The United Nations children’s agency has said that a polio vaccination campaign to inoculate more than 640,000 children in Gaza is surpassing expectations at the end of the first phase of the programme.

Describing the campaign as a “rare bright spot” in almost 11 months of war, Unicef said that 189,000 children had been reached so far as more than 500 teams were deployed across central Gaza this week.

It said Israel and Hamas observed limited pauses in the fighting to facilitate the campaign, with UN agencies involved now hoping to expand the campaign to the harder-hit north and south of the territory for the next two phases.

The campaign was launched after Gaza had its first reported polio case in 25 years – a 10-month-old boy, now paralysed in the leg.

Health experts have warned of disease outbreaks in the territory, where the vast majority of people have been displaced, often multiple times, and where hunger is widespread.

Hundreds of thousands of people are crammed into squalid tent camps with few if any public services.

The vaccinations were being undertaken even as fighting continued in Gaza, with the Hamas-controlled Gaza health ministry saying 42 people had been killed over the past 24 hours and 40,861 people since the war began.

The head of the UN’s main agency for Palestinian refugees wrote on Wednesday: “Great progress! Every day in the Middle Areas of #Gaza, more children are getting vaccines against #Polio.”

“While these polio ‘pauses’ are giving people some respite, what is urgently needed is a permanent ceasefire, the release of all hostages and the standard flow of humanitarian supplies including medical and hygiene supplies [into Gaza],” he posted on X.

Despite the success of the polio campaign, diplomatic efforts to secure a permanent ceasefire, release hostages held in Gaza and return many Palestinians jailed by Israel, have faltered.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, insisted on Monday that Israeli troops would remain in the Philadelphi corridor on the southern edge of Gaza bordering Egypt, one of the main sticking points in reaching a deal.

However on Wednesday, Ron Dermer, the country’s strategic affairs minister, appeared to suggest that Israel may be prepared for a full withdrawal in a negotiated second phase of any deal.

Speaking to Bloomberg, Dermer said: “In phase one, Israel is going to stay on that line until we have a practical solution on the ground that can convince the people of Israel … that what happened on 7 October will not happen again. That Hamas will not rearm.

“And once you’ve concluded those negotiations, while you’re in a ceasefire for phase one, in order to get to phase two and a permanent ceasefire, that’s when you can discuss long-term security arrangements on the Philadelphi corridor.”

Hamas, which wants any agreement ending the war to include a withdrawal of all Israeli forces from Gaza, says such a condition, among some others, would prevent an accord. Netanyahu says the war can only end when Hamas is eradicated.

The impasse is frustrating Israel’s international allies and the 15 members of the UN security council.

The UN envoy from Slovenia, the council’s president for September, said on Tuesday that patience was running out and the global body would probably consider taking action if a ceasefire could not be brokered soon.

The senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the only way a deal could be reached was if Israel agreed to a US proposal on 2 July, endorsed by the security council, and accepted by the group. Israel and Hamas blame conditions added by each other for the failure to clinch a deal.

On Wednesday, the German government spokesperson Wolfgang Büchner said the killing of six Israeli hostages whose bodies were discovered at the weekend “has once again made clear that a ceasefire that opens the way to the freeing of all hostages held by Hamas must now have the highest priority. Other considerations should stand back.”

He called on all involved in the negotiations to show flexibility and readiness to compromise, and said an agreement could also help to de-escalate regional tensions.

However, a new poll released this week found Israelis deeply pessimistic that a deal could be brokered, amid nationwide fury at the government over Netanyahu’s handling of the hostage negotiations.

In its monthly poll, the Israel Democracy Institute found that 73% of respondents described themselves as pessimistic regarding the chances of a deal succeeding, while only 21% said they were optimistic.

Agencies contributed to this report

The family of James Kirby, a World Central Kitchen aid worker killed in Gaza, have called for an independent investigation into his death and said neither British nor Israeli diplomats had been in touch, even though an internal Israeli inquiry said his death had been a tragic accident.

Kirby was among seven aid workers, including Britons John Chapman and James Henderson, who were killed when an Israeli airstrike targeted their clearly marked vehicle on 1 April. The Israeli inquiry led to the dismissal of two officers.

The statement was issued by Kirby’s cousin Louise on behalf of his family on the day of his memorial service in Bristol Cathedral.

Describing his death as a diabolical tragedy and a murder, the family said they were “still struggling to find answers and accountability for what happened”, pointing out the aid workers were travelling in a vehicle for which clearance had been given for them to carry out humanitarian work.

“The State of Israel says the murder was an accident. So we were surprised not to have had any contact or condolence from Israel’s ambassador to the UK in London or from any Israeli official,” the statement said.

“There must be a proper independent inquiry into the attack on innocent aid workers and for the evidence to be assessed if appropriate by a relevant court.”

The family say they have had no contact from the UK government since the aid workers’ deaths or received “any evidence whether a credible independent investigation is taking place or the results of any investigation if it has taken place”.

Kirby, 47, a former serviceman, was providing security for the convoy moving food to a warehouse in Gaza. World Central Kitchen (WCK) was at the forefront of efforts to create a maritime aid corridor from Cyprus.

An inquiry by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) found a drone operator mistakenly targeted the convoy after thinking it had been taken over by Hamas gunmen.

Three missiles were fired in three locations over five minutes. The first hit a car and some passengers escaped to another vehicle. That was then hit by a second missile. Some survivors tried to flee in a third car that was also struck. Everyone in the convoy was killed.

As well as the three Britons, the Australian national Lalzawmi Frankcom, Polish national Damian Sobol, Palestinian Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutahas and US-Canadian citizen Jacob Flickinger were also killed in the strike.

After its internal investigation, the IDF sacked two officers and formally reprimanded two senior commanders. The inquiry found that a plan setting out WCK’s movements, which had been agreed with the IDF, was not given to the drone unit that attacked the convoy.

It also concluded that evidence of an armed man in the convoy was insufficient to justify targeting it. The drone operators kept firing on the convoy after the initial strike.

The evidence from the investigation was passed to the military advocate general – the Israeli army’s top legal authority – to determine if there had been any criminal conduct. No further action has been announced.

The family says this is not just about them but about how families are treated. “Just saying ‘sorry it was an accident ‘is not enough’. We need to know there has been accountability at all levels so that it does not happen again,” the statement said.

Poland’s deputy foreign minister, Andrzej Szejna, has demanded a criminal inquiry. WCK has also called for an independent investigation, saying: “The IDF cannot credibly investigate its own failure in Gaza.”

A UK government spokesperson said the bereaved families were being assisted by police liaison support officers, who were in “regular contact” with the Foreign Office.

“The death of James and his fellow aid workers was horrific and our thoughts remain with their families,” the spokesperson said. “Attacks on aid workers are never justified, and we remain fully committed to their protection as they support some of the most vulnerable people in the world.”

Meta’s content moderation board has backed the company’s decision to allow Facebook posts containing the phrase “From the River to the Sea” after ruling that a blanket ban on the pro-Palestine slogan would hinder free speech.

The Oversight Board reviewed three cases involving Facebook posts that featured “From the River to the Sea” and found they did not break Meta’s rules involving restrictions on hate speech and incitement, while an outright ban on the phrase would interfere with political speech in “unacceptable ways”.

In a decision backed by 21 of its members, the board said the content showed solidarity with Palestinians but did not call for violence or exclusion and upheld Meta’s original decision to keep the content on Facebook.

The board, whose decisions on content are binding, said the phrase has multiple meanings and is used “in various ways and with different intentions”. While it could be seen as encouraging antisemitism and the elimination of Israel, the board said, it is also used as a call for solidarity with Palestinians

“The standalone phrase cannot be understood as a call to violence against a group based on their protected characteristics, as advocating for the exclusion of a particular group, or of supporting a designated entity – Hamas,” said the ruling.

A majority of the board said use of the phrase by Hamas – which is barred from Meta platforms and is designated a terrorist group by the UK and the US – does not make the phrase inherently violent or hateful.

However, a minority of the board argued that because the phrase appears in the group’s 2017 charter, and because of the 7 October attacks perpetrated by Hamas, its use in a post should be presumed to be glorifying a banned entity. The phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” refers to the land between the Jordan river, which borders eastern Israel, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west.

Critics of the slogan argue that it calls for the elimination of Israel while some of its supporters, including Palestinian-American writer Yousef Munayyer, argue that it supports Palestinians living in “their homeland as free and equal citizens”.

The ruling added: “Because the phrase does not have a single meaning, a blanket ban on content that includes the phrase, a default rule towards removal of such content, or even using it as a signal to trigger enforcement or review, would hinder protected political speech in unacceptable ways.”

In the first of the three cases, a user responded to a video posted by someone else with “FromTheRiverToTheSea” being used in hashtag form. The comment was viewed 3,000 times. In the second case, the phrase “Palestine will be free” – which forms part of the full river to the sea slogan – was formed in an image of floating watermelon slices and was viewed 8m times.

The third case involved From the River to the Sea appearing in a post from a Canadian community organisation which also condemned “Zionist Israeli occupiers” and had fewer than 1,000 views.

A spokesperson for Meta, which also owns Instagram and Threads, said: “We welcome the board’s review of our guidance on this matter. While all of our policies are developed with safety in mind, we know they come with global challenges and we regularly seek input from experts outside Meta, including the Oversight Board.”

Benjamin Netanyahu’s main political rival, Benny Gantz, has accused the Israeli prime minister of putting his personal interests before those of his country after he again insisted on the need for Israeli control of the Gaza-Egypt border on Monday, a position that has emerged as a key obstacle to a ceasefire deal.

Speaking in Tel Aviv at the Israel Bar Association’s annual conference on Tuesday, the centre-right National Unity party leader said Netanyahu had “lost his way” and “sees himself as the state … this is dangerous,” he said.

Netanyahu insisted on Monday night that Israel must retain control of the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt, a stance that he has been warned jeopardises efforts aimed at brokering a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the war with Hamas.

In a press conference on Tuesday evening, Gantz said that while the corridor was important to prevent Hamas and other Palestinian militants from smuggling weapons into Gaza, soldiers would be “sitting ducks” and would not stop tunnels.

He also rebutted Netanyahu’s assertion that if Israel were to withdraw from Philadelphi, international pressure would make it difficult to return. “We will be able to return to Philadelphi if and when we are required,” Gantz said, also calling for new elections. “If Netanyahu does not understand that after 7 October everything has changed … and if he is not strong enough to withstand the international pressure to return to Philadelphi, let him put down the keys and go home.”

Netanyahu has not made regular speeches since 7 October, but gave a televised address on Monday in response to unprecedented protests across Israel in favour of a deal and a general strike prompted by the discovery of six murdered hostages in Gaza. The prime minister ruled out making any “concessions” in the stalled talks or “giving in to pressure” to end the war, which is approaching its 12th month.

An unnamed source familiar with the protracted negotiations told CNN: “This guy torpedoed everything in one speech.”

In July, Hamas and Israel agreed in principle to implement a three-phase plan publicly proposed by Joe Biden in May. Hamas has since said the latest version of the proposal on the table diverges significantly from the initial plan because new Israeli demands have been added, including a permanent Israeli military deployment along the Gaza-Egypt border and the Netzarim corridor, the new Israeli-controlled barrier cutting off Gaza City from the south of the strip.

Hamas has long demanded a full Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and Egypt has said that a heavy Israeli military presence on its border threatens the peace treaty between the countries.

The future of Philadelphi has also caused friction within Netanyahu’s cabinet: his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, has publicly called for the Israeli leader to compromise on the issue, arguing that a deal that frees hostages in Gaza should be the government’s top priority.

Three of the six hostages the Israeli military said were shot in the head shortly before troops arrived in the area – two women and an injured man – were due to be released in the first stage of a ceasefire agreement.

The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, on Tuesday called for an independent investigation. “We are horrified by reports that Palestinian armed groups summarily executed six Israeli hostages, which would constitute a war crime,” the UN human rights office wrote on X.

Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets on Sunday and Monday to express anger over their deaths and protest against the government’s handling of the war. Traffic in central Tel Aviv was blocked by demonstrators for a third straight day on Tuesday.

Many Israelis other than Gantz accuse the prime minister of valuing his political survival more than the hostages’ lives: a ceasefire deal could cause Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners to abandon the government, triggering new elections. The longtime leader sees staying in office as the best way of beating a litany of corruption charges. He denies the allegations.

“Hamas was the one that pulled the trigger, but Netanyahu is the one who sentenced [the hostages] to death,” said an editorial in the liberal newspaper Haaretz.

The Washington Post reported on Monday that the Biden administration was preparing to propose a “take it or leave it” deal after the latest round of talks collapsed again last week. If the new effort fails, the US may pull out of the mediation process, the paper said.

In Gaza, Israeli airstrikes and ground fighting between the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas continue unabated. On Tuesday, a civil defence spokesperson in the Palestinian territory said an Israeli raid on a college in Gaza City had killed two people and injured 30. Israel said that Hamas militants were using the educational facility as a base.

Another two people were killed by the bombing of a displacement camp near the southern city of Khan Younis.

Meanwhile, the IDF has changed its policy towards the escalating violence in the occupied West Bank, and now considers the territory a “secondary front”, Israeli media reported on Tuesday.

Last week, Israel launched its biggest military operation in the West Bank for 20 years, with simultaneous raids targeting militant groups based in refugee camps, after a rare suicide bombing attempt in Tel Aviv claimed by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The violence in the area has also been fuelled by the actions of far-right settlers and their backers in Netanyahu’s coalition.

In recent weeks, Israeli defence officials have voiced concerns that the situation in the West Bank could boil over, even as the war in Gaza continues and tensions remain high with Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has resigned as part of a wide-ranging government reshuffle designed to give what Volodymyr Zelenskiy has called “new strength” to the embattled country.

Kuleba’s departure, announced in a handwritten note, came as Russia continued its relentless air barrage. At least seven people died and 53 were injured in a missile strike in the western city of Lviv.

Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv, said three of the seven dead were children. The attack took place in Lviv’s historic centre, usually considered a safe zone.

Sadovyi posted a photo of a family killed in their home: a mother, Yevheniya, and her three daughters, Yaryna, Daryna and Emiliya. Their father, Yaroslav, was the only survivor. Rescuers treated his injuries as he stood in the street outside their ruined apartment.

The mayor said Yaryna Bazylevych, 21, had worked in his office on a youth project. Her 18-year-old sister Daryna was a second-year student at Lviv’s Catholic university. Firefighters found the body of Emiliya, nine, buried under rubble.

“Russia used missiles and drones to attack people in their homes while they were sleeping at night. Ordinary homes, schools, and hospitals were hit,” Kuleba posted on X shortly after he announced his resignation.

He said heritage buildings in Lviv’s Unesco-protected zone were also damaged in “Russia’s war crime against civilians”. A further six people were hurt on Wednesday in another Russian attack on Kryvyi Rih, Zelenskiy’s home city.

Several European foreign ministers praised Kuleba after his resignation. They included Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s foreign minister, who said he had put the people of Ukraine before himself. She recalled their “long conversations on night trains, at the G7, on the frontlines, in Brussels, [and] in front of a bombed-out power plant”.

Speaking in a video address on Tuesday evening, Zelenskiy said he was refreshing his team in anticipation of “an extremely important autumn”. He promised “a slightly different emphasis” in foreign and domestic policy.

There was speculation that Andriy Sybiha, the deputy head of the office of the president of Ukraine, was likely to replace Kuleba. Sybiha is a veteran diplomat who has served as ambassador to Turkey and at Ukraine’s embassy in Poland. He works under Andriy Yermak, the head of Zelenskiy’s office.

Several ministers in Kyiv have already submitted letters of resignation, and a presidential aide has been dismissed. It is the biggest shake-up of senior officials since the beginning of Russia’s 2022 invasion, and had been expected for months.

The reshuffle has been portrayed as a political reset engineered by Zelenskiy and his close circle before winter, which is expected to bring electricity shortages after Russian strikes on critical infrastructure and difficult news from the front.

Zelenskiy said in a Tuesday evening address that changes would be made to strengthen the government. He said: “The autumn will be extremely important for Ukraine. And our state institutions must be set up so that Ukraine achieves all the results that we need … We must strengthen some areas in the government, and personnel decisions have been prepared.”

On Wednesday he held talks with the Irish taoiseach, Simon Harris, who was visiting Kyiv. The two leaders signed a bilateral deal and Zelenskiy thanked Ireland for taking in more than 100,000 Ukrainian citizens.

Other senior ministers who submitted resignations were Olha Stefanishyna, the deputy prime minister in charge of leading Ukraine’s push to join the EU, and Oleksandr Kamyshin, the minister for strategic industries, who oversees arms production and development. The justice minister, Denys Maliuska, and the environment protection minister, Ruslan Strilets, stepped down too.

Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada, approved the changes on Wednesday, clapping Maliuska and other outgoing ministers. Some of those resigning are expected to get new posts in government. Kamyshin was reappointed on Wednesday as a strategic adviser.

Speaking earlier, David Arakhamia, the head of the Servant of the People party’s parliamentary faction, the largest in the Rada, said a “major government reset” was under way. “More than 50% of the cabinet of ministers’ staff will be changed,” he said, adding that there would be a “day of appointments” after “a day of dismissals” on Wednesday.

Orysia Lutsevych, the head of the Ukraine forum at the thinktank Chatham House, said Kuleba’s departure had been expected. He would almost certainly get another top post, probably as a senior ambassador somewhere abroad, she predicted.

Lutsevych said some other personnel changes were less explicable. “It’s a pattern whenever Zelenskiy dismisses ministers. He is very mysterious and brief,” she said. “There is a problem with strategic communications. It creates speculation about why this happens.

“Normally in Ukraine there are suspicions about power, control, cashflows and [Andriy] Yermak [Zelenskiy’s influential chief of staff]. What is disconcerting is when some effective leaders, people with good reputations, are being dismissed.”

Last week western financial institutions voiced their concern after the head of Ukraine’s energy company, Ukrenergo, was fired. Volodymyr Kudrytskyi was sacked for allegedly failing to protect the country’s power grid from Russian attacks.

Danish police have arrested the environmental activist Greta Thunberg in Copenhagen at a protest against the war in Gaza, a spokesperson for the student group organising the demonstration has said.

Six people had been detained on Wednesday at the University of Copenhagen after 20 people blocked the entrance to a building and three entered, a police spokesperson said.

Police declined to confirm the identities of any of those arrested but a spokesperson for the Students Against the Occupation said Thunberg, 21, was one of those held.

A picture of Thunberg published by the news outlet Ekstra Bladet showed her wearing what the newspaper said were handcuffs and a black-and-white keffiyeh shawl draped over her shoulders.

Thunberg, meanwhile, shared images on Instagram of riot police entering a building where Students Against the Occupation was staging a protest.

“I can’t confirm the names of those arrested, but six people have been arrested in connection with the demonstration,” a Copenhagen police spokesperson said. “They are suspected of forcing their way into the building and blocking the entrance,” he added.

Students Against the Occupation said in a statement posted on Instagram that “while the situation in Palestine only gets worse, the University of Copenhagen continues cooperation with academic institutions in Israel”.

“We are occupying [the university’s] central administration with one demand: academic boycott now.”

Pro-Palestinian protesters have set up encampments at universities around the US and Europe since last spring to protest against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza and occupation of Palestinian territories.

Reuters and Agence-France Presse contributed to this report.

The Grenfell Tower disaster was the result of “decades of failure” by central government to stop the spread of combustible cladding combined with the “systematic dishonesty” of multimillion-dollar companies whose products spread the fire that killed 72 people, a seven-year public inquiry has found.

In a 1,700-page report that apportions blame for the 2017 tragedy widely, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the chair of the inquiry, found that three firms – Arconic, Kingspan and Celotex – “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to … mislead the market”.

He also found the architects Studio E, the builders Rydon and Harley Facades and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s building control department all bore responsibility for the blaze.

Studio E demonstrated “a cavalier attitude to the regulations affecting fire safety”. Its failure to recognise that the plastic-filled panels on the high-rise tower were dangerous was not the action of a “reasonably competent architect” and it “bears a very significant degree of responsibility for the disaster”, the inquiry found.

The inquiry was highly critical of the tenant management organisation (TMO), which was appointed by the local authority, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), to look after its thousands of homes but, according to the report, consistently ignored residents’ views. The TMO chief executive, Robert Black, established a “pattern of concealment … in relation to fire safety matters” and the TMO “treated the demands of managing fire safety as an inconvenience” in “a betrayal of its statutory obligations to its tenants”, the report said.

The final report of the Grenfell Tower public inquiry comes seven years, two months and 21 days after the fire, which started behind a fridge in a fourth-floor flat. It raged through the combustible cladding system to the 24th floor in about 30 minutes. Some victims fell from windows, but most perished trapped by smoke and flames on the upper floors. Fifteen of the deceased were disabled.

After 400 days of evidence in an inquiry that has cost the UK taxpayer more than £200m, Moore-Bick reserved some of his most damning conclusions for central government.

It regulates the safety of buildings but failed to tighten up ambiguous fire regulations while it was engaged in a “bonfire of red tape” launched by the Conservative prime minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2016 in an attempt to boost the economy after the global financial crisis.

The inquiry found that the government was “well aware” of the risks posed by highly flammable cladding “but failed to act on what it knew”.

Eric Pickles, Cameron’s housing secretary until 2015, had “enthusiastically supported” the prime minister’s drive to slash regulations and it dominated his department’s thinking to the extent that matters affecting fire safety and risk to life “were ignored, delayed or disregarded”, the inquiry concluded.

Pickles also failed to act on a coroner’s 2013 recommendation to tighten up fire safety regulations after a cladding fire at Lakanal House, another London council block, killed six people. It was “not treated with any sense of urgency”, the inquiry found and the tightening up had not happened by the time Grenfell went up in flames on 14 June 2017.

In cross-examination under oath, Pickles vehemently insisted the anti-red tape drive had not covered building regulations. But the inquiry said this evidence was “flatly contradicted by that of his officials and by the contemporaneous documents”.

Detectives from the Metropolitan police’s criminal investigation said they would spend 12 to 18 months poring over the findings “line by line” before possible charges. These could include corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, fraud, perverting the course of justice and misconduct in public office.

The Crown Prosecution Service is yet to make any charging decisions and any trials are not expected to start until 2027.

There was criticism of of RBKC leaders and the inquiry concluded financial considerations drove a decision by Laura Johnson, the director of housing, to slow down installation of self-closing mechanisms on fire doors despite warnings from the London fire brigade that their absence compromised fire escape routes. She also opposed a new inspection regime.

She did so “without having taken any advice about the consequences for the safety of residents”. Smoke spread into escape routes on the night of the fire through open doors with missing or defective closers.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster RBKC’s response demonstrated a “marked lack of respect for human decency and dignity” and its chief executive, Nicholas Holgate, was “unduly concerned” for the council’s reputation and “was not capable of taking effective control”.

The report described the “long-lasting trauma” of “a community whose lives have been changed forever”.

Survivors were “left to fend for themselves” in a scene some compared to a “war zone”, but “those who emerge from the events with the greatest credit, and whose contributions only emphasised the inadequacies of the official response, are the members of the local community”.

The inquiry panel of Moore-Bick, the architect Thouria Istephan and the housing expert Ali Akbor also made recommendations for reform, including a new construction regulator reporting to a cabinet minister and an urgent review of building regulation guidance on fire safety. They suggested town halls could be stripped of building control functions, with a national authority created instead.

The inquiry found that Rydon, the main contractor, displayed a “casual attitude to fire safety” and “bears considerable responsibility for the fire”, while Harley Facades, which installed the lethal cladding system, “bears a significant degree of responsibility for the fire” because it assumed others would check it was safe.

Arconic, the US aluminium giant that supplied the plastic-filled cladding panels that were the main cause of the fire’s spread, “deliberately concealed from the market the true extent of the danger of Reynobond 55 PE in cassette form [the panels used on Grenfell], particularly on high-rise buildings”, the inquiry found.

Celotex, which made most of the combustible foam insulation “embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market”. And Kingspan, which made a small amount of the insulation, “knowingly created a false market in insulation for use on buildings over 18 metres in height” by claiming that a test showed it could be used in any building over 18 metres when this “‘was a false claim, as it well knew”.

Moore-Bick concluded: “One very significant reason why Grenfell Tower came to be clad in combustible materials was systematic dishonesty on the part of those who made and sold the rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products. They engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market.”

They were unable to do that in a vacuum, and Moore-Bick found that two private bodies that provide safety certificates for construction products that are used by designers and builders, Local Authority Building Control (LABC) and the British Board of Agrément (BBA), “failed to ensure that the statements in their product certificates were accurate and based on test evidence”.

“The dishonest strategies of Arconic and Kingspan succeeded in a large measure due to the incompetence of the BBA,” he said.

The LABC “was willing to accommodate the customer at the expense of those who relied on certificates. As a result the LABC was also the victim of dishonest behaviour on the part of unscrupulous manufacturers.”

Responding to the inquiry findings, Arconic insisted it had been legal to sell the panels in the UK, rejected any claim its subsidiary sold an unsafe product and said it made test reports by third-party testing bodies publicly available and to customers.

It said: “Arconic Architectural Products did not conceal information from or mislead any certification body, customer, or the public.”

Kingspan said the report showed the type of insulation was “immaterial, and that the principal reason for the fire spread was the PE ACM cladding, which was not made by Kingspan”.

It said it has “acknowledged the wholly unacceptable historical failings” in part of its UK business but these were “in no way reflective of how we conduct ourselves as a group, then or now”.

“While deeply regrettable, they were not found to be causative of the tragedy,” it said.

Moore-Bick said the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation – the 24-storey council block’s landlord, which wrapped the building in combustible cladding and insulation – had “lost sight of the fact that the residents were people who depended on it for a safe and decent home and the privacy and dignity that a home should provide”.

In the years before the disaster, the landlord, which managed thousands of council homes for RBKC, allowed its relationship with the Grenfell residents to deteriorate to such an extent into “distrust, dislike, personal antagonism and anger” that it amounted to “a serious failure … to observe its basic responsibilities”.

Some in the tower saw the landlord as “an uncaring and bullying overlord that belittled and marginalised them”, Moore-Bick said, while the housing officials “regarded some of the residents as militant troublemakers … The result was a toxic atmosphere fuelled by mistrust on both sides.”

The landlord’s failure to gather information on disabled and vulnerable people that might assist with their evacuation in the event of a fire “amounted to a basic neglect of its obligations in relation to fire safety”.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, the council’s emergency response was “muddled, slow, indecisive and piecemeal” with aspects demonstrating “a marked lack of respect for human decency and dignity”. It was said to have “left many of those immediately affected feeling abandoned by authority and utterly helpless”.

Many Muslim residents were observing Ramadan but RBKC had “no regard for their cultural or religious needs” and people suffered “a significant degree of discrimination in ways that could and would have been prevented if the guidance had been properly followed”, the report found.

The Grenfell Tower disaster was the result of “decades of failure” by central government to stop the spread of combustible cladding combined with the “systematic dishonesty” of multimillion-dollar companies whose products spread the fire that killed 72 people, a seven-year public inquiry has found.

In a 1,700-page report that apportions blame for the 2017 tragedy widely, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, the chair of the inquiry, found that three firms – Arconic, Kingspan and Celotex – “engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to … mislead the market”.

He also found the architects Studio E, the builders Rydon and Harley Facades and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s building control department all bore responsibility for the blaze.

Studio E demonstrated “a cavalier attitude to the regulations affecting fire safety”. Its failure to recognise that the plastic-filled panels on the high-rise tower were dangerous was not the action of a “reasonably competent architect” and it “bears a very significant degree of responsibility for the disaster”, the inquiry found.

The inquiry was highly critical of the tenant management organisation (TMO), which was appointed by the local authority, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC), to look after its thousands of homes but, according to the report, consistently ignored residents’ views. The TMO chief executive, Robert Black, established a “pattern of concealment … in relation to fire safety matters” and the TMO “treated the demands of managing fire safety as an inconvenience” in “a betrayal of its statutory obligations to its tenants”, the report said.

The final report of the Grenfell Tower public inquiry comes seven years, two months and 21 days after the fire, which started behind a fridge in a fourth-floor flat. It raged through the combustible cladding system to the 24th floor in about 30 minutes. Some victims fell from windows, but most perished trapped by smoke and flames on the upper floors. Fifteen of the deceased were disabled.

After 400 days of evidence in an inquiry that has cost the UK taxpayer more than £200m, Moore-Bick reserved some of his most damning conclusions for central government.

It regulates the safety of buildings but failed to tighten up ambiguous fire regulations while it was engaged in a “bonfire of red tape” launched by the Conservative prime minister David Cameron from 2010 to 2016 in an attempt to boost the economy after the global financial crisis.

The inquiry found that the government was “well aware” of the risks posed by highly flammable cladding “but failed to act on what it knew”.

Eric Pickles, Cameron’s housing secretary until 2015, had “enthusiastically supported” the prime minister’s drive to slash regulations and it dominated his department’s thinking to the extent that matters affecting fire safety and risk to life “were ignored, delayed or disregarded”, the inquiry concluded.

Pickles also failed to act on a coroner’s 2013 recommendation to tighten up fire safety regulations after a cladding fire at Lakanal House, another London council block, killed six people. It was “not treated with any sense of urgency”, the inquiry found and the tightening up had not happened by the time Grenfell went up in flames on 14 June 2017.

In cross-examination under oath, Pickles vehemently insisted the anti-red tape drive had not covered building regulations. But the inquiry said this evidence was “flatly contradicted by that of his officials and by the contemporaneous documents”.

Detectives from the Metropolitan police’s criminal investigation said they would spend 12 to 18 months poring over the findings “line by line” before possible charges. These could include corporate manslaughter, gross negligence manslaughter, fraud, perverting the course of justice and misconduct in public office.

The Crown Prosecution Service is yet to make any charging decisions and any trials are not expected to start until 2027.

There was criticism of of RBKC leaders and the inquiry concluded financial considerations drove a decision by Laura Johnson, the director of housing, to slow down installation of self-closing mechanisms on fire doors despite warnings from the London fire brigade that their absence compromised fire escape routes. She also opposed a new inspection regime.

She did so “without having taken any advice about the consequences for the safety of residents”. Smoke spread into escape routes on the night of the fire through open doors with missing or defective closers.

In the immediate aftermath of the disaster RBKC’s response demonstrated a “marked lack of respect for human decency and dignity” and its chief executive, Nicholas Holgate, was “unduly concerned” for the council’s reputation and “was not capable of taking effective control”.

The report described the “long-lasting trauma” of “a community whose lives have been changed forever”.

Survivors were “left to fend for themselves” in a scene some compared to a “war zone”, but “those who emerge from the events with the greatest credit, and whose contributions only emphasised the inadequacies of the official response, are the members of the local community”.

The inquiry panel of Moore-Bick, the architect Thouria Istephan and the housing expert Ali Akbor also made recommendations for reform, including a new construction regulator reporting to a cabinet minister and an urgent review of building regulation guidance on fire safety. They suggested town halls could be stripped of building control functions, with a national authority created instead.

The inquiry found that Rydon, the main contractor, displayed a “casual attitude to fire safety” and “bears considerable responsibility for the fire”, while Harley Facades, which installed the lethal cladding system, “bears a significant degree of responsibility for the fire” because it assumed others would check it was safe.

Arconic, the US aluminium giant that supplied the plastic-filled cladding panels that were the main cause of the fire’s spread, “deliberately concealed from the market the true extent of the danger of Reynobond 55 PE in cassette form [the panels used on Grenfell], particularly on high-rise buildings”, the inquiry found.

Celotex, which made most of the combustible foam insulation “embarked on a dishonest scheme to mislead its customers and the wider market”. And Kingspan, which made a small amount of the insulation, “knowingly created a false market in insulation for use on buildings over 18 metres in height” by claiming that a test showed it could be used in any building over 18 metres when this “‘was a false claim, as it well knew”.

Moore-Bick concluded: “One very significant reason why Grenfell Tower came to be clad in combustible materials was systematic dishonesty on the part of those who made and sold the rainscreen cladding panels and insulation products. They engaged in deliberate and sustained strategies to manipulate the testing processes, misrepresent test data and mislead the market.”

They were unable to do that in a vacuum, and Moore-Bick found that two private bodies that provide safety certificates for construction products that are used by designers and builders, Local Authority Building Control (LABC) and the British Board of Agrément (BBA), “failed to ensure that the statements in their product certificates were accurate and based on test evidence”.

“The dishonest strategies of Arconic and Kingspan succeeded in a large measure due to the incompetence of the BBA,” he said.

The LABC “was willing to accommodate the customer at the expense of those who relied on certificates. As a result the LABC was also the victim of dishonest behaviour on the part of unscrupulous manufacturers.”

Responding to the inquiry findings, Arconic insisted it had been legal to sell the panels in the UK, rejected any claim its subsidiary sold an unsafe product and said it made test reports by third-party testing bodies publicly available and to customers.

It said: “Arconic Architectural Products did not conceal information from or mislead any certification body, customer, or the public.”

Kingspan said the report showed the type of insulation was “immaterial, and that the principal reason for the fire spread was the PE ACM cladding, which was not made by Kingspan”.

It said it has “acknowledged the wholly unacceptable historical failings” in part of its UK business but these were “in no way reflective of how we conduct ourselves as a group, then or now”.

“While deeply regrettable, they were not found to be causative of the tragedy,” it said.

Moore-Bick said the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation – the 24-storey council block’s landlord, which wrapped the building in combustible cladding and insulation – had “lost sight of the fact that the residents were people who depended on it for a safe and decent home and the privacy and dignity that a home should provide”.

In the years before the disaster, the landlord, which managed thousands of council homes for RBKC, allowed its relationship with the Grenfell residents to deteriorate to such an extent into “distrust, dislike, personal antagonism and anger” that it amounted to “a serious failure … to observe its basic responsibilities”.

Some in the tower saw the landlord as “an uncaring and bullying overlord that belittled and marginalised them”, Moore-Bick said, while the housing officials “regarded some of the residents as militant troublemakers … The result was a toxic atmosphere fuelled by mistrust on both sides.”

The landlord’s failure to gather information on disabled and vulnerable people that might assist with their evacuation in the event of a fire “amounted to a basic neglect of its obligations in relation to fire safety”.

In the immediate aftermath of the fire, the council’s emergency response was “muddled, slow, indecisive and piecemeal” with aspects demonstrating “a marked lack of respect for human decency and dignity”. It was said to have “left many of those immediately affected feeling abandoned by authority and utterly helpless”.

Many Muslim residents were observing Ramadan but RBKC had “no regard for their cultural or religious needs” and people suffered “a significant degree of discrimination in ways that could and would have been prevented if the guidance had been properly followed”, the report found.

Racial profiling is a systemic problem in the Montreal police force, a Quebec judge has ruled, as she awarded damages in a class action lawsuit that advocates call a “decision that meets with reality”.

Justice Dominique Poulin found that the city bore responsibility for racial profiling committed by its police officers and was obliged to compensate those affected.

The class action suit, filed in 2019, stems from a 2017 incident in which resident Alexandre Lamontagne was stopped by police after leaving a bar.

Lamontagne, who worked as a security guard at the time and was out for a drink with his brother, was pinned to the ground, handcuffed and taken to the station. He was charged with obstructing police work and assaulting a police officer.

Those charges were eventually dropped, but he was then issued with three tickets for making noise, continuing to do so and for not walking on a sidewalk. After viewing video footage of the encounter, Poulin sided with Lamontagne’s telling of events, rejecting claims by officers they were courteous in their interaction with Lamontagne.

The Black Coalition of Quebec initially sought C$17m in damages – or $5,000 per person – for residents racially profiled between mid-August 2017 and January 2019. In her decision, Poulin narrowed the scope to a six-month period running between 11 July 2018 and 11 January 2019.

With Tuesday’s decision, Lamontagne is owed C$5,000 and Poulin ordered the city to also pay out C$5,000 to people who were racially profiled and arrested without justification, including those unfairly profiled by a police task force that investigated members of street gangs.

Another group, “physically racialized people” whose rights were violated by police but the evidence wasn’t recorded, was awarded C$2,500.

“It is a decision that meets with reality,” Max Stanley Bazin, president of the Black Coalition, told the Montreal Gazette. “It truthfully addresses the reality of discrimination – that is to say, systemic racial profiling.”

While the city acknowledged both systemic biases and racial profiling in the police, senior officials insisted profiling was not a widespread tactic.

Poulin’s ruling found that members of racialized groups are over-represented in police stop and the “the plausible explanation for this disparity is the racial profiling that characterizes many arrests”.

It is unclear how many people will be entited to compensation. In a statement, the city staff were “currently analyzing the decision” and would not comment “out of respect for the legal process”.

Poulin’s judgement also reflects growing acknowledgement of widespread discrimination in the province.

In 2021, a Quebec coroner concluded that an Indigenous woman who was taunted by nursing staff as she lay dying in a Quebec hospital would probably be alive today if she were white, calling her treatment an an “undeniable” example of systemic racism.

An Italian antimafia priest who has been fighting for years against crime and drug-dealing in Rome has been subjected to a “violent mafioso attack” in the country’s capital.

Don Antonio Coluccia, 49, who lives under round-the-clock protection owing to numerous threats from criminal organisations, was reportedly assaulted on Sunday night with planks, bottles and sticks in the Quarticciolo district, of the capital, where he was leading an anti-crime march.

“Your time is running out – we will kill you,” someone is reported to have shouted from a window as the attack took place in the street below.

The priest, targeted by a Roman mafia group for his outspokenness and for having converted the confiscated home of a mafia boss into a home for poor people and drug addicts, was whisked to safety by officers from his security detail.

“I will return. I am committed to serving the city,” Coluccia told Roma Today on Tuesday after news of the attack was made public. “I will always strive for justice for the honest citizens residing in this neighbourhood. On Sunday, I had stopped to speak with some youths, then what happened happened. The situation here is dire.”

He added: “It is my duty to raise awareness in areas plagued by drugs, neglect, and decay.”

Luisa Regimenti, a security adviser for the Lazio region, said: “It was a violent mafioso attack. I am certain that Don Coluccia will not be intimidated but instead will redouble his efforts to restore dignity and hope to the many upstanding citizens living in the neighbourhood.”

This is not the first time Don Coluccia has faced aggression or threats from criminal groups. The violent warnings started in 2014, when Coluccia’s house and car were vandalised. In June 2015, two men opened fire on him, missing the cleric but slightly wounding a passerby.

In August 2023, a man attempted to run him over with a scooter in Tor Bella Monaca, a poor district in the outskirts of Rome. The assailant was later arrested for attempted murder. Last winter, in the same district, refuse bins were set ablaze within yards of where Coluccia was expected to be present.

Dozens of priests across Italy have been victims of attacks and intimidation by the mafia.

Father Maurizio Patriciello has been living under police protection since a bomb, accompanied by the message “get out of our way”, exploded last February by the gate of his church in Caivano, a town on the outskirts of Naples. The threat was the Camorra’s response to Patriciello’s battle against the mafia organisation’s illegal dumping of toxic waste across farmland in the Campania region of southern Italy.

Father Luigi Ciotti, another antimafia cleric, has been living under police escort for more than a decade. The priest founded the Libera organisation, which identifies and takes confiscated assets from the mafia and puts them to humanitarian use.

As the Sicilian mobster Marino Mannoia once told the FBI, members of the mafia consider themselves unpunishable – even before God – but they do fear a church that interferes with their business or points out the incompatibility between crime and the gospel.

In 1993, Father Pino Puglisi condemned the mafia in Palermo. He was killed on 15 September 1993, his 56th birthday. He was beatified in 2013.

In March 1994, Father Giuseppe Diana was killed by the Camorra in Casal di Principe, near Naples.

Volkswagen says it has “a year, maybe two” to adapt to a slump in European car sales, as it seeks to justify proposals to close factories in Germany for the first time in its history.

Separately, the Swedish automaker Volvo said it had ditched a target to sell only electric cars by 2030, opting instead to continue selling some petrol vehicles alongside battery models.

European carmakers are under pressure as they try to fund the switch from petrol and diesel to battery models. That ambition has come up against stuttering demand, as well as increasing competition from China.

Volkswagen told workers at a meeting at its Wolfsburg headquarters on Wednesday that it expected to sell 500,000 fewer vehicles than before the Covid pandemic, “the equivalent of around two plants”, and predicted sales would not return to levels seen in 2019.

Oliver Blume, Volkswagen Group’s chief executive, said he felt “emotional” about the decision to close the factories to save billions of euros in costs.

“The automotive industry has changed massively in the volume segment in just a few years. Together, we will implement appropriate measures to become more profitable. We are leading VW back to where the brand belongs – that is the responsibility of all of us,” he said.

Volkswagen disclosed the plans to shut two German factories – one making cars and one components – to its works council on Monday, prompting fury from staff representatives and politicians. Workers protested as they gathered to hear from management in Wolfsburg.

The closure plans present a significant problem for the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, whose governing coalition is under severe pressure after losing an election in the state of Thuringia to Alternative für Deutschland. It was the first time a state election had been won by a far-right party since the Nazi period.

Volkswagen was second only to Japan’s Toyota in 2023 vehicle sales. More than any other company, VW is emblematic of Germany’s mighty automotive industry, which has been one of the forces making the country Europe’s industrial heart. It employs 300,000 people in Germany out of a global workforce of 650,000.

However, Volkswagen and other European rivals were slow to embrace electric cars, which has put them at a disadvantage as rivals from China target Europe to sell their cheaper models.

Arno Antlitz, Volkswagen Group’s chief financial officer, said the carmaker had “a year, maybe two years, to turn things around”.

Volvo said on Wednesday it would aim for more than 90% of its global sales to be “electrified” by 2030, a definition that includes fully electric cars as well as plug-in hybrids that combine a smaller battery with a polluting petrol engine. It said this would mean higher carbon emissions per car: a planned drop of 75% in emissions, compared with 2018, would instead become 65%.

“We are resolute in our belief that our future is electric,” said Jim Rowan, the chief executive of Volvo Cars. “An electric car provides a superior driving experience and increases possibilities for using advanced technologies that improve the overall customer experience.

“However, it is clear that the transition to electrification will not be linear, and customers and markets are moving at different speeds of adoption. We are pragmatic and flexible, while retaining an industry-leading position on electrification and sustainability.”

Volkswagen said Europe’s car sales would not return to the 16m sold across the market in 2019 – before the pandemic disturbed global supply chains, and semiconductor computer chip shortages, in particular, slowed car production.

“The market in Europe has recovered since then but will not return to its former level,” Antlitz said. “We expect around 14m vehicles to be sold per year in the future, if at all. And that has nothing to do with our products or poor sales performance. The market is simply no longer there.”

Antlitz spoke of financial problems at the Volkswagen brand, in particular. “We have been spending more money at the brand than we earn for some time now. That doesn’t go well in the long term. If we carry on like this, we won’t succeed in the transformation.”

Animal rights groups have said that gunfire killed a beluga whale that rose to fame in Norway after its unusual harness sparked suspicions the creature was trained by Russia as a spy.

The organisations Noah and One Whale said they had filed a complaint with Norwegian police asking them to open a criminal investigation.

Nicknamed Hvaldimir in a pun on the Norwegian word for whale, hval, and the first name of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the white beluga first appeared off the coast in Norway’s far-northern Finnmark region in 2019.

He was found dead on Saturday in a bay Norway’s south-western coast.

His body was transported on Monday to a local branch of the Norwegian Veterinary Institute for autopsy.

The report is expected “within three weeks”, a spokesperson for the institute said.

Regina Crosby Haug, the head of One Whale, who said she hadd viewed Hvaldimir’s body on Monday, told AFP: “He had multiple bullet wounds around his body.”

One Whale was founded to track the beluga, which had become a celebrity in Norway.

“The injuries on the whale are alarming and of a nature that cannot rule out a criminal act – it is shocking,” the Noah director, Siri Martinsen, said.

“Given the suspicion of a criminal act, it is crucial that the police are involved quickly,” she said.

A third organisation that also tracked the whale’s movements, Marine Mind, said it found Hvaldimir’s body floating in the water on Saturday.

“There was nothing to immediately reveal the cause of death,” director Sebastian Strand told AFP. “We saw markings but it’s too early to say what they were.”

He said some of the markings were probably caused by marine birds, but there was no explanation for others at this stage.

With an estimated age of 15 to 20, Hvaldimir was relatively young for a beluga whale, which can live to between 40 and 60 years of age.

When he was found in 2019, Norwegian marine biologists removed a manmade harness with a mount suited for an action camera and the words “Equipment St. Petersburg” printed in English on the plastic clasps.

Norwegian officials said Hvaldimir may have escaped an enclosure and may have been trained by the Russian navy as he was accustomed to humans.

Moscow has never issued any official reaction to speculation that he could be a “Russian spy”.