The brother of an Israeli hostage held in the Gaza Strip has told the BBC that a Hamas video showing him emaciated and weak is a “new form of cruelty” that has left his parents shattered.

Hamas released the footage of Evyatar David, 24, on Saturday, drawing strong condemnation from Israel and Western leaders.

“He’s a human skeleton. He was being starved to the point where he can be dead at any moment, and he suffers a great deal. He barely can’t speak, he barely can move,” David’s brother Ilay said in an interview on Monday.

In the video, Evyatar says: “I haven’t eaten for days… I barely got drinking water.” He is seen digging what he says will be his own grave.

Hostages’ families have urged Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prioritise their release as reports suggest he might be planning to expand the military campaign.

The footage of Evyatar was released after Palestinian Islamic Jihad published video of another hostage, Rom Braslavski, thin and crying.

Both men were abducted from the Nova music festival during the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023.

They are among 50 hostages still being held in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to be alive.

Ilay David said his father had barely recognised his son Evyatar’s voice on the video and had not been able to sleep. He said his mother cried all day.

“Seeing those images of my brother as a human skeleton, we understood it’s, it’s, it’s a new kind of cruelty,” Mr David said. “It’s the lowest you can get.”

He called on world leaders to unite to save him and other hostages “from the cruel, twisted hands of Hamas”.

“So we have to be so focused on delivering the message, which is, Evyatar is dying, we need to give him medicine, to give him food, proper food, and you need to get this treatment now, or else will die.”

Hamas’s armed wing has denied it intentionally starves prisoners, saying hostages eat what their fighters and people in Gaza eat.

After the hostages’ videos were released, Netanyahu spoke with their families, telling them that efforts to return all the hostages “will continue constantly and relentlessly”.

But an Israeli official – widely quoted by local media – said Netanyahu was working to free the hostages through “the military defeat of Hamas”.

The possibility of a new escalation in Gaza may further anger Israel’s allies who have been pushing for an immediate ceasefire as reports of Palestinians dying from starvation or malnutrition cause shock around the world.

The main group supporting hostages’ families condemned the idea of a new military offensive saying: “Netanyahu is leading Israel and the hostages to doom.”

That view was pointedly made in a letter by some 600 retired Israeli security officials sent to US President Donald Trump urging him to pressure Israel to immediately end the war in Gaza.

“Your credibility with the vast majority of Israelis augments your ability to steer Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his government in the right direction: End the war, return the hostages, stop the suffering,” they wrote.

The group included former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, Ami Ayalon, former chief of Shin Bet – Israel’s domestic secret service agency – former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and former Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon among others.

“It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,” they said.

“At first this war was a just war, a defensive war, but when we achieved all military objectives, this war ceased to be a just war,” said Ayalon.

The former top leaders head the Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS) group, which has urged the government in the past to focus on securing the return of the hostages.

“Stop the Gaza War! On behalf of CIS, Israel’s largest group of former IDF generals and Mossad, Shin Bet, Police, and Diplomatic Corps equivalents, we urge you to end the Gaza war. You did it in Lebanon. Time to do it in Gaza as well,” they wrote to the US president.

Israel launched a devastating war in Gaza following Hamas’s 7 October attack in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken into Gaza as hostages.

More than 60,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since 7 October, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

On Monday, the ministry reported that at least 94 people had been killed in Gaza in the past day, including dozens it said had died in Israeli strikes.

The territory is also experiencing mass deprivation as a result of heavy restrictions imposed by Israel on what is allowed into Gaza. The ministry says 180 people, including 93 children, have died from malnutrition since the start of the war.

Such reports have become almost daily in recent months but are hard to verify as international journalists, including the BBC, are blocked by Israel from entering Gaza.

UN-backed agencies have said the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out” in Gaza.

A group of some 600 retired Israeli security officials, including former heads of intelligence agencies, have written to US President Donald Trump to pressure Israel to immediately end the war in Gaza.

“It is our professional judgement that Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel,” the officials said.

“Your credibility with the vast majority of Israelis augments your ability to steer Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and his government in the right direction: End the war, return the hostages, stop the suffering,” they wrote.

Their appeal comes amid reports that Netanyahu is pushing to expand military operations in Gaza as indirect ceasefire talks with Hamas have stalled.

Israel launched a devastating war in Gaza following Hamas’s attack in southern Israel on 7 October 2023 in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken into Gaza as hostages.

More than 60,000 people have been killed as a result of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza since then, the Hamas-run health ministry says.

On Monday, the ministry reported that at least 94 people had been killed in Gaza in the past day, including dozens it said had died in Israeli strikes.

At least 24 people had been killed while seeking aid, it added. Such reports have become almost daily in recent months but are hard to verify as international journalists, including the BBC, are blocked by Israel from entering Gaza independently.

The territory is also experiencing mass deprivation as a result of heavy restrictions imposed by Israel on what is allowed into Gaza. The ministry says 180 people, including 93 children, have died from malnutrition since the start of the war.

UN-backed agencies have said the “worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out” in Gaza.

The latest intervention by the top former Israeli officials came after videos of two emaciated Israeli hostages were released by Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants.

The videos were widely condemned by Israeli and Western leaders.

After the videos were released, Netanyahu spoke with the two hostage families, telling them that efforts to return all the hostages “will continue constantly and relentlessly”.

But an Israeli official – widely quoted by local media – said Netanyahu was working to free the hostages through “the military defeat of Hamas”.

The possibility of a new escalation in Gaza may further anger Israel’s allies which have been pushing for an immediate ceasefire as reports of Palestinians dying from starvation or malnutrition cause shock around the world.

The main group supporting hostages’ families condemned the idea of a new military offensive saying: “Netanyahu is leading Israel and the hostages to doom.”

That view was pointedly made in the letter to Trump by former Mossad chief Tamir Pardo, Ami Ayalon, former chief of Shin Bet – Israel’s domestic secret service agency – former Prime Minister Ehud Barak, and former Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon among others.

“At first this war was a just war, a defensive war, but when we achieved all military objectives, this war ceased to be a just war,” said Ayalon.

The former top leaders head the Commanders for Israel’s Security (CIS) group, which has urged the government in the past to focus on securing the return of the hostages.

“Stop the Gaza War! On behalf of CIS, Israel’s largest group of former IDF generals and Mossad, Shin Bet, Police, and Diplomatic Corps equivalents, we urge you to end the Gaza war. You did it in Lebanon. Time to do it in Gaza as well,” they wrote to the US president.

Israel has faced growing international isolation, as the widespread destruction in Gaza and the suffering of Palestinians spark outrage.

Polls around the world suggest that public opinion is increasingly negative about Israel, which is putting pressure on Western leaders to act.

But it is not clear what pressure, if any, Trump will choose to exert on the Israeli prime minister.

The US president has consistently backed his ally, even though he publicly acknowledged last week that there was “real starvation” in Gaza after Netanyahu insisted there was no such thing.

The Kremlin has played down Donald Trump’s orders to move two nuclear submarines closer to Russia, saying Moscow did not want to be involved in polemics.

In the first official reaction since the US president’s comments last Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said American submarines were on combat duty anyway and dismissed the idea that there had been an escalation.

“Very complex, very sensitive issues are being discussed, which, of course, many perceive very emotionally,” Peskov said – though he added that everyone should be “very cautious” with nuclear rhetoric.

US envoy Steve Witkoff is due to visit Russia on Wednesday, according to Russian media.

Last week, Trump ordered two nuclear submarines to “be positioned in the appropriate regions” in response to what he called “highly provocative” comments by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

Trump did not say whether they were nuclear-powered or nuclear-armed submarines.

Medvedev – who in recent years has espoused increasingly extreme rhetoric online – had accused Trump of “playing the ultimatum game” with Russia after the US president set a new deadline for Vladimir Putin to end the war with Ukraine.

Without referencing the Medvedev spat directly, Peskov said on Monday that while “in every country members of the leadership… have different points of view”, Russian foreign policy was dictated by Putin alone.

Medvedev did not react to Trump’s response and has not been active on X since sending the offending post.

Relations between the US and Russia improved significantly after Trump took office in January – although in recent months the US president has signalled he suspects Putin may not be truly committed to ending the war in Ukraine, which began when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Now Trump has brought forward a deadline for Russia to reach a peace deal, threatening Moscow with severe tariffs targeting its oil and other exports if a ceasefire is not agreed by Friday 8 August.

Still, Washington and Moscow remain in contact and Peskov welcomed Witkoff’s trip later this week.

“We are always happy to see Mr Witkoff in Moscow… We consider such contact important, meaningful and useful,” he said, adding that Witkoff and Putin may meet.

Should a ceasefire not be reached by 8 August, Trump has said he would impose sanctions and secondary tariffs on Moscow to discourage other countries from trading with it.

But he has also admitted Russia – now the most sanctioned country in the world – was “pretty good at avoiding sanctions”.

Trump has also used unusually stern language to describe the Russian military, in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.

Writing that he would “substantially” hike US tariffs on goods from India over its purchases of Russian oil, Trump accused India of not caring “how many people in Ukraine are being killed by the Russian War Machine”.

Three rounds of talks between Russian and Ukraine since the spring have failed to bring an end to the conflict any closer.

Only last week Putin reiterated that Russia’s main goal in the war was to “eradicate the reasons for the crisis in Ukraine and ensure Russia’s security”.

Moscow’s maximalist military and political preconditions for peace – including Ukraine becoming a neutral state, dramatically reducing its military and abandoning its Nato aspirations – remain unacceptable to Kyiv and to its Western partners.

On the frontlines and in Ukraine’s cities, the fighting and bloodshed continues.

Overnight Sunday into Monday, Russian strikes on the southern Zaporizhzhia region killed four people, while another died in Kherson. Last week a deadly Russian attack on Kyiv left at least 31 people dead and injured 159.

For its part Ukraine continues to target military objectives in Russia. On Monday it said it hit a Russian airbase in the occupied Crimea with drones, destroying one fighter jet and damaging others.

Tesla has granted its chief executive Elon Musk $29bn (£21.7bn) worth of its shares, in an attempt to keep the billionaire at the firm.

The move comes after a US court struck down his 2018 pay package, worth more than $50bn, ruling that it was “unfair to shareholders”.

Musk has been appealing against the decision made by the Delaware court in 2024 and on Monday Tesla told shareholders it was “confident” that the $29bn of shares “will incentivize Elon to remain at Tesla” especially as “the war for AI talent is intensifying”.

The award should boost Musk’s voting power on the electric car company’s board.

“It is imperative to retain and motivate our extraordinary talent, beginning with Elon”, Tesla’s board wrote on X, a platform owned by Musk, adding that “no one matches Elon’s remarkable combination of leadership experience, technical expertise”.

The company said the billionaire had a “proven track record” in building “revolutionary and profitable businesses”.

Tesla said if the Delware court reinstated Musk’s 2018 pay deal, he would forfeit or return the latest share award to avoid a “double dip”.

The carmaker’s board said it hoped its chief executive could be awarded the deal worth $56bn, which would be the biggest pay deal in corporate American history.

The deal was structured in such a way that if Mr Musk did not hit certain milestones – such as Tesla’s market value, sales and underlying profit – he would not get paid at all.

But he achieved the targets that were laid out.

Musk’s appeal to get his pay packet reinstated argues that the lower court made legal errors when rescinding his pay package. He has previously said that it should be company shareholders who decide pay.

Dan Ives from Wedbush Securities told the BBC Tesla’s move was “what they need to do to keep him [Musk] at the firm”.

“The biggest asset for Tesla is Musk, the board need to do this, and I believe it’s a huge step forward.”

He added that during the “AI arms race”, the firm could not afford to have Musk only “semi-committed”.

Tech firms trying to assert themselves in the AI sector have been offering huge sums to workers at rivals in an effort to persuade them to join them and boost their development.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was said to have recently tried to lure top developers from ChatGPT-creator OpenAI with million-dollar pay deals.

Meanwhile Microsoft’s AI division, headed up by former Google DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman, recently gained several new hires from Google’s ranks.

Tesla said it was at an “inflection point” and needed Musk’s prowess as it pivots from being an electric vehicle firm to an AI and robotics-focused company.

The company added the share award would be attractive for Musk “with other “demands on his time and attention”.

Musk’s other roles include executive positions at xAI, Neuralink, and The Boring Company, which makes tunnels and other infrastructure in the US.

He recently announced that he was stepping back from politics, after a stint as US President Donald Trump’s adviser.

Passengers on several Eurostar trains are facing delays and cancellations after a power supply issue on a rail line in northern France led to its closure.

The Eurostar website shows at least nine services on Monday between London and Paris have been cancelled, while a further 15 services have been delayed.

The problem started at about 08:30 local time (06:30 GMT) on Monday and disruptions are expected to continue until the end of the day, with trains being diverted to run on slower lines.

Eurostar has advised passengers to postpone their journeys if possible.

Some services between Brussels and Paris and between Amsterdam and Paris have also been cancelled, delayed or faced other disruptions due to the rail closure, which happened on the high-speed line between Moussy and Longueil in the Hauts-de-France region.

French track network operator SNCF said on its website that the “severely disrupted” services were due to a power supply issue which required “major repairs”.

It predicted delays of between one and five hours on the Eurostar, as well as its other services TGV inOui and Ouigo.

Trains between London-Amsterdam, Brussels-Amsterdam, Brussels-London and Brussels-Cologne have not been impacted.

Eurostar said SNCF had told it that one track would be reopened at 18:30 CET (17:30 GMT) and that this would “allow trains to run again on the high-speed line but with limited service”.

“Traffic should be able to resume on both tracks tomorrow morning when services start running again,” it added.

Extra staff have been sent to affected stations to help passengers.

August is a peak period for cross-Channel travel due to school holidays, meaning services are often busier than normal.

Monday’s disruptions come nearly a month after a Eurostar train travelling between Brussels and London had to be evacuated in northern France due to a power failure.

And in June, there were two days of major disruptions after separate fatal incidents on France’s LGV Nord line, which was followed by cable theft.

Dame Stella Rimington, MI5’s first female director general, has died, her family has said.

Dame Stella, who headed the security service from 1992 to 1996, was widely credited as being the model for Dame Judi Dench’s M in the James Bond films.

She joined MI5 full time in 1969, and served as deputy director general in 1991 before being promoted to director general a year later.

After retiring from the service, Dame Stella began a career as a novelist.

In a statement, her family said: “She died surrounded by her beloved family and dogs and determinedly held on to the life she loved until her last breath.”

Dame Stella was the first director general to be publicly identified when appointed – and when a newspaper published a photo of her house, she and her family had to move to a covert location for their own protection.

Paying tribute, current MI5 director general Sir Ken McCallum said his predecessor, as the first publicly stated female head of any intelligence agency in the world, “broke through long-standing barriers and was a visible example of the importance of diversity in leadership”.

“Her leadership ushered in a new era of openness and transparency about the work MI5 does to keep this country safe, a legacy that continues to this day,” he said.

In a statement on its website, MI5 said Dame Stella had a varied career in the service “including roles in counter-subversion, counter-espionage and counter-terrorism”.

“MI5 underwent far-reaching transformation under Dame Stella’s leadership,” it said.

“She oversaw MI5 taking lead responsibility for countering Irish republican terrorism in Great Britain, the move of MI5’s headquarters to Thames House, and instituted a policy of greater public openness to demystify the work of MI5 including beginning a programme of releasing MI5 files to The National Archives.”