A delegation of Kenyan “command staff” has arrived in Haiti, according to a law enforcement source in the country, ahead of the long-delayed arrival of a Kenyan-led multinational security support force in the Caribbean nation.

Members of the delegation are also expected to meet with US and United Nations officials in the country, sources said.

The UN Security Council last year authorized a multinational mission to support Haiti’s National Police in battling deadly gangs that have seized control of much of the capital Port-au-Prince.

But despite strong support from the US and other regional powers, the mission has been mired in uncertainty and legal challenges for months. It was further delayed following the resignation of former Haitian Prime Minister Ariel Henry in March, until the creation of a transitional governing council.

The council said Tuesday that it met with top Haitian police brass to discuss the multinational mission. “Haiti, through the Haitian National Police, will have overall control of all aspects of the field mission,” including the mission’s composition, aims, rules of engagement and health precautions, it emphasized in a statement on X.

Kenya is currently finalizing preparations for the mission, the country’s principal secretary of foreign affairs Korir Sing’Oei said Sunday, citing the successful creation of the council and other institutions in Haiti as key conditions.

“In view of that and in view of the decision of the courts in our republic essentially guiding how Kenya should be able to carry out this deployment, lots of reciprocal agreements were entered into between Kenya and Haiti, which facilitates Kenya’s ability to deploy. And we are in the process—our government is in the process of finalizing preparation to deploy.”

A UN-managed trust fund for the mission currently contains $21 million, provided by Canada ($8.7 million), France ($3.2 million), Spain ($3 million) and the United States ($6 million). Personnel for the mission have been offered by the Bahamas, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Chad and Jamaica, in addition to Kenya.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday defended US funding for the mission in a Senate Foreign Relations hearing, warning that Haiti is “on the precipice of becoming an all-out failed state” without international support.

“I understand some of the skepticism that exists about another mission in Haiti, but I think what we have going for us is this: first, a general revulsion of the people at the direction that the country has taken, including gangs that are dominating Port-au-Price and trying to undermine governance, a democratic trajectory that’s been disrupted by failing to have a government that actually has a clear mandate and all of that has also had the effect of interrupting development assistance, other forms of assistance that people so desperately need,” he said.

Haiti’s National Police have already “taken back control of the airport and other critical infrastructure,” he added. “In fact, today, commercial flights resumed in Haiti, and we anticipate that American carriers will begin flying again in the days ahead.”

US President Joe Biden will welcome Kenyan President William Ruto and first lady Rachel Ruto to the White House on Thursday, with Haiti high on the expected agenda.

As vast parts of Florida sweltered in oppressive heat over the weekend, South Florida TV meteorologist Steve MacLaughlin criticized the state’s new legislation that deleted most references to climate change from state law, and urged his viewers to vote.

“The entire world is looking to Florida to lead in climate change,” NBC 6’s MacLaughlin said during a May 18 segment. “Our government is saying that climate change is no longer the priority it once was.”

MacLaughlin’s comments come as South Florida swelters in exceptional heat for the month of May. The extreme temperatures prompted the National Weather Service to issue the first May heat advisory in 15 years on Friday. The month so far has been the warmest May on record for much of South Florida.

Just days earlier, Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a controversial bill that deleted many references of climate change from state laws – a measure that MacLaughlin called in his X post, “Don’t Say Climate Change.” It made several changes to the state’s energy policy, in some cases deleting entire sections that discussed the importance of cutting planet-warming pollution. It also gave preferential treatment to fossil fuel and banned offshore wind energy, even though there are no wind farms planned off Florida’s coast.

“Don’t Say Climate Change!” As Florida is on fire, under water and unaffordable, our state government is rolling back climate change legislation and language. #nbc6 #climateincrisis @nbc6 @CLEOInstitute @ClimateCentral pic.twitter.com/HDMBhylVFE

— Steve MacLaughlin (@SteveMacNBC6) May 19, 2024

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Florida’s coastal ecosystems have been ravaged by severe coral bleaching and its homes and businesses face inundation from sea level rise. The bill deleted the term “climate” eight times — often in reference to reducing fossil fuel emissions through its energy policy or directing state agencies to buy “climate friendly” products when those products were cost-effective and available.

“Please keep in mind, the most powerful climate change solution is the one you already have in the palm of your hands — the right to vote,” MacLaughlin said. “And we will never tell you who to vote for but we will tell you this: We implore you to please do your research and know that there are candidates that believe in climate change and that there are solutions, and there are candidates that don’t.”

Aside from crazy-2023, the heat index has ALREADY spent more time above the 108°F threshold (and tied for the most at 110°+) in #Miami than in *any other entire year*. And it’s not even June yet.
[1/2] pic.twitter.com/GewtmPXXo0

— Brian McNoldy (@BMcNoldy) May 20, 2024

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Other TV meteorologists praised MacLaughlin for delivering such strong remarks, especially during a time where climate communicators, journalists, meteorologists and national weather services have reported an increase in harassment, threats and abuse for connecting extreme weather events to climate change.

“This is not an easy statement for a meteorologist to make, as there is a lot of pressure to not wade into these climate waters,” Jeff Berardelli, the chief meteorologist at WFLA in Tampa Bay, said in response to the video clip MacLaughlin had posted on X, which has been viewed more than 350,000 times. “Big kudos to Steve for being bold and honest.”

Last year, a chief TV meteorologist at an Iowa news station resigned after receiving a series of harassing emails from some viewers.

“This is a time like no other to be courageous,” John Morales, a certified consulting meteorologist at ClimaData and the former chief meteorologist at NBC Miami, said on X, urging more meteorologists to follow suit.

To those gathering over the centuries at Stonehenge — the imposing prehistoric monument that has dominated Salisbury plain in southwest England for some 4,500 years — it was likely clear how the sun could have informed its design.

The central axis of the stone circle was, and still is, aligned with the sunrise at midsummer and sunset at midwinter, the stones dramatically framing the rising and setting sun when days were at their longest and shortest.

But do Stonehenge and potentially other megalithic monuments around the world also align with the moon?

The idea that Stonehenge was linked in some way to the moon gained ground in the 1960s. However, the concept hadn’t been systematically explored, said Clive Ruggles, professor emeritus of archaeoastronomy in the school of archaeology and ancient history at the University of Leicester.

This summer, archaeologists are using a little-known lunar phenomenon that happens every 18.6 years to investigate as part of their work in understanding why Stonehenge was built.

Lunar standstill

Like the sun, the moon rises in the east and set in the west. However, moonrise and moonset move from north to south and back again in the space of a month. The northern and southern extremes also change over a period of about 18 and a half years. The lunar standstill is when the northernmost and southernmost moonrise and moonset are farthest apart.

“The moon rise changes every day and if you track this for a month you’d notice there is a northern and a southern limit beyond which the moon never rises (or sets),” said Fabio Silva, senior lecturer in archaeological modeling at Bournemouth University via email.

“If you were to look at these limits over 19 years you’d notice them change like an accordion: they expand up to a maximum limit (the major lunar standstill) and then start contracting up to a minimum limit (the minor lunar standstill).”

This major lunar standstill is due to happen in January 2025, but from now until mid-2025, the moon may appear, to a casual observer, to be unusually low and high in the night sky during the lunar month.

“If you’re in one of those 19 years, then from time to time, you will see the moon rising or setting much further north or south than it does most times. In the years in between you never see it there,” Ruggles said.

Despite the phenomenon’s name, the moon isn’t actually standing still during this period, he said.

“What is standing still is these limits, and the moment of that happening is in January next year,” Ruggles added. “But for about a year either side, if you happen to catch the moon rise at the right time, you’re going to see the moon rising exceptionally low (in the sky).”

Stonehenge is made of two types of stone: larger sarsen stones and smaller bluestones that form two concentric circles. Ruggles said that Stonehenge’s station stones, which form a rectangle around the circle, roughly align with the moon’s extreme positions during the lunar standstill.

How this lunar alignment was achieved, whether it was by design and its potential purpose are topics of debate that the team wants to investigate.

Probing Stonehenge’s celestial connections

While there are no written documents that shed light on Stonehenge’s meaning and significance, archaeologists have long believed its solar alignments were intentional. Such alignments have been identified in many places around the world and would have been relatively easy for ancient builders to identify, given that knowledge of the sun’s yearly cycle and its connection to the seasons would have been essential to livelihood.

However, it’s much more difficult to say whether Stonehenge really has a connection to the lunar standstill.

“I don’t think we can say definitively, but for me, there are some bits of evidence that made me think that it was deliberate,” Ruggles said.

One clue was the fact that archaeologists have found cremated human remains clustered in the southeast, near where the southernmost moonrise will take place.

“I think there there’s a possibility that they were aware of that direction of the moon and then that became some sort of sacred direction,” Ruggles said.

Since April, Ruggles and Silva, along with colleagues from Bournemouth University, the University of Oxford and English Heritage, the organization that manages the site, have been documenting the moonrise and moonset at key moments when the moon is in alignment with the station stones. The moon was expected to align with the station stone rectangle twice a month from about February 2024 to November 2025, Silva said.

“This will happen at different times of day and night around the year, with the moon being at the right place on different phases each month,” Silva said in a news release in April.

The team wants to understand what patterns of light and shadow the moon creates at Stonehenge and whether they might have held meaning to the people who built and used the monument.

Other monuments with possible lunar link

Stonehenge isn’t the only megalithic monument potentially linked to the lunar standstill.

In the United States, Erica Ellingson, emeritus professor of astrophysics at the University of Colorado Boulder, is investigating lunar alignments at Chimney Rock, a rocky ridge about 1,000 feet above a valley floor in Colorado. The landmark features two large pillar-like rocks that frame the horizon.

Between the years 900 and 1150, ancestors of the Pueblo people built multi-storied buildings and ritual spaces on this difficult-to-access high place, with its dramatic view, Ellington said, and it remains an important site to the 26 Native American groups that have traditional or cultural ties to the area.

“The extraordinary view of the sky between the twin pinnacles suggests an astronomical connection, but the gap is slightly too far north for the Sun to ever shine through it. The Moon, however, can be seen to rise there when it is close to its most extreme northern position, during the major lunar standstill season,” she said via email.

Further evidence of moon-watching comes from tree-ring dating of wooden beams in the nearby ancient buildings, which indicates their construction is linked with the dates of lunar standstills nearly 1,000 years ago, she added.

The Calanais Standing Stones, situated on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland and erected before Stonehenge, may also have a link with the lunar standstill, Ruggles said.

Bradley Schaefer, professor emeritus in the department of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University, said he was deeply skeptical that ancient people were aware of the lunar standstill and built monuments aligned with it. More likely, he suggested, it was a coincidence.

“Every ancient site has dozens-to-hundreds of potential sightlines, and one-or-more will always point somewhere near to one of the 8 standstill directions,” he said via email.

The lunar standstill is hard for a casual observer of the moon to recognize, he added, and is only really visible in detailed data on observations of the moonrise and moonset.

While the shift in the moon’s position is subtle and historical records documenting the lunar standstill are rare and difficult to interpret, Ellington said she thinks the link is plausible because many ancient people watched the sky very closely.

“A moon-watcher would have seen the moon start to rise or set outside of these limits, moving farther and farther out of bounds as the major lunar standstill approached,” she said.

It’s early morning in Sera Community Conservancy in Northern Kenya and sunlight beats down across this expansive semi-arid landscape. Birds calling and boots crunching are the only sounds for miles as a team led by Kenyan wildlife veterinarian Dr. Mukami Ruoro-Oundo carefully tracks white rhinos — the first of their kind to be found here in Samburu County.

Once common in the area, by the early 1990s Northern Kenya’s rhino population was decimated by poaching. But the country’s black rhino population has more than doubled since 1989, and by December 2022 there were 1,900 black rhinos and white rhinos in total, according to Kenya Wildlife Services.

Sera Conservancy has championed the country’s community-led rhino conservation efforts. In 2015 it established East Africa’s first community rhino sanctuary with the introduction of 10 critically endangered black rhinos. Today, that number has grown to 21 black rhinos which freely roam across 107 square kilometers (41 square miles) of designated sanctuary land, and in February 2024, they were joined by four white rhinos from the nearby Lewa Conservancy.

As she searches on foot, Dr. Ruoro-Oundo spots two of the female white rhinos. One, called Sarah, looks heavily pregnant but as the vet creeps closer she notices something is very wrong.

Mindful of not encroaching too long on the rhinos’ territory and reluctant to intervene unnecessarily, she opts for a different approach; through a conservation technology tool called EarthRanger she can monitor Sarah’s movements in real time from a distance. 

Prior to translocation, each of the four white rhinos was fitted with a GPS tag in its horns and ears, which sends a real-time location to remote devices like mobile phones, or to the conservancy’s operations center, where Dr. Ruoro-Oundo is able to monitor Sarah’s location and movements.

Sparse internet connectivity means Dr. Ruoro-Oundo cannot get a clear signal from Sarah’s transmitter but thankfully Sarah is not alone; a female rhino named Arot has never left her side and through Arot’s transmitter Dr. Ruoro-Oundo can see that Sarah has barely moved in hours, suggesting her condition is deteriorating. By using a drone to take photos of her, the team is able to confirm that Sarah urgently needs help.

“We noticed she has a fecal impaction, it was quite huge and had made the rectal and vulvar area swollen,” says Dr. Ruoro-Oundo. “She’s in a lot of pain because she could not put down her tail, and you could see she was a bit sluggish, she really wanted to spend her time lying down. So in such a case we really need to intervene for her comfort, to relieve her of the distress and the pain.”

An emergency intervention is immediately put into action, led by Kenya Wildlife Services and Sera Conservancy’s management and rangers. Air, ground and additional veterinary support are mobilized within hours — potentially saving not only Sarah’s life but that of her unborn calf too.

For Dr. Ruoro-Oundo, the key to safeguarding Kenya’s wildlife is a balance between community and technology.

“I think you cannot separate technology from conservation in the future,” she says.” The human element can never be removed, but technology will always come to assist where we cannot reach.”

A global effort

Now used in 70 countries, EarthRanger’s story started in Kenya when co-founder Wall was researching elephants there.

“In about 2012, we had a real crisis with poaching in Kenya, so we wanted a way that we could pick up on elephants that were getting killed, and the sign for us was that the collar stopped moving for more than about five or six hours, which is the longest sort of period that an elephant rests for,” he recalls.

“So I wrote the algorithm that could work out whether an elephant had stopped moving or not, and then (the collar) would send an SMS if it had. So that was kind of the beginning.”

He adds that the system has evolved quite significantly since then, and Sarah is one of 9,000 animals — including elephants, lions, giraffe, tortoises, sea turtles and 1,200 rhinos — that EarthRanger is currently tracking in Kenya alone.

Wall says the system can integrate data from more than 100 different devices — “anything from elephant trackers to ear tags for rhino, to collars for lions, tail tags (for giraffes), devices that glue onto the shell of a turtle.”

It can also receive information from sources such as vehicle trackers, satellites, and remote sensing alerts for things like deforestation and fire. “It’s pulling it all into one platform, where it can be readily visualized, analyzed and then acted upon,” Wall adds. “And all of that’s giving the operators and managers a bird’s eye view of the situation as it’s happening, with real-time tools.”

According to the EarthRanger, all of these devices are designed to be lightweight, durable and inconspicuous ensuring they don’t impact on the animals’ natural behavior or cause them discomfort. For rhinos, Dr. Ruoro-Oundo says that attaching a tracker is the equivalent sensation of a human getting their ears pierced.

Samuel Lekimaroro, a wildlife protection manager for the Northern Rangelands Trust, which includes Sera Conservancy, uses this kind of data to live-track terrestrial and marine wildlife across 6.5 million hectares. For Lekimaroro it has become a powerful tool in translocating wildlife, data collection and security operations, including identifying hotspots for human-wildlife conflict.

“Thanks to EarthRanger, trophy poaching has been on a steady decline for the last five years, from a high of 120 elephants poached in 2012, to zero in the last four years in (our) member conservancies,” he says.

Wall says its potential to securely collect and share data from different EarthRanger sites from across the world is revolutionary.

“If organizations are doing, say, joint patrolling, or monitoring of a species, then they can also share that information,” he says. “By storing information on EarthRanger we can pull that data from different sites and combine it in ways that was never possible before. So it’s really enabling the analysis and the reporting in a way that just never existed before.”

Celebrities, industrialists and politicians cast their vote in the world’s biggest democracy as polls opened in India’s financial capital during a weekslong nationwide election, in which Prime Minister Narendra Modi is seeking another five-year term.

Voting took place in six constituencies across Mumbai in the western state of Maharashtra, and 43 others nationwide, on Monday as millions flocked to polling booths to determine who will lead the world’s most populous country.

Across India’s richest city and the birthplace of the Bollywood movie industry, a bevy of celebrities were photographed casting their ballot, showing off purple-streaked index fingers – a sign that determines one has voted in an Indian election.

The “King of Bollywood” Shah Rukh Khan was seen leaving a Mumbai polling booth with his family – wife Gauri, daughter Suhana, and sons Aryan and Abram. Elsewhere, one of India’s most famous actors, Amitabh Bachchan, also cast his vote at a polling booth in the suburb of Andheri.

“As responsible Indian citizens we must exercise our right to vote this Monday in Maharashtra,” Khan wrote on X over the weekend. “Let’s carry out our duty as Indians and vote keeping our country’s best interests in mind. Go forth Promote, our right to Vote.”

Film stars Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh, who are expecting their first child this year, were also pictured, as well as billionaire industrialist Mukesh Ambani with his wife, Nita and son Akash.

After casting his vote on Monday, actor Akshay Kumar said he wanted to see India become “developed and strong.”

Showing his ink-stained finger to local reporters, he added: “I voted… India should vote for what they deem is right…I think voter turnout will be good.”

But in keeping with previous elections, voter turnout in Mahrashtra on Monday remained low at 54% — with 47-55% across Mumbai’s six constituencies — according to data from the Election Commission. By comparison, in the northeastern state of West Bengal, some 73% of eligible voters cast their ballot, data showed.

The key election players in the city are Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition Indian National Congress, and two rival factions of Shiv Sena — a local ultranationalist grouping that has long played a key role in Mumbai’s politics.

Mumbai, a city of more than 12 million, is often likened to New York and referred to as the “city of dreams,” where millions of migrants from across the country arrive to make their fortune and find purpose.

It’s a city of extreme wealth and extreme poverty, where skyscrapers tower over slum dwellings and poor children beg for money at the windows of chauffeur-driven cars carrying students to school.

And while the rich and famous were seen casting their vote, many migrant workers in the city will be left out of the election.

Under India’s election rules, eligible voters can only cast ballots in their constituencies – meaning those working outside of their state have to return home to vote. For many out-of-state workers, especially underprivileged daily-wage workers in the unorganized sector, that’s nearly impossible, due to the cost associated with traveling home.

Many voters in Mumbai are concerned with growing inflation and are seeking better education and employment opportunities.

A knife-wielding man who attacked people on a train car in the central Taiwanese city of Taichung early Tuesday was subdued by passengers, according to authorities.

The attack came on the tenth anniversary of a deadly knife rampage on Taipei’s metro that shocked an island with a reputation for being generally safe, and led to the eventual execution of the man who carried out the attack.

Three passengers were injured in the incident on Tuesday in Taichung and were taken to hospital, city’s mayor Lu Shiow-yen told reporters.

The suspect, a 20-year-old male with a history of mental health issues, traveled from the southern city of Kaohsiung on Monday with his knife, according to the mayor.

During the attack on Tuesday, “a group of passengers rushed on to press him down, especially holding down his arms and hands which are still holding a fruit knife,” a male witness told journalists at the scene.

“As we were pinning him down, another man pried (the attacker’s) fingers and took away the knife,” a female witness told journalists at the scene.

Some witnesses complained that metro staff had been slow to respond to the incident.

“The car was roughly 60 to 70 percent full (at the time of the attack) … I tried to push the emergency button multiple times without getting any response, the light (on the machine) was not even on,” a male witness told journalists at the scene.

“I saw him (the attacker) holding a cooking knife and later saw a fruit knife on the floor,” he said.

The incident also happened on the ten-year anniversary of a similar stabbing attack in the Taipei metro which killed four people and injured over twenty. The attacker was later executed in 2016 following a fast-tracked order from the then-justice minister.

These types of violent crime are rare in the self-ruled democratic island, which ranked as the 33rd most peaceful state or territory in last year’s Global Peace Index, out of 163 total places worldwide.

Funeral ceremonies are set to begin on Tuesday for the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi following his death in a helicopter crash, as authorities probe what caused the aircraft to smash into the side of a remote mountainside during foggy weather on Sunday morning.

Raisi’s death alongside other high-ranking officials, including the country’s foreign minister, has left the Islamic Republic’s hardline establishment facing an uncertain future as it navigates rising regional tensions and domestic discontent.

Iran’s government has arranged multiple days of mourning culminating in a funeral later this week for the 63-year-old ultraconservative cleric who had once been seen as a potential successor to current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Tuesday will begin with funeral prayers and a procession in the northwestern city of Tabriz, the largest city in the mountainous northwestern region of Iran where the chopper crashed, according to Mohsen Mansouri, the head of the funeral planning committee and Iran’s vice president of executive affairs.

Later that day, the bodies of the victims will be transferred to the holy Shiite city of Qom, where many of the clerics who make up Iran’s theocratic elite are trained, before then heading to the capital Tehran.

Large ceremonies are planned in Tehran’s enormous Grand Mosallah Mosque on Wednesday. Mansouri announced a public holiday and the closure of offices all over the country that day so that processions can take place.

Raisi’s body will then be moved to the historic Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad where Ayatollah Khamenei will conduct prayers, according to Mehr News.

There is no indication what might have caused the crash – and why so many senior Iranian government officials were traveling in a single, decades-old helicopter.

In the first moments after Raisi’s helicopter lost contact on Sunday night, Turkey said it monitored whether or not the aircraft gave a “signal,” but was unable to detect anything.

“We immediately contacted the Iranian side. They also contacted us, but unfortunately it was seen that the signal system was either turned off or the helicopter did not have the signal system,” said Turkish Transportation and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu, according to Turkish state broadcaster TRT.

It was not clear whether he was referring to the helicopter’s transponder, which the vast majority of aircraft are usually equipped with.

When asked whether there was a possibility of sabotage, Uraloglu said that it was too early to comment on this issue, and said initial indications looked like an accident due to foggy weather.

On Monday, Iranian media reported that the country’s military chief had appointed a commission to investigate the cause of the crash, which includes military and technical experts.

A high-ranking delegation will go to the crash site in Eastern Azerbaijan, according to Iran’s Tasnim news agency.

Autocratic partners hail a lost ‘friend’

The loss of Raisi — a conservative hardliner and protege Ayatollah Khamenei — is expected to sow further uncertainty in a country already buckling under significant economic and political strain, with tensions with nearby Israel at a dangerous high.

His death triggered both domestic and international reactions – with several of Iran’s autocratic partners sending both condolences and effusive praise. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese leader Xi Jinping and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un all released statements praising Raisi’s legacy and hailing him as a “friend.”

In his message Kim described Raisi as “an outstanding statesman and a close friend of the (North Korean) people,” adding that the leader had “made a great contribution to the cause of the Iranian people for safeguarding the sovereignty, development and interests of their country,” according to North Korean state media KCNA.

Xi, whose government last year played a role in brokering a landmark rapprochement between Iran and Saudi Arabia, hailed Raisi’s “important contributions to maintaining Iran’s security and stability and promoting national development and prosperity.”

“Raisi’s tragic death is a great loss to the Iranian people, and the Chinese people also lost a good friend,” Xi said in a statement released by Chinese state media, adding that the two countries would continue to “consolidate and deepen” their strategic partnership.

Putin, who is believed by the US to be receiving support from Iran for his war in Ukraine, called the Iranian leader an “outstanding politician” and a “true friend of Russia.” Raisi made “an invaluable personal contribution” to the development of the countries’ relations, Putin’s statement released by the Kremlin said.

The comments come as observers have pointed to a loose but growing coordination of interests between Iran, China, North Korea and Russia over their shared animosity toward a global system they see as dominated by the US and its values.

Inside Iran, where many of the country’s restive youth population have grown tired of rule by conservative clerics, Raisi had a much more polarizing legacy.

He was widely seen as a figure in which the Iranian hardline establishment had heavily invested in. But he also brutally quashed a youth-led uprising over repressive laws, such as the compulsory hijab, and continued to stamp out dissent in its aftermath.

Human rights attorney Amal Clooney is among a group of legal experts who advised the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor to seek arrest warrants against the top leaders of Israel and Hamas.

The panel was convened by the ICC prosecutor Karim Khan and tasked to review the evidence and legal analysis underpinning his application for warrants against three Hamas leaders and two Israeli politicians, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

It issued a detailed legal report on Monday, which said the panel found “reasonable grounds to believe” that the individuals named in the arrest warrants have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Clooney, who has represented victims of mass atrocities, faced online criticism prior to her announcement for not speaking about Israel’s siege on Gaza. In a statement shared on her Clooney Foundation for Justice website on Monday, she explained how she had found herself advising Khan.

“More than four months ago, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court asked me to assist him with evaluating evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza,” the statement said. “I agreed and joined a panel of international legal experts to undertake this task.”

She said the panel’s findings were “unanimous” despite their diverse backgrounds. “I served on this panel because I believe in the rule of law and the need to protect civilian lives. The law that protects civilians in war was developed more than 100 years ago and it applies in every country in the world regardless of the reasons for a conflict,” Clooney said in the statement.

The eight-person legal panel consisted of renowned legal experts, including Theodor Meron, former President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and Lord Justice Fulford, a former ICC judge. They “unanimously determined” that the court had jurisdiction over crimes committed in Palestinian territories and by Palestinian nationals, Clooney’s statement wrote.

The panel also was unanimous in concluding that “Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including hostage-taking, murder and crimes of sexual violence.”

Clooney’s statement added there was also “reasonable grounds to believe” Netanyahu and “Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and extermination.”

A panel of ICC judges will now consider Khan’s application for the arrest warrants.

Both Hamas and Israeli politicians condemned the arrest warrants, with Netanyahu calling it a “travesty of justice” and an “outrageous decision” that “creates a twisted and false moral equivalence between the leaders of Israel and the henchmen of Hamas.”

The application for warrants marks the first time the ICC has targeted the top leader of a close ally of the United States. Israel and the US are not members of the ICC. However, the ICC claims to have jurisdiction over Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank after Palestinian leaders formally agreed to be bound by the court’s founding principles in 2015.

The Biden administration on Monday forcefully denounced the ICC’s move, with President Joe Biden saying in a statement: “Whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence – none – between Israel and Hamas.”

Clooney, who is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers in London and an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, is married to the actor George Clooney. Alongside her husband, she co-founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice, which gives free legal support to victims of abuses of power, according to its website.

She has represented Yazidi victims of genocide “in the only three genocide cases against ISIS members in the world,” according to the website. She also was counsel to victims of genocide in Sudan’s Darfur and “helped to secure freedom for political prisoners around the world including journalists and opposition figures.”

The prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC) is seeking arrest warrants for top Hamas and Israeli figures on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the October 7 attacks on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza.

If approved by a panel of judges, the arrest warrants would be issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Warrants are also being sought for three top Hamas officials: Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, political chief Ismail Haniyah, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader of Hamas’ armed wing, who is better known as Mohammed Deif.

Here’s what we know about the ICC cases and what they mean for Israel and Hamas.

How would an arrest warrant affect Netanyahu or Hamas leaders?

The decision to seek arrest warrants doesn’t immediately mean the individual is guilty, but is the first stage in a process that could lead to a lengthy trial.

If the court finds sufficient evidence of crimes, it can summon the suspect to appear voluntarily. The court can also issue an arrest warrant, relying on member countries to make the arrest and transfer the suspect to the ICC.

If the suspect appears before the court, a pre-trial takes place in which the court decides if there is enough evidence for the case to go to trial. Then there is a trial before three ICC judges, in which the prosecution must prove “beyond reasonable doubt” that the individual is guilty of the crimes.

Once a verdict passes, the charged individual may be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison. Under exceptional circumstances, a life sentence can also be given, the court says.

The ICC has so far issued arrest warrants against 42 people, 21 of whom have been detained with the help of member states.

“The immediate problem for Israeli officials under any ICC arrest warrant would be that the court’s 124 member states would be under a legal obligation to arrest such officials if they traveled to any of those 124 countries,” Chile Eboe-Osuji, a former ICC president, wrote this month in Foreign Policy magazine.

“That obligation should not be underestimated,” he said, adding that “just last year, Putin canceled his plans to attend the BRICS summit in South Africa, in the apparent light of Pretoria’s obligation to arrest him.”

Of Hamas leaders for whom arrest warrants are sought, two – Sinwar and Deif – are believed to be in Gaza, while Haniyah resides in Qatar, which is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.

What is the ICC and who can it indict?

Headquartered at The Hague in the Netherlands, the ICC was established in 2002 and is tasked with prosecuting individuals for crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

Unlike the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the ICC is not an organ of the United Nations and does not prosecute states.

While the ICC is independent of the UN, it is endorsed by the UN’s General Assembly and maintains a cooperation agreement with the UN. When a case is not within the ICC’s jurisdiction, the UN Security Council can refer that case to the ICC, granting it jurisdiction.

The court can investigate alleged crimes committed on the territory, or by a national, of any state that has accepted the court’s jurisdiction by signing the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC. Any member state can ask the ICC’s prosecutor to launch an investigation.

The court has previously issued arrest warrants against high-ranking individuals, including former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir, Saif Gadhafi, the son of the late Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, and most recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Signatory states are obliged to apprehend those facing arrest warrants, but leaders have often sought to evade those warrants, restricting their freedom of movement.

The ICC does not have its own enforcement mechanism and has relied on countries’ support for arrests.

Does the ICC have jurisdiction over Israeli nationals?

Israel’s actions in Gaza were referred to the ICC by five countries – South Africa, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Comoros and Djibouti – in November, calling on the court to investigate the possible crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, among others, in the Palestinian territories, and asked it to determine whether “one or more specific persons should be charged.”

Israel does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC as it hasn’t signed the Rome Statute. But that doesn’t mean its citizens cannot be prosecuted by the court.

The court had already been investigating possible crimes committed by Israel since 2014 in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and occupied East Jerusalem. The investigation began in March 2021, and was referred to the court by the Palestinian Authority, which adopted the ICC’s mandate in 2015 as the State of Palestine. The ICC concluded then that it has jurisdiction on the conflict and, “by majority, that the territorial scope of this jurisdiction extends to Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

That investigation, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said, “is ongoing and extends to the escalation of hostilities and violence since the attacks that took place on 7 October 2023.”

Remarks by Netanyahu this month pointed to anxiety about the ICC probe. Issuing arrest warrants for Israeli officials would leave an “indelible stain” on the edifice of international law and justice, Netanyahu said, adding that the ICC was “founded as a consequence of the Holocaust” and should not attempt to “undermine” Israel’s fundamental right to self-defense.

The ICC action comes as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), a different court in The Hague, considers a case brought by South Africa in which Israel is accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Israel recognizes the ICJ.

Israel’s war in Gaza, prompted by the October 7 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 others hostage, has dragged on for nearly eight months.

More than 35,000 people have been killed during Israel’s assault on Gaza, according to Palestinian authorities. Swathes of the territory have been reduced to rubble and more than half of its population of 2.3 million has been internally displaced. Famine has set in in parts of the strip.

Does the ICC have jurisdiction over Hamas?

Palestinian leaders signed up to the Rome Statute in 2015. As such, the ICC has jurisdiction over actors in Gaza and other Palestinian territories and by extension, over actors in those territories, including Hamas.

ICC prosecutor Khan confirmed this in October, saying alleged crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, or by Hamas in Israel, fall under the court’s jurisdiction, Reuters reported.

This means the court can indict Hamas leaders over possible crimes committed against both Israelis and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

Shelly Aviv Yeini, head of the international law department at the Israeli Hostage and Missing Families Forum, said the ICC could make Hamas accountable for crimes even if the state of Israel does not recognize the authority of the court.

ICC prosecutor Khan said Monday he is seeking the warrants “on the basis of evidence collected and examined by my office,” and thanked families of the hostages “for their courage in coming forward to provide their accounts.”

According to Article 15 of the ICC Rome Statue, any individual, group, or organization can file complaints of potential crimes to the court.

How have Hamas, Israel and others reacted to the ICC’s action?

Both Hamas and Israeli politicians denounced the ICC’s move.

Hamas said it was an attempt to “equate victims with aggressors by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders without legal basis.” The militant group said warrant requests for Netanyahu and Gallant had come “seven months late,” referring to the duration of Israel’s war in Gaza.

Israeli politicians across the political spectrum condemned the decision. Foreign Minister Israel Katz called it a “scandalous decision” and an “unrestrained frontal attack on the victims of October 7 and our 128 hostages in Gaza.”

The leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, called it “a complete moral failure” and said Israel “cannot accept the outrageous comparison between Netanyahu and Sinwar.”

The right-wing minister for National Security, Itamar Ben Gvir, accused the ICC of antisemitism and called for an escalation of attacks against Hamas, while Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said: “We have not seen such a show of hypocrisy and hatred of Jews as that of the Hague Tribunal since Nazi propaganda.”

In the US, meanwhile, President Joe Biden has denounced the ICC prosecutor’s move, calling it “outrageous.”

“Let me be clear: whatever this prosecutor might imply, there is no equivalence — none — between Israel and Hamas,” the president wrote. “We will always stand with Israel against threats to its security.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the US “fundamentally rejects” the ICC prosecutor’s announcement and warned it could “jeopardize” efforts to reach a ceasefire and hostage release agreement.

“We reject the prosecutor’s equivalence of Israel with Hamas. It is shameful. Hamas is a brutal terrorist organization that carried out the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust and is still holding dozens of innocent people hostage, including Americans,” Blinken said in a statement.

He questioned “the legitimacy and credibility of this investigation,” and said the US believed the ICC to have “no jurisdiction over this matter.”

The US is not a signatory to the Rome Statute.

Khan said the ICC’s prosecution team is also seeking warrants for Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as two other top Hamas leaders — Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader of the Al Qassem Brigades who is better known as Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’ political leader.

The warrants against the Israeli politicians mark the first time the ICC has targeted the top leader of a close ally of the United States. The decision puts Netanyahu in the company of the Russian President Vladimir Putin, for whom the ICC issued an arrest warrant over Moscow’s war on Ukraine, and the Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi, who was facing an arrest warrant from the ICC for alleged crimes against humanity at the time of his capture and killing in October 2011.

By applying for the arrest warrants against Israeli and Hamas leaders in the same action, Khan’s office risks attracting criticism that it places a terror organization and an elected government on an equivalent footing.

A panel of ICC judges will now consider Khan’s application for the arrest warrants.

Khan said the charges against Sinwar, Haniyeh and al-Masri include “extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention.”

“The world was shocked on the 7th of October when people were ripped from their bedrooms, from their homes, from the different kibbutzim in Israel,” Khan told Amanpour, adding that “people have suffered enormously.”

Hamas-led militants killed around 1,200 people across several locations in southern Israel on October 7 and took some 250 hostages into Gaza. Many of the hostages are still being held in Gaza – Khan told Amanpour this meant crimes continued to be committed against “so many innocent Israelis … that are held hostage by Hamas and families that are waiting for their return.”

Khan told Amanpour his team has a “variety of evidence” to support the application for arrest warrants against Sinwar, Haniyeh and al-Masri, including authenticated video footage and photographs from the attacks as well as evidence from eyewitnesses and survivors.

Khan said Israel had “every right and indeed an obligation to get hostages back, but you must do so by complying with the law.”

Responding to the announcement by Khan, Hamas said in a statement that it “strongly condemns the attempts of the ICC Prosecutor to equate victims with aggressors by issuing arrest warrants against a number of Palestinian resistance leaders without legal basis.”

“Hamas calls on the ICC Prosecutor to issue arrest warrants against all war criminals among the occupation leaders, officers, and soldiers who participated in crimes against the Palestinian people, and demands the cancellation of all arrest warrants issued against Palestinian resistance leaders,” the group added.

‘Nobody is above the law’

The charges against Netanyahu and Gallant include “causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict,” Khan told Amanpour.

“The fact that Hamas fighters need water doesn’t justify denying water from all the civilian population of Gaza,” he added.

Netanyahu called the decision “a political outrage.”

“They will not deter us and we will continue in the war until the hostages are released and Hamas is destroyed,” he said at a meeting of the parliamentary group of his Likud party.

Other Israeli officials echoed his sentiments. Benny Gantz, a member Israel’s war cabinet, criticized Khan’s decision immediately after it was announced, saying that Israel was fighting “with one of the strictest moral codes in history, while complying with international law and boasting a robust independent judiciary.”

“Drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a blood-thirsty terror organisation is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy,” he said, adding that the decision by the prosecutors “is in itself a crime of historic proportion to be remembered for generation.”

The leader of the opposition, Yair Lapid, said the application for the arrest warrents was “a complete moral failure.”

“We cannot accept the outrageous comparison between Netanyahu and Sinwar … We will not remain silent,” he said.

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog called it “beyond outrageous.”

When reports surfaced last month that the ICC chief prosecutor was considering this course of action, Netanyahu said that any ICC arrest warrants against senior Israeli government and military officials “would be an outrage of historic proportions,” and that Israel “has an independent legal system that rigorously investigates all violations of the law.”

Asked by Amanpour about the comments made by Netanyahu, Khan said: “Nobody is above the law.”

He said that if Israel disagrees with the ICC, “they are free, notwithstanding their objections to jurisdiction, to raise a challenge before the judges of the court and that’s what I advise them to do.”

Israel and the United States are not members of the ICC. However, the ICC claims to have jurisdiction over Gaza, East Jerusalem and the West Bank after Palestinian leaders formally agreed to be bound by the court’s founding principles in 2015.

The ICC announcement on Monday is separate from the case that is currently being heard by the the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over an accusation from South Africa that Israel was committing genocide in its war against Hamas following the October 7 attacks.

While the ICJ considers cases that involve countries and nations, and the ICC is a criminal court, which brings cases against individuals for war crimes or crimes against humanity.

Monday’s announcement is not the first time that the ICC acted in relation to Israel. In March 2021, Khan’s office launched an investigation into possible crimes committed in the Palestinian territories since June 2014 in Gaza and the West Bank.

Located in The Hague, Netherlands, and created by a treaty called the Rome Statute first brought before the United Nations, the ICC operates independently. Most countries – 124 of them – are parties to the treaty, but there are notable exceptions, including Israel, the US and Russia.

That means that if the court grants Khan’s application and issues arrest warrants for the five men, any country that is a member would have to arrest them and extradite them to The Hague.

Under the rules of the court, all signatories of the Rome Statute have the obligation to cooperate fully with its decisions. This would make it extremely difficult for Netanyahu and Gallant to travel internationally, including to many countries that are among Israel’s closest allies – including Germany and the United Kingdom.

Sinwar, Haniyeh and al-Masri have been officially designated as global terrorists by the US, meaning they are under travel bans, asset freezes and sanctions. The US, the UK, Japan, Canada as well as the European Union and others have designated Hamas as a terror group and imposed sanctions on its leaders.

This story has been updated with additional developments.