Kochi, India — Authorities in southern India’s Kerala state are taking preventive steps after the death of a 14-year-old boy from the Nipah virus and the identification of 60 people in the high-risk category, the state’s health minister said on Sunday.

Parts of Kerala are among those most at risk globally for outbreaks of the virus, a Reuters investigation showed last year. Nipah, which comes from fruit bats and animals such as pigs, can cause a lethal, brain-swelling fever in humans.

Nipah is classified as a priority pathogen by the World Health Organization (WHO) because of its potential to trigger an epidemic. There is no vaccine to prevent infection and no treatment to cure it.

“The infected boy died on Sunday after a cardiac arrest,” Veena George, the state health minister told local TV reporters, speaking in the Malayalam language.

Earlier, in a statement on Saturday, she said as part of Nipah control, the government has issued orders to set up 25 committees to identify and isolate affected people.

Dr. Anoop Kumar, director of critical care medicine at Aster MIMS Hospital in Calicut, said one positive case of Nipah had been diagnosed in a school boy and people who had been in contact with him were being watched.

“There is a minimum chance of an outbreak of Nipah virus at this stage,” he said, adding that the situation would be monitored for the next seven to 10 days.

There are 214 people on the primary contact list of the boy, the statement said. Among them, 60 are in the high-risk category, it said, and isolation wards have been set up at health institutions to treat patients.

Family members of the affected patient were kept at a local hospital for observation, after a case of Nipah virus was confirmed in Malappuram, a town about 350 kilometers (about 220 miles) from Kerala’s capital Thiruvananthapuram, local media reports said. Other people who might be at risk were asked to isolate at home.

The state government said it is working to trace any affected people to contain the spread of the virus. Nipah has been linked to the deaths of dozens of people in Kerala since its first appearance in the state in 2018.

The virus was first identified 25 years ago in Malaysia and has led to outbreaks in Bangladesh, India and Singapore.

Millions of Venezuelans are expected to cast their ballots on Sunday, July 28, in what many see as the most consequential election in the country since strongman leader Nicolás Maduro came to power more than a decade ago.

The vote pits the authoritarian Maduro – who has overseen unprecedented levels of poverty and emigration from the country – against Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia – a quiet, bird-loving grandfather who has built a strong following despite being the opposition’s third choice after its two preferred candidates were barred from running.

But experts warn that the result of the vote may well be contested. Maduro has a habit for clinging to power, they point out: his government has long been accused of rigging votes and the 2018 election that returned Maduro to office was described as illegitimate by an alliance of 14 Latin American nations, Canada and the United States.

The populist and the former diplomat

Maduro, who took the mantle of the populist Chavismo movement after his predecessor Hugo Chavez’s death in 2013, is seeking his third consecutive six-year term in office. His last race was largely boycotted by the opposition. The Organization of American States called that vote a “farce,” noting that it was “held with a generalized lack of public freedoms, with outlawed candidates and parties and with electoral authorities lacking any credibility, subject to the executive power.”

At campaign events this year – usually rollicking, dance-filled affairs – Maduro has framed his opponents as “fascist” and “manipulable,” claiming that they would privatize the country’s healthcare and oil industry and “give away our wealth.”

Though under his watch, Venezuela has seen the rapid collapse of its democracy and nearly eight million of its people flee the country. Inflation has soared and food shortages spread as the country underwent “the single largest economic collapse for a non-conflict country in almost half a century,” as the International Monetary Fund put it.

Gonzalez, a former diplomat, is standing for an opposition coalition known as the Democratic Unitary Platform. His priorities include taming inflation, currently running at 64% year on year, and restoring trust in the country’s institutions of power, like its judiciary, which is currently stacked with Maduro sympathizers. However, he has not given a roadmap on how he would convince an authoritarian government to voluntarily give up control and lead a democratic transition.

In recent weeks, his rallies, alongside Maria Corina Machado, the charismatic leader of the opposition coalition who was banned from running for president earlier this year (along with her fellow leader Corina Yoris), have drawn staggering crowd sizes, including parts of the population long devoted to Chavismo. The pair have promised to build a country that can welcome home the millions of Venezuelans who have left in droves in recent years out of economic desperation.

Several other candidates are also running, but they have minimal support and are viewed by the main opposition as government allies.

According to Oswaldo Ramírez, the managing director of ORC Consultores, the opposition has found support in “nearly every corner of the country.”

“The electoral energy is back in the streets of Venezuela,” he said. “Never in the years since this political era began has the opposition had a voting intention that favored it in such a broad way.”

Will the election be fair?

Twenty-five years after Chávez brought his socialist vision to the halls of power in Caracas, the election marks a rare opportunity for Venezuelans to remake the country – if Maduro is willing to relinquish control in a defeat. But analysts point to Maduro’s history of alleged election meddling in suggesting he is unlikely to go down quietly.

“This could be the last best shot for Venezuela for a long time to restore democracy,” said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The level of fraud that (the Maduro government) is going to necessitate is going to be so obvious to all that there’s no way they can move forward credibly with the election. They’re going to be caught with their hand in the cookie jar.”

The ruling party has already been interfering with the election for months. In January, Machado was barred from holding public office for 15 years by the Maduro-controlled Supreme Court. The US said the decision flew in the face of a 2023 pledge the Venezuelan government had made to hold free and fair elections. Gonzalez was made the candidate after Machado’s designated replacement Yoris was similarly blocked from running.

Maduro’s government has meanwhile claimed to have thwarted a string of dubious opposition-backed plots to sabotage public infrastructure and interfere with the election. Analysts see those as the seeds of a pretext that Maduro could use to postpone or cancel the election at the last minute.

Experts warn Maduro could also move to provoke a military crisis with neighboring Guyana after he and his supporters scaled up their threats to annex an oil-rich piece of that country’s land.

Some have speculated that Maduro could use the crisis as an excuse to suspend the election.

Maduro’s government has also been accused of trying to sow confusion ahead of election day, including by renaming some 6,000 schools, places that typically serve as polling stations. The government has also created significant impediments for the Venezuelans who left the country to vote, including widely unattainable passport and residency requirements, election experts said.

How will the vote play out?

There are more than 21 million registered voters in Venezuela, including about 17 million people currently living in the country.

A limited group of election observers, including a team from The Carter Center – a non-profit organization set up by former US President Jimmy Carter – will be on the ground to monitor the vote after Venezuelan authorities revoked an invitation in May for the European Union to send a delegation, citing the bloc’s sanctions on the country.

But the options for the opposition and the international community are limited if Maduro refuses to cede power, Berg, of CSIS, said. “The opposition can get out in the streets, they can mobilize, they can demand certain things, but if the regime gets in and they have the firepower behind them to repress as we’ve seen in other instances under Maduro, it could get very ugly,” he said.

If the opposition does clinch victory, a transition period of six months is likely to include an intense negotiation around amnesty for Maduro and members of his government, which analysts say he is certain to require ahead of any potential handover.

Maduro currently faces drug trafficking and corruption charges in the US and is under investigation for crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.

Machado has indicated in recent months that the opposition has expressed willingness to the Venezuelan government to establish a “serious negotiation with guarantees” for Maduro and his allies – should Maduro and his ruling Socialist United Party of Venezuela step aside in the face of defeat.

“We know the responsibility we have with history, and if there are feelings that animate this process, it is about reunification, coexistence, and justice, never about revenge and persecution,” Machado said earlier this month.

For the first time, Israel has struck inside Yemen, following a deadly drone attack launched by Houthi rebels on Tel Aviv.

Since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel, the Houthis have been targeting shipping in the Red Sea in solidarity – they say – with Gaza. But these direct attacks on each other’s soil between the Israeli military and an Iranian-backed rebel group risk creating a new front in a conflict that already threatened to spill over into the region.

Soon after the Israeli attack, the Houthis said they launched a fresh barrage of missiles towards Israel, promising a response that will be “huge and great.”

Here’s what we know.

Who are the Houthis and what is their role in the Gaza conflict?

The Houthis are an Iran-backed Islamist group based in Yemen.

The Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah (Supporters of God), is one side in a civil war that has raged in Yemen for nearly a decade. It emerged in the 1990s, when its leader, Hussein al-Houthi, launched “Believing Youth,” a religious revival movement for a centuries-old subsect of Shia Islam called Zaidism.

Since a ceasefire, the Houthis have consolidated their control over most of northern Yemen. They have also sought an agreement with Saudi Arabia, a major rival of Iran, that would bring the war to a permanent end and cement their role as the country’s rulers.

The Houthis are believed to have been armed and trained by Iran. Since Hamas’s attacks on October 7 attacks and Israel’s subsequent ground and air offenses in Gaza, the Houthis say they have been seeking revenge against Israel for its military campaign by targeting Red Sea shipping.

The US and UK have responded to those attacks by carrying out strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. However, Israel has not taken part in those responses.

In addition, Israel’s army spokesman says the militant group has targeted “Israeli civilians and civilian infrastructure” about 200 times in the same period. Most of those launches were intercepted by US Central Command, the spokesman said, but Israel’s air defenses have also intercepted Houthi drones and missiles inside and outside Israel’s airspace.

What happened in Tel Aviv?

A tipping point for Israel appears to have come on Friday, when a drone attack was launched on Tel Aviv, killing one Israeli citizen and injuring several others.

The attack was claimed by the Houthis, with spokesperson Yahya Sare’e saying the operation was performed by a new drone capable of “bypassing the enemy’s interception systems.”

“We will continue to strike these targets in response to the enemy’s massacres and daily crimes against our brothers in the Gaza Strip,” Sare’e said. “Our operations will only cease when the aggression stops and the siege on the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip is lifted.”

The attack marked the first time Tel Aviv, Israel’s commercial center, has been struck by a drone in an attack claimed by the Houthis. Israel authorities are investigating the circumstances and potential security failures around the deadly drone blast.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman Daniel Hagari said that the military suspects the drone was an Iranian-made Samad-3 model, launched from Yemen, which had been upgraded to extend its range.

A second drone was intercepted outside of Israeli airspace to the east at the same time as the attack, he said, adding that Israel is now upgrading its air defenses and increasing aerial patrols of its borders.

How did Israel respond?

Israel’s response came a day later, when Israeli aircraft hit the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.

The attack, which marked the first time Israel has struck Yemen, killed at least six people and injured scores more, Yemeni officials said. The Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said the strikes targeted oil facilities in the port on Yemen’s west coast.

Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said the strikes had also hit civilian targets and a power station. He slammed what he said was “brutal Israeli aggression” aimed at increasing the “suffering of the people of Yemen” and pressuring the group to stop its support of Gaza.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the port was used by Iran to bring arms into Yemen.

“The port we attacked is not an innocent port. It was used for military purposes, it was used as an entry point for deadly weapons supplied to the Houthis by Iran,” he said in a statement on Saturday.

Netanyahu also said the operation, which hit targets 1,800 km (1,118 miles) from Israel’s borders, showed Israel was serious about responding to threats.

“It makes it clear to our enemies that there is no place that the long arm of the State of Israel will not reach,” Netanyahu said.

How big an escalation is this?

Neither side have suggested they are ready to back down. “It’s not in the Houthi ‘DNA’ to de-escalate with Israel,” Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute wrote on X.

Houthi army spokesperson Yehya Saree said the Houthis have “prepared for a long war” with Israel and that Tel Aviv is still not safe. Israel’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, warned that the “blood of Israeli citizens has a price,” and that if Israelis are attacked, the “result will be identical” to that which has been seen in Lebanon and Gaza.

On Sunday, Israeli military said it had intercepted a missile approaching Israeli territory from Yemen while the Houthis said they launched a “number of ballistic missiles.”

The war in Gaza has already been accompanied by significantly heightened tensions between Israel and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah. The two sides have been trading cross-border fire since October 8, when Hezbollah fired at three Israeli border posts “in solidarity” with Palestinians.

But while raised tensions with the Houthis undoubtedly creates fresh challenges for Israel, Hezbollah remains the bigger threat given its extensive arsenal and proximity to Israel.

He believes Israel was trying to send a signal to the US and the international community that “enough is enough,” and deliberately chose a target with high visibility.

“You have to signal to a rogue actor that is attacking you that there is a price to pay, and I think this is what Israel tried to do.”

Like the Houthis, Hezbollah is also heavily backed by Iran, which makes no secret of its animosity towards Israel.

Any increase in hostilities between Israel and Iran’s proxies is seen as deeply destabilizing in the region because it could push the two countries closer towards open warfare.

Israel and Iran have already traded one direct exchange since October 7. Few in the international community want to see it happen again.

Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Sunday rolled back some of the controversial quotas on government jobs which sparked violent protests, Reuters reported, citing local media.

Under the quota system, some 30% of sought-after civil service jobs are reserved for relatives of veterans who fought in Bangladesh’s war of independence from Pakistan in 1971 – with many of the country’s contemporary political elite related to that generation.

Since the roles are linked to job security and higher pay, the quota system has angered many in the country, particularly students and young people, as Bangladesh faces high unemployment levels.

Dozens of people have reportedly been killed and hundreds injured in the violence, which saw demonstrators gather on streets and university campuses in the capital Dhaka and other cities.

In 2018, the civil service quota system was scrapped following similar protests but in June the High Court reinstated it, ruling its removal unconstitutional. On July 10, the Supreme Court suspended the quotas for one month while it took up the case.

On Sunday, the country’s top court dismissed the earlier ruling that brought back the quotas, directing that 93% of government jobs will be open to candidates on merit, without quotas, Reuters reported citing local media.

Ahead of the ruling, Bangladesh on Sunday extended a curfew imposed on Friday to try to quell the violence and deployed soldiers to patrol the streets of the capital Dhaka, according to Reuters.

According to local media, the curfew was extended until after the Supreme Court hearing and will continue for an “uncertain time” following a two-hour break for people to gather supplies, Reuters reported.

As of Saturday, internet monitoring site NetBlocks said activity had remained at around 10% for more than 48 hours since services were cut Thursday.

A German citizen has been sentenced to death in Belarus after being charged with terrorism and mercenary activities, according to a Belarusian human rights group.

The group Human Rights Center “Viasna” said the German national is a 29-year-old German Red Cross employee named Rico Krieger.

According to his LinkedIn profile, he worked as an emergency medical technician for the German Red Cross and as an armed security officer for the US Embassy in Berlin.

Krieger was sentenced in the Minsk Regional Court on June 24, Viasna said on its website on Friday.

Krieger was charged under six articles of the Criminal Code of Belarus, according to Viasna, including “mercenary activity,” “agent activity,” an “act of terrorism,” the “creation of an extremist formation,” “intentional disrepair of a vehicle or communication lines,” and “illegal actions in relation to firearms, ammunition and explosives.”

Viasna also reported that Krieger was found guilty of “arranging an explosion in order to influence decision-making by authorities, intimidate the population, [and] destabilize public order.” It is unclear exactly what led up to Krieger’s alleged crimes or when they occurred.

“The death penalty is a cruel and inhumane form of punishment that Germany rejects under all circumstances. We are actively working worldwide to abolish it and are strongly advocating against its execution in all affected cases,” the spokesperson added.

Belarus says it has ensured consular access to a German national, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Anatoly Glaz said in a statement on X. Minsk has “proposed a number of options” to Germany “for the development of the situation,” he said, according to Belarusian state media BelTA. 

“There have been contacts with the German side on this topic, of course. This criminal is a German citizen and we understand the German side’s concern for him,” said Glaz, according to BelTA.”Consultations on this topic are being held by the foreign ministries of the two countries,” he added.

“I am concerned by news that German citizen Rico Krieger was sentenced to death by Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus,” exiled Belarusian opposition figure Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya said on X on Friday.

“We are collecting more information on his case at the moment. From what we know, he was accused of several so-called ‘extremism’ related crimes,” she added.

Residents in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar staged a rare protest on Saturday over electricity cuts and water supply interruptions due to a power grid failure amid record-high temperatures.

Angry residents gathered on the streets near residential buildings shouting “Give me light,” after experiencing power cuts for several days, videos posted on social media show.

Work to repair the accident is underway and residents are being supplied with drinking water, the city’s mayor Evgeny Naumov said Saturday. “We all need to remain calm and understand what is happening, although this is not easy,” he said in a Telegram post.

The power cuts came as the city is experiencing unusually high temperatures and on Friday a daily record was set for the fourth day in a row, according to Russian state news agency TASS. The maximum temperature was 39 degrees Celsius on Friday, according to TASS.

Krasnodar Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said Saturday that the “abnormal heat,” the lack of proper capacities during peak load periods and the operation of the Rostov Nuclear Power Plant were some of the factors that contributed to the outages. One of the units of the Rostov plant, the largest in the region, was temporarily shut down earlier this week due to a technical malfunction.

“There has been abnormal heat in the Krasnodar region for a week now. The load on the energy system is colossal,” Governor Kondratyev said. “I know and understand all the indignation of residents due to the power outages.”

He said he is “in constant contact” with energy workers and that “Where possible, emergency crews repair breakdowns as quickly as possible.” Kondratyev said the city’s mayor is currently in the area that has been affected the most and “constantly reports on the situation.”

Public protests in Russia are very rare, especially after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The government has introduced war censorship laws that can result in severe punishment, including imprisonment, for discrediting the military.

Israeli airstrikes targeted Houthi rebels in Yemen a day after the Iran-backed group claimed a deadly attack on the Israeli city of Tel Aviv.

The Israel Defense Forces said its fighter jets struck “military targets of the Houthi terrorist regime” in the area of Yemen’s Hodeidah Port, with spokesperson Daniel Haggari saying the strikes were in response to both the death of a 50-year-old Israeli in the attack on Tel Aviv and the roughly 200 projectiles the rebel group has fired towards Israel since October.

The Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said the Israeli strikes targeted oil facilities in the port on Yemen’s west coast, adding that there had been deaths and injuries.

Houthi spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said the strikes had also hit civilian targets and a power station. He slammed what he said was “brutal Israeli aggression” aimed at increasing the “suffering of the people of Yemen” and pressuring it to stop its support of Gaza.

The Houthi Supreme Political Council vowed to retaliate with “more impactful strikes on the enemy” and reiterated its solidarity with the Palestinian people, according to Al Masirah TV.

The Israeli strikes came a day after a Houthi drone attack in Tel Aviv killed one man and injured at least 10 others.

The Houthis said the drone attack on Tel Aviv was a response to Israel’s war in Gaza, claiming the operation was performed by a new drone capable of “bypassing the enemy’s interception systems.”

Israeli officials said Hodeidah had been targeted because it was the main supply route of Iranian weapons to Yemen. A spokesperson for the IDF said the targets were dual use infrastructure that were also being used for terrorist activity.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said “the blood of Israeli citizens has a price,” and that if Israelis are attacked, the “result will be identical” to that in Lebanon and Gaza.

“The fire that is currently burning in Hodeidah is seen across the Middle East and the significance is clear,” Gallant said. “The first time that they harmed an Israeli citizen, we struck them. And we will do this in any place where it may be required.”

Since the start of Israel’s war with Hamas in Gaza, the Yemeni rebels have regularly targeted the country with drones and missiles, most of which have been intercepted by Israel’s defenses. They have also regularly attacked US targets and commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

Both the UK and the US have responded to the attacks on shipping by carrying out strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen. However, this is the first time Israel has struck Yemen.

According to the official, Gallant informed US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin before the strike was carried out.

The defense official added that Israel was able to strike so quickly because it had been preparing for this scenario for months.

Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz said Israel had “delivered a severe blow to the Iranian-backed terror organization in Yemen today” and warned it would “strike anyone who strikes us.”

He also called on the international community to “maximize sanctions on Iran.”

“Iran supports, trains, and finances the Houthi terror organization as part of its regional network of terror organizations aimed at attacking Israel,” he said.

“Iran is the head of the snake – it must be stopped now,” Katz added.

A White House official said US President Joe Biden had been briefed on “developments” in the Middle East. A spokesperson for the White House National Security Council said the US had not coordinated with Israel on the airstrikes, but added that the US fully recognizes “Israel’s right to self-defense.”

In May, at least 16 people were killed and a further 35 wounded by US-UK airstrikes in Hodeidah targeting Houthi rebels.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Police in South Africa arrested four people including two Mexican nationals after uncovering a multimillion-dollar drug manufacturing lab on a farm in the country’s north.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, commonly known as Hawks, raided the property in the town of Groblersdal after receiving information suspicious activity was taking place there, SAPS said in a statement.

After searching four structures on the property, police found large quantities of chemicals used to make illicit drugs including acetone and crystal meth, with an estimated street value of 2 billion South African rand ($109.4 million).

The four suspects detained on Friday include the farm owner and two Mexican nationals, the police service said, adding that the Hawks are not ruling out the possibility of further arrests.

“What makes this different from other [seizures] is the involvement of Mexican citizens,” Katlego Mogale, national spokesperson for the Hawks told Reuters, adding: “It means that our task has just become very difficult.”

It is not clear if the drugs seized were intended for South African market or overseas.

The suspects will appear at Groblersdal Magistrate’s court on Monday on charges of manufacturing, dealing and possessing illicit drugs, according to the police service.

In January, police said around 131 drug labs had been shut down across the country since 2019, adding that during the festive season last year more than 19,000 people were arrested for drug possession.

So far this year, the Hawks have discovered 10 secret drug labs and arrested 34 people as they continue their war on drugs in the country, the statement said.

South Africa is dubbed as potentially one of the “largest meth consumer markets in the world,” researchers at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime highlighted in a 2021 report.

It was also described by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) last year as “an attractive drug transit country.” The UNODC attributed the nation’s growing market for synthetic drugs to its “porous borders,” as well as its geography and international trade links.

Air raid sirens wailed across Cyprus’s divided capital Nicosia at dawn on Saturday as Greek Cypriots mourned, and Turkish Cypriots celebrated, 50 years since Turkey invaded part of the island in response to a brief Greek-inspired coup.

The ethnically split island is a persistent source of tension between Greece and Turkey, which are both partners in NATO but are at odds over numerous issues.

Their differences were laid bare on Saturday, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attending a celebratory military parade in north Nicosia to mark the day in 1974 when Turkish forces launched an offensive that they call a “peace operation.”

Later in the day, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was due to attend an event in the south of the city to commemorate what Greeks commonly refer to as the “barbaric Turkish invasion.”

Mitsotakis posted an image of a blood-stained map of Cyprus on his LinkedIn page with the words “Half a century since the national tragedy of Cyprus.”

There was jubilation in the north.

“The Cyprus Peace Operation saved Turkish Cypriots from cruelty and brought them to freedom,” Erdogan said, criticizing the south for having a “spoiled mentality” and seeing itself as the sole ruler of Cyprus.

But Erdogan left open a window to dialogue in deadlocked negotiations. “We are ready for negotiations, to meet, and to establish long-term peace and resolution in Cyprus,” he said.

Peace talks are now stalled at two seemingly irreconcilable concepts – Greek Cypriots want reunification as a federation. Turkish Cypriots want a two-state settlement.

Cyprus gained independence from Britain in 1960, but a shared administration between Greek and Turkish Cypriots quickly fell apart in violence that saw Turkish Cypriots withdraw into enclaves and led to the dispatch of a UN peacekeeping force.

The crisis left Greek Cypriots running the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union since 2004 with the potential to derail Turkey’s own decades-long aspirations of joining the bloc.

Remembering the dead

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, whose office represents the Greek Cypriot community in the reunification dialogue, said the anniversary was a somber occasion for reflection and for remembering the dead.

“Our mission is liberation, reunification and solving the Cyprus problem,” he said. “If we really want to send a message on this tragic anniversary … it is to do anything possible to reunite Cyprus.”

Turkey, he said, continued to be responsible for violating human rights and international law over Cyprus.

Across the south, church services were held to remember the more than 3,000 people who died in the Turkish invasion.

“It was a betrayal of Cyprus and so many kids were lost. It wasn’t just my son, it was many,” said Loukas Alexandrou, 90, as he tended the grave of his son at a military cemetery.

In Turkey, state television focused on violence against Turkish Cypriots prior to the invasion, particularly on bloodshed in 1963-64 and in 1967.

Turkey’s invasion took more than a third of the island and expelled more than 160,000 Greek Cypriots to the south.

Reunification talks collapsed in 2017 and have been at a stalemate since. Northern Cyprus is a breakaway state recognized only by Turkey, and its Turkish Cypriot leadership wants international recognition.

At least 13 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on homes in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Saturday, according to hospital officials and Gaza’s Civil Defense.

“The IDF is making significant efforts to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians and is operating in accordance with international law against the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip that are systematically and cynically operating from within civilian infrastructure.”

Gaza’s Civil Defense also said a residential block was hit south of Nuseirat, with hospital officials saying they received three bodies.

The Israeli military has launched numerous deadly strikes on Nuseirat, including the targeting of multiple UN-run schools housing displaced people. The Israeli military has said its targets were Hamas compounds operating inside the schools.

Nuseirat residents described living in constant fear of being bombed and a deteriorating humanitarian situation.

“The situation is scary,” said Rahma Abu Hajjaj, a 39-year-old mother of five from Nuserirat. “There are no warnings, there are no alarms when homes are bombed, we are hiding all the time and we do not know why they are targeting these homes.”

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that 37 people have been killed and 54 injured in the past 24 hours due to ongoing Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip.

The ministry said the total number of deaths since October 7 now stands at 38,919 people, with another 89,622 people injured. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants killed.

Israel launched its ground campaign in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 attacks, which killed around 1,200 people.