Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has flown into the Amazon amid growing alarm over the droughts and wildfires sweeping the rainforest region and others parts of Brazil.

Speaking during a visit to a riverside community near the city of Tefé, the Brazilian president said Amazonia was suffering its worst drought in more than 40 years. He said he had come to discover “what is going on with these mighty rivers” that in some places now resemble deserts.

Lula voiced concern over the often criminally set fires that are consuming three of Brazil’s six biomes: the Amazon, the Cerrado and the Pantanal wetlands.

“It seems to me that things are getting worse, year after year after year,” Lula said as he visited drought-stricken communities in Amazonas state, where all 62 municipalities have declared a state of emergency. More than 340,000 people have reportedly been affected.

“In the Pantanal we’ve had the worst drought in the last 73 years … This is a problem that we have to fix because otherwise humanity is going to destroy our planet,” Lula added. “We cannot destroy that which we rely on for our life.”

The president’s visit came as huge swaths of South America’s largest country, and neighbours such as Bolivia and Peru, grappled with the consequences of extreme climate events that have caused temperatures to hit record highs and fires to rage.

Schools have been closed and flights diverted in Rio Branco, the capital of the Amazon state of Acre, after smoke enveloped the city and pollution levels soared. In the city of Porto Velho, the capital of Rondônia state, the Madeira River has fallen to its lowest level since the late 1960s.

The effects of the wildfires and drought have been felt as far away as Rio and São Paulo, where air quality has also plummeted in recent days. On Monday an expert from Brazil’s space institution, Inpe, said smoke from the fires had covered a 5m sq km area – about 60% of the country.

“We’ve reached a historic moment, the likes of which we’ve never reached before,” said Danicley de Aguiar, an Amazon campaigner for Greenpeace Brazil who is monitoring the situation.

“We’ve had severe droughts before in Brazil but not to this extent. I don’t think we’ve ever had a drought that affects not only the north but also the midwest, the south and the south-east and a part of the north-east too.

“We are facing a gigantic drought … and a drought that has come combined with fire.”

Aguiar said at least five Indigenous territories in the Amazon were burning this week.

The activist said one such territory, Sararé, near Brazil’s western border with Bolivia, had seen 59% of its total area burned. Fires were also raging in the Kayapó Indigenous territory to its north-east. “And after the drought comes hunger,” warned Aguiar, who feared the crisis could jeopardise crops Indigenous communities depended on to survive.

Brazil’s environment minister, Marina Silva, has partly attributed the situation, which is expected to worsen in the coming weeks, to the effects of global heating and the El Niño climate pattern.

• Joe Biden said on Tuesday that his administration was “working that out now” when asked if the US would lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range weapons against Russia. Newspaper reports in the UK said that Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, would discuss the issue with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, when he visits Ukraine today in the company of David Lammy, the UK foreign secretary.

• Britain and France build and supply Storm Shadow and Scalp-EG cruise missiles to Ukraine, but it is has become apparent that US technology is also involved and Washington has held back from approving that technology’s use for strikes inside Russian territory. Keir Starmer, the UK prime minister, is due to meet with Biden in Washington on Friday.

• The apparent rethink comes after the UK said on Tuesday it had started terminating “all direct air services between the UK and Iran” as part of sanctions imposed on Tehran for supplying Russia with missiles to use in Ukraine. London said it was acting alongside international partners to “cancel its bilateral air services arrangements with Iran”, which would “restrict Iran Air’s ability to fly into the UK”.

• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said that Russia had received ballistic missiles from Iran and would likely use them in Ukraine within weeks. The White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, said: “The supply of these Iranian missiles, which have a maximum range of about 75 miles, could allow Russia to use more of its arsenal for targets beyond the frontline while employing Iranian warheads for closer-range targets.”

• Germany and France also said they would apply new sanctions on Iran, including measures against Iran Air and the cancellation of bilateral air services agreements. The UK said it was joining the US in sanctioning individuals and organisations facilitating Iran’s military support to Russia, including those involved in ballistic missile and drone supply chains. Several Russian organisations were also sanctioned for “their intent to use the weapons systems” against Ukraine, as well as five Russian cargo ships involved in transporting military supplies from Iran to Russia. Iran called the reports of weapons transfers to Russia “ugly propaganda”.

• Russia said on Tuesday its forces had advanced by 1,000 sq km (390 sq miles) in eastern Ukraine in August and September. The Russian security council secretary, Sergei Shoigu, said Russian forces were increasing the pace of their offensive in Donbas. Volodymyr Zelenskiy has praised Ukrainian troops for holding their positions in the two most difficult sectors in the east: Pokrovsk and Kurakhove.

• The Institute for the Study of War said Russian forces regained some positions on Monday as the Ukrainian occupation continues in Kursk oblast. In Ukraine, Russian forces advanced on the Kupyansk-Svatove line, near Siversk; near Pokrovsk; and south-west of Donetsk City; while Ukrainian forces regained positions near Siversk. “Positional engagements continued in western Zaporizhia oblast on September 9, but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline,” said the ISW. In Ukraine’s north-east, fighting continued north and north-east of Kharkiv city but there were no confirmed changes to the frontline.

• Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said on Tuesday that Kyiv suspected a senior Russian air force commander of ordering a missile strike on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in central Kyiv in July that killed two people and caused extensive damage. Kostin did not name the individual, but said the international criminal court in The Hague had already issued an arrest warrant against him. In March, the court issued a warrant for Lt Gen Sergei Kobylash, saying he was the commander of Russia’s long-range aviation forces and suspected of war crimes including strikes on Ukraine’s energy system.

• Ukraine is in the final stages of talks with European partners to increase its power import capacity to 2.2 gigawatts from 1.7 gigawatts, the prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said on Tuesday. Ukraine is gearing up for a harsh winter by repairing and protecting its power system under attack by Russian forces.

• Ukraine wants more than 150 countries to attend a second summit by the end of the year to look at ways of ending the war with Russia, Shmyhal said.

• Ukrainian diplomats and activists in Canada have urged the Toronto International film festival (Tiff) to cancel further screenings of a documentary portraying Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, claiming it serves as Russian propaganda. Russians At War was filmed by Anastasia Trofimova, a Russian-Canadian who previous worked for the Kremlin propaganda TV network Russia Today. The Ukrainian consul general in Canada, Oleh Nikolenko, said the documentary was “highly crafted Russian propaganda” intended to whitewash Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

• Russians at War was funded by the Canada Media Fund, supported in part through government grants. Trofimova said her documentary was not propaganda but instead an “anti-war film made at great risk to all involved, myself especially. I unequivocally believe that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is unjustified, illegal and acknowledge the validity of the international criminal court investigation of war crimes in Ukraine.”

• The Canadian deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland, herself of Ukrainian descent, also condemned the film and its inclusion in Tiff’s programme. “It’s not right for Canadian public money to be supporting the screening and production of a film like this,” she said. “We have to be really clear that this is a war where there is no moral equivalency. This is a war of Russian aggression.”

Russia has received new deadly ballistic missiles from Iran for use in Ukraine and is likely to use them, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, announced on Tuesday in London as he prepared to travel with the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, to Kyiv.

The news, confirmed by the US for the first time and seen as of huge significance to the battlefield balance ahead of Ukraine’s difficult winter, led the US and Europe to impose new sanctions on Iran, so apparently slamming the door on the prospect of a rapprochement between the new reformist Iranian government and the west.

The move may also add to the pressure on the US to end its restrictions on Ukraine using British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia and not just in occupied parts of Ukraine.

Ukraine, with discreet UK backing, has been pressing for a change in US policy but Blinken, at a press conference in London, highlighted obstacles to backing the Ukrainian request, including doubts about Ukraine’s ability to maintain the missiles, training and their strategic purpose.

Officials ultimately said the debate turned on whether sanctioning Storm Shadow for use deep inside Russia would be seen as a dangerous escalatory step that crossed a red line set by Vladimir Putin.

Blinken insisted the US position remained to provide Ukraine with the weapons it wants at the time it wants, but the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said applying sanctions on Iran was not enough and Kyiv needed permission to strike deeper into Russia.

The US president, Joe Biden, has allowed Ukraine to fire US-provided missiles across the border into Russia in self-defence but largely limited the distance over concerns about further escalating the conflict.

On Tuesday he said that his administration was “working that out now”, when asked if the US would lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long range weapons.

The strategic decision hovering over the alliance for months is likely to be further raised in a deeper discussion due to be held between Keir Starmer and Biden in Washington on Friday, when the two leaders will assess the whole western strategy towards Ukraine, including how Kyiv can survive the winter and whether Volodymyr Zelenskiy and his new cabinet have a credible plan to defeat Russia.

The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, under domestic pressure, has called for a peace conference to be attended by Moscow, just one sign of wavering support for Ukraine in parts of Europe, but Blinken’s confirmation of Iran’s escalation may alter the debate.

Germany, in a joint statement with France and the UK, condemned the Iranian decision, saying it represented a direct threat to Europe’s security by Iran and Russia. The three countries announced sanctions including banning Iranair, Iran’s civilian airline, from Europe.

The missiles being provided to Russia are of the relatively new Fath-360 (BM-120) type, and not longer-range weapons. Ukraine has claimed that more than 200 Fath-360 short-range ballistic missiles were sent to a Russian Caspian Sea port.

Blinken said the supply of Iranian missiles would enable Russia to use more of its arsenal for targets that were farther from the frontline in Ukraine.

“This development and the growing cooperation between Russia and Iran threatens European security and demonstrates how Iran’s destabilising influence reaches far beyond the Middle East,” he said. Russia was also sharing technology with Iran, including on nuclear issues, he added.

Blinken said dozens of Russian military personnel had trained in Iran in using the Fath-360 missile, which has a range of 19 to 75 miles, can carry a 150kg warhead and can be launched at a speed of Mach 3 (2,300mph – three times the speed of sound).

Blinken challenged any suggestion that the new Iranian government really wanted a new relationship with the west. He said: “We’ve warned Iran privately that taking this step would constitute a dramatic escalation. Russia has now received shipments of these ballistic missiles and will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine against Ukrainians.

“Iran’s new president and foreign minister have repeatedly said that they want to restore engagement with Europe. They want to receive sanctions relief. Destabilising actions like these will achieve exactly the opposite.”

Faced by speculation that it had taken the decision to provide the ballistic missiles, Iran this week denied that it was providing the weapons, in a formal letter to the UN secretary general, António Guterres.

“Iran considers the provision of military assistance to the parties engaged in the conflict – which leads to increased human casualties, destruction of infrastructure and a distancing from ceasefire negotiations – to be inhumane,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations said. Iran has also denied that it supplied the Russians with Shahed-136 and 131 drones.

The provision of the ballistic missiles if used by Russia in Ukraine will be readily identifiable, the CIA director, William Burns, said at the weekend at an event in London.

Lammy declined to comment on any internal disagreements between the UK and the US over the use of Storm Shadow, saying this was the detail of operational issues.

Blinken concurred. “One of the purposes of the trip we will be taking together is to hear directly from the Ukrainian leadership including … President Zelenskiy about exactly how the Ukrainians see their needs in this moment, toward what objectives and what we can do to support those needs.”

At the weekend the former defence secretary Grant Shapps, reflecting UK defence ministry thinking, said: “With the exception of our giving permission to allow UK missiles to strike Crimea, we have remained cautious about allowing our Ukrainian allies to target the source of these attacks.

“The UK must issue a straightforward warning to Putin: if you continue to murder men, women and children with glide bombs launched from Russia, then we will lead the rest of the world to authorise our long-range missiles to take out your launchers.”

Israeli soldiers halted a UN convoy involved in the recent polio vaccination drive in Gaza and detained two staff members for questioning, in an incident during which live shots were fired and vehicles damaged by a bulldozer, the UN has said.

Details of the incident, which occurred at the Al Rashid checkpoint, were revealed in a statement by the office of the UN humanitarian coordinator for Palestine, Muhannad Hadi, who said the lives of UN staff in the vehicles had been endangered.

He said a convoy of 12 UN staff members “whose movement was fully coordinated with Israel Defense Forces, and whose details were shared with them in advance, was stopped on its way to North Gaza to support the third phase of the Gaza Strip-wide polio vaccination campaign” on Monday.

According to the statement: “While at the checkpoint the team was informed that the IDF wanted to hold two of the UN staff members in the convoy for further questioning.

“The situation escalated quickly, with soldiers pointing their weapons directly towards the convoy personnel. Live shots were fired, and tanks and bulldozers approached, engaged with, and damaged UN vehicles, endangering the lives of UN staff inside the vehicles.

“The convoy remained held at gunpoint while senior level UN officials engaged with the Israeli Authorities to de-escalate the situation.

“The two staff were eventually questioned, one by one, and then released. After seven and a half hours at the checkpoint, the convoy returned to base without being able to fulfil its humanitarian mission to support the polio campaign.

“This incident highlights the ongoing dangers and obstacles humanitarian personnel face in Gaza. Despite daily coordination of humanitarian movements with the Israel Defense Forces, our staff and assets were not provided with sufficient protection, hindering our work.

“Under international humanitarian law, such protection is mandatory.”

The IDF said in a statement that it had acted “following intelligence that a number of Palestinian suspects were present in the convoy” and delayed it to question them.

It said the convoy was not involved in the transport of polio vaccines but was being used instead to exchange UN personnel.

The incident on Monday follows previous cases in which humanitarian workers, both Palestinian and international, have been confronted with sometimes lethal violence while trying to deliver aid.

Senior UN and aid officials have also complained repeatedly through the 11 months of the conflict that Israel has obstructed their efforts, a claim Israel denies.

In one of the most serious incidents in April, seven aid workers with World Central Kitchen, including three Britons, were killed in an Israeli strike on their vehicles.

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN’s main agency for humanitarian relief in Palestine (Unrwa), said the convoy had been held on Monday for more than eight hours despite “prior detailed coordination”.

“This significant incident is the latest in a series of violations against UN staff including shootings at convoys and arrests by the Israeli Armed Forces at checkpoints despite prior notification,” he said.

Unrwa said last month that 207 of its staff had been among more than 280 aid workers killed in Gaza since the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the current war.

The family of the American activist Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi said on Tuesday that neither the White House nor Joe Biden had called to offer condolences.

Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who is also a Turkish national, was shot dead last Friday at a protest march in Beita, a village near Nablus where Palestinians have been repeatedly attacked by far-right Jewish settlers.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, on Tuesday demanded an overhaul of Israeli military conduct in the occupied West Bank as they decried the fatal shooting of an American protester against settlement expansion, which Israel said was accidental.

Turkish and Palestinian officials said Israeli troops shot Eygi, a volunteer with the activist group International Solidarity Movement (ISM), during the demonstration. Palestinian officials say that Eygi was struck in the head, Reuters reports.

Israel’s military said on Tuesday that its initial inquiry found it was highly likely its troops had fired the shot that killed her but that her death was unintentional, and it voiced deep regret.

The US president later told reporters “it ricocheted off the ground” and a US official said that was the conclusion of the Israeli investigation, the results of which were presented to the United States on Tuesday.

Eygi’s family called Israel’s preliminary inquiry “wholly inadequate” and demanded an independent US investigation.

Hamid Ali, Eygi’s partner, in response to Biden’s comments, said her death “was no accident and her killers must be held accountable.

“The White House has not spoken with us. For four days, we have waited for President Biden to pick up the phone and do the right thing,” Ali said.

Blinken and Austin, in their strongest comments to date criticising the security forces of Washington’s closest Middle East ally, described Eygi’s killing as “unprovoked and unjustified”. They separately said Washington would insist to the Israeli government that it makes changes to how its forces operated in the West Bank.

“No one should be shot and killed for attending a protest. No one should have to put their life at risk just for freely expressing their views,” Blinken told reporters in London.

“In our judgment, Israeli security forces need to make some fundamental changes in the way that they operate in the West Bank, including changes to their rules of engagement.

“Now we have the second American citizen killed at the hands of Israeli security forces. It’s not acceptable,” Blinken said.

An Israeli government spokesperson declined to comment on Blinken’s remarks.

Austin spoke to the Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, the Pentagon said late on Tuesday, adding he expressed “grave concern for the IDF’s responsibility for the unprovoked and unjustified death” of Eygi. He also urged Gallant “to re-examine the IDF’s rules of engagement while operating in the West Bank,” according to the Pentagon.

The Israeli military earlier said an investigation by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division was under way and its findings would be submitted for higher-level review once completed.

“We’re going to be watching that very, very closely,” the White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, told reporters, saying a criminal probe was an unusual step by Israel’s military.

“We’re going to want to see where it goes now in terms of the criminal investigation and what they find, and if and how anyone is held accountable,” Kirby added.

In a statement, the Israeli military said its commanders had conducted an initial investigation into the incident and found that the gunfire was not aimed at her but another individual it called “the key instigator of the riot”.

“The incident took place during a violent riot in which dozens of Palestinian suspects burned tyres and hurled rocks towards security forces at the Beita Junction,” it said.

Israel has sent a request to Palestinian authorities to carry out an autopsy, it said.

“We are deeply offended by the suggestion that her killing by a trained sniper was in any way unintentional,” Eygi’s family said in a statement.

A surge in violent settler assaults on Palestinians in the West Bank has stirred anger among western allies of Israel, including the United States, which has imposed sanctions on some Israelis involved in the hardline settler movement. Tensions have been heightened amid Israel’s war against Hamas militants in Gaza.

Palestinians have held weekly protests in Beita since 2020 over the expansion of nearby Evyatar, a settler outpost. Ultra-nationalist members of Israel’s ruling coalition have acted to legalise previously unauthorised outposts like Evyatar, a move Washington says threatens the stability of the West Bank and undercuts efforts toward a two-state solution to the conflict.

Since the 1967 Middle East war, Israel has occupied the West Bank of the Jordan River, an area Palestinians want as the core of a future independent state.

Israel has built a thickening array of settlements there that most countries deem illegal. Israel disputes that assertion, citing historical and biblical ties to the territory.

Israeli airstrikes on al-Mawasi “humanitarian zone” in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 19 people and injured a further 60, according to witnesses and medical officials in the blockaded Palestinian territory.

At least four missiles hit the overcrowded supposed “safe zone” on the coast in the early hours of Tuesday, causing dozens of tents to catch fire and leaving craters as deep as 9 metres, the civil emergency service said. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are sheltering in Mawasi, where conditions are dire, after being ordered to move there by the Israeli military.

“Entire families disappeared in the Mawasi Khan Younis massacre, under the sand, in deep holes,” the Gaza civil defence spokesperson Mahmoud Bassal told Agence France-Presse.

Dr Elspeth Pitt, a Scottish emergency doctor working at a field hospital in Mawasi run by the British medical humanitarian organisation UK-Med, said the clinic was shaken by large explosions shortly after midnight.

“We received 26 patients, mostly women and children. We had to do several amputations and dealt with shrapnel injuries and burns. The conditions are very challenging … there are supply chain issues all the time. At the moment we have a shortage of gauze. We are improvising and doing what we can,” she said.

First responders had initially put the number of dead at 40, before the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory released updated figures, while warning the toll was likely to rise. The Israeli military disputed the earlier casualty figure.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said they had “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control centre embedded inside the humanitarian area in Khan Younis”.

Among the targets were two men they said were involved in Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel that triggered the war: Samer Abu Daqqa, the head of Hamas’s aerial unit, and Osama Tabesh, the head of the observation and targets department in Hamas’s intelligence unit.

“The terrorists advanced and carried out terror attacks against IDF troops and the state of Israel,” they said. Hamas has denied that any fighters or commanders were present in the area.

Later on Tuesday morning, rescue workers and residents were still trying to find missing people and evacuate the wounded, sifting through the sand with garden tools and their bare hands, finding many body parts. Ambulances raced back and forth, while Israeli jets could still be heard overhead.

“We were sleeping and suddenly it was like a tornado,” Samar Moamer told the Associated Press at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, where she was being treated for injuries from the strike. She said one of her daughters was killed and the other was pulled alive from the rubble.

Almost all of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million have been displaced from their homes, with some forced to move from place to place after fresh Israeli evacuation orders upwards of 10 times. Ninety per cent of the strip is now covered by evacuation directives.

Despite being designated as a “safe zone”, Mawasi has been hit by the Israeli military several times. A strike there in July killed at least 90 people. The IDF said they had targeted and killed Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s shadowy military commander, in that attack. Hamas has denied Deif is dead.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, strongly condemned the airstrikes, a spokesperson said.

“The use of heavy weapons in densely populated areas is unconscionable,” spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said. “Palestinians had moved to this area in Khan Younis in search for shelter, in search of safety, after being repeatedly instructed to do so by the Israeli authorities themselves.”

Mawasi is severely overcrowded and aid agencies struggle to provide even the most basic services. By August, new evacuation orders had shrunk by a third the area designated as “safe”, but humanitarian officials said the overcrowding dissuaded many people from leaving, fearing they would not find a new place to shelter.

Israel blames Hamas for civilian casualties in the 11-month-old conflict, claiming that its fighters are embedded among the civilian population and infrastructure. Hamas denies the allegation.

The latest war in Gaza began after Hamas’s 7 October assault on southern Israel, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

A total of 41,000 people have since been killed in Israel’s war on Hamas, according to the health ministry in the territory. The war has left much of the strip in ruins and created a devastating humanitarian crisis.

Internationally mediated talks aimed at brokering a ceasefire and hostage release deal have repeatedly stalled. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is under increasing pressure from allies to agree to a truce: he has insisted that Israeli troops cannot withdraw from the Gaza-Egypt border, which is a red line for Hamas. Netanyahu gave the measure the green light in a previous round of talks in July.

Also on Tuesday, Israel’s defence minister made the bold claim that Hamas as a “military formation no longer exists”. Yoav Gallant said Hamas’s military capabilities had been severely damaged after more than 11 months of war.

“Hamas is engaged in guerrilla warfare and we are still fighting Hamas terrorists and pursuing Hamas leadership,” he said.

Palestinian officials say an Israeli strike on al-Mawasi, a crowded tent camp designated as a “humanitarian zone” housing people displaced by the war in Gaza, has killed at least 19 people and wounded 60. But what is al-Mawasi and what happened?

What is al-Mawasi evacuation zone?

Situated to the west of the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, al-Mawasi is a 10-mile (16km) strip of sandy farmland that stretches along the Mediterranean coast, with dunes and a beach close to the sea, and a scrubby plain further inland. It was first designated in early December last year as a “humanitarian zone” by the Israel Defense Forces, where it was suggested Palestinians could find safety and the provision of international aid in the midst of Israeli military assaults on Gaza’s main urban areas.

Amid evacuation orders for other areas, Palestinians have been told to relocate to al-Mawasi on multiple occasions, leading to the emergence of a substantial camp of temporary shelters.

The designation of al-Mawasi as a safe zone, but with little infrastructure, was criticised by senior UN aid officials including the head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who called it a “recipe for disaster” that would significantly increase health risks for those seeking shelter in an area with minimal infrastructure.

Is al-Mawasi a safe zone?

Far from it. Despite its designation, al-Mawasi has been attacked by Israeli forces on multiple occasions. In the most deadly attack, on 13 July, Israeli jets bombed al-Mawasi, killing 90 people and injuring 300 displaced Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry.

The Israeli military said that strike had targeted and killed Mohammed Deif, the shadowy leader of Hamas’s military wing, but Hamas says Deif is still alive. Two attacks took place in late June, one in May and one in February, as well as the latest attack.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that Israel has shifted the boundaries of the evacuation zone numerous times, claiming that Hamas fighters have used it to take shelter. At times the size of the safe zone has been reduced by up to 15% or its boundaries have been shifted. While the IDF has used text messages in Arabic and phone calls to notify people of evacuation orders, 11 months into the war many Palestinians have little access to mobile communications.

Were Palestinians in al-Mawasi warned about the latest strike?

Not according to some of those displaced. “They told us to come to al-Mawasi, so we came to al-Mawasi, we settled here. The area was bombed without prior warning, they didn’t ask us to flee to a safer area or anything,” a Palestinian man told Agence France-Presse, without giving his name, after the latest airstrike, which killed between 19 and 40 people according to different accounts.

The Israeli military said its aircraft had “struck significant Hamas terrorists who were operating within a command and control centre embedded inside the humanitarian area in Khan Younis”. It added: “The terrorist organisations in the Gaza Strip continue to systematically abuse civilian and humanitarian infrastructure, including the designated humanitarian area, to carry out terrorist activity against the state of Israel and IDF [Israeli army] troops.”

Extreme religious groups and political parties are targeting schools around the world as part of a coordinated and well-funded attack on gender equality, according to a new report.

Well-known conservative organisations aim to restrict girls’ access to education, change what is on the curriculum, and influence educational laws and policies, according to Whose Hands on our Education, a report by the Overseas Development Institute.

Tactics include removing sex education from schools, banning girls from learning, reinforcing patriarchal gender stereotypes in textbooks and rejecting gender-inclusive language in schools.

Ayesha Khan, senior research fellow at the ODI and one of the authors of the report, said: “Education is a key enabler for gender equality and has the power to shape lives.

“This research shows how a small group of highly financed anti-rights organisations and politicians and militant groups are intent on disrupting the transformative opportunities that education provides,” she said.

These organisations have received billions of pounds in funding to advance their agenda, according to evidence in the report. At least $3.7bn (£2.8bn) was channelled to anti-gender equality organisations globally between 2013 and 2017.

In Africa, more than $54m was spent by US-based Christian groups between 2007 and 2020 to campaign against LGBTQ+ rights and sex education.

Funding, from sources that include Russian oligarchs and political parties, has led to the creation of new organisations and encouraged existing ones to campaign against sexuality education and LGBTQ+ rights, the report found.

For example, donors from Britain, the US, Germany and Italy spent more than $5m from 2016 to 2020 on projects run by or benefiting Ghanaian religious organisations whose leaders have campaigned against LGBTQ+ rights.

Islamist funding across the Muslim world is hard to trace, the report said, but Pakistan has received billions in Saudi loans and direct aid, along with private funding from Gulf states, to promote Wahhabism, a fundamentalist and puritanical movement within Sunni Islam. One estimate put Saudi state funding for this at $75bn from 1979 to 2003. Textbooks in the country portray women as guardians of traditions, culture and morality, and sex education remains taboo.

Organised efforts have also blocked sex education initiatives in South Africa, Brazil and the Philippines, removing material on homosexuality and replacing it with content that promotes sexual abstinence and “traditional family values”.

In Chile, Catholic schools have used educational material that portrays men as heads of households with messages on the importance of wives being submissive, as well as stereotypes of men as being more intelligent and capable than women.

The report also outlined direct political power in countries around the world that enables the most regressive policies, such as the Taliban government’s exclusion of girls from all but primary education in Afghanistan.

“We’re dealing with a global anti-rights movement and resurgence of patriarchal norms,” said Khan. “We need to understand how the education sector is a site of really severe contestations.”

A French man being tried for recruiting strangers to rape his drugged wife will be back in court on Wednesday after being admitted to hospital, the presiding judge at his trial said.

Dominique Pélicot, 71, has been on trial since last week for repeatedly raping and enlisting dozens of strangers to abuse his heavily sedated wife in her own bed between 2011 and 2020.

Fifty other men, aged 26-74, are also on trial for alleged involvement in a case that has horrified France.

The main defendant, who has admitted to the charges against him, was to be questioned on Tuesday afternoon. But on Monday he appeared frail, leaning on a cane and the glass side of the dock, and was excused from court after experiencing what his lawyer, Béatrice Zavarro, said was abdominal pain.

On Tuesday, he was hospitalised, Zavarro told the court, saying it would make “no sense to continue without him being present”.

The hospitalisation had sparked speculation that the trial may be adjourned, but the presiding judge said the trial could now continue as planned.

The judge, Roger Arata, said he had been handed a medical certificate saying that Pélicot was fit to resume his ordinary daily activities and his state allowed the transfer from his prison cell to the courtroom.

It was not clear when the judge might call Pelicot to testify.

During a break on Tuesday, Zavarro said her client was in no way “evading” his trial. “Mr Pélicot will not evade his trial. He will be there, he will respond to all questions. But he has this medical issue that he did not plan,” she said. She said his pains had started on Friday. “He has always said he would be present and testify. It’s essential,” she added.

Experts on Monday had described Pélicot as a self-centred manipulator with no empathy and a split personality.

His former wife, Gisèle Pélicot, 71, says she was troubled by strange memory lapses for years until police uncovered the abuse by chance after he was caught filming up women’s skirts in a local supermarket.

The trial is open to the public at her request to raise awareness about the use of drugs to commit sexual assault.

The family’s attorney, Stéphane Babonneau, earlier on Tuesday said it was “absolutely necessary that Mr Pélicot be treated medically and be able to attend the debates”.

“Gisèle Pélicot and her children do not wish to testify without him being present,” he added.

Most of the alleged rapes took place in the couple’s home in Mazan, a village of 6,000 people in the southern region of Provence. Pélicot kept meticulous records of the abuse of his wife, discovered after police seized his computer and other equipment.

An investigator, who waded through images and footage found on the main defendant’s computer, told the court on Tuesday that all of the co-accused must have known that Gisèle Pélicot was unconscious.

“Beyond the images, you need to listen to the sound. You immediately notice that she’s sleeping,” Stephan Gal said. “Some even came back on several occasions, and none could have been unaware that she was in a deep unconscious state.”

Eighteen of the 51 accused, including Dominique Pélicot, are in custody, while 32 other defendants are attending the trial as free men. The last, still at large, is being judged in absentia.

The investigator recounted the case of one of the co-defendants, Mathieu D, accused of sexually abusing Gisèle Pélicot, like many others without a condom. Police identified him thanks to a distinctive tattoo, Gal said. They found his contact on Dominique Pélicot’s phone, and his phone data showed he was in Mazan on the same day.

When interrogated, Mathieu D “said he knew Dominique Pélicot was going to put his wife to sleep, but he thought it was part of a ‘sexual game’. He said it was presented as a scenario and he had naively, blindly gone for it,” Gal said.

The Pélicots’ daughter, Caroline Darian, 45, has said her life was “literally turned upside down” when she heard of the abuse. Naked photomontages of her had also been found on her father’s computer.

The couple’s two sons are expected to speak in the trial.

Indonesia will suspend the construction of new hotels in some areas of Bali, amid fears about overdevelopment of one of its most famous tourist destinations.

Tourism has rebounded in Bali after the Covid pandemic, but there is growing concern about the strain visitors are placing on local infrastructure, the environment, and culture.

Hermin Esti, a senior official at the Coordinating Ministry of Maritime and Investment Affairs, told Reuters the government had agreed to set a moratorium on the construction of new hotels, villas and nightclubs.

The timeframe for the moratorium is unclear. Senior minister Luhut Pandjaitan was quoted by news website Detik as saying it could remain in place for up to a decade. There were 541 hotels in Bali last year, up from 507 in 2019.

Foreign arrivals in Bali have surged following the lifting of pandemic restrictions, with 2.9 million foreign visitors entering the island through Bali airport in the first half of this year, according to Indonesia’s statistics bureau. However, this has also brought problems, including increased traffic, construction and anger at disrespectful tourists. The island has become particularly popular among digital nomads who often stay for longer periods.

Videos of foreigners misbehaving and carrying out stunts for social media – posing naked at sacred sites, stripping off and gatecrashing a temple dance performance, and flashing on a motorbike – have frequently gone viral, provoking anger among local residents and Indonesians.

About 200,000 foreigners reportedly live in Bali, according to Luhut, which authorities say has also led to concerns about crime and increased competition for jobs.

The government is conducting an audit to reform tourism on the island, as part of broader efforts to strike a balance between the economy and the local environment and culture.

In February, a tourism tax of 150,000 rupiah ($9) was introduced for foreign tourists entering Bali to help protect its culture. The island’s authorities hope to build a rail link connecting the airport to popular tourist destinations to relieve its heavily congested roads.

Tourism minister Sandiaga Uno warned last month that South Bali was close to over-tourism.

“A 10% increase could push us into that territory. We must avoid a situation like Barcelona, where tourists became public enemies,” he said in comments reported by national news agency Antara.

Indonesia will suspend the construction of new hotels in some areas of Bali, amid fears about overdevelopment of one of its most famous tourist destinations.

Tourism has rebounded in Bali after the Covid pandemic, but there is growing concern about the strain visitors are placing on local infrastructure, the environment, and culture.

Hermin Esti, a senior official at the Coordinating Ministry of Maritime and Investment Affairs, told Reuters the government had agreed to set a moratorium on the construction of new hotels, villas and nightclubs.

The timeframe for the moratorium is unclear. Senior minister Luhut Pandjaitan was quoted by news website Detik as saying it could remain in place for up to a decade. There were 541 hotels in Bali last year, up from 507 in 2019.

Foreign arrivals in Bali have surged following the lifting of pandemic restrictions, with 2.9 million foreign visitors entering the island through Bali airport in the first half of this year, according to Indonesia’s statistics bureau. However, this has also brought problems, including increased traffic, construction and anger at disrespectful tourists. The island has become particularly popular among digital nomads who often stay for longer periods.

Videos of foreigners misbehaving and carrying out stunts for social media – posing naked at sacred sites, stripping off and gatecrashing a temple dance performance, and flashing on a motorbike – have frequently gone viral, provoking anger among local residents and Indonesians.

About 200,000 foreigners reportedly live in Bali, according to Luhut, which authorities say has also led to concerns about crime and increased competition for jobs.

The government is conducting an audit to reform tourism on the island, as part of broader efforts to strike a balance between the economy and the local environment and culture.

In February, a tourism tax of 150,000 rupiah ($9) was introduced for foreign tourists entering Bali to help protect its culture. The island’s authorities hope to build a rail link connecting the airport to popular tourist destinations to relieve its heavily congested roads.

Tourism minister Sandiaga Uno warned last month that South Bali was close to over-tourism.

“A 10% increase could push us into that territory. We must avoid a situation like Barcelona, where tourists became public enemies,” he said in comments reported by national news agency Antara.

Four Olympic medals – including three gold – belonging to one of the members of Australia’s popular “Oarsome Foursome” rowing team have been stolen from a car in Melbourne.

Victoria police said Drew Ginn’s medals from four consecutive Olympics were in the back of a Land Rover that was parked on Cumberland Street in Docklands when they were stolen last week.

Detectives believe the medals, along with a Go Pro camera, headphones and a wetsuit, were stolen sometime between 9pm Thursday and 5am Friday.

According to police, Ginn had left the medals in his car as he had a speaking engagement at a school.

“These are unbelievably rare items with significant sentimental value,” Det Sgt Timothy Reiher from the Melbourne Crime Investigation Unit said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Olympic medals are awarded to the best of the best and are priceless to their recipients.

“We ask that people look out for these medals in pawn shops and online selling platforms.”

Ginn told ABC Radio Melbourne he hoped the medals would be returned.

“They’ve got a lot of value for family and friends but you can’t insure them,” he said.

He said the medals had been “hidden away in the car, but the car was ransacked completely so lots of stuff was broken and destroyed”.

Ginn had won the medals over the course of 16 years, beginning at the 1996 Games in Atlanta and continuing through to the London Olympics in 2012.

Police have released a photo of the medals as they investigate the theft.

French first lady Brigitte Macron will make a cameo appearance as herself in the Netflix series Emily in Paris when new episodes are released on Thursday.

Macron will wear her own clothing, Elle magazine revealed on Tuesday, “with no particular instructions given to her” by the series known for its fashion.

Program creator Darren Star told Elle that Macron “has great talent”.

The 71-year-old former teacher’s cameo, according to Emily in Paris lead Lily Collins, had been brewing since 2022.

“The idea … came to us when Darren Star and I met her at the Élysée Palace in December 2022,” Collins said.

“She is a big fan of the show and took the mention of her in season one with great humour. This scene in season four is a wink, and shooting with her was both an honour and a real joy.”

It is the second time Macron has played herself on screen. In 2018, she appeared in Vestiaires, a French comedy series following two disabled swimmers. Earlier this year, it was announced that a six-part biopic titled Brigitte, une femme libre (Brigitte, a free woman) was in production.

The second half of the fourth season of Emily in Paris is being released on Thursday on Netflix.

Since launching in 2020, the series has attracted sizeable audiences. The first half of season four debuted at almost 20m views and the show has consistently appeared on Netflix’s top 10 lists – even as it has also made headlines for its absurd storylines and candied depiction of Paris.

The series has been criticised in France in particular for its stereotypical, fantastical portrayal of life in the city of light, from beret-wearing bon vivant lifestyles to sanitised, Instagramable scenes of the capital.

Dave Grohl has announced that he has become the father to a baby girl born “outside of my marriage”.

The Foo Fighters frontman, 55, said he plans to be a “loving and supportive parent” to his new daughter in an Instagram post on Tuesday.

Grohl, who shares three daughters with his wife, Jordyn Blum, said he loves his family and is doing “everything I can to regain their trust and earn their forgiveness”.

“I’ve recently become the father of a new baby daughter, born outside of my marriage,” he wrote in the post. “I plan to be a loving and supportive parent to her.

“I love my wife and my children, and I am doing everything I can to regain their trust and earn their forgiveness.”

He added: “We’re grateful for your consideration toward all the children involved, as we move forward together. Dave.”

Grohl has been married to Blum, a director, since 2003 and together they share daughters Violet, 18, Harper, 15, and Ophelia, 10.

He was previously married to the photographer Jennifer Youngblood from 1994 until 1997, and reportedly has acknowledged that infidelity helped lead to their divorce.

The rocker played drums in the pioneering grunge band Nirvana from 1990 until 1994 when lead singer Kurt Cobain died aged 27.

He went on to form the Foo Fighters and has scored a number of chart-topping albums including their most recent effort, 2023’s But Here We Are.

Australian breaker Rachael “Raygun” Gunn holds the top spot in her sport’s latest world rankings despite Olympic performances that led to online ridicule and abuse.

On Tuesday, the sport’s governing body issued a statement to “provide clarity” on why Raygun tops the rankings.

Raygun, a 37-year-old university lecturer from Sydney, failed to score any points at the Paris Olympics in routines that included a “kangaroo” dance.

The World DanceSport Federation said the ranking methodology is based on each athlete’s top four performances within the past 12 months – but excludes Olympic events including the Paris Games and Olympic qualifier series events in Shanghai and Budapest.

Additionally, no ranking events were held between December 2023 and the Olympics – to allow athletes to focus on qualification.

The federation clarified that the unusual circumstances of this year’s competition schedule resulted in many athletes being ranked based on a single event. In Raygun’s case, her first-place finish at the Oceania continental championships in October 2023 earned her 1,000 points.

Many within the breaking community have criticised the rankings for not giving a clear picture of breaking as a sport and as a culture.

“Speaking of the WDSF, they actually don’t have any real merit with the breakers or the breaking community,” said Zack Slusser, vice president of Breaking for Gold USA. “And they also haven’t been able to organise events by their measure that would contribute to creating an accurate world ranking.”

According to Slusser, breakers only performed in events organised by the WDSF – the Lausanne-based governing body for competitive dance sports – to get enough points to qualify for the Paris Olympics.

Breakers “had no incentive, no desire to even continue participating with the WDSF after that,” Slusser said. “Because they’re not cultural events. They are not enjoyable.”

In contrast, Slusser pointed to international breaking competitions like Red Bull BC One championships that “are like festivals that are geared to the breakers. It’s about the vibe, it’s about the community”.

The WDSF said rankings will change once more events occur, starting with the Breaking for Gold World Series in Shanghai in October.