The Israeli military says it has launched airstrikes on hundreds of targets in southern Lebanon, as Hezbollah launched its deepest rocket attacks into Israel since the start of the Gaza war, prompting a UN official to warn of “imminent catastrophe” in the region.

Fighting reached its most intense yet overnight, with Israel launching a wave of attacks that it said targeted Hezbollah missile launchers across Lebanon’s south. At least one person was killed and another injured in the strikes, the Lebanese ministry of health said.

Hezbollah responded with four rocket barrages early on Sunday morning and more than 140 rockets and drones fired into Israel’s Jezreel Valley.

Fresh clashes erupted early on Sunday, with the IDF saying hundreds of rockets had been fired into Israel from Lebanon, with some landing near the northern city of Haifa.

The Israeli military said rockets had been fired “toward civilian areas”, pointing to a possible escalation after previous barrages had mainly been aimed at military targets. Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue service said it had treated four people for shrapnel wounds, including a 76-year-old man who was slightly wounded near Haifa.

In a statement, the United Nations special coordinator for Lebanon warned the region risked disaster.

“With the region on the brink of an imminent catastrophe, it cannot be overstated enough: there is NO military solution that will make either side safer,” special coordinator Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert said on X.

As she wrote, the Israeli health ministry urged hospitals in northern Israel to transfer their operations to facilities with extra protection from rocket and missile fire. Rambam hospital in Haifa would transfer patients to its underground, secure facility, the ministry said.

Israel’s civil defence agency ordered all schools in the north of the country to close.

The successive barrages of rocket attacks launched by Hezbollah at the Israeli air force’s Ramat David airbase, located 31 miles (50km) from the Lebanon border, were the deepest strikes it has claimed since hostilities began.

The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, delivered a speech at the airbase on Wednesday, telling air force personnel that Israel’s war with Hezbollah had reached a “new phase”.

In July, Hezbollah released footage filmed by a drone over Haifa that highlighted Ramat David as part of an almost 10-minute long video marking military infrastructure in the densely populated city in northern Israel.

On Saturday, Israel closed its northern airspace as it awaited Hezbollah retaliation for the assassination of Ibrahim Aqil, a veteran commander of the elite Radwan unit, along with more than a dozen other militants.

Three children and seven women were among 37 people killed by the Israeli strike on Beirut on Friday that targeted the top Hezbollah leader, Lebanese authorities have said.

The assassination followed a wave of attacks earlier in the week in which walkie-talkies and pagers commonly used by Hezbollah members exploded, killing 42 people and wounding more than 3,000. Israel is presumed to be behind the operation, though it has not officially claimed responsibility.

On Sunday the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “In the last few days, we have inflicted on Hezbollah a sequence of blows that it did not imagine. If Hezbollah did not understand the message, I promise you – it will understand the message.”

He added: “No country can tolerate shooting at its residents, shooting at its cities – and we, the state of Israel, will not tolerate it either… We will do everything necessary to restore security.”

Israel has not visibly slowed its war in Gaza to focus on the north. On Saturday, its forces bombed a school-turned-shelter, killing at least 22 and injuring 30 others, mostly women and children, the Gaza health ministry said. Israel’s military said the target was a Hamas base inside the school, without providing details or evidence.

However, the most recent attacks suggest a potential strategic pivot by the Israeli military away from its focus on Hamas in Gaza and towards targeting Hezbollah.

On 8 October, following the Hamas attacks on Israel, Hezbollah entered the conflict in support of the Palestinian militants, with an attack on northern Israel.

Since then, Israel and Hezbollah have managed to avoid an all-out war, engaging instead in a limited conflict of attrition. Nevertheless, political and military experts argue that the recent escalation triggered by the pager attacks has transformed the conflict, potentially setting the stage for a full-scale war.

“There’s no such thing as a ‘limited war’ in Lebanon,” said Alon Pinkas, who served as Israel’s consul general in New York from 2000 to 2004 and is now a political analyst for Haaretz. “Anyone who uses that term either conveniently forgot history or doesn’t understand the current environment, and anyone who thinks ‘escalation’ and ‘limited’ are controllable constructs is delusional.”

On Sunday an Iraqi coalition of pro-Iran armed groups also claimed a drone attack on Israel.

“The fighters of the Islamic Resistance of Iraq targeted on Sunday morning a strategic location in the occupied territories using drones,” said the Iraqi coalition in a statement on Telegram, referring to Israel, adding it was carried out “in support of our people in Gaza”.

The IDF confirmed the attack and said it had intercepted “multiple suspicious aerial targets” coming from Iraq overnight.

With Agence France-Presse and Associated Press

Israeli forces raided the office of Al Jazeera in the occupied West Bank on Sunday and issued a 45-day closure order, the Qatari broadcaster said, with footage showing heavily armed and masked troops entering the premises in Ramallah.

“There is a court ruling for closing down Al Jazeera for 45 days,” an Israeli soldier told Al Jazeera’s West Bank bureau chief, Walid al-Omari, the network reported, citing the conversation which was broadcast live. “I ask you to take all the cameras and leave the office at this moment,” the soldier said.

Al-Omari reported that Israeli troops brought a truck to confiscate documents, devices and office property.

The broadcaster said the soldiers did not provide a reason for the closure order.

Al Jazeera denounced the raid as “a criminal act” and said in a statement it held the Israeli government responsible for the safety of its journalists.

The network added that it would take legal action to protect its rights and promised to continue its coverage. “Al Jazeera rejects the draconian actions, and the unfounded allegations presented by Israeli authorities to justify these illegal raids,” it said.

The Israeli communications minister, Shlomo Karhi, confirmed the closure in a statement that called Al Jazeera “the mouthpiece” of Gaza’s Hamas and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah. “We will continue to fight in the enemy channels and ensure the safety of our heroic fighters,” he said.

The move is the latest Israeli action against Al Jazeera. Last week, Israel’s government announced it was revoking the press credentials of Al Jazeera journalists in the country, four months after banning the channel from operating inside Israel.

In a statement, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate condemned the Israeli move, saying “this arbitrary military decision is considered a new violation against journalistic and media works, which has been exposing the occupation’s crimes against the Palestinian people.

“We affirm our full solidarity with Al Jazeera and place our headquarters and capabilities at the service of our colleagues working there”.

In Hamas-run Gaza, the government media office condemned the move in a statement released on Telegram, Al Jazeera reported, calling it a clear violation of international law.

“We call on all media outlets and journalists around the world to declare full solidarity with Al Jazeera,” it added.

The Israeli military has repeatedly accused journalists from the Qatari network of being “terrorist agents” in Gaza affiliated with Hamas or its ally, Islamic Jihad.

Al Jazeera denies the Israeli government’s accusations and claims that Israel systematically targets its employees in the Gaza Strip.

With Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and Reuters

The smell of burnt rubber hung heavy over the rescue workers as they dug, painstakingly ­removing rubble, their shadows long and movements harsh under the burning ­floodlights. Onlookers watched the progress in silence, waiting for any sign of life under the building levelled by four Israeli missiles in Dahieh, the ­southern suburbs of Beirut, just a few hours before on Friday afternoon.

Broken glass stained with blood had been swept to the side and the area cordoned off, members of Hezbollah and the Lebanese civil defence barking orders to make sure emergency vehicles could access the area. Men with freshly bandaged hands, the product of booby-trapped pagers a few days before, milled about as women sobbed.

“My son’s best friend, his mother, his father and his three siblings. They’re all under the rubble. The ­eldest kid is 19, the youngest is two,” Hassan, a 40-year-old resident of Dahieh, said while watching rescue efforts.

Everyone was waiting for someone, hoping they would be found but dreading that they would emerge lifeless. People began to run towards the rescue workers as word spread that someone was found. They were alive and the ambulance sped off towards the hospital, accompanied by an escort of young men on scooters, beeping and cheering as they went.

For nearly a year, the war with Israel had remained in the south. As Israeli warplanes pounded border villages and more than 100,000 residents fled northwards, politicians in Beirut called for de-escalation to avoid a war, despite the fact that it had already began. A bloody, relentless week of attacks, however, has made the war impossible to ignore.

Thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies exploded all over the ­country in a two-wave attack on Tuesday and Wednesday in a suspected Israeli operation, killing and wounding the Hezbollah members who ­carried them and nearby civilians.

On Friday, an Israeli airstrike ­levelled a residential building in Beirut. The Israeli military said the attack killed Ibrahim Aqil and 10 other leaders of the elite Hezbollah Radwan commando unit.

By the week’s end, 76 people were killed – including 12 women and ­children – and more than 3,000 were wounded, more than doubling the total number of casualties since the war began on 8 October last year.

The sudden, brutal nature of the attacks shattered whatever sense of safety Lebanese people felt.

“It was the first time that I felt that the war is around us, that we’re not safe any more. We don’t know where the next Israeli attack will be, I’m avoiding gatherings or unknown areas,” Amal Cherif, a 52-year-old activist and ­resident of central Beirut, said.

When Tuesday’s pager attacks happened, she heard ­screaming and ambulances – despite the fact that her neighbourhood is not Hezbollah-affiliated.

Human rights groups condemned the pager attacks for being indiscriminate, and UN experts called the attack a “terrifying” violation of international law. “Such attacks could constitute war crimes of murder, attacking civilians and launching indiscriminate attacks, in addition to violating the right to life,” UN human rights experts said in a statement.

Israeli minister of defence Yoav Gallant said shortly after Friday’s airstrike on Beirut that “the sequence of actions in the new phase will continue until our goal is achieved: the safe return of the residents of the north to their homes.” Earlier in the week, he announced that the Israeli military’s “centre of gravity” was shifting to confront Hezbollah in north Israel.

Israeli drones patrolled the skies over Beirut deep into the night on Friday, the whine of their engines reverberating throughout the ­capital for the first time since the war started.

In the south, residents refer to the Israeli MK drones as Um Kamal, comparing it to a nosy neighbour who is always snooping. In Gaza, they are referred to as “the wasp”, for their buzzing sounds. In Beirut, residents have developed neither the ­vocabulary nor the dark humour necessary to refer to the drones as anything but what they are, still amazed by their presence above their homes.

Cherif said she shut her windows on Friday to block out the sound, so that she could get some sleep.

In hospitals around Lebanon, ­hundreds of patients were adjusting to a new life, many of them now with permanent disabilities. The pager explosions resulted in many being blinded and losing a hand. The pagers had beeped twice, and then there was a pause, giving people enough time to bring them to their face before they exploded.

“Enucleation [removal of the eye] is a procedure that is rarely ­performed these days. One of our senior ­ophthalmologists was saying that he has done more enucleations in one day than he has done in his entire career,” Lebanon’s health minister, Firas Abiad, told the Observer. The CEO of LAU Medical Center-Rizk Hospital in Beirut, Sami Rizk, said that they would ask other countries to donate eye prostheses.

The series of attacks has prompted unity across Lebanon. Over the past year, the country has been divided over Hezbollah’s war with Israel, with some saying it was necessary to force a ceasefire in Gaza and others ­resenting Lebanon being dragged into the conflict.

It was Hezbollah that fired at Israel first on 8 October, in what it said was an act of “solidarity” with Hamas’s attack the day before.

Since then, the Lebanese group has maintained that it would not stop its attacks against north Israel until a ceasefire is achieved in Gaza. The fighting has killed more than 500 in Lebanon, more than 200 of whom are civilians, and destroyed entire villages along the Lebanon-Israel border.

After the pager explosions, criticisms of Hezbollah’s war against Israel stopped. Lines have formed outside hospitals as people come to donate blood. Officials put out a statement saying that kidney donations were not needed and that eye transplants were impossible, after a number of citizens offered their own.

“Israel is attacking us, it’s not any more against Hezbollah, it’s against civilians. Even if we are against Hezbollah, when Israel attacks Lebanon, people stand next to each other,” Cherif said.

The secretary general of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, thanked the citizens of Lebanon for their solidarity during a Thursday speech, and said the week’s attacks were a “declaration of war” against Lebanon. He vowed that the group would ­retaliate against Israel.

“It’s clear that solidarity is increasing day after day,” Kassam Kassir, an analyst close to Hezbollah, said. Whether that support for Hezbollah lasts or evaporates as the shock of the pager attacks fades will largely be determined by what form the group’s retaliation against Israel takes.

“The reality is Hezbollah is ­facing a major challenge: how can it respond to Israel without going to war? This is the central question,” Kassir said.

The outgoing Sri Lankan president has congratulated his Marxist rival, Anura Kumara Dissanayake, for winning the island nation’s presidential election in a second-round runoff.

“With much love and respect for this beloved nation, I hand over its future to the new president,” Ranil Wickremesinghe said in a statement.

Dissanayake claimed the election in a post on X, although official results had yet to be published. “This victory belongs to all of us,” he wrote.

The election was decided in a second round of counting using preferential votes after neither Dissanayake nor his closest opponent, Sajith Premadasa, won more than 50% of the vote share in the first round.

Later on Sunday, local television said Dissanayake had won the most votes in the runoff between the two. Wickremesinghe, who had trailed in third with 17%, was disqualified after the first round, the election commission said.

This is Sri Lanka’s first election since its economy buckled in 2022 under a severe foreign exchange shortage, leaving it unable to pay for imports of essentials including fuel, medicine and cooking gas. Protests forced the then president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to flee and later resign. Wickremesinghe, who took over, led the heavily indebted country’s fragile economic recovery.

Pradeep Peiris, a political scientist at the University of Colombo, said: “The election result clearly shows the uprising that we witnessed in 2022 is not over.

“People have voted in line with those aspirations to have different political practices and political institutions. AKD (as Dissanayake is known) reflects these aspirations and people have rallied around him.”

Dissanayake, 55, presented himself as the candidate of change for those reeling under austerity measures linked to a $2.9bn (£2.2bn) International Monetary Fund bailout, promising to dissolve parliament within 45 days of taking office to obtain a fresh mandate for his policies in general elections.

He has worried investors with a manifesto pledging to slash taxes, which could affect the country’s ability to meet IMF fiscal targets, and to seek a $25bn debt rework. But during the campaign, he took a more conciliatory approach, saying any changes would be undertaken in consultation with the IMF and that he was committed to ensuring repayment of debt.

Premadasa also pledged to renegotiate the contours of the IMF deal.

Buttressed by the IMF deal, Sri Lanka’s economy has posted a tentative recovery. It is expected to grow this year for the first time in three years and inflation has collapsed to 0.5% from a crisis peak of 70%.

The continued high cost of living was a critical issue for many voters, and millions remain mired in poverty, with many pinning hopes of a better future on the next leader.

Voting was peaceful, although police declared a curfew across the country until noon local time (0630 GMT) on Sunday as a precaution while vote counting continued.

About 75% of the 17 million eligible voters cast their ballots, according to the commission.

Dissanayake, known for stirring speeches, ran as a candidate for the National People’s Power alliance, which includes his Marxist-leaning Janatha Vimukthi Peremuna (JVP) party. Traditionally, Dissanayake’s party has backed stronger state intervention, lower taxes and more closed-market economic policies.

Although JVP has only three seats in parliament, Dissanayake was boosted by his promises of tough anti-corruption measures and more policies to help people in poverty. He drew big crowds at rallies, calling on Sri Lankans to leave behind the suffering of the crisis.

Dissanayake will now have to ensure Sri Lanka sticks with the IMF programme until 2027 to get its economy on a stable growth path, reassure markets, repay debt, attract investors and help a quarter of its people climb out of poverty.

The far-right Alternative für Deutschland party is hoping to come top in an election in the German state of Brandenburg on Sunday, three weeks after making historic gains in two other regions.

The AfD, which has been classified as rightwing extremist in several states by domestic intelligence agencies, is running almost neck and neck with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democrats (SPD) in the state, a belt of urban and rural communities that surrounds the capital, Berlin.

Final polls showed the AfD to have a very slight lead on 28%, with the SPD having considerably narrowed the gap in the last days of campaigning to reach 27%. The conservative CDU was polling at 14% and the new leftist conservative Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) at 13%.

The Greens and the pro-business FDP, junior partners in Scholz’s increasingly fractious three-way coalition, will struggle to win the 5% needed to enter the state parliament, as will the leftwing Die Linke, according to polls.

About 2.1 million people, including 100,000 first-time voters, are registered to vote, after the voting age was reduced to 16.

The ballot is being seen as a referendum on the federal government – the popularity ratings of which are at a record low – and a harbinger of the outcome of next autumn’s federal election.

The SPD has ruled in the state since reunification 34 years ago, and was the party of all three of the leaders who have governed in that time.

The SPD’s Dietmar Woidke, who has led Brandenburg for 14 years, has pledged to resign if the AfD beats his party, in what has been interpreted as a high-stakes gamble based on his own popularity as “father of the state”. The AfD has also called for Scholz to resign.

In a humiliating gesture towards Germany’s leader, Woidke has not only criticised the federal government in his campaign, he has also completely excluded Scholz from it. The most unpopular chancellor on record has been barred from appearing at SPD rallies in the state, even though he and his wife, Britta Ernst, live in its capital, Potsdam.

Although it is one of Germany’s smallest states by population, the vote is considered significant for the whole country, and the results are being awaited with suspense across the continent.

On 1 September, the AfD became the strongest party in a state election for the first time in the eastern state of Thuringia, where it secured about 33% of the vote. In neighbouring Saxony, it emerged in second place, at about 30%, narrowly beaten by the governing centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

The campaign has focused on issues of immigration, energy transition, fears of economic recession and Germany’s support for Ukraine, all of which are hot button issues in the former communist-run eastern Germany in particular, with the AfD proving itself to be especially adept at tuning into voters’ concerns.

Even if the AfD wins, it is unlikely to be able to rule the state, because it will lack a majority. The other parties have put up a so-called “firewall” and have refused to work with it.

The BSW of Wagenknecht, a nine-month old breakaway group from the far-left Die Linke, is therefore likely to be a powerful element in any post-election power-broking. Critics say the firewall is going to prove to be increasingly hard to maintain if the AfD continues to perform strongly in elections.

Nationally, all three parties in Scholz’s coalition are together polling less than the opposition CDU under Friedrich Merz, who this month was formally appointed as the party’s chancellor candidate for the federal election in September 2025.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, is “gravely alarmed” at reports of a full-scale assault on the Sudanese city of al-Fashir by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and has called on its leader to halt the attack immediately, according to Guterres’ spokesperson.

“It is unconscionable that the warring parties have repeatedly ignored calls for a cessation of hostilities,” Stéphane Dujarric said in a statement.

In a sign that the crisis is belatedly rising up the diplomatic agenda at the UN general assembly in New York, similar fears were expressed by Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, who said the 27-member bloc would not bear witness to another genocide.

“Belligerent parties, their affiliated militias and their regional supporters must adhere to international humanitarian law, by protecting civilians from conflict, provide unhindered humanitarian access and allow civilians to move in and out of Zamzam camp,” said Borrell, referring to the camp for internally displaced people in North Darfur, the region of which al-Fashir is capital.

The assault by the RSF in North Darfur comes amid fresh evidence that RSF is being armed by the United Arab Emirates. The attack also threatens to derail an economic cooperation summit between Joe Biden and his UAE counterpart, Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, at the White House on Monday. The meeting had previously been billed as the culmination of efforts to restore relations between the two countries.

In advance of the meeting, however, US national security officials leaked details, which were published in the New York Times, claiming the UEA was playing “a double game” by using airbases in neighbouring Chad not only to fly in aid but also to launch drones that passed on battlefield information and to escort weapons shipments to the RSF.

The UAE denies it is providing weapons or any other form of support to the RSF, which is accused of numerous war crimes and evolved from the Janjaweed militias. Lana Nusseibeh, the country’s assistant minister for political affairs, recently wrote in a letter to the Economist magazine: “The UAE is not providing weapons or any other support to the Rapid Support Forces or any of the warring parties in Sudan. We believe that the only way to achieve peace is through effective diplomacy where the warring parties must reach a full nationwide ceasefire.”

The growing diplomatic attention is belated for a war that has displaced 10 million people and left as many as 25 million, half the population, facing acute hunger. There is a recognition that the issue has been neglected by top diplomats as they have focused on Gaza and Ukraine.

The UN imposed an arms embargo on Sudan two decades ago, but it has been widely flouted by both sides.

The UAE insists it has “played a constructive role” in helping to establish a mediation format it says has “unlocked critical routes for aid deliveries, secured further commitments to protect civilians and developed a proposal for a compliance mechanism to ensure implementation of the Jeddah declaration, with the objective to secure a ceasefire”.

In his statement on Saturday, Guterres called on the head of the RSF, Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, to “act responsibly and immediately order a halt to the RSF attack”.

A gas explosion in a coalmine in Iran’s South Khorasan province has killed at least 51 people and injured 20, Iran’s state media said.

The accident was caused by a methane gas explosion in two blocks, B and C, of the mine run by the Madanjoo company, state media said on Sunday.

The governor of South Khorasan province, Ali Akbar Rahimi, told state TV: “Seventy-six per cent of the country’s coal is provided from this region and around eight to 10 big companies are working in the region, including Madanjoo company.”

The rescue operation in block B has reportedly been completed. Of the 47 workers who were in the block, 30 died and 17 were injured, Rahimi said.

Rescue operations in block C have started. Methane density in the block is high and the operation will take about three to four hours, he added.

There were 69 workers in the blocks at the time of the explosion, state TV reported.

“Seventeen injured people were transported to the hospital and 24 people are still missing,” it said earlier on Sunday, citing the head of Iran’s Red Crescent.

The explosion occurred at 9pm local time (5.30pm GMT) on Saturday, state media said.

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, expressed condolences to the victims’ families. “I spoke with ministers and we will do our best to follow up,” Pezeshkian said in televised comments.

A gas explosion in a coalmine in Iran’s South Khorasan province has killed at least 51 people and injured 20, Iran’s state media said.

The accident was caused by a methane gas explosion in two blocks, B and C, of the mine run by the Madanjoo company, state media said on Sunday.

The governor of South Khorasan province, Ali Akbar Rahimi, told state TV: “Seventy-six per cent of the country’s coal is provided from this region and around eight to 10 big companies are working in the region, including Madanjoo company.”

The rescue operation in block B has reportedly been completed. Of the 47 workers who were in the block, 30 died and 17 were injured, Rahimi said.

Rescue operations in block C have started. Methane density in the block is high and the operation will take about three to four hours, he added.

There were 69 workers in the blocks at the time of the explosion, state TV reported.

“Seventeen injured people were transported to the hospital and 24 people are still missing,” it said earlier on Sunday, citing the head of Iran’s Red Crescent.

The explosion occurred at 9pm local time (5.30pm GMT) on Saturday, state media said.

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, expressed condolences to the victims’ families. “I spoke with ministers and we will do our best to follow up,” Pezeshkian said in televised comments.

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, has indicated that delicate negotiations with the White House to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia are ongoing, arguing it was a time for “nerve and guts”.

The apparent encouragement to Joe Biden comes just over a week after Lammy and Keir Starmer visited the US president in the White House but failed to resolve the sticking point between two countries.

Speaking at a fringe event at the Labour party conference in Liverpool, Lammy said the hardship and challenges of the war in Ukraine would get “deeper and harsher”, particularly heading into “the back end of 2025 into 2026” and beyond.

“So this is a critical time for nerve and guts and patience and for fortitude on behalf of allies who stand with Ukraine,” he said in comments that appeared directed at a hesitant White House, concerned about the risks of allowing Storm Shadow missiles to be used to attack Russia.

Lammy emphasised that Ukraine and its western allies were discussing “what more might be necessary” to help Kyiv on the battlefield beyond trying to hold the frontline, which is under acute pressure in the east.

“I am not going to as foreign secretary, of course, comment on operational details, because that can only aid Putin,” Lammy said, in an apparent reference to Storm Shadow missiles. “But there is a very real-time discussion across allies about how we can support Ukraine as we head into winter.”

Ukraine’s President Voldymyr Zelenskyy called on Biden again on Saturday to allow Ukraine to carry out long-range strikes inside Russia. His plea came before a critical meeting between the two on Thursday at the UN general assembly in New York. The issue, he added, remained unresolved despite Starmer lobbying Biden in person nine days ago.

Zelenskyy wants to be able to use British, French and Italian Storm Shadow missiles, as well as US-made Atacms to hit airbases and other military targets inside Russia. He has argued that the Kremlin could be motivated to seek peace if it was clear that Ukraine could strike targets closer to Moscow.

The UK has donated Storm Shadow missiles from its stocks, but its European partners and the US need to give their permission for Ukraine use them on Russian soil. The weapons also rely on a US guidance system to evade Russian jamming, without which they risk being ineffective if launched.

Starmer’s White House meeting with Biden, where they discussed the issue, the wider Ukraine war, the Middle East and China, was deliberately low key. No announcement about Storm Shadow had been expected, but the absence of a briefing after the summit suggested no breakthrough had been achieved.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK and the country’s former top military commander, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, was also present at the Labour conference fringe event, which was organised by the Tony Blair Institute. Zaluzhnyi said Ukraine was “still serious about winning this war” and listed a series of requests to help it do so.

“First of all we need to have enough modern weapons,” he said. “Long-range air and ground facilities are critically important. Lifting restrictions of using the weapons military targets in Russia is critical. These would help protect civilians from Russian missiles and glide bombs.”

The ambassador also called for further tightening of sanctions against Russia, future Nato membership for Kyiv, and notably “a political decision” to allow western allies “to shoot down drones and missiles above western Ukraine” with their own fighter jets and air-defence systems.

The US, UK and other countries in the Middle East came to Israel’s aid in April when Iran launched a major missile and drone attack against it. That prompted Zelenskyy to ask why such support could not be provided to Kyiv, which would free up some of the country’s military to fight on the frontlines in the south and east.

The MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell this week hit out at George W Bush, the Republican former president, for refusing to weigh in on America’s looming presidential election.

“All any decent person wants him to do is to say, ‘Don’t vote for Donald Trump, and here’s why,’ and he won’t even do that,” O’Donnell told the Fast Politics podcast, of the Republican president who was in office from 2001 to 2009.

Increasingly, Bush – and some other top Republicans from his political era – are looking lonely in their ongoing refusal to take a side in an election in which many have warned that US democracy is under threat from Trump’s open sympathies with autocracy.

Bush’s vice-president Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz Cheney, whose January 6 committee role cost her a US House seat in Wyoming, have endorsed Kamala Harris. So have other senior Republicans, including more than 100 who this week signed a letter declaring that Trump, their party’s nominee for a third election running, must never return to the White House.

“We believe that the president of the United States must be a principled, serious and steady leader,” the officials said. “We expect to disagree with Kamala Harris on many domestic and foreign policy issues, but we believe that she possesses the essential qualities to serve as president and Donald Trump does not.”

Big-name signatories included Chuck Hagel, a former senator and defense secretary; Gen Michael Hayden, a former CIA and NSA chief; and John Negroponte, once ambassador to the UN. Robert Zoellick, a longtime aide to both presidents Bush and a deputy to James Baker, secretary of state to the elder Bush, was on the list too.

Missing from the list, however, were Baker, the younger Bush and his own secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice. As perhaps the three most senior Republicans who have not come out against Trump in this election cycle, Bush, Rice and Baker’s lack of comment excites growing comment itself.

Bush’s office recently said he would not endorse, having “retired from presidential politics years ago”, perhaps ensuring that his most lasting comment on his successor will be the one he reportedly delivered on the dais at the Capitol after Trump’s inaugural speech in 2017, “American carnage” and all: “That was some weird shit.”

Rice did oppose Trump in 2016. Amid the Access Hollywood scandal, over Trump’s boasts about sexual assault, Rice said he should withdraw as the Republican candidate, in favor of “someone who has the dignity and stature to run for the highest office in the greatest democracy on earth”.

She has commented on Trump’s presidency too. In 2021, she said his appeal to people who felt let down by establishment politicians was “something that we probably still really need to pay attention to”. Earlier this year, Rice spoke out against isolationism, another central tenet of Trumpism. But that drew a rebuke from Adam Kinzinger, the former congressman from Illinois who sat with Cheney on the January 6 committee and who endorsed Harris at the Democratic national convention.

“It’s time to speak up and do more,” Kinzinger said. “You’re not fighting against ‘isolationism’. You’re fighting against Trump and you need to say this out loud. No more straddling the fence, Republicans. You’re for Trump or against him. Pick a side.”

Baker has not taken a public position on Trump but in 2020, his biographers reported that though the “myriad ethical scandals surrounding Trump were head-spinning, Baker kept telling himself it was worth it to get conservative judges, tax cuts and deregulation”.

“I will vote for the Republican,” Baker was quoted as saying. “I really will.”

Now 94 but still active in the public realm, Baker has not publicly indicated how he will vote this year. A source close to him said he had been sharply critical of Trump’s attempt to overturn the election in 2020. Nonetheless, the former secretary of state’s words in his biography ring loud.

“I won’t leave my party. You can say my party has left me because the leader of it has. But I think it’s important, the big picture.”

In most eyes, though, the big picture has only grown more alarming. Trump has incited a deadly attack on Congress; beaten a second impeachment arising from that attack; been convicted on 34 criminal charges with more than 50 pending; been ordered to pay hundreds of millions in civil cases regarding business fraud and a defamation suit arising from a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”; and launched an election campaign of breathtaking racist invective and lies.

“Taxes go up, taxes go down. Regulations are imposed, they are withdrawn. But a democracy? You can’t squander that. Our reputation in the world, the Nato alliance at a time of extreme danger – once those things are gone, they would be exceptionally hard to rebuild.”

That was the view of one Washington Republican, a White House official under both Bushes whose job now precludes public endorsements but who was granted anonymity to speak frankly and said they would vote for Harris.

With a laugh, the former official suggested George W Bush “may write in Condi Rice again”, a reference to the protest vote Bush said he lodged in 2020, rather than support Joe Biden.

As for Baker, the former official said: “Don’t forget, he’s from Houston. I think if you spend 50 years around Houston, you just absorb the oil and gas view of the world. Many people in the oil and gas industry are very anti-Biden, very anti-Harris, largely because of the perception that Biden was for the Green New Deal, which is false, and then the natural gas export review.”

For Republicans, the former official said, it is easier to come out against Trump in the national security space and what might be called the democracy space, given the enormity of Trump’s election subversion and January 6 and anxious questions about his relationships with autocrats including Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong-un of North Korea.

“There are the Dick Cheneys of the world, who basically say: ‘This is about democracy. This is about January 6. Donald Trump cannot be trusted with power.’ I would also suspect that in Cheney’s case, this goes back to his tenure in the defense department [under George HW Bush], and if you recall the op-ed that all the living secretaries of defense wrote on 3 January 2021, it’s all coming out of that.”

That column, for the Washington Post, urged all Americans to ensure a peaceful transfer of power. Three days later, Trump ensured that did not happen.

The former official continued: “While there have been a number of more moderate Republicans who have endorsed Harris, I do not see this as ideological. I see it as, principally, first stop Trump, then attempt to rebuild the party.”

Such ambitions may also motivate establishment Republicans who have chosen to back Trump, among them the New Hampshire governor, Chris Sununu, and Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor who fought Trump in the primary. All may have eyes on a post-Trump world – either in 2024 if he loses or 2028 if he wins.

If so, the former White House official suggested, it may not prove a wise course.

“I think it would be hugely, hugely difficult to rebuild the party, largely because the Trumpers just have control of pretty much everything in the states, in the state parties.

“But I think that is the task of a generation, and even more moderate figures are going to have to make nods in the direction of Trumpism for the foreseeable future.”

Mounting threats of a parliamentary motion of no-confidence have put Michel Barnier’s new government under considerable duress before it has even had a chance to start work, as street protesters continued to voice their anger over the French prime minister’s new administration.

Eleven weeks after Emmanuel Macron, France’s president, called a snap general election, the new government was finally appointed on Saturday night. But there was little sense that the new cabinet, which signals a clear shift to the right, would bring calm into the political realm.

Opposition politicians from the left immediately announced their plans to undermine the government of Barnier – best known outside France for his role as the EU’s Brexit negotiator – with a no-confidence motion in parliament.

Far-right politicians have also criticised the new formation, calling it “same-old, same-old”.

After a tactical voting push, July’s election delivered a majority to the leftwing alliance New Popular Front (NFP), but it was not enough for the bloc to take power. Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) was the most successful single party in the race.

Barnier has pulled together a government consisting mainly of his and Macron’s allies and representatives from the conservative Republicans (LR) as well as from centrist groups.

Heated discussions between Macron and Barnier over the precise makeup of the cabinet, consisting of 39 posts, continued until shortly before the announcement of the lineup was made on Saturday night.

It has since been condemned by politicians from the left and right, with Jean-Luc Mélenchon criticising it as a “government of the general election losers”. He said that French citizens should have the chance to overturn the new administration “at the first available opportunity”.

Before the announcement, anticipating the rightwards shift of the cabinet, thousands of leftwing protesters took to the streets of Paris and other cities on Saturday to castigate the result, calling it a failure of leadership and a betrayal of French voters that made a joke of the election process.

Olivier Faure, chair of the Socialist party, described the new cabinet as “reactionary”, and “giving democracy the finger”. The RN leader, Jordan Bardella, denounced the new government, stating that it had “no future whatsoever”.

Macron’s party, Renaissance, was forced to forego some major ministerial positions, but still managed to obtain 12 out of 39 of them, prompting Fabien Roussel, the leader of the Communist party, to remark: “This is not a new government, it’s a reshuffle”.

François Hollande, a socialist former French president, said he believed a no-confidence motion was “a good solution”, calling the cabinet “the same as before, but with an even stronger rightwing makeup”, predicting that it would “mete out painful measures on our fellow citizens”.

Should a no-confidence motion occur, it would require an absolute majority in parliament, which would then force the government to resign with immediate effect.

But observers said the scenario was unlikely to happen as it would require the far-right and leftist blocs, who are arch enemies, to vote together.

Barnier’s first big challenge will be to put forward a 2025 budget plan that will tackle what he has referred to as France’s “very serious” financial circumstances.

The country has been reprimanded for breaching the European Union’s budget rules.

Submission of the reform budget to parliament in October will be down to Antoine Armand, the new 33-year-old finance minister.

Other key cabinet posts have been given to Jean-Noël Barrot, the new foreign minister, while the rightwing Republican MP Bruno Retailleau will take up the post as interior minister and whose brief will cover immigration, amid concerns even among Macron’s allies over his radical and uncompromising stance on the issue.

Barnier is expected to appear on TV later on Sunday to outline his plans, before addressing parliament with a major speech on 1 October.

Four people have died and more than 20 were wounded in a shooting in a nightlife area in Birmingham, Alabama, according to police and news reports.

The violence is just the latest shocking incident that highlights the epidemic of gun violence and killings that continues to plague the US and yet prompts little to no political action.

Police said say multiple victims in the mass killing were caught in crossfire and offered a reward for information leading to the arrest of those involved.

There were multiple people shot on 20th Street near Magnolia Avenue in the Five Points South area, the Birmingham police department said in a social media post.

The shooting happened shortly after 11pm on Saturday in the city’s Five Points South entertainment district, the officer Truman Fitzgerald said in an email.

Officers arriving at the scene found two men and a woman on a sidewalk with gunshot wounds, and they were pronounced dead there. An additional male gunshot victim was pronounced dead at a hospital, Fitzgerald said.

A preliminary investigation showed that “multiple suspects fired upon a large group of people who were outside in a public area”, Fitzgerald said.

“Detectives believe the shooting was not random and stemmed from an isolated incident where multiple victims were caught in the crossfire,” Fitzgerald said.

Injured people began showing up at hospitals, Fitzgerald said. By early Sunday, police had identified 18 other victims with injuries, some of them life-threatening.

Some victims were transported to hospitals in private vehicles, police told WBMA.

The Five Points South area of Birmingham has numerous entertainment venues, restaurants and bars and often is crowded on Saturday nights.

Police said there were no immediate arrests.

“We will do everything we possibly can to make sure we uncover, identify and hunt down whoever is responsible for preying on our people this morning,” Fitzgerald told WBMA.

The US has a high rate of mass shootings, which frequently prompts public calls for more substantial gun control. But the US federal government has generally been unwilling or unable to heed those calls.

The gun rights lobby remains strong in the US and its power over politicians who try to enforce tighter gun laws is formidable.

In June the conservative-dominated supreme court struck down a federal ban on “bump stocks”, accessories which can allow a semiautomatic gun to fire as fast as a machine gun. Following the 6-3 decision Joe Biden condemned the ruling, saying it “strikes down an important gun safety regulation”.

The Associated Press contributed reporting

Donald Trump has launched a range of $100 commemorative coins, which join Trump sneakers, Trump Bibles, Trump playing cards, Trump NFTs and strips of the suit he wore when he was booked in Georgia last year, in his hunt for campaign cash.

The latest addition to the Trump entrepreneurial universe – one that four bankruptcies and a recent financial fraud conviction only begin to attest to – display a profile of Trump’s face and an image of the White House with the words “In God we Trust”.

The “1oz .999% silver medallions will be available on Wednesday. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday that the coins were “the ONLY OFFICIAL coin designed by me – and proudly minted here in the USA”.

He also shared a video, saying: “This beautiful, limited-edition coin commemorates our movement, our fight for freedom, prosperity, and putting America first, we always put America first.

“It’s more than just a collector’s item, it’s a testament to the resilience and strength of the American people, our American patriots that we love so much,” he said.

The former president needs the cash: his campaign raised one third of the amount brought in by his Democratic rival, Kamala Harris, in August, and she has more on hand going into the final weeks of the 2024 campaign. But the financial disparity is inconclusive: Hillary Clinton had an enviable cash advantage in 2106 to spend on advertising and still lost.

The launch of the coin comes as Harris campaign has launched a similar cornucopia of campaign merchandising including lawn signs, T-shirts and mugs.

Political merchandising is of course tailored to the candidates’ markets. There’s no shortage of Harris “childless cat lady” merchandising available, though not necessarily endorsed by the campaign. But Trump, with more practice, takes it farther, as he inevitably must. Trump store merchandise includes beach balls, flip-flops, Bibles, mugs and dog collars.

In March, Trump launched God Bless the USA Bibles ahead of Easter alongside the country musician Lee Greenwood. “Happy Holy Week! Let’s Make America Pray Again. As we lead into Good Friday and Easter, I encourage you to get a copy of the God Bless The USA Bible,” Trump wrote on Truth Social .

Two months earlier, he launched a golden “Never Surrender” sneaker for “go-getters who don’t know the word quit” for $399. The candidate also rushed out a book, Save America, soon after he narrowly avoided assassination in July.

The cover features the image of a bloodied Trump waving his fist in the air as he urged his supporters to “fight”, the strongest image to emerge from any recent presidential campaign. A pair of sneakers with that picture is also on offer for $299.