Capitol Hill is on high alert for a day of protest from thousands of demonstrators representing a broad coalition of groups voicing opposition to Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, when he addresses a joint session of the US Congress.

With tensions over Israel’s 10-and-half-month war in Gaza running high, police mounted a major security operation to seal off the US Capitol from protesters long before Netanyahu is due to speak at 2pm ET.

Streets in Washington’s downtown area were closed to traffic, while officers experienced in dealing with mass protests were drafted in from the New York police department. The Capitol building itself has been ring-fenced off.

Netanyahu’s speech – arranged weeks ago and instigated by the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson – takes place at a singularly dramatic moment in US politics, coming days after the withdrawal of Joe Biden from the presidential race and less than two weeks after a failed assassination attempt on the Republican nominee, Donald Trump.

But the fevered domestic backdrop has done little to reduce the furore surrounding Netanyahu, seen as a renegade figure even among some pro-Israel Democrats for prosecuting a war that has killed more than 39,000 Palestinians.

The military offensive was launched in response to a bloody assault by the Palestinian group Hamas last October that left at about 1,200 mostly civilians dead in Israel and saw another 250 taken hostage.

Netanyahu’s presence will be protested by demonstrators coming from a broad range of mostly leftwing groups, some of them Jewish, and many of them having travelled from as far as Indiana, Georgia and Illinois, according to protest organisers.

Among those organising the main rally due to start at 11am were Act Now to Stop War and End Racism, Jewish Voice for Peace, Code Pink, the US Palestinian Community Network, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), the People’s Forum and the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Speakers lined up to address the crowd included Jill Stein, the Green party presidential candidate, and the actor Susan Sarandon.

Protesters say they will publicly demand Netanyahu’s arrest, as requested by the international criminal court’s chief prosecutor in May. The request was later denounced by Biden.

“If Biden were fit to lead, he would stop funding genocide and turn Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu over to the ICC,” Ahmad Abuznaid, an executive director at the USCPR, said in a statement.

Separate protests were also expected from Israeli groups angered that Netanyahu has failed to secure the release of more hostages. Pro-Israel counter-protesters were also expected to be present.

The demonstrations started on Tuesday, a day after Netanyahu’s arrival in the US on Monday night, when members of the Jewish Voice for Peace group occupied the rotunda at the Cannon building, where many members of Congress have office space. Police carried out arrests and the group said about 400 of its members were detained.

Several Democratic members of Congress, including the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, who is Jewish, have said they will boycott Netanyahu’s speech.

Some made statements of condemnation on the eve of its delivery. “It will be the first time in American history that a war criminal has been given that honor” of addressing a joint session of Congress, Sanders said on Tuesday in remarks on the Senate floor.

Jerry Nadler, a senior Democratic House member from New York, also issued a withering denunciation, calling the Israeli prime minister “the worst leader in Jewish history since the Maccabean king who invited the Romans into Jerusalem over 2100 years ago”. However, he said he would be present during the speech out of respect to the state of Israel.

He called the speech “the next step in a long line of manipulative bad-faith efforts by Republicans to further politicise the US-Israel relationship for partisan gain and is a cynical stunt by Netanyahu aimed at aiding his own desperate political standing at home. There is no question in my mind it should not be happening.”

Republican leaders are warning party members against using overtly racist and sexist attacks against Kamala Harris, as they and Donald Trump’s campaign scramble to adjust to the reality of a new Democratic rival less than four months before election day.

At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Richard Hudson, urged lawmakers to stick to criticizing Harris for her role in Biden-Harris administration policies.

“This election will be about policies and not personalities,” the House speaker, Mike Johnson, told reporters after the meeting.

“This is not personal with regard to Kamala Harris,” he added, “and her ethnicity or her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever.”

The warnings point to the new risks for Republicans in running against a Democrat who would become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of south Asian decent to win the White House. Trump, in particular, has a history of racist and misogynistic attacks that could turn off key groups of swing voters, including suburban women, as well as voters of color and younger people whom Trump’s campaign has been courting.

The admonitions came after some members and Trump allies began to cast Harris, a former district attorney, attorney general and senator, as a “DEI” hire – a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“Intellectually, just really kind of the bottom of the barrel,” the Wyoming representative Harriet Hageman said in a TV interview. “I think she was a DEI hire. And I think that that’s what we’re seeing and I just don’t think that they have anybody else.”

Since Biden announced he was exiting the campaign, Republicans have rolled out a long list of attack lines against Harris, including trying to tie her to the most unpopular Biden policies and his handling of the economy and the southern border. Trump campaign officials and other Republicans have accused Harris of being complicit in a cover-up of Biden’s health issues, and they have been mining her record as a prosecutor in California as they try to paint her as soft on crime.

Johnson said both Trump and Harris have records in White House policy and said voters can compare how families were doing under the Trump administration with how they are doing now under Biden.

“She is the co-owner, co-author, co-conspirator in all the policies that got us into the mess,” Johnson said.

Biden announced on Sunday that he was withdrawing from the race. In a memo on the state of the race on Tuesday, the Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio argued that the fundamentals of the campaign had not changed now that Harris appears increasingly likely to be the Democratic nominee.

“The Democrats deposing one nominee for another does NOT change voters discontent over the economy, inflation, crime, the open border, housing costs not to mention concern over two foreign wars,” he wrote. “As importantly, voters will also learn about Harris’s dangerously liberal record before becoming Biden’s partner.”

Donald Trump’s campaign on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against the vice-president Kamala Harris, accusing her 2024 campaign of violating federal campaign finance laws by replacing Joe Biden’s name with her own to take control of his campaign funds.

The complaint, filed by the Trump campaign’s general counsel, David Warrington, argued that the Biden campaign could not rename its committee from “Biden for President” to “Harris for President” once Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, and roll over $91m.

“This is little more than a thinly veiled $91.5m excessive contribution from one presidential candidate to another, that is, from Joe Biden’s old campaign to Kamala Harris’s new campaign. This effort makes a mockery of our campaign finance laws,” the eight-page complaint said.

“Federal candidates are prohibited from keeping contributions for elections in which they do not participate,” it added. “Biden for President 2024 has shown no intention to properly refund or re-designate the general election funds it has already received. This makes them all excess contributions.”

Whether the complaint generates traction with the FEC remains unclear, but the Trump campaign has been looking for any way to slow down the momentum Harris has been able to generate with voters and donors after she quickly became the presumptive Democratic nominee.

The strategy, according to people familiar with the matter, has included opening new legal battles to try to prevent Harris from accessing Biden’s funds, although the complaint on Tuesday stopped short of a lawsuit.

Warrington made that explicit request to the FEC in the complaint, asking the agency to enjoin the transfer. And if the FEC were to deem the transfer unlawful, the complaint said, it would ask the FEC to consider issuing a fine or making a criminal referral to the US justice department.

The Harris campaign has viewed the FEC complaint as a spurious legal effort to throw sand in their gears, noting that the Biden-Harris committees have always been authorized committees for either Biden or Harris, according to a person familiar with the thinking.

And in a statement, the Harris campaign noted that they had raised $100m in donations in the 36 hours since Biden withdrew from the 2024 race, adding: “Baseless legal claims – like the ones they’ve made for years to try to suppress votes and steal elections – will only distract them.”

The complaint, earlier reported by the New York Times, also argued that Harris taking over Biden’s remaining campaign funds amounted to an excessive unlawful contribution given that “Biden for President” was not an authorized committee for the Harris campaign.

“If Mr Biden will not seek the Democratic party’s nomination, then he will never participate in the general election and all general election contributions received by Biden for President are excessive and must be disposed of,” the complaint said.

A Russian chef who has lived in France for 14 years has been arrested on suspicion of plotting with a foreign power to stage “large scale” acts of “destabilisation” during the Olympic Games in Paris.

The 40-year-old man was arrested during a raid of his apartment in central Paris on Sunday where a document linked to an elite Russian special forces unit operating under the command of the FSB, an heir to the KGB, was reportedly found.

A judicial investigation has been opened into allegations of sharing “intelligence with a foreign power with a view to provoking hostilities in France,” a crime punishable by 30 years of imprisonment. The alleged plot is not believed to have been terror related.

The man, who has not been named, was indicted on this charge on the same day and placed in pretrial detention.

An ambitious opening ceremony of Paris 2024 will be staged on the banks of the Seine on Friday evening and there has long been concern that Russia could seek to meddle in events.

Gerald Darmanin, France’s interior minister, said that “other Russian individuals” had been arrested amid evidence at attempts to spread disinformation ahead of the Games.

“We think very strongly that he was going to organise operations of destabilisation, interference, spying,” Darmanin told BFM television. “He’s now in the justice system which will be able to confirm the suspicions of the police.”

Of other alleged attempts to spread disinformation, the minister added: “We saw a video which purports to be someone from Hamas… who announces an attack in the next few days and comes because France is going to welcome Israeli athletes. We’re not sure, but it looks like it is fake and has been spread by pro-Kremlin and pro-Russian channels.”

Prosecutors in Paris said the search of the apartment of the Russian national detained on Sunday had been carried out at the request of the French interior ministry.

According to briefings given to the French media, agents found evidence suggesting the man was preparing a “large-scale project” that could have had “serious” consequences during the three weeks of games.

The French newspaper, Le Monde, reported that the intelligence services had listened into a call two months ago between the individual and a Russian intelligence services handler in which the suspect had stated that “the French are going to have an opening ceremony like there has never been before”.

No details have been provided as to the nature of the alleged conspiracy to destabilise the games.

The paper reported that the detained man had been trained as a chef in Paris and that he had participated in Russian reality and cooking shows. He had described himself on his CV as a “private chef”.

He first arrived in France in 2010 and spent some time in Courchevel, a ski resort popular with the Russian elite, where he worked in a Michelin starred restaurant, before leaving for Paris in 2012.

According to emails dating from September 2012, and seen by Le Monde, the suspect had told his landlady, named by the paper as Viviane, that he was returning to Moscow to work as an official in the Russian government. But he took part in a civic training day, a mandatory integration step in France, in April 2013.

The intelligence services had tracked him for months. They picked up on his alleged phone call to his handler in May at a time when he was returning from a trip to Istanbul to his home in Paris.

He was turned away from his flight due to excessive alcohol consumption and instead returned via Bulgaria, at which point the conversation about the Olympics opening ceremony was monitored, according to Le Monde.

At 6am on Sunday, police officers from the elite ‘research and intervention brigade (BRI), called in by the General Directorate of Internal Security, raided the suspect’s home on Rue Saint-Denis on the right bank of the Seine. It is claimed that the police found “documents of diplomatic interest” among his possessions.

Last month Microsoft said Russia was seeking to undermine the Olympics with the creation of fake websites replicating authentic French media outlets and the use of artificial intelligence to fuel concern about violence and terrorism.

Darmanin, said this week that authorities had screened over one million people.

“We are here to ensure that sport is not used for espionage, cyberattacks or to criticise and sometimes even lie about France and the French,” he said.

Hillary Clinton has issued an impassioned call for Americans to rally around the presumptive Democratic nominee, Kamala Harris, saying that the “time for hand-wringing is over” and the challenge now is to mobilize around her “unifying vision”.

Writing in the New York Times, the former US secretary of state and two-time Democratic presidential candidate said she was “excited” about the prospects of Harris taking on and defeating Donald Trump in the November election.

“She represents a fresh start for American politics,” Clinton said.

Clinton was one of the first influential Democrats to endorse Harris for the party’s nomination after Joe Biden stepped aside on Sunday. Within a couple of hours she issued a joint statement with the former president Bill Clinton in which they expressed fears about the “threat posed by a second Trump term”.

In her New York Times op-ed, Clinton warned, based on her own experiences of running for the White House in 2008 and then as the Democratic nominee facing Trump in 2016, that “Harris’s record and character will be distorted and disparaged by a flood of disinformation”. She added: “I know a thing or two about how hard it can be for strong women candidates to fight through the sexism and double standards of American politics.”

During the 2016 race, Trump repeatedly denigrated her, calling her “pathetic” and encouraging his rally crowds to chant “Lock her up!”

Clinton said that Harris was “chronically underestimated, as are so many women in politics”. But she stressed that she was confident that the vice-president, who has attracted the support of enough Democratic delegates to secure the Democratic nomination next month, could defeat Trump.

She cited Harris’s work as the lead voice within the Biden administration on reproductive rights in the wake of the US supreme court’s overturning of Roe v Wade. She also said her experience as a “savvy former prosecutor” would be a bonus in a fight against Trump as a convicted criminal. “It’s old grievances versus new solutions.”

Time may be short, she wrote, but recent elections in Britain and France had delivered big victories to left-leaning entities in even less time.

“Ms Harris will face unique additional challenges as the first Black and South Asian woman to be at the top of a major party’s ticket,” Clinton wrote. “That’s real, but we shouldn’t be afraid. It is a trap to believe that progress is impossible.”

Republican leaders are warning party members against using overtly racist and sexist attacks against Kamala Harris, as they and Donald Trump’s campaign scramble to adjust to the reality of a new Democratic rival less than four months before election day.

At a closed-door meeting of House Republicans on Tuesday, the chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, Richard Hudson, urged lawmakers to stick to criticizing Harris for her role in Biden-Harris administration policies.

“This election will be about policies and not personalities,” the House speaker, Mike Johnson, told reporters after the meeting.

“This is not personal with regard to Kamala Harris,” he added, “and her ethnicity or her gender have nothing to do with this whatsoever.”

The warnings point to the new risks for Republicans in running against a Democrat who would become the first woman, first Black woman and first person of south Asian decent to win the White House. Trump, in particular, has a history of racist and misogynistic attacks that could turn off key groups of swing voters, including suburban women, as well as voters of color and younger people whom Trump’s campaign has been courting.

The admonitions came after some members and Trump allies began to cast Harris, a former district attorney, attorney general and senator, as a “DEI” hire – a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“Intellectually, just really kind of the bottom of the barrel,” the Wyoming representative Harriet Hageman said in a TV interview. “I think she was a DEI hire. And I think that that’s what we’re seeing and I just don’t think that they have anybody else.”

Since Biden announced he was exiting the campaign, Republicans have rolled out a long list of attack lines against Harris, including trying to tie her to the most unpopular Biden policies and his handling of the economy and the southern border. Trump campaign officials and other Republicans have accused Harris of being complicit in a cover-up of Biden’s health issues, and they have been mining her record as a prosecutor in California as they try to paint her as soft on crime.

Johnson said both Trump and Harris have records in White House policy and said voters can compare how families were doing under the Trump administration with how they are doing now under Biden.

“She is the co-owner, co-author, co-conspirator in all the policies that got us into the mess,” Johnson said.

Biden announced on Sunday that he was withdrawing from the race. In a memo on the state of the race on Tuesday, the Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio argued that the fundamentals of the campaign had not changed now that Harris appears increasingly likely to be the Democratic nominee.

“The Democrats deposing one nominee for another does NOT change voters discontent over the economy, inflation, crime, the open border, housing costs not to mention concern over two foreign wars,” he wrote. “As importantly, voters will also learn about Harris’s dangerously liberal record before becoming Biden’s partner.”

As Donald Trump’s campaign shifts his focus to presumptive Democratic nominee, Vice-President Kamala Harris, the online ecosystem of the far right has responded in lockstep with racist insults, misogynistic tropes, antisemitic conspiracy theories and viral memes against her. Some of those attacks, common throughout her vice-presidency, are directly targeting her Jewish husband and second gentleman, Doug Emhoff.

After Joe Biden’s stunning decision to step down as the Democratic candidate in this year’s presidential election to then endorse Harris, Republicans as high ranking as Trump were quick to decry the switch as tantamount to a “coup” attempt – a dangerous allegation with no factual basis.

“They stole the race from Biden after he won it in the primaries – A First!” Trump posted on his Truth Social app, alleging high-ranking Democrats plotted to oust his former opponent. “These people are the real THREAT TO DEMOCRACY!”

On sites like Gab (a type of X knockoff), the encrypted Telegram platform, and the messaging board 4chan – among other favorites of the far right, there is a boom in offensive activities against the sitting vice-president.

Among the themes of insults is one of the far right’s most common anxieties: absurd criticisms of Harris achieving her success through sexual favors and endless accusations that her husband, long a target of the vaunted manosphere, is a “cuck” for being married to one of the most powerful people in the world.

For example, in early July, after a Covid-19 diagnosis, Emhoff was immediately taunted on X.

“*CUCKVID,” one far-right user tweeted, among several other similar posts.

Now, as Harris is poised to have a shot at potentially being the first female US president in history, fresh attacks on Emhoff becoming the first-ever first gentleman have begun.

“Hahahaha, what a cuck,” said one anonymous user on 4chan, commenting on a photo of Harris and her husband posted on Monday, “[h]ow many dicks did she ride to get where she is?”

Another commenter in the same thread then called Emhoff the vice-president’s “Jewish handler”, while another called him a Jewish “cuckboy”.

Emhoff, who is a lawyer and visiting professor at Georgetown University Law Center, is father to Ella Emhoff, a daughter from a previous marriage who has also come into the crosshairs of the American far right in recent years. After an appearance at Harris’s inauguration in 2021, Ella became a model and fashion influencer and simultaneously the bane of the far right.

Targeted attacks against Ella have been growing since Sunday as the reality of Harris’s candidacy becomes more concrete.

“Ella Emhoff, stepdaughter of Vice President Kamala Harris is very disturbing!” wrote one Gab user on Tuesday. Some of the attacks have included transphobic and homophobic slurs, like one Gab account claiming to be a news site that posted a photo of her with the message: “Meet Ella Emhoff , stepdaughter of Vice President. Another sick filthy degenerate Leftist. Is that a tranny?”

In response to her marriage to Emhoff, Harris has frequently been the subject of antisemitic conspiracy theories. And with Biden stepping down, there are fresh allegations of a “Jewish coup”, as many have come to describe an outlandish conspiracy against the president, which allegedly involves Harris.

Many of those same “coup” posters also shared a photo of the vice-president with Alex Soros, son of George Soros and subject of some of the most loathsome antisemitic conspiracies on the internet, which claim the billionaire businessman is somehow controlling global business and government elites.

For Harris, a female politician in a presidential race that has only ever featured one other, these latest antisemitic attacks include overtly sexualized vulgarities inferring she has engaged in sexual acts with powerful members of the “Jewry”, as one Telegram post claimed.

Others on the same app were even more direct.

“AIPAC slut Kamala,” said one user in a message already viewed over 17,000 times on Telegram, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel and bipartisan lobbying group that Harris has supported in the past.

According to recent analysis published by the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (Gpahe), between 19 and 21 July hateful and violent speech towards Harris rose 33% on Truth Social, 292% on Gab, 50% on Telegram and a whopping 525% on 4chan.

The Gpahe analysis made clear that this was a classic playbook from the far right and a revealing aspect of their gender ideology. In 2016, a grassroots and far-right “memetic warfare” movement was weaponized against then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, in which gender as a common theme of attack.

Heidi Beirich, an expert on American far-right extremism and a co-founder of Gpahe, said: “Female politicians have been targeted with misogynistic language for years, and usually they are the recipients of far more hate and sexism than male candidates face.”

“Attacks on Harris for her racial background are skyrocketing online,” added Beirich, who gave testimony to the House select committee to investigate the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. “As bad as the racism targeting her is, the misogyny seems worse.

“She’s being attacked for supposedly sleeping her way to the top and with horrible sexist slurs. Sadly, this is how it goes nowadays, with racism and hate so prevalent online.”

The Gpahe analysis also pointed out that JD Vance’s wife, Usha Chilukuri, who, like Harris, is of Indian ancestry, was also racially targeted for her ethnic background after giving a speech at the Republican national convention last week.

Joshua Fisher-Birch, an analyst who tracks the global far right at the Counter Extremism Project, noticed the same racist anti-Indian content after surveying similar accounts across a broad spectrum of sites in the last week.

“It’s worth mentioning that extreme-right Telegram channels and users posted racist content after JD Vance was chosen to be Trump’s vice-presidential pick,” he said in an email. “The patterns are similar.”

Harris and speculation about her pick for running mate have also become a topic of conspiracy theory, with many on the far right predicting she intends to pick either Pennsylvania’s governor, Josh Shapiro, or Illinois’s governor, J B Pritzker, who are both Jewish.

“Kamala’s Jewish VP candidate,” reposted one neo-Nazi-adjacent account on Telegram, showing an image of Shapiro, “the Indian-Jew axis is on the ballot.”

But with all of the hatred towards Harris, some on the far right are bemoaning the loss of Biden as an adversary, with one post on Telegram viewed over 11,000 times showing a video of Harris with the caption: “It’s just not the same. Comeback Joe Biden.”

The “incredibly alarming” discovery of the poliovirus in Gaza only adds to the besieged territory’s status as one of “the most dangerous places to be a child right now”, the head of the UN children’s agency has warned.

The executive director of Unicef, Catherine Russell, said during a visit to Australia that Gaza was increasingly lawless.

As the Israeli military offensive continued, humanitarian workers were “risking their lives every day” to help Palestinian civilians.

In her only Australian interview, Russell raised alarm about the impact of conflicts in Sudan and Ukraine. She also said youth in low-lying Pacific island countries were “impatient with the world” for failing to act on the climate crisis.

After Unicef helped carry out tests of sewage samples from Gaza that showed the presence of poliovirus, Russell said: “It’s incredibly alarming.”

Russell said the world was “getting so close, we believe, to getting rid of polio once and for all”, so any potential emergence of the poliovirus requires “close attention”.

She raised concerns about the spread of other infectious diseases such as cholera in Gaza.

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“When children are already hungry and weak, their bodies are much more vulnerable and susceptible to getting these diseases.”

Addressing the overall situation in Gaza, Russell said the territory had “some competition on this front but it’s certainly one of the most, if not the most dangerous place to be a child right now”.

She said these dangers were not just because of the direct impact of the conflict but also because health centres had “been destroyed or radically compromised” and the population had been “displaced multiple times”.

“People are moving with nothing and moving to places where there is nothing.”

Russell, who met the Australian foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, on Monday, said it was an “incredibly dangerous” operating environment for Unicef and other humanitarian organisations.

“It’s not totally lawless, but there’s an element of lawlessness to it,” she said.

Russell called for an end to the conflict and the release of hostages held by Hamas.

The chief prosecutor of the international criminal court has accused Israeli leaders of using the “starvation of civilians as a method of warfare”, a claim the Israeli government has rejected.

Israel has defended its security screening procedures and has repeatedly accused UN agencies of a lack of coordination in delivering aid in Gaza.

Russell said that was an “unfair characterisation”. She said there were “many challenges” to effective aid distribution, including damage to roads and a breakdown in security.

“Yes, it is hard to get aid around for sure. But that’s not for a lack of trying or a lack of competence on our part.”

Russell also reflected on her visit to Sudan last month, saying the country was facing “the largest child displacement crisis in the world”.

She said the crisis in Sudan was “something that the world needs to pay attention to, and it is not getting nearly the attention that it needs”.

Nearly four million children under the age of five years are projected to be malnourished. This figure includes 730,000 who are projected to suffer from severe acute malnutrition, according to data provided by Unicef.

“Honestly, the scale of what’s happening [in Sudan] is shocking,” Russell said.

With next month marking the third anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, Russell said the country’s humanitarian needs were “extraordinary”.

At the same time, the authorities in Afghanistan were “really trying to constrain the involvement of women and girls in society”.

Russell said it was important for Australia and other western donor countries to continue to provide humanitarian support in Afghanistan.

“We are the lifeline there – and we don’t want to abandon women and girls. We hear that all the time: ‘Don’t leave us behind, don’t leave,’” Russell said.

“We do need to continue to talk about it and to say it’s not OK. Women and girls are human beings, they have rights just like everybody else, and they are entitled to have those rights recognised.”

Russell arrived in Australia after visiting Vanuatu and Fiji to hear about the impact of the climate crisis from children and young people.

“The truth is that children are way ahead of us on this,” she said.

“They see it in their communities and they’re impatient with the world not doing something about climate.

“I mean, it’s hard not to say that these children are being left behind and being failed – and I think that’s true all around the world.”

The Israeli military has launched a fresh attack on the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, killing at least 70 people according to medics, after ordering Palestinians to leave several neighbourhoods including areas that had been designated by the military as part of a humanitarian zone.

Palestinian civil defence in the territory estimated that 400,000 people sheltering in the city were affected by the order, which included the eastern part of Al-Mawasi, a sandy strip of land without infrastructure where Palestinians have sought shelter in tent encampments in recent months.

The military claimed Hamas militants in Khan Younis and part of Al-Mawasi were using the area to launch rockets at Israel.

“We were displaced from the eastern regions, they called us to evacuate, we took our children and left,” Osama Qudeih told the Associated Press (AP). “There was no safe place left in the Gaza Strip … We went out walking in the streets, not knowing where to go.”

Another woman collapsed in exhaustion after saying it was her seventh or eighth displacement. “Every day we are displaced,” Kholoud al-Dadas told AP as she clutched her children. “Where are the countries? Where is the world, where are the presidents, where are they? Come and see how we are, our children, and what is happening to us.”

The military said it was adjusting the boundaries of the designated humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi to keep the civilian population away from areas of combat.

Gaza health officials said those killed and wounded were caught up in attacks on and around Khan Younis, and that more casualties were likely to be buried under rubble or had been left on roadsides because ambulances had been unable to reach them.

Gaza medics also said people were killed by tank salvoes in the town of Bani Suhaila and other towns fringing the eastern side of Khan Younis, with the area also bombarded from the air, according to Reuters news agency.

The Israeli military did not offer comment on the toll, when asked by Agence France-Presse. But in a statement, the military said its fighter jets and tanks “struck and eliminated terrorists in the area”.

It said forces targeted more than “30 terror infrastructure” sites in Khan Younis. Israeli warplanes also hit a weapons storage facility, observation posts, tunnel shafts and structures used by Hamas militants, it added.

The local Wafa news agency reported that a series of fierce bombardments began immediately after Israeli forces dropped leaflets telling people to evacuate. Columns of smoke were visible over the destroyed rooftops of the city.

Wounded people poured into Nasser hospital in Khan Younis as the facility appealed for blood donations.

Mohammed Sakr, a spokesman for Nasser hospital, told Al Jazeera they were overwhelmed by cases, and were treating patients amid a lack of supplies.

“Tens of cases are on the floor. We don’t have beds to place patients on … we are swimming in a pool of blood,” he said.

Much of Khan Younis was destroyed by fierce fighting in the months before Monday’s strikes, but hundreds of thousands of people returned to seek shelter in tents in the eastern part of the city after they were displaced from other parts of Gaza. Images from Khan Younis showed Palestinians fleeing the area in cars and on donkey carts, using whatever means they could find to escape.

Palestinians in the territory, the UN and other international relief agencies have stressed that no safe place remains in Gaza, and that areas designated as humanitarian safe zones are still targeted. A strike on Al-Mawasi earlier this month killed at least 90 people and injured hundreds when Israeli forces said they had targeted the head of Hamas’s military wing.

More than 39,000 people have been killed in Israel’s onslaught in Gaza since 7 October last year, when Hamas militants attacked Israeli territory, killing 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage. The Palestinian health ministry also said more than 89,000 had now been injured after a series of intense Israeli attacks across the territory in recent weeks.

The head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa), Philippe Lazzarini, said Israeli forces had fired repeatedly on a UN convoy headed to Gaza City on Monday.

“Heavy shooting from the Israeli forces at a UN convoy heading to Gaza City,” he said, adding that one vehicle had been struck with five bullets while waiting ahead of an Israeli checkpoint near the Gaza River, causing severe damage.

“While there are no casualties, our teams had to duck and take cover … The teams were travelling in clearly marked UN armoured cars and wearing UN vests,” he said, adding that the convoy had coordinated and approved its journey with the Israeli authorities. Spokespeople for the Israel Defense Forces did not respond to a request for comment on the incident.

The Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, commented on Lazzarini’s description of the attack, calling it a war crime.

“Gaza has not only become a graveyard for children. It has become a graveyard for international law, a shameful stain on the whole international order,” he said.

Hamas condemned the attack on Khan Younis in a message on Telegram.

Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report

A surge in new oil and gas exploration in 2024 threatens to unleash nearly 12bn tonnes of planet-heating emissions, with the world’s wealthiest countries – such as the US and the UK – leading a stampede of fossil fuel expansion in spite of their climate commitments, new data shared exclusively with the Guardian reveals.

The new oil and gas field licences forecast to be awarded across the world this year are on track to generate the highest level of emissions since those issued in 2018, as heatwaves, wildfires, drought and floods cause death and destruction globally, according to analysis of industry data by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).

The 11.9bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – which is roughly the same as China’s annual carbon pollution – resulting over their lifetime from all current and upcoming oil and gas fields forecast to be licensed by the end of 2024 would be greater than the past four years combined. The projection includes licences awarded as of June 2024, as well as the oil and gas blocks open for bidding, under evaluation or planned.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel firms are ploughing more money into developing new oil and gas sites than at any time since the 2015 Paris climate deal, when the world’s governments agreed to take steps to cut emissions and curb global heating.

The world’s wealthiest countries are economically best placed – and obliged under the Paris accords – to lead the transition away from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources. But these high-capacity countries with a low economic dependence on fossil fuels are spearheading the latest drilling frenzy despite dwindling easy-to-reach reserves, handing out 825 new licences in 2023, the largest number since records began.

Classic “petrostates” such as Saudi Arabia or Russia – which rely heavily on oil and gas revenues to balance their budgets – have faced criticism for slowing action on the climate crisis. Yet countries including the UK, the US, Canada, Norway and Australia are increasingly being thought of by some experts as the “other petrostates” , given they have access to financial and technological resources that would make the energy transition less disruptive.

While they are often portrayed as climate leaders on the world stage, these five wealthy countries are responsible for more than two-thirds (67%) of all new oil and gas licences issued globally since 2020.

“The logical first step in a ‘transition away’ from oil and gas is to stop opening new fields,” said co-author Olivier Bois von Kursk, who is a policy adviser at the IISD.

“So it is deeply concerning that exploration activity has not just continued since the Cop28 agreement but increased. Rich countries with relatively low dependence on fossil fuel revenues should be the first to stop issuing licences. We’re not seeing that in the data.”

Under the Biden administration, the US has handed out 1,453 new oil and gas licences, accounting for half of the total globally and 83% of all licences handed out by wealthy nations. This is 20% more than during the term of Donald Trump, who has promised to “drill, baby, drill” should he return to the White House.

The oil and gas industry continues to invest big in political influence in petrostates, spending $1.25bn (£1bn) on lobbying in Washington and more than $650m (£504m) in campaign contributions over the past decade, according to Open Secrets.

Meanwhile, the UK handed out more licences than any other country in May, although it is China, the world’s leading carbon emitter, that is forecast to approve the most oil and gas blocks in the rest of 2024. The UK’s newly elected Labour government has pledged to stop new drilling, but it’s unclear whether the glut of licences doled out by the outgoing Conservative party can be cancelled.

The new analysis of Rystad industry and government data by the IISD also shows:

• Over the past decade, new licences issued by high-capacity, low-dependency countries including the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and Norway are estimated to have contributed five times more greenhouse gas emissions between 2014 and 2023 than all other oil- and gas-producing countries combined.

• The US, which has become the world’s largest oil and gas producer by a huge margin in recent years, led the way in 2023 by issuing a record 758 new licences for extraction projects – almost as many as the previous three years combined. The total number of projected licences by the US for 2024 would lead to an estimated 397m tonnes of emissions.

• The UK is forecast to hand out 72 oil and gas licences this year, which would result in an estimated 101m tonnes of planet-warming pollution, a 50-year high.

• Norway is projected to hand out 80 oil and gas licences this year, resulting in 771m tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution – threatening the biggest contribution to global emissions since 2009 and the equivalent of putting 183m new gasoline-powered cars on the road.

• Australia is forecast to award 20 new licences in 2024, which if it happens could generate an estimated 217m tonnes of carbon pollution in the long term – the most since 2009 and more than the past five years combined.

• The latest data shows that Russia will account for three-quarters of global emissions resulting from new licences awarded in June, according to a new monthly IISD newsletter.

• The amount spent by major oil and gas companies on exploring and developing new wells has climbed significantly since the Covid-19 pandemic, with $302bn to be spent on well development this year, the most in a decade.

The UK, Norwegian and Australian governments disputed some of the figures and defended their climate policies. The US and Canada did not respond.

The glut of new oil and gas activity comes as July is on track to be the 14th hottest consecutive month on record, as communities across the world grapple with deadly extreme weather and slow-onset climate disasters such as sea level rise and melting glaciers. The last decade was the hottest ever recorded, with 2023 the single hottest year.

A recent study found the world has enough fossil fuel projects planned to meet global energy demand forecasts to 2050 – if governments deliver the changes promised in order to keep the world from breaching its climate targets.

But the oil and gas rush, led by the richest countries, risks demolishing hopes that the world can stay within internationally agreed-upon limits aimed at preventing catastrophic heatwaves, wildfires, flooding and other impacts. No new oil and gas project can proceed if the Paris agreement, which calls for global temperatures to be restrained to a 1.5C (2.7F) rise above preindustrial levels, is to be met, according to the International Energy Agency.

Despite this, countries are pushing ahead with a huge expansion in oil and gas activity, identifying and developing new resources at a pace not seen since the Paris deal was inked in a wave of optimism in 2015.

The world’s consumption of fossil fuels climbed to a record high last year even as investment into clean energy such as solar and wind started to eclipse coal, oil and gas. PetroChina, the Chinese state-owned oil and gas arm, has spent the most on both exploration and well development over the past decade, with ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, Sinopec and Chevron among other businesses sinking the largest investments in new oil and gas.

So far in 2024, the three dozen or so high-capacity, low-dependency countries including the US, the UK and Norway have issued 121 new licences – more than the rest of the world combined.

The newly licensed reserves in rich countries – which are smaller and harder to reach because the larger reserves have already been exploited – could eventually generate 172m tonnes of CO₂, the equivalent that would be produced by 43 new coal plants.

Those are the same countries that are also ploughing ahead with huge tax giveaways for industry-led “solutions” like carbon capture and storage and “blue” hydrogen that independent experts say are inefficient, unjust and economically damaging.

The data reveals a deep-seated inequity – and a key climate justice issue – that developing countries have for years tried to raise at the annual UN climate talks. In order to honour their legally binding obligations under the Paris agreement, developed countries must go first when it comes to phasing out fossil fuels, starting immediately, and stopping expansion plans.

“The hypocrisy of wealthy nations, historically responsible for the climate crisis, is staggering as they continue to invest heavily in fossil fuels – putting the world on track for unimaginable climate catastrophe while claiming to be climate leaders,” said Harjeet Singh, global engagement director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative.

“Despite having the economic means to transition away from fossil fuels, these nations are petrostates choosing profit over the planet, undermining global efforts to avert the climate emergency.”

Mega-licences – big blocks that will result in the most emissions – are typically awarded in developing countries such as Mozambique, which have a low capacity to transition away from oil and gas.

Developed countries have contributed the most to the climate crisis and benefited the most from fossil fuels, while developing countries have contributed least but are suffering the worst effects – in part because they do not have equal access to mitigate, adapt and recover from climate impacts such as drought, floods, wildfires and extreme heat.

“The US has become a petrostate and is still, even under President Biden, permitting new drilling,” said John Sterman, a climate policy expert at MIT. “The developed countries don’t show any significant efforts to limit drilling, but it’s not just them. Guyana and countries in south-east Asia are also aggressively seeking to expand exploitation activity. This is about national policy but it’s also being driven by the oil companies.”

Sterman said there was a “fundamental contradiction” between the promises made by countries at annual UN climate summits and the ongoing oil and gas expansion. “We can’t keep going on like this,” he said.

Just five global north governments – the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and Norway – are responsible for a majority (51%) of planned expansion from new oil and gas fields through 2050, and they stand out as the biggest climate hypocrites, according to the Planet Wreckers report by Oil Change International last year.

The Biden administration has defended its record – even as the US entrenched its position as the world’s largest oil and gas producer. John Podesta, Biden’s top climate adviser, said last month that US production was “a good thing, because following the illegal invasion of Ukraine, and the need that Europe had to rely on different sources rather than Russia fossils, it was important that the US could step up and supply a good deal of that need”.

Podesta added: “But over time, the science is clear, we’ve got to transition away and begin to replace those resources with both zero carbon electricity and renewable resources.”

Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has previously defended the country’s climate policies and hailed its 2030 emissions reduction plan, and in April this year said it was on a solid path towards its reduction targets while making “historic investments in clean technology”.

A spokesperson for the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “Making Britain a clean energy superpower is at the heart of the government’s agenda, securing our energy independence and tackling the climate crisis … We will not issue new licences to explore new fields and will not revoke existing oil and gas licences. We will manage existing fields for the entirety of their lifespan.”

Elisabeth Sæther, Norway’s petroleum ministry state secretary, said that her country was committed to cutting its emissions. “At the same time, we see that the world will still need oil and gas,” she added. “Europe will remain dependent on imports from other regions for many years. Norwegian oil and gas can contribute to a sustainable, affordable and secure energy supply.”

A spokesperson for the Australian government said: “Reaching net zero, and decarbonising our economy as quickly as possible, remains front and centre of the Albanese government’s agenda.

“Our energy policies are sensible and pragmatic, focused on delivering the shift to clean, cheap energy that Australians deserve, bringing down prices for households and businesses while also cutting emissions.”

Earlier this month, Hurricane Beryl, the earliest category 5 storm ever observed in the Atlantic, ripped a path of destruction through the Caribbean, Mexico and Texas, leaving at least 11 people dead and thousands homeless.

In the aftermath, Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, where Beryl “flattened” one island and severely damaged others in the archipelago, said: “What we see here are the consequences of a rampaging climate change. We are in the era of the Anthropocene. And the developed countries, the major emitters, are not taking this matter seriously.

“The world, if we don’t move to net zero, we are going to be a very inhospitable place to be in another two, three decades. I mean, this is not scaremongering; this is science. And we are on the frontlines of this.”

A surge in new oil and gas exploration in 2024 threatens to unleash nearly 12bn tonnes of planet-heating emissions, with the world’s wealthiest countries – such as the US and the UK – leading a stampede of fossil fuel expansion in spite of their climate commitments, new data shared exclusively with the Guardian reveals.

The new oil and gas field licences forecast to be awarded across the world this year are on track to generate the highest level of emissions since those issued in 2018, as heatwaves, wildfires, drought and floods cause death and destruction globally, according to analysis of industry data by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD).

The 11.9bn tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – which is roughly the same as China’s annual carbon pollution – resulting over their lifetime from all current and upcoming oil and gas fields forecast to be licensed by the end of 2024 would be greater than the past four years combined. The projection includes licences awarded as of June 2024, as well as the oil and gas blocks open for bidding, under evaluation or planned.

Meanwhile, fossil fuel firms are ploughing more money into developing new oil and gas sites than at any time since the 2015 Paris climate deal, when the world’s governments agreed to take steps to cut emissions and curb global heating.

The world’s wealthiest countries are economically best placed – and obliged under the Paris accords – to lead the transition away from fossil fuels to cleaner energy sources. But these high-capacity countries with a low economic dependence on fossil fuels are spearheading the latest drilling frenzy despite dwindling easy-to-reach reserves, handing out 825 new licences in 2023, the largest number since records began.

Classic “petrostates” such as Saudi Arabia or Russia – which rely heavily on oil and gas revenues to balance their budgets – have faced criticism for slowing action on the climate crisis. Yet countries including the UK, the US, Canada, Norway and Australia are increasingly being thought of by some experts as the “other petrostates” , given they have access to financial and technological resources that would make the energy transition less disruptive.

While they are often portrayed as climate leaders on the world stage, these five wealthy countries are responsible for more than two-thirds (67%) of all new oil and gas licences issued globally since 2020.

“The logical first step in a ‘transition away’ from oil and gas is to stop opening new fields,” said co-author Olivier Bois von Kursk, who is a policy adviser at the IISD.

“So it is deeply concerning that exploration activity has not just continued since the Cop28 agreement but increased. Rich countries with relatively low dependence on fossil fuel revenues should be the first to stop issuing licences. We’re not seeing that in the data.”

Under the Biden administration, the US has handed out 1,453 new oil and gas licences, accounting for half of the total globally and 83% of all licences handed out by wealthy nations. This is 20% more than during the term of Donald Trump, who has promised to “drill, baby, drill” should he return to the White House.

The oil and gas industry continues to invest big in political influence in petrostates, spending $1.25bn (£1bn) on lobbying in Washington and more than $650m (£504m) in campaign contributions over the past decade, according to Open Secrets.

Meanwhile, the UK handed out more licences than any other country in May, although it is China, the world’s leading carbon emitter, that is forecast to approve the most oil and gas blocks in the rest of 2024. The UK’s newly elected Labour government has pledged to stop new drilling, but it’s unclear whether the glut of licences doled out by the outgoing Conservative party can be cancelled.

The new analysis of Rystad industry and government data by the IISD also shows:

• Over the past decade, new licences issued by high-capacity, low-dependency countries including the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and Norway are estimated to have contributed five times more greenhouse gas emissions between 2014 and 2023 than all other oil- and gas-producing countries combined.

• The US, which has become the world’s largest oil and gas producer by a huge margin in recent years, led the way in 2023 by issuing a record 758 new licences for extraction projects – almost as many as the previous three years combined. The total number of projected licences by the US for 2024 would lead to an estimated 397m tonnes of emissions.

• The UK is forecast to hand out 72 oil and gas licences this year, which would result in an estimated 101m tonnes of planet-warming pollution, a 50-year high.

• Norway is projected to hand out 80 oil and gas licences this year, resulting in 771m tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution – threatening the biggest contribution to global emissions since 2009 and the equivalent of putting 183m new gasoline-powered cars on the road.

• Australia is forecast to award 20 new licences in 2024, which if it happens could generate an estimated 217m tonnes of carbon pollution in the long term – the most since 2009 and more than the past five years combined.

• The latest data shows that Russia will account for three-quarters of global emissions resulting from new licences awarded in June, according to a new monthly IISD newsletter.

• The amount spent by major oil and gas companies on exploring and developing new wells has climbed significantly since the Covid-19 pandemic, with $302bn to be spent on well development this year, the most in a decade.

The UK, Norwegian and Australian governments disputed some of the figures and defended their climate policies. The US and Canada did not respond.

The glut of new oil and gas activity comes as July is on track to be the 14th hottest consecutive month on record, as communities across the world grapple with deadly extreme weather and slow-onset climate disasters such as sea level rise and melting glaciers. The last decade was the hottest ever recorded, with 2023 the single hottest year.

A recent study found the world has enough fossil fuel projects planned to meet global energy demand forecasts to 2050 – if governments deliver the changes promised in order to keep the world from breaching its climate targets.

But the oil and gas rush, led by the richest countries, risks demolishing hopes that the world can stay within internationally agreed-upon limits aimed at preventing catastrophic heatwaves, wildfires, flooding and other impacts. No new oil and gas project can proceed if the Paris agreement, which calls for global temperatures to be restrained to a 1.5C (2.7F) rise above preindustrial levels, is to be met, according to the International Energy Agency.

Despite this, countries are pushing ahead with a huge expansion in oil and gas activity, identifying and developing new resources at a pace not seen since the Paris deal was inked in a wave of optimism in 2015.

The world’s consumption of fossil fuels climbed to a record high last year even as investment into clean energy such as solar and wind started to eclipse coal, oil and gas. PetroChina, the Chinese state-owned oil and gas arm, has spent the most on both exploration and well development over the past decade, with ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, Sinopec and Chevron among other businesses sinking the largest investments in new oil and gas.

So far in 2024, the three dozen or so high-capacity, low-dependency countries including the US, the UK and Norway have issued 121 new licences – more than the rest of the world combined.

The newly licensed reserves in rich countries – which are smaller and harder to reach because the larger reserves have already been exploited – could eventually generate 172m tonnes of CO₂, the equivalent that would be produced by 43 new coal plants.

Those are the same countries that are also ploughing ahead with huge tax giveaways for industry-led “solutions” like carbon capture and storage and “blue” hydrogen that independent experts say are inefficient, unjust and economically damaging.

The data reveals a deep-seated inequity – and a key climate justice issue – that developing countries have for years tried to raise at the annual UN climate talks. In order to honour their legally binding obligations under the Paris agreement, developed countries must go first when it comes to phasing out fossil fuels, starting immediately, and stopping expansion plans.

“The hypocrisy of wealthy nations, historically responsible for the climate crisis, is staggering as they continue to invest heavily in fossil fuels – putting the world on track for unimaginable climate catastrophe while claiming to be climate leaders,” said Harjeet Singh, global engagement director for the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative.

“Despite having the economic means to transition away from fossil fuels, these nations are petrostates choosing profit over the planet, undermining global efforts to avert the climate emergency.”

Mega-licences – big blocks that will result in the most emissions – are typically awarded in developing countries such as Mozambique, which have a low capacity to transition away from oil and gas.

Developed countries have contributed the most to the climate crisis and benefited the most from fossil fuels, while developing countries have contributed least but are suffering the worst effects – in part because they do not have equal access to mitigate, adapt and recover from climate impacts such as drought, floods, wildfires and extreme heat.

“The US has become a petrostate and is still, even under President Biden, permitting new drilling,” said John Sterman, a climate policy expert at MIT. “The developed countries don’t show any significant efforts to limit drilling, but it’s not just them. Guyana and countries in south-east Asia are also aggressively seeking to expand exploitation activity. This is about national policy but it’s also being driven by the oil companies.”

Sterman said there was a “fundamental contradiction” between the promises made by countries at annual UN climate summits and the ongoing oil and gas expansion. “We can’t keep going on like this,” he said.

Just five global north governments – the US, the UK, Australia, Canada and Norway – are responsible for a majority (51%) of planned expansion from new oil and gas fields through 2050, and they stand out as the biggest climate hypocrites, according to the Planet Wreckers report by Oil Change International last year.

The Biden administration has defended its record – even as the US entrenched its position as the world’s largest oil and gas producer. John Podesta, Biden’s top climate adviser, said last month that US production was “a good thing, because following the illegal invasion of Ukraine, and the need that Europe had to rely on different sources rather than Russia fossils, it was important that the US could step up and supply a good deal of that need”.

Podesta added: “But over time, the science is clear, we’ve got to transition away and begin to replace those resources with both zero carbon electricity and renewable resources.”

Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has previously defended the country’s climate policies and hailed its 2030 emissions reduction plan, and in April this year said it was on a solid path towards its reduction targets while making “historic investments in clean technology”.

A spokesperson for the UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero said: “Making Britain a clean energy superpower is at the heart of the government’s agenda, securing our energy independence and tackling the climate crisis … We will not issue new licences to explore new fields and will not revoke existing oil and gas licences. We will manage existing fields for the entirety of their lifespan.”

Elisabeth Sæther, Norway’s petroleum ministry state secretary, said that her country was committed to cutting its emissions. “At the same time, we see that the world will still need oil and gas,” she added. “Europe will remain dependent on imports from other regions for many years. Norwegian oil and gas can contribute to a sustainable, affordable and secure energy supply.”

A spokesperson for the Australian government said: “Reaching net zero, and decarbonising our economy as quickly as possible, remains front and centre of the Albanese government’s agenda.

“Our energy policies are sensible and pragmatic, focused on delivering the shift to clean, cheap energy that Australians deserve, bringing down prices for households and businesses while also cutting emissions.”

Earlier this month, Hurricane Beryl, the earliest category 5 storm ever observed in the Atlantic, ripped a path of destruction through the Caribbean, Mexico and Texas, leaving at least 11 people dead and thousands homeless.

In the aftermath, Ralph Gonsalves, the prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines, where Beryl “flattened” one island and severely damaged others in the archipelago, said: “What we see here are the consequences of a rampaging climate change. We are in the era of the Anthropocene. And the developed countries, the major emitters, are not taking this matter seriously.

“The world, if we don’t move to net zero, we are going to be a very inhospitable place to be in another two, three decades. I mean, this is not scaremongering; this is science. And we are on the frontlines of this.”

The Duke of Sussex believes his determination to take on tabloid newspapers in the courts was a “central piece” in the deterioration of relations between him and his family in the UK.

Speaking about his legal battles against newspapers over privacy, Prince Harry told an ITV documentary Tabloids on Trial that his decision to fight contributed to the “rift” with the royal family.

Asked if his decision destroyed the relationship, Harry says: “Yeah, that’s certainly a central piece to it. But, you know, that’s a hard question to answer because anything I say about my family results in a torrent of abuse from the press.”

He continues: “I’ve made it very clear that this is something that needs to be done. It would be nice if we, you know, did it as a family. I believe that, again, from a service standpoint and when you are in a public role, that these are the things that we should be doing for the greater good. But, you know, I’m doing this for my reasons.”

Asked what he thought of the royal family’s decision not to fight in the way he has done, he replies: “I think everything that has played out has shown people what the truth of the matter is. For me, the mission continues, but it has, it has, yes. It’s caused, yeah, as you say, part of a rift.”

Harry has long despaired of the royal family’s failure to take on the press, and has previously revealed that his father, King Charles, told him it would be a “suicide mission”.

In his memoir, Spare, he wrote of what he saw as the royal family’s connivance with the media through alleged leaking, believing himself to be collateral damage. In the book Harry was withering about his father’s failure to take on the media, writing that “the same shoddy bastards who’d portrayed [Charles] as a clown” were now “tormenting and bullying” him and his wife, Meghan.

In December 2023, after he won damages in his hacking case against Mirror Group Newspapers, Harry made clear he felt vindication for his long-running legal battles against sections of the British media. He said in the statement at the time that he had “been told that slaying dragons will get you burned”, adding a defiant: “The mission continues.”

Speaking for the first time about the case, he told the documentary: “To go in there and come out and have the judge rule in our favour was obviously huge … a monumental victory.”

He also spoke about fears that his mother, the late Diana, Princess of Wales, may have been an early victim of phone hacking.

The duke, who is one of several celebrities appearing in the documentary which airs on ITV1 and ITVX at 9pm on Thursday, is also involved in continuing legal actions over privacy against News Group Newspapers and Associated Newspapers.

The video of Team GB equestrian star Charlotte Dujardin whipping a horse 24 times in a private coaching session has cost her a damehood, official sources have told the Guardian.

The 39-year-old was widely expected to be handed the honour if, as expected, she won another dressage medal in Paris. That would have her seven medals – equalling Jason Kenny’s record tally for a British Olympian. However Whitehall sources have confirmed that any such honour is now off the table.

Dujardin now finds her career in tatters after being kicked out of the Olympics and suspended for six months. To compound her problems, UK Sport have also suspended her lottery funding after the video of her hitting the horse became public.

In a statement, UK Sport said it was “disturbed by the serious concerns that have been raised in the past 24 hours regarding horse welfare and Charlotte Dujardin. We expect all staff and athletes in Olympic and Paralympic sport to adhere to the highest standards of behaviour, ethics and integrity.”

Dujardin has also been dropped as an ambassador for the horse welfare charity, Brooke, which said it had been “deeply disturbed” by the video of her repeatedly striking the horse while conducting a coaching session to a young rider at a private stables several years ago.

“Our whole ethos is around kindness and compassion to horses, and to see the opposite of this from someone with such a high profile is beyond disappointing,” she said. “There can never be a justification for mistreating animals.”

At this stage, however, it seems less likely that Dujardin will be stripped of her CBE. It is understood that the honours committee will await the findings of an International Federation for Equestrian Sports investigation before deciding whether to launch its own review.

However, one source pointed out that there was a very high bar to strip someone of such an honour – noting that even the former Post Office chief Paula Vennells had given her CBE back rather than having it taken off her.

Meanwhile the video footage has also led the animal rights group Peta to reiterate its calls for all equestrian events to be banned from the Olympic Games.

“The message to the IOC should be clear by now: remove equestrian events from the Olympic Games,” Peta’s US senior vice president, Kathy Guillermo said,

“Yet again, an Olympic rider has been caught on video abusing a horse to force the animal to behave in an entirely unnatural way, simply for her own glory.

“Horses don’t volunteer – they can only submit to violence and coercion,” she added. “It’s time for the Olympics to move into the modern era.”

Modern pentathlon has already decided to scrap the equestrian element of the sport at the 2028 LA Games after it was heavily criticised in Tokyo following an incident where a German coach punched a horse after it refused to jump the obstacles.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Dujardin admitted that there is “no excuse” for her behaviour and that she was “deeply ashamed” of the error of judgement.

“What happened was completely out of character and does not reflect how I train my horses or coach my pupils, however there is no excuse,” she added. “I am deeply ashamed and should have set a better example in that moment.

“I am sincerely sorry for my actions and devastated that I have let everyone down, including Team GB, fans and sponsors,” she added. “I will cooperate fully with the FEI, British Equestrian Federation and British Dressage, and will not be commenting further until the process is complete.”

The Dutch lawyer Stephan Wensing, who is representing the 19-year-old who filed the official complaint against Dujardin, said that he was pleased that the FEI had taken such a strong stand.

“Charlotte Dujardin was in the middle of the arena,” he said. “She said to the student ‘your horse must lift up the legs more in the canter’. She took the long whip and she was beating the horse more than 24 times in one minute. It was like an elephant in the circus.”

Meanwhile the World Horse Welfare chief executive, Roly Owers, admitted that the video had been a “massive wake-up call for anyone who thinks this is not important”.

“Respect for the horse must be at the heart of every equestrian, and every equestrian sport, and their actions must demonstrate that respect all of the time,” he added.

Mark England, Team GB’s chef de mission in Paris, said it was right that Dujardin had been forced to miss the Olympics. “We’re disappointed that an athlete of Charlotte’s calibre has withdrawn from the team, but we clearly acknowledge the seriousness of this matter, as has Charlotte through her own statement,” he said.

“It’s absolutely right that there is a full investigation by the FEI and we trust and abide by their processes when it comes to the important matter of horse welfare.”

Donald Trump told his nephew he should let his disabled son die, then “move down to Florida”, the nephew writes in a new book, calling the comment “appalling”.

“Wait!” Fred C Trump III writes. “What did he just say? That my son doesn’t recognise me? That I should just let him die?

“Did he really just say that?”

The shocking exchange is described in All in the Family: The Trumps and How We Got This Way, which will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.

The book also includes a description of the former US president and current Republican nominee using the N-word, news that dropped into a presidential election in which Trump faces Kamala Harris, the first woman of colour to be vice-president.

On Wednesday morning, Time published an extract detailing Trump’s callous remark about his disabled great-nephew.

It came days after family members at the Republican national convention portrayed Trump as a “very caring and loving” grandfather and family man.

But Trump family history is complicated.

Fred C Trump III is the son of Fred Trump Jr, Donald Trump’s older brother who died aged 43 in 1981. A successful New York real estate executive in his own right, Fred Trump III is with his wife Lisa a campaigner for rights for disabled people like their son, William.

In 2020, Fred Trump III’s sister, Mary Trump, published her own tell-all memoir, Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man. Fred Trump III distanced himself from that book but it included the story of how Donald Trump and his siblings effectively disinherited Fred Trump III and Mary Trump, then cut off funding for William’s care.

The case was settled in 2001. In his own book, Fred Trump III describes a call to his uncle after the White House funeral of Robert Trump, the then president’s younger brother, in 2020.

Fred Trump III says Donald Trump was then “the only one” of the older Trumps still “contributing consistently” to William’s care.

He contacted his uncle even though he “really didn’t look forward to these calls” and “in many ways … felt I was asking for money I should have originally received from my grandfather” – Fred Trump Sr, the New York construction magnate whose will prompted the family feud.

Fred Trump III says he called Donald Trump after seeing him at Briarcliff, a family golf club in Westchester county, New York. He says he described his son’s needs, increasing costs for his care, and “some blowback” from Trump’s siblings.

“Donald took a second as if he was thinking about the whole situation,” Fred Trump III writes.

“‘I don’t know,’” he finally said, letting out a sigh. ‘He doesn’t recognise you. Maybe you should just let him die and move down to Florida.’”

Fred Trump III writes: “Wait! What did he just say? That my son doesn’t recognise me? That I should just let him die? Did he really just say that? That I should let my son die … so I could move down to Florida? Really?”

Fred Trump III says he shouldn’t have been surprised, since he had recently heard his uncle say similar in an Oval Office meeting with doctors and advocates for disabled rights.

At that meeting, also in 2020, Trump “sounded interested and even concerned”, Fred Trump III writes.

“I thought he had been touched by what the doctor and advocates in the meeting had just shared about their journey with their patients and their own family members. But I was wrong.”

“‘Those people …’ Donald said, trailing off. ‘The shape they’re in, all the expenses, maybe those kinds of people should just die.’”

On that occasion, Fred Trump III writes, he “truly did not know what to say. He was talking about expenses. We were talking about human lives … I turned and walked away.”

On the later call about William, Fred Trump III writes, his uncle said the same thing: “Only that time, it was other people’s children who should die. This time, it was my son.”

Fred Trump III says he pushed back but avoided an argument. Nonetheless, he says “Donald’s comment was appalling”, adding: “It hurt to hear him say that.”

“Acceptance and tolerance would only come with public education and awareness,” Fred Trump III writes. “Donald might never understand this.”

World temperature reached the hottest levels ever measured on Monday, beating the record that was set just one day before, data suggests.

Provisional data published on Wednesday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which holds data that stretches back to 1940, shows that the global surface air temperature reached 62.87F (17.15C), compared with 62.76F (17.09C) on Sunday.

Earlier this month, Copernicus found that global temperatures between July 2023 and July 2024 were the highest on record.

The previous record before this week was set a year ago on 6 July. Before that, the previous recorded hottest day was in 2016, according to the Associated Press.

The director of Copernicus, Carlo Buontempo, told the Guardian earlier this week, that the world was now in “truly uncharted territory”, adding that he expects global temperature records to continue being broken in future months and years as the climate continues to warm.

Copernicus reported that what spurred the record temperatures this week was a warmer-than-usual Antarctic winter, according to the Associated Press.

Across the US, millions of residents have have experienced and are experiencing soaring temperatures and extreme heat this summer, which experts have linked to the climate change spurred by the burning of fossil fuels.

Earlier this month, heat advisories were in place in Kansas and Texas, as well as New York and South Carolina, among other states. Multiple cities also reached near record breaking daily temperatures, and heat-related deaths were reported in multiple states as the climate emergency makes extreme temperatures and longer heatwaves more likely.