Anthony Albanese says his job is to “represent Australia’s national interest” after his thumping election win, shrugging off questions about when he might visit the United States to speak to Donald Trump about tariffs and trade.

The re-elected prime minister said he had spoken to the leaders of Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, France and the UK, and looked forward to calls with the presidents of Indonesia and Ukraine.

“My job here is to represent Australia’s national interest and that’s what I’ll be doing, and the first thing I’ll be doing is going to Canberra,” he said.

Trump cast a long shadow over the opposition’s campaign, particularly after early Coalition policies including a “government efficiency” push and public service cuts proved unpopular. The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, who lost his own seat of Dickson, had intermittently flirted with Trump-style politics, as did the shadow minister Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, whose mid-campaign call to “make Australia great again” was seen as a decisive moment by some in the Labor government.

Albanese promised that Labor would be “a disciplined, orderly government” in its second term. Treasurer Jim Chalmers said the government would use its increased parliamentary majority to address challenges in housing, the renewable energy transition and boosting economic productivity, and in emerging technological issues including artificial intelligence.

The work for Labor began immediately after Saturday night’s thumping win, with Albanese heading back to Canberra after a celebratory coffee and pastry in his Sydney electorate, and Chalmers receiving briefings from the Treasury early on Sunday.

The makeup of the Senate is still to be confirmed but Albanese is likely to enjoy one of the most progressive parliaments in Australian history. The ALP national president, Wayne Swan, said it was an opportunity for Albanese to “further reshape our nation as a prosperous, egalitarian and forward-looking society”, with some in Labor already thinking the size of the win and the decimation of the Liberal party as being an opening to lock down the Treasury benches for many years to come.

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“We’re not getting carried away with it,” Albanese said in Leichhardt on Sunday morning. “We’ve got a big job to do. We thank the Australian people for having faith in us.

“I think we’ve been a good government but we’ve got a good, positive agenda, and that’s what Australian people voted for yesterday.”

The Australian Electoral Commission has Labor leading in 73 seats, with a further nine likely, and about 20 still in play. The ABC has called 85 seats for Labor, with 18 still in doubt. Labor could end up with 90 or more, with the Coalition reduced to the low 40s.

The prime minister, in his victory speech on Saturday night, raised workers’ rights, housing, gender equality, childcare, the NDIS and Indigenous reconciliation as the priorities of his second-term government.

“We will be a disciplined, orderly government in our second term as we have been in our first.”

On Sunday morning Albanese visited Bar Italia, a cafe in his Grayndler electorate, in Sydney’s inner west, to have breakfast with a small group of supporters and friends. Joined by the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, and the MP Jerome Laxale, who turned Bennelong from notionally Liberal seat to a safe Labor seat with a 60-40 margin, Albanese posed for selfies with other cafe patrons and scooped gelato into cones and cups for a few customers.

He told one patron that the election result was “humbling”, then joked that Labor had “scooped up more than a few” seats.

Chalmers said the election result was “beyond even our most optimistic expectations”, pointing to unexpected seats like Petrie now likely to fall Labor’s way. On the ABC’s Insiders, the treasurer said Labor needed to approach its second term with “humility”, pointing to challenges including the cost of living and housing crisis.

“We know that this second term has been given to us by the Australian people because they want stability in uncertain times, and not because they think we’ve solved every challenge in our economy or in our society more broadly, but because we’re better-placed to work towards solving some of those challenges,” he said.

Chalmers said Labor had an “ambitious” agenda to implement but tempered expectations for further bolder reforms by cautioning that the government would not control the Senate.

“We have a big agenda,” he said. “We’re looking forward to implementing it with confidence, with the confidence that comes from a big majority, a substantial majority.

“We have to build more homes. We’ve got to get this energy transformation right. We’ve got to do more to embrace technology, particularly the AI opportunity. There’s a huge agenda there for us.”

Chalmers said he had received a briefing from the Treasury secretary, Steven Kennedy, at 6.45am and pointed to boosting productivity in the economy as the major objective of his next few years.

“The first term was primarily inflation without forgetting productivity,” he said. “The second term will be primarily productivity without forgetting inflation … And a much broader sense of [productivity].

“Human capital. Competition policy. Technology. Energy. The care economy. These are where we’re going to find the productivity gains – and not quickly, but over the medium term.”

The scale of Labor’s victory was not publicly foreshadowed by any in the government; indeed, numerous Labor sources told Guardian Australia that several seats, including Hughes and Moore, had not been on their radar. Another critical question is how the Liberal party will rebuild after its moderate wing was all but wiped out, with the party now having little representation in Australia’s major cities.

Swan, who was the treasurer under Kevin Rudd, called the result a “generational opportunity” for Labor and a “a moment to rejuvenate our party” with a more diverse grassroots membership.

“We need to capitalise by bringing more Australians – especially working Australians – into the ranks of our great party,” he said. “Because the surest way to safeguard Labor’s achievements and its future work is to build an even stronger party, with deeper grassroots.

“Our Tory opponents are in a withered state but they will reorganise and return. Perhaps in even darker guise than we saw this election. We need to be ready for that.

“We must build a larger and more representative membership that can campaign throughout the cycle, not just at election time.”

The Greens are blaming the dramatic collapse in the Liberal vote in Queensland and targeted attacks from right-wing lobby groups for an election result that cost the party’s housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, his seat.

Adam Bandt was also given a major fright on Saturday night but is now expected to retain his seat of Melbourne as counting continues.

Bandt had high hopes of playing kingmaker in the next parliament, banking on Labor falling in minority to give the Greens leverage to push for action on policies such as dental into Medicare and winding back negative gearing and capital gains tax.

But a very different scenario has eventuated after Labor significantly increased its majority, aided by winning two of the three Brisbane seats the Greens won in 2022.

Chandler-Mather lost Griffith to Labor’s Renee Coffey while Stephen Bates succumbed to Madonna Jarrett in Brisbane.

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The Greens failed to pick up Macnamara and are in a knife-edge contest in their main target seat of Wills. The ABC has called the Labor-held seat of Richmond for the government, but the Greens are not giving up hope of snatching it.

The minor party is confident about holding Ryan in Brisbane, meaning the Greens are likely to have at least two MPs in parliament. But that is well short of the ambitious nine-seat goal Bandt held at the start of the campaign.

Chandler-Mather’s defeat is a blow for the Greens, with the 33-year-old touted as a future leader after becoming the face of its rebrand as the “party for renters”. The rookie MP was a polarising figure, with Labor framing his hardline approach to housing negotiations and appearance at a pro-CFMEU rally as a turn-off for some progressive voters.

Chandler-Mather suffered a swing of just under 2%, though Greens and Labor sources agreed that was not an indication of a major backlash from voters in the south Brisbane seat.

Sources in both camps says the major reason for Chandler-Mather’s defeat was instead the collapse in the Liberal vote, which occurred across Brisbane – including in Peter Dutton’s own electorate of Dickson.

Labor sources also confirmed cases of some Liberal supporters voting for Labor as a protest against the Greens MP.

The Greens MP and candidates faced a barrage of negative ads from right-wing campaigners Advance and other conservative lobby groups such as the Australian Institute for Progress. Advance was crowing about the Greens’ election result on Sunday afternoon, with the group’s executive director, Matthew Sheahan, congratulating supporters for helping to “stop the Greens in their tracks”.

“The Greens have been belted. And for that, I thank you,” Sheahan wrote in an email seen by Guardian Australia.

The Greens’ poor lower house result has prompted questions about Bandt’s future as party leader.

Guardian Australia understands Bandt – who did not speak to the media on Sunday – has given no indication he intends to step down. The Greens’ leadership positions are vacated after each election.

The Greens’ environment spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, described Bandt as an “incredible leader” when asked on Sunday if his position was now “untenable”.

“He deserves a sleep-in and and breakfast in bed, and then I’m sure he’ll be back up and ready to go,” she said.

The Greens were taking heart from the Senate results, where the party was on track to retain all six seats that were up for re-election with a higher national vote. Labor could potentially hold 30 upper house seats in the next parliament, meaning it would only require the Greens’ votes to pass legislation that the Coalition opposes.

Hanson-Young said the next parliament would be the most progressive in history.

“We now have the most progressive parliament Australia has ever made, and there’s an opportunity for genuine progressive reform,” she said.

Senior Liberals are warning that the party must urgently reconnect with traditional supporters, women and younger Australians if it is to find a pathway back to relevance, describing John Howard’s broad church as “broken” after Saturday’s election drubbing.

As remaining MPs and party strategists begin to consider the scale of the loss under the outgoing opposition leader, Peter Dutton, most agree that a major policy and messaging reset is needed to return the party to its roots under its founder, Robert Menzies. But, in a sign of the fight to come, some leading Liberal figures are pushing for a move to the right, arguing that the party has not been conservative enough.

The senior moderate and former finance minister Simon Birmingham said on Sunday that the melding of liberal and conservative thinking within the party had been lost.

“The Liberal party has failed to learn lessons from the past and if it fails to do so in the face of this result then its future viability to govern will be questioned,” he said.

Birmingham used a lengthy reflection on the result to call for quotas for women in party preselection, saying they should be “hard, fast and ambitious”. Liberals have resisted quotas for decades, while Labor has reached gender parity in its caucus since implementing them in 1994.

“The Liberal party is not seen as remotely liberal and the brand of conservatism projected is clearly perceived as too harsh and out of touch,” Birmingham said.

“A Liberal party fit for the future will need to reconnect with and represent liberal ideology, belief and thinking in a new and modern context.”

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Early discussions about the leadership took place in private on Sunday, even as a slew of seats remained too close to call. Most MPs contacted by Guardian Australia agreed that a root-and-branch policy review was needed, with some pointing to Dutton’s plan for nuclear power and divisive rhetoric on Indigenous welcome to country ceremonies.

The New South Wales senator Dave Sharma said the Liberals had suffered a devastating loss due to a failure of strategy and campaign management.

“It is clear we failed to convince the public that we would be a better government, even if they had misgivings about Labor,” he said.

“A loss of this magnitude demands a serious set of reflections, reviews, and internal conversations about our policies and direction. That will take some time.

“The nation is best served by a strong opposition. We need to ensure the Liberals can provide this.”

Internal party polling put the Liberals ahead in a series of Labor-held seats in the final days of the campaign, including Werriwa, Whitlam and Gilmore in NSW. The results gave false hope to the Dutton camp, even as published polls showed Labor on track to win.

Some party figures blamed key strategists in the campaign, including the former minister turned Dutton adviser Jamie Briggs. Some Liberals said Dutton’s efforts to promote party unity after the Coalition’s 2022 election loss meant not enough policy fights had taken place.

Others said the Coalition had drawn the wrong lessons from the no vote in the voice to parliament referendum, believing it was a sign of a rightwards shift in the electorate.

The Liberal grandee and former Howard government minister Philip Ruddock said party MPs elected on Saturday were responsible for charting a course back to power.

“My father said the Liberal party always knows how to bake a bigger cake, and the Labor party only know how to cut it up,” he said.

“If you’re looking at the way forward, you need to be very focused on how you’re going to create wealth and opportunities. The Liberal party of the future has to be very focused on building a bigger economy, creating the opportunities, and then later deciding on how you might better apportion the gains.”

MPs said more checks and balances were needed to the new party leader’s authority.

“We lost the trust of metropolitan voters and need to urgently work out how to get it back again,” said one MP, who was narrowly re-elected.

The re-elected NSW moderate Andrew Bragg said Australia was “drifting” under Labor. “It was the toughest night for the Liberals ever,” he said.

“The message from the electorate is clear. For the Liberal party, the road back starts with a deeper understanding of modern Australia.

“We must offer an ambitious economic agenda and a centrist, inclusive social vision. Reclaiming enterprise and the centre is not a departure from our values – it is a return to them.”

The former senator and party strategist Arthur Sinodinos said the Liberals needed to return to first principles and rebuild Howard’s broad church.

“Grievance politics was not enough to win,” he wrote in an opinion piece for Guardian Australia. “An opposition must have a clear and coherent plan that demonstrates they are ready to govern.

“Listening to our fellow Australians, grappling with the complexity of demographic and social change in a way consistent with Menzian values will succeed if we do the hard work.”

The former deputy prime minister and Nationals frontbencher Barnaby Joyce declined to say who should lead the Liberals. While the junior Coalition partner will have a stronger presence in the joint party room due to fewer Liberals winning their seats, Joyce said there was little room for celebration.

“It is a wake-up call. There is no winner in our loss but you can’t turn yourself into another party. You have to do what you’re meant to do better.”

The rightwing South Australian Liberal Alex Antic blamed policies which did not resonate with voters. “Unfortunately, we’ve sent the troops into battle without ammunition,” he said.

Antic told Sky it was time to “make the Liberal party great again”, echoing Trump’s campaign slogan.

Labor leads by quite a bit

We’re not expecting much in the way of counting today as the AEC usually spends Sunday sorting and transporting ballot papers for fresh counts, so there may not be many updates on still undecided seats today.

However, here’s where we’re currently at with the seats projected as won by each party, and the number of seats for which the ABC has that party leading as at 10am Sunday morning:

The party leading in quite a few of the undecided seats could well change as they’re either very close or the final order of the candidates for two-candidate-preferred counts is uncertain, so we can’t rely on the totals too much just yet. However, Labor is on track for at least 85 seats, and the final tally could well be more.

The Greens have suffered quite a setback here too, as they currently only lead in two seats. In 2022 they won four seats, so they are looking at a loss of two seats as things stand, despite their national primary vote actually remaining steady compared with 2022.

Senate state of play

Here’s the state of play in the Senate, combining the number of Senate spots won for each party based on the AEC’s provisional quota counts, plus the existing senators who weren’t up for election this year. Also shown are the number of likely Senate seats according to the ABC’s analysis.

Labor is on track to have 27 senators, the Coalition 26, the Greens 11, and then various minor parties and independents making up another six. There are still six Senate seats in doubt.

This means that Labor won’t have a majority in the Senate, which is not surprising. However, Labor’s gains do mean that Labor plus 11 Greens and one other independent could form the majority needed to pass legislation without the Coalition blocking it.

Where are the seats changing hands, and which areas swung hard for Labor?

The seats changing hands are a mix of suburban seats like Hughes and Banks in NSW, Moore in WA, Dickson, Petrie and Bonner in Queensland, and then larger seats covering towns and regional areas such as Leichhardt in Queensland’s north and Bass and Braddon in Tasmania:

The map above also shows the swing if you toggle the dropdown menu. Some of the highest two-party-preferred swings are in the seats changing hands, like Braddon, Bass and Leichhardt, but also seats which haven’t switched, like Bruce and Lyons.

The major party vote decline continues

Despite Labor’s big win, Australia’s two-party system has continued its long-term decline, with the combined major party primary vote dropping again compared with 2022:

If these primary vote splits hold once the remaining votes are counted, then we will have crossed a significant, albeit symbolic threshold – at least one-third of Australians will have voted for someone other than a Labor or Coalition candidate for the first time.

This declining primary vote is also causing some issues with vote counting on election night. Ahead of counting, the AEC makes an assumption on which candidates are likely to be in the final two so they can conduct the two-party-preferred count more quickly. If this final pairing is different to the AEC’s initial assumption, then the seat is designated as “maverick” and the two-party-preferred count, which uses the preference counts of all votes, is suspended until the proper final pairing can be determined.

This election, a whopping 21 seats were declared maverick, which means we will have to wait longer to get the two-candidate-preferred counts. According to election analyst Ben Raue, this is due in no small part to the rising non-major party vote, as the gap between second and third candidates is becoming smaller.

Romanians are voting in a presidential election rerun that could propel to power an ultranationalist who opposes military aid to Ukraine, has fiercely criticised the EU’s leadership and describes himself as a “natural ally” of Donald Trump.

George Simion, 38, is comfortably ahead in the opinion polls before the first-round vote in the EU and Nato member state, nearly six months after the original ballot was cancelled amid evidence of an alleged “massive” Russian influence campaign.

The election is being closely watched: a far-right victory could lead to Romania, which shares a border with Ukraine, veering from its pro-western path and becoming another disruptive force within the bloc and the transatlantic defence alliance.

After the election was cancelled, hard-right politicians worldwide, including senior Trump administration figures, accused Bucharest of trampling on free speech and ignoring “the voice of the people”. The US vice-president, JD Vance, accused Romania’s authorities of “cancelling elections because you don’t like the result”.

The original vote last November was won by Călin Georgescu, a far-right, anti-EU, Moscow-friendly independent who declared zero campaign spending but surged from less than 5% days before the vote to finish first on 23%.

The constitutional court annulled the vote after declassified intelligence documents revealed an alleged Russian influence operation, including multiple cyber-attacks on the electoral IT system and large-scale social media meddling in Georgescu’s favour.

In February, Georgescu, who denies any wrongdoing, was placed under investigation on counts including misreporting campaign finances, misuse of digital technology and promoting fascist groups, and in March he was barred from standing in the rerun.

Simion hopes to benefit from public anger at the cancellation and Georgescu’s disbarment. “It is clear a strong anti-western trend has been built up and Romania’s direction is at unprecedented risk,” said Cristian Pîrvulescu, a political scientist.

As in the original campaign, social media – especially TikTok – is playing a major part. Simion, whose posts combine nationalist rhetoric with an emotionally charged delivery and direct-to-camera speeches, has 1.3 million followers on the app.

“The time for rebirth has come,” he said in a video posted on Tuesday. “Our nation will find its way again … We have within us the power to be reborn and to move forward, more united and stronger.”

The far-right candidate, whose party, the Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), began as an anti-vaxx movement during the pandemic, aims to bring Georgescu into government if he wins, though the far right does not have a parliamentary majority.

Describing himself as “more moderate” than Georgescu, Simion has repeatedly insisted on Romania’s “sovereignty”. He has called for territories that were part of Romania but were ceded to the USSR in the second world war and are now part of Moldova and Ukraine to be returned to Romania. Simion is banned from entering both Moldova and Ukraine.

In contrast to Georgescu, however, Simion has frequently denounced Russia, while lashing out at Brussels and praising Trump’s Republicans in the US. He has said he aims to set up an alliance of countries within the EU “in the spirit of Maga”.

On about 30% in the polls, Simion is about 10 points clear of his two centrist rivals, the mayor of Bucharest, Nicușor Dan, and Crin Antonescu, backed by the ruling Social Democratic party (PSD) and centre-right National Liberal party (PNL).

Despite his convincing polling lead, it appears unlikely Simion will secure the 50% of the vote needed to win outright on Sunday. Instead, he is seen advancing to a second-round runoff, due on 18 May, against either Antonescu or Dan.

Romania’s president has a semi-executive role with considerable powers over foreign policy, national security, defence spending and judicial appointments. They also represent the country on the international stage and can veto important EU votes.

If he is elected, Simion has said he will make public the records of meetings that led to the original election being cancelled, and also reveal “how much we have contributed to the war effort in Ukraine, to the detriment of Romanian children and our elderly”.

Having placed fourth in the November ballot, he refused to participate in TV election debates this week, saying the annulment was a “coup d’état”, Georgescu should have been at the table, and he was staying away “out of respect for the will of the people”.

Polling stations opened at 7am local time on Sunday and close at 9pm, with the first exit polls expected soon after. In the event of a close result, the final outcome could take many hours to be confirmed, as between 5% and 7% of votes are cast abroad.

Germany’s foreign ministry has hit back at the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, following his criticism of Germany’s decision to label the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party as a “confirmed rightwing extremist group”.

On Thursday, Rubio took to X and wrote: “Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy – it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD – which took second in the recent election – but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes.”

Rubio went on to say: “Germany should reverse course.”

In a response on X, the German foreign ministry pushed back against the US secretary of state, saying: “This is democracy. This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped.”

Germany’s response to Rubio comes after its domestic intelligence service, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), designated the AfD as a “confirmed rightwing extremist” force on Friday.

The BfV’s decision marks a step up from its previous designation of the country’s anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin and largest opposition party as a “suspected” threat to Germany’s democratic order. According to the BfV, the AfD’s xenophobic stances based on an “ethnic-ancestry-based understanding” of German identity are “incompatible with the free democratic basic order” as indicated by the country’s constitution.

The spy agency added that the AfD “aims to exclude certain population groups from equal participation in society, to subject them to unconstitutional unequal treatment and thus to assign them a legally devalued status”.

It also said: “This exclusionary understanding of the people is the starting point and ideological basis for ongoing agitation against certain individuals or groups of people, through which they are defamed and despised indiscriminately and irrational fears and rejection are stirred up.”

During February’s general election in Germany, which was rocked by extensive US interference including public votes of confidence by staunch AfD supporters such as Elon Musk and JD Vance, the AfD amassed approximately 21% of the vote, finishing second.

The far-right party’s rise to popularity in Germany has come as a result of a broader wave of growing rightwing extremism across Europe.

At the same time, public figures in the US have openly made remarks or gestures that are sympathetic to nazism, despite the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on antisemitism across the country – a move which has been called into question by higher education institutions and Jewish senators, who accuse Trump of targeting free speech.

Musk, who had been given the designation of a “special government employee” by the Trump administration, made back-to-back apparent fascist salutes during the president’s inauguration rally earlier this year.

Last month, during a Capitol Hill hearing that sought to explore supposed government censorship under Joe Biden, Republican representative Keith Self quoted Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister under Adolf Hitler.

“A direct quote from Joseph Goebbels: ‘It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion,’ and I think that may be what we’re discussing here,” he said.

The decision by Germany’s domestic spy agency to call the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party “extremist” amounts to the starkest move yet by authorities to try to stop the advance of the populist political force.

Friday’s classification by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) will open up the possibility for the security services to monitor the country’s largest opposition party, including by recruiting people to inform against it and enabling interception of its communications.

AfD leaders denounced it as a “blow against democracy”, and nothing short of an attempt to disfranchise the more than 10 million people who voted for it in February’s election.

Its leaders vowed to take legal action against what they called “defamatory” and “politically motivated attacks”.

According to the experts who compiled the BfV’s 1,100-page report, the AfD is “a racist and anti-Muslim organisation”, which, through its strict, ethnically and ancestrally defined version of who is German and who is not, “deprecates whole sections of the population in Germany and infringes their human dignity”.

It has also “incited irrational fears and hostility” in society, steering the blame towards individuals and groups, the report said.

In itself, the step is not much of a surprise, although the timing is. The outgoing interior minister, Nancy Faeser, made the bombshell announcement on what is effectively her last day in office.

Faeser said “there was no political influence on the assessment”, despite the AfD’s insistence to the contrary. But the move puts the incoming conservative-led government of Friedrich Merz under great pressure, as well as Faeser’s Social Democrat colleagues, who will be the junior partners in the new coalition that gets to work next Tuesday.

On the back of the decision, Merz will now be responsible – on top of the myriad other challenges in his in-tray – for deciding whether and how to ban the AfD, a decision that will involve the most precarious of political tightrope walks.

Migration, Ukraine, Trump and an ailing economy are among the burgeoning issues that he will also have to tackle with urgency. The growing mood of dissatisfaction over these and other issues, exacerbated by the six months of political deadlock that followed the premature collapse of the previous government – which induced an added layer of nationwide ennui – has already caused the AfD to creep up in the polls.

Having won second place in February’s election – doubling its previous result and making it the strongest opposition party, second only to the conservative CDU/CSU – in recent days the AfD has come top of the polls for the first time ever.

The ruling by the BfV is unlikely to put people off supporting the AfD.

Finding a way to reduce the AfD has been at top of the agenda among all of the political parties since it emerged as a protest force of professors and academics in 2013 on the back of anger over the euro bailouts. The challenge has only grown in importance, as the populists – morphing from anti-euro to anti-migrant over time – have grown their success at the ballot box.

Merz would like to be seen as a pragmatic rationalist, aiming to reduce the AfD to what he refers to as the “marginal phenomenon” it once was by addressing the nation’s concerns, taking the wind out of the sails of the AfD’s successful modus operandi of inciting fear and insecurity.

Tackling “irregular” immigration is therefore at the top of his domestic agenda, as he seeks to address the topic viewed as having added the most fuel to the AfD’s fire.

But many others believe it is too late for that, arguing that an extremist classification, followed by a ban, would be the only way to stop the flourishing party.

Others say such a move would be in grave danger of backfiring, arguing that the AfD would turn such a branding by the state into its own “seal of approval”, which would serve to enhance its already strong sense of victimhood or martyrdom.

Merz’s party, the Christian Democratic Union, has been torn over how to deal with the AfD. Merz tacitly cooperated with the party earlier this year – despite insisting he would not – to push migration policies through parliament. And on the local level, his party and the AfD have cooperated on issues such as a ruling that the German flag should be hoisted in schools.

Jens Spahn, Merz’s close ally, recently prompted scorn by suggesting the AfD should be treated as a “normal opposition party”, arguing that excluding the party from parliamentary procedures only boosted its popularity.

Those who reject that approach say Friday’s ruling will now give them more justification to block the party at every opportunity – but they argue that this will only work if a cross-party consensus prevails.

Donald Trump has been accused of mocking the election of a new leader of the Catholic church after posting an artificial intelligence-generated picture of himself as the pope on social media.

The image, shared on Friday night on Trump’s Truth Social site and the White House’s official X account, raised eyebrows at the Vatican, which is still in the period of nine days of official mourning after Pope Francis’s funeral on 26 April.

Featuring Trump in a white cassock, a gold crucifix pendant and mitre, or bishop’s hat, and with his index finger pointed towards the sky, the image was the topic of several questions during the Vatican’s daily conclave briefing on Saturday.

It came as cardinals from around the world gathered in Rome before the conclave, the secret election process to choose a new leader of the 1.4-billion-strong Catholic church, and just days after Trump joked he would “like to be pope”.

The former Italian prime minister Matteo Renzi said the image was shameful. “This is an image that offends believers, insults institutions and shows that the leader of the rightwing world enjoys clowning around,” he wrote on X.

In the US, the New York State Catholic Conference, which represents the bishops of the state, accused Trump of mockery.

“There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President,” they wrote. “We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.”

Italian and Spanish news reports lamented its poor taste and said it was offensive, given that the period of official mourning was still under way. Italy’s left-leaning la Repubblica also featured the image on its homepage Saturday with a commentary accusing Trump of “pathological megalomania”.

Asked to respond to the criticism, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Trump had “been a staunch champion for Catholics and religious liberty”.

Trump, who is not a Catholic and does not attend church regularly, attended the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome eight days ago.

The Republican senator Lindsey Graham, a close Trump ally, piled on what the New York Catholic leaders had branded mockery.

“I was excited to hear that President Trump is open to the idea of being the next Pope. This would truly be a dark horse candidate, but I would ask the papal conclave and Catholic faithful to keep an open mind about this possibility!” he wrote on X. “The first Pope-U.S. President combination has many upsides. Watching for white smoke …. Trump MMXXVIII!”

Jack Posobiec, a prominent far-right influencer and Trump ally who recently participated in a Catholic prayer event in March at Trump’s Florida resort, also defended the president.

“I’m Catholic. We’ve all been making jokes about the upcoming Pope selection all week. It’s called a sense of humour,” he wrote on X.

French police are investigating a series of kidnappings of investors linked to cryptocurrency after a 60-year-old man had a finger chopped off by attackers who demanded his crypto-millionaire son pay a ransom.

In the latest of several kidnappings of cryptocurrency figures in France and western Europe, the man, who owned a cryptocurrency marketing company with his son, was freed from a house south of Paris on Saturday night. He had been held for more than two days.

One of the man’s fingers had been chopped off and investigators feared further mutilations could have happened if he had not been rescued.

The man, who has not been publicly identified, was abducted in broad daylight at 10.30am on Thursday morning as he walked down a street in Paris’s 14th arrondissement. Four men in ski masks forced him into a delivery van.

He was freed by armed police in a raid at 9pm on Saturday night from a house 20km (12 miles) south of Paris, in the Essonne area. Five suspects in their 20s were arrested at the house.

The state prosecutor said in a statement: “The victim appears to be the father of a man who made his fortune in cryptocurrencies, with the crime involving a ransom demand.”

The victim’s wife told investigators that her husband and wealthy son, who both owned a crypto marketing firm in Malta, had received threats in the past, a police source said.

Le Parisien reported that the attackers had demanded a ransom of €5-7m (£4-6m), which was not paid. The five kidnapping suspects, aged between 20 and 27, were still being questioned by police on Sunday.

The kidnapping is the latest in a series of abductions of cryptocurrency figures in France and neighbouring countries.

David Balland, the co-founder of the crypto firm Ledger, which is valued at more than $1bn , was abducted with his partner on 21 January at their home in Méreau, near Bourges in central France. He also had a finger cut off.

The attackers arrived at Balland’s house in the early hours of the morning, taking him and his partner and separating them. Balland was taken to a house in the town of Châteauroux, where one of his fingers was cut off.

Police were contacted by Balland’s business partner who received a video of the finger alongside a demand for a large ransom in cryptocurrency, of around €10m. Balland was freed in a police raid soon after. His partner was found tied up in the boot of a car in a carpark in the Essonne area south of Paris the next day.

Nine suspects are under criminal investigation in that case, including the alleged ringleader, 26, who has a police record for a previous kidnapping.

In December 2024, the 56-year-old father of a French cryptocurrency influencer based in Dubai, was the target of an alleged kidnapping in eastern France, local media reported. Attackers arrived at the man’s home, tied up his wife and daughter and forced him into a car.

The man’s influencer son received a ransom demand and contacted police. The two women were then quickly freed. The father was only discovered 24 hours later in the boot of a car in Normandy, tied up and showing signs of physical violence, having been sprinkled with petrol.

Other abductions of cryptocurrency figures or their partners were reported in Spain and Belgium in the past five months.

French police are investigating a series of kidnappings of investors linked to cryptocurrency after a 60-year-old man had a finger chopped off by attackers who demanded his crypto-millionaire son pay a ransom.

In the latest of several kidnappings of cryptocurrency figures in France and western Europe, the man, who owned a cryptocurrency marketing company with his son, was freed from a house south of Paris on Saturday night. He had been held for more than two days.

One of the man’s fingers had been chopped off and investigators feared further mutilations could have happened if he had not been rescued.

The man, who has not been publicly identified, was abducted in broad daylight at 10.30am on Thursday morning as he walked down a street in Paris’s 14th arrondissement. Four men in ski masks forced him into a delivery van.

He was freed by armed police in a raid at 9pm on Saturday night from a house 20km (12 miles) south of Paris, in the Essonne area. Five suspects in their 20s were arrested at the house.

The state prosecutor said in a statement: “The victim appears to be the father of a man who made his fortune in cryptocurrencies, with the crime involving a ransom demand.”

The victim’s wife told investigators that her husband and wealthy son, who both owned a crypto marketing firm in Malta, had received threats in the past, a police source said.

Le Parisien reported that the attackers had demanded a ransom of €5-7m (£4-6m), which was not paid. The five kidnapping suspects, aged between 20 and 27, were still being questioned by police on Sunday.

The kidnapping is the latest in a series of abductions of cryptocurrency figures in France and neighbouring countries.

David Balland, the co-founder of the crypto firm Ledger, which is valued at more than $1bn , was abducted with his partner on 21 January at their home in Méreau, near Bourges in central France. He also had a finger cut off.

The attackers arrived at Balland’s house in the early hours of the morning, taking him and his partner and separating them. Balland was taken to a house in the town of Châteauroux, where one of his fingers was cut off.

Police were contacted by Balland’s business partner who received a video of the finger alongside a demand for a large ransom in cryptocurrency, of around €10m. Balland was freed in a police raid soon after. His partner was found tied up in the boot of a car in a carpark in the Essonne area south of Paris the next day.

Nine suspects are under criminal investigation in that case, including the alleged ringleader, 26, who has a police record for a previous kidnapping.

In December 2024, the 56-year-old father of a French cryptocurrency influencer based in Dubai, was the target of an alleged kidnapping in eastern France, local media reported. Attackers arrived at the man’s home, tied up his wife and daughter and forced him into a car.

The man’s influencer son received a ransom demand and contacted police. The two women were then quickly freed. The father was only discovered 24 hours later in the boot of a car in Normandy, tied up and showing signs of physical violence, having been sprinkled with petrol.

Other abductions of cryptocurrency figures or their partners were reported in Spain and Belgium in the past five months.

Singapore’s ruling party has notched a resounding win in general elections, official results have shown, giving the prime minister, Lawrence Wong, the clear mandate he sought from voters.

Wong’s long-ruling People’s Action party crossed the threshold of 49 seats early on Sunday to form a majority government in the wealthy city-state’s 97-seat unicameral legislature, with sample counts earlier showing the PAP winning all but 10 seats.

“We are grateful once again for your strong mandate, and we will honour it,” a broadly smiling Wong said shortly after winning his ward, thanking supporters gathered at Yio Chu Kang stadium.

Wong was facing his first major test against a rejuvenated opposition and had urged voters to offer him a strong show of support as he navigates the trade-oriented nation through global economic uncertainties brought by US tariffs.

The PAP, which has steered the south-east Asian country to prosperity while being criticised for suppressing dissent, was always expected to easily retain a clear majority in the legislature.

However, its dominance has been increasingly challenged by a more vocal electorate over the years.

Popular after leading Singapore’s Covid task force, Wong took over last year from his predecessor Lee Hsien Loong, the son of founding premier Lee Kuan Yew who ruled the island state after its bitter breakup with Malaysia in 1965.

Wong had warned Singapore would be hit hard if the US president, Donald Trump, went ahead with the tariffs he announced and then paused for most countries, and that it needed to stay open and competitive to counter their effects.

He has also said the ructions caused could require a major restructuring of Singapore’s economy.

“The intense campaigning by PM Lawrence Wong and former PM Lee Hsien Loong in the hot seats must have helped a lot and the fear of Trump’s tariffs must have worried voters as well,” political observer and veteran former editor PN Balji told AFP.

The overwhelming PAP majority has become a norm in Singapore’s political landscape.

But in the runup to the latest polls, the PAP had faced a series of controversies.

Lee Hsien Loong is locked in a bitter feud with his brother Lee Hsien Yang, who vehemently supports the opposition and who has sought political asylum in Britain.

The long-running family row centres on allegations made by Lee Hsien Yang that his brother is seeking to block the demolition of a family bungalow to capitalise on Lee Kuan Yew’s legacy – something he has denied.

Last year, former transport minister S Iswaran was thrown in jail for graft, and in 2023 the parliament speaker and a lawmaker resigned over an “inappropriate” affair.

At the same time, younger voters showed themselves to be increasingly receptive to alternative political voices.

One voter told AFP she had been impressed by “refreshing and exciting” new candidates from across the political spectrum.

“Whether or not they get elected, I hope we see and hear more of them, and get to know them better,” said 40-year-old Shi’ai Liang.

In 2020, the country’s largest opposition group, the Workers’ party (WP), made historic gains, winning 10 of the 93 seats at stake – a significant jump from its previously held four seats.

The WP – which has become politically slicker – had been hoping to build on that momentum with a slate of charismatic candidates, including a top lawyer.

The party pulled in massive crowds at its rallies during the campaign, just like in previous elections, but those big numbers have seldom translated into electoral wins in the past.

Campaigning on cost of living issues, WP candidates said more opposition MPs were needed to deprive the PAP of a political “blank cheque” to do whatever it wants.

The PAP, however, pointed to the billions of Singapore dollars it has spent in helping citizens cope with rising costs, including via cash handouts and grocery vouchers.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has warned protesters in breakaway northern Cyprus not “to sow seeds of hatred” amid mounting discord over Ankara’s perceived attempts to Islamise one of the world’s most secular Muslim societies.

In a whirlwind visit to the Turkish-occupied territory on Saturday the leader had tough words for Turkish Cypriots who have stepped up demonstrations against policies he openly endorses, not least a controversial law allowing headscarves to be worn in schools.

“Those who try to disrupt our brotherhood, to create a rift between us, and to sow the seeds of hatred … will not be successful,” he said as he inaugurated a new presidential residence and parliament in the self-styled state.

Later, as he addressed a technology festival, he went further, telling trade unions that opposed the measure: “If you try to mess with our girls’ headscarves in the Turkish republic of northern Cyprus, I am sorry, you will find us against you.”

On Friday thousands of Turkish Cypriots took to the streets of Nicosia, the country’s war-split capital, chanting “hands off our land” as they denounced the legislation.

In a speech before a crowd metres away from Turkey’s embassy compound, Selma Eylem, who heads the Cyprus Turkish secondary education teachers’ trade union, said the regulation was tantamount to imposing political Islam on a society that not only prided itself on its secular identity but inherently secular way of life.

“We say, once again, to the representatives of the AKP [Erdoğan’s Islamist-rooted party]: Keep your hands off our children and keep your hands off our society.”

Erdoğan had hoped to use the trip to showcase Ankara’s continuing support for a community that it had in 1974 sought to rescue when Turkish troops were ordered to invade Cyprus, seizing its northern third.

The military operation had followed a rightwing, Athens-backed coup aimed at uniting the island with Greece. In the more than 50 years that have elapsed, the territory, which unilaterally declared independence in 1983, has been recognised by no other country but Turkey.

Ahead of his visit officials had said that Erdoğan’s focus would be on the opening of the big government complex, financed by Ankara with the aim of promoting international acceptance for the isolated entity.

On Saturday the Turkish president insisted that in the wake of decades of failed peace talks between Greek and Turkish Cypriots only “a two-state solution” could be discussed to resolve the west’s longest running diplomatic dispute.

“The two-state solution is the joint vision of Turkey and northern Cyprus,” he said. “Any new negotiation process must be between two sovereign states.”

Friday’s demonstration, which followed almost daily protests over the hijab law, was organised by more than 100 trade unions and civil societies many of which still advocate the island’s reunification as a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation.

“Partly because of Kemalism but also because of eighty-two years of British colonial rule, Turkish Cypriots are by far the most secular Muslims in the world,” said Hubert Faustmann, professor of history and political science at the University of Nicosia in the internationally recognised south.

For Turkish Cypriots who have long opposed Ankara’s ever-expanding influence in the north, the regulation, he said, was further proof of the leader’s determination to not only erode long-held secular traditions but ultimately alter their own identity.

“What we are witnessing is a cultural clash,” Faustmann said. “The legislation on headscarves is seen as part of a package of continuous attempts by Erdoğan to unwind the secular character of the community.”

With the backlash showing no sign of abating, Turkish Cypriots appear determined to have the measure repealed – even if it has been vigorously defended by the community’s leader, Ersin Tatar, a close Erdoğan ally who argues the law protects students from discrimination.

“If we are to save ourselves we have to continue this struggle,” said Şener Elcil, a veteran former trade unionist.

Increasingly, he lamented, Turkish Cypriots had been made to feel like a minority “in our own land” as a result of hundreds of thousands of mainland settlers moving to the north.

“Religion was never a point of division on this island but after years of building mosques that Turkish Cypriots don’t even go to, they want to make it one in our schools,” he added. “Now, more than ever, we need to stand up to Erdoğan and have our voices heard.”

Thousands of victims of abuse in juvenile facilities and foster homes across Los Angeles are being compensated for decades of mistreatment in a historic settlement, but some say the money will never rectify a system that hurt vulnerable children and protected their abusers.

LA county officials this week unanimously approved a landmark $4bn settlement to address nearly 7,000 claims of sexual abuse at county-run facilities. Some of those claims date back to the 1950s, but most took place throughout the 1980s through the 2000s. The payout is the largest of its kind in US history.

Many of the claims centered around an county-run foster home for young Angelenos, the shuttered MacLaren children’s center. The facility, which opened in 1961 as a temporary shelter for youth waiting to be placed in foster care, ended up overcrowded, with many children staying for months rather than the days they were otherwise meant to be there.

Over the decades, victims described being drugged and abused by carers, as well as threats of retaliation if they came forward. Many remembered periods of violence and said memories of their experiences had stayed with them throughout their lives.

A grand jury report later found the center had hired employees with criminal records.

MacLaren children’s center closed in 2003 amid years of concerns from civil rights groups and a lawsuit from the ACLU. No one has been arrested in connection with the abuses committed there, but officials have said a small number of cases have been referred to the district attorney for investigation.

Jimmy Vigil, now a mental health case manager in California, was incarcerated at another facility, the Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall, when he was 14. He described abuse by a physician who ordered him locked in handcuffs for hours when he called out for help.

Staff members, Vigil said, would arrange for new residents to clash with others in makeshift gangs to “watch us fight”. When he tried to file a complaint with a case manager, she advised him to “pick [his] battles wisely” and disconnected a call with his mother as he tried to detail his mistreatment.

“It doesn’t make me feel any sense of relief,” Vigil, 45, told the Guardian of the settlement deal. “It doesn’t undo anything. I went through some ordeals while I was incarcerated as an adolescent that required me to participate in years and years of therapy.”

“The way that the probationary staff ran that system, it was making us worse,” he added. “The irony is they called us monsters, [but] they created those monsters. They did not focus on rehab; they didn’t focus on therapy; they did not focus on teaching young men and women a better path.”

Kathryn Barger, a Los Angeles county supervisor, said the settlement was “unlike any other we have seen” and that she never imagined “those hired to protect and serve our most vulnerable could so profoundly betray their duty”.

“This recommendation is historic, and unfortunately, not for good reason,” Barger said in a statement. “This $4bn settlement marks a dark chapter in our history. It attempts to acknowledge and provide compensation for horrific past wrongs.”

“It is a sobering reckoning,” she went on. “An indictment of abuses of power by individuals who were trusted to protect our youth, a reflection of failed oversight systems, and a painful reminder of how vulnerable voices were ignored or silenced.”

Barger added the county would now face a great challenge to rebuild the public’s trust in its ability to protect the most vulnerable across Los Angeles.

The county has proposed reforms it described as major policy and legislative changes, including the creation of a countywide hotline to report child sexual abuse against county employees. The reforms would also see a system created to expedite investigations and allow the county to immediately terminate and refer to law enforcement anyone subject to substantiated allegations.

Vigil said while he was glad reforms would help children currently in the foster system and that money would soon flow to other victims that could benefit from financial support after a lifetime of trauma, closure would not come until those responsible for abuse were held accountable.

“For me the ultimate justice would be, which I know is probably never going to happen, would be to have these individuals that hurt us when we were children to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” he said. “I feel like they’ve gotten away with this.”

The $4bn settlement came after California made a major change to the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse claims in 2020 and established a three-year “look-back window” to allow victims to file claims for old instances of abuse.

The short window to revive or file new claims led to a surge in lawsuits. Dozens of cases were filed against religious groups, nonprofits and both public and private schools, including against alleged perpetrators who have been dead for decades, according to The Los Angeles Times.

California had previously issued a temporary lift on the statute of limitations in 2003 after the first revelations about widespread abuse within the Catholic Church came to light.

Adam Slater, a lead counsel in the LA county settlement negotiations, said the deal was only possible due to the “bravery of the survivors, the perseverance of counsel, and the willingness of the county of Los Angeles to fully confront its problem head-on and help the generations of children it harmed find closure”.

His firm represented about 3,500 victims, many of whom were placed in MacLaren.

“When our firm filed some of the earliest complaints three years ago, we knew the abuse they described was horrific, traumatic, and widespread, but we truly had no idea about the magnitude of Los Angeles’ institutional sexual abuse problem until we began investigating and other survivors came forward,” Slater said in a statement.

“While no amount of money can erase the horrors that they endured, this agreement acknowledges the profound harm inflicted on thousands of children over the course of decades.”

Fesia Davenport, the chief executive officer of Los Angeles county, apologized on behalf of the county earlier this year.

“The historic scope of this settlement makes clear that we are committed to helping the survivors recover and rebuild their lives – and to making and enforcing the systemic changes needed to keep young people safe,” Davenport said.

She went on to say the deal would be the costliest in the history of the county and would have a “significant” impact on its budget for years. That figure will be paid for from cash reserves, the issuance of court bonds and cuts to the departmental budget.

Annual payments are expected to be in the hundreds of millions of dollars each year through 2030, but the county will still be paying the settlement through the 2050 fiscal year.

The county has an annual budget of about $48bn.

“We are going to be paying hundreds of millions of dollars that could be invested into the communities, into parks, libraries, beaches, public social services, until 2050,” Davenport added to the Los Angeles Times.

Money is expected to flow towards victims beginning in January.

Wes Streeting has said Reform is a real threat and could replace the Conservatives as the main opposition party by the next election, as he urged the public to give Labour the “benefit of the doubt”.

The health secretary said Nigel Farage’s party was being treated as a “serious opposition force” after Reform’s success in the local elections, where it narrowly won a byelection from Labour and took 677 council seats, gaining control of 10 councils. Reform took most seats from the Conservatives, who lost 674, while Labour lost 187.

Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, Streeting said things “take time and you don’t turn around a country … in just nine months. All I’d say to people is: we’ve got the message, we’re not daft, we haven’t got our heads in the sand. All I ask people for is a bit of time and to give us the benefit of the doubt … We are going at those challenges as hard and fast as we can”.

He said Labour knew that people would “look for change elsewhere” if the country did not feel different by the next election and the government would “go further and faster” towards safer streets, more secure borders, waiting lists falling and the cost of living improving.

On Sky News, Streeting made clear that Reform was being taken seriously as an alternative challenger to the Conservatives. “I think Reform is definitely a real threat and one that we take seriously. I think there’s clearly, on the right of British politics, a realignment taking place,” he said.

“It’s not yet clear whether at the next general election it will be Reform or the Conservatives that are Labour’s main challengers, but we’ve got to take that threat seriously. In that spirit, I think Reform does deserve more airtime and scrutiny of their policies.”

Asked if he thought of Reform as Labour’s “most serious opposition”, he said: “I certainly do treat them as a serious opposition force.

“I don’t know whether it will be Reform or the Conservatives that emerge as the main threat. I don’t have a horse in that race, but like Alien vs. Predator, you don’t really want either one to win but one of them will emerge as the main challenger to Labour at the next general election.”

The Conservatives are also under pressure after the local election results. Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, rejected calls from local councillors for her to resign, when asked about her performance on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme.

“What we had was Labour saying ‘all we need to do is get rid of the Conservatives and everything will be better’. Things got worse,” she said. “Now we have Reform saying ‘all we need to do is get rid of the Conservatives and Labour and everything will be better’. I suspect things will get worse, but protest is in the air.”

She said the Conservatives still had time to turn things around before the next election: “We live in politically volatile times and what I have been saying is that we are going to take a slow and steady way. There will be bumps along [the way] but we can do this, and we will do it in four years, not 18 years, 14 years, 13 years like the previous oppositions.”

Zia Yusuf, the Reform chair, said his party would show what it could do in local government and would be publishing a plan to deport people who have entered the country by illegal means in the first term of a Reform government.

He also defended his party’s plans to cut diversity, equality and inclusion spending at local councils where Reform has taken control. Pressed on how much money this would save, he could not give an answer but he said Reform would bring in auditors and taskforces to cut unnecessary spending.

The party is now in control of 10 councils: Kent, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, North and West Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire, Doncaster, Lancashire and Durham.

Israeli airstrikes have killed at least 40 people across Gaza during the past 24 hours, civil defence officials in the devastated Palestinian territory said, as Israel’s government prepared to order an expansion of its military offensive.

Nine people were killed when a strike hit a home in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza; another six people died in a separate strike targeting a family home in the northern city of Beit Lahiya; six more died in a strike on a community kitchen in Gaza City, and an overnight attack on the Khan Younis refugee camp killed at least 11 people including three babies up to a year old, the officials said.

Asked to comment on the strikes, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said the military “takes feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm”.

Israel resumed its bombing campaign in Gaza on 18 March, ending a fragile ceasefire. Since then, at least 2,326 people have been killed, bringing the death toll since the war broke out to 52,418, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

Israel has accused Hamas of using civilians as human shields, a charge denied by the radical Islamist organisation. It also accuses Hamas of stealing and selling aid to fund its military and other operations.

The war was triggered by a surprise attack launched by Hamas into Israel on 7 October 2023. Militants killed more than 1,200 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 whom the Israeli military says are dead.

Aid officials have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza, with famine again looming. On Friday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned that the humanitarian response in Gaza was on the “verge of total collapse”.

“This situation must not – and cannot – be allowed to escalate further,” Pascal Hundt, the ICRC’s deputy director of operations, said in a statement.

There has been no progress in faltering negotiations for a new ceasefire-for-hostages deal in recent weeks, and reports in Israeli media suggest Benjamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, will soon approve a new broader offensive as well as a new plan drawn up by Israeli officials for renewed distribution of aid in Gaza involving private contractors and a small number of “hubs” to be constructed in the south of the territory.

Humanitarian officials in Gaza told the Guardian last week that the proposed Israeli aid plan was impracticable and unethical.

“The current scheme just won’t work unless there are a lot more distribution hubs and even then we cannot be a party to something that may drive massive and possibly permanent displacement within Gaza,” one senior humanitarian official said.

The US president, Donald Trump, is thought to be likely to press Israel for some concessions on aid entering Gaza before he visits Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar this month. A week ago, he told Netanyahu to be “good to Gaza”.

Analysts are divided on whether warnings issued to tens of thousands of Israeli reservists to expect to be called up in the coming days or weeks are designed to put further pressure on Hamas to make concessions in talks or are evidence that a new offensive in Gaza is imminent.

Israel’s military is already overstretched after 18 months of war, with a shortfall of about 7,000 combat soldiers. Government officials describe a “seven-front war” that could last another year.

On Saturday morning, sirens sounded in Israel for the second day running, warning of an incoming missile launched by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, who say the attacks are in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza. Air defences intercepted the missile.

Separately, Israel’s military said on Saturday its forces deployed in southern Syria were ready to protect the Druze minority, without specifying whether this was a new deployment or giving further details on the number of troops on the ground.

After deadly sectarian clashes near Damascus earlier this week, Israel has conducted multiple strikes it says were meant to protect the Druze community and warned Syria’s Islamist rulers against harming the minority group.

On Saturday, the Israeli military said that “five Syrian Druze citizens were evacuated to receive medical treatment in Israel overnight” after sustaining injuries on Syrian territory.

A Druze official in the southern Syrian city Sweida said those evacuated had been wounded “in clashes in Sahnaya”, the site of recent sectarian violence near Damascus, but were afraid of being sent to hospitals in the Syrian capital out of fear of being detained.

Israel launched a new wave of more than 20 airstrikes in Syria late on Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group. Early on Friday, Israel had launched an attack near the presidential palace in Damascus, which Syrian authorities condemned as a “dangerous escalation”.

Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, warned on Thursday that Israel would respond forcefully if Syria’s new government failed to protect the Druze minority.

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December, Israel has launched repeated airstrikes on Syria. It has also sent troops to what was a demilitarised zone in the Golan Heights, on Syria’s south-west border with Israel, seizing key strategic terrain where Syrian troops were once deployed.

Analysts in Israel say the strategy aims to undermine the new Syrian government while also protecting and so co-opting a potential proxy ally within the country. The strategy is controversial, however, with some officials arguing that a stable Syria would better serve Israel’s interests.

The government in Damascus took power after ousting Assad and is dominated by the militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which has its roots in al-Qaida’s jihadist network. Though Syria’s new rulers have promised inclusive rule in the multiconfessional, multi-ethnic country, they face pressures from extremists within their own ranks.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report