The City of Love has a message as it prepares for the Olympics: Performance is not always the priority. Rather, when it comes to sex, pleasure takes first place.

As Paris starts welcoming athletes to the Olympic Village in the coming days, organizers of the 2024 Games are set to launch a comprehensive sexual health campaign that champions pleasure and consent as well as the traditional emphasis on safety.

It is an important message, backed by research, that is rarely endorsed on a stage with a global spotlight as influential as the Olympics.

Prioritizing pleasure in sexual health refers to the approach of celebrating the physical and mental benefits of sexual experiences as well as minimizing the risks. It aims to rewrite fear and shame narratives that cast sex as taboo, with sexual health organizations promoting the sex-positive method as fundamental for unlocking greater agency over sexual rights and well-being.

A systematic review by the World Health Organization and advocacy group The Pleasure Project found that pleasure-inclusive sex education is a more effective sexual health intervention strategy than abstinence programs and risk-focused messaging. The findings show that it increases condom usage and enhances knowledge and self-esteem, which are crucial to promoting safer choices in the bedroom.

The decision to focus on pleasure-inclusive messaging at the Olympics is especially significant at a time when sex education is increasingly under attack in many countries. In the United States alone, 2024 has seen a surge in restrictive state-level sex education proposals that aim to limit what can be taught in the classroom, such as by removing guidance around contraception or advocating for abstinence.

History of Sex Ed at the Olympics

Paris’s focus on pleasure and consent is part of the Olympics’ long-running history of promoting safe sex, with organizers of the 1988 Seoul Games first making headline-grabbing hand-outs of condoms to competitors to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS.

Since then, the International Olympic Committee has encouraged host cities to roll out condom initiatives at all summer and winter games, from a record-breaking 450,000 condoms at the 2016 Rio Olympics – equivalent to 42 per athlete – to keeping up the tradition at the 2022 Beijing Olympics despite COVID-19 social distancing rules.

This year, organizers in charge of first aid announced that over 200,000 male condoms, 20,000 female condoms, and 10,000 dental dams would be made available at the Paris Olympic Village, which will host around 14,500 athletes. They will also have numerous sexual health testing centers on site for athletes, in addition to the sexual health awareness messaging.

While one athlete – a gold medallist – once suggested sex was “​​part of the Olympic spirit … Why do you think they give away so many condoms?” the massive number of condoms distributed is not just a reflection of the competitors’ extra-athletic activities. Instead, the initiatives are intended to be used as a springboard for sex education.

Anne Philpott is the founder of The Pleasure Project, an international organization that has spent the past two decades advocating for pleasure-inclusive sex education. She applauds Paris’ decision to pair its condom initiative with pleasure and consent messaging.

“So far the public health world has not done a good job of promoting safe sex,” Philpott said, explaining that promoting condoms “purely for avoiding negative consequences,” is not effective.

Rather, she says the most productive way to encourage safe sex is to flip the script from the beginning by focusing on why people have sex.

“People think pleasure is a bit frivolous or the icing on the cake. But we now know that if we had integrated pleasure considerations into sexual health interventions from the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, we would have saved considerably more lives,” Philpott explained.

“There’s been a big rise in choking being seen as a normal part of sexual activity when it’s actually very dangerous,” Philpott gave as an example, as she urged sex education curriculums to catch up with what people are able to access online.

Turning sport into a sex ed classroom

The need to learn about one’s sexual desires, needs, and boundaries is a constantly evolving process, with the Olympics’ spotlight on safe sex also highlighting the opportunity for wider sporting communities to become trusted spaces for such conversations.

In the coastal town of Kilifi in Kenya, Deogratia Okoko sees the value of expanding sex education beyond the classroom, using soccer to teach young boys about issues such as consent and contraception. The scheme to which he contributes, known as “Moving The Goalposts,” works directly with community leaders, fathers, and young boys to provide resources on sexual health, sexual rights, gender, and positive masculinity.

“We found that one of the places that they spend a lot of their time is the football pitch,” Okoko said.

“We began to design our sessions based on soccer drills to explain certain issues,” Okoko said, adding: “You’ll find that sometimes they get so engrossed in the debrief discussions that they forget that they were supposed to actually train and play.”

Okoko explained that the initiative also provides a safe space for boys to access condoms and HIV testing kits, with societal shame often creating barriers for boys to buy these products directly from the shops.

“It’s no longer just let’s play football, let’s practice and go away … these spaces are now a community used by them to talk about issues that they’d not normally talk about,” Okoko said.

Reflecting on the Paris organizers’ decision to include pleasure and consent in their sexual health messaging, Okoko says it is “imperative” to have high-profile platforms set the example.

“It’s fundamental. It’s important. It’s good if we, to the best of our abilities, find great ways of passing that message across,” Okoko said.

Israel had previously agreed to allow Palestinians fully unrestricted access to northern Gaza during an eventual ceasefire, but the Israeli Prime Minister told his negotiating team this week to demand that armed men be barred from northern Gaza as part of any ceasefire and hostage deal, the source said.

The new demand could potentially upend progress in hostage negotiations and raises further questions about Netanyahu’s commitment to Israel’s own proposal for a deal that has become the basis for detailed negotiations.

But a statement by the Israeli prime minister’s office on Sunday cast doubt on whether the deal would progress, laying out several “principles” Israel is not prepared to abandon, including resumed fighting in Gaza “until all of objectives of the war have been achieved.”

Israel launched its war on Gaza nine months ago, in response to Hamas’ October 7 attack that killed 1,200 people and took more than 250 others hostage, according to Israeli authorities. The war has left swathes of the enclave unrecognizable, displaced almost the entire population and killed more than 38,000 people in Gaza, according to the health ministry there. Israel had said it wouldn’t end the war until all hostages are freed and Hamas is eliminated.

The devotees rushed to collect soil from the ground the man had just walked on, thousands thronging to the front of a venue densely crammed with a quarter of a million people, under stifling heat.

But one by one, many began falling onto the muddy field and into a sewer nearby, crushing each other as panicked screams pierced the air.

They had arrived to receive spiritual enlightenment, but 121 people – mostly women – were killed by the crowd crush in northern India’s Uttar Pradesh state last week. Those who survived were left scarred and traumatized.

The man they had come to see was known to his disciples as Bhole Baba, a self-styled Hindu spiritual leader worshipped by many as a living god.

And he is among dozens of spiritual gurus in the country who inspire devotion in millions of followers, have the ear of the Indian elite, and rake in colossal sums of money.

While the world’s most populous nation has long produced self-styled “godmen”, the tradition has, over the last few decades, evolved into a multimillion-dollar industry, whose biggest stars control vast philanthropic and business empires. A large chunk of their money comes from their followers’ donations.

They are widely revered in a country where religion and faith dictate much of society – with some even winning endorsement from the highest echelons of society.

But that industry occasionally finds itself mired in controversy, with several holy men either convicted or accused of a range of crimes – from financial fraud to murder and rape – alarming those who cast doubt on their divine personas.

“It’s a question we’ve long asked,” said Meera Nanda, author of “The God Market: How Globalization is Making India More Hindu.”

“What brings literally millions of poor, desperate people to these godmen?”

A sense of belonging

Subhash Lal was working as a security guard nearly 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Mughal Garhi village, where Bhole Baba was delivering his sermon, when the news flashed across his TV screen.

Lal’s mother, a devout follower of the guru, was among the crowd, and he was desperate for answers. Lal and his family rushed to the hospital that was treating the survivors, when his son learned of the devastating news.

“He told me, Dad, your mother is no more,” the 48-year-old said. “My mother believed in (Bhole Baba). I couldn’t tell her anything. She would attend these functions… she believed in him. What could I do?”

People like Lal’s mother – poor and on the lower rungs of India’s hierarchical caste system – make up the bulk of Bhole Baba’s following. They are predominantly Dalit women from India’s most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, where religion holds particular sway. And for them, a sense of devotion to these godmen is a way to be seen and heard within the Hindu religion.

Despite being outlawed in 1950, the caste system, which categorizes Hindus at birth and once forced the so-called “untouchables” or Dalits to the margins of society, is still omnipresent in the daily lives of millions across the nation.

Policeman turned preacher

Reportedly born Narayan Sakar to a low-caste family, Bhole Baba used to be a constable with the Uttar Pradesh Police before becoming a preacher and establishing an ashram – or place of worship – in the state.

Sitting on an ornately decorated chair, he often delivers impassioned sermons exhorting his followers to maintain their devotion.

“If, through the medium of truth, you remove old trash from within you, and today if you let truth into your heart, devotion for the god into your heart, humanity into your heart… then know that even if the world abuses you, you will not get affected by it at all,” he can be heard saying in one of his speeches.

The “rigidity of caste structure” is an important reason for the proliferation of godmen, said K. Kalyani, an assistant professor of Sociology at Azim Premji University, Bangalore.

“The low-caste community are particularly debarred within Hindu religion to have respectable position within religious institutions,” she said. “Their presence in the sanctum sanctorum as priest or their proximity to deity is seen as an act of defilement due to practices of ‘untouchability’.”

In the absence of religious and spiritual gratification for low-caste Hindus, Kalyani said, an “alternative form of religiosity becomes inevitable.”

Sheetal Jatav, a survivor of last week’s Bhole Baba event, said her community – the lower-caste Jatavs – “believe in him immensely,” hanging his pictures on their walls or even placing it inside small temples at home.

Miracle workers

The gurus India has produced range from men who claim they can perform miracles, like the revered Sathya Sai Baba, to the yoga guru and founder of the widely popular Art of Living foundation, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Claiming to possess mystical knowledge and the ability to cure illness and solve problems, godmen inspire remarkable fervor in their millions of followers.

But with their rise has come a slew of criticism over the true intentions behind this perceived divinity, fueled in recent decades by their grandiose lifestyles and immense wealth.

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, head of the spiritual organization Dera Sacha Sauda, is another self-styled spiritual guru revered by millions. His group has ashrams across 10 states and union territories in India and claims to have 60 million followers worldwide.

He is also a convicted killer and rapist. In 2017 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison for raping two of his followers. Two years later, he received a life term for the murder of a journalist who exposed the sexual abuse of women within his group.

Despite the severity of his crimes, Singh maintains a cult-like following. The rape conviction even sparked riots by his supporters that left 36 people dead and hundreds injured across northern India.

Since then, Singh has been granted parole multiple times, once even walking out of prison to attend his own birthday party, raising allegations of impunity for these holy men.

“They have deep connections with the political machine… and it’s deeply problematic,” Nanda, the author, said.

The furor over Singh’s case was reminiscent of violent skirmishes that broke out in 2013 after the arrest of guru Asaram Bapu for raping a 16-year-old girl. He was convicted five years later and given a life sentence for the crime.

Famous followers

Many godmen are also known for their philanthropy, praised for building schools for the impoverished and developing infrastructure in small villages – and they also attract millions of people to small towns across the country.

Sathya Sai Baba’s followers, for example, included the US actor Goldie Hawn and Hard Rock Cafe founder Isaac Tigrett. When the guru died in 2011, Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar openly wept at his funeral, which was also attended by India’s prime minister at the time, Manmohan Singh.

More often than not, the most devout of their followers come from the lower middle classes, but millions in donations also stream in from foreigners, Indians living abroad, and the richest of society.

While Sathya Sai Baba’s appeal was – in large part – due to a certain level of mystique, other godmen, including Singh, are more outspoken, carefully using the media to fuel their rise.

“There is an entire media structure that supports and promotes them,” said Kalyani, the sociologist. “There are dedicated channels like Astha or Sanskar TV which have dedicated time to show their preachings.”

As authorities investigate the organizers of last week’s event for alleged negligence, Bhole Baba, who left the event in an armored vehicle, is not being pursued by authorities.

Many of those affected by the tragedy are angry.

“This is not a real (godman),” said Surendra Singh, whose wife was a devout follower of the guru, and died in the tragic crowd crush.

Speaking to India’s largest news agency, ANI, Bhole Baba, appearing forlorn, said: “This incident has left me distraught.”

“Mischief makers and anti-social elements responsible for the stampede will not be spared.”

Referring to himself by his birth name, he added: “May the praise of Narayan Sakar Hari resound forever throughout the universe.”

Aishwarya S. Iyer contributed reporting

Six decomposing female bodies were found in a quarry in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi on Friday, according to police, sparking a protest at a nearby police station.

“The alarm was raised following the discovery of six severely mutilated bodies, all female, in various stages of decomposition” in the quarry, which was being used as a dumpsite, according to a statement by the Directorate of Criminal Investigations.

The area has been cordoned off as a crime scene, and “preliminary investigations suggest a similar mode of killing of the deceased,” the statement said. The bodies were found wrapped in “nylon papers and reinforced with nylon ropes” and have been transported to a mortuary where “they await postmortem examinations,” police added.

The identities of the dead or how long the bodies had been at the quarry were not immediately clear.

The horrifying scene comes after weeks of anti-government protests over a since-scrapped finance bill. The protests resulted in scores of civilian deaths amid a heavy-handed response from Kenyan police. Human rights groups have also accused security forces of abducting Kenyans during the protests.

The discovery of the bodies on Friday has sparked fresh public anger and brought a new spotlight to Kenya’s femicide crisis, just months after thousands of women marched on the streets with banners reading: “Stop killing us.”

Fallout from protests

Dozens of people were killed in police shootings across the country in just one day of the anti-government protests in June, according to Kenya’s Police Reforms Working Group (PRWG).

Kenya’s presidency announced that Japheth Koome, the country’s police chief, resigned on Friday. His deputy, Douglas Kanja, has been named acting police chief.

Friday’s move comes after nearly all of President William Ruto’s cabinet was fired, with the exceptions of Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and Prime Cabinet Secretary Musalia Mudavadi.

The decision was taken “upon reflection, and a holistic appraisal” of his cabinet, he told reporters from State House Nairobi.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

At least 50 Palestinians were found killed on Friday, local authorities said, after the Israeli military pulled back from several areas in central and northern Gaza, leaving entire neighborhoods razed and residents reeling from a spate of heavy attacks.

More than nine months of fighting in Gaza has turned swathes of the territory into rubble-filled wasteland. The Israeli military offensive following the Hamas-led October 7 attacks has triggered a sprawling humanitarian crisis, crushed the health system and depleted food and water supplies. The UN warned Tuesday of widespread famine across the strip, and relief workers say Israeli aid restrictions mean they are unable to support Palestinians trying to survive the war. Human rights agencies reiterated calls for a ceasefire, as negotiations between Israel and Hamas this week hit yet another roadblock.

Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities.

Israeli strikes in Gaza have since killed 38,345 Palestinians and injured another 88,295 people, according to the Ministry of Health there.

‘We want a total ceasefire’

Palestinian residents surveyed the desolate landscape in Tal al-Hawa neighborhood on Friday, as the sound of Israeli drones buzzed overhead.

“We want a total ceasefire,” she said. “We don’t want to be displaced from one place to another. The fear is in the eyes of the young ones.”

The UN warned that Israeli evacuation orders for people to leave Gaza City on Wednesday “will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families,” adding that many have already been displaced multiple times.

Winston Churchill, often considered Britain’s greatest leader, resigned at 80 in the face of mounting health problems. Keir Starmer, Britain’s newest leader, wants to force lawmakers in the country’s upper chamber to step down at the same age. Does this mean he thinks octogenarians like President Joe Biden should step back from politics?

Despite growing questions about Biden’s mental acuity and fitness for a second term, Starmer said the 81-year-old president had been “in good form” when the two met for talks, but “of course” he would say if he was concerned about him.

Starmer, 61, is the latest in a series of world leaders who have been asked whether Biden is too old to campaign and govern effectively. But he spoke positively about their discussions at the summit on Wednesday.

“We were billed for 45 minutes. We probably went on for the best part of an hour, covered a lot of ground – and he was in good form,” Starmer told Tapper.

Starmer said the talks were “a really good opportunity” for him to “speak to the president about the special relationship” between their two countries. He said Biden “deserves credit” for presiding over a summit that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called a success.

Zelensky’s comments were made before Biden mistakenly introduced the Ukrainian leader as “President Putin,” having to correct himself hastily. In a press conference later Thursday evening, Biden also mistakenly called his Vice President, Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump” when discussing if she could beat the former president.

On his plan to force lawmakers in the House of Lords – which scrutinizes the government and makes recommendations on laws – to step down after turning 80, Starmer said the policy was “more to do with the size” of the unelected upper chamber than the fitness of elderly politicians.

“Our second chamber is the biggest second chamber in the world. We’ve got over 800 members. We’ve got to get the size down,” he said.

Starmer is not alone in trying to downplay concerns about Biden’s age. French President Emmanuel Macron, attending the summit in a weakened position with his country in political limbo after a snap parliamentary election, said Biden remained “in charge” and “clear on the issues he knows well.”

Starmer was also asked by Tapper to clarify comments made by David Lammy, a longstanding Labour politician who became Britain’s foreign secretary last week.

In 2018, Lammy called then-President Donald Trump – who will also turn 80 in office if re-elected to a second term in November – a “woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathizing sociopath” and a “profound threat to the international order.”

Starmer said his government will “work with whoever is elected” in November, but stressed “I’m a progressive and we’re sister parties with the Democrats.”

Starmer’s comments echoed his previous remarks on a potential Trump presidency; he told the BBC last year he would “have to make it work,” though that doesn’t mean “we would agree on everything.”

Asked about Trump’s threats to leave NATO and cut a deal with Putin, likely ending the war in Ukraine on terms favorable to Russia, Starmer praised the “clarity of purpose” that other members have shown in the alliance during the summit. He also said Britain remains “absolutely committed” to raising its defense spending to 2.5% – above the NATO guideline of 2% – but did not provide a timeline for this.

“My position as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom could not be clearer, which is an unshakable support for NATO,” he said. “We were proudly one of the countries that was there at the founding of NATO… We’re proud of that history.”

Tacking to the center

A week ago, Starmer guided the Labour Party to a historic victory, winning a majority of 172 seats in the House of Commons and bringing to an end 14 years of Conservative rule.

But, almost immediately, Starmer’s victory was described as hollow and his mandate fragile, with critics pointing out Labour’s relatively low share of the popular vote, despite its commanding victory under Britain’s first-past-the-post electoral system.

Asked if his victory was fueled more by anger towards the Conservatives than enthusiasm for Labour, Starmer hit back, saying his team deserved praise for turning the party around after it slumped to a dismal defeat in 2019 under the left-wing leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

“I took over the Labour Party four and a half years ago. We’d just had the worst general election result since 1935. The pessimists were saying, ‘The Labour Party will never win a general election again.’ The optimists said, ‘Well you might, but it will take you 10 years,’” Starmer said.

“I said, ‘No, we’re going to do it in one parliamentary term. But we’ve got to be ruthless, we’ve got to be steely, we’re going to change the Labour Party, we’re going to turn it inside out and make sure it’s a party that always says: Country first, party second.’”

He said he had managed to pull his party back to the center ground, shunning the extremes.

“Brits are reasonable, tolerant – they don’t much like the extreme left, they don’t much like the extreme right. And we underestimate that,” he said. “One of the phrases I used in the election was we need a politics that trod more lightly on people’s lives. And that’s very important in Britain.”

Although he ruled out trying to rejoin the European Union, Starmer said he wanted to “reset” Britain’s relationship with the bloc. Starmer’s “number one mission,” he said, is to restore Britain to economic growth, which has virtually flatlined since the 2008 financial crisis

Starmer has softened his view on the British monarchy, having once talked about abolishing it, and said he was looking forward to his weekly audience with King Charles III, now he’s become prime minister.

“It is always valuable to listen to what he has to say. He’s incredibly interested in politics, in the affairs across the United Kingdom, and global affairs,” said Starmer. “They’re a really good frank exchange of views and long may they continue.”

A beachgoer who was swept 80 kilometers (50 miles) out to sea in a floating ring has been rescued off Japan’s east coast some 36 hours after she went missing, authorities said.

The coast guard flew the woman by helicopter to the city of Yokohama, where she was taken to the hospital for assessment following her overnight ordeal.

“She is dehydrated, but her consciousness is clear and she is not in a life-threatening condition. There is no need for hospitalization,” the coast guard said.

The coast guard launched a search for the woman after she went missing from a beach in Shimoda city, Shizuoka prefecture, at about 7:30 p.m. on Monday, Japan’s public broadcaster NHK reported.

About 30 minutes after entering the water, the woman realized she was drifting and was unable to return to the beach, she told officials, according to NHK.

Authorities said the woman was likely swept away by currents and moderately strong winds, NHK reported.

Japan, a nation of more than 6,000 islands, is home to some of Asia’s most beautiful beaches – and they are especially popular with tourists looking to cool off during the sizzling summer months.

But not every day at the beach passes without incident.

In 2019, more than 500 people were rescued in the country following accidents at the beach, according to the Japan Coast Guard’s most recent statistics.

Australia has charged two Russian-born Australian citizens with preparing for an espionage offense after allegedly obtaining information from the Australian Defence Force (ADF) that they were intending to hand to Russian authorities.

The citizens, a married couple, had been in Australia for more than 10 years and were arrested Thursday at their home in Everton Park, a northern suburb of Brisbane, according to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

The Russian-born woman, 40, became an Australian citizen in 2016, and was an army private working as an information systems technician with the ADF for several years, the agencies said in a joint news conference. Her Russian-born husband, 62, obtained Australian citizenship in 2020, they added.

“The AFP will allege the individuals worked together to access Australian Defense Force material that related to Australia’s national security interests,” said AFP Commissioner Reece Kershaw.

The couple were not named by authorities in Friday’s announcement, but both are expected to appear in court later that day.

Australian Federal Police will allege the woman went to Russia without notifying Australian authorities while she was on long-term leave from the ADF.

“We allege that while she was in Russia, she instructed her husband, who remained in Australia, on how to log into her official work account from their Brisbane home,” Kershaw said.

“We allege her husband would access requested material and would send to his wife in Russia. We allege they sought that information with the intention of providing it to Russian authorities.”

Kershaw said a key focus of the investigation is whether that information was handed over to authorities. If it was, the charge could be upgraded to espionage.

It’s the first time the charge of preparing for an espionage offence has been used. It carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison. An upgraded charge carries a maximum term of 25 years in prison to life.

When the Gaza sunshine was at its hottest, Andrey Kozlov said the Hamas fighters would cover him with blankets, leaving him to stew in his sweat. When he asked about his family, they would say they had forgotten him. When they pulled the blindfold from his eyes, they said they would kill him and film his murder.

The 27-year-old said he suffered intense psychological – and some physical – abuse at the hands of Hamas. He cannot bring himself to describe all that happened to him and the two other hostages he was kept with during his eight months of captivity in Gaza.

After being snatched from the Nova music festival on October 7, Kozlov, a Russian-Israeli citizen, said he was tied up for “three days with rope, then until the middle of December with chains.” During these months he was subjected to “creative” forms of punishment: One guard “told us a lot that Israel wants to kill us” and that they were a problem from which Israel was trying to rid itself.

Kozlov strove not to believe the lies, he said, but the result was that, when Israeli soldiers last month burst into the building in which he was being held, he thought they had been sent to kill him.

Instead, it was a stunning rescue operation that brought him and the two others home – as well as Noa Argamani, who was held in a nearby building. But it left in its wake a trail of destruction: Gaza authorities say at least 274 Palestinians were killed in the raid and the ensuing firefight with Hamas militants.

Kozlov was nearing the end of his shift as a security guard at the Nova festival when Hamas fighters began to pour over the border. He had moved from Russia to Israel two years earlier, and taken the job because it was “easy money.” When he clocked off, Kozlov thought “I will come back home, I will sleep and everything will be good. But no, it didn’t happen.”

Minutes later, he was sprinting through a forest with “maybe 200, 300 people,” panicked by the sound of gunshots and a stream of gruesome nearby videos that had already emerged online. But as they stumbled out into a field, Kozlov saw – he recalled in broken English – “a car full of guys in green uniform. And they shoot in the air, they shoot already on us.”

Hiding in the bushes was no help. He was swiftly found and taken to Gaza, where he was held in several different places with Almog Meir Jan and Shlomi Ziv, before their eventual rescue in Nuseirat, in the center of the enclave.

On his first day, his captor “took the fabric from my eyes and showed me with signs” what he was planning to do. The man pointed to himself – “I” – then tapped his watch – “tomorrow” – then pointed to Kozlov – “you” – then made a camera sign, clicking its shutter – “film” – then made a gun with his fingers, pulling the trigger – “kill.”

Kozlov said he thought that day would be his last, but – as the hours passed – that fear slowly subsided. Days later, he said he understood “that probably they’re not gonna kill us.” Using signs again, they explained to Kozlov that they wanted to swap him: “You’re going to Israel, our people go to Gaza and the West Bank.”

For the first three months, the sound of Israeli bombing was constant, Kozlov said: “We were afraid of every bomb that we heard. Every time you started to hide in the corners of our room.” His captors laughed, he said, asking what they were afraid of.

They were moved between houses several times, Kozlov said, with some places giving them enough food. After being unchained in December, some places where he was held gave him the chance to exercise – “squats, pushups” and the like.

But he was exposed to prolonged psychological abuse, he said, by guards watching over them wearing masks, holding Kalashnikovs and a “big knife.” The main guard, he said, had a “split” personality and often “got crazy.”

“He has two personalities,” Kozlov said. “He told us: ‘I have two faces: A good one, but I don’t want you to see the second face – like, I can kill you.”

Some mornings, the guard would be friendly, offering to play cards with them. But in other mornings Kozlov would “wake up and you understand – ah, the second face. You don’t talk with him at all.”

Kozlov would be punished for arbitrary things, he said. Once, after washing his hands with drinking water before eating, the guard “noticed and he said, ‘I told you not to do this, yes?’” The guard had someone cover Kozlov with “really thick blankets, in the middle of May,” and leave him in the heat for an hour and a half.

Kozlov’s testimony chimes with that of other rescued hostages. The doctor in charge of medical treatment for Kozlov and the three others rescued in the Israeli operation said they were beaten and described their captivity as a “harsh, harsh experience, with a lot of abuse, almost every day.”

Still, Kozlov considers himself “lucky.” He said he saw other hostages during his eight months in Gaza, “but I don’t want to talk about it… It’s painful and it’s gonna be dangerous for them,” he said. Were they in worse shape than him? “Yes they were.”

For that reason, Kozlov implored Israeli officials to “try to understand how we [the hostages] felt all this time. We need to bring them home as soon as possible. I don’t know how. But we need to do this immediately.”

Talks resumed in the Qatari capital Doha last Friday. Over the weekend, Hamas agreed to compromise on a major sticking point for Israel – that Netanyahu’s government commits to a permanent ceasefire in Gaza before signing an agreement. But a statement from Netanyahu’s office on Sunday cast doubt on the deal, laying out several “principles” Israel is not prepared to abandon, including resumed fighting in Gaza “until all objectives of the war have been achieved.”

For Kozlov, the days he was captured – and rescued – have become landmarks in his life. October 7 became his second “birthday;” June 18, his third. He wants the 120 remaining hostages to be able to mark their own dates.

British police have launched a manhunt after two suitcases containing human remains were discovered on England’s Clifton Suspension Bridge, Avon and Somerset Police said Thursday.

The police force received a call at 11.57 p.m. local time on Wednesday about a man with a suitcase “acting suspiciously” on the bridge in the southwestern city of Bristol.

By the time officers appeared, police said the man had disappeared but two suitcases containing human remains were found.

Police have not yet identified either the man or the deceased, though initial inquiries have found that the man took a taxi to the bridge.

“Our immediate priority is to locate the man who took the suitcases to the bridge, identify the deceased, and inform their next of kin,” the police said.