Israel has escalated its military operations on two fronts with heavy bombing raids and mass evacuation orders in southern Lebanon and Gaza, as officials issued new threats of a retaliatory strike against Iran before the one-year anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attacks.

Benjamin Netanyahu visited troops near the Lebanese border on Sunday for the first time and declared that Israel would “emerge victorious” in the conflict, as European leaders including Keir Starmer issued renewed calls for a ceasefire to halt the simultaneous wars in Lebanon and Gaza that have killed more than 42,000 people in the last year.

But Israeli forces were poised to escalate their attacks, issuing a new blanket evacuation order for all of the northern Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of civilians remain, as a military spokesperson declared a “new phase of the war” against Hamas.

Health workers in Gaza said 24 people had been killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a mosque in central Gaza early on Sunday. Local aid workers said the mosque, which was near al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, had housed people who had been displaced in earlier bombing raids. The Israeli military claimed that the mosque had been a “Hamas command post”.

Meanwhile, Israeli jets launched airstrikes on the Dahiyeh neighbourhood of southern Beirut in what Lebanon’s National News Agency called the “most severe” bombing of the war. Israeli attacks in the area, which is a stronghold for the Shia militia Hezbollah, have continued at such a high pace that rescue workers have been unable to access the area for days.

In Israel, one woman was killed and 10 people were wounded in a suspected terror attack at the central bus station in Be’er Sheva, a city in the Negev desert in southern Israel. Israel is on high alert in the hours before it begins commemorations for the anniversary of the 7 October attacks. The assailant, identified as Ahmad al-Uqbi, 29, was killed by police.

Photos and video posted on social media showed images of at least one person, possibly the attacker, lying on the ground in a pool of blood next to a McDonald’s close to the bus station. In another video, gunshots could be heard as soldiers in dark green uniforms ran through the station toward the shooting.

Following the attack, Miri Regev, Israel’s transportation minister, wrote that the family of the suspected attacker should be deported from the country. “The time has come for a deterrent punishment that prevents attacks on Israeli territory,” she wrote on X.

Earlier this week, seven people were killed in a terror attack in the neighbourhood of Jaffa in Tel Aviv. Hamas claimed the attack, which it called “the heroic Jaffa operation”, and said it was carried out by two Palestinian men from the West Bank town of Hebron. The two men, armed with automatic rifles, opened fire on passengers on a light railway before exiting the carriage and killing at least one of the victims.

Israel is preparing 7 October commemorations, with the president, Isaac Herzog, planning to conduct a three-day tour of the border communities along Gaza, beginning at the site of the Nova music festival near the Re’im kibbutz, where 364 people were killed during the Hamas attack.

Israel remains poised to launch fresh strikes against Iran after officials vowed to retaliate against a strike by Iran that included more than 180 missiles, according to Israel, and managed to hit a crucial airbase more than 30 times.

Speaking on Sunday, Yoav Gallant, the Israeli minister of defence, said the bombing had not affected the air force’s ability to operate, and vowed that Israel would strike back against Iran at a time of its choosing.

“The Iranians did not touch the air force’s capabilities – no aircraft was damaged, no squadron was taken out of order,” Gallant said during a visit to the Nevatim airbase. He added: “Whoever thinks that a mere attempt to harm us will deter us from taking action should take a look at [Israel’s campaigns] in Gaza and Beirut.”

Netanyahu visited troops from the 36th division, one of two divisions sent there for combat operations, along the Lebanese border. In remarks, the prime minister said he wished to “extend my deepest condolences to the families of our heroes who fell today in Lebanon.”

Israel has said dozens of its soldiers have been injured in Lebanon in the last week of combat, while Hezbollah claimed to have killed 20 soldiers over this weekend. The number of dead has not been confirmed by Israel.

“We’re in the heat of a gruelling war against Iran’s axis of evil, aimed at destroying us,” Netanyahu said. “That will not happen, because we shall stand together, and with God’s help, we shall emerge victorious together.”

Iran’s foreign minister on Saturday warned that Tehran would retaliate if attacked by Israel. “Our reaction to any attack by the Zionist regime is completely clear,” Abbas Araghchi told reporters during a trip to Syria. “For every action, there will be a proportional and similar reaction from Iran, and even stronger.”

As Israelis approached the beginning of the high holy days last week on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the news began to circulate. Several IDF units fighting on the border with Lebanon had taken casualties in at least two different locations. Soldiers had died in combat, and many were wounded.

The confirmation of the wounded and dead, if not the circumstances served as a stark reminder for Israelis of the blows that come in war, even as Israel’s punishing air offensive has killed hundreds of Lebanese and wounded more. The soldiers’ deaths came after two weeks in which Israel struck a series of blows against Hezbollah, including the assassination of the group’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and most of the top leadership.

Underlining that sense of hazard was another story that revealed itself slowly last week: how the wave of Iranian missiles launched against Israel had not been as inconsequential as initially claimed by Israel’s leadership, and instead shown that a large-scale strike could not only overwhelm Israel’s anti-missile defences but thatTehran could accurately explode warheads on the targets it was aiming for, in this case several military bases.

All of which raises serious questions as Israel prepares for a “significant” military response to Iran for the its missile attack.

A year into Israel’s fast metastasising multi-front war that now includes Iran, Lebanon and Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, Israel’s undoubted military and intelligence superiority is faltering on several fronts.

In Israel’s expanding war, as Israeli security analyst Michael Milshtein told the Guardian last week, there have been “tactical victories” but “no strategic vision” and certainly not one that unites the different fronts.

What is clear is that the conflict of the last year has seriously exposed Israel’s newly minted operational doctrine, which had planned for fighting short decisive wars largely against non-state actors armed with missiles, with the aim of avoiding being drawn into extended conflicts of attrition.

Instead, the opposite has happened. While Israeli officials have tried to depict Hamas as defeated as a military force – a questionable characterisation in the first place – they concede that it survives as a guerilla organisation in Gaza, although degraded.

Even as Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, levelled large areas of the coastal strip and displaced a population assailed by hunger, death and sickness on multiple occasions, Israeli armour was assaulting areas of the strip once more this weekend in a new operation into northern Gaza to prevent Hamas regrouping.

Hezbollah too, despite sustaining heavy losses in its leadership, retains a potency fighting on its own terrain in the villages of southern Lebanon where it has had almost two decades to prepare for this conflict.

All of which raises serious questions as to whether Israel has any clearer vision for its escalating conflict with Iran.

A long-distance war with Iran, many experts are beginning to suggest, could also devolve into a more attritional conflict despite the relative imbalances in capabilities, even as Israel continues to plan for the scale of its own response to last week’s missile attack.

Speaking to Bloomberg TV, Carmiel Arbit, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programme, described that dynamic. “I think we are going to be looking at this as the new reality for a long time,” Arbit predicted.

“I think the question is simply going to be how often is the tit for tat going to happen, and is it just going to be tit for tat, or is this going to escalate only further. And I think the hope of the international community at this point is to avert a world war three rather than this smaller-scale war of attrition.”

Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, echoes that view in part, while cautioning that an extended series of exchanges could push Tehran to a less predictable reaction.

“The continued asymmetrical tit-for-tat between Iran and Israel risks devolving into a futile cycle of Iranian missile strikes and Israeli retaliations, each exposing Tehran’s military limitations while failing to alter the balance – and potentially driving Iran toward more desperate and unpredictable measures in its quest for credible deterrence.”

“In the long term – and it cannot be assumed that the Israeli-Iranian conflict will end soon,” wrote Haaretz’s main military analyst, Amos Harel, “there will be competition between the production rate and sophistication of Iran’s offensive systems on one side and of Israel’s interception systems on the other.”

With Israel now so deeply immersed in a widening conflict, it is unclear whether it can escape what Anthony Pfaff, the director of the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, in August called the “escalatory trap”.

“If Israel escalates,” wrote Pfaff, “it fuels the escalatory spiral that could, at some point, exceed its military capability to manage.

“If it chooses the status quo, where Hamas remains capable of terrorist operations, then it has done little to improve its security situation. Neither outcome achieves Israel’s security objectives … Forcing the choice between escalation and the status quo gives Iran, and, by extension, Hezbollah, an advantage and is a key feature of its proxy strategy.”

The UK government is advising Israel to show “restraint” as Keir Starmer warned that “sparks”’ from the Middle East conflict could “light touchpapers in our communities at home”.

As the war between Israel and Hamas in the Palestinian territory approaches its first anniversary, on 7 October, Israeli strikes on Saturday night sent shock waves across the Lebanese capital, following days of Israeli bombing in suburbs of the city that are thought to be strongholds for the Iran-backed group Hezbollah.

Meanwhile, Gaza’s civil defence agency said 24 people were killed and dozens wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a mosque in central Gaza early on Sunday. One hundred and one Israeli hostages taken on 7 October 2023 have still not been freed.

Peter Kyle, a UK cabinet minister, did not rule out the possibility of the UK military helping Israel attack Iran, but noted any “operational decision to be taken” would be based on “delicate negotiations”.

Kyle also noted the prime minister had spoken to the UK’s allies in the last few days, including Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, resulting in “unanimous” advice that Israel “must exercise restraint” in the region. However, Kyle said the UK government “can’t instruct Israel, as a sovereign state to do anything”.

Speaking on the BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Kyle said: “We do understand deeply what Israel has suffered in this year, but the only way forward is restraint, a ceasefire to create the space for a political solution, because this is getting more complicated. The war is deepening and it is not moving towards the peace that we need, so we are urging the steps that will take us towards that peaceful settlement”.

The prime minister, in an article for the Sunday Times, called out the “vile hatred” that had been directed towards Jews and Muslims since the 7 October attacks.

He urged all parties involved in the conflict to “act with restraint and return to political, not military solutions”, having previously expressed his concern that the “region is on the brink” after Iran’s missile attack on Israel. Writing in the newspaper, he said: “The flames from this deadly conflict now threaten to consume the region. And the sparks light touchpapers in our own communities here at home.”

He added: “There are always some who would use conflict abroad to stoke conflict here. Since October 7, we have watched vile hatred against Jews and Muslims rise in our communities.”

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said more than 250 people had been able to leave Lebanon so far on the three chartered flights that had already left Beirut. There are no further scheduled charter flights, but the situation would be kept under review.

The shadow foreign secretary, Andrew Mitchell, told Sky News’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips programme: “The Iranians, of course, have already responded and on both occasions when they attacked – directly from Iran – Israel, British military forces were engaged in trying to help.

“Israel is a very strong ally. Of course we want to see de-escalation, we want to see negotiation and we want to see people’s eyes lifted towards the possibility of a political solution.”

Zarah Sultana, an MP who has been suspended from the Labour party and is sitting as an independent, told the BBC “there is no scenario” where the UK’s involvement in an attack on Iran could be justified.

She added: “If we look at the past two decades of British foreign policy in the Middle East there are catalogues of failures and clearly lessons haven’t been learned. When we look at what the British public think, 56% of them back a ban on arms sales to Israel, only 17% oppose that, 67% believe Israel has committed war crimes and 84% want Netanyahu arrested if he enters the UK. Clearly there’s a detachment from the British public opinion and what the government are saying.”

The former Conservative foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind said what was needed from both Israelis and Palestinians was “leadership that is prepared not to forget the past, but to move on to a political dialogue”.

Voting has begun in the Tunisian presidential election as the president, Kais Saied, seeks a second term, while his most prominent critics are in prison and after his main rival was jailed suddenly last month.

The election, expected to be won by Saied, is being seen by observers as a closing chapter in Tunisia’s experiment with democracy.

The north African country had for a decade prided itself for being the birthplace of the pro-democracy movement after the 2011 Arab spring uprisings against dictatorship. It had been hailed for introducing a competitive, though flawed, democracy after decades of autocratic rule.

Observers and rights groups now say Saied, 66, who has been president since 2019, has undone many of Tunisia’s democratic gains while removing institutional and legal checks on his power. In 2021, he seized most powers when he dissolved the elected parliament and rewrote the constitution, a move the opposition described as a coup.

Before polling day, there were no campaign rallies or public debates, and nearly all of the campaign posters in city streets have been Saied’s. Senior figures from the biggest parties, which largely oppose Saied, have been imprisoned on various charges over the past year and those parties have not publicly backed any of the three candidates on Sunday’s ballot. Other opponents have been barred from running.

Saied, who has said he is fighting a corrupt elite and traitors and will not be a dictator, is facing two rivals. The first is his former ally turned critic, the Chaab party leader, Zouhair Maghzaoui. Second is Ayachi Zammel, a businessman who had been seen as posing a big threat to Saied until he was jailed last month. Zammel currently faces more than 14 years in prison on accusations of having forged endorsement signatures to enable him to stand in the election.

With little hope for change in a country mired in economic crisis, the mood among much of the electorate has been one of resignation. “We have nothing to do with politics,” Mohamed, a 22-year-old who gave only his first name for fear of retribution, told Agence France-Presse in the capital. Neither he nor his friends planned to vote, he said, because they believed it was “useless”.

Wael, a bank employee in Tunis, told Reuters: “The scene is shameful. Journalists and opponents in prison, including one presidential candidate. But I will vote for change.”

Polls close at 6pm on Sunday and results are expected in the next two days.

Political tensions have risen since an electoral commission named by Saied disqualified three prominent candidates last month, amid protests by opposition and civil society groups. Last week, lawmakers loyal to Saied then approved a law stripping the administrative court of authority over election disputes. This court is widely seen as the country’s last independent judicial body, after Saied dissolved the supreme judicial council and dismissed dozens of judges in 2022.

Saied said last year that the arrival thousands of illegal migrants from sub-Saharan African countries was a “conspiracy to change the country’s demographic makeup,” prompting the African Union to condemn what it called Tunisia’s “hate speech” against migrants. There were physical attacks, evictions and raids on the homes of black immigrants in Tunisia.

Amid a growing crackdown on dissent, a number of Saied’s critics across the political spectrum have been jailed, sparking condemnation at home and abroad. The New York-based Human Rights Watch has said that more than “170 people are detained in Tunisia on political grounds or for exercising their fundamental rights”.

Jailed opposition figures include Rached Ghannouchi, 83, the Tunisian moderate Islamist leader and founder of the Ennahda party, which dominated political life after the revolution. Ghannouchi, a former parliamentary speaker, is the most prominent critic of Saied.

Tunisia’s electoral board said about 9.7 million people are expected to turn out to vote on Sunday, but the near certainty of a Saied win and the country’s mounting hardships have inspired little to no eagerness to vote.

The International Crisis Group thinktank said on Friday that “the president’s nationalist discourse and economic hardship” have “corroded any enthusiasm ordinary citizens might have felt about the election”. “Many fear that a new mandate for Saied will only deepen the country’s socioeconomic woes, as well as hasten the regime’s authoritarian drift,” it said.

Hundreds of people protested in the capital on Friday, marching along a heavily policed Habib Bourguiba Avenue as some demonstrators bore signs denouncing Saied as a “Pharaoh manipulating the law”.

In a speech on Thursday, Saied had called for a “massive turnout to vote” and usher in what he called an era of “reconstruction”. He cited “a long war against conspiratorial forces linked to foreign circles”, accusing them of “infiltrating many public services and disrupting hundreds of projects” under his tenure.

Salem Lahmar, a fruit seller, told Reuters: “Saied is the first president who fought corrupt politicians and influential businessmen, so we will elect him and renew our support for him.”

The International Crisis Group said that while Saied had support among working-class people, who have been struggling with an economic crisis, he had been criticised for failing to resolve the country’s deep economic problems.

European countries concerned over migration have given financial help to Tunisia after country replaced Libya as the region’s main departure point to Europe for people fleeing poverty and conflict in Africa and the Middle East, many travelling by boat. But Tunisia’s state finances appear to remain highly strained despite tourism revenues rising. Periodic shortages of subsidised goods, as well as outages of power and water, continue.

Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report

Donald Trump has returned to the site where he narrowly escaped assassination in July, pushing the emotional buttons of his supporters and suggesting that his political opponents “maybe even tried to kill me” to stop him regaining the White House.

The Republican presidential nominee – and perennial showman – mounted an unabashedly sentimental spectacle in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. He was joined by billionaire Elon Musk, who made the baseless claim that if Trump’s supporters fail to turn out, “this will be the last election”.

Their joint appearance before an enthusiastic crowd of thousands capped hours of programming seemingly intended to mythologise the 13 July shooting for the Trump base exactly one month before the presidential election.

The rally was held, with heightened security, at the same grounds where Trump was grazed in the right ear and one rallygoer – firefighter Corey Comperatore – was killed when a gunman opened fire. The would-be assassin, 20-year-old Thomas Crooks of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, was shot and killed by a Secret Service sniper.

A photo of Trump standing with blood streaked across his face as he raised his fist and shouted “Fight!” became the indelible image of his campaign. Yet Joe Biden’s decision just a week later to step aside and endorse his vice-president, Kamala Harris, stole Trump’s thunder and altered the trajectory of the race.

On Saturday Trump became the first former president to return to the scene of his attempted assassination and weaponise it for political gain. His campaign sought to recapture the aura of their candidate as hero and martyr.

As he walked out on stage, a video juxtaposed an image of George Washington crossing the Delaware River with the photo of Trump with fist raised. A voice boomed: “This man cannot be stopped. This man cannot be defeated.”

“As I was saying …” Trump said as he appeared on stage, gesturing towards an immigration chart that he was looking at when the gunfire began 12 weeks earlier. The crowd, which was overwhelmingly white, roared enthusiastically, holding aloft signs that read “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Standing behind protective glass that now encases the stage at his outdoor rallies, Trump recalled: “On this very ground a cold-blooded assassin aimed to silence me and silence the greatest movement – Maga – in the history of our country … But by the hand of providence and the grace of God that villain did not succeed in his goal. He did not stop our movement.”

Trump even seemed to be trying to emulate Abraham Lincoln’s Gettsyburg address as he described the field as a “monument to the valour” of our first responders and prophesied: “Forever afterward, all who have visited this hallowed place will remember what happened here and they will know of the character and courage that so many incredible American patriots have showed.”

But Trump also hinted darkly, without evidence, about facing “an enemy from within” more dangerous than any foreign adversary. “Over the past eight years, those who want to stop us from achieving this future have slandered me, impeached me, indicted me, tried to throw me off the ballot, and who knows, maybe even tried to kill me,” he said. “But I’ve never stopped fighting for you and I never will.”

Trump saluted volunteer firefighter Comperatore, who was shot and killed by the gunman, and two other supporters who were wounded. A memorial was set up in the bleachers, his firefighter’s jacket surrounded by flowers. Giant screens said “In loving memory of Corey Comperatore”, accompanied by his picture. Comperatore’s family were present.

At 6.11pm, the exact time when gunfire erupted on 13 July, Trump called for a moment of silence. A bell then tolled four times, once for each of the four victims, including Trump. Then opera singer Christopher Macchio belted out Ave Maria.

Trump then veered into more familiar territory of falsehoods about immigration and other topics. Later he called up on stage Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and owner of social media platform X, who has swerved politically right. Wearing a black cap and black “Occupy Mars” shirt and coat, Musk jumped around with his arms held high and was greeted with cheers.

He said: “The true test of someone’s character is how they behave under fire. We had one president who couldn’t climb a flight of stairs and another who was fist-pumping after getting shot! Fight, fight, fight!”

Despite Trump’s attempt to stage a coup and cling on to power on 6 January 2021, Musk argued: “President Trump must win to preserve the constitution. He must win to preserve democracy in America. This is a must-win situation. Get everyone you know, drag them to register to vote. If they don’t, this will be the last election. That is my prediction.”

The Butler shooting led to widespread criticism of the Secret Service and the resignation of its director. Critics raised concerns about how Crooks was able to access a nearby rooftop with a direct line of sight to where Trump was speaking. In September the former president survived another attempt on his life when a gunman hid undetected for nearly 12 hours at a golf course in one of his Florida clubs.

On Saturday there was an intensified security presence with Secret Service and other law enforcement officers in camouflage uniforms stationed on roofs. The building from which Crooks fired was completely obscured by tractor trailers and a fence.

The rally had an upbeat atmosphere like a giant picnic. People sat on the grass or foldout chairs and walkers in blazing sunshine. They gazed up into a brilliant blue sky to see four special forces skydivers – one holding a giant Stars and Stripes – jumping from a Cessna 206 plane from more than 5,000 feet, then a flypast of “Trump Force One” accompanied by the theme music from the film Top Gun.

One tent displayed paintings of the now famous image of a bloodied Trump with fist raised – reproductions were on sale for up to $200. That photograph was also visible on numerous T-shirts worn by Trump supporters with slogans such as “Fight … fight … fight!”, “American badass”, “Never surrender” and “Fight. Trump 2024. Legends never die”. The commercialisation of the former president’s near death experience was on vivid display.

Attendees spoke of their ardent support for Trump, their suspicion that Democrats were behind an assassination plot and that his life had been spared by divine intervention.

Patricia King, 82, using a walker, was at the rally in Butler in July with her 63-year-old daughter, Diana, and both felt it was important to return. “I remember the long wait and how hot it was and people being loyal enough to stand there and some of them fainted,” said King, a retired nurse. “I remember the shots going off – pop, pop, pop, pop – and I turned and looked where he was and everybody started running.”

King praised Trump’s instinctively combative response that day. “That’s great with me. That’s like: I’m not quitting and that’s what America is about. We don’t quit. Kamala Harris is too weak. I think she’d be asking Putin to have a cup of tea with her, which is not strength to me.”

Debbie Hasan, 61, a landlord wearing a Trump 2024 cap, described Saturday’s rally as “history in the making” and recalled the events of 13 July. “I was watching TV and my husband was in the other room. I start screaming: ‘They shot Trump! They shot Trump!’ Then I called my brother and I’m screaming. And then seeing him get up and the fist pump was an awesome sight. He’s a great man.”

Hasan outlined a baseless conspiracy theory that Democrats orchestrated the shooting. “I hate to say it, I think they were behind all this. They can’t beat him any other way. They tried putting him in court on all kinds of trumped up charges. They’re at their limit. They don’t know what else to do. They promote hate and prejudice. How they talk about him, some wacko’s going to say, he needs to be keyholed.”

Many rallygoers echoed Trump’s claim that God saved him in order to save the country. Rodney Moreland, 66, retired from various jobs including welding, truck driving and security, said: “I don’t know if you believe in God but there was an angel around him that day, absolutely. After that happened his demeanour, everything changed about him. Now he’s calm, cool and collected and he’s known what words to say.”

But Moreland warned of a possible backlash to the election result. “If it goes the opposite direction, there’s going to be a war. The last election was rigged. They said, we cannot have him stay in office again.”

Kristi Masemer, 52, a Walmart worker, wearing a T-shirt that said “I’m still a Trump girl. I make no apologies”, criticised people who said they wished the would-be assassin had killed the former president.

“The amount of people who were like, ‘I’m sorry that he missed’. People actually said that about another human being. That’s the Democrat party. Are you kidding me? That’s not humanity. Who would think that?”

Masemer praised the restraint of Trump supporters after the assassination attempt. “The best part of all that was the people in the Maga movement after that didn’t riot. We didn’t lash back at these people because we’re not haters. We just want our country back and that’s it.”

Butler county, on the western edge of a coveted presidential swing state, is a rural-suburban community and a Trump stronghold. He won the county with about 66% of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. About 57% of Butler county’s 139,000 registered voters are Republicans, compared with about 29% who are Democrats and 14% other parties.

Jana Anderson, 62, who works at an animal shelter, said: “I don’t think a woman should be president, only because it’s always been men. I’m a woman but I think men should lead the country, not a woman. Women, in my opinion, are wishy washy. I mean, she says a lot of things, she promises a lot of things, but I don’t know if she’s capable of doing those things.”

Pope Francis has named 21 new cardinals, significantly increasing the size of the college of cardinals and extending his mark on the group of prelates who will one day elect his successor.

They include a man who will be the oldest cardinal – Monsignor Angelo Acerbi, a 99-year-old retired Vatican diplomat who was once held hostage for six weeks in Colombia by leftist guerrillas – and the youngest: Bishop Mykola Bychok, the 44-year-old head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic church in Melbourne, Australia, who was named in a nod to the war in Ukraine.

The new cardinals will receive their red hats at a ceremony, known as a consistory, on 8 December, a feast day that officially commences the Christmas season in Rome. It will be the pope’s 10th consistory to name new princes of the church and the biggest entry of voting-age cardinals into the college in his 11-year pontificate. Acerbi is the only one of the new intake who is over 80 and hence too old to vote for a new pope.

Usually the college has a limit of 120 voting-age cardinals but popes often exceed the cap temporarily as existing cardinals age out. As of 28 September, there were 122 cardinal-electors; that means the new additions will bring the number to 142.

Among those named by Francis, who in 2013 became the first Latin American pope, were the heads of several major dioceses and archdioceses in South America. They are Vicente Bokalic Iglic, the archbishop of Santiago del Estero in Argentina; Jaime Spengler, the archbishop of Porto Alegre in Brazil; Fernando Natalio Chomalí Garib, the archbishop of Santiago, Chile; Luis Gerardo Cabrera Herrera, the archbishop of Guayaquil in Ecuador; and Carlos Gustavo Castillo Mattasoglio, the archbishop of Lima, Peru.

In contrast, only one new cardinal from North America was named: the archbishop of Toronto, Francis Leo.

Francis appointed Dominique Joseph Mathieu, the archbishop of Tehran, Iran; and Paskalis Bruno Syukur, the bishop of Bogor, Indonesia. They belong to the Franciscan religious order and are two of four new Franciscan cardinals.

In addition to Syukur, Asia will have two more cardinals in Tarcisio Isao Kikuchi, the archbishop of Tokyo; and Pablo Virgilio Siongco David, the bishop of Caloocan in the Philippines.

Africa will have two new cardinals: Ignace Bessi Dogbo, the archbishop of Abidjan in Ivory Coast, and Jean-Paul Vesco, the archbishop of Algiers.

“Francis has again continued to extend the reach of the college of cardinals,” said Prof Christopher Bellitto, a church historian at Kean University in Union, New Jersey. “Like his predecessors, but even more so, he’s making sure that Catholic leaders from the church’s edges have a voice at the big table.”

Even before Sunday’s announcement, Francis had named the vast majority of the voting-age cardinals who will one day vote in a conclave. According to Vatican statistics, 92 of the cardinals under 80 had previously been named by Francis, compared with 24 named by Pope Benedict XVI and six by Saint John Paul II.

Added to their ranks on Sundaywere two Vatican officials with positions that do not usually carry with them a cardinal’s rank: the official in charge of the migration section of the Vatican development office, the Rev Fabio Baggio, and the official who organises the pope’s foreign travels, the Rev George Jacob Koovakad.

In acknowledgment of the synod debating the future of the church at the Vatican this month, Francis also named the Rev Timothy Radcliffe, a British theologian who is one of the spiritual advisers for the meeting.

Bellitto said it was “nonsense” to read the appointment of the new cardinals as Francis attempting to stack the deck. “Every school superintendent, president, and prime minister picks people in their image to help their vision,” he said in an email.

The appointment of Bychok gives Ukraine its only cardinal, sending a subtle political message as Russia’s war grinds on. Ukraine’s ambassador to the Holy See, Andrii Yurash, praised the nomination, even though Francis chose the head of Ukraine’s Greek Catholic church in Australia over the Kyiv-based head, Sviatoslav Shevchuk.

Marseille’s long-running drug turf wars are under a renewed spotlight after a 14-year-old boy was allegedly hired as a hitman via social media and promised €50,000 (£42,000) by a prisoner to carry out a revenge killing.

The teenager is alleged to have been recruited by the 23-year-old inmate who later called the police from his prison cell to report the boy after he allegedly shot dead a 36-year-old man.

An investigation has been opened into alleged murder and conspiracy to murder by a criminal gang. Police are trying to determine why the prisoner reported his own alleged recruit to police.

The Marseille prosecutor, Nicolas Bessone, described the latest incident as “unprecedented savagery” in a press conference on Sunday, saying two recent crimes involving teenagers showed that drug turf wars were dragging in the “ultra-young”, who were being enlisted by gangs to carry out increasingly violent crimes. He said there was a “complete loss of bearings” with teenagers involved in crimes.

On Friday, a 36-year-old taxi driver from the firm Bolt, who was well-known in Marseille as an amateur footballer, was found shot dead by a bullet to the head in his car not far from the city’s main train station. He was described by the prosecutor as having nothing to do with the drugs trade in the Mediterranean port city and although he was “coldly shot” in the back of the head, he was not believed to have been the intended target.

Bessone said: “[The prisoner] recruited a 14-year-old minor from Vaucluse and organised the logistics for him to be collected by car and brought to a hotel room in Marseille. The young boy was carrying his own 357 Magnum revolver”.

The boy allegedly had been instructed to carrying out a shooting and was told to travel by car. He asked the driver to wait, and when he refused the boy shot him in the back of the head, authorities said.

The 14-year-old then allegedly fled the scene and hid nearby, calling his contacts and asking them to come and get him. But instead, the prisoner who had ordered the killing called police to report the boy, giving them his exact location, the prosecutor said. The boy was arrested and was being questioned.

Bessone said the exact reason for the jailed man calling the police, and saying he was acting for a drug gang, remained to be determined. The prisoner went before a judge on Sunday and was charged in the case.

The prosecutor said the 14-year-old boy was hired to carry out a revenge killing over the death of a 15-year-old boy last Wednesday.

The same prisoner had last week contacted a 15-year-old boy online saying he would pay him €2,000 to intimidate a competitor from a rival drugs gang by setting fire to his door. The boy was tasked with shooting at the man’s door and setting it alight.

But the teenager was spotted by members of a rival gang who the prosecutor said “stabbed him 50 times” then set him on fire, killing him. The 14-year-old boy was then allegedly hired online a few days later to avenge that killing.

Marseille, France’s second-largest city, is also one of the poorest in France and is plagued by drug-related violence, which the president, Emmanuel Macron, pledged this year to stamp out. The city has in recent years witnessed a turf war for control of the highly profitable drug market between various clans. Bessone said victims and perpetrators of such violence were getting increasingly younger.

The two latest deaths mean that the number of drug-related killings in Marseille has risen to 17 since the start of the year. Forty-nine people were killed in drug related violence in the city in 2023.

Marseille’s long-running drug turf wars are under a renewed spotlight after a 14-year-old boy was allegedly hired as a hitman via social media and promised €50,000 (£42,000) by a prisoner to carry out a revenge killing.

The teenager is alleged to have been recruited by the 23-year-old inmate who later called the police from his prison cell to report the boy after he allegedly shot dead a 36-year-old man.

An investigation has been opened into alleged murder and conspiracy to murder by a criminal gang. Police are trying to determine why the prisoner reported his own alleged recruit to police.

The Marseille prosecutor, Nicolas Bessone, described the latest incident as “unprecedented savagery” in a press conference on Sunday, saying two recent crimes involving teenagers showed that drug turf wars were dragging in the “ultra-young”, who were being enlisted by gangs to carry out increasingly violent crimes. He said there was a “complete loss of bearings” with teenagers involved in crimes.

On Friday, a 36-year-old taxi driver from the firm Bolt, who was well-known in Marseille as an amateur footballer, was found shot dead by a bullet to the head in his car not far from the city’s main train station. He was described by the prosecutor as having nothing to do with the drugs trade in the Mediterranean port city and although he was “coldly shot” in the back of the head, he was not believed to have been the intended target.

Bessone said: “[The prisoner] recruited a 14-year-old minor from Vaucluse and organised the logistics for him to be collected by car and brought to a hotel room in Marseille. The young boy was carrying his own 357 Magnum revolver”.

The boy allegedly had been instructed to carrying out a shooting and was told to travel by car. He asked the driver to wait, and when he refused the boy shot him in the back of the head, authorities said.

The 14-year-old then allegedly fled the scene and hid nearby, calling his contacts and asking them to come and get him. But instead, the prisoner who had ordered the killing called police to report the boy, giving them his exact location, the prosecutor said. The boy was arrested and was being questioned.

Bessone said the exact reason for the jailed man calling the police, and saying he was acting for a drug gang, remained to be determined. The prisoner went before a judge on Sunday and was charged in the case.

The prosecutor said the 14-year-old boy was hired to carry out a revenge killing over the death of a 15-year-old boy last Wednesday.

The same prisoner had last week contacted a 15-year-old boy online saying he would pay him €2,000 to intimidate a competitor from a rival drugs gang by setting fire to his door. The boy was tasked with shooting at the man’s door and setting it alight.

But the teenager was spotted by members of a rival gang who the prosecutor said “stabbed him 50 times” then set him on fire, killing him. The 14-year-old boy was then allegedly hired online a few days later to avenge that killing.

Marseille, France’s second-largest city, is also one of the poorest in France and is plagued by drug-related violence, which the president, Emmanuel Macron, pledged this year to stamp out. The city has in recent years witnessed a turf war for control of the highly profitable drug market between various clans. Bessone said victims and perpetrators of such violence were getting increasingly younger.

The two latest deaths mean that the number of drug-related killings in Marseille has risen to 17 since the start of the year. Forty-nine people were killed in drug related violence in the city in 2023.

It is “impossible” for the People’s Republic of China to become Taiwan’s motherland because Taiwan has older political roots, the island’s president has said.

Lai Ching-te, who took office in May, is condemned by Beijing as a separatist. He rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying the island is a country called the Republic of China that traces its origins back to the 1911 revolution overthrowing the last imperial dynasty.

The Chinese nationalist government fled to Taiwan in 1949 after losing a civil war with Mao Zedong’s communists. Mao set up the People’s Republic of China, which continues to claim self-governed Taiwan as its territory.

Speaking at a concert ahead of Taiwan’s national day celebrations on 10 October, Lai noted that the People’s Republic had celebrated its 75th anniversary on 1 October and in a few days it would be the Republic of China’s 113th birthday.

“Therefore, in terms of age, it is absolutely impossible for the People’s Republic of China to become the motherland of the Republic of China’s people. On the contrary, the Republic of China may be the motherland of the people of the People’s Republic of China who are over 75 years old,” Lai added, to applause.

“One of the most important meanings of these celebrations is that we must remember that we are a sovereign and independent country.”

China’s Taiwan affairs office did not answer calls seeking comment outside office hours, the Reuters news agency said.

The Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in a speech on the eve of his country’s national day, reiterated his government’s view that Taiwan is its territory.

Lai, who will give his own keynote national day address on 10 October, has needled Beijing before with historical references. In September, he said that if China’s claims on Taiwan were about territorial integrity then it should also take back land from Russia signed over by the last Chinese dynasty in the 19th century.

With Reuters

Florida is expected to get walloped by another hurricane next week, just 10 days after it was hit by Hurricane Helene, which caused widespread storm surge and wind damage before it moved inland to cause devastating flooding.

The latest system, Tropical Storm Milton, formed in the Gulf of Mexico on Saturday. Forecasters expect the storm to quickly strengthen into a hurricane and rush toward Florida in the next few days.

Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, declared a state of emergency in 35 counties ahead of the storm’s potential landfall.

The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Florida said Milton, which could become a hurricane on Monday, is expected to bring surge and high winds to the recovering west coast and serious flood risks to south and central Florida.

Jamie Rhome, the deputy director of the NHC in Miami, said Milton could develop into a “potentially very impactful hurricane” and hit Florida’s Gulf coast on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Milton is expected to pack maximum sustained winds of 110mph when it makes landfall near St Petersburg and Tampa as a category 2 to category 3 hurricane, Rhome said. Category 3 and above are considered “major” hurricanes.

Tropical Storm Milton’s center was about 860 miles (1,385km) west-south-west of Tampa, Florida, early Sunday, heading east at 5mph with maximum sustained winds of 60mph (95kph), the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

“Milton is moving slowly but is expected to strengthen rapidly,” the center said. “There is increasing confidence that a powerful hurricane with life-threatening hazards will be affecting portions of the Florida west coast around the middle of this week.”

“Regardless of where the storm tracks, it’s going to produce a large area of heavy rain and potential flooding,” Rhome said on Saturday.

“Even if this doesn’t realize a high-end wind core, it will have the potential for significant surge inundation,” Andrew Moore, a meteorologist for Arch Reinsurance, wrote on X.

A major factor in predicting Milton’s increasing strength is that surface sea temperatures, or SST’s, did not cool off after Helene passed over and remain significantly above normal.

“Most of the Gulf is above-average SST still, and the loop current is prominent. Shelf south of Tampa is extremely warm as well. Lots of potential fuel,” wrote Andy Hazelton, an associate scientist at the hurricane research department at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In Florida, since many of the 35 counties now in a state of emergency for Milton are still recovering from Hurricane Helene, DeSantis asked the Florida division of emergency management and the Florida department of transportation to coordinate all available resources and personnel to supplement local communities as they expedite debris removal.

Separately, the NHC said on Sunday another storm, Hurricane Kirk, diminished to a category 2 hurricane in the open Atlantic early, with top winds of 105mph (165kph), sending large swells and “life-threatening surf and rip current conditions” to Bermuda and northward along the US and Canadian coasts. Hurricane Leslie also was moving north-west over the open Atlantic, with top winds of 85mph (140kph) but posing no threats to land.

It took a while for Vybz Kartel to tear himself away from the adoring fans lined up to pose with him for photos. They were happy to endure the blazing Jamaican sun to have a moment with the dancehall star, a global phenomenon who has worked with the likes of Jay-Z and Pharrell Williams.

He finally sat on a bench in a cool corner of the outdoor hotel pool, his son, Likkle Addi, and fiancee, Sidem Öztürk, seated opposite him. The musician has spent most of his 19-year-old son’s life in prison. “Time is precious. Don’t waste it, because you can’t get it back,” Kartel said.

Arrested in 2011 with three other men for the murder of their associate Clive “Lizard” Williams, whose body has never been found, Kartel was sentenced to 35 years in prison, later reduced on appeal to 32 and six months. He has always maintained his innocence, lodging more appeals.

In March, the case was heard in the UK’s privy council, used as Jamaica’s final court of appeal. Lord Lloyd-Jones quashed the original conviction because of bribery attempts by one of the original jurors. The matter was passed back to the court of appeal in Jamaica, where a judge decided that a new trial was not required, and Kartel was released from prison.

Now suffering from Graves’ disease, an autoimmune condition that has visibly affected his appearance, Kartel said his priorities are “God, family and fitness”.

“Since I’ve been free, I’ve made so much money, but I can’t get the time back,” he said, looking at his son. “When I just got arrested, my children were children. Now they’re giving me grandchildren. So I have two grandchildren after 13 years behind bars.”

Born Adidja Palmer, the 48-year-old described growing up in Waterford, an inner-city community in the south-east parish of St Catherine. His father, an electrician at the Jamaica Flour Mill whom he credits for his strong work ethic, believed in the power of education and ensured young Kartel attended primary school and sat the secondary school entrance exam. He secured a place at Calabar high school, which is known for having produced several University of Oxford Rhodes Scholars, but the young aspiring musician was expelled for truancy.

“Calabar was in Kingston, where all the studios were at the time. So it was fascinating to me to see all those big artists of the time: Ninjaman, Shabba Ranks, Buju Banton, Josie Wales, Charlie Chaplin. It was such an amazing time for me, so I literally just kept going every day. By the ninth grade, the principal at Calabar said, ‘We don’t want you back at the school any more’. I didn’t even feel sad because I already knew what I wanted to do in life, which was music. So, for me, it was a done deal.”

But it was after he had been introduced to the DJ Bounty Killer that his career took off.

As Bounty Killer’s protege, Kartel rose to stardom with ­collaborations with Jay-Z and Pharrell.

The musician has no regrets about his career but wishes he had followed guidance from his parents, who tried to keep him in school by securing his admission to the private Tutorial College. Though Kartel left with some O-level subjects, he never graduated from high school.

“My mom was a housewife, an amazing woman. She always tried to embed certain principles in us as children … I wish I had listened to them more,” he said.

“I’ve always said this even before I got arrested – stay in school. As much as possible, get an education because not everyone can pay for a college education, but try to get an education as far as it can take you and stay away from bad energy, from bad ­people, from gangsterism, because, bro, it’s not worth it.

“It may look glamorous, especially if you were raised a certain way and you grew up in the ghetto, but it will cost you, and it cost me, you know what I mean?”

Shaking his head, he added: “I’m one of the lucky ones, and I give thanks every day. I’m grateful for that. Since that day, walking out of prison, hundreds of people on the outside, people ask me what was going through my mind at the time. Too many things. Like, even now, I’m trying to process it.”

Recounting, with a chuckle, how, after his release, he mistakenly told his son he was going to his cell instead of to his bedroom, he described still waking up at four or five in the morning when prison officers would normally conduct searches. He forgets he is no longer in his cell, even “hearing the keys shake”.

Kartel said he now wants to be a source of positivity, supporting his sons in their careers and continuing to mentor other up-and-coming artists.

He believes in the importance of investing in music, considering Jamaica’s proud legacy of creating world-class genres inspired by Afrocentric roots, such as mento, rocksteady, reggae and dancehall. The DJ also said he was impressed with the current generation of Jamaican musicians.

“In prison, I was listening to these kids, and a lot of them are very promising. They have the talent, and I think the major companies abroad, in America, Canada, England, once they come and invest their money, they won’t be disappointed.”

For Kartel, the next big thing is a big concert in Kingston this December, marketed as a historic moment to see the “Worl’ Boss … returning to his throne”.

“Everybody and their mother are coming,” he said.

Michel Blanc, beloved by generations for bringing a comic quality to even his saddest characters including losers and hypochondriacs, died on Friday aged 72, his family told AFP.

President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute, saying: “He made us cry with laughter, and moved us to tears”, and calling him “a monument of French cinema”.

Blanc is remembered for his breakthrough role in Les Bronzés (aka French Fried Vacation), a 1978 comedy about holidaymakers trying to escape their everyday problems and looking for romance at a holiday resort in Ivory Coast. Blanc’s character, Jean-Claude Dusse, is an awkward bachelor and bad harmonica player with an orange belt in karate who hopes to seduce women but can’t pull it off.

“He was a fabulous actor who made us laugh,” Prime Minister Michel Barnier said, adding that news of Blanc’s death had made him “very emotional and very sad”.

Blanc’s trademark bald head and moustache appeared in several other comedies, but he also feared, after Les Bronzés spawned two sequels, that he would be typecast as a lovable deadbeat forever.

“It was clear that the Jean-Claude Dusse role suited me,” he told Paris Match magazine this year. But he added: “I got scared very fast that it would stick to me my whole life.”

Blanc branched out into serious film roles, theatre, screen-writing and directing, and became one of only a handful of people to win both an acting award and a screenplay award at the Cannes film festival. His best actor award came for the 1986 Bertrand Blier film Tenue de Soirée, and the screenplay nod in 1994 for his metatextual comedy Grosse Fatigue.

“He was the sickly French guy that you just can’t keep down,” said Gilles Jacob, the Cannes Festival’s former president, adding he hoped that Blanc’s popular successes would not make the public forget his serious work, such as the acclaimed and haunting Monsieur Hire in 1989.

Blanc, who was sometimes called a “sad clown” in media, said the description missed the mark. “I’m not a sad clown at all, I’m a worried clown” he told French culture magazine Telerama.

“And who isn’t worried? What is the human condition? It is not knowing why we are here, and not knowing how we will die,” he said.

Filming for a new movie starring Daniel Day-Lewis was interrupted when traffic wardens in Chester began putting parking tickets on 1980s vehicles being used in the backdrop of a scene.

Day-Lewis has come out of retirement for Anemone, which his son Ronan Day-Lewis is directing, and is starring alongside Sean Bean and Samantha Morton.

Filming for the feature took place in Handbridge in Chester this week, but ran into some difficulties after the council declined an application for a road closure, and traffic wardens began issuing tickets for the prop vehicles parked on double yellow lines.

Pictures taken by a resident showed yellow parking tickets stuck to the windows of a number of vehicles, including a Ford Escort van, with production crew and filming equipment visible in the background. A row of late 20th-century vehicles can be seen parked along the road, where extras were reportedly being filmed for the backdrop of a scene.

Matt Carter, a councillor for the Handbridge Park ward, said the council had decided to refuse a full road closure application as it was assessed as being too disruptive for residents, who could have been cut off because of roadworks nearby.

“On the basis of the overall disruption it would cause, they said no on this occasion,” he said. “[The film company] hadn’t applied to suspend parking restrictions in that area so wardens were sent to ticket the cars in the same way they would for any vehicle.”

Carter said a separate request for parking technical support vehicles in restricted areas had been granted, but that did not include the vintage vehicles being used as background props.

He posted a statement from the council on social media that said: “Cheshire West is a film-friendly borough and supports where possible all filming in partnership with the national film office. Careful consideration is always given to each request and in this case, not all of the production requests could be permitted as they would have put too much pressure on the busy roads.”

Anemone is being made by the US independent production company Focus Features and will “explore the intricate relationships between fathers, sons and brothers, and the dynamics of familial bonds”.

It marks Day-Lewis’s first acting project since 2017’s Phantom Thread, after which he announced he would “no longer be working as an actor” and largely removed himself from the public eye.

It is not known whether Day-Lewis, 67, and his co-stars were on set at the time the traffic wardens began ticketing, although they have been seen on location around the north-west in recent days.

Cheshire West and Chester council has been approached for comment.