The Israeli military issued new evacuation orders on Monday for areas in southern Gaza including eastern Khan Younis and Rafah, forcing residents – many of whom were already displaced – to seek shelter elsewhere in what signals the possibility of another ground operation.

The Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis, one of the territory’s last standing hospitals and which falls within the evacuation zone, has transferred patients, including those in intensive care and babies in incubators, and medical equipment to other hospitals in “fear of a bloodshed,” according to the hospital’s deputy director and doctors.

On Monday, the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) said the emergency room at Al Amal hospital in Khan Younis was overcrowded with injuries after patients had been transferred from the European Hospital, following an Israeli military order to evacuate the Al Fukhari area. It said it also received some patients from Nasser Hospital, which it said had also become overcrowded with patients from the European Hospital.

In a separate statement, hours after the initial evacuation orders, the Israel Defense Forces said the order “does not apply to the patients in the European Hospital or the medical staff working there.”

“There is no intention to evacuate the European Hospital,” the statement said.

Videos posted to social media showed hospital patients on stretchers being moved through the streets near the hospital following the orders.

The Israeli military withdrew its ground forces from Khan Younis in April after months of fierce fighting that left much of the city in ruins.

On Tuesday, a spokesperson for UN Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA, Louise Wateridge, who is currently in Gaza, said the agency is seeing a “massive” movement of people from the evacuation zones after the Israeli military’s latest order was issued. The agency said it expects around 250,000 people in the evacuation zones to leave the area.

Meanwhile, Israeli strikes and shelling on Khan Younis continued, with at least eight people killed and 32 injured overnight, according to Nasser hospital.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban is paying his first visit to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale war began in February 2022, according to a Hungarian government spokesperson.

“Viktor Orban arrived in Kyiv this morning to discuss European peace with President Volodymyr Zelensky,” spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs posted on X on Tuesday.

Talks between the two leaders will focus on “possibilities for achieving peace, as well as current issues in Hungarian-Ukrainian bilateral relations,” Kovacs added.

Orban has been a divisive figure regarding European support for Ukraine. The authoritarian Hungarian leader has regularly attempted to steamroll European Union initiatives offering further military and financial support to Kyiv during the conflict.

Hungary’s prime minister also has a close relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which has frequently come under scrutiny. Their bond is underpinned by both economic cooperation and some shared values.

Both leaders have also enacted anti-LGBTQ policies and clamped down on freedom of speech in their countries. Hungary has supported Russia at a United Nations level and rejected EU sanctions following Putin’s aggression in Ukraine as early as 2014, after Russia illegally annexed Crimea.

Tuesday’s meeting comes as Orban and Hungary take control of the EU Council’s rotating presidency, which changes every six months. During each six-month period, the country controlling the presidency does not take control of the EU’s overall agenda, but does have a platform through which they can hammer home their own priorities.

On the EU Council’s website, it likens holding the presidency “to someone hosting a dinner, making sure their guests all gather in harmony,” adding that to “guarantee effectiveness, the presidency acts as an ‘honest broker,’ rising above the holder’s own national interest.”

Orban took control of the presidency on Monday with a call to “Make Europe Great Again,” a reference to Donald Trump’s political slogan that will alarm many of his European counterparts who are braced for the former US president’s potential return to the White House, concerned about what it will mean for the EU.

Other key European diplomatic meetings are planned for July. NATO will celebrate 75 years of the alliance in Washington, DC on July 9-11. The agenda for that event is expected to be dominated by long-term plans to support Ukraine and conversations about its eventual accession to the alliance.

The European Political Community (EPC), a forum for 47 European countries, inside and outside the EU, to discuss the continent’s strategic challenges, will also meet on July 18 in the United Kingdom. Ukraine and Hungary are both members of the EPC.

It is expected that Ukraine will dominate that agenda and Zelensky may attend the meeting in person. Orban may have had this in mind when timing this trip to Kyiv, ensuring that his first meeting with Ukraine’s president since the start of the war was not in such a public and high-stakes diplomatic setting.

Ukraine has foiled an alleged plot to overthrow the government that “would have played into Russia’s hands,” security officials in the war-torn country said Monday.

In a Telegram post, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) claimed the alleged coup organizers planned to trigger a riot in Kyiv on June 30 as a distraction to seize control of the Ukrainian parliament and remove the military and political leadership from power.

It is unclear if those accused have any connection with Russia, which has waged a devastating full-scale invasion against its southwestern neighbor for nearly two and a half years.

Four suspects have been identified, with two held in custody, the SBU said. They face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty. The SBU said it seized weapons and ammunition, as well as cellphones, computers and other records “with evidence of criminal action.”

According to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office, the alleged coup leader rented a hall with a capacity of 2,000 people and recruited military personnel and armed guards from private companies to “carry out the seizure” of parliament. It is unclear if prosecutors are seeking any more suspects.

“To implement the criminal plan, the main organizer involved several accomplices—representatives of the community organizations from Kyiv, Dnipro, and other regions,” the SBU said.

The alleged scheme in Kyiv comes as Russia has made slow but steady battlefield gains in recent months, exploiting Ukraine’s diminishing manpower and reliance on the West for weapons – and uncertainty over the future of that military aid.

Russian forces killed seven people, including three children, in a missile strike on the southern town of Vilniansk Saturday, according to Ukrainian officials, prompting President Volodymyr Zelensky to appeal for more long-range weapons.

“I am grateful to all partners who are helping. And the decisions we need must be accelerated. Any delay in decisions in this war means losing human lives,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

Concerns have grown over the future of US military support for Ukraine with the potential for another Donald Trump presidency on the horizon.

During last week’s presidential debate, Trump questioned whether the United States should continue to fund Ukraine’s fight against Russia.

Kathmandu, Nepal — A Nepali court sentenced a man who thousands believed was a reincarnation of the Buddha to 10 years in jail on Monday for child sexual abuse, a court official said.

As a teenager, Ram Bahadur Bamjon had drawn international attention when in 2005 tens of thousands of people turned up to see the “Buddha Boy” sitting cross-legged under a tree in a dense forest in southeastern Nepal for nearly 10 months.

Court official Sikinder Kaapar of the Sarlahi district court in southern Nepal said a judge had also ordered Bamjon, 33, to pay $3,750 in compensation to the victim.

Bamjon could not be reached for comment by Reuters, but his lawyer, Dilip Kumar Jha, said he would appeal in a higher court.

Bamjon was arrested at a house on the outskirts of Kathmandu in January.

The ruling comes nearly two decades after he first gained international attention after he retreated into the jungle at age 15 to pray for 10 months, local media reported at the time. His followers once claimed that he did so without food, sleep or water.

Those claims were never independently verified, but it led some to laud him as the reincarnation of Siddhartha Gautama, who was born in Nepal some 2,500 years ago, and later became known simply as Buddha, meaning “enlightened one.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday the country’s military is nearing the “end of the stage of eliminating” Hamas’ army in Gaza.

“I returned yesterday from a visit to the Gaza Division. I saw very considerable achievements in the fighting being carried in Rafah. We are advancing to the end of the stage of eliminating the Hamas terrorist army; we will continue striking its remnants,” Netanyahu said, speaking to a group of mainly Israeli and international military officials studying at the National Security College.

He again vowed that Israel would achieve its goals in its war against Hamas: returning hostages from Gaza, eliminating Hamas’ military and governing capabilities, ensuring that Gaza will not constitute a threat against Israel and also returning displaced Israeli residents securely to their homes in both the south and the north.

Before launching a military operation in Rafah in May, Israeli leaders had maintained that the southern Gaza city was the last stronghold of Hamas.

Netanyahu said last month that the “intense phase of the war with Hamas (in Gaza) is about to end,” and that the military’s focus could then shift to Israel’s northern border with Lebanon.

“It doesn’t mean that the war is going to end, but the war in its current stage is going to end in Rafah. This is true. We will continue mowing the grass later,” Netanyahu told Channel 14 Television on June 23.

Israel launched its military offensive in Gaza after the Hamas-led October 7 attacks on southern Israel, in which at least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others were abducted.

Israeli attacks in Gaza have since killed at least 37,718 Palestinians and injured another 86,377 people, according to Gaza health officials.

Thirty passengers were injured after a flight from Madrid to Uruguay was hit by “strong turbulence” and had to make an emergency landing in Brazil, Spanish airline Air Europa said on Monday.

“Our flight UX045 bound for Montevideo has been diverted to the Natal airport (Brazil) due to strong turbulence,” Air Europa said in a post on X.

“The plane has landed normally and those who sustained different types of injuries are already being treated.”

The aircraft hit by turbulence was a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, according to flight tracking website FlightAware. The plane has the capacity to hold up to 339 passengers, according to Air Europa’s website.

The Spanish airline said that another plane was set to depart later on Monday from Madrid and pick up the passengers stranded in Brazil to continue their journey to Uruguay.

Air Europa added that anyone who is in need of healthcare is being treated in Brazil’s Natal airport.

This is a developing story. More to come.

A leading antisemitism watchdog on Monday filed a lawsuit in US federal court on behalf of more than 100 victims of the October 7 terrorist attack in Israel, and their families, accusing Iran, Syria and North Korea of providing material support to Hamas.

If successful, the lawsuit, filed in the US District Court in Washington, DC, on Monday by Jewish advocacy group the Anti-Defamation League and the Crowell & Moring law firm, could unlock federal funds designated for victims of state-sponsored terrorism if the plaintiffs can prove their case.

The lawsuit lays out publicly available evidence of Iran, Syria and North Korea’s alleged history of support for Hamas: training, weapons and financial support from Iran; training and financing from Syria; and weapons and tunnel-digging know-how from North Korea.

The lawsuit alleges that Hamas could not have carried out the October 7 attacks, which killed more than 1,200 people and led to the abduction of more than 250 others, without the support of these countries.

The 2015 Justice for United States Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Act established the US Victims of State Sponsored Terrorism Fund, whose funds can be disbursed to victims and the families of deceased victims following the ruling of a US district court.

Greenblatt acknowledged that it is unlikely that any of these three countries will respond to the allegations in federal court, but said he views the lawsuit as a critical step to not only seek accountability for their support for Hamas, but also to counter efforts by some anti-Israel activists to deny the horrific nature of the October 7 attack.

The plaintiffs in the case are more than 100 US citizens and their families who were killed or wounded in the October 7 attacks at the Nova music festival and in several of the kibbutzes and towns near the Gaza Strip.

One of the plaintiffs, Nahar Neta, is the son of California native Adrienne Neta, who was killed during Hamas’ attack on Kibbutz Be’eri.

“While nothing will ever undo the unbearable pain Hamas caused our family or the brutal losses we’ve suffered, we hope this case will bring some sense of justice. It’s important for us to be able to tell our stories so the world can hear how Hamas has terrorized Israel, the Jewish people, and many American citizens,” Neta said in a statement issued through the ADL.

“My mom devoted her life to caring for others regardless of race or religious beliefs. She was a peace and justice seeker who was active in many civilian efforts to bridge the gap between Jews and Arabs in Israel.”

As thousands of men hurried towards the main square in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim on Sunday for a protest, they passed signs declaring “war” on a contentious order from Israel’s highest court.

The Supreme Court ruling on June 25 said the Israeli government must enlist draft-age ultra-Orthodox (or Haredi) Jews into the military, reversing a de facto exemption in place since the country’s founding 76 years ago.

Sunday’s rally in Shabbat Square, which drew thousands, was to demonstrate against the decision, which another poster said had “thrust a sword” through the “beit midrash,” or Torah study hall.

The protest highlighted the fault line in Israeli society between ultra-Orthodox Jews, who Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu relies on to maintain his government, and other Israelis, many of whom believe that all Jewish citizens should serve in the military, especially during wartime.

Many Haredi men spend much of their early lives out of the workforce, instead studying at religious schools known as yeshivas that are partly funded through government subsidies.

For many Haredis, the idea that they would be pulled from studying scripture and drafted into Israel’s military is simply out of the question.

An arrangement made during Israel’s founding exempted several hundred Haredi men from conscription. However, the community has since grown exponentially, allowing tens of thousands of ultra-Orthodox men to now avoid the draft.

“We will not enlist,” said Yosef, 22, who traveled to the protest from his home in Beitar Illit, a large Haredi settlement in the occupied West Bank.

“Since the beginning of the state (of Israel), we have not enlisted… Now they want to make us (serve) by force. It will never work,” he said. “In a democratic state there is not much they can do besides put us in prison. We are not afraid of prison. We laugh about prison… and the more people that go into prison, the more demonstrations there will be in the country.”

As Yosef spoke, he looked up at a group of boys climbing a ladder to a nearby lamppost to hang a sign that read: “We will not enlist in the army.”

“We can’t watch as they tear the Torah to shreds,” said another man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, due to the cultural norms of his community, some of whom are not open to speaking to the press. “We can’t be quiet. The High Court, the government, all the Knesset (parliament)… they are looking for ways for compromise and to send Haredi boys to be destroyed. We will die rather than be enlisted.”

The clashes between some protesters and police following the gathering in Mea Shearim  underscored the depth of emotion in the ultra-Orthodox community, many of whom believe that serving in the military is incompatible with their way of life.

Some ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods like Mea Shearim shun modern technology. A man at Sunday’s protest held a placard stating: “Life is happy only without internet and films.”

Five people were arrested in confrontations after some threw rocks, set trash cans on fire and attacked the car of Housing Minister Yitzhak Goldknopf, himself a Haredi Jew.

‘God is going to help them’

He said that for many Haredis, the court’s decision won’t change their stance, adding that many said they would “need to starve because they’re not going to have money to buy food,” referring to the court’s edict that the government must withdraw funding from any yeshivas whose students do not comply with draft notices.

“They still refuse to join the Israeli army. They (say they) are just not worried about it. And they trust in God, that God is going to help them,” said Farber, who writes for the ultra-Orthodox Hadrei Haredim website.

Given that most other Israeli Jews are required to serve in the military, the Haredi exemption, “while relying on disproportionate government subsidies,” has fostered significant resentment among non-Haredi Jews, according to the Israel Policy Forum.

The issue came to a head after Israel invaded Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 attack, when the IDF initiated the largest mandatory military mobilization since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Some lawmakers in Netanyahu’s own coalition have joined the opposition in pushing for the Haredi community to enlist.

Despite the court ruling, the military is unlikely to immediately call-up all draft-age Haredi men. The Attorney General’s office said the IDF “had committed to recruiting 3,000 yeshiva students in the current recruitment year.”

Amichai Milici, a 45-year-old army veteran and father of seven who now studies full-time at a yeshiva, said the IDF isn’t ready to absorb more ultra-Orthodox men yet.

He insists that any man who wants to study the Torah should remain exempt from military service, arguing that religious studies and the defense of Israel are intertwined and essential for the nation’s well-being.

“The study of the Torah is central to the existence of the Jewish people,” he said. “The Jewish need the army and need the Torah… The Torah is giving power to the soldiers, and the soldiers are giving power to the Torah.”

Rabbis losing influence

Many fear that mass enlistment could change the way of life in their insular neighborhoods.

Farber, the Haredi journalist who once served in the IDF, said ultra-Orthodox rabbis may be worried about losing their influence.

“The Haredi leaders, spiritual leaders… are very, very afraid that they are going to see thousands of young Haredi boys in uniform in (ultra-) Orthodox neighborhoods,” he said. “They are afraid that being a soldier in the Haredi community will become something normal. And if you go into the IDF, you (might) start getting different ideas,” he said. “You start opening your head to other opinions… and nobody’s going to listen to the rabbis anymore.”

Netanyahu’s Likud party said in response to the Supreme Court ruling that it hoped to pass a “historic conscription law” which would “significantly increase the recruitment rates” of ultra-Orthodox men but also “recognize the importance of Torah study” — raising the possibility of the exemption continuing for a smaller number of yeshiva students.

“In terms of legislative process (we are) stuck,” the source, who spoke on the condition of anonymity in order to discuss sensitive political matters candidly, said. “I’d be surprised if they (the Ministry of Defense) forcefully tried to recruit people against their will, even though it’s the law. But it puts them in a very difficult spot now because the court ruling was so clear.”

The source said it was unclear what would happen to draft-dodgers. Prison is the final step in a process that starts with denying passport issuances and holding back benefits.

“So it could be that we see that sort of process for a large number of ultra-Orthodox men. How much that impacts their lives, I don’t know.”

Deadly flash flooding due to sudden heavy rains has inundated India’s capital, replacing one of the worst heat waves in Delhi’s history that sent temperatures soaring well above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).

An observatory in New Delhi on Friday reported 228.1 millimeters (nearly 9 inches) of rainfall in a 24-hour period, the most recorded in a single June day for 88 years and surpassing the city’s average for the whole month, according to the Indian Meteorological Department.

At least 11 people died from the rain and flooding last week, including four people who drowned in submerged underpasses, Reuters reported citing local media.

Heavy rains caused roads to flood, submerged cars and subways and cut power to some parts of the city. Video posted to social media showed waterlogged streets in Delhi as residents wade waist-deep through the floods.

Delhi capital region “is becoming home to extreme weather every season now,” said independent weatherman Navdeep Dahiya on X.

Heavy rain caused a section of roof at New Delhi’s airport to collapse on Friday, crushing one man to death, and injuring eight others. Photos of the scene released by the fire service showed the large white canopy of the roof had plunged to the ground, crushing several cars. One person could be seen slumped under twisted metal in the driver’s seat of one of the cars.

The heavy rains have brought some respite from weeks of blistering heat, with one part of Delhi reaching 49.9 degrees Celsius (121.8 degrees Fahrenheit) in late May — the capital’s highest temperature on record. This year’s scorching heat wave persisted even after the blazing sun had set, with high nighttime temperatures providing little relief.

The Indian Meteorological Department has issued a weather warning until July 4 as heavy rains hit much of India’s northeast, east and northwest coast.

Red alerts, indicating the highest-level threat, were issued for parts of the northeast states of Assam, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Sikkim, Bihar, and Arunachal Pradesh on Sunday.

“Heavy to very heavy rainfall is very likely over northwest, east and northeast India over the next four to five days,” Indian Meteorological Department said Sunday.

On Friday, five Indian army personnel died after their tank got stuck in flash floods while attempting to cross a river during training in India’s northern Ladakh, the army said in a post on X.

“Rescue teams rushed to the location, however, due to high current and water levels, the rescue mission didn’t succeed and the tank crew lost their lives,” the army said.

Heavy monsoon rains have also caused damage in neighboring countries. In Nepal, at least nine people, including three children, were killed after rains triggered landslides in the country’s west, Reuters reported, citing an official from the National Disaster Rescue and Reduction Management Authority.

From no water to too much water

India, the world’s most populous nation, is one of the countries worst affected by the human-caused climate crisis, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – potentially affecting 1.4 billion people nationwide.

The climate crisis is making extreme weather events more frequent and severe, scientists say, and this can be seen play out in climate-vulnerable India which is suffering from extremes of heat, rainfall and other disasters such as cyclones.

While India often experiences heat waves during the summer months of May and June, in recent years, they have arrived earlier and become more prolonged, with scientists linking some of these longer and more intense heat waves to climate change.

New Delhi topped a recent list of hottest capital cities, recording 4,222 days above 35 degrees Celsius in the past three decades – more than any other city analyzed. Between 2014 and 2023, just under half (44%) of days in the Indian capital met that threshold, compared to 35% from 1994 to 2003, and 37% from 2004 to 2013.

Delhi, like many cities in India, is suffering from a water crisis, with acute water shortages and lack of groundwater supply leaving many people to rely on water tankers for their supply of fresh, clean water.

Meanwhile, seasonal monsoon rains usually start in June until September, bringing bands of heavy rains from the southwest that quench fields, nourish crops, and replenish reservoirs. But recent studies have shown India’s monsoons have become more erratic in the past 10 years, due to the climate crisis, posing significant risks to critical sectors such as agriculture, water, and energy.

Last June, nearly half a million people in northeast India were affected by severe flooding after heavy rains battered the region.

“Because of climate change, you will get more extreme rain events, which means more rain in a fewer number of rainy days, rainy hours,” Sunita Narain, director general of Indian research body Centre for Science and Environment, said in a video post on YouTube last week.

“If you look at the data from across India, you will find that many weather stations are already reporting that they are breaking the record of 24-hour rainfall, which means that a city, a region, can get its annual rain, as much as a whole year’s rain, in a matter of a few days or even one day.”

Going from water scarcity to floods is a “cycle that we are beginning to see more and more,” Narain said, adding that it was an opportunity “to make a change.”

In a separate video post on the importance of rainwater harvesting, Narain said, “The only way we can manage floods is when we can build drainage so that our rivers are drained into channels, into ponds, so that excess rain can be held and it can recharge groundwater for the dry season that comes after.”

A ballistic missile launched by North Korea on Monday might have had an “abnormal” flight trajectory and could have fallen inland, possibly near the capital of Pyongyang, the South Korean military said.

North Korea launched two ballistic missiles on Monday morning, according to reports from the South Korean, American and Japanese governments.

The missiles, launched at 5:05 a.m. and 5:15 a.m. local time, had two different flight distances, 600 kilometers (373 miles) for the first and 120 kilometers (75 miles) for the second, according to a statement from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).

When asked about the disparate distances, Lee Sung-jun, spokesperson for the JCS, in a briefing said, “There is the possibility that the second launched missile had an abnormal flight in the early stage.”

“If it had exploded during an abnormal flight, there is the possibility that debris fell inland,” Lee said, clarifying that an “explosion” is one of many possibilities. The military is “comprehensively analyzing” various possibilities.

He added that no damage has been confirmed so far.

South Korea said the first missile, with the 600-kilometer (373-mile) flight distance, was a short-range ballistic missile, but Lee would only say the second was “a ballistic missile,” which leaves open the possibility of it being a new weapon.

According to JCS, the two missiles were launched northeastward from the Changyon-gun area of South Hwanghae province, about 130 kilometers (81 miles) southwest of Pyongyang.

If the missile exploded after flying 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeastward from Changyon-gun, the debris could have landed near Pyongyang, based on the distance traveled from the launch site.

The JCS could not confirm whether there was an explosion near the capital, which is North Korea’s largest city and home to more than 3 million people.

Last week, North Korea said it successfully conducted a test to deploy multiple warheads from a single-stage engine for a medium- to long-range ballistic missile, marking an important milestone in upgrading its missile technology.

South Korea later said the North Korean claim was false.

Lee, the JCS spokesperson, said that during a successful test, multiple warheads should separate from a missile during the descending stage of its flight, but North Korea’s missile had exploded in the early stage during launch.

North Korea did not make any statements after Monday morning’s launches, but on Sunday put out a statement on the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) denouncing the recent US-South Korea-Japan military exercises named “Freedom Edge,” calling it another sign of the three partners “reckless and provocative military muscle-flexing.”

The statement said North Korea would “continue to make important efforts to deter the acts of disturbing peace and stability” on the Korean Peninsula.

Technically the two Koreas remain at war – an armistice ended the Korean War that split the peninsula in 1953 but no formal peace treaty was ever signed.

Relations between the two countries thawed somewhat in 2017 and 2018, but the situation in North Korea deteriorated in the following years as leader Kim ramped up weapons testing in defiance of United Nations sanctions and diplomatic talks fell apart.

Meanwhile, both nations are drawing closer to their respective partners – with North Korea recently signing a defense agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin and South Korea stepping up cooperation with Japan and the United States.

Leif-Eric Easley, professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, said Monday’s missile tests, which occurred during ongoing meetings of the Central Committee of the ruling Worker’s Party, likely served two purposes for the Kim regime.

“In both North Korean politics and military policy, the best defense is often a good offense. These missile launches are likely the Kim regime’s way of compensating for recent failed tests, aiming to impress a domestic audience during ruling party meetings,” he said.

“Pyongyang is also determined not to appear weak while South Korea conducts defense exercises with Japan and the United States.”