| | | | | Breaking News | | Hundreds of police are searching for a gunman in Maine feared to have killed at least 16 people. Police have named Robert Card, 40, as a person of interest, saying he is "armed and dangerous". A police press conference is expected at 10:30 local time (15:30 BST). Follow our updates live, and see the numbers behind the rise in US mass shootings. | | |
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| | | Hello. Today my colleagues in Israel help us understand what's behind last night's "targeted raid" in northern Gaza with Israeli tanks, as the country keeps on gearing up for "the next stages of combat". We also have updates on international calls for "pauses" as the humanitarian situation in the enclave gets worse and there’s little visible progress made regarding hostages. And our disinformation correspondent Marianna Spring looks at the social media hoaxes harming grieving families on each side of border fence. |
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| | | | Top of the agenda | | Israel tank raid to 'prepare the battlefield' in Gaza | | | | A still from a video posted by the IDF shows tanks going through the border fence Source: X: @IDF |
| | The Israeli Defense Forces carried out a "targeted raid" in northern Gaza using tanks last night, saying it "prepared the battlefield" and struck "numerous terrorist cells". It's not the first raid into Gaza from Israel's military since the Hamas attacks of 7 October, but it might be the most significant. It started shortly after a speech from Israel's PM Benjamin Netanyahu stressing that forces were still preparing for a ground invasion. "I think this incursion will be a harbinger," noted our international editor Jeremy Bowen - read his analysis from southern Israel. Meanwhile, more western leaders are calling for a "humanitarian pause" in the fight between Israel and Hamas as the situation in Gaza keeps on deteriorating. Rishi Sunak did so in London yesterday, and EU leaders will discuss this today. They disagree on whether to call for "a ceasefire", "a pause" or "pauses", though. My colleague in Brussels Sofia Bettiza explains what's behind the semantics. | | • | The latest: The World Health Organization says medical supplies for Gaza are waiting at the border. The UN says it has been able to extract more fuel from reserves in the enclave in order to purify water, but that many bakeries can't make bread anymore. More in our live coverage. | | • | Hostages: The Israeli military said that 224 people have been taken from Israel by Hamas, an increase of two from the last update. Read more about the hostages here. | | • | Scale of destruction: Satellite images show razed neighbourhoods in Beit Hanoun, the northwestern-most city in the Gaza Strip. Take a look. |
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| | | | | | World headlines | | • | War in Ukraine: Ukraine has started the forced evacuation of around 1,000 children from areas near to the front line in the southern Kherson and eastern Donetsk regions, as Russia intensifies attacks. | | • | Meanwhile, in Moscow: The Kremlin said Russia's military rehearsed its ability to deliver a "massive" nuclear strike as the country is pulling out of a treaty banning all physical testing of nuclear warheads. Its defence ministry is also recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine, Vitaly Shevchenko reports. | | • | US strikes: Carmaker Ford and the United Auto Workers (UAW) union have reached a tentative deal to end a nearly six-week strike. If approved, it would be the first settlement in the recent wave of strikes in the car industry. Read the terms of the deal. | | • | French escape: A French armed robber who staged a spectacular jailbreak by helicopter has been handed an extra 14 years behind bars by a Paris court. Rédoine Faïd was on the run for three months after his movie-like escape. | | • | Chinese antiques: Australia has returned to China three historical artefacts that were smuggled out of the country. Two Tang Dynasty figurines and a dinosaur fossil that is more than 100 million years old were handed back. Take a look. |
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| | AT THE SCENE | Gujarat, India | | Hand-scrubbing sewers– India’s invisible workforce | | "Manual scavenging", or the cleaning by hand of human waste in spaces like sewers and septic tanks, is banned in India. But the practice is still commonplace, with people forced into it because of rigid caste rules and the lack of other livelihood options. It has led to 339 deaths over the past five years, usually due to asphyxiation. | | | | Roxy Gagdekar Chhara, BBC News Gujarati |
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| In a dimly lit hut in the western Indian state of Gujarat, Anjana cradles her baby boy, her eyes welling up as she says he is named after his father. Anjana's husband Umesh Bamaniya died in April, 10 days before his son was born, while cleaning a choked sewer - a job that would've earned him 2,000 rupees (£19; $24). His body, enveloped in sewage, was retrieved from a manhole in Gujarat's Tharad town. He was just 23 years old.
The loss of her husband, the family's breadwinner, has left Anjana devastated. "How will I raise my children and educate them?" she asks. |
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| | | | Beyond the headlines | | The disinformation harming grieving families | | | | There have been brazen attempts to downplay or deny violence committed against children in the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Source: Family handouts. |
| | Omer Siman-Tov was living in Kibbutz Nir Oz, Omar Bilal al-Banna was living in Gaza. Both were killed in the first week of the Israel-Gaza war. But their deaths have been denied by social media users on each side of the conflict, falsely claiming Omar was "a doll" and Omer "a paid actor". Disinformation and social media correspondent Marianna Spring talked to the grieving families hurt by lies. | | | | |
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| | | | Something different | | Tipping point | | Touch-screens are changing the way people tip, stoking guilt and confusion. | | |
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| | | | And finally... | | Students of science might recall Lavoisier's law according to which "nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed". British artist David Shrigley took it to the next level, pulping 6,000 copies of the Da Vinci Code to print 1,200 copies of George Orwell's 1984. The book will be sold in a charity shop which, a few years ago, stopped accepting Dan Brown's conspiracy thriller. You might find the price a bit steep, but it's a collectors' item after all. |
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| | | | | | Essential List Newsletter | | The week’s best stories, handpicked by BBC editors, in your inbox every Friday. | | |
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– Jules |
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