As Israeli forces advanced on the southern Gaza city of Rafah before dawn last Sunday, an ambulance crew set out to evacuate civilians wounded by Israeli shelling. But the ambulance and its crew were hit on the way.

Several more ambulances and a fire truck headed to the scene over the next few hours to rescue them, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, as did a U.N. vehicle, the United Nations said. Seventeen people were dispatched in total.

Then they all went silent.

It took five days for the United Nations and Red Crescent to negotiate with the Israeli military for safe passage to search for the missing people. After receiving clearance, U.N. officials said, the retrieval team found 15 dead, most of their bodies dumped in a mass grave.

On Sunday, the United Nations said Israel had killed them — a rare accusation by the organization, which is typically cautious about assigning clear blame.

“They were killed by Israeli forces while trying to save lives,” the U.N. humanitarian chief, Tom Fletcher, said on X. “We demand answers & justice.”

The Red Crescent, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations said all of those killed were humanitarian workers who should never have come under attack. The Red Crescent called the killings a war crime and demanded accountability.

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Even in a frequently fogbound port city along the Atlantic Ocean, the billowing clouds of steam rising from Canada’s largest oil refinery over Saint John, New Brunswick, are impossible to miss.

On a ridge overlooking the refinery sit six enormous tanks, each containing one million barrels of crude oil. Letters painted in dark blue spell “Irving,” the family whose businesses dominate not only Saint John, but most of New Brunswick.

The larger of the Irvings’ two local paper mills looms above the Saint John River like a medieval fortress. Irving-owned railway tracks crisscross the city, linking smaller factories owned by the family to ports under Irving control. Irving-owned building-supply stores and gas stations dot the streets in this city of 78,000 people, where park signs honor Irving contributions to their upkeep.

Many countries require that consent be given before sex — and have written that into their rape laws. France is not among them.

Now two lawmakers hope to change that, and they got a step closer Tuesday night when the lower house of the French Parliament passed a bill that expands the definition of rape to include nonconsensual penetration.

Their cause gained traction after a horrific trial last fall in which dozens of men were convicted of raping Gisèle Pelicot while she was in a deeply drugged state.

“This is a starting point, not a final one,” Marie-Charlotte Garin, one of the two lawmakers who proposed the bill, told the National Assembly after the vote. “We are moving from a culture of rape to a culture of consent, and this is the first stone we are throwing against the wall of impunity.”

The bill will go on to be debated in the upper house.

Here is some background on why the change is being suggested and who objects.

How does France define rape, and why change the definition?

French law defines rape as any form of sexual penetration committed on another person — woman or man — by violence, constraint, threat or surprise.

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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel backed away from his nominee to lead Israel’s domestic intelligence service on Tuesday, after conservative allies attacked the candidate for criticizing President Trump and Israeli media reported that he had protested judicial overhauls pushed by the government.

Mr. Netanyahu had backed Eli Sharvit, a former commander of Israel’s navy, to lead the Shin Bet intelligence agency after he dismissed his predecessor, Ronen Bar. But the Israeli leader dropped Mr. Sharvit a day after the Monday announcement amid a backlash from the right, partly because he had written a column two months ago criticizing Mr. Trump for rolling back policies to fight climate change.

Mr. Netanyahu’s office said that he had met with Mr. Sharvit to inform him that he would pursue other candidates for the job, without specifying a reason. As the country’s domestic security agency, the Shin Bet plays a key role in the war in Gaza and Israel’s decades-long occupation of the West Bank.

Mr. Netanyahu removed Mr. Bar from the post last month, saying he could no longer trust him. Critics called the move an attempt by Mr. Netanyahu to purge dissenting views from the top ranks of Israel’s security establishment and the decision prompted protests.

Under Mr. Bar’s direction, the Shin Bet has been involved in investigating some of Mr. Netanyahu’s aides’ ties with Qatar, including over accusations that they received payments from people connected to the Qatari government. Israel’s Supreme Court is scheduled to hear petitions against Mr. Bar’s removal by next week, and Israeli legal experts say it may reverse Mr. Netanyahu’s decision.

Mr. Netanyahu’s left-wing and centrist opponents had feared that he would try to tighten his grip over the agency by appointing a close adviser. But many hailed Mr. Sharvit, who retired from the military in 2021, as an experienced and capable soldier.

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When the verdict from a Paris criminal court flashed across screens in Hénin-Beaumont, many customers in the Café de la Paix received it with the outrage and disappointment Marine Le Pen predicted.

The far-right political leader was found guilty of embezzlement, sentenced to four years in prison — two years suspended, two in a form of house arrest — and fined more than $100,000.

But most stinging was the decision barring her from running for public office for five years, rendering her ineligible to run in France’s 2027 presidential election.

For people here, Ms. Le Pen is not just the leader of the National Rally, and three-time presidential candidate. She is their local lawmaker in the lower house of Parliament.

“I am disgusted,” said Jean-Marc Sergheraert, 70, a retired charity manager, craning up at a big television screen. There, Ms. Le Pen was denouncing the decision as politically motivated and unjust because, she said, her sentence would be enforced even as she appealed it, which is often not the case in France.