January 2020 US assassination of IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani, Iran was able to fire a salvo of missiles at a US base in neighboring Iraq.

And while it costs thousands of dollars to move one soldier or Marine from the US to the Middle East, it’s just a bus ride for an IRGC soldier to get to Baghdad, Damascus, or Beirut.

The US may have the world’s strongest military, but as the American debacles in Vietnam and Afghanistan proved, that’s no guarantee of victory over a determined and resourceful foe. Or, in the case of the Middle East today, foes.

During recent visits to Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Doha, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian repeatedly warned if Israel continues its offensive against Gaza, the opening of new fronts can’t be ruled out. Empty rhetoric perhaps. Or perhaps not.

Protests against Israel and US

As the war in Gaza rages, the Middle East is seething with anger. In Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen, Iran, Turkey, Morocco, Egypt and elsewhere protests have flared against Israel, but much of the rage is also directed against Israel’s most vocal, persistent, and generous backer, the United States.

Jordan’s King Abdullah, Washington’s most cooperative Arab friend, canceled the scheduled summit with President Biden in Amman in the aftermath of the deadly blast at Gaza’s Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital. No doubt he and the planned summit’s other participants, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, were loath to be seen side by side with an American leader who so passionately embraced Israel as the death toll in Gaza soared.

The US can still count allies among the region’s autocrats. The streets are a whole different matter.

Anger has been turbocharged in the wake of a deadly blast that tore through Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza on Tuesday, killing hundreds. Palestinian officials accuse Israel of striking the hospital. Israel denies it.

Meeting in Cairo Thursday, President Sisi and King Abdullah issued a joint statement warning “if the war does not stop and expands, it threatens to plunge the entire region into a catastrophe.”

I’ve spent the past week reporting from along the Lebanon-Israel border, the trip wire for that catastrophe. Hezbollah fighters daily target Israeli army positions, using guided missiles to hit tanks, troops and, most consistently, surveillance and communications equipment. The military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad occasionally fire volleys of rockets into Israel. The Israelis strike back targeting what they say is Hezbollah’s military infrastructure. Combatants and civilians have been killed and injured on both sides.

It’s enough to keep nerves on edge, but not enough, yet, to precipitate an all-out war, and it’s not enough, yet, to draw the US into the conflict. But the very real possibility exists.

The American carrier groups just over the horizon are there to deter Iran, Hezbollah and others from going too far. If they do, and the US responds, then all bets are off.

All the pieces are now in place for Israel’s decades-old quarrel with the Palestinians to explode into a regional cataclysm. And the US may be in the middle of it.

Canada has withdrawn 41 diplomats and their families from India after New Delhi threatened to revoke their diplomatic immunity amid a deepening dispute over the assassination of a Sikh activist.

The move follows a series of tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions between the two countries following the June killing of Canadian citizen and prominent Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar, who was gunned down by two masked attackers in British Columbia.

A rift between the countries opened up after Canadian leader Justin Trudeau claimed his intelligence services were pursuing “credible allegations” that the killing was potentially linked to agents of the Indian government. India has vehemently denied any involvement in Nijjar’s death and called the claims “absurd and motivated.”

In addition to the tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions, India has suspended visa services for Canadian citizens over what it says are “security threats” against diplomats in Canada.

Last month India indicated it would ask several Canadian diplomats to leave the country, in a bid to establish diplomatic “parity.”

Commenting on the withdrawal of the 41 diplomats on Thursday, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said India’s recent actions had been “unreasonable.”

“The safety of Canadians and of our diplomats is always my top concern. Given the implications of India’s actions on the safety of our diplomats, we have facilitated their safe departure from India,” Joly told a press conference in Ottawa.

Joly said those diplomats and their families had already left India while 21 Canadian diplomats remained in the country.

Joly added the Canadian government would not retaliate in kind, saying that to do so would be a violation of international law.

“The only thing we’re encouraging India to do is respect international law,” Joly said.

Who was Hardeep Singh Nijjar?

Nijjar was an outspoken supporter of the creation of a separate Sikh homeland that would include parts of India and be known as Khalistan.

According to the World Sikh Organization of Canada, Nijjar often led peaceful protests against what the advocacy group called the “violation of human rights actively taking place in India and in support of Khalistan.”

The Khalistan movement is outlawed in India and considered a national security threat by the government – a number of groups associated with the movement are listed as “terrorist organizations” under India’s Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).

Nijjar’s name appeared on the Home Ministry’s list of UAPA terrorists.

In 2020, the Indian National Investigation Agency accused him of “trying to radicalize Sikh communities across the world in favor of the creation of ‘Khalistan,’” adding that he had been “trying to incite Sikhs to vote for secession, agitate against the government of India and carry out violent activities.”

Nijjar’s supporters have rejected the terrorist label, which they say is being used to discredit Nijjar, whose death both shocked and outraged the Sikh community in Canada, one of the largest outside of India and home to more than 770,000 members of the religious minority.

Humans are causing alarming changes to the planet. Collectively, we are destroying ecosystems, polluting the ocean and altering our climate. As individuals, we can all play a role in making things better.

What is Call to Earth?

How to run a Call to Earth Day event

The majority of the world’s population live in urban areas, and for many people exactly how our actions impact remote and wild areas can be difficult to see. For this year’s Call to Earth Day we want to focus on the crucial connection between cities and wilderness.

We will be featuring stories from around the world, from the inner city, the suburbs, the plains, the mountains, the jungle, and more to show how people living in urban areas can still have a huge impact on both wild environments around the world and the hidden wilderness within our cities.

Your participation is key to a successful Call to Earth Day, and we’re grateful you’re keen to be involved. Planning an event can be daunting, so here are our top tips on how to embark on your Call to Earth Day preparations.

Identify your goals

Whether you live in the wilderness and have firsthand experience of the dangers to the Earth’s natural spaces, or whether you can effect change at the source by altering your habits and educating others, you can help us to protect Our Shared Home.

To get started it’s important to figure out what you hope to achieve with your event. It could focus on reducing plastic pollution, tackling deforestation, protecting biodiversity, or a different environmental issue that is close to your heart.

Decide what to do

Last year, groups around the world carried out beach and river cleans, held tree-planting sessions, and crafted ambitious art projects. For inspiration, you can check out a selection of last year’s amazing events here.

Decide which environmental issue you want to take action on and try to figure out how your group can help.

Your event could fall under one of these categories or it could be something else entirely:

Get help

If you need a little encouragement, you can use our Call to Earth Day activity prompts – they are particularly good for events involving younger children.

If you are still struggling to figure out what to do, we’re here to help. Drop us an email at calltoearth@warnermedia.com and one of the team will be in touch to help you craft your event.

Register your event

Once you have a plan, the next step is to let us know what your event will be. You can register your Call to Earth Day event below.

Spread the word

Now you need to let your network know what you’re doing, and when, where, and why your event is taking place. (We find emails, social media, and word of mouth are a little better for the planet than posters.)

When the day comes, make sure to let the world know about your event. Please be sure to take pictures and videos of what you get up to and post them on social media.

Please use the hashtag #CallToEarth or #CallToEarthDay so we can find the posts and potentially feature them in our coverage of the day.

If you want to make beautiful videos of your event, you can download special Call to Earth music to put in the background below. If you use music that we don’t own, then we sadly won’t be able to share your videos!

Israel’s war with Palestinian militant group Hamas has sparked a fierce debate on China’s tightly controlled social media, driving a wedge between those who support Israel’s right to retaliate and a variety of pro-Palestinian voices – including a surge in antisemitic views.

Many in China have been closely following developments in the Middle East and posting their views online since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing more than 1,400 people and capturing some 200 civilian and military hostages now believed to be held in Gaza.

The spiraling conflict has split views on popular platform Weibo in much the same way as it has divided opinion outside of China with posts on the Israel-Hamas war routinely landing in its top trending lists, drawing hundreds of millions of views.

But while there are many posts sympathetic to Israel, criticism of its actions is growing, alongside a rise in more extreme, antisemitic views – which China’s powerful online censors have allowed to proliferate.

Deputy Chief of Mission Yuval Waks, of the Israeli Embassy in Beijing, said the sentiment in China has been “very anti-Israeli and, in many cases, antisemitic.”

“We are concerned this would create an atmosphere that is poisonous and would put into danger, critical danger, the Israelis in China and Jews who live in China,” Waks said.

An Israeli diplomat from the embassy was stabbed in Beijing last week by a foreign national, though the motivation of the suspect, a 53-year-old businessman, is still under investigation.

Waks said he is thankful for Chinese efforts to treat the injured diplomat and keep his colleagues safe, but he called on the Chinese government to issue a stronger condemnation of Hamas.

China has condemned “all acts that harm civilians,” but it has not explicitly targeted that condemnation at Hamas, nor named the group in its statements, contrary to many western nations.

“We are bit disappointed to see there is not a clear voice of condemnation from a country which we have a good bilateral relationship with,” Waks said, adding that the government position often sets the tone in online conversations.

While Beijing’s has sought to strike a neutral tone in official statements, state media coverage of the conflict appears more slanted, often focusing on Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza – and the scenes of devastation they created there.

In recent days, China’s government has stepped up its own criticism of Israel’s siege of the Palestinian enclave, with top diplomat Wang Yi accusing Israel of going “beyond the scope of self-defense” and called for an immediate ceasefire.

United Nations experts and international humanitarian groups have also called for an immediate ceasefire and warned of the crisis in Gaza is spiraling “out of control.” According to Palestinian health officials, more than 3,700 people have been killed in Gaza since the start of the Israeli offensive, including more than 1,500 children and 1,000 women.

Speaking in Beijing on Wednesday in a speech broadcast live on Chinese state TV, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said events in Israel “cannot justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

Tightly controlled space

On Weibo, many of the more widely shared anti-Israel posts come from prominent nationalist influencers that are often hostile to the West.

And while many have criticized Israel’s actions, both historically, and during their ongoing war against Hamas, others have shared antisemitic conspiracies and hateful comments.

One popular nationalist account, which boasts more than 2 million followers has posted memes featuring Adolf Hitler, while others have praised the former German dictator, who was responsible for the deaths of millions of Jews during World II.

Others popular accounts have lashed out at Israel’s long-standing relationship with the United States.

One well-known account with 6.6 million followers accused Israel of failing to side with China when it was sanctioned by the US, and asked why China would support Israel now.

Research scientist Xiao Qiang, from the School of Information at the University of California Berkeley, said large nationalist accounts supportive of the government often dominate the debate online in China, where they compete with each other for attention by making outlandish claims.

“You go to the very extreme to attract eyeballs. There is a commercial initiative behind it,” he said.

The lack of accurate information also contributes to the promotion of harmful stereotypes, suggested Xiao. “There is not much understanding at all when you only read information provided by the government.”

Antisemitism has long existed on China’s internet and some parts of state media, with some conspiracy theories gaining traction in recent years and even being cited by official media outlets.

Galia Lavi, deputy director of the Diane & Guilford Glazer Israel-China Policy Center in Israel suggested the failure of authorities to respond to antisemitic messages online, “especially when you have such an efficient censorship system,” acts like a tacit endorsement, just as China has failed to condemn Hamas.

“The lack of condemnation of Hamas by Chinese officials gives it support,” she said.

As an increasing number of China watchers and Israeli scholars pointed out the rise in antisemitic sentiment in China, some Chinese diplomats appeared to have taken note. On Sunday, Assistant Foreign Minister Hua Chunying posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “the Chinese people provided shelter to 20,000 Jewish refugees in Shanghai during WWII.”

‘Beyond the event itself’

Although the overwhelming sentiment online is critical of Israel, not all voices have taken the same stance. On Weibo, some have also decried Hamas’ “acts of terrorism,” calling for it to be defeated, while others have expressed sympathy for both sides.

“Stand with the people of Israel,” another user wrote in a recent comment, drawing 1,600 likes under a post by the Israeli Embassy, which has boosted its average number of daily posts.

“In times like this, it is only natural that the Israeli Embassy will be more active, trying to tell the world what has happened,” said Lavi.

The Israeli Embassy dedicated a number of posts to Noa Argamani, an Israeli young woman of partial Chinese descent, who was seen in videos being forcibly taken away from her boyfriend by militants during an attack on a music festival that left more than 260 dead. Both are now believed to have been taken hostage.

But while the post generated some positive engagement, it has also drawn a flood of sharp criticism. A nationalist commentator, with more than 190,000 followers and a banner picture that said “protect China,” asked why they should care about Argamani’s situation.

“Given her whole family is now Israeli, shouldn’t she be reaching out to the Israeli government for help when she runs into trouble?” asked the commentator.

The post garnered 24,000 likes and was shared more than 500 times. Others accused the Israeli Embassy of “exploiting women and children for sympathy.”

Wendy Zhou, a doctoral researcher who studies the Chinese internet at the Georgia State University, said one of the reasons the war has drawn so much attention online in China is because it provides an avenue for political expression in an otherwise tightly controlled space.

China bans foreign social media platforms and censors comments deemed marginally sensitive by the Chinese Communist Party. Because of that, she said, commentators often air views that “go beyond the event itself, intertwining with perceptions of the Chinese government’s stance, national priorities, and the relationship between the state and society.”

Although China has developed close economic ties with Israel in recent years, its support for Palestine dates back decades to the Mao era. Beijing was one of the first countries to recognize the Palestinian Authority and has repeatedly backed the Palestinians in votes at the UN.

Some of the views being shared on Weibo can be attributed to the prevalent anti-US sentiments and China’s longstanding support for the Palestinian cause, said Zhou.

“Many comments also highlight China’s peace-making efforts and draw parallels between the suffering of the Palestinian people and China’s own historical experiences with colonization.”

The venomous fangs of a tarantula, crystallized sugar syrup and the auto-fluorescing hairs on a leaf are among the top 20 images chosen for their science and artistry in Nikon’s Small World Photo Microscopy Competition this year.

The contest, in its 49th year, gave its top prize to researcher Hassanain Qambari, assisted by Jayden Dickson, for their image of a rodent’s optic nerve head in a web of vivid yellow, red and green, while studying diabetic retinopathy – an eye condition that can cause vision loss in people with diabetes.

Qambari, who has been involved in researching diabetic retinopathy’s early detection and reversal since 2021, said the competition allowed people to showcase “the beauty and artistic side of science which may otherwise get overlooked.”

“Such a competition not only celebrates the participant’s hard work and passion but may also draw and inspire young scientists to pursue a career in STEM. It certainly inspired me,” he said in a press release Tuesday.

Eric Flem, senior manager, CRM and communications at Nikon Instruments, added that he is “consistently awed” by how advancements in scientific imaging technology make it “possible to create art out of science for the public to enjoy.”

This year’s competition received nearly 1,900 entries from 72 countries, organizers said.

Coming in second place was Ole Bielfeldt for his depiction of a matchstick igniting by friction when struck against the surface of a box. In third place was Malgorzata Lisowska for her pink-hued picture of breast cancer cells.

A selection of some of the top images selected by organizers can be viewed in the gallery above.

Fresh protests against Israel’s siege of Gaza are expected across much of the Middle East on Friday as aid agencies warned hospitals in the enclave are running out of fuel amid fears life-saving aid will be still stuck in Egypt for another day.

With the humanitarian crisis in Gaza deteriorating each hour, Israeli leaders have been rallying troops preparing for a potential ground incursion and on Friday morning they issued a mandatory evacuation order to some 23,000 residents living near the border with Lebanon.

In a speech from the Oval Office Thursday, US President Joe Biden reiterated his government’s commitment to Israel’s war against Hamas, casting it as vital to America’s national security and likening it to Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invasion.

But he also cautioned the Israeli government not to be “blinded by rage” and said the “humanity of innocent Palestinians” cannot be ignored.

Biden’s support illustrates the deepening divide between Western allies and Arab countries, where fresh protests were expected on Friday in support of 2.2 million Palestinians who remain trapped in Gaza, heightening fears of a wider regional conflict.

Around 200 trucks carrying vital aid are queuing outside the closed border as officials work towards an agreement to open the gates. Negotiations continued through Thursday as workers filled dangerous road craters from Israeli bombing to allow up to 20 trucks to pass.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres arrived in northern Sinai Friday, at a time he described as “a moment of profound crisis…unlike any the region has seen in decades.” Guterres traveled to the Middle East as part of the UN’s effort to get humanitarian aid across the Egyptian border into Gaza.

“For nearly two weeks the people of Gaza have gone without any shipments of fuel, food, water, medicine, and other essentials. Disease is spreading. Supplies are dwindling. People are dying,” Guterres said in a statement Thursday.

Life inside Gaza is becoming even more challenging for hundreds of thousands of Gazans as Israel’s siege of the enclave has lasted nearly two weeks.

A group of UN independent experts accused Israel of committing “crimes against humanity” in its current campaign.

“The complete siege of Gaza coupled with unfeasible evacuation orders and forcible population transfers, is a violation of international humanitarian and criminal law. It is also unspeakably cruel,” the UN Human Rights Office said Thursday in a press release.

Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said Thursday Gaza’s main medical facility, the Al-Shifa Hospital, only has enough fuel to last 24 hours.

“Without electricity many patients will die,” said Guillemette Thomas, the group’s medical coordinator for Palestine, based in Jerusalem. Thousands of Palestinians are using Al-Shifa hospital as a safe haven from constant bombing, he added.

Many supermarkets have no more food to sell, and everyday tasks have become grueling for residents who queue for hours for food and water under the roar of airstrikes.

The population of southern Gaza has swelled in recent days after the Israeli military told around 1 million residents to leave northern Gaza ahead of the expected Israeli ground incursion.

Gaza’s oldest church, St. Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church in central Gaza City, said its compound was hit by an Israeli airstrike on Thursday night.

The Hamas-controlled Ministry of Interior and National Security said in a statement that an Israeli airstrike hit one of the buildings belonging to the Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem causing it to collapse, injuring many people.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on Friday acknowledged that “a wall of a church in the area was damaged” as a result of a strike that targeted a “command and control center belonging to a Hamas terrorist.”

Soon see Gaza ‘from the inside’

Israel’s sustained assault on Gaza follows Hamas’ murderous rampage on October 7 that killed an estimated 1,400 people in Israel, mostly civilians, in what has been described as the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

In the days since, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 3,700 people in Gaza, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas. Among the dead are hundreds of women and children.

Speculation over a possible ground incursion heightened after Israel arrested more than 60 suspected Hamas operatives early Thursday in the West Bank.

Among those detained during raids was Hamas spokesperson Hassan Yousef, Israeli authorities confirmed Friday.

Yousef is a leading Palestinian political figure serving as the official Hamas spokesperson in the West Bank and holding a seat on the Palestinian Legislative Council.

Meanwhile Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told troops gathered not far from the Gaza Strip on Thursday that they will “soon see” the enclave “from the inside.”

Separately, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told other troops in another area bordering the Gaza Strip that the entire nation stands behind them. “We will give the hard blow to our enemies so that we can achieve victory. For Victory! Ready?!” he said.

Several illumination flares were seen floating down in the distance while red tracer rounds were accompanied by the sound of heavy machine gun fire.

Protests in the Middle East

Israeli warplanes’ relentless bombardment has left hundreds of thousands of people homeless and sparked growing protests across the Middle East.

Egypt’s state-aligned political parties and institutions have called for nationwide protests in Egypt on Friday in support of Palestinians, a rare moment during a decade of strict anti-protest laws.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Thursday that the risk of regional spillover from the Israel-Hamas war is “real.”

“We have seen the Arab streets fill with rage, all across the region … This is exactly what Hamas was hoping to achieve. And this can derail the recent and historic rapprochement between Israel and its Arab neighbours,” von der Leyen said during a speech at the Hudson Institute in Washington.

Anti-Israel protests gained momentum this week after hundreds of Palestinians were killed Tuesday in a blast at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza.

Palestinian officials have accused Israel of hitting the hospital, a claim Israel denies. Israeli and US intelligence have each assessed that the blast was caused by another Gaza-based militant group’s misfired rocket.

Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Iraq issued statements condemning Israel and accusing its military of bombing the hospital.

With anti-Israel protests rising across the Middle East there are fears other fronts could open up, particularly on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon where Hezbollah dominates and has increasingly clashed with Israel’s military over the last week.

Omar Abou Nabout is a man on a mission.

He smiled as he talked on the banks of the River Seine. But his journey here was far from happy.

He, his mother and siblings fled to France in August 2016, six years into the civil uprising against the brutal regime of President Bashar al-Assad. But his father, French-Syrian citizen Salah Abou Nabout, stayed in their home city of Daraa. He was killed in a barrel-bomb strike later that year.

Since then, Omar Abou Nabout has sought accountability over his father’s killing while forging a new life in France. Today that fight for justice took a step forward, as French investigative judges issued arrest warrants for four high-ranking Syrian generals in Abou Nabout’s case.

Legal cases have been filed against the Syrian regime before. Last year a German court sentenced a former Syrian army colonel to life in prison, in the first trial of a high-ranking regime official for torture carried out under the Assad regime.

This case, however, is the first brought against senior members of the Syrian government for alleged complicity in war crimes in a military operation. It’s the first that directly indicts four Syrian military officials, including two former defense ministers.

And it’s the first time that arrest warrants have been issued over the use of barrel bombs, crude devices made by filling oil drums, fuel tanks or gas cylinders with explosives and shrapnel. The Syrian regime used them extensively, and indiscriminately, in densely populated areas at the height of the civil war, which was considered a form of prohibited indiscriminate attack under international humanitarian law.

The indictments are the result of a years-long investigation by French prosecutors, aided by Abou Nabout and a human rights-focused non-governmental group.

Abou Nabout’s case dates to June 2017. His father, Salah, was politically active in his youth and, although his son says that by the time the revolution rolled around he had given up on politics, he was still jailed for more than two years in the early days of the Syrian uprising. When his wife and children fled Syria in August 2016, Salah was unable to leave.

He allowed an education NGO to use his three-story home in Daraa city as a makeshift school. It was an old, rundown building, but artwork and motivational slogans peppered the walls. One, seen in a photo, read: “We need a little bit of thought to achieve great things. Think well.”

The southern Syrian province of Daraa was the scene of ferocious battles. It was recaptured by the Russian- and Iranian-backed Syrian government from rebel forces in 2018, but it was left looking apocalyptic. One year earlier, on June 7, as government bombs fell on the area of Tareek al-Sad, Salah’s building was hit. Children weren’t in class at the time. But Salah was there and lost his life in the blast.

The bombs in question were barrel bombs dropped from regime helicopters with devastating consequences. By their very nature, they are uncontrollable. An estimated 82,000 barrel bombs had been dropped in Syria as of April 2021, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, killing more than 11,000 people in the process.

The Syrian government has repeatedly insisted its strikes target “terrorists.”

When Omar Abou Nabout and his family sought refuge in France – where his father held a passport – they found the language and culture difficult to understand at first. But Abou Nabout went on to graduate from the country’s prestigious Sorbonne University, and now works with the French Foreign Ministry, with ambitions of becoming a diplomat.

Back then, his one link to his new country was his father. Following his death, as Abou Nabout put his energy into the pursuit of justice, Salah’s French citizenship gave France jurisdiction in the case.

“The past six years were tough, because it’s a new country,” Abou Nabout said. “We had to adapt first. I adapted and tried to mainly focus on the case and worked on my own at the start.”

Abou Nabout initially took his case to French prosecutors. It was later picked up by Mazen Darwish, a Syrian lawyer who leads the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM) – an NGO that started work in Syria and is now based in Paris.

The group has made a name for itself pursuing justice against both the Assad regime and Islamist extremist groups in Europe, earning Darwish a place on Time’s list of the most influential people for 2022. Last year, Darwish was instrumental in bringing the legal case that saw former Syrian army colonel Anwar Raslan sentenced to life in prison in Germany for crimes against humanity.

Darwish himself has experienced the brutal extremes of Syria’s incarceration system first-hand. In February 2012, Darwish was arrested with his wife and other staff at the NGO. He was accused of “promoting terrorist acts,” he says, and was tortured. After three and a half years in prison, he was released; the charges against him were later dropped.

Darwish moved to France, transferring the headquarters of SCM there in 2016. In 2020 he – along with the SCM – became involved in Omar’s case, assisting French investigators.

But building a case in a foreign country about a crime in another country, which itself is entrenched in a civil war, isn’t easy. By the time the investigation started, Daraa had come under government control, making access for French investigators difficult. The SCM offered support as a civil party, using its network to collect evidence when French investigators couldn’t; taking photos, collecting samples, and interviewing defectors to put together a chain of command in a painstaking 14-month process.

The decision by French investigative judges to now indict four high-ranking generals, including two of the country’s defense ministers, is a big step forward. “This is the first time the Syrian official army are being prosecuted,” Darwish said. “This is the first time we’re talking about the air force, the Syrian official army attacking schools and protected places.”

On the list of indictments are Fahed Jassem al-Fraij – at the time, he was the second-highest ranking military official after Bashar al-Assad and one-time defense minister.

Then there’s Ali Abdullah Ayoub – former chief of staff of the armed forces, and later defense minister. He was the third-highest ranking officer at the time of the attack.

Brigadier Ahmad Balloul, who commanded the Air Force at the time of the attack, and Brigadier Ali al-Safatli also both appear on the list.

Notably absent, however, is Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian president. “This is not because he’s not responsible,” Darwish said. “But because we are talking about local courts and presidents have immunity.” Assad would need to be tried through the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Netherlands, he added. Syria is not a member of the court, so a case would have to be referred by the UN Security Council, where Russia, which supports Assad, has veto power.

The Syrian government has long been accused of war crimes, targeting schools and hospitals. It may deny targeting civilians, but Abou Nabout says the new indictments are a victory for him and others fighting impunity.

This is now more important than ever, he said, as Arab states appear eager to turn the page and welcome Assad back into the fold.

“It was my instinct to pursue justice for my father. I grew up during the revolution. I was part of it … I watched people die including friends,” Abou Nabout said. “I couldn’t stay silent when I could do something. I didn’t want the day to come when I’m older and would regret missing the opportunity.”

Hezbollah is an Iran-backed Islamist movement with one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the Middle East. The group, which has its main base on the Israel-Lebanon border, could become a wildcard player in the Hamas-Israel war, and spark a wider regional conflict.

The conflict that started with Hamas’ deadly attacks on Israel – which Israeli officials say killed 1,400 people – has already had broad ramifications in the Middle East, and triggered diplomatic rifts and protests around the world.

Following the attacks on October 7, Israeli airstrikes have killed more than 3,500 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian health officials.

The fallout is palpable on the Lebanon-Israel border, where Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in low-rumbling tit-for-tat skirmishes since the war began, putting the entire region on a knife’s edge.

Here’s what else to know about Hezbollah.

The origins of the group

Hezbollah emerged from the rubble of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, when Israeli forces took almost half of Lebanon’s territory. This included Beirut, where Israeli forces, along with right-wing Israel-allied Christian Lebanese militias, laid siege to the western part of the capital to drive out Palestinian militants.

Israel’s operation resulted in more than 17,000 deaths, according to contemporary reports, and an Israeli inquiry into a massacre at the Beirut refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila, one of the bloodiest events in the region’s recent history. The investigation, known as the Kahan Commission of Inquiry, held Israel indirectly responsible for the massacre that was carried out by right-wing Christian Lebanese fighters.

Estimates for the number of deaths at Sabra and Shatila vary between 700 and 3,000.

As droves of Palestinian fighters left Lebanon, a band of Shia Islamist fighters trained by the nascent Islamic Republic of Iran burst onto Lebanon’s fractious political landscape. The rag-tag group had an outsized and violent impact. In 1983, two suicide bombers linked to the faction attacked a US marine barracks in Beirut, killing almost 300 US and French personnel, and some civilians.

A year later, Iran-linked fighters bombed the US Embassy in Beirut, killing 23 people. In 1985, those militants coalesced more formally around a newly founded organization: Hezbollah.

The group made no secret about its ideological allegiance to Tehran and received a steady flow of funds from the Islamic Republic. This helped propel Hezbollah to prominence. It became a participant in Lebanon’s civil war, which ended in 1990, and led a fight against Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon, ultimately driving them out in 2000.

A terror designation

In Lebanon, Hezbollah is officially considered a “resistance” group tasked with confronting Israel, which Beirut classifies as an enemy state. Yet much of the Western world has designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization, largely since Argentina blamed the group for the 1992 attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, killing 29 people, and the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center, killing 85, also in the capital.

Both Iran and Hezbollah denied responsibility for those attacks.

In 2011, the pro-democracy Arab Spring protests spiraled into proxy wars that spread through much of the Middle East. Hezbollah was an active participant, fighting alongside Iran-aligned forces in Syria and Iraq. Soon after, it was also designated a terror organization by several Arab countries.

But that barely dented the group’s power. During the years-long proxy battles, it experienced a meteoric rise, evolving from guerrilla insurgents into a regional fighting force.

How Hezbollah relates to Hamas

Hezbollah and Hamas haven’t always seen eye to eye. The two Islamist groups fought on opposing sides of Syria’s uprising-turned-civil war with Hezbollah fighting on behalf of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad while Hamas militants supported the predominantly Sunni opposition.

Hezbollah is a group from the Shia branch of Islam, while Hamas is Sunni.

When the Syrian war wound down in most parts of the country toward the end of the last decade, Hamas and Hezbollah set their differences aside. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has repeatedly praised the growing alliance between the two groups.

Hamas’ leaders have met with Nasrallah several times over the last year, and the Gaza-based group’s deepening connections with Tehran are widely known.

A growing regional power isolated at home

While Hezbollah fought battles further afield, troubles began brewing on their home turf in Lebanon. Repeated cycles of economic and political crises over the last two decades have dealt a blow to the group’s popularity outside of its Shia support base.

The group became beleaguered by wider economic problems that it proved powerless to address. It served as a bulwark against Lebanese protests demanding change from a political elite widely accused of corruption, and even dispatched supporters to beat peaceful demonstrators.

Hezbollah has also been largely successful in quashing a judicial investigation into the Beirut port blast that laid waste to large parts of the city in August 2020.

But that may prove immaterial to the group’s goals. Hezbollah is arguably Iran’s most effective non-state partner. And while its regional influence expands, it may only become a more formidable nemesis to its long-time foe, Israel.

Why Hezbollah could become embroiled in the Hamas-Israel war

It is still unclear whether Hezbollah will intervene in the Hamas-Israel war on behalf of the Palestinians. On the one hand, it shares Hamas’ ultimate goal of destroying the Jewish state. On the other, Hezbollah has everything to lose.

Israel remains the most sophisticated army in the Middle East by far, boasting some of the most advanced weapons in the world, with US support. Moreover, its war with Gaza offers a cautionary tale. In response to Hamas’ wide-scale and lethal surprise terror attack, Israel has killed more Gazans than it has in any other war with the blockaded coastal strip. This has sent a chilling message to Lebanon, still reeling from the devastating economic crisis of 2019, which has left much of the nation in disrepair.

Israel may also be hesitant to try its luck with the Iran-backed group. A war with Hezbollah in Israel’s north could ignite a third front in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, which separates Israel from Iran-aligned forces, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an elite wing of the Iranian military.

While Hezbollah’s arsenal may be no match for Israel’s, it does boast precision guided missiles, which are far more sophisticated than the shoddy Soviet-era rockets they used in their most recent conflict with Israel in 2006. Nasrallah claims his forces consist of more than 100,000 units, comprising active fighters and reservists.

Should Hezbollah get involved in the war, it would open up a multifront conflict, propelling the Middle East into uncharted territory with unpredictable consequences.

A Hamas spokesman is reportedly among more than 60 members of the militant organization detained by Israel in overnight raids across the West Bank, the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory that is increasingly feeling the impact of the fighting in Gaza.

Separately, a number of Palestinians were killed in an ongoing Israeli military operation in the Nour Shams refugee camp in the city of Tulkarem in the West Bank on Thursday, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Hassan Yousef, a leading Palestinian political figure who served as the official Hamas spokesperson in the West Bank, was detained in his home, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club, an NGO representing Palestinian detainees.

“Occupation forces arrested Hamas leader Sheikh Hassan Yousef from his home in Beitunia, as part of a wide-scale arrest campaign in the occupation (sic) West Bank,” the Palestinian Prisoners Club statement reads.

Yousef has been arrested by Israeli forces on several occasions and has spent a total of 24 years in Israeli jails on various charges of incitement, entering Jerusalem without permission and for being a Hamas member.

He has made regular appearances on international media, this week telling Canadian outlet The Globe and Mail he thought Hamas would be prepared to free the estimated 200 hostages it is holding if Israel agrees to a 24-hour ceasefire to allow aid into Gaza.

The IDF has said there was an operation by Israeli security forces.

“Following wide-scale counterterrorism activity overnight in Judea and Samaria [the Jewish biblical names for the West Bank], over 80 wanted suspects were apprehended, including 63 Hamas terror operatives,” it said.

A total of 850 Palestinians have been detained in the West Bank since Hamas’s brutal attack inside Israel on October 7, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club. They are said to include lawmakers, prominent figures, journalists, and former detainees who have served extended terms in Israeli jails.

“Every night, they are conducting more and more arrests. The number of Palestinian prisoners now in Israeli jails is up to 6,300,” Barghouti added. “They’re not charged, they’re not taken to court. They’re no due legal process and that’s what they call administrative detention, including no less than 200 children who are now in Israeli jails.”

The Israeli crackdown comes as the Gaza conflict has increasingly spilled over to the West Bank.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its staff were trying to reach the casualties in Nour Shams, adding that, “There are difficulties in reaching some of the injured individuals, and ambulances with injured people inside are being detained by [Israeli] occupying forces.”

Since Israel took control and occupied the West Bank in 1967 from Jordan following the Six Day War, the territory, which residents hope will form part of a future Palestinian state, has been partially settled by Israeli civilians, often under Israeli military protection.

Most of the world considers these settlements illegal under international law, but despite this successive Israeli governments have pledged support for them.

Israel views the West Bank as “disputed territory,” and contends its settlement policy is legal.

This is a developing story and will be updated.