At least 27 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire as they attempted to collect aid near a distribution site in Gaza, local officials say.

Civilians were fired upon by tanks, quadcopter drones, and helicopters near the al-Alam roundabout, about 1km (0.6 miles) from the aid site, a spokesman for Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defence agency, Mahmoud Basal, said.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its troops fired shots after identifying suspects who moved towards them “deviating from the designated access routes”.

Israel previously denied shooting Palestinians in a similar incident on Sunday which the Hamas-run health ministry said killed 31 people and injured nearly 200.

Its denial was in direct contradiction to what dozens of civilian witnesses, NGOs, and health officials said.

Following Tuesday morning’s incident, the director of Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Atef Al-Hout, described 24 dead and 37 wounded arriving with gunshot injuries, saying Israeli forces had opened fire on “crowds of civilians waiting for aid in western Rafah.”

A foreign medic working in the area told the BBC it had been “total carnage” since 03:48 (01:48 BST) and that they had been overwhelmed with casualties.

In a video shared by a local journalist, witness Nadeem Zarab said he and his uncle began walking to the aid centre at 02:00 (00:00 BST). When they reached the roundabout “the shooting started, from the helicopter, the tanks, and the sniper soldiers”, he added.

“Gunfire was coming from all directions. We started using the wall as cover, shielding ourselves close to it.”

“People, as they were running, began collapsing in front of us. My uncle couldn’t bear it, he saw someone get shot right in front of him, so he tried to run and catch him. But I told him, ‘Come back, come back! Where are you going?'”

Another eyewitness, who did not want to be named, told BBC Arabic: “I am displaced from Khan Younis and responsible for a family of five.

“The Israeli Army informed us that we would be receiving aid through the US committee.

“When we arrived, the checkpoint opened at six o’clock. Suddenly, gunfire erupted from all directions.

They added: “Hundreds were wounded or killed, the scene was horrific. After we moved just two hundred metres, machine guns began firing at us.”

A third eyewitness, who also did not want to be named, said they had seen “intense shelling from aircraft and tanks” after arriving at the aid centre at around 05:00 (03:00 BST).

It is unclear from witness statements whether people were killed in one incident or several incidents throughout the night.

In a statement, the IDF said its troops were “not preventing the arrival of Gazan civilians to the humanitarian aid distribution sites.”

“The warning shots were fired approximately half a kilometre away from the humanitarian aid distribution site toward several suspects who advanced toward the troops in such a way that posed a threat to them,” it added.

Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza, making verifying what is happening in the territory difficult.

Aid distribution has recently been taken over by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israel- and US-backed group which aims to replace UN agencies and other organisations.

The GHF system requires civilians to go to distribution centres situated in areas of Israeli military control, and staffed by armed American security contractors.

Palestinians are forced to walk long distances to collect the aid – and then carry boxes of it weighing up to 20kg (44lbs) back to their homes or shelters.

The previous UN system delivered aid directly into communities – at 400 sites across Gaza. It also distributed the aid based on a registry of the population, guaranteeing everyone food.

The new system appears to operate on a first come, first serve basis, meaning Palestinians are gathering through the night to secure a place at the front of the line – before a race to collect supplies when the aid site opens hours later.

The GHF has been heavily criticised by UN bodies and the wider international community for “weaponising” aid and creating a system that goes against humanitarian principles.

Responding to Tuesday’s incident, the group said: “While the aid distribution was conducted safely and without incident at our site today, we understand that IDF is investigating whether a number of civilians were injured after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone. This was an area well beyond our secure distribution site and operations area.”

UN human rights chief Volker Türk said: “For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site”.

“Palestinians have been presented the grimmest of choices: die from starvation or risk being killed while trying to access the meagre food that is being made available through Israel’s militarized humanitarian assistance mechanism.”

Responding to Sunday’s incident, UN Secretary General António Guterres said in a statement: “I am appalled by the reports of Palestinians killed and injured while seeking aid in Gaza yesterday

“I call for an immediate and independent investigation into these events and for perpetrators to be held accountable.”

During Sunday’s incident, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said its hospital in Rafah received “a mass casualty influx” with 21 “declared dead upon arrival”.

The IDF said its findings from an initial inquiry showed that its forces had not fired at people while they were near or within the aid centre.

The GHF also denied the claims of injuries and casualties at its site and said they had been spread by Hamas.

Last week, former US marine Jake Wood quit as GHF’s chief executive after two months, saying it could not operate in a way which would adhere to “humanitarian principles”.

Reverend Dr Johnnie Moore, a Christian evangelical pastor and prominent supporter of US President Donald Trump, was announced as its new head on Tuesday.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to Hamas’ cross-border attack on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 54,470 people have been killed in Gaza since then, including 4,201 since Israel resumed its offensive on 18 March, according to the territory’s health ministry.

South Korea has handed a decisive victory to opposition candidate Lee Jae-myung six months after his predecessor’s martial law bid failed.

The brief yet disastrous move set off huge protests and ended former president Yoon Suk Yeol’s career: impeached and removed from office, he still faces criminal charges for abusing his power.

But the political chaos that followed means victorious Lee’s biggest challenge is still ahead of him. He must unite a polarised country that is still reeling from it all.

He also faces challenges abroad – crucially, negotiating a trade deal with US President Donald Trump to soften the blow of tariffs from South Korea’s closest ally.

His main rival was the ruling party candidate and a former member of Yoon’s cabinet, Kim Moon-soo.

He had been trailing Lee for weeks in polls and in the early hours of Wednesday, he conceded defeat, congratulating Lee “on his victory”.

In an earlier speech, Lee had hinted at the win but stopped short of declaring it. He said “recovering” South Korea’s democracy would be his first priority.

The snap election comes just three years after the 61-year-old lost his last presidential bid by a razor-thin margin to Yoon.

It’s a remarkable comeback for a man who has been caught in several political scandals, from investigations over alleged corruption to family feuds.

Analysts say Lee’s win is also a rejection of the ruling People Power Party (PPP), which was tarred by Yoon’s martial law order.

“Voters weren’t necessarily expressing strong support for Lee’s agenda, rather they were responding to what they saw as a breakdown of democracy,” Park Sung-min, president of Min Consulting, told the BBC.

“The election became a vehicle for expressing outrage… [and] was a clear rebuke of the ruling party, which had been complicit in or directly responsible for the martial law measures.”

Lee’s win, he adds, shows that voters had put South Korea’s democracy “above all else”.

Yoon’s departure also left his former party divided and in disarray, with infighting delaying the announcement of a presidential candidate until early May.

The chaos in the PPP went beyond just Yoon, as two acting presidents who followed were also impeached, before one of them was reinstated – a sign of how contentious South Korean politics had become.

All of this certainly helped the opposition Democratic Party and its candidate Lee, who signalled more stability.

But while he has won the election, his challenges are far from over.

He faces a trial in the Supreme Court over charges of violating the election law. The court postponed the trial until after the election to avoid interference because a conviction could have barred him from contesting.

But it’s not clear what happens if Lee is now found guilty, though the law says sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted for criminal offences, with the exception of insurrection or treason.

Lee has had a controversial career in which he has built a loyal base but he has also drawn disapproval and ire for what some have called an abrasive style.

He has spoken openly of a tough childhood in a working class family, before he went to college and became a human rights lawyer.

He then switched to a political career, making his way up the DP until – in 2022 – he became their presidential candidate. He campaigned on a more liberal platform, promising to address gender inequality, for instance.

But after he lost the vote, he pivoted, opting this time to move more toward the centre and play it safer with his policies.

In office, he will also need to reach across the aisle and work with the PPP, a party he battled regularly during Yoon’s term. But he may need some of them to work with him to rebuild public trust and mend a fractured country.

“Years of escalating polarisation under both the [previous] Moon and Yoon administrations have left South Korea’s political landscape bitterly divided,” Mr Park said.

“Lee may speak of national unity, but he faces a profound dilemma: how to pursue accountability for what many view as an attempted insurrection without deepening the very divisions he seeks to heal.”

Despite the PPP’s loss, Yoon still has a considerably strong and vocal support base – and they are unlikely to go away anytime soon.

His supporters, mainly young male voters and the elderly, often echo strong right-wing narratives and many of them believe his declaration of martial law was necessary to protect the country.

Many also peddle conspiracy theories, believing Yoon’s party was a victim of election fraud.

Thousands protested against his impeachment and in January, shortly after his arrest, a pro-Yoon crowd stormed a courthouse and assaulted police officers.

With Yoon gone, there are questions about who might fill that vacuum for his base.

One name in particular has emerged: Lee Jun Seok, who also ran for president, but dropped out earlier on Tuesday, when exit polls suggested he was trailing too far behind, with just 7.7% of the votes.

Still, he has been especially popular with many young men for his anti-feminist views, which has reminded some of Yoon, under whom equality for women became a polarising subject.

Young men in their 30s came out in higher numbers than usual to vote this time, drawn in part by candidates like Lee Jun-seok. Those wanting to hold the PPP-led government accountable, and others wanting to ensure Lee Jae-myung’s presidency was dashed, led to this year’s voter turnout reaching 79.4% – the highest since 1997.

However, it is not just healing these divides at home that will keep Lee busy in the immediate future. He also faces urgent challenges abroad, such as navigating the US-Korea alliance under the new Trump administration.

“South Korea’s pressing domestic challenges are increasingly intertwined with global dynamics,” Mr Park said, adding that it has implications for the country’s economy and defence, given that the US is both a crucial trading partner and security ally.

A trade deal with the US is top of the agenda, he said, with sluggish demand and slowing growth already hurting the economy.

Lee – a seasoned politician – goes into office knowing all of this, and in the early hours made a promise to South Korea’s voters.

“I will do my utmost to fulfil the great responsibility and mission entrusted to me, so as not to disappoint the expectations of our people,” Lee told reporters.

The Dutch government has collapsed after Geert Wilders withdrew his far-right party from the governing coalition following a row over migration.

Prime Minister Dick Schoof confirmed he was stepping down on Tuesday and offered the resignation of the cabinet to King Willem-Alexander.

In televised remarks following an emergency cabinet meeting, Schoof said Wilders’ decision to withdraw the support of his PVV party was “irresponsible and unnecessary”.

“As far as I’m concerned, this shouldn’t have happened,” he added.

The governing coalition was in place for less than one year.

The row which led to its collapse came after Wilders pushed for 10 additional asylum measures, including a freeze on applications, halting the construction of reception centres and limiting family reunification.

Schoof had made a last-minute appeal to coalition party leaders on Tuesday morning, but the meeting lasted just one minute before Wilders walked out, ending the coalition.

“No signature for our asylum plans. PVV leaves the coalition,” said Wilders on X.

There was shock and anger among political leaders, many of whom pointed out that several of Wilders’ demands were similar to policies already in the coalition agreement, and that they would not stand in the PVV’s way to implement them.

Many of the additional proposals put forward by Wilders had been dismissed during coalition talks because of legal concerns.

Wilders’ decision has put an end to an uneasy governing coalition which was born in July 2024 after months of political wrangling following elections the previous year.

His anti-immigration, far-right PVV was the largest party. The other members were the conservative-liberal VVD, the Farmers’ Citizen Movement (BBB) and the centrist New Social Contract.

• Geert Wilders: Who is he and what does he want?

From the start the coalition seemed a marriage of convenience, characterised by infighting and appeared to struggle to push through any of policies it had proudly promoted.

Following its collapse, Wilders’ former coalition partners accused him of engineering the crisis. VVD leader Dilan Yesilgoz said the move was “super irresponsible”, adding: “This wasn’t about asylum at all.”

“I think Wilders is betraying the Netherlands,” said deputy Prime Minister Mona Keijzer from the BBB.

But Wilders appears to feel emboldened. On Tuesday he told reporters that he intended to become prime minister of the Netherlands “and ensure that the PVV becomes bigger than ever in the next elections”.

Sandra Phlippen, the chief economist for ABN AMRO bank, said the immediate economic impact of the cabinet’s collapse appeared minimal because during its 11 months in office the government had “barely made any concrete plans”.

Polls show the far right and Green-Left parties are neck-and-neck, with migration and cost-of-living issues fuelling political volatility across Europe.

Wilders wanted the government to collapse as the support for his Freedom Party continues to drop in the polls, according to Armida van Rij, the Head of the Europe Programme at Chatham House.

With the Nato summit due to be held in the Hague at the end of the month, Schoof’s ministers will seek to remain in power in a caretaker capacity until a date is set for the Netherlands to return to the polls – likely in the autumn, according to Dutch media.

In the Dutch political system, becoming prime minister requires forming a majority coalition in the 150-seat parliament.

Even if Wilders again surpasses the political pundits expectations, his decision to collapse the government is being seen as reckless – and perceptions he is putting personal ambition above national stability could further complicate his ability to form alliances after the next election.

The parties that were reluctant or refused to go into government with Wilders after the last election are likely to find that kind of partnership even less attractive now.

In addition, by toppling the coalition over the issue of asylum, it is likely Wilders will put it at the centre of his upcoming election campaign.

However, given that his party had been responsible for asylum and immigration for almost a year, there are no guarantees that such a gamble will pay off.

The death of a 10-year-old rape victim in the eastern Indian state of Bihar after an alleged delay in medical treatment has sparked outrage in the country.

The girl died on Sunday morning at the state government-run Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) in the capital Patna.

Her uncle has alleged that the child’s condition worsened as she was kept waiting in an ambulance for around four hours on Saturday before being admitted to the hospital.

PMCH authorities have denied this, saying that claims of a delay in admission are “baseless”.

The girl’s death has made national headlines, with opposition leaders accusing the Bihar government – a coalition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Janata Dal United (JD-U) – of gross mismanagement. The government has denied any negligence.

The girl is from the Dalit community, which is at the bottom of the Hindu caste hierarchy. Dalits face widespread mistreatment in India despite laws in place to protect them.

Following the outrage, the National Human Rights Commission and National Commission for Women have criticised the incident and asked for the hospital’s role to be investigated.

Rape victims cannot be named under Indian law.

The girl was raped on 26 May, allegedly by a man who lived near her aunt’s house in Muzaffarpur. Police have arrested the man and are investigating the crime.

The girl went missing while she was playing outside her house. Her family members later found her lying injured near a road. Police officials have told reporters that she had several knife wounds.

She was first taken to a local hospital and then to the Sri Krishna Medical College and Hospital (SKMCH), around 85km (53 miles) from Patna.

Kumari Vibha, the superintendent of SKMCH, told BBC Hindi that the child had several injuries, including wounds on her chest and neck, but that her condition had stabilised. She was referred to PMCH as she needed reconstruction surgery on her windpipe, Ms Vibha said.

But at PMCH, the child’s uncle said, they faced a delay in admission while the child waited in the ambulance.

“They [the hospital staff] made us run around for four hours from one hospital department to another one,” he alleged. She was later admitted to the gynaecology department, he said.

The hospital has denied the allegations. IS Thakur, a top hospital official, said that the child’s family had initially admitted her to the paediatrics department but that she was sent to the Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) department because of her injuries.

“Since we do not have an ICU in ENT, the child was shifted to the ICU of the gynaecology department,” he said, adding that the child was brought in an Advance Life Support ambulance, which is equipped to offer critical care.

“The allegations of a delay in getting a hospital bed are baseless,” Mr Thakur said.

The child’s plight began making news after a viral video showed members of the opposition Congress party arguing with hospital staff, demanding that she be admitted.

Opposition parties in the state have held several protests since the death.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said that the girl’s death was “extremely shameful” and demanded that strict action be taken against negligent officers.

“The rape victim waited for hours outside PMCH to be admitted… what is the use of the big buildings being built in the name of hospitals when there is chaos, corruption, misbehaviour, lack of resources and insensitivity all around?” the state’s main opposition party Rashtriya Janata Dal said on X.

Leaders of the BJP and JD(U) have denied any negligence. Anamika Singh Patel, a BJP spokesperson, called the girl’s death “unfortunate”.

“But I myself run a hospital and I know that getting a bed in a hospital is a process which takes time. People in our government are working responsibly,” she said.

The incident has also brought attention to the condition of Bihar’s medical infrastructure, months before the state assembly election is due to be held.

Last month, a patient at another government hospital in Patna said that a rat bit his toe while he was asleep. Hospital authorities had launched an investigation into the incident.

On Tuesday, in a scathing editorial titled Bihar’s Shame, the Times of India newspaper highlighted the sorry state of hospitals in the state. It referenced a recent report that found that only half of all ventilators in government hospitals were functional and that capital Patna had just one government doctor for 11,541 people. That ratio is much worse in rural areas.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said it targeted the Crimea bridge with underwater explosives on Tuesday following an operation lasting “several months”.

The SBU said it had “mined the supports” of the bridge with explosives equivalent to 1,100kg of TNT, which “severely damaged” the bottom level of the supports.

The “first explosive device” was detonated “without any civilian casualties”, the SBU added. The information shared by the SBU could not be immediately verified.

Russian media initially said the bridge was briefly closed to traffic but that it had reopened by 10:00 local time (08:00 GMT).

However, later in the day, local authorities warned the bridge was temporarily closed again.

Unconfirmed reports on social media said more explosions had occurred around the structure.

The official Telegram channel sharing operational updates about the bridge said: “We ask those on the bridge and in the inspection zone to remain calm and follow the instructions of the transport security officers.”

Russia has not yet commented on Tuesday morning’s attack but Russian military bloggers speculated that an underwater drone, rather than explosive, had hit a protective barrier.

The SBU said its director, Lieutenant General Vasyl Malyuk, personally supervised the operation and coordinated its planning.

In a Telegram post, it quoted Malyuk as saying Ukraine had hit the Crimea bridge in 2022 and 2023 and was therefore “continuing this tradition under water.”

“No illegal Russian facilities have a place on the territory of our state,” Malyuk said.

“Therefore, the Crimean Bridge is an absolutely legitimate target, especially considering that the enemy used it as a logistical artery to supply its troops.”

The bridge – also known as Kerch Bridge – was built by Russia after it invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. It was inaugurated by Russian President Vladimir Putin to great fanfare in 2018.

In Ukraine, the bridge is a hated symbol of Russian occupation. Moscow guards it carefully – which makes any attack on it, whether with underwater drones or explosives, a remarkable achievement.

Tuesday’s strike on the bridge comes barely 48 hours after Ukraine hit several targets across Russia as part of an operation dubbed ‘Spider Web’.

Kyiv said it smuggled more than 100 drones into Russia and managed to get them delivered near air bases by unsuspecting lorry drivers.

The drones then flew out of the lorries and attacked Russia’s prized strategic bombers in locations across the country.

Elon Musk has hit out at President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending bill, saying he “can’t stand” the legislation and describing it as a “disgusting abomination”.

The bill – which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and more defence spending while also allowing the US government to borrow more money – was passed by the House of Representatives in May.

“Shame on those who voted for it,” Musk said in a post on X on Tuesday.

The tech billionaire left the administration abruptly last week after 129 days working to cut costs with his team, known as Doge.

The comments mark his first public disagreement with Trump since leaving government, after having previously called the plan “disappointing”.

The South African-born tech billionaire’s time in the Trump administration came to an end on 31 May, although Trump said that “he will, always, be with us, helping all the way”.

In its current form, the bill – which Trump refers to as the “big beautiful bill” – has been estimated to increase the budget deficit – the difference between what the government spends and the revenue it receives – by approximately $600bn (£444bn) in the next fiscal year.

• It’s Musk’s last day – what has he achieved at the White House?

In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, Musk said that the “outrageous, pork-filled” spending bill will “massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America [sic] citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”

In American politics “pork” refers to spending measures that lawmakers tack onto legislation to narrowly benefit their constituencies.

Asked about Musk’s comments soon after the first post, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “the President already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill”.

“This is one, big, beautiful bill,” she added. “And he’s sticking to it.”

The legislation also pledges to extend soon-to-expire tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration in 2017, as well as an influx of funds for defence spending and to fund the administration’s mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Additionally, it proposes lifting the limit on the amount of money the government can borrow, known as the debt ceiling, to $4tn.

The comments from Musk reflect wider tensions among Republicans over the plan, which faced stiff opposition from different wings of the party as it worked its way through the House. The Senate has now taken it up, and divisions are already emerging in the Republican-controlled chamber.

Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, over the last few days has said he will not support the bill if it includes the provision to raise the debt ceiling.

“The GOP [the Republican Party] will own the debt once they vote for this,” he told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, over the weekend.

Trump responded to Sen Paul with a series of angry social media posts, accusing him of having “very little understanding of the bill” and saying that the “people of Kentucky can’t stand him”.

“His ideas are actually crazy,” Trump wrote.

Republican lawmakers pushed back on Musk’s comments, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune telling reporters the party plans to “proceed full speed ahead” despite “a difference of opinion”.

“We have an agenda that everybody campaigned on, most notably the president,” he said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson – a Republican who has been credited with ushering the legislation through the House – told reporters on Capitol Hill that “my friend Elon is terribly wrong”.

“It’s a very important first start. Elon is missing it,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he held a 20-minute long phone call with Musk regarding the bill on Monday, adding that the bill’s phasing out of tax credits could “have an effect” on Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle firm.

“I lament that,” Johnson said, expressing surprise that Musk criticised the bill despite their call. “I just deeply regret he’s made this mistake.”

Some Democrats, on the other hand, welcomed Musk’s comments despite their previous criticism of him and the work of Doge.

“Even Elon Musk, who’s been part of the whole process, and is one of Trump’s buddies, said the bill is bad,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “We can imagine how bad this bill is.”

Trump and Republicans in Congress have set a deadline of 4 July to get the bill passed and signed into law.

Musk’s posts on the platform suggest a rift with Trump, who he supported in last year’s November election with donations of more than $250m.

To make peace with spending hawks, Trump is also asking Congress to pass a plan that would reduce current spending by $9bn and which is reportedly based on Doge’s work.

More than 200 prisoners escaped from a jail in Pakistan’s largest city following an earthquake in the early hours of Tuesday, police said.

Thousands of inmates broke down doors and the locks of their cells and shattered windows after they felt tremors shake the walls at Malir Jail in Karachi.

Of those who escaped the prison, police said 80 inmates had been recaptured and searches were ongoing for more than 130 still at large. One prisoner was killed in the operation and two prison officers injured.

A prison superintendent told the BBC inmates began shouting from their cells and barracks around midnight as they were terrified the building would collapse on top of them.

After the frenzy turned violent, police said they responded with warning shots, firing guns into the air.

While many returned to their cells, others stormed the main gate in panic – with 216 inmates using the opportunity to escape the prison altogether.

Police are now going door-to-door, visiting past residences to arrest those who are still on the run.

The facility in the Malir district is Sindh province’s second largest prison, and is over capacity. While it can accommodate up to 2,200 prisoners, there are at least 5,000 inmates there currently.

The minister for prisons in the province, Ali Hassan Zardari, has ordered an investigation and warned any officers at fault will be disciplined.

The prison’s superintendent told the BBC the incident is “not a security lapse, it’s all due to a natural disaster”.

He said security teams at the prison were on high alert, and responded to the incident throughout.

Families have been protesting outside the jail’s main gates, and police said relatives of other inmates are frustrated that visits have been postponed.

Before the events of 3 December 2024, South Korea’s new president Lee Jae–myung’s path to power was littered with obstacles.

Ongoing legal cases, investigations for corruption and allegations of abusing power looked set to derail the former opposition leader’s second presidential bid.

Then a constitutional crisis changed everything.

On that night, former president Yoon Suk Yeol’s abortive attempt to invoke martial law set in motion a series of events that cleared the path for Lee.

Exactly six months later, South Koreans have handed a win to the liberal Democratic Party candidate who worked his way up from a teenage factory-worker to the country’s most powerful office.

Lee had been projected to win in the run up to the election, and his final hurdle disappeared after the ruling party’s candidate conceded in the early hours of the morning after election day.

A rags-to-riches origin story combined with a bullish political style has made Lee into a divisive figure in South Korea.

“Lee Jae-myung’s life has been full of ups and downs, and he often takes actions that stir controversy,” Dr Lee Jun-han, professor of political science and international studies at Incheon National University, told the BBC.

These actions typically included attempts at progressive reform – such as a pledge, made during his 2022 presidential campaign, to implement universal basic income scheme – which challenged the existing power structure and status quo in South Korea.

“Because of this, some people strongly support him, while others distrust or dislike him,” Dr Lee said. “He is a highly controversial and unconventional figure – very much an outsider who has made a name for himself in a way that doesn’t fit traditional Democratic Party norms.”

But in this campaign, he has moved closer to the centre, focusing on big business and emphasising the importance of ties with the US, ahead of trade negotiations with President Donand Trump.

In a recent memoir, Lee described his childhood as “miserable”.

Born in 1963 in a mountain village in Andong, Gyeongbuk Province, he was the fifth of five sons and two daughters, and – due to his family’s difficult circumstances – skipped middle school to illegally enter the workforce.

As a young factory worker, Lee suffered an industrial accident where his fingers got caught in a factory power belt, and at the age of 13 suffered a permanent injury to his arm after his wrist was crushed by a press machine.

Lee later applied for and was allowed to sit entrance exams for high school and university, passing in 1978 and 1980 respectively. He went on to study law with a full scholarship, and passed the Bar Examination in 1986.

In 1992, he married his wife Kim Hye-kyung, with whom he has two children.

He worked as a human rights lawyer for almost two decades before entering politics in 2005, joining the social-liberal Uri Party, a predecessor of the Democratic Party of Korea and the ruling party at the time.

While his poor upbringing has drawn scorn from members of South Korea’s upper class, Lee’s success in building his political career from the ground up has earned him support from working-class voters and those who feel disenfranchised by the political elite.

He was elected mayor of Seongnam in 2010, rolling out a series of free welfare policies during his tenure, and in 2018 became governor of the broader Gyeonggi Province.

Lee would go on to receive acclaim for his response to the Covid-19 pandemic, during which he clashed with the central government due to his insistence on providing universal relief grants for all residents of the province.

It was also during this time that Lee became the Democratic Party’s final presidential candidate for the first time in October 2021 – losing by 0.76 percentage points. Less than a year later, in August 2022, he was elected as the party’s leader.

From that point on, Dr Lee says, Lee dialled back on the controversial, fire-and-brimstone approach for which he had become notorious – opting instead to play it safe and keep a low profile.

“After [Lee’s] term as a governor, his reformist image faded somewhat as he focused more on his presidential ambitions,” he said. “Still, on certain issues – like addressing past wrongs [during the Japanese colonial era], welfare and corruption – he has built a loyal and passionate support base by taking a firm and uncompromising stance.”

This uncompromising attitude has its detractors, with many members and supporters of the ruling People Power Party (PPP) viewing Lee as aggressive and abrasive in his approach.

Lee’s political career has also been marred by a series of scandals – including a drink driving incident in 2004, disputes with relatives in the late 2010s and allegations of an extramarital affair that emerged in 2018.

While in other parts of the world voters have shown forgiveness and even support for controversial politicians, in South Korea – a country that is still relatively conservative in what it expects of public figures – such scandals have not played well.

In recent years, Lee’s political ambitions have been saddled with even more pressing controversies – including the ongoing legal cases that continue to hang over him, threatening to hamstring if not scuttle his career.

One of these concerned a string of high-profile charges, including corruption, bribery and breach of trust, associated with a land development project in 2023.

Another, perhaps more critical legal battle involved allegations that Lee made a knowingly false statement during a debate in the last presidential campaign.

During the debate, which aired on South Korean television in December 2021, Lee denied personally knowing Kim Moon-ki, a key figure in a corruption-ridden land development scandal who had taken his own life just days earlier.

Prosecutors alleged that claim was false, thus violating the Public Official Election Act, and in November 2024 Lee was convicted of the false statements charge and given a one-year suspended prison sentence.

Then, in March, an appeals court cleared him of the charges – only for that ruling to be overturned by South Korea’s Supreme Court. At the time of writing, the case is still awaiting a verdict.

Other threats against Lee’s future political ambitions posed a more fatal danger.

In January 2024, while answering questions from reporters outside the construction site of a planned airport in Busan, Lee was stabbed in the neck by a man who had approached him asking for an autograph.

The injury to Lee’s jugular vein, though requiring extensive surgery, was not critical – but he campaigned for this election behind bulletproof glass, wearing a bulletproof vest, surrounded by agents carrying ballistic briefcases.

The assailant, who had written an eight-page manifesto and wanted to ensure that Lee never became president, was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

The attack raised concerns about deepening political polarisation in South Korea, embodied perhaps most publicly in the bitter rivalry between Lee and Yoon, and more privately in the country’s increasingly extreme online discourse.

In December 2023, just weeks before Lee was attacked, a survey sponsored by the newspaper Hankyoreh found that more than 50% of respondents said they felt South Korea’s political divide worsening.

Some claim that, as Democratic Party leader, Lee played a major role in fuelling the problem, frequently blocking motions by Yoon’s government and effectively rendering him a lame-duck president.

Such constant stonewalling by the Democratic Party only exacerbated Yoon’s leadership struggles – which also included repeated impeachment attempts against administration officials and constant opposition to his budget.

Finally, as the pressure against him mounted, the former president took the drastic step of declaring martial law.

Yoon’s declaration of martial law on 3 December – made in a self-proclaimed bid to eliminate “anti-state forces” and North Korea sympathisers – served as the catalyst for Lee to emerge as a leading presidential candidate.

Within hours of the declaration, Lee appealed to the public via a livestream broadcast and urged them to assemble in protest outside the National Assembly building in central Seoul.

Thousands responded, clashing with police and blocking military units as opposition lawmakers rushed into the assembly building, clambering over fences and walls in a desperate attempt to block Yoon’s order.

Lee was among them, climbing over the fence to enter the National Assembly and helping to pass the resolution to lift martial law.

The Democratic Party later decided to impeach President Yoon – a decision that was unanimously upheld by South Korea’s Constitutional Court on 4 April, 2025.

It was then that Lee began the path to a full-fledged election bid, announcing his resignation as leader of the Democratic Party on 9 April ahead of his presidential run. In the Democratic Party presidential primary held on April 27, he was selected as the general candidate with overwhelming support.

The result of Yoon’s abortive martial law attempt was a political maelstrom from which South Korea is still reeling: a constitutional crisis that ended the former president’s career and left his PPP in tatters.

But of the small few who have managed to leverage that chaos to their advantage, none have benefitted more than Lee.

He is now president of South Korea, but his future in the courts is yet to be decided.

They have agreed to postpone his legal hearings until after the election, which means he could be convicted while in office.

And that could mean South Korea, having just endured a months-long period of political turmoil, may not be done with upheaval just yet.

The striking feature of this election has been the leading opposition candidate, Lee Jae-myung, campaigning in a bullet-proof vest.

At a recent rally, he was escorted to the podium by close protection officers, ready to shield him with their ballistic briefcases. He then addressed the crowd from behind bullet-proof glass, under the gaze of rooftop watchers.

This is not South Korean politics as usual. But South Korea has not been itself lately.

It is still recovering from the martial law crisis last December, when the president, Yoon Suk Yeol, tried to orchestrate a military takeover.

He failed, because of resistance from the public and politicians, and was impeached, triggering this snap election to choose his successor.

But the chaos Yoon unleashed that night has festered.

While stuck in limbo, without a president, the country has become more polarised and its politics more violent.

At street protests earlier this year it became commonplace to chant for various political leaders to be executed. And since launching his presidential bid, Lee has been receiving death threats, and his team say they have even uncovered a credible plot to assassinate him.

This election is an opportunity to steer South Korea back onto safer, more stable ground, and heal these fractures.

Given this, the ruling party was always going to struggle, marred by President Yoon’s self-defeating coup. But rather than break away from the disgraced former president, the conservative People Power Party (PPP) has chosen a candidate who repeatedly defended Yoon and his actions.

Kim Moon-soo, Yoon’s former labour minister, was the only cabinet member who refused to stand and apologise during a parliamentary hearing into martial law. He said sorry only well into his campaign, after he had won Yoon’s public endorsement.

This has turned the election into more of a referendum on martial law than anything else. Given most of the public overwhelmingly rejected the move, it has also virtually gilded the path for the opposition leader Lee, who famously livestreamed himself scaling the walls of the parliament complex, to get inside and vote down the president’s order.

Now the Democratic Party politician portrays himself as the only candidate who can ensure this never happens again. He has said he will change the constitution to make it more difficult for future presidents to declare martial law.

“We must prevent the return of the rebellion forces,” Lee urged voters at his recent rally from behind fortified glass.

Such promises have pulled in people from across the political spectrum. “I didn’t like Lee before, but since martial law I now trust and depend on him,” said 59-year-old Park Suh-jung, who admitted this was the first time she had attended a political event.

One man in his 50s said he was a member of another smaller political party, but had decided to back Lee this time: “He is the only person who can end Yoon’s martial law insurrection. We need to stop those who destroyed our democracy.”

Most recent polls put Lee about 10 points ahead of his rival Kim, but he was not always so popular. This is his second time running for president, having lost out to Yoon three years ago. He is a divisive character, who has been embroiled in a series of court cases and political scandals. There are many who do not trust him, who loathe him even.

Kim, hoping to capitalise on this, has branded himself “the fair and just candidate”. It is a slogan his supporters have adopted, many seemingly backing him not for his policies, but because he is not Lee.

“I don’t like Kim but at this point there’s no real choice. The other candidate has too many issues,” said one elderly woman who is planning to vote for him.

Kim has charted an unusual political path. As a student who campaigned for workers’ rights, he was tortured and imprisoned under South Korea’s right-wing dictatorship in the 1980s but then moved sharply to the right himself.

He was picked by the party base, many of whom are still loyal to Yoon. The party leadership, realising he was not the best choice, tried to replace him at the last minute with a more moderate, experienced politician, only to be blocked by furious members.

This has left the party weak and divided, with many suspecting it will splinter into rival factions after voting day. “Haven’t we already imploded?” one party insider said to me recently, their face crumpled in their hands. “This is a miserable campaign.”

“Choosing Kim is the biggest mistake the conservative party have made in this election, and they do know that. They will have to be held accountable for this decision,” said Jeongmin Kim, the executive director of Korea Pro, a Seoul-based news and analysis service.

Lee has seized this opportunity to hoover up centrist votes. He has shifted his policies to the right, and even claimed his left-leaning party is, in fact, conservative.

This, despite his reputation as a staunch leftist. He grew up in a slum outside Seoul, working in factories rather than attending school, and is someone who has previously quoted US senator Bernie Sanders.

But gone are his previous pledges to introduce a universal basic income. This time, he is courting South Korea’s powerful conglomerate businesses, the chaebols. He has even incorporated the conservative colour red into his own blue logo, and hits the campaign trail wearing red and blue trainers.

He has rebranded his foreign policy too. Typically, his Democratic Party is cautious about Korea’s security alliance with the US, preferring to prioritise relations with China and North Korea.

But Lee is casting himself as a “pragmatist” who can adapt to a changing security environment. “The US-Korea alliance is the backbone of our national security. It should be strengthened and deepened,” he said in a recent televised debate.

All this has left voters and diplomats here unsure of what he really stands for, and what he will do if elected – though this seems to be the point.

Ms Kim, Korea Pro’s analyst, believes his makeover is more genuine than might appear. “He was already high up in the polls, so he didn’t need to work hard to win votes,” she said. “I think he is playing a longer game. He wants to be a popular leader, someone who can be trusted by more than half of the country.”

Bringing the country together will be the biggest challenge for whoever wins.

When people vote on Tuesday, it will be six months to the day since they came out onto the streets to resist a military takeover.

After months of chaos, they are desperate to move forward, so the country can start addressing pressing issues that have been on hold, including tariff negotiations with US President Donald Trump.

But more than anything they hope this election can restore their own confidence in their democracy, which has been badly shaken.

At a baseball game in the capital Seoul last week – arguably the only place where Koreans are as tribal as they are about politics – both sides were united, acutely aware of this election’s importance.

“I’m really concerned about our democracy,” said Dylan, a data engineer. “I hope we have the power to save it and make it greater than before. My vote is a piece of power.”

“The next president needs to show people clearly and transparently what he is doing,” said one man in his mid-20s. “We need to watch him carefully.”

If Lee is to win, and by the margin the polls suggest, he would have a solid mandate, as well as control of parliament, giving him three years to implement major political reforms.

That could be good for rebuilding South Korea’s stability but would come with its own challenges, said the political analyst Ms Kim.

“If Lee wins, he will have a lot of power. {Given how Yoon behaved} he will need to be very responsible when using it.”

An Byunghui was in the middle of a video game on the night of 3 December when she learned that the South Korean president had declared martial law.

She couldn’t quite believe it – until the internet blew up with the evidence. The shock announcement from then-president Yoon Suk Yeol, the now-famous shots of soldiers breaking down the windows of the National Assembly and MPs scaling the walls to force their way into the building so they could vote the motion down.

Within hours, thousands had spurred into protest, especially young women. And Byunghui joined them, travelling hundreds of miles from Daegu in the south-east to the capital Seoul.

They turned up not just because Yoon’s decision had alarmed and angered them, but to protest against a president who insisted South Korea was free of sexism – despite the deep discrimination and flashes of violence that said otherwise.

They returned week after week as the investigation into Yoon’s abuse of power went on – and they rejoiced when he was impeached after four dramatic months.

And yet, with the country set to elect a new president on 3 June, those very women say they feel invisible again.

The two main candidates have been largely silent about equality for women. A polarising subject, it had helped Yoon into power in 2022 as he vowed to defend men who felt sidelined in a world that they saw as too feminist. And a third candidate, who is popular among young men for his anti-feminist stance, has been making headlines.

For many young South Korean women, this new name on the ballot symbolises a new fight.

“So many of us felt like we were trying to make the world a better place by attending the [anti-Yoon] rallies,” the 24-year-old college student says.

“But now, I wonder if anything has really improved… I can’t shake the feeling that they’re trying to erase women’s voices.”

When Byunghui arrived at the protests, she was struck by the atmosphere.

The bitter December cold didn’t stop tens of thousands of women from gathering. Huddling inside hooded jackets or under umbrellas, waving lightsticks and banners, singing hopeful K-pop numbers, they demanded Yoon’s ouster.

“Most of those around me were young women, we were singing ‘Into the World’ by Girls’ Generation,” Byunghui says.

Into the World, a hit from 2007 by one of K-pop’s biggest acts, became an anthem of sorts in the anti-Yoon rallies. Women had marched to the same song nearly a decade ago in anti-corruption protests that ended another president’s career.

“The lyrics – about not giving up on this world and dreaming of a new world,” Byunghui says, “just overwhelmed me. I felt so close to everyone”.

There are no official estimates of how many of the protesters were young women. Approximately one in three were in their 20s or 30s, according to research by local news outlet Chosun Daily.

An analysis by BBC Korean found that women in their 20s were the largest demographic at one rally in December, where there were 200,000 of them – almost 18% of those in attendance. In comparison, there were just over 3% of men in their 20s at that rally.

The protests galvanised women in a country where discrimination, sexual harassment and even violence against them has long been pervasive, and the gender pay gap – at 31% – is the widest among rich nations.

Like in so many other places, plummeting birth rates in South Korea too have upped the pressure on young women to marry and have children, with politicians often encouraging them to play their part in a patriarchal society.

“I felt like all the frustration that has built up inside me just burst forth,” says 23-year-old Kim Saeyeon . “I believe that’s why so many young women turned up. They wanted to express all that dissatisfaction.”

For 26-year-old Lee Jinha, it was the desire to see Yoon go: “I tried to go every week. It wasn’t easy. It was incredibly cold, super crowded, my legs hurt and I had a lot of work to do… but it was truly out of a sense of responsibility.”

That is not surprising, according to Go Min-hee, associate professor of political science at Ewha Women’s University, who says Yoon had the reputation of being “anti-feminist” and had “made it clear he was not going to support policies for young women”.

There were protests on the other side too, backing Yoon and his martial law order. Throughout, many young South Korean men have supported Yoon, who positioned himself as a champion of theirs, mirroring their grievances in his presidential campaign in 2022.

These men consider themselves victims of “reverse discrimination”, saying they feel marginalised by policies that favour young women. One that is often cited is the mandatory 18 months they must spend in the military, which they believe puts them at a severe disadvantage compared to women.

They label as “man haters” those women who call themselves feminists. And they have been at the heart of a fierce online backlash against calls for greater gender equality.

These groups have long existed, mostly out of the public eye. But over the years they moved closer to the mainstream as their traction online grew, especially under Yoon.

It was them that Yoon appealed to in his campaign pledges, vowing to abolish the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, saying it focused too much on women’s rights.

And he consistently denied systemic gender inequality existed in South Korea, which ranks near the bottom on the issue among developed countries.

But his message hit home. A survey by a local newspaper the year before he was elected had found that 79% of young men in their 20s felt “seriously discriminated against” because of their gender.

“In the last presidential election, gender conflict was mobilised by Yoon’s party,” says Kim Eun-ju, director of the Center for Korean Women and Politics. “They actively strengthened the anti-feminist tendencies of some young men in their 20s.”

During Yoon’s term, she says, government departments or publicly-funded organisations with the word “women” in their title largely disappeared or dropped the reference altogether.

The impact has been polarising. It alienated young women who saw this as a rollback of hard-won rights, even as it fuelled the backlash against feminism.

Byunghui saw this up-close back home in Daegu. She says anti-Yoon protests were overwhelmingly female. The few men who came were usually older.

Young men, she adds, even secondary school students, would often drive past the protests she attended cursing and swearing at them. She says some men even threatened to drive into the crowd.

“I wondered if they would have acted this way had the protest been led by young men?”

With Yoon gone, his People Power Party (PPP) is in disarray and still reeling from his fall.

And this is the first time in 18 years that there is no woman among the six candidates runnning for president. “It’s shocking,” Jinha says, “that there’s no-one”. In the last election, there were two women among 14 presidential candidates.

The PPP’s Kim Moon-soo is trailing frontrunner Lee Jae-myung, from the main opposition Democratic Party (DP). But young women tell the BBC they have been disappointed by 61-year-old Lee.

“It’s only after criticism that that there were no policies targeting women that the DP began adding a few,” Saeyeon says. “I wish they could have drawn a blueprint for improving structural discrimination.”

When he was asked at the start of his campaign about policies targeting gender inequality, Lee responded: “Why do you keep dividing men and women? They are all Koreans.”

After drawing critcism, the DP acknowledged that women still “faced structural discrimination in many areas”. And it pledged to tackle inequality for women with more resources at every level.

During his presidential bid in 2022, Lee was more vocal about the prejudice South Korean women encounter, seeking their votes in the wake of high-profile sexual harassment scandals in his party.

He had promised to put women in top positions in the government and appointed a woman as co-chair of the DP’s emergency committee.

“It’s evident that the DP is focusing significantly less on young women than they did in the [2022] presidential election,” Ms Kim says.

Prof Go believes it’s because Lee “lost by a very narrow margin” back then. So this time, he is “casting the widest net possible” for votes. “And embracing feminist issues is not a good strategy for that.”

That stings for young women like Saeyeon, especially after the role they played in the protests calling for Yoon’s impeachment: “Our voices don’t seem to be reflected in the [campaign] pledges at all. I feel a bit abandoned.”

The ruling party’s Kim Moon-soo, who served in Yoon’s cabinet as labour minister, has emphasised raising birth rates by offering more financial support to parents.

But many women say rising costs are not the only obstacle. And that most politicians don’t address the deeper inequalities – which make it hard to balance a career and family – that are making so many women reconsider the usual choices.

The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, which Yoon had wanted to shut down, has also re-emerged as a sticking point.

Lee has vowed to strengthen the ministry, while Kim says he will replace it with a Ministry of Future Youth and Family.

The ministry already focuses on family services, education and welfare for children. Just under 7% of its total funding, which is about 0.2% of the government’s annual budget, goes towards improving equality for women. But Prof Go says the ministry was “politicised by Yoon and has since been weaponised”.

“The ministry itself is not huge but it’s symbolic… abolishing it would show that gender equality is unimportant.”

It’s also the target of a third candidate, 40-year-old Lee Jun-seok, a former leader of Yoon’s party, who has since launched his own Reform Party.

Although trailing Kim in polls, Lee Jun-seok has been especially popular with many young men for his anti-feminist views.

Earlier this week, he drew swift outrage after a presidential debate in which he said: “If someone says they want to stick chopsticks in women’s genitals or some place like that, is that misogyny?”

He said the “someone” was frontunner Lee Jae-myung’s son, who he claimed made the comment online, an allegation which the Lee camp has sidestepped, apologising for other controversial posts.

But watching Lee Jun-seok say that on live TV “was genuinely terrifying,” Byunghui says. “I had the scary thought that this might boost incel communities.”

Saeyeon describes “anger and even despair” sinking the “hopes I had for politics, which weren’t that great to begin with”.

She believes his popularity “among certain sections of young men is one of the “significant repercussions” of South Korea “long neglecting structural discrimination” against women.

The only candidate to address the issue, 61-year-old Kwon Young-gook, didn’t fare well in early polling.

“I’m still deliberating whether to vote for Lee Jae-myung or Kwon Young-gook,” Saeyeon says.

While Kwon represents her concerns, she says it’s smart to shore up the votes for Lee because she is “much more afraid of the next election, and the one after that”.

She is thinking about Lee Jun-seok, who some analysts believe could eat into the votes of a beleagured PPP, while appealing to Yoon’s base: “He is in the spotlight and as the youngest candidate, he could have a long career ahead.”

That is all the more reason to keep speaking out, Byunghui says. “It’s like there is dust on the wall. If you don’t know it’s there, you can walk by, but once you see it, it sticks with you.”

It’s the same for Jinha who says things can “never go back to how they were before Yoon declared martial law”.

That was a time when politics felt inaccessible, but now, Jinha adds, it “feels like something that affects me and is important to my life”.

She says she won’t give up because she wants to be free of “things like discrimination at work… and live my life in peace”.

“People see young women as weak and immature but we will grow up – and then the world will change again.”

Pained cries rang out in front of former South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol’s official residence on Friday, as judges of the Constitutional Court judges confirmed his impeachment.

“I came here with hope in my heart, believing we would win … It’s so unfair,” 64-year-old Won Bog-sil told BBC Korean from the rally, where thousands had gathered in support of Yoon.

These scenes were live streamed to thousands more on YouTube – a platform popular with not just Yoon’s supporters but the president himself.

A disgraced Yoon is now stripped of his power, but he leaves behind an ever more divided South Korea.

Last December, Yoon’s shock martial law declaration cost him the confidence of much of the country. But among his supporters, his ongoing legal troubles have only further buttressed the image of a wronged saviour.

Many of them echo narratives peddled by influential right-wing YouTubers who support Yoon: that martial law was necessary to protect the country from pro-North Korea opposition lawmakers and a dangerously powerful opposition, and that Yoon’s conservative party was a victim of election fraud.

All this has culminated in a fringe movement that has become both more energised and extreme, spilling out from behind computer screens onto the streets.

“Stop the Steal” signs have become a fixture at pro-Yoon rallies – co-opted from supporters of US President Donald Trump, whose own political career has been helped by a network of conservative YouTubers.

Shortly after Yoon’s arrest in January, enraged supporters stormed a courthouse in Seoul, armed with metal beams, assaulting police officers who stood in their way.

Last month, an elderly man died after setting himself on fire near Seoul City Hall weeks earlier. A stack of fliers accusing opposition leaders of being pro-North Korean forces were found near him.

“If they remain here, our country will become a communist nation,” the fliers read. “There is no future for this country, no future for the youth.”

Even conservatives have been surprised and divided by this new trend of violence.

“He has watched too many trashy YouTube videos,” read one op-ed in Korea JoongAng Daily – one of many conservative news outlets that have become increasingly at odds with Yoon supporters. “A compulsive watcher of biased YouTube content can live in a fanatic world dominated by conspiracies.”

From the outset Yoon embraced right-wing YouTubers, inviting some of them to his inauguration in 2022.

In January, as he defied attempts to arrest him, the president told supporters that he was watching their rallies on YouTube livestream. PPP lawmakers said Yoon had urged them to consume “well-organised information on YouTube” instead of “biased” legacy media.

Entwined on these YouTube channels are narratives of the opposition Democratic Party being obsequious to Beijing and trying to curry favour with Pyongyang.

After the Democratic Party won at the polls by a landslide last April, some of these channels claimed that Yoon was a victim of electoral interference led by China, and that North Korea sympathisers lurking among the opposition were behind the ruling party’s defeat. Similar claims were echoed by Yoon when he tried to justify his short-lived martial law declaration.

These narratives have found resonance in an online audience that harbours a general distrust of mainstream media and worries about South Korea’s neighbours.

“I think [the election was] totally fraudulent, because when you vote, you fold the paper, but they kept finding papers that were not folded,” Kim, who gave only his surname, told the BBC at a pro-Yoon rally in January. Claims like these have not waned despite a previous Supreme Court ruling that the voting slips were not manipulated.

Kim, 28, is among a contingent of young men who have become the new faces of South Korea’s right-wing.

Young Perspective, a YouTube channel with more than 800,000 subscribers run by someone who describes himself as “a young man who values freedom”, often shares clips from parliamentary sessions showing PPP politicians taking down opposition members.

Another popular YouTuber is Jun Kwang-hoon, a pastor and founder of the evangelical Liberty Unification Party, who posts videos of politically loaded sermons urging his 200,000 subscribers to join pro-Yoon rallies. This is in line with the historically strong protestant support for conservatism in South Korea.

Nam Hyun-joo, an employee at a theological school, told the BBC that she believed the Chinese Communist Party was “the main actor behind the election fraud”. Standing alone outside the Constitutional Court in the biting January cold, she held a protest sign denouncing the judiciary.

Other voices dominating the virtual realm are a snapshot of the rest of Yoon’s support base: middle-aged or elderly men. One of them runs A Stroke of Genius, one of the largest pro-Yoon YouTube channels with 1.6 million subscribers. His livestreams of rallies and monologues pillorying Yoon’s opponents regularly rack up tens of thousands of views, with the comments section flooded with calls to “protect President Yoon”.

In the tumultuous months since Yoon’s martial law declaration, it appears that his party’s popularity has not suffered.

In fact, quite the opposite: While the PPP’s approval ratings sank to 26.2% in the days after Yoon declared martial law, it rebounded to more than 40% just weeks later – much higher than before the chaos.

Buoyed by the loyalty of his supporters, Yoon wrote in a letter to them in January that it was only after being impeached that he “felt like a president”.

“Everyone’s kind of scratching their heads a bit here,” Michael Breen, a Seoul-based consultant and former journalist who covered the Koreas, tells the BBC. While conservatives in South Korea have been “very divided and feeble” over the last decade, he says, Yoon is “now more popular with them than he was before he tried to introduce martial law”.

This solidarity has likely been fuelled by a shared dislike of the opposition, which has launched multiple attempts to impeach members of Yoon’s cabinet, pushed criminal investigations against Yoon and his wife, and used its parliamentary majority to impeach Yoon’s replacement Han Duck-soo.

“I think the opposition party’s power in the assembly went to its head,” says Mr Breen. “Now they’ve shot themselves in the foot.”

An embattled Yoon has become larger than life, rebranded as a martyr who saw martial law as the only way to save South Korea’s democracy.

“If it wasn’t for the good of the country, he wouldn’t have chosen martial law, where he would have to pay with his life if he failed,” a pro-Yoon rally attendee, who gave only his surname Park, told the BBC.

This has also contributed to a widening chasm within the PPP. While some have joined pro-Yoon rallies, others crossed party lines to vote for Yoon’s impeachment.

“Why are people worshipping him like a king? I can’t understand it,” said PPP lawmaker Cho Kyoung-tae, who supported Yoon’s impeachment.

Kim Sang-wook, another PPP lawmaker who has emerged as a prominent anti-Yoon voice among conservatives, said he was pressured to leave the party after supporting Yoon’s impeachment. And now YouTubers, according to Kim, have become the president’s public relations machine.

Worries have simmered over an increasingly ungovernable group within the conservative movement. And as influential left-wing YouTubers similarly rally anti-Yoon protesters, there are also concerns that political differences are being driven ever deeper into the fabric of South Korea’s society.

“Much damage has already been done in terms of radicalising the right, and the left as well for that matter,” US-based lawyer and Korea expert Christopher Jumin Lee told the BBC.

He added that at this point “any compromise with a conservative party that continues to embrace Yoon will likely be seen as anathema”.

“By driving his insurrection attempt into the centre of Korean politics, Yoon has effectively executed a decade’s worth of polarisation.”

Over the past three days, there have been a series of deadly incidents on the route to an aid distribution site in Gaza run by a controversial group backed by the US and Israel.

The three incidents took place on roads approaching one of the new sites in the extreme south-west of Gaza, which is under full Israeli military control. The facility is being operated by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

The first incident took place early on Sunday morning when 31 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire, according to the Hamas-run Civil Defence agency. Another three people were killed by gunfire on Monday morning, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Meanwhile, a further 27 people were killed by Israeli fire near the site on Tuesday morning, according to health officials.

Israel has denounced what it called “false reports” that its troops fired on civilians at or near the sites. It said that some soldiers fired warning shots on Sunday 1km away, and that they also opened fire after identifying “several suspects” on Monday and Tuesday.

Very few videos have emerged from Gaza that show the incidents themselves, but BBC Verify has examined footage has surfaced and attempted to map how they unfolded.

All three are reported to have taken place near an aid distribution centre in the south-west of Gaza, in the Tal al-Sultan area.

The site, named Safe Distribution Site 1 (SDS 1) by the GHF, opened on the 26 May. It is one of four such facilities, three of which are based in southern Gaza.

The facilities are part of a new aid system – widely condemned by humanitarian groups – aiming to bypass the UN, which Israel has accused of failing to prevent Hamas diverting aid to its fighters. The UN says that has not been a big problem and that the GHF’s system is unworkable and unethical.

However, only SDS 1 has been open and operational since Friday, according to official GHF posts online. It follows a chaotic opening week which saw the site overrun by desperate civilians, and projectiles being thrown towards Gazans at another facility at the GHF’s northern site near Nuseirat on Thursday.

A spokesperson for the foundation did not respond to messages asking why the other facilities have been closed for several days.

The GHF has also encouraged civilians to follow a set route when approaching SDS 1, directing them along a coastal road called al-Rashid Street.

The instructions have been issued on the foundation’s official Facebook page.

Chris Newton, a senior analyst at the Brussels-based think tank Crisis Group, said the route was neither “safe nor effective”.

He added that directing civilians down a single route towards the site was “a very far cry from what was possible” under the UN-based system, which saw 400 distribution points scattered across the strip.

“This all looks designed to fail,” he said of the new aid system.

According to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, some 31 people were killed by gunfire on Sunday.

The GHF posted on its official Facebook page early on Sunday, telling civilians that SDS 1 would be open from 05:00 local time.

However, just an hour later it posted again saying that the site was closed. By this time many Gazans had gathered at the Al-Alam roundabout as they waited to be granted access to the site, Mohammed Ghareeb, a journalist based in Rafah, told the BBC.

We have seen a limited amount of video that is claimed to relate to the shootings. In one video filmed on the route to the aid site, purportedly on Sunday, people lie on the ground and an explosion is heard which could be tank or artillery fire.

An audio recording provided to the BBC by international staff at the UK-Med field hospital about 3km away from the site captured two apparent explosions and protracted gunfire for over five minutes.

Video footage posted at 06:08 showed dozens of people lying prone on sand, with automatic gunfire audible. BBC Verify could not definitively geolocate the footage.

Another clip reviewed by BBC Verify, which claimed to be from the aftermath of the incident, showed a number of bodies lying on a beach on Gaza’s coast. As the video progresses, several of the bodies were covered by white bags. One of those lying on the beach appeared to be a young woman.

We cannot definitively geolocate the footage. However, lights seen in the distance suggest that the footage may have been filmed in an area about 1km from SDS 1.

Images – provided to the BBC by doctors – of bullets recovered from those killed and wounded in the incidents showed that both 5.56mm and 7.62mm rounds were used.

But Benedict Manzin – an analyst with the risk consultancy Sibylline – said that the source of the rounds was unclear, noting that both the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Palestinian armed groups “will have access to weapons that fire 5.56mm and 7.62mm rounds”.

The IDF denied its troops fired at civilians “near or within” the site and said reports to this effect were false. But an Israeli military source later said warning shots were fired approximately 1km (0.6 miles) away from the site “to prevent suspects from approaching the troops”.

The GHF said in a statement: “There were no injuries, fatalities or incidents during our operations yesterday. Period. We have yet to see any evidence that there was an attack at or near our facility.”

On Monday, three people were killed while waiting for food near SDS 1, according to the ICRC.

The Israeli military said “warning shots were fired toward several suspects who advanced toward” troops approximately 1km from the site.

The Gaza health ministry said at least 27 people were then killed when Israeli forces opened fire near SDS 1 early on Tuesday.

Very little footage has emerged purporting to show the moment of the shooting. But one clip posted online showed people running with gunfire audible. BBC Verify geolocated the footage to a road near SDS 1 and established it was newly published on Tuesday although we cannot say for certain it relates to Tuesday’s incident.

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Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Civil Defence agency, told the BBC that the incident again occurred a few hundred metres away from the Al-Alam roundabout. He said most of those killed or injured “were hit by gunfire from tanks, helicopters and quadcopter drones”.

Yasser Abu Lubda, a 50-year-old who has been displaced from Rafah, told the Associated Press (AP) news agency that the shooting began shortly before 04:00 local time. Rasha al-Nahal, another witness, told AP “there was gunfire from all directions”.

And the ICRC said in a statement that its field hospital in Rafah received “a mass casualty influx of 184 patients”.

“This includes nineteen cases who were declared dead upon arrival and eight more who died due to their wounds shortly after. The majority of cases suffered gunshot wounds.”

In a statement, the IDF said approximately 0.5km from the aid distribution site “several suspects” moved towards them. It said troops shot warning fire and when “suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near a few individual suspects”. It said it was looking into reports of casualties.

Responding to Tuesday’s incident, the GHF said: “While the aid distribution was conducted safely and without incident at our site today, we understand that IDF is investigating whether a number of civilians were injured after moving beyond the designated safe corridor and into a closed military zone. This was an area well beyond our secure distribution site and operations area.”

BBC Verify will continue to investigate footage surrounding each of the three incidents.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

It’s less than 36 hours after a gangland double murder in a busy bar on the Costa Del Sol, and there is no sign of the Spanish police – apart from an occasional patrol car gliding by.

No cordon, no tape, no forensics in white suits, no officer guarding the front door of Monaghans Bar in Fuengirola.

According to a local cameraman, it was the same on Sunday afternoon – the day after Ross Monaghan and Eddie Lyons Jnr were gunned down.

In the homeland of the two men who had been shot dead, the case would be classed as a top level “category A” homicide with the bar sealed off and turned upside down for days afterwards.

This is Spain, not Scotland. But it must surely be wrong to assume the lack of a visible presence means a lack of interest from the Spanish National Police.

This part of the country is no stranger to violence linked to organised crime and this was the murder of two men in a public place.

They were shot dead in cold blood in a busy bar and bystanders could easily have been injured or killed.

The mayor of Fuengirola, Ana Mula, has been quoted as saying the police need more resources to deal with the shootings and the general threat of drug-related organised crime.

When I arrived late on Monday morning, Mongahans was the only place not open for business in the long strip of pubs and restaurants along the beachfront, where holidaymakers basked in the sun and swam in the sparkling sea.

Staff were inside but made it clear they didn’t want to talk about what had happened. The owners of neighbouring businesses felt the same way.

British tourists who’d been in Monaghans before the shooting described it as a friendly bar.

They said a group of Scottish men were watching the Champion’s League final in the pub before the shooting. They were boisterous but not behaving badly and Eddie Lyons Jnr and Ross Monaghan were with them.

Those men would have witnessed the horrifying murders of their friends.

A video filmed afterwards showed a Scottish man on the phone, saying “Someone’s got shot in the head.”

David Meddicks from Glasgow had left the bar with his wife a couple of hours before.

He recalled: “We went back to our hotel for food and later on at the reception of the hotel, two wee Spanish women ran in, shouting “bang, bang, bang, bang.”

“We looked and we could see the police and all the blue lights. We had been thinking of going back down for another drink and decided not to bother. So I’m quite glad I didn’t.”

An Englishman who been in the pub said: “We were there an hour before and walked back later and found out what happened.

“It made us want to go home, to be quite honest. You go away on holiday and you don’t expect this. Really frightening.”

Another tourist, Robert Sorman from Bathgate, said: “You’ve heard of the Costa Del Crime but you never expect it to happen when you’re here.”

An elite Costa Del Sol-based anti-drug and organised crime unit is heading the investigation, reporting to a local magistrate who is in charge of the inquiry overall.

The Spanish police have said very little in public so far and there has been no official confirmation of the identity of the two victims.

Reporters with experience of investigations in Spain say that’s not unusual and to be fair, police in Scotland rarely speak about ongoing inquiries into organised crime unless they absolutely have to.

The Spanish will be seeking the assistance of Police Scotland to get intelligence on the background of the two men, and it’s likely that Scottish detectives will be travelling to the Costa Del Sol at some point.

The UK’s National Crime Agency has full-time staff in Spain who will be facilitating such co-operation.

There is speculation that the shootings are linked to the ongoing gangland feud in central Scotland which has resulted in dozens of incidents, including alleged attempted murders, and more than 40 arrests.

Some of the people targeted in the violence are linked to the Daniels crime group – long-time rivals of another serious organised crime group, the Lyons family, of which Eddie Lyons Jnr and Ross Monaghan were members.

But their murders would represent a massive escalation in the level of violence compared to what has gone before.

The killings of two senior figures from the Scottish underworld in a bar in a foreign country is unprecedented.

It’s possible that it was unrelated to the feud; that something else lies behind it.

One thing’s certain; Police Scotland will be deeply concerned about revenge attacks and more bloodshed.

As one former officer put it: “This won’t go unavenged forever.”

Elon Musk has hit out at President Donald Trump’s signature tax and spending bill, saying he “can’t stand” the legislation and describing it as a “disgusting abomination”.

The bill – which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and more defence spending while also allowing the US government to borrow more money – was passed by the House of Representatives in May.

“Shame on those who voted for it,” Musk said in a post on X on Tuesday.

The tech billionaire left the administration abruptly last week after 129 days working to cut costs with his team, known as Doge.

The comments mark his first public disagreement with Trump since leaving government, after having previously called the plan “disappointing”.

The South African-born tech billionaire’s time in the Trump administration came to an end on 31 May, although Trump said that “he will, always, be with us, helping all the way”.

In its current form, the bill – which Trump refers to as the “big beautiful bill” – has been estimated to increase the budget deficit – the difference between what the government spends and the revenue it receives – by approximately $600bn (£444bn) in the next fiscal year.

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In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, Musk said that the “outrageous, pork-filled” spending bill will “massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America [sic] citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”

In American politics “pork” refers to spending measures that lawmakers tack onto legislation to narrowly benefit their constituencies.

Asked about Musk’s comments soon after the first post, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “the President already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill”.

“This is one, big, beautiful bill,” she added. “And he’s sticking to it.”

The legislation also pledges to extend soon-to-expire tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration in 2017, as well as an influx of funds for defence spending and to fund the administration’s mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.

Additionally, it proposes lifting the limit on the amount of money the government can borrow, known as the debt ceiling, to $4tn.

The comments from Musk reflect wider tensions among Republicans over the plan, which faced stiff opposition from different wings of the party as it worked its way through the House. The Senate has now taken it up, and divisions are already emerging in the Republican-controlled chamber.

Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, over the last few days has said he will not support the bill if it includes the provision to raise the debt ceiling.

“The GOP [the Republican Party] will own the debt once they vote for this,” he told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, over the weekend.

Trump responded to Sen Paul with a series of angry social media posts, accusing him of having “very little understanding of the bill” and saying that the “people of Kentucky can’t stand him”.

“His ideas are actually crazy,” Trump wrote.

Republican lawmakers pushed back on Musk’s comments, with Senate Majority Leader John Thune telling reporters the party plans to “proceed full speed ahead” despite “a difference of opinion”.

“We have an agenda that everybody campaigned on, most notably the president,” he said.

House Speaker Mike Johnson – a Republican who has been credited with ushering the legislation through the House – told reporters on Capitol Hill that “my friend Elon is terribly wrong”.

“It’s a very important first start. Elon is missing it,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he held a 20-minute long phone call with Musk regarding the bill on Monday, adding that the bill’s phasing out of tax credits could “have an effect” on Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle firm.

“I lament that,” Johnson said, expressing surprise that Musk criticised the bill despite their call. “I just deeply regret he’s made this mistake.”

Some Democrats, on the other hand, welcomed Musk’s comments despite their previous criticism of him and the work of Doge.

“Even Elon Musk, who’s been part of the whole process, and is one of Trump’s buddies, said the bill is bad,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “We can imagine how bad this bill is.”

Trump and Republicans in Congress have set a deadline of 4 July to get the bill passed and signed into law.

Musk’s posts on the platform suggest a rift with Trump, who he supported in last year’s November election with donations of more than $250m.

To make peace with spending hawks, Trump is also asking Congress to pass a plan that would reduce current spending by $9bn and which is reportedly based on Doge’s work.

Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU) said it targeted the Crimea bridge with underwater explosives on Tuesday following an operation lasting “several months”.

The SBU said it had “mined the supports” of the bridge with explosives equivalent to 1,100kg of TNT, which “severely damaged” the bottom level of the supports.

The “first explosive device” was detonated “without any civilian casualties”, the SBU added. The information shared by the SBU could not be immediately verified.

Russian media initially said the bridge was briefly closed to traffic but that it had reopened by 10:00 local time (08:00 GMT).

However, later in the day, local authorities warned the bridge was temporarily closed again.

Unconfirmed reports on social media said more explosions had occurred around the structure.

The official Telegram channel sharing operational updates about the bridge said: “We ask those on the bridge and in the inspection zone to remain calm and follow the instructions of the transport security officers.”

Russia has not yet commented on Tuesday morning’s attack but Russian military bloggers speculated that an underwater drone, rather than explosive, had hit a protective barrier.

The SBU said its director, Lieutenant General Vasyl Malyuk, personally supervised the operation and coordinated its planning.

In a Telegram post, it quoted Malyuk as saying Ukraine had hit the Crimea bridge in 2022 and 2023 and was therefore “continuing this tradition under water.”

“No illegal Russian facilities have a place on the territory of our state,” Malyuk said.

“Therefore, the Crimean Bridge is an absolutely legitimate target, especially considering that the enemy used it as a logistical artery to supply its troops.”

The bridge – also known as Kerch Bridge – was built by Russia after it invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014. It was inaugurated by Russian President Vladimir Putin to great fanfare in 2018.

In Ukraine, the bridge is a hated symbol of Russian occupation. Moscow guards it carefully – which makes any attack on it, whether with underwater drones or explosives, a remarkable achievement.

Tuesday’s strike on the bridge comes barely 48 hours after Ukraine hit several targets across Russia as part of an operation dubbed ‘Spider Web’.

Kyiv said it smuggled more than 100 drones into Russia and managed to get them delivered near air bases by unsuspecting lorry drivers.

The drones then flew out of the lorries and attacked Russia’s prized strategic bombers in locations across the country.