| | | | | | | Hello. There have been significant developments in Gaza over the weekend, as Israeli forces push in the south of the Strip. We have all the updates. In South Africa, as the country is looking forward to an election year, my colleague Fergal Keane is reporting on a region facing a rise in political violence. On the lighter side of news, I have some stories on Gen Z lexicon and panda logistics. |
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| | | | Top of the agenda | | Israel army 'in all areas of Gaza' | | | | A Palestinian boy carrying a toddler amid rubble in Rafah, southern Gaza. Credit: Reuters |
| | After three days of heavy bombardment, Israeli ground forces are pushing into the south of Gaza. "We fought strongly and thoroughly in the northern Gaza Strip, and we are also doing it now in the southern Gaza Strip," Lt Gen Herzi Halevi told Israel Defense Forces reservists on Sunday night. Their focus is the city of Khan Younis, where Hamas leaders are believed to be hiding out, according to Israel's public broadcaster. It's also where hundreds of thousands of Gazans have been displaced over the past seven weeks. Hospital staff there say the facility is "overwhelmed" with casualties. "This is the worst bombardment of the war," said James Elder, a spokesman for UN children's agency Unicef, who is in Khan Younis. While an adviser to Israel’s PM said his country was making “maximum effort” to avoid civilian casualties, Mr Elder said Gazans warned to evacuate areas had “nowhere to go”. | | • | Where is Khan Younis?: Here's a map showing the largest city in southern Gaza, alongside the latest updates from our live page. | | • | On another front: A US warship shot down three drones coming from Houthi-held Yemen, after three commercial vessels came under attack in the Red Sea, the US military has said. | | • | At least 115 left in Gaza: 21-year-old Jonathan Samerano, who has been missing since 7 October, has been reported dead. Here are the hostages it's thought remain captive. |
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| | | | | | World headlines | | • | Indonesian volcano: Eleven hikers have been found dead near the crater of the Mount Marapi volcano, after it erupted over the weekend, rescuers say. Footage shows the volcano spewing a huge tower of ash 3km (around 10,000ft) into the air. | | • | Paris attack: The mother of a man suspected of stabbing a German tourist to death and injuring two others, near the Eiffel Tower, had reported concerns about her son weeks earlier, a prosecutor has said. | | • | Territorial dispute: Venezuelans have voted overwhelmingly in favour of claiming the disputed oil-rich territory of Essequibo, long controlled by neighbouring Guyana, according to officials. | | • | Streaming struggles: Swedish music giant Spotify is cutting 1,500 jobs, or about 17% of its workforce, as the company seeks to bring down on costs. | | • | Billie Eilish: The seven-time Grammy-winning singer has asked people to stop discussing her sexuality, after accusing a magazine of "outing" her. |
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| | AT THE SCENE | KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa | | Murders, hit-men and a looming election | | South Africa will hold general elections in 2024, 30 years after its transition from apartheid to a democratic state. But political violence is on the rise in the eastern coastal province of KwaZulu-Natal. Now, the killings are frequently carried out by hit-men for hire. | | | | Thembinkosi Lombo may not have known the man who gunned him down - but he may well have known the person who ordered the hit. The 35-year-old local councillor from South Africa's governing African National Congress (ANC) was shot dead in Greytown, in KwaZulu-Natal, last year. His mother Lindeni Lombo, 75, tells us she believes the assassination was an inside job. "He did tell me that from time to time there were cars that were suspicious that would follow him around," she says. "My son told me that within the ANC there was some rivalry - those who were anti- and those who were pro-him." |
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| | | | Beyond the headlines | | How do you transport two giant pandas? | | | | The pandas will leave Edinburgh on Monday, but their exact departing time is kept secret. Credit: PA |
| | It's the big transfer of the week. After a 12-year loan to Edinburgh Zoo, Yang Guang and Tian Tian are going back to China. But moving two massive panda bears from one continent to another is no small feat. It takes bespoke crates, a secret timetable and, obviously, fresh cut bamboo. | | | | |
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| | | | Something different | | Making green 'sexy' | | How meat-loving Danes are switching to plant-based food. | | |
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| | | | And finally... | | In the BBC newsroom, I'm lucky enough to be sitting next to veteran journalists keen to share the lessons of their decades-long experience with me. But this morning, they were more interested in asking their millennial colleague whether he knew the word "rizz". (I did.) The internet-born slang term was named "word of the year" by Oxford University Press, beating "situationship", "Swiftie" and "prompt" - in the context of AI. |
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| | | | | | Influential with Katty Kay | | In-depth and unexpected conversations with today’s change makers. | | |
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– Jules |
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