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Heavy rains lash UAE and surrounding nations as the death toll in Oman flooding rises to 18
Heavy rains lashed the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, flooding out portions of major highways and leaving vehicles abandoned on roadways across Dubai. Meanwhile, the death toll in separate heavy flooding in neighboring Oman rose to 18 with others still missing as the sultanate prepared for the storm.
The rains began overnight, leaving massive ponds on streets as whipping winds disrupted flights at Dubai International Airport, the world's busiest for international travel and the home of the long-haul carrier Emirates.
Police and emergency personnel drove slowly through the flooded streets, their emergency lights flashing across the darkened morning. Lightning flashed across the sky, occasionally touching the tip of the Burj Khalifa, the world's tallest building.
Schools across the UAE, a federation of seven sheikhdoms, largely shut ahead of the storm and government employees were largely working remotely if able. Many workers stayed home as well, though some ventured out, with the unfortunate stalling out their vehicles in deeper-than-expected water covering some roads.
Authorities sent tanker trucks out into the streets and highways to pump away the water.
Rain is unusual in the UAE, an arid, Arabian Peninsula nation, but occurs periodically during the cooler winter months. Many roads and other areas lack drainage given the lack of regular rainfall, causing flooding.
Initial estimates suggested over 30 millimeters (1 inch) of rain fell over the morning in Dubai, with as much as 128 mm (5 inches) of rain expected throughout the day.
Rain also fell in Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.
In neighboring Oman, a sultanate that rests on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, at least 18 people had been killed in heavy rains in recent days, according to a statement Tuesday from the country's National Committee for Emergency Management. That includes some 10 schoolchildren swept away in a vehicle with an adult, which saw condolences come into the country from rulers across the region.
World leaders urge restraint as Israel says it will respond to Iran’s attack
Israel’s military chief said Monday that the country will respond after Iran launched an attack involving hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles. World leaders are urging Israel not to retaliate.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says “all sides must show restraint” to avoid a rising spiral of violence in the Middle East. French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris will try to “convince Israel that we must not respond by escalating.”
The Iranian attack on Saturday marked the first time Iran has launched a direct military assault on Israel, despite decades of enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. The attack happened less than two weeks after a suspected Israeli strike in Syria that killed two Iranian generals in an Iranian consular building.
An Israeli military spokesman said that 99% of the drones and missiles launched by Iran were intercepted.
Israel and Iran have been on a collision course throughout Israel’s six-month war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. The war erupted after Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two militant groups backed by Iran, carried out a devastating cross-border attack on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others.
An Israeli offensive in Gaza has caused widespread devastation and killed over 33,700 people, according to local health officials.
Israel’s military chief says the country will respond to Iran’s missile strike over the weekend.
Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said Monday that Israel is still considering its steps. But he said the Iranian strike of missiles and attack drones “will be met with a response.”
Who gained what from Iran's unprecedented attack on Israel
Halevi spoke during a visit to the Nevatim air base, which Israel says suffered light damage in the Iranian attack.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been huddling with top officials to discuss a possible response
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators blocked a freeway leading to three Chicago O’Hare International Airport terminals Monday morning, temporarily stopping vehicle traffic into one of the nation’s busiest airports and causing headaches for travelers.
Protesters linked arms and blocked lanes of Interstate 190 around 7 a.m., a demonstration they said was part of a global “economic blockade to free Palestine,” according to Rifqa Falaneh, one of the organizers. Similar demonstrations blocking a freeway in California’s Bay Area also took place Monday.
O’Hare warned travelers on the social platform X to take alternative forms of transportation with car travel “substantially delayed this morning due to protest activity.”
A United Nations Security Council meeting on Yemen on Monday touched on the risk of escalation after Iran’s attack on Israel.
Diplomats are calling this “a particularly dangerous moment in the Middle East,” as U.N. special envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg said.
“The need for broader regional de-escalation is acute,” he added. “I share the secretary-general’s alarm about the very real danger of regionwide escalation and his urging to all parties for maximum restraint.”
A U.N. Security Council emergency meeting Sunday to discuss the attack ended without any action taken.
“Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said. “Now is the time for maximum restraint.”
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak says “all sides must show restraint” to avoid a rising spiral of violence in the Middle East.
Sunak on Monday condemned Iran’s attack on Israel as “a reckless and dangerous escalation.” He said he would speak to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to express the U.K.’s solidarity with Israel “and to discuss how we can prevent further escalation.”
Britain is urging Israel to refrain from a retaliatory strike. Sunak told lawmakers in the House of Commons that “we want to see calmer heads prevail.”
Israeli military tells Palestinians not to return to north Gaza after witnesses say troops kill 5
He said Israel’s security is “non-negotiable,” but added that the conflict in Gaza must be brought to an end, and the world “must invest more deeply in the two-state solution.”
Iran had about 150 ballistic missiles capable of reaching Israel from Iranian territory, and appears to have used up most of that current stockpile in its weekend attack, retired Gen. Frank McKenzie, the former head of U.S. CENTCOM said Monday.
McKenzie discussed the attack in a panel discussion with the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, a Washington-based think tank and lobbying group.
McKenzie argued that Iran’s expenditure of those 150 long-range missiles, out of a total ballistic missile stockpile of about 3,000, showed that Iran’s barrage on Israel “was a maximum effort. It was an indiscriminate effort.”
The U.S. and its partners in the region are easily able to track when Iran brings its ballistic missiles out of storage and positions them on launch pads, he said.
When Iran launches, deep space sensors detect that immediately, he said. Radars in the region then catch when any missiles break the radar plane, he said.
Especially given the distance involved, “it is hard for Iran to generate a bolt from the blue against Israel,” McKenzie said.
The Kremlin is “extremely concerned” about the situation in the Middle East, its spokesman said Monday.
Dmitry Peskov told his daily conference call with reporters that Moscow urges “all countries in the region to show restraint.”
“Further escalation is in no one’s interests. Therefore, of course, we advocate that all disagreements be resolved exclusively by political and diplomatic methods,” Peskov said.
AUSTRIAN FOREIGN MINISTER CONDEMNS IRAN’S ATTACK
Austria’s foreign minister has spoken with his Iranian counterpart to condemn Tehran’s attack on Israel and call on Iran to rein in its proxies in the Middle East.
Alexander Schallenberg said in a statement he told Iran’s Hossein Amirabdollahian on Monday that “we cannot afford another front in the Middle East. There would only be losers, in the region and beyond.”
Schallenberg said he also urged Amirabdollahian to “exercise Iran’s influence on proxies in the region.”
Austria hosted talks on Iran’s nuclear agreement with world powers in 2015.
Amirabdollahian already spoke on Sunday with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. A spokesperson for Baerbock, Christian Wagner, said Iran’s ambassador to Germany was summoned to the Foreign Ministry in Berlin on Monday.
OIL PRICES FALL AFTER IRAN’S STRIKE ON ISRAEL IS THWARTED
Oil prices fell Monday after Iran’s missile and drone strike failed to cause widespread damage in Israel and the U.S. administration made it clear it did not support a wider war with Iran.
Analysts say the chief risk to oil prices from the Israel-Hamas war is if the conflict escalates and disrupts oil supplies from Iran and Persian Gulf producers through the Strait of Hormuz choke point.
The stance taken by Iran, which said the matter “can be deemed concluded” with the retaliatory strikes, and the U.S. position reassured oil traders, who sent the price of international benchmark Brent crude 0.7% lower to $89.82 per barrel in Monday morning trading. That is below the levels just above $90 per barrel seen on Friday before the weekend attacks.
World leaders urge Israel not to retaliate for the Iranian drone and missile attack
Risks that could send prices higher include any Israeli strike against Iranian oil facilities or tougher enforcement of sanctions against Iran by the U.S. “Any retaliation by Israel ... especially one that targets Iran’s oil facilities, will have major implications for energy markets,” said analysts at S&P Global.
Tougher sanctions enforcement against Iranian oil shipments by the U.S. could raise oil prices but would risk higher inflation and pump prices for U.S. motorists in an election year.
4 ISRAELI SOLDIERS WOUNDED IN A BLAST ALONG THE BORDER WITH LEBANON
The Israeli military says four soldiers were wounded by an explosion along the northern border with Lebanon.
The military said that the source of the explosion, which occurred overnight, was still unclear. It left one soldier severely wounded, two moderately wounded, and one with light injuries.
The Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah said Monday that mines they set up in southern Lebanon near the border detonated after Israeli ground troops encroached on Lebanese territory, incurring casualties.
The incident comes as tensions in the region soared after an Iranian air assault was thwarted by Israel and its allies. Israel has not said whether it will respond.
Since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza on Oct. 7, concerns have grown that near-daily clashes along the border between Israel and Hezbollah could escalate into a full-scale war.
GERMAN CHANCELLOR CALLS ON ISRAEL TO CONTRIBUTE TO DE-ESCALATION
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is calling on Israel to “contribute to de-escalation” in the Middle East following Iran’s attack on the country.
Scholz told reporters in Shanghai on Monday that “Iran must stop this aggression.”
Asked whether he will attempt to dissuade Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from a military response to Saturday night’s attack, he said there’s widespread agreement that Israel’s success in largely repelling the attack with allies’ help was “really impressive.”
He added that “this is a success that perhaps also should not be thrown away. Hence also our advice to contribute to de-escalation themselves.”
Germany is a staunch ally of Israel.
AFRICAN GOVERNMENTS URGE ISRAEL, IRAN TO AVOID ESCALATION
Some African governments are urging Israel and Iran to avoid an escalation of the conflict.
While Iran’s attack on Israel “represents a real and present threat to international peace and security,” Israel should “show utmost restraint” in its response, President William Ruto of Kenya said in a statement posted on social platform X.
The warring parties “must exercise the utmost restraint and avoid any act that would escalate tensions in a particularly fragile region,” South Africa’s government said in a statement Sunday.
Nigeria’s Foreign Ministry urged Israel and Iran to “reflect on the universal commitment to peaceful resolution of conflicts.”
GAZA HEALTH MINISTRY REPORTS 68 DEAD IN LAST 24 HOURS
The Health Ministry in Gaza on Monday said the bodies of 68 people killed in Israel’s bombardment have been brought to hospitals in the past 24 hours. Another 94 were wounded, it said.
The fresh fatalities brought the death toll in the strip to 33,797 since the war began on Oct. 7, it said. The ministry doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants, but said two thirds of the dead are children and women.
Another 76,456 were wounded in the war, the ministry said.
The ministry said many casualties remain under the rubble and first responders have been unable to retrieve them amid the relentless bombing.
Israel launched its war on Hamas after the militant group’s complex attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7. Israeli authorities say 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed and roughly 250 people taken hostage in the attack. Israel says it has killed 12,000 militants in its offensive, without providing evidence.
ISRAELI MILITARY WARNS PALESTINIANS NOT TO RETURN TO NORTHERN GAZA
The Israeli military renewed warnings on Monday for Palestinians in Gaza not to return to the embattled territory’s north, a day after five people were killed trying to reach their homes in the war-torn area.
The shadow war between Iran and Israel has been exposed. What happens next?
The military said Palestinians should stay in southern Gaza where they have been told to shelter because the north is a “dangerous combat zone,” Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on social platform X.
On Sunday, hundreds of Palestinians sheltering in central Gaza headed north in an attempt to return to their homes. Throngs of people were seen crowding a seaside road.
Hospital authorities in Gaza said five people were shot by Israeli forces while trying to head north. The Israeli military had no immediate comment and the precise circumstances behind the deaths were not immediately clear.
The returnees said they were prompted to make the journey north because they were fed up with the difficult conditions they are forced to live under while displaced.
Northern Gaza was an early target in Israel’s war against Hamas, which it launched in response to the militant group’s deadly Oct. 7 attack. The military is still operating in the north in a bid to stamp out militants that have regrouped.
Vast parts of northern Gaza have been flattened by Israel’s offensive and much of its population displaced.
BRITISH FOREIGN SECRETARY URGES ISRAEL TO AVOID STRIKING BACK AT IRAN
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has urged Israel “to be smart as well as tough” and avoid striking back at Iran in response to its drone and missile barrage.
Cameron told the BBC that the U.K. does not support a retaliatory strike. The U.K.’s top diplomat said the attack had been a defeat for Iran and echoed President Joe Biden, who urged Israel to “take the win.”
Cameron said Britain’s message to Israel is: “Now is the time to be smart as well as tough, to think with head as well as heart.”
He said British fighter jets had played an “important part” in shooting down some of the more than 300 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones fired at Israel from Iran, but did not provide details.
MACRON SAYS IRAN’S ATTACK ON ISRAEL WAS A ‘DISPROPORTIONATE RESPONSE’
French President Emmanuel Macron said Iran’s attack on Israel was a “disproportionate response” to the bombing of its consulate in the Syrian capital, Damascus. Firing a barrage of missiles and drones on Israel was an “unprecedented, very dangerous” act in the volatile Middle East, Macron said of Saturday’s attacks.
Speaking to French media BFMTV and RMC on Monday, Macron said that France had carried out “interceptions” of missiles that Iran aimed at Israel at the request of Jordan.
“We have condemned, we have intervened, we will do everything to avoid an escalation, an inferno,” Macron said.
He said France will try to “convince Israel that we must not respond by escalating.”
Instead of retaliating by attacking Tehran, France will work to “isolate Iran, increase sanctions and find a path to peace in the region,” Macron said.
GERMAN FM TELLS IRANIAN COUNTERPART NOT TO FURTHER ESCALATE TENSIONSGermany’s foreign minister says she has made “unmistakably” clear to her Iranian counterpart that Tehran must not further escalate tensions in the Middle East.
Annalena Baerbock spoke by phone Sunday with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, following a previous conversation last week before Iran’s attack on Israel. She said she “warned him unmistakably against a further escalation.”
She said at a news conference in Paris on Monday that “Iran is isolated.” She added that “Israel won in a defensive way” thanks to its strong air defense and the intervention of the U.S., Britain and Arab countries.
Baerbock said that “it is now important to secure this defensive victory diplomatically” and prevent a regional confrontation.
Asked whether Israel has the right to strike back against Iran, Baerbock said that “the right to self-defense means fending off an attack; retaliation is not a category in international law.” She said she had made that point to Amirabdollahian last week.
Who gained what from Iran's unprecedented attack on Israel
Iran’s direct attack on Israel over the weekend upended decades of its shadowy warfare by proxy, something Tehran has used to manage international repercussions for its actions. But with both economic and political tensions at home boiling, the country’s Shiite theocracy chose a new path as changes loom for the Islamic Republic.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will mark his 85th birthday Friday, with no clear successor in sight and still serving as the final arbiter of every decision Iran makes. Coming to power in the wake of Iran’s devastating eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, Khamenei preached for years about “strategic patience” in confronting his government’s main rivals, Israel and the United States, to avoid open combat.
That saw Iran invest more deeply in regional militia forces to harass Israel — such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip or Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia — and contain the U.S., like with the militias that planted devastating improvised explosives that killed American troops during the Iraq war. That’s extended even into impoverished Yemen, where Iran’s arming of the Houthi rebels empowered their takeover of the capital and checkmated a Saudi-led coalition still trapped in a yearslong war there.
That strategy changed Saturday. After days of warnings, Iran launched 170 bomb-carrying drones, more than 30 cruise missiles and more than 120 ballistic missiles toward Israel, according to an Israeli count. Those weapons included the same bomb-carrying drones Iran supplied to Russia for its grinding war on Ukraine.
Despite Israel and the U.S. describing 99% of those projectiles being shot down, Iran has called the attack a success. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said Monday the attack was “to deter, punish and warn the Zionist regime.” Khamenei himself had called for Iran to “punish” Israel as well.
The trigger for the attack came April 1, when a suspected Israeli strike hit a consular annex building by Iran’s Embassy in Damascus, Syria, killing at least 12, including a top commander of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard’s expeditionary Quds Forces.
However, for years, Iran and Israel have been targeting each other’s interests across the Middle East.
Israel is suspected of assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists and sabotaging atomic sites in the Islamic Republic. In Syria, Israel has repeatedly bombed airports likely to interrupt Iranian weapons shipments, as well as killed other Guard officers. Meanwhile, Iran is suspected of carrying out a host of bombings and gun attacks targeting Jews and Israeli interests over the decades.
But the embassy attack struck a nerve with the Iranian government.
“Attacking our consulate is like attacking our soil,” Khamenei said April 10.
It also comes amid a moment filled with uncertainty for Iran. As Khamenei grows older, power has become ever-more consolidated in the country.
Hard-liners control every lever of power within both security services and political bodies, with none of the relative moderates who once shepherded Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers into existence.
That includes former President Hassan Rouhani, who led the effort. Authorities barred Rouhani earlier this year from running again to hold his seat on the Assembly of Experts, the 88-cleric body that will pick Iran’s next supreme leader.
The hard-liners’ grip on power has seen voter turnout drop to its lowest level since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Their stranglehold also leaves them as the only political faction to blame as the public remains incensed by Iran’s collapsing economy.
The nuclear deal’s demise, after former President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord in 2018, has seen Iran’s rial currency tumble. The rial now seesaws near record lows, trading Monday at 658,000 to the dollar — down from 32,000 at the time the agreement was reached nearly a decade ago.
Already, prosecutors in Tehran have begun a criminal investigation into the Jahan-e Sanaat newspaper and a journalist over a story on the possible economic impact of Iran’s attack on Israel. The judiciary’s Mizan news agency described the report as “disturbing the psychological security of society and making the country’s economic atmosphere turbulent.”
His case comes as other journalists and activists report being summoned by authorities, portending a new crackdown on any sign of dissent in the country.
There are also signs that authorities appear to be preparing for a new push at enforcing the country’s mandatory headscarf, or hijab, laws for women.
“The Tehran police — as in all other provinces — will start to confront all lawbreaking with regard to the hijab,” said Tehran police chief Brig. Gen. Abbas Ali Mohammadian, according to the semiofficial ISNA news agency.
Some women in Tehran still walk through the streets with their hair uncovered, a continued protest since the nationwide 2022 demonstrations over the death of Mahsa Amini, arrested by police for not wearing a hijab to their liking. United Nations investigators say Iran was responsible for Amini’s death and violently put down largely peaceful protests in a monthslong security crackdown that killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.
A new push for hijab enforcement may reignite that anger, particularly in Tehran. Meanwhile, rumors persist that the government may soon raise the country’s heavily subsidized gasoline prices. A price increase in 2019 grew into nationwide antigovernment protests that reportedly saw over 300 people killed and thousands arrested.
Those tensions, coupled with hard-liners’ grip on power and Khamenei’s age, signal more changes loom for the country. And while Iran said of its attack Saturday that “the matter can be deemed concluded” even before missiles reached Israel, that doesn’t mean there won’t be further retaliation from the country.
Israeli military tells Palestinians not to return to north Gaza after witnesses say troops kill 5
The Israeli military renewed warnings Monday for Palestinians not to return to northern Gaza, a day after witnesses and medical officials said Israeli troops opened fire and killed five people among throngs of displaced residents trying to walk back to their homes in the devastated area.
Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were driven from the north after Israeli forces first launched their offensive there soon after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel. In the months of fighting since, vast parts of the north have been flattened, including much of Gaza City. After months of Israeli restrictions on aid to the north, the some 300,000 who remained there are on the brink of famine, according to the U.N.
Still, many Palestinians have wanted to go back, saying they are sick of the conditions of their lives in displacement. For months, families have been crammed into tent camps, schools-turned-shelters and homes of relatives throughout the south. Some also fear remaining in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost town, as Israel says it plans to attack it eventually to root out Hamas.
Israel, which has reduced the number of its troops across Gaza, has repeatedly rejected calls to let Palestinians back to the north, saying Hamas militants continue to operate there. The military says it has loosened the militants' control over the north, but it is still carrying out airstrikes and raids against what it says are reorganizing militants. Last month, Israeli troops raided Gaza’s main hospital, Shifa, in two weeks of fighting that left the facility in ruins.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Palestinians should stay in southern Gaza because the north is a “dangerous combat zone.”
People appeared to be heeding the new warning, especially after Sunday’s shootings.
On Sunday, thousands of Palestinians tried going up Gaza’s coastal road back to the north, most on foot and some on the backs of donkey carts. Some said they had heard rumors that Israeli troops were allowing people to enter the north.
“We want our homes. We want our lives. We want to return, whether with a truce or without a truce,” said Um Nidhal Khatab, who was among those trying to return home.
Several witnesses said Israeli troops opened fire as the crowds neared checkpoints at Wadi Gaza, the line that the military has drawn separating northern Gaza from the rest of the territory. Five people were killed and 54 wounded, according to officials at nearby Awda Hospital in central Gaza, where the casualties were brought.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment. It was not clear what triggered the shooting.
Farida Al-Ghoul, 27, said that as she and her family neared the checkpoint, she saw a woman rushing back with blood on her telling them not to continue. Ignoring her, they kept going ahead, but soon there was heavy gunfire and shelling around them. She said she saw Israeli troops shooting.
She and another witness said the troops were letting some women and children through to go north but opened fire when some young men tried to pass.
“People on the side were falling down,” al-Ghoul said. “When we saw these scenes, we decided to turn back and never try again.”
Karam Abu Jasser said he, his wife and four children, were among the crowd and they heard gunshots and shelling from up ahead at the checkpoint. “People were panicked, especially women and children. There were many women and children. We ran away,” Abu Jasser said, speaking from a shelter in central Gaza.
He said his family wanted to return home to the Jabalia refugee camp in the north, even though they know their house was hit and damaged.
“We’ll have to live in a tent, but it will be at our home,” he said. “There is bombing everywhere in Gaza. If we will die, it’s better to die in our home.”
The return of the population to northern Gaza has been a key sticking point between Israel and Hamas in negotiations underway for a cease-fire deal that would bring the release of hostages taken by Hamas. Israel wants to try to delay the return to prevent militants from regrouping in the north, while Hamas says it wants a free flow of returnees.
The war has had a staggering toll on civilians in Gaza, with most of the territory’s 2.3 million people displaced by the fighting and living in dire circumstances, with little food and often in tents and no end in sight to their misery. Large swaths of the urban landscape have been damaged or destroyed, leaving many displaced Palestinians with nowhere to return to.
Six months of fighting in Gaza have pushed the tiny Palestinian territory into a humanitarian crisis, leaving more than 1 million people on the brink of starvation.
Famine is said to be imminent in the hard-hit north, where aid has struggled to reach because of the fighting. Israel has opened a new crossing for aid trucks into the north as it ramps up aid deliveries to the besieged enclave. However, the United Nations says the surge of aid is not being felt in Gaza because of persistent distribution difficulties.
The U.N. food agency on Monday said it managed to deliver fuel and wheat flour to a bakery in isolated Gaza City in the north for the first time since the war started.
The conflict started on Oct. 7, when Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, in a surprise attack and incursion into southern Israel. Around 250 people were seized as hostages by the militants and taken to Gaza. A deal in November freed about 100 hostages, leaving about 130 in captivity, although Israel says about a quarter of those are dead.
Israeli bombardments and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 33,700 Palestinians and wounded over 76,200, the Gaza Health Ministry says. Women and children make up around two-thirds of the dead, according to the ministry, whose count doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Israel says it has killed over 12,000 militants during the war, but it has not provided evidence to back up the claim.
Your morning coffee may be more than a half million years old
That coffee you slurped this morning? It’s 600,000 years old.
Using genes from coffee plants around the world, researchers built a family tree for the world's most popular type of coffee, known to scientists as Coffea arabica and to coffee lovers simply as “arabica.”
The researchers, hoping to learn more about the plants to better protect them from pests and climate change, found that the species emerged around 600,000 years ago through natural crossbreeding of two other coffee species.
“In other words, prior to any intervention from man,” said Victor Albert, a biologist at the University at Buffalo who co-led the study.
These wild coffee plants originated in Ethiopia but are thought to have been first roasted and brewed primarily in Yemen starting in the 1400s. In the 1600s, Indian monk Baba Budan is fabled to have smuggled seven raw coffee beans back to his homeland from Yemen, laying the foundation for coffee’s global takeover.
Arabica coffee, prized for its smooth and relatively sweet flavor, now makes up 60% - 70% of the global coffee market and is brewed by brands such as Starbucks, Tim Horton's and Dunkin'. The rest is robusta, a stronger and more bitter coffee made from one of arabica's parents, Coffea canephora.
To piece together arabica coffee’s past, researchers studied genomes of C. canephora, another parent called Coffea eugenioides, and more than 30 different arabica plants, including a sample from the 1700s — courtesy of the Natural History Museum in London — that Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus used to name the plant.
The study was published Monday in the journal Nature Genetics. Researchers from Nestlé, which owns several coffee brands, contributed to the study.
The arabica plant’s population fluctuated over thousands of years before humans began cultivating it, flourishing during warm, wet periods and suffering through dry ones. These lean times created so-called population bottlenecks, when only a small number of genetically similar plants survived.
Today, that renders arabica coffee plants more vulnerable to diseases like coffee leaf rust, which cause billions of dollars in losses every year. The researchers explored the makeup of one arabica variety that is resistant to coffee leaf rust, highlighting sections of its genetic code that could help protect the plant.
The study clarifies how arabica came to be and spotlights clues that could help safeguard the crop, said Fabian Echeverria, an adviser for the Center for Coffee Research and Education at Texas A&M University who was not involved with the research.
Exploring arabica’s past and present could yield insight into keeping coffee plants healthy – and coffee cups full – for future early mornings.
World leaders urge Israel not to retaliate for the Iranian drone and missile attack
World leaders are urging Israel not to retaliate after Iran launched an attack involving hundreds of drones, ballistic missiles and cruise missiles.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron told the BBC on Monday the U.K. does not support a retaliatory strike, while French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris will try to “convince Israel that we must not respond by escalating.”
The shadow war between Iran and Israel has been exposed. What happens next?
The Iranian attack on Saturday, less than two weeks after a suspected Israeli strike in Syria that killed two Iranian generals in an Iranian consular building, marked the first time Iran has launched a direct military assault on Israel, despite decades of enmity dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
An Israeli military spokesman said that 99% of the drones and missiles launched by Iran were intercepted.
Iran’s attack on Israel: What are the takeaways?
Israel and Iran have been on a collision course throughout Israel’s six-month war against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip. The war erupted after Hamas and Islamic Jihad, two militant groups backed by Iran, carried out a devastating cross-border attack on Oct. 7 that killed 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others.
An Israeli offensive in Gaza has caused widespread devastation and killed over 33,000 people, according to local health officials.
Israel’s multilayered air-defense system protected it from Iran’s drone and missile strike
Australian police probe why man who stabbed 6 people to death in a Sydney mall targeted women
Australian police are examining why a lone assailant who stabbed six people to death in a busy Sydney shopping mall and injured more than a dozen others targeted women while avoiding men, a police commissioner said on Monday.
Police shot and killed the homeless assailant, Joel Cauchi, during his knife attack in the Westfield Bondi Junction mall on Saturday near world-famous Bondi Beach.
Police have ruled out terrorism and said the 40-year-old had a history of mental illness.
New South Wales state Police Commissioner Karen Webb said detectives would question Cauchi’s family in a bid to determine his motive. CCTV footage from the mall showed Cauchi targeted women.
“The videos speak for themselves, don’t they? And that’s certainly a line of inquiry for us,” Webb told Australian Broadcasting Corp.
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“It’s obvious to me, it’s obvious to detectives that that seems to be an area of interest: that the offender had focused on women and avoided the men,” Webb added.
The only male killed was Faraz Tahir, a Pakistani refugee who worked at the mall as a security guard. Tahir had not been armed.
Most of the 12 victims who survived their wounds were also women, Webb said.
The evidence will be provided to a coroner to report on the circumstances of the deaths.
Webb expected the coroner would also address the question of whether security guards at the mall, which is one of Australia’s largest, should be armed.
The families of two victims based overseas had been advised of their deaths, police said. Those victims are Tahir, 30, from Pakistan, and Yixuan Cheng, 27, from China. Also killed were Jade Young, 47; Dawn Singleton, 25; Pikria Darchia, 55; and Ashlee Good, 38.
Eight victims who survived their injuries remained in hospitals on Monday, including Good’s 9-month-old daughter. The baby’s condition improved overnight Sunday from critical to serious, health authorities said.
The conditions of the other seven ranged from critical to stable.
Flags on government buildings around Australia flew at half-staff on Monday as a day of national mourning was declared to honor the victims. A black ribbon will appear on the sails of the Sydney Opera House on Monday night has part of a light display.
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Police had given control of the seven-story crime scene back to the mall operators on Sunday night, but a decision has yet to be announced on when it will reopen for business.
The police officer who has been credited with saving many lives by shooting Cauchi dead, Insp. Amy Scott, will be interviewed by detectives on Tuesday.
In Modi’s India, opponents and journalists feel the squeeze ahead of election
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government are increasingly wielding strong-arm tactics to subdue political opponents and critics of the ruling Hindu-nationalist party.
A decade into power, and on the cusp of securing five more years, the Modi government is reversing India’s decadeslong commitment to multiparty democracy and secularism.
The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party has brought corruption charges against many officials from its main rival, the Congress Party, but few convictions. Dozens of politicians from other opposition parties are under investigation or in jail. And just last month, Modi’s government froze the Congress party’s bank accounts for what it said was non-payment of taxes.
The Modi administration says the country’s investigating agencies are independent and that its democratic institutions are robust, pointing to high voter turnout in recent elections that have delivered Modi’s party a clear mandate.
Yet civil liberties are under attack. Peaceful protests have been crushed with force. A once free and diverse press is threatened. Violence is on the rise against the Muslim minority. And the country’s judiciary increasingly aligns with the executive branch.
To better understand how Modi is reshaping India and what is at stake in an election that begins April 19 and runs through June 1, the AP spoke with a lawyer, a journalist, and an opposition politician.
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Here are their stories:
DEFENDING MODI’S CRITICSMihir Desai has fought for the civil liberties and human rights of India’s most disadvantaged communities, such as the poor and Muslims, for nearly four decades.
The 65-year-old lawyer from India’s financial capital Mumbai is now working on one of his – and the country’s – most high-profile cases: defending a dozen political activists, journalists and lawyers jailed in 2018 on accusations of plotting to overthrow the Modi government. The accusations, he says, are baseless – just one of the government’s all-too-frequent and audacious efforts to silence critics.
One of the defendants in the case, a Jesuit priest and longtime civil rights activist, died at age 84 after about nine months in custody. The other defendants remain in jail, charged under anti-terror laws that rarely result in convictions.
“First authorities came up with a theory that they planned to kill Modi. Now they are being accused of being terrorist sympathizers,” he said.
The point of it all, Desai believes, is to send a message to any would-be critics.
According to digital forensics experts at U.S.-based Arsenal Consulting, the Indian government hacked into the computers of some of the accused and planted files that were later used as evidence against them.
To Desai, this is proof that the Modi government has “weaponized” the country’s once-independent investigative agencies.
He sees threats to Indian democracy all around him. Last year, the government removed the country’s chief justice as one of three people who appoint commissioners overseeing elections; Modi and the opposition leader in parliament are the others. Now, one of Modi’s cabinet ministers has a vote in the process, giving the ruling party a 2-1 majority.
“It’s a death knell to free and fair elections,” Desai said.
A POLITICIAN’S PLIGHT IN KASHMIRWaheed-Ur-Rehman Para, 35, was long seen as an ally in the Indian government’s interests in Kashmir. He worked with young people in the majority-Muslim, semi-autonomous region and preached to them about the benefits of embracing India and its democratic institutions – versus seeking independence, or a merger with Pakistan.
Beginning in 2018, though, Para was viewed with suspicion by the Modi government for alleged connections to anti-India separatists. Since then, he has been jailed twice: in 2019 on suspicion that he and other political opponents could stoke unrest; and in 2020 on charges of supporting militant groups -- charges he denies.
The accusations stunned Para, whose People’s Democratic Party once ruled Kashmir in an alliance with Modi’s party.
But he believes the motivation was clear: “I was arrested to forcibly endorse the government’s 2019 decision,” he said, referring to a clampdown on the resistance in Kashmir after the elimination of the region’s semi-autonomous status.
Modi’s administration argues the move was necessary to fully integrate the disputed region with India and foster economic development there.
After his 2020 arrest, Para remained in jail for nearly two years, often in solitary confinement, and was subjected to “abusive interrogations,’’ according to U.N. experts.
“My crime was that I wanted the integration of Kashmir, not through the barrel of the gun,” said Para, who is seeking to represent Kashmir’s main city in the upcoming election.
Para sees his own plight within the larger context of the Modi government’s effort to silence perceived opponents, especially those with ties to Muslims, who make up 14% of India’s population.
“It is a huge ethical question … that the largest democracy in the world is not able to assimilate, or offer dignity to, the smallest pocket of its people,” he said.
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The campaign to turn once-secular India into a Hindu republic may help Modi win elections in the short term, Para said, but something much bigger will be lost.
“It risks the whole idea of this country’s diversity,” he said.
A JOURNALIST FIGHTS CHARGESIn October 2020, independent journalist Sidheeq Kappan was arrested while trying to report on a government clampdown in the northern Uttar Pradesh state ruled by Modi’s party.
For days, authorities had been struggling to contain protests and outcry over a gruesome rape case. Those accused of the crime were four upper caste Hindu men, while the victim belonged to the Dalit community, the lowest rung of India’s caste hierarchy.
Kappan, a 44-year-old Muslim, was detained and jailed before he even reached the crime site, accused of intending to incite violence. After two years in jail, his case reached India’s top court in 2022. While he was quickly granted bail, the case against him is ongoing.
Kappan’s case is not unique, and he says it highlights how India is becoming increasingly unsafe for journalists. Under intense pressure from the state, many Indian news organizations have become more pliant and supportive of government policies,
“Those who have tried to be independent have come under relentless attack by the government,” he said.
Foreign journalists are banned from reporting in Kashmir, for example. Same goes for India’s northeast Manipur state, which has been embroiled in ethnic violence for almost a year.
Television news is increasingly dominated by stations touting the government’s Hindu nationalist agenda, such as a new citizenship law that excludes Muslim migrants. Independent TV stations have been temporarily shut down, and newspapers that run articles critical of Modi’s agenda find that any advertising from the government – an important source of revenue – quickly dries up.
Last year, the India offices of the BBC were raided on tax irregularities just days after it aired a documentary critical of Modi.
The advocacy group Reporters Without Borders ranks India 161st on a worldwide list of countries’ press freedoms.
Kappan said he has barely been able to report news since his arrest. The trial keeps him busy, requiring him to travel to a court hundreds of miles away every other week. The time and money required for his trial have made it difficult for him to support his wife and three children, Kappan said.
“It is affecting their education, their mental health,” he said.
The shadow war between Iran and Israel has been exposed. What happens next?
Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israel early Sunday marked a change in approach for Tehran, which had relied on proxies across the Middle East since the start of the Israel-Hamas war in October. All eyes are now on whether Israel chooses to take further military action, while Washington seeks diplomatic measures instead to ease regional tensions.
Iran says the attack was in response to an airstrike widely blamed on Israel that destroyed what Iran says were consular offices in Syria and killed two generals with its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard earlier this month.
Israel said almost all the over 300 drones and missiles launched overnight by Iran were shot down by its anti-missile defense system, backed by the U.S. and Britain. The sole reported casualty was a wounded girl in southern Israel, and a missile struck an Israeli airbase, causing light damage.
Still, the chief of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard called the operation successful.
Iran has managed to strike a balance between retaliating publicly for the strike in Damascus and avoiding provoking further Israeli military action leading to a much wider conflict, said Mona Yacoubian, vice president of the Middle East and North Africa center at the U.S. Institute of Peace.
“Both (Iran and Israel) are able at this point to claim victory and step down off the precipice, particularly since there were no Israeli civilians killed,” Yacoubian said.
The world was still waiting, however, for the result of an Israeli War Cabinet meeting on Sunday. Israeli hard-liners have pushed for a response. But others have suggested restraint, saying Israel should focus on strengthening budding ties with Arab partners.
“We will build a regional coalition and collect the price from Iran, in the way and at the time that suits us,” said Benny Gantz, a member of the War Cabinet.
Analysts say Iran sent a message that it would be willing to escalate and change its rules of engagement in its shadow war with Israel.
“It’s a warning shot, saying that if Israel breaks the rules, there are consequences,” said Magnus Ranstorp, strategic adviser at the Swedish Defense University.
Iran’s attack has further stoked fears of the war in Gaza causing regional havoc.
But Iran maintains that it does not seek all-out war across the region. Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that Iran has “no intention of continuing defensive operations” at this point unless it is attacked.
Iran stressed that it targeted Israeli facilities involved in the Damascus attack, not civilians or “economic areas.”
After Israel began its offensive in Gaza against Hamas, Iran-backed groups were involved militarily while Tehran sat on the sidelines. Lebanon’s Hezbollah group fired rockets into northern Israel. Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked Western ships on the Red Sea. An umbrella group of Iran-backed Iraqi militias attacked U.S. military positions in Iraq and Syria.
Now, Tehran is “willing to up to the ante” without relying on proxies, said the director of the Carnegie Middle East Center, Maha Yahya.
Still, Iran only went so far.
“They gave enough warning that this was coming, and I think they knew that they (the drones and missiles) would be brought down before they reached Israeli territory,” Yahya said.
She also noted that the recent mounting pressure on Israel over its conduct in Gaza has now shifted to deescalating regional tensions instead.
Israel taking further military action does not seem popular among its allies including the United States, said Eldad Shavit, who heads the Israel-U.S. Research Program at Israeli think tank the Institute for National Security Studies.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told NBC that President Joe Biden does not want an escalation in the regional conflict or a “wider war” with Iran, and is “working on the diplomatic side of this personally.”
Urgent meetings of the G7 — the informal gathering of industrialized countries that includes the United States, United Kingdom, and France — and the U.N. Security Council were being held Sunday.
Iran’s attack on Israel: What are the takeaways?
The unprecedented attack by Iran on Israel early Sunday ratcheted up regional tensions, confirming long-held fears about the Israel-Hamas war spiraling into a broader conflagration. But Iran, Israel, the United States and Hamas also walked away with some gains.
Here’s a look at the fallout.
ISRAEL’S RESPONSE COULD RESTORE FAITH IN ITS MILITARY
As the more than 300 drones and missiles headed toward Israel in the early hours of Sunday, the country was able to successfully put to the test its aerial defense array, which, along with help from allies, blocked 99% of the projectiles and prevented any major damage.
The shadow war between Iran and Israel has been exposed. What happens next?
By contrast, Israel’s military had suffered a bruising defeat at the hands of a far less equipped enemy when Hamas stormed from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7. That was a major blow to Israel’s image as a regional military powerhouse and shattered any sense of invincibility. The response to Iran’s attack could be what restores faith in the country’s military, even as its forces are bogged down in Gaza, more than six months after Israel declared war on Hamas there.
Israel has also boasted about the coalition of forces that helped it repel the Iranian assault. It’s a much-needed show of support at a time when Israel is at its most isolated because of concerns surrounding its conduct during the war against Hamas, including a worsening humanitarian crisis and a staggering death toll in Gaza.
IRAN SHOWS OFF ITS MIGHT
Iran vowed repeatedly that it would respond to an apparent Israeli strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus on April 1 that killed two generals. Sunday’s assault allowed Iran to show to its citizens that it won’t stand by when its assets are attacked and that it was serious when it threatened revenge.
Israel’s multilayered air-defense system protected it from Iran’s drone and missile strike
With its strike, Iran was able to exhibit its fierce firepower, instill fear in some Israelis and disrupt the lives of many through school cancellations. But with little damage actually caused in Israel, Iran might hope that any response will be measured. Several hours after it launched the drones and missiles, Iran said the operation was over.
THE UNITED STATES STOOD BY ISRAEL
The U.S. was a key player in repelling the assault, demonstrating to its allies around the world the power and reliability of American support.
Now, as Israel mulls how and whether to respond, that alliance will be put to the test, with the Biden administration seeking to exert its leverage on Israel and prevent it from carrying out a response that might worsen the conflict.
HAMAS MAY BENEFIT FROM IRAN’S DIRECT INVOLVEMENT
Hamas, which is backed by Iran, welcomed the strike on Israel. Since launching its Oct. 7 attack, Hamas had hoped that regional partners might come to its assistance and drag Israel into a broader war. While some have done — including the Iranian-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and Yemen’s Houthis — Iran had not directly entered the fray until Sunday.
Hamas could hope that the attack is the first salvo in deeper Iranian engagement in the war in Gaza. It also could hope that violence in the West Bank, where an Israeli teen was killed and settlers rampaged in Palestinian towns, continues to heat up. At the very least, Iran’s attack may have emboldened Hamas to dig in its heels in current negotiations over a cease-fire, hoping the increased military pressure on Israel might lead it to accept the militant group’s harder-line terms for a deal.