First Thing: US charges Hamas leaders with terrorism and pushes for ‘final’ truce

As Benjamin Netanyahu refuses to bow to pressure, the US charges Hamas’s top leaders over their roles in the 7 October attack and says it is time to ‘finalize’ a deal to end the Gaza war

Good morning.

US officials unsealed criminal charges against Hamas’ top leaders over their roles in planning, supporting and perpetrating the 7 October attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, including more than 40 Americans.

The announcement of the charges yesterday came as the US state department said it was “time to finalize a deal” that would end the conflict that has killed more than 40,800 Palestinians and laid waste to much of the territory. Unprecedented protests – and a general strike on Monday – have erupted throughout Israel over the past few days in favor of a deal over the discovery of six murdered hostages in Gaza, one of whom was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli-American.

“We are investigating Hersh’s murder, and each and every one of Hamas’s brutal murders of Americans, as an act of terrorism,” said the US attorney general, Merrick Garland.

• Who is named in the complaint? The complaint names six defendants, three of whom are dead. The living defendants are Yahya Sinwar, the militant group’s chief, who is believed to be in hiding in Gaza; Khaled Meshaal, who is based in Doha and heads the group’s diaspora office; and Ali Baraka, a senior Hamas official based in Lebanon. The deceased defendants are former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was assassinated in July in Tehran; the military wing chief Mohammed Deif, who Israel said it killed in a July airstrike; and Marwan Issa, a deputy military commander, who Israel said it killed in a March strike.

• What does the complaint say? The complaint describes the massacre as the “most violent, large-scale terrorist attack” in Hamas’s history, detailing how Hamas operatives arrived in southern Israel with “trucks, motorcycles, bulldozers, speedboats, and paragliders” to engage in a brutal campaign of violence that included rape, genital mutilation and machine-gun shootings at close range.

• What has Benjamin Netanyahu’s stance been on ending the war? Netanyahu gave a televised address in response, during which he ruled out making any “concessions” in the stalled talks or “giving in to pressure” to end the war. His main political rival, Benny Gantz, has accused the Israeli prime minister of putting his personal interests before those of his country.

Zelenskiy reshuffles Ukraine cabinet

As Russia continued its relentless air barrage, killing seven in a missile attack in Lviv, Volodymyr Zelenskiy carried out the biggest government shake-up since start of the war in Ukraine, with his foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, resigning along with several other ministers and a presidential aide dismissed. Zelenskiy said this wide-ranging government reshuffle was meant to provide a “new strength” to the embattled country.

• Who else has resigned? Among other key ministers who are reported to have submitted resignations are Olha Stefanishyna, the deputy prime minister in charge of leading Ukraine’s push to join the EU, and Oleksandr Kamyshin, the minister for strategic industries, who oversees arms production and development.

• What is the reason for this reshuffling? The reshuffle has been portrayed as a political “reset” engineered by Zelenskiy and his close circle. Speaking in a video address on Tuesday evening, the president said he was refreshing his team before an “extremely important autumn”. He promised a “slightly different emphasis” in foreign and domestic policy.

In other news …

• A former aide to the New York governors Andrew Cuomo and Kathy Hochul was charged on Tuesday with acting as an undisclosed agent of the Chinese government, with federal prosecutors alleging that she blocked representatives of the Taiwanese government from having access to the governor’s office.

• The Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg has been arrested in Copenhagen at a protest against the war in Gaza.

• “Gigantic” landslides are threatening a California coastal town, where the governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency, prompting officials to cut power to hundreds of homes.

• A teenager in San Francisco has been charged with five offenses for allegedly shooting the San Francisco 49ers player Ricky Pearsall during a robbery attempt in the city’s shopping district.

• “Scamanda” – the US woman who earned the derisive nickname by faking a prolonged fight with terminal cancer – may have Munchausen syndrome, a psychological disorder that involves feigning illness to win others’ nurturing, prosecutors said.

Stat of the day: At least 280m birds have died worldwide from a highly infectious H5N1 strain of avian flu

A highly infectious H5N1 strain of avian flu has devastated poultry and caused the biggest sudden drop of the world’s wild bird population in decades. Of the millions of wild birds that have died since October 2021, tens of thousands have been from endangered and endemic species. Australia and New Zealand remain the only countries still free of outbreaks among wild birds. “It’s almost impossible for me to predict what’s going to flare up where,” said Prof Ashley Banyard, a virologist at the UK’s Animal and Plant Health Agency laboratory in Surrey, UK.

Don’t miss this: The drug gangsters turned podcasters

In Rio de Janeiro, a group of former drug gangsters who have collectively spent decades in jail have turned to podcasting as a way to stop younger generations from following the same law-breaking path. Each week, they talk to ex-offenders about how they embraced a life of crime, painting a wretched portrait of Rio’s seemingly inexorable slide into one of the world’s most deadly urban conflicts. “We want to teach young people that crime doesn’t pay,” said Alexander Mendes, 50, a former drug boss who was one of Rio’s most wanted men until his arrest in Paraguay in 2011.

… or this: how a natural gas project is upending residents’ lives

Since 2021, when Venture Global began construction on what will become one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas hubs along the Gulf coast, residents of Plaquemines parish, 70 miles south of New Orleans, say they have faced unreliable essential services, water shortages and impassible traffic. Venture Global has received permits to have up to 6,000 workers on-site at any one time, but the local sheriff’s office said up to 12,000 workers enter the parish each day, equivalent to about half of Plaquemines parish’s population, putting a strain on local resources including water, road space and emergency services.

Climate check: The children behind South Korea’s important climate win

Last week, youth activists in South Korea won an important victory after the constitutional court ruled that parts of the country’s climate law was unconstitutional for failing to protect the rights of future generations. But to campaigners, this is just the beginning. “Until now, Korea has responded to the climate crisis as if achieving targets alone was a success,” said Hyunjung Yoon, 19, who joined the youth climate litigation team when she was 15. “The government never considered how the risks are actually growing or how people’s lives are affected. We need to focus on safeguarding our rights, not just hitting numbers.”

Last Thing: The nope baby

We have all heard about the nepo baby, the term du jour for the children of famous, wealthy and well-connected parents. But now there is the nope baby – the nepo baby disavowing that familial connection. From Claudia Conway – the daughter of Kellyanne Conway, a former senior counselor to Donald Trump, who posted TikToks and tweets expressing her anti-Trump political views and airing out her mom’s dirty laundry – to Vivian Jenna Wilson, who is retaliating against her father, Elon Musk, after he said he considered her dead after she came out as transgender and transitioned – the nope baby is unafraid to bite the hand that feeds them.

Sign up

First Thing is delivered to thousands of inboxes every weekday. If you’re not already signed up, subscribe now.

Get in touch

If you have any questions or comments about any of our newsletters please email [email protected]