When US President Donald Trump began speaking 10 days ago of Gaza as a demolition site, calling to “clean out that whole thing”, it wasn’t clear how far these were off-the-cuff remarks.

But in the lead up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit, in his Oval Office comments before the meeting, and in the press conference itself, it’s now clear he is profoundly serious about his proposals.

They amount to the most radical upending in the established US position on Israel and the Palestinians in the recent history of the conflict; and will be seen as flying in the face of international law.

As well as how the announcement will be absorbed by ordinary people on the ground, it could also have a significant impact on the more immediate phased ceasefire and hostage release process, at a critical juncture.

Trump and his officials are framing his call to – in his language – permanently “resettle” all Palestinians out of Gaza as a humanitarian gesture, saying there is no alternative for them because Gaza is a “demolition site”.

Under international law, attempts to forcibly transfer populations are strictly prohibited, and Palestinians as well as Arab nations will see this as nothing short of a clear proposal aimed at their expulsion and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land.

• Live updates and reaction to Trump’s plan
• Trump proposes the US taking ownership of Gaza Strip

That’s why Arab leaders have already categorically rejected his ideas, made with increasing frequency over the last 10 days, when he suggested Egypt and Jordan could “take” Palestinians from Gaza.

In a statement on Saturday, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, the Palestinian Authority and the Arab League said that such a move could “threaten the region’s stability, risk expanding the conflict, and undermine prospects for peace and coexistence among its peoples”.

It has long been a desire of the ultranationalist far right in Israel to expel Palestinians from the occupied territories and expand Jewish settlements in their place.

Since the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel, these groups – leaders of whom have been part of Netanyahu’s coalition – have demanded the war against Hamas continues indefinitely, vowing ultimately to re-establish Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip.

They have continued their calls and opposed the current ceasefire and hostage release deal.

In his White House press conference with the Israeli prime minister, Trump went further even than his recent growing calls for the Palestinians in Gaza to be “relocated” to Egypt and Jordan, saying that the United States would then take the territory over and rebuild it.

When asked whether Palestinians would be allowed back, he said “the world’s people” would live there, saying it would be an “international, unbelievable place”, before adding “also Palestinians”.

His Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff earlier in the day summed up much of the tone around the proposal, saying of Trump “this guy knows real estate”.

Trump said it would be the “Riviera of the Middle East”.

Asked whether American troops would be involved in the take over of Gaza, Mr Trump said “we’ll do what is necessary”.

His proposals amount to the most radical transformation in the US position on the territory since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 and the war of 1967, which saw the start of Israel’s military occupation of land including the Gaza Strip.

Gaza was already home to Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes in the wars surrounding Israel’s creation.

They and their descendants make up the vast majority of Gaza’s population to this day.

Trump’s proposals, if enacted, would involve that population, now more than two million people, being forced elsewhere in the Arab world or even beyond, says Trump, to “resettle… permanently”.

The proposals would wipe out the possibility of a future two-state solution in any conventional sense and will be categorically rejected by Palestinians and the Arab world as an expulsion plan.

Much of Netanyahu’s political base and the ultranationalist settler movement in Israel will champion President Trump’s words, seeing them as the fulfilment of a means as Netanyahu puts it to stop “Gaza being a threat to Israel”.

For ordinary Palestinians, it would amount to a mass act of collective punishment.

Police say around 10 people have been killed in a shooting at an education centre in central Sweden, including the suspected gunman.

Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson described Tuesday’s attack at Risbergska school in Orebro, 200km (124 miles) west of the capital city Stockholm, as the “worst mass shooting in Swedish history”.

Police said they believe the male perpetrator to be among the dead and that he was not previously known to them. There was no immediately identifiable motive and he was believed to be acting alone, they said.

“It is difficult to take in the magnitude of what has happened today,” Kristersson said at an evening news conference.

Police earlier warned the death toll could continue to rise as several people had been injured.

A number of the injured have been taken to hospital, with at least four people undergoing operations.

Police initially said five people had been shot, and the incident was being investigated as an attempted murder, arson and an aggravated weapons offence.

Local media later began reporting that several people had died, before police said “around 10” people had been killed but they “could not be more specific” about the number of fatalities.

They also confirmed there did not appear to be a “terror” motive behind the attack.

Police heard reports of a shooting taking place at Risbergska school – an adult education centre – at 12:33 local time (11:44 GMT). The facility sits on a campus that is home to other schools.

These centres are attended primarily by people who have not finished primary or secondary school.

Earlier, students at several nearby schools were being kept indoors “for security purposes”.

“We don’t want members of the public to go there,” Orebro police chief Roberto Eid Forest warned.

The justice minister, who appeared alongside the prime minister on Tuesday evening, shared his condolences for those affected by the “tragedy” and reassured citizens that schools in the country would be safe to return to on Wednesday.

“[I’ve] never seen a school shooting of this magnitude,” Gunnar Strommer said.

Nearby hospitals had cleared their emergency rooms and intensive care units to free up space for patients, local media reported.

Orebro University Hospital said five people injured by gunshot wounds were treated at its emergency room. An additional sixth person, not injured by a gun, had “minor injuries” treated, it said.

No children were among the people being treated there, the municipality for Orebro County said in an update.

Teacher Lena Warenmark told SVT, Swedish public radio, she heard around 10 gunshots close to her study.

Ali el Mokad, a relative of a man who is believed to have been studying at the school at the time of the attack, had positioned himself outside of a local hospital waiting to hear on his relatives’ condition.

“It doesn’t feel very good actually,” Mr Mokad told Reuters news agency. He said that his cousin also knew someone at the school, and when she called her friend earlier, “she fell to the ground because she was crying so much”.

“She thought what she saw was so terrible. She only saw people lying on the floor, injured and blood everywhere,” Mr Mokad said, describing the scene his cousin’s friend had witnessed.

Another witness, a student at the school, who gave only her first name, Marwa, described a difficult scene in which she and several others tried to save a person’s life.

“A guy next to me was shot in the shoulder. He was bleeding a lot. When I looked behind me I saw three people on the floor bleeding,” she told TV4 Sweden.

Marwa and another friend tried to help the injured person by wrapping a shawl around the man’s shoulder “so that he wouldn’t bleed so much”.

“Everyone was so shocked.”

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Kristersson remarked on how today is “a very painful day for all in Sweden” as he shared that those who had a “normal school day” replaced “with terror” are all in his thoughts.

“Being confined to a classroom with fear for your own life is a nightmare that no one should have to experience,” Kristersson said in a post on X.

He later asked people to give police the freedom and the space they need to do their work and investigations, as he also stressed that there was no further risks to attending school the next day.

More information will be shared by police and the Swedish government in the coming days, Kristersson added.

As he prepares to set off on another rescue mission on Ukraine’s eastern front, 35-year-old Anton Yaremchuk is grateful for the fog. It will shield him and his colleague Pylyp from Russian drones hunting from the skies. His armoured van will provide more protection – but only up to a point. Every journey could be the last.

In December shrapnel from a drone attack ripped through a clearly marked armoured vehicle used by his team, causing injuries but no deaths.

“We were extremely lucky,” he says.

Anton’s regular destination these days is the industrial city of Pokrovsk, which he says is “being attacked night and day”.

Russian forces are closing in – they are now less than 2km (1.2 miles) away.

“The last few days we were coming in, there was hell,” Anton tells us. “There are around 7,000 people still there. We’ll try to get some people out of that nightmare.”

He’s been doing just that since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

With his country under attack, the Ukrainian cinematographer left his life and career in Berlin, came home and co-founded a small aid organisation, Base UA. Since then, he and his team have managed to get about 3,000 civilians out of harm’s way, taking them away from front lines to safer areas.

Pokrovsk used to be one of those places.

“It’s crazy,” he says as we head for the city, “because this used to be the haven, the safest city in the region and the biggest hospital. The evacuation train was departing from Pokrovsk.”

If and when Russian forces take the city, it will deprive the Ukrainian military of a key supply and transport hub.

Ukraine has already lost the output from a crucial coal mine in the area – the only one producing coking coal for its steel industry. Operations were suspended last month because of the Russian advance.

We join Anton for the journey to Pokrovsk. He has a tourniquet, and a separate medical kit attached to the front of his body armour. His white high-visibility jacket bears the slogan “leave no-one behind”.

Before we set off, there’s a warning. “When we park, get out of the vehicles and don’t stand nearby,” Anton tells us, “in case they are targeted.”

The closer we get the more explosions we hear. War has left its mark, draining the city of life. Streets are deserted, and houses boarded up. Some buildings have been flattened. There’s no smoke from the chimneys on snow-capped rooves. We pass a parked car with a white flag.

But we find Olga, already waiting by the roadside, wrapped up in a lilac winter coat and furry hood. She’s one of six people on Anton’s list for evacuation this time.

She goes to lock up her home – moving quickly despite her 71 years. And then she gets into the van and does not look back.

“I have been in this house for 65 years,” Olga says.

“It’s hard to leave everything behind. But it’s not life anymore, it’s like hell. In the beginning we thought maybe we will sit it out, but now the ground is shaking.”

Her children and grandchildren have already fled the bombing. I ask if she thinks she will be able to come back one day. “Who knows,” she replies, “but we hope.”

Along the way, whenever Anton spots people out on the street – and there aren’t many – he urges them to go. He stops the car to hand out leaflets explaining that evacuation is free, and help, including a place to stay and ongoing payments, is available in the city of Pavlohrad to the west. But some are hard to persuade.

“I have to stay,” one elderly woman says. “My son has died, and I need to be near his grave.”

“I don’t think he would want this,” Anton says.

We drive on and pass a group of three who have been out collecting water. Anton shouts another warning. “There will be street battles,” he says, “unfortunately, I promise you this. I am doing this from the very first day. It’s the same everywhere. This is the final stage.”

One of the women comes forward to take a leaflet. “God keep you safe,” she tells him before going on her way.

Anton moves fast from address to address. When there’s no answer at one house, he climbs over a high metal gate to investigate. He knocks. He shouts. He speaks to a neighbour. With no sign of the woman he hoped to evacuate, we drive on.

I ask what he’s expecting for 2025, now President Trump is back in the White House and pushing for peace talks.

“I stopped looking too much ahead,” he says. “I think nobody really knows what’s going to happen. I personally don’t think that even if some kind of negotiations will start, they will bring a ceasefire anytime soon.”

More than this he expects fighting will worsen if talks do start, as both sides will try to gain leverage.

The last pick up of the day is 75-year-old Lyuba – her white hair peeping out from under a scarf. Her long life is now compressed into a few plastic bags. She looks bereft and flinches at every explosion we hear.

“It has been bad,” she tells me. “Bad. We were left alone. There are no authorities. People are just getting killed under the sky,” she says, gesturing upwards. “There’s no gas, no water, no electricity.”

Lyuba is helped into the van, which is now full, with five elderly evacuees – their memories and their fears – and one black cat peering out from a pet carrier. No one speaks.

For Anton this is a familiar picture, but still a painful one.

We first travelled with him in the heat of summer in 2022. He was then evacuating civilians from another front-line city – Lysychansk – as Russian shells rained down.

Now in Ukraine’s third winter of war he – and other volunteers – are still trying to outrun moving front lines and save whoever they can.

“To be honest every time I see this I break down,” he says, “because it’s just these innocent people leaving everything behind. These are human tragedies, and you can never really get used to it. But I am glad that we manage to get people out to safety.”

That comes at a cost, and it is increasing.

Since we travelled to Pokrovsk, one of Anton’s teams has come under fire from a Russian drone. A 28-year-old British volunteer lost an arm and a leg – saving civilians – but is now stable in hospital.

Following the attack, Anton’s group have suspended evacuations from Pokrovsk, and from other front-line areas.

A Ukrainian police unit called the White Angels is still doing rescue missions in the city. They tell us they are “trying to be very cautious and careful”.

Inside the city, in freezing basements and unlit homes, the remaining residents – mostly elderly – are at the mercy of Russian glide bombs and artillery, as they wait for Pokrovsk to fall.

The US Postal Service (USPS) says it has temporarily stopped accepting parcels from mainland China and Hong Kong.

Letters will not be affected by the suspension, according to a statement on the company’s website.

USPS said the suspension will be in place “until further notice” and did not offer a reason for the decision.

It comes after US President Donald Trump imposed an additional 10% tariff on all goods imported to the US from China.

Trump’s executive order eliminated an exemption that allowed goods worth $800 (£641) or less to enter the US without having to pay duties or certain taxes.

The so-called “de minimis” tax loophole faced increased scrutiny in recent years as Chinese e-commerce giants like Shein and Temu to reach millions of US customers.

President Trump is expected to speak to his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in the coming days.

“Trump’s tariff changes are especially sharp if goods were previously shipped via e-commerce directly from China to the US,” said trade expert Deborah Elms.

Close to half of all parcels entering the US under de minimis were sent from China, according to a 2023 report by the US Congressional committee on China.

US officials have pointed out that the large flow of parcels entering the country through this exemption made it increasingly difficult to screen them for possible illegal goods.

USPS did not immediately reply to a BBC News request for comment.