At first glance, the Herculaneum scrolls look unremarkable, like pieces of coal. After surviving the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, the nearly 2,000-year-old documents would crumble if anyone attempted to unroll them, and surviving pieces with writing were considered to be nearly illegible to the human eye — until now.

After two millennia, the first full word from one of the unopened ancient papyri has been decoded with the help of computer technology and advanced artificial intelligence, according to an announcement made by a team of researchers who launched the “Vesuvius Challenge,” a competition designed to accelerate the discoveries made on the scrolls.

The word, “πορφυρας” or “porphyras,” which is the Greek word for purple, was found first by University of Nebraska computer science student Luke Farritor, who participated in the contest, which calls for competitors to apply a technique known as “virtual wrapping” to two rolled-up scrolls released on the site, in an attempt to decipher the hidden words.

Virtual unwrapping begins with computer tomography, an X-ray procedure that is used to scan each coiled-up, warped papyrus. After following along the curved layers in the scan, researchers then virtually flatten the scrolls and explore them using advanced AI that has been trained to find the ink on the page. The technology was created by University of Kentucky computer science professor Brent Seales and has been in development for nearly 20 years now.

But efforts to interpret the scrolls have been going on much longer.

Ancient scrolls uncovered from volcanic mud

The 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius, a volcano located near Naples, Italy, covered the ancient Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum in volcanic mud. Herculaneum and the scrolls remained buried until the city’s accidental rediscovery by a worker drilling for a well in the early 1700s, according to the Herculaneum Society.

Approximately 1,100 carbonized scrolls, now referred to as the Herculaneum scrolls, were recovered from a building that was believed to be Julius Caesar’s father-in-law’s house, according to the University of Kentucky. The collection is referred to as the only known large-scale library from the classical antiquity.

In the 19th century, hundreds of scrolls were pulled apart by machine and the brittle papyri were left in pieces, according to the university’s website.

Like many other Herculaneum papyrologists, Michael McOsker, a postdoctoral researcher in papyrology at the University College London who was not involved with the discovery, has been studying the scrolls that were previously unrolled, which had caused the papyri to be fragmentary and hard to read, he said.

“Obviously, there’s a long way to go before we can read a whole roll, which is the real goal, but I’m sure it’s a solvable problem now, and one that might not even take that long,” McOsker said in an email, regarding the recent discovery.

“The unrolled papyri are rewarding and important, but it’ll be a quantum leap forward to have complete texts… I’m paralyzed by the number of options and just feel grateful for any new work from antiquity that we find. It’ll be so exciting to study whatever we find.”

‘Deep connection’ to the ancients

Farritor and Youssef Nader, a biorobotics graduate student at Freie University Berlin, worked independently of one another and found the same word. They won the “First Letters Prize” of $50,000, but the grand prize of the Vesuvius Challenge — $700,000 for the first team that can read four continuous passages at the minimum length of 140 characters — is still up for grabs.

Seales hopes that a partially read scroll, satisfactory with the contest conditions, will be seen by the end of this year, while a whole scroll might be deciphered by the end of 2024.

“This material goes back 2,000 years — there were people who wrote this,” Seales said. “They wrote about love, they wrote about war, they wrote about peace, they argued with each other. These manuscripts are dialogues that they’re having about philosophical views of the world.

“And so even if we learn nothing, but the deep connection that we have to the ancients in terms of humanity, that’s still significant.”

The United States says intelligence suggests Israel is “not responsible” for a deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital, with US President Joe Biden on Wednesday echoing Israel’s explanation that the blast was likely caused by an “errant rocket fired by a terrorist group in Gaza.”

Hundreds of people were likely killed in Tuesday’s blast at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the center of Gaza City, where thousands were sheltering, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement.

Palestinian officials have blamed Israeli airstrikes for the massive loss of life, but Israel has insisted it was not responsible.

On Wednesday, the US National Security Council (NSC) said it had analyzed overhead imagery, intercepts and open source information. It found that “Israel is not responsible for the explosion at the hospital in Gaza yesterday,” NSC spokesperson Adrienne Watson said in a statement.

Among the evidence that’s been gathered is a blast analysis that suggests it was a ground explosion rather than an airstrike that hit the hospital, one of the sources said. There was no singular crater suggesting there was a bomb, but there was extensive fire damage and scattered debris that is consistent with an explosion starting from the ground level, according to the source.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had previously accused Palestinian Islamic Jihad of causing the explosion when one of its rockets launched at Israel misfired. In a televised news conference, the IDF said it had intelligence of “communications between terrorists” of rockets misfiring, which included mention of the hospital.

Islamic Jihad denied Israel’s assertions describing them as “false and baseless” and claimed it does not use public facilities such as hospitals for military purposes, according to a statement Wednesday.

The NSC assessment came as Biden made a wartime visit to Tel Aviv in his most forceful public show of support for Israel since the brutal October 7 Hamas attacks, in which the Islamist militant group killed at least 1,400 people and took more than 150 hostages, including children and the elderly.

Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a meeting on Wednesday that the hospital attack “appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”

The competing narratives on what caused the blast comes at a dangerous new phase in Israel’s war with Hamas, which threatens to spill over regionally as growing anger saw protests erupt across the Middle East on Wednesday.

It has also added to fears that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is spiraling “out of control.”

‘Unparalleled and indescribable’

Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Hamas-controlled Gaza, described “unparalleled and indescribable” scenes after the blast.

“Ambulance crews are still removing body parts as most of the victims are children and women,” Al-Qudra said. “Doctors were performing surgeries on the ground and in the corridors, some of them without anesthesia.”

“If you look over there on the roads, there are body parts all over it, heads and hands of people, hands and brains of children,” said Adnan, who would give only his first name. “It is truly indescribable.”

Women were crying out and terrified children covered in black dust huddled together on the hospital floor, the video showed.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, which is controlled by Hamas, said in a statement on Wednesday that at least 471 people died and more than 300 were injured after the explosion at the Al-Ahli hospital.

Anger and protest spread

The blast has added fuel to rising anger in the region over the situation in Gaza.

Protests condemning the hospital explosion have erupted in multiple cities across the Middle East and North Africa, including in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Tunisia. Protests also rocked the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah as demonstrators clashed with Palestinian security forces.

There were also protests in Baghdad on Tuesday, where hundreds of protesters attempted to cross a bridge leading to the area that houses the US Embassy. The demonstrators, who were chanting anti-Israel slogans, were stopped by security forces.

Protests continued on Wednesday when pro-Palestinian demonstrators had skirmishes with police near the US Embassy. Police fired tear gas and used water cannons against the protesters, according to local media and video footage released by AFP.

The US Embassy in Beirut advised Americans to avoid the Awkar area due to the protests, in a security alert on Wednesday.

Antisemitic attacks have also been on the rise. In Germany, security services are investigating after two Molotov cocktails were thrown in the direction of a Berlin synagogue in the early hours of Wednesday.

Diplomatic fallout

The fallout from the blast threatens to derail US diplomatic efforts to ease the humanitarian suffering in Gaza, where concerns are mounting over Israel’s deprivation of food, fuel and electricity to the enclave.

More than a week of Israeli bombardment has killed at least 3,478 people and injured 12,500 in Gaza, according to Palestinian authorities.

Jordan canceled a planned Wednesday summit between Biden and the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pulled out of the meeting earlier Tuesday in the immediate aftermath of the explosion.

Several nations, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, have released statements condemning Israel following the explosion.

Nowhere is safe

The hospital tragedy comes as health services in Gaza are on the brink, with no fuel to run electricity or pump water for life-saving critical functions. UN agencies have warned that stores are less than a week away from running out of food stocks and that Gaza’s last seawater desalination plant had shut down, bringing the risk of further deaths, dehydration and waterborne diseases.

While the IDF has said it does not target hospitals, the UN and Doctors Without Borders say Israeli airstrikes have struck medical facilities, including hospitals and ambulances.

Conditions are dire for the 2.2 million people caught in the escalating crisis and now trapped in Gaza and those on the ground warn that nowhere is safe from relentless Israeli airstrikes and the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation.

More than one million people have been displaced in the Gaza Strip, including 600,000 people in northern Gaza, according to a statement from the Hamas-run government there.

Gazan authorities have called for the return of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which ended its services in the northern part of the enclave, according to a statement.

On Tuesday, UNRWA released a status report stating that “an unknown number” of displaced people “remain in UNRWA schools in the north” but said it was “no longer able to assist or protect” them.

The report added that nearly 400,000 displaced people were sheltering in UNRWA installations “in the Middle Area, Khan Younis and Rafah.” The organization’s logistics base in Rafah was hosting nearly 8,000 people and, “the numbers continue to increase,” the report said.

Urgent calls for help are mounting and diplomatic efforts to secure a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza have ramped up in recent days.

Following Biden’s remarks in Tel Aviv, Netanyahu’s office said Israel will not block humanitarian aid going into Gaza from Egypt but it won’t not allow supplies into Gaza from its own territory until Hamas releases all hostages.

“In light of President Biden’s demand, Israel will not block humanitarian aid deliveries, as long as they consist water, food, and drugs for the civilian population in the southern Gaza Strip … and as long as the aid doesn’t reach Hamas,” the statement said.

The Rafah border crossing – the only entry point in and out of Gaza that Israel does not control – has remained extremely dangerous since the outbreak of hostilities.

He added that the crossing was bombed four times in the past few days.

The situation in Gaza is now spiraling “out of control,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Wednesday.

Tedros said that WHO’s supplies have been stuck at the border for four days, adding “every second we wait to get medical aid in, we lose lives.”

When Hamas militants broke through the Gaza fence in this month’s unprecedented attack on Israel, the kibbutz of Mefalsim – less than two miles from the border – was on the front lines. Toting AK-47 rifles and grenade launchers, one group of militants headed straight for the community’s gates, while another group moved to destroy its generator, according to security videos and local residents.

That precision, local Israeli security personnel say, was no accident: The fighters seemed to have known exactly where they were headed.

The color-coded document includes detailed information about the kibbutz’s guards and security. It says that one group of militants would break through the community’s fence, while others were ordered to “capture soldiers and civilians and to keep hostages” for negotiation.

Yarden Reskin, a member of Mefalsim’s volunteer security force who spent hours exchanging fire with militants – helping prevent any deaths inside the community – said he was shocked by the level of detail.

“They knew everything,” Reskin said. “They knew where are the gates, they knew where are the generators, they knew where is the armory, they knew basically how many of us on the security team… they had very, very good intel.”

The difference between the detailed plans and what occurred on the ground is a sign of the chaos that spread during the attack, as Hamas fighters encountered far less resistance from the Israeli military than they expected. Despite the billions of dollars Israel has spent securing its border and developing one of the world’s most renowned intelligence operations, its armed forces were caught off guard.

“There was a tremendous effort put into this,” he said. “This was a very carefully planned operation that involved the kind of intelligence processing and dissemination that I don’t think many people thought Hamas had.”

Hamas officials have claimed that its fighters were told not to kill women and children – and that such killings were the result of other unaffiliated militants who streamed across the Gaza border during the chaos of the attack. But Israeli officials and experts have argued that the planning documents show that inflicting civilian casualties was a central part of the group’s mission.

“The execution was not just some rogue actor,” Levitt said. The documents, he said, suggest that killing civilians “is exactly what they planned to do.”

Outnumbered and outgunned

Mefalsim, a community home to about 1,000 people, has long been a target of Hamas rockets because of its proximity to Gaza. So when locals received alerts about incoming rocket fire around 6:30 a.m. Saturday morning, they knew to head to their bomb shelters.

But the kibbutz residents soon realized this onslaught was different from any previous one. Reskin, who’s lived in Mefalsim his entire life, was huddling with his family in their home’s shelter when he heard a barrage of gunshots from nearby. “I kissed my wife, kissed my two little girls, and went out the door to see what I can do,” he said.

Reskin said that he was shocked to see black-clad fighters holding AK-47s just outside the kibbutz gates. He and a handful of other guards engaged in several skirmishes with the attackers for hours, often going up against larger numbers and firepower.

Later, Israeli military forces arrived and defeated additional militants approaching the community, Reskin and Levi said. While the attackers killed at least one civilian and potentially others outside the kibbutz gates, and a handful of residents were injured, no one was killed inside the community, according to Reskin and Levi.

Reskin said he later saw photos of the Hamas planning document, which lists details about the security force and estimates of how long it would take for reinforcements from the Israeli military to arrive.

The document is dated 2022 on its cover, potentially suggesting that the attack had been in the works for a year or longer – although another page lists the date June 15, 2023.

Seeing the document convinced him that the attack was “something they are planning for years,” Reskin said. “It’s not something you’re planning in weeks or months.”

Levi, who also saw a copy of the plan, said that the attack strategy appeared to have been followed by the Hamas militants. Some fighters had attacked a power generator, the location of which was marked on a map, he said, and others had tried to take control of the main gate.

“Most of the things actually happened as they were written down,” Levi said.

“The level of detail is extraordinary,” Clarke said. The extent of planning “just shows a thinking about the long-game in a way that most terrorist groups don’t have the organization for,” he said.

Clarke said that the fact that the group was able to gather this level of information shows not only that “Hamas vastly improved in its operational capabilities, but Israel was asleep at the wheel.”

‘We thought we were safe’

Similar to the Mefalsim plan, the document lists information about the kibbutz and its security, including detailed information about the number of guards protecting the community.

One group of fighters was directed to breach the kibbutz fence and destroy the guard room before “gathering hostages in the dining room and preparing to transfer a number of them to the strip.” A second group was directed to “collect hostages and hand them over to the first group.”

The document also says that the groups were supposed to “control” and “inspect” two schools, and search a “youth movement area.” And it includes in-depth satellite image maps of the Kibbutz and the surrounding area.

But like in Mefalsim, Hamas did not successfully attack Sa’ad – no one died, according to the first responders group. It’s unclear why: several other nearby communities – some of which were identified on a map in the plan – were attacked by Hamas fighters who killed civilians, according to Israeli officials.

Sarah Pollack, a resident of Sa’ad who spent Saturday holed up in her family’s bomb shelter, said the kibbutz was hit by a rocket from Gaza, and some residents who were outside the community during the attack were killed. But no militants entered the kibbutz, and no one was killed inside the gates, she said.

“We don’t know how to explain that,” she said in an interview from her hotel near Arad in Israel, where she and her family had been evacuated after the attack. “It’s a huge, huge question to us. It’s a miracle.”

Pollack said seeing the extensive details that Hamas had about Sa’ad in the planning documents was chilling. “Shockingly, the details are very accurate… horribly accurate,” she said.

Even though Sa’ad escaped with far less death and destruction than neighboring kibbutzim, Pollack said the attack had deeply shaken residents’ sense of safety in what she described as a “lovely, lush, beautiful green area with gardens and trees that we’re so proud of.”

“We thought there was a physical barrier between the Gaza Strip and Israel to protect us, we thought we were safe,” she said. “We were very wrong.”

A top SpaceX executive is accusing government regulators of stifling the company’s progress on its Starship megarocket — potentially opening the door for China to beat US astronauts back to the moon.

William Gerstenmaier — SpaceX’s vice president for build and reliability who previously served as NASA’s associate administrator for human exploration — delivered the warning Wednesday to the Senate subcommittee on space and science at a hearing on commercial space regulations.

The remarks come as SpaceX is facing an environmental review by the Fish and Wildlife Service and a safety review by the Federal Aviation Administration of plans to launch its massive moon rocket again at the company’s facility in South Texas.

Starship — the rocket and spacecraft system the company is developing in part to land astronauts on the moon for NASA’s Artemis program — exploded after its first test flight in Texas earlier this year.

“It’s a shame when our hardware is ready to fly, and we’re not able to go fly because of regulations or review,” Gerstenmaier said, noting that SpaceX has been ready for a month to launch the next Starship test flight. “Licensing, including environmental (review), often takes longer than rocket development. This should never happen. And it’s only getting worse.”

He also claimed the regulatory delays have “nothing to do with public safety.”

Race to the moon

Gerstenmaier said the discussions about the regulatory environment are critical “in the face of strategic competition from state actors like China.”

“These delays may seem small in the big scheme of things but…. delays in each and every test flight adds up. And eventually we will lose our lead and we will see China land on the moon before we do,” Gerstenmaier said.

The FAA, which was not represented at the hearing, said in a statement Wednesday, “Keeping pace with industry demand is a priority and is important for several reasons, including meeting our national security and civil exploration needs.”

NASA’s Artemis program aims to return humans to the lunar surface for the first time in more than 50 years, racing against China’s own plans to develop a moon base.

SpaceX faced pushback over its first test flight. A group of environmental advocates sued the FAA over the incident, alleging the agency did not comply with environmental law by allowing the launch to move forward.

SpaceX, for its part, has frequently said explosions of its rockets are welcome in the early stages of development, claiming it helps inform design quicker than ground tests.

Gerstenmaier did acknowledge that in addition to regulatory hurdles, SpaceX continues to face technological challenges with Starship development. It still is not clear whether SpaceX can meet NASA’s goal of having Starship ready for a lunar landing by late 2025.

“The only way we can get there is by flying,” Gerstenmaier said.

He added that SpaceX has had a hard time allocating resources amid uncertainty about when the launch license will arrive.

“We had people work extra shifts … We got the vehicle ready, then we couldn’t fly,” Gerstenmaier said, adding that SpaceX will likely carry out more ground tests, such as a wet dress rehearsal, as it awaits the license, but that the regulatory uncertainty prevents them from establishing a more productive schedule.

Regulatory response

The FAA said in a September statement that SpaceX must “obtain a modified license from the FAA that addresses all safety, environmental, and other regulatory requirements prior to the next Starship launch.”

That could delay the next launch of Starship into 2024.

Gerstenmaier attributed regulatory hangups in part to a lack of staffing, saying the FAA’s licensing department is in “great distress” and “needs twice the resources it has today.”

In its statement Wednesday, the FAA said it is “working diligently to attract, hire and retain additional staff.”

In a statement issued Wednesday evening, Deputy NASA Administrator Pam Melroy said properly funding the federal agencies that regulate launches is essential to NASA’s goals.

“As global interest and capabilities in space exploration continue to expand at a rapid rate, America must continue to lead in human exploration with the return to the Moon under Artemis and the first human mission to Mars to search for life farther in the solar system,” Melroy said. “To be successful in achieving NASA’s goals, it’s important our regulatory partners have the resources they need to carry out their oversight duties and keep pace with commercial industry progress.”

Unity amid deep division

Alongside SpaceX at the hearing were representatives from two other commercial space companies: Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic, both of which send wealthy tourists to the edge of space on suborbital rockets.

In a remarkable display of unity on a day of deep divisions elsewhere on Capitol Hill, all witnesses and the subcommittee members that spoke Wednesday were in agreement that the regulatory framework facing commercial space companies needs change and warned against rulemaking that could hamper progress.

The witnesses also called on Congress to streamline regulations and pinpoint a single federal agency to serve as a one-stop-shop for commercial space licensing.

They also advocated that Congress should not allow the FAA to implement new regulations focused on protecting the safety of commercial spaceflight passengers. (A moratorium on such regulations has been in place for two decades but is set to expire on January 1.)

The top Republican on the subcommittee, Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri, and ranking member Kyrsten Sinema, an independent from Arizona, both agreed the moratorium should be extended.

They each also acknowledged that existing regulations — such as those that outline the process for obtaining human spaceflight launch licenses, as well as satellite licenses — need to be improved.

A day after a deadly blast tore through Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza, sparking protests across the region, the United States has released its own assessment of what caused the devastation.

Israel has laid out evidence that it said shows a misfire by militant group Islamic Jihad caused the blast, and US President Joe Biden on Wednesday backed that explanation, citing US intelligence. A spokesperson for the National Security Council later said that analysis of overhead imagery, intercepts and open-source information suggested that Israel is “not responsible.”

Palestinian officials and several Arab leaders nevertheless accuse Israel of hitting the hospital amid its ongoing airstrikes in Gaza. Islamic Jihad – a rival group to Hamas – has denied responsibility.

Hundreds are believed to have died in the attack, according to the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry in Gaza, and images of the bloody aftermath have spurred protests across the region.

Here’s a look at what we know – and don’t know – so far.

What happened at the hospital?

In the building, there was panic. Dr. Fadel Na’eem, head of the orthopedic department, said he was performing surgery when a deafening blast sounded through the hospital. He said panic ensued as staff members ran into the operating room screaming for help and reporting multiple casualties.

After he left the theater, Dr. Na’eem said he found an overwhelming scene. “Many people were beheaded. Everywhere there was a big fire,” he said. “The medical team scrambled to tend to the wounded and dying, but the magnitude of the devastation was overwhelming. The number was big and huge that we can’t do anything.”

While it is difficult to independently confirm how many people died in the blast, the bloodshed could be seen in images from the aftermath shared on social media. In photos and videos, young children covered in dust are rushed to be treated for their wounds. Other bodies lay lifeless on the ground.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza has said the death toll is over 400.

What the Israelis and Palestinians have said

Palestinian officials blamed Israel for the attack on Tuesday evening.

Israel says that its intelligence shows a “failed rocket launch” by the Islamist militant group Islamic Jihad group was responsible. The Islamic Jihad movement denied those assertions as “false and baseless.”

The IDF also released audio that it claimed captured a conversation between two Hamas operatives in which they spoke of a rocket launch from a cemetery near the hospital. According to an IDF translation of the conversation, one of the alleged operatives says: “They are saying that the shrapnel of the missile is local shrapnel and not like the Israeli shrapnel.”

On Tuesday, the IDF presented imagery that it says proves the destruction at the hospital could not have been the result of an airstrike, saying there were no visible signs of craters or significant damage to buildings that would result from such a strike.

A video posted by the official State of Israel’s account on social media platform X on Tuesday night was also presented as evidence that the hospital was struck in outgoing rocket fire from militants. But the timestamp on the video appeared not to match up with the time that the explosion took place, and the tweet was later edited to remove the video.

What US intelligence suggests

The US government currently assesses that Israel “was not responsible” for the blast, according to the US National Security Council (NSC).

Biden, who was making a high-stakes visit to Israel on Wednesday, told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the damage at the hospital “appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”

“But there’s a lot of people out there not sure, so we’ve got a lot – we’ve got to overcome a lot of things,” Biden added.

The NSC on Wednesday afternoon leaned further into its assessment: “Intelligence indicates that some Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip believed that the explosion was likely caused by an errant rocket or missile launch carried out by Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). The militants were still investigating what had happened,” spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.

Among the evidence is a blast analysis that suggests it was a ground explosion rather than an airstrike that hit the hospital, one of the sources said. There was no singular crater suggesting there was a bomb, but there was extensive fire damage and scattered debris that is consistent with an explosion starting from the ground level, according to the source.

That analysis is one data point that’s led intelligence officials to lean toward assessing that the attack on the hospital was a rocket launch gone wrong.

Still, the blast analysis is just one of the things being examined by the intelligence community, which has surged intelligence collection assets to the region.

How has the world reacted?

A number of countries have expressed horror at the loss of life at the hospital, and urged caution in attributing blame until the circumstances become clear.

The United Nations has called for a careful investigation. Until independent investigators are able to assess the incident in detail, it is unlikely that the world will know with certainty what led to the blast.

Israel has provided the US with intelligence it has gathered related to the deadly Gaza hospital explosion, according to an Israeli official and another source familiar with the matter.

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

Meanwhile, thousands of protesters shouting anti-Israel slogans gathered in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, and Tunisia. Protests also rocked the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

A Hong Kong court has dismissed a government bid to deny same-sex married couples the right to rent and own public housing, saying that it was “discriminatory in nature” and a complete denial of such couples’ rights.

The ruling by Hong Kong’s Court of Appeal on Tuesday is the latest in a series of legal breakthroughs for gay rights advocates in the global financial hub this year.

The government had challenged two High Court rulings that it was “unconstitutional and unlawful” for the city’s housing authority to exclude same-sex couples who married abroad from public housing.

The appeal involved two cases, one in which the authority had declined to consider a permanent resident’s application to rent a public flat with his husband, because their marriage in Canada was not recognized in Hong Kong.

The other involved a same-sex couple who were denied joint-ownership of a government-subsidized flat by the authority because their marriage in Britain was not recognized in Hong Kong.

Court of Appeal justices Jeremy Poon, Aarif Barma and Thomas Au said in a written judgment that the authority’s treatment of gay married couples was “discriminatory in nature” and they should be afforded equal treatment.

“The differential treatment in the present cases is a more severe form of indirect discrimination than most cases because the criterion is one which same-sex couples can never meet,” the judges said in their ruling.

One of the men involved in the second case, Henry Li, welcomed the ruling in a post on Facebook.

Rights group Hong Kong Marriage Equality also welcomed the decision saying it had made clear “that discrimination and unequal treatment on the ground of sexual orientation has no place in public policy decisions.”

Hong Kong’s top court in September ruled against same-sex marriage but acknowledged same-sex couples’ need “for access to an alternative legal framework in order to meet basic social requirements.”

The government was given two years to come up with the framework.

A Hong Kong court in September sided with a married lesbian couple who argued that both women should have parental status over their child born via reciprocal IVF.

Activists in other parts of Asia are watching Hong Kong’s courts in the hope that their rulings could influence campaigns for reform elsewhere.

A swarm of Ukrainian jet skis races across the ocean under pitch black skies, visible only from the infra-red camera of a drone watching from above. They slow down as they approach the shore to avoid detection and hurry onto dry land.

That soldier was call-sign “Muzykant,” meaning “the musician” in English. He was a violinist who became a soldier with Ukraine’s special forces. Muzykant is the squad leader of the Bratstvo battalion which, along with Ukraine’s defense intelligence and other units, carried out the infiltration into Crimea earlier this month.

That amphibious operation, early in October, was an infiltration by Ukraine’s special forces into Russia’s biggest stronghold in occupied Ukraine, part of a recent trend that has seen Kyiv increase its attacks on the peninsula. The exact date and time of the attack have not been disclosed.

Muzykant was one of 10 Bratstvo battalion soldiers involved in the night assault on Crimea, in cooperation with other Ukrainian units – the total number of operatives is still unknown. They sailed through rough seas on larger speedboats, before switching to lower profile jet skis when they were in range of the peninsula. They then raced towards the shore, destroyed Russian military equipment placed by the sea and headed back, all in a matter of hours.

The objective was not just to sabotage some of the military equipment Moscow keeps close to the shore, but also to convey a message to Ukrainian citizens in the territory.

“We did it so that people in Ukraine and in occupied Crimea don’t lose spirit and keep faith in Crimea returning to Ukraine,” Muzykant said. Russian forces illegally annexed Crimea in 2014. The peninsula holds a deep symbolic importance to Russian President Vladimir Putin and it’s a strategically vital logistics hub for the Kremlin’s war effort.

Muzykant said the dangerous operation took months of planning to prepare the Ukrainian soldiers for the many risks they would face.

“While we were landing the sea was stormy, the waves were up to 2 meters (6.6 feet) high,” he explained. “Plus the Russian warships were patrolling the sea, the Raptors. There were four of them, each with a crew of 20 Russian soldiers armed with heavy machine guns and a 30-millimeter gun.”

But the Bratstvo battalion was able to navigate those dangers. They reached the peninsula and executed their mission.

“We trained a lot for this mission. Everybody knew their role, what they were supposed to do on the shore,” Muzykant explained. “On the way back after the task the Russian warships were chasing us, but we managed to escape.”

None of the Bratstvo battalion soldiers was injured or captured, but Ukrainian defense intelligence acknowledged losses, although did not provide further details. It also said casualties on Moscow’s side were much more significant.

Moscow said it had captured one of the Ukrainian soldiers that landed in Crimea, releasing videos of his interrogation on national television, but it refused to elaborate on any losses on the Russian side.

Capture, injury or death are all risks Muzykant is prepared to take for missions he believes are necessary.

“It’s not just moral support to our people in Crimea, but also help to our forces in the trenches,” he said. “We divert the enemy’s attention towards us, and the enemy is forced to relocate their personnel and vehicles to (the) Crimean seaside.”

The Crimean front

October’s assault was one of many that Ukrainian forces have carried out on the peninsula in recent months.

In September, strikes hit the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean city of Sevastopol. The missiles used were seemingly the long-range UK-donated Storm Shadow.

Ukraine has also struck the Kerch bridge linking Crimea to mainland Russia multiple times.

Kyiv’s forces damaged a Russian ship and a submarine when it struck one of the dry docks used by the Black Sea Fleet on September 13, and Ukraine has carried out multiple attacks on the Saki air base, from where Russia launches some of its attack aircraft.

Russia has promised retaliation on several occasions, calling the attacks “acts of terrorism,” but Ukraine has continued to carry out strikes on the peninsula. In addition to drones and missiles, it’s long been speculated that Kyiv’s special forces were operating in Crimea, but their profile was raised with the amphibious October raid.

One of the Bratstvo unit’s founders and a key planner behind the surgical strike, Dmytro Korchynskyi, said attacking the peninsula was key for Ukraine’s counteroffensive effort.

“Crimea is a military base they (Russia) still consider to be well defended. So for us it’s vital,” Korchynskyi explained. “And also it’s vital from the military-political point of view. We can’t let anybody forget Crimea is Ukrainian and we will always operate there.”

“We are fighting a trench war on the front lines and success there is not always obvious – special operations of this kind in the rear or on the sea, inspire and give (our soldiers) energy to keep fighting,” he added.

And while striking Russian assets with drones and missiles is important, he believes having Ukrainian soldiers on the ground distracts Moscow and forces Russia to relocate assets.

“Every soldier that is guarding the beach is one that is not present at the Zaporizhzhia front,” he said.

Those operations behind enemy lines, deep into Russian controlled territory, are reliant on support from the local population, Korchynskyi said.

Monitoring military facilities

Ukrainians living under Russian occupation have long been organizing themselves into resistance groups, locally referred to as Partisans. They have been active across occupied Ukraine, most notably in Kherson and Melitopol, but also Crimea.

Atesh also refused to comment on whether they were involved in the September strike on the headquarters of the Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol, but said they keep constant tabs on the Russian military and communicate any movements to the Ukrainians.

Their work, the group said, is important yet extremely dangerous and members are actively sought by Russian authorities, including the Federal Security Service (FSB).

“They use various means of wiretapping the area (apartments, cafes or any other premises) and also (make) attempts to introduce FSB agents into our movement,” Atesh said. “Attempts by the Russians to infiltrate our ranks are constant, but our team skilfully finds them. In addition, we have very strict filtering of potential agents and most agents operate autonomously to prevent information leakage.”

“Agents of our movement understand all the risks and strictly follow safety measures,” they added.

Ready for liberation

The Partisans say they are only able to effectively fulfill their missions because they enjoy “the broad support of local residents,” and claim these coordinated attacks from the air and the sea are boosting their ranks.

“Our movement and other resistance movements are only getting bigger and stronger,” they said “The occupiers know this very well. The pro-Ukrainian residents of Crimea are ready for the liberation of the peninsula.”

Korchynskyi said that liberation is the ultimate goal of these raids, and Ukrainian forces have been slowly perfecting them, especially amphibious tactics.

Muzykant knows there’s still some time and plenty of hard work before Ukrainian forces are able to launch a bigger offensive on Crimea but more – and more daring – raids are on the horizon.

“We weaken them by destroying their military equipment and personnel but they become more attentive,” he explained. “They become better. So every next task is harder.”

Ultimately, he says he’s driven by the belief Ukrainians in Crimea are waiting for them.

“They are waiting for our sign to start the fight against the Russian aggression,” he explained.

The very early stages of that fight may already be unfolding.

Anti-Israel protests flared across the Middle East and North Africa on Tuesday as the leaders of Arab countries condemned Israel over a deadly blast believed to have killed hundreds of people sheltering at a hospital in Gaza City.

Palestinian officials quickly blamed Israel for the explosion at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital but the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) rejected the allegation, accusing Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants of conducting a “failed rocket launch” and saying the lack of structural damage at the facility rules out the possibility of an airstrike.

Islamic Jihad described Israeli accusations as “false and baseless” and claimed that it does not use public facilities such as hospitals for military purposes, according to a written statement published Wednesday.

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

Meanwhile, thousands of protesters shouting anti-Israel slogans gathered in Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Egypt, and Tunisia. Protests also rocked the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The blast at the hospital fueled fury across the region over the bloodshed in Gaza, a coastal enclave home to 2.2 million people that has been under siege by Israel for more than a week in retaliation for a large-scale terror attack carried out by Hamas in Israel on October 7.

In Iran, rallies also took place outside the French and British embassies in Tehran, the country’s capital. Demonstrators chanted “death to France, England, America, and the Zionists,” according to a video published by Iran state-run RNA news on Wednesday morning. Rallies also took place in other cities, including Esfahan and Qom.

Hundreds of people rallied in several areas in Tunis, Tunisia, state-run TAP news agency reported. TAP said “mass protests were held on Tuesday night,” in several areas “in solidarity with the Palestinian people” and against Israeli bombardment of Gaza.

In Istanbul, Turkish security forces used water cannon and pepper spray to disperse protesters who managed to force their way into a compound where the Israeli consulate is located.

On Tuesday, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called on “all humanity to take action to stop this unprecedented brutality in Gaza,” in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, adding that the attack on the hospital was “the latest example of Israel’s attacks devoid of the most basic human values.”

The blast resulted in Jordan canceling a planned Wednesday summit between US President Joe Biden and the leaders of Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority, a government body with limited self-rule in the West Bank.

Jordan’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Ayman Safadi, posted on X, “How many innocent Palestinians must die before Israel stops its war on Gaza?”

Safadi called for peace and said international law “can’t be selective,” and that the “World must speak clearly, act promptly against this war.”

While the IDF has said it does not target hospitals, the UN and Doctors Without Borders say Israeli airstrikes have struck medical facilities, including hospitals and ambulances.

Hospitals were already struggling to tend to the wounded across the territory, operating with shortages of electricity and water.

The Episcopal Diocese of Jerusalem which oversees and funds the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital condemned the explosion, according to a statement from the church released on Tuesday.

“Gaza remains bereft of safe havens,” the diocese said, calling the blast a crime against humanity.

“Hospitals, by the tenets of international humanitarian law, are sanctuaries, yet this assault has transgressed those sacred boundaries,” the statement reads.

Early Wednesday, the IDF presented imagery which it asserts shows that the destruction of the Al-Ahli Baptist hospital could not have been the result of an airstrike.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday touted his country’s deep alignment with China as he appeared on stage as guest of honor at a global gathering in Beijing, where Chinese leader Xi Jinping pitched his vision for a reshaped world order.

In a previously unannounced speech at the opening ceremony of the Belt and Road Forum, Putin hailed Xi’s flagship foreign policy initiative as “aiming to form a fairer, multi-polar world.”

Russia and China share an “aspiration for equal and mutually beneficial cooperation,” which includes “respecting civilization diversity and the right of every state for their own development model” – he added, in an apparent push back against calls for authoritarian leaders to promote human rights and political freedoms at home.

Putin spoke after Xi, who welcomed two dozen world leaders and more than a hundred delegations to an event marking the 10th anniversary of the Belt and Road Initiative – an ambitious yet controversial undertaking to boost connectivity and trade across the world with Chinese infrastructure projects.

Addressing the foreign guests in an ornate room in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Xi lauded his initiative for providing an alternative development model for the world, saying it “established a new framework for international cooperation.”

The gathering took place under the shadow of a war in the Middle East that threatens to escalate into broader regional conflict – and served as a stark showing of the deepening divisions between world powers.

As leaders and representatives from countries mostly in the Global South gathered in the Chinese capital, US President Joe Biden landed in Israel later on Wednesday in a show of staunch support for the American ally, which has vowed to eliminate Hamas following the Islamic militant group’s brutal attack on Israel earlier this month.

China and Russia have both called for ceasefire in the spiraling conflict and have declined to explicitly condemn Hamas – cutting a stark contrast to the outpouring of support for Israel from the US and leaders across Europe.

At the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

“I’m fully aware of the deep grievances of the Palestinian people after 56 years of occupation, yet as serious as these grievances are they cannot justify the acts of terror against civilians committed by Hamas on October 7 (which) I immediately condemned,” he said.

“But those events cannot justify the collective punishment of The Palestinian people.”

Xi did not address the conflict in his speech, but he alluded to an apparent shift in global power and leadership. “Changes of the world, of our times and of historical significance are unfolding like never before,” he said.

“China is endeavoring to build itself into a stronger country and rejuvenate the Chinese nation on all fronts by pursuing Chinese modernization. The modernization we’re pursuing is not for China alone, but for all developing countries through joint efforts.”

In a thinly veiled swipe at the United States, the Chinese leader said China opposed unilateral sanctions, economic coercion, decoupling and supply chain disruption.

“Ideological confrontation, geopolitical rivalry and bloc politics are not a choice for us,” he said.

“Viewing others’ development as a threat or taking economic interdependence as a risk will not make one’s own life better or speed up one’s development.”

Other world leaders in attendance, including Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and Indonesia’s Joko Widodo, also gave addresses, with many echoing Xi’s call for increased global development and a more multilateral, cooperative world.

Xi and Putin held talks after the event. Calling Putin “my old friend,” Xi hailed the deepening of political trust between the two nations and their “close, effective strategic coordination,” China’s state broadcaster CCTV reported.

The visit to Beijing is an exceptionally rare overseas trip for Putin, who is shunned by the West and wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes in Ukraine.

His meeting with Xi comes as Russia continues to wage destructive attacks on Ukraine, where two people were killed Wednesday after a Russian missile strike on the city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Ukrainian officials.

An alternative world order

Xi, the most powerful and assertive Chinese leader in decades, has been ramping up efforts to project China as an alternative leader to the US – with a vision for how global security and development should be ensured.

Hosting leaders in Beijing – China’s first major international event since the end of the Covid-19 pandemic – is a key part of his push to pitch that vision to nations it has forged close ties with over the past decade as Xi aimed to vastly expand his nation’s global influence.

World leaders, representatives and delegations from more than 140 countries – including in the Middle East and the Taliban – are attending the gathering marking one decade since the launch of Xi’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative.

But it also comes as China faces stark challenges at home, with a slowing economy, high unemployment and a series of recent unexplained shake-ups in the upper echelons of the ruling Communist Party.

Beijing aims to gloss over these challenges at the gathering to project its power and laud its contributions to global development as a prime example of its superior leadership.

That signature foreign policy has marshaled hundreds of billions in Chinese finance to build ports, power stations, bridges, rails and roads around the world – significantly expanding China’s international interests and influence along the way.

More than 150 countries have cooperated on the program, which Beijing says has mobilized “up to a trillion dollars in investments,” spurring growth in developing nations.

But it faces increasing headwinds as China’s economic growth engine slows amid a shifting financial climate worldwide and questions about its high costs for countries – from debt to environmental impact.

China’s infrastructure building spree has now made it the world’s largest debt collector, analysts say.

In his address Wednesday, Xi brushed aside criticisms and reiterated his commitment to the initiative.

“What has been achieved in the past 10 years demonstrates that Belt and Road cooperation is on the right side of history. It represents the advancing of our times and it’s the right path forward,” he said.

Xi also proposed an eight-part action plan on the Belt and Road initiative, including the full removal of restrictions on foreign investment in Chinese manufacturing and an initiative on global artificial intelligence governance.

Protests erupted across the Middle East following the deadly explosion at a Gaza hospital, with Israeli and Palestinian officials trading accusations over who was to blame as US President Joe Biden arrived in Tel Aviv.

Hundreds of people were likely killed in the blast on Tuesday at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in the center of Gaza City, where thousands were sheltering from Israeli strikes, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement.

Hamas said more than 500 people were killed in the blast. The Palestinian Health Ministry said preliminary estimates indicate that between 200 to 300 people died.

Palestinian officials have blamed Israeli airstrikes for the lethal incident, but Israel has insisted it was not responsible.

In a televised news conference Wednesday, Israeli military spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari claimed a lack of structural damage at the hospital proved the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were not involved in the explosion. He claimed IDF intelligence showed that Palestinian Islamic Jihad – a rival Islamist militant group to Hamas in Gaza – caused the explosion when one of its rockets launched at Israel misfired.

Hagari also said the IDF had intelligence of “communications between terrorists” of rockets misfiring, which included mention of the hospital.

Islamic Jihad denied Israel’s assertions describing them as “false and baseless” and claimed it does not use public facilities such as hospitals for military purposes, according to a statement Wednesday.

The blast marks a dangerous new phase in Israel’s war with Hamas, which threatens to spill over regionally, and has added to fears that the humanitarian situation in Gaza is spiraling “out of control.”

‘Unparalleled and indescribable’

Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, described “unparalleled and indescribable” scenes after the blast.

“Ambulance crews are still removing body parts as most of the victims are children and women,” Al-Qudra said. “Doctors were performing surgeries on the ground and in the corridors, some of them without anesthesia.”

Images show women crying out and terrified children covered in black dust huddled together on the hospital floor.

Calling the deadly hospital blast “unacceptable,” UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk said hospitals are sacrosanct and the killings and violence must stop.

“Words fail me. Tonight, hundreds of people were killed – horrifically – in a massive strike… including patients, healthcare workers and families that had been seeking refuge in and around the hospital. Once again the most vulnerable,” Turk said in a statement.

Diplomatic fallout

The fallout from the blast threatens to derail US diplomatic efforts to ease the humanitarian suffering in Gaza, where concerns are mounting over Israel’s deprivation of food, fuel and electricity to the enclave.

More than a week of Israeli bombardment has killed at least 3,300 people and injured 12,500 in Gaza, according to Palestinian authorities.

President Biden’s high-security wartime visit to Tel Aviv to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu marks his most forceful public show of support for Israel since the brutal October 7 Hamas attacks, in which the Islamist militant group killed at least 1,400 people and took more than 150 hostages, including children and the elderly.

Biden told the Israeli leader in a meeting on Wednesday that the hospital attack “appears as though it was done by the other team, not you.”

“But there’s a lot of people out there not sure,” he added.

Biden was scheduled to visit the Jordanian capital Amman after his trip to Tel Aviv, though a White House official said the trip was “postponed.”

Jordan canceled a planned Wednesday summit between Biden and the leaders of Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas pulled out of the meeting earlier Tuesday in the immediate aftermath of the explosion.

“There is no point in doing anything at this time other than stopping this war,” Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi told Al Jazeera Arabic early Wednesday. “There is no benefit to anyone in holding a summit at this time.”

Several nations, including Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates have released statements condemning Israel following the explosion. Pakistan called it “inhumane and indefensible” and Palestinian observer to the UN Riyad Mansour said Israeli officials were being dishonest in blaming Islamic Jihad.

Anger spreads

The blast has added fuel to rising anger in the region over Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Protests condemning the hospital explosion have erupted in multiple cities across the Middle East and North Africa, including in Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran and Tunisia. Protests also rocked the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah as demonstrators clashed with Palestinian security forces.

Nowhere is safe

The hospital tragedy comes as health services in Gaza are on the brink, with no fuel to run electricity or pump water for life-saving critical functions. UN agencies have warned that stores are less than a week away from running out of food stocks and that Gaza’s last seawater desalination plant had shut down, bringing the risk of further deaths, dehydration and waterborne diseases.

While the IDF has said it does not target hospitals, the UN and Doctors Without Borders say Israeli airstrikes have struck medical facilities, including hospitals and ambulances.

Conditions are dire for the 2.2 million people caught in the escalating crisis and now trapped in Gaza and those on the ground warn that nowhere is safe from relentless Israeli airstrikes and the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation.

Urgent calls for help are mounting and diplomatic efforts to secure a humanitarian corridor out of Gaza have ramped up in recent days.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has led intense efforts across the Middle East, on Tuesday said the US and Israel “have agreed to develop a plan that will enable humanitarian aid from donor nations and multilateral organizations to reach civilians in Gaza.”

But officials have said the Rafah border crossing – the only entry point in and out of Gaza that Israel does not control – remains extremely dangerous.

“Until now, there is no safe passage that has been granted,” he said, as they do not “have any authorization or clear, secure routes for those convoys.”

He added that the crossing was bombed four times in the past few days.

The situation in Gaza is now spiraling “out of control,” World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned on Wednesday.

Tedros said that WHO’s supplies have been stuck at the border for four days, adding “every second we wait to get medical aid in, we lose lives.”