Plus: Mike Johnson gets the votes, and a mummy gets a facial reconstruction
| | | | | | | Hello. You might be wondering why Israel is calling for the resignation of UN Secretary General António Guterres. David Gritten looks at what sparked the dispute. Speaking to officials and civilians across Israel and the West Bank, international editor Jeremy Bowen pieces together the history of the decades-long conflict, and what might happen next, in a must-read piece. We also explore the question of how aliens might be able to detect life on Earth and admire the reconstructed face of Peru’s most famous mummy. |
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| | | | | | Questions Answered | | UN chief's dispute with Israel – explained | | | | Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen criticised António Guterres during the Security Council session. Credit: Reuters |
| | Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, has called for the resignation of UN Secretary-General António Guterres over comments about Hamas’s deadly 7 October attacks made during a Security Council session on Tuesday. The UN chief held a brief press conference today to clarify his remarks, saying he was “shocked by the misrepresentations.” Mr Erdan was not impressed, and said it was a “disgrace” that Mr Guterres did not retract his comments or apologise. Let’s take a step back and look at what happened. | | | | What did Mr Guterres say? | | Israeli officials have focused the criticism of the UN chief around a specific sentence. After telling the Security Council that he “condemned unequivocally the horrifying and unprecedented 7 October acts of terror” in Israel, he said: “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum.” | | What was Israel’s reaction? | | Ambassador Erdan characterised the remarks as expressing “an understanding for terrorism and murder” in a statement on Tuesday. Reacting to Mr Guterres’s press conference today, Mr Erdan reiterated: "Every person understands very well that the meaning of his words is that Israel has guilt for the actions of Hamas or, at the very least, it shows his understanding for the ‘background’ leading up to the massacre.” | | What happens next? | | Visiting Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he refused to meet Mr Guterres. Mr Erdan was quoted by news site Ynet as saying that Israel would withhold visas from UN officials: “Their [UN] agencies constantly need to bring in new people, certainly at a time like now. They will be refused." | | | | | | |
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| AT THE SCENE | Israel and the West Bank | | Fears of harder times ahead | | | | Palestinians at the funeral of Mahmoud Seif who was killed by the Israeli army in the West Bank Credit: Fred Scott | | More Palestinians and Israelis have been killed in the last two and a half weeks or so than in the entire second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, that lasted from 2000 until it petered out around the end of 2004. The ghosts of the past weigh heavily on an uncertain future. | | | | Jeremy Bowen, International editor |
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| I've spoken to a former Israeli leader in his office in a Tel Aviv high rise, and a senior Palestinian official in his office in a villa in Ramallah. I have heard an Israeli father at a vigil in Tel Aviv describe how his daughter's birthday cake was still in the fridge when his wife and three young children were taken by Hamas gunmen as hostages. What I have not been able to do is enter Gaza.
Among the different people I've met, Palestinians and Israelis as well as foreigners, I have had a single clear impression. A sense that the grim old routines that have settled on this long conflict since the end of the last intifada have been swept away by the enormity of events since 7 October, and replaced with a fear that what comes next will be even worse. |
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| | | | The big picture | | How aliens might find Earth | | | | The light pollution produced by our cities is visible from the ISS. Credit: Nasa/JSC |
| | If alien astronomers were looking for signs of life across galaxies, would they be able to spot us on planet Earth? Terrestrial scientists have been pondering that very question in recent years. | | | | |
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| | | For your downtime | | Word for Word | | Microsoft’s writing software, launched 40 years ago, has changed the way we communicate. | | |
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| | And finally... in Peru | | Known as "Juanita" or the "Inca Ice Maiden", Peru’s most famous mummy was an Inca girl who is thought to have been sacrificed in a ritual more than 500 years ago. Archaeologists have now been able to put a face to her name, building a silicon bust of what she would have looked like. See for yourself. |
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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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| | | Send me your thoughts on space exploration, majestic mummies and any suggestions for topics or areas of the world to cover in this newsletter. Tell your friends and family about it! They can sign up here.
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– Sofia |
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