Sir Keir Starmer ousted Sue Gray as his chief of staff on Sunday after she lost a power struggle at the heart of Downing Street.

Ms Gray has been shifted to a part-time role as the Prime Minister’s envoy for the “regions and nations”, given a pay cut and will no longer report directly to Sir Keir, just weeks after it was revealed she had a higher salary than he did.

Morgan McSweeney, a longstanding Labour insider who ran the successful general election campaign, has been appointed in her place after a rumoured battle between the two for control in Downing Street.

Allies of his were made deputy chief of staff in a series of co-ordinated appointments that appeared to have been carefully planned by Number 10. 

Downing Street also filled the vacant role of Sir Keir’s principal private secretary, a key position that Ms Gray had been expected to help recruit herself.

The overhaul of a Downing Street set-up still only three months old comes as the Prime Minister tries to draw a line under weeks of headlines about infighting and leaks, with Ms Gray at the centre of a storm of negative briefing.

One government insider said Ms Gray had become “a convenient punchbag for everything that has gone wrong”. A former Tory government adviser described her demotion as “pretty extraordinary”.

Sir Keir also appointed a head of strategic communications as he fights to regain control of the media narrative before a “painful” Budget later this month expected to include sweeping tax rises.

Ms Gray’s departure was presented as her own decision, with a quote issued in her name saying she had “chosen” to go after becoming a distraction, while Sir Keir praised the impact she has had.

But The Telegraph has talked to multiple sources with direct knowledge of developments who believe it was the Prime Minister who asked Ms Gray to move on.

Ms Gray told allies early last week she was not going anywhere. A change of stance from Sir Keir appears to have led to 48 hours of intense discussions about her departure.

Just days earlier, sources close to Ms Gray had stressed the pivotal nature of her role by emphasising that she was set to give advice on who should become cabinet secretary, ambassador to the US, national security adviser and the head of the Prime Minister’s private office in the coming weeks.

It is possible that Ms Gray, who had been paid £170,000 as chief of staff, compared to Sir Keir’s £167,000, may not get a salary at all in her new role.

‘Who will run the country now?’

Number 10 declined to comment on pay. Whether she will be paid for what is understood to be a part-time position is yet to be confirmed.

A Conservative Party spokesman said Sir Keir’s government had been “thrown into chaos”, adding: “The only question that remains is who will run the country now?”

Ms Gray had joined Sir Keir’s team in opposition as chief of staff in September 2023, prompting Tory fury given that as a civil servant she investigated Boris Johnson and his team for Covid lockdown-breaking parties. The scandal contributed to Mr Johnson’s resignation as prime minister.

Her influence in Downing Street has been the subject of intense press scrutiny, especially since the leaking of her salary last month, which indicated briefing wars inside Number 10.

The announcement of her ousting came at lunchtime on Sunday.

Sir Keir is said to have been considering a shake-up of his team for two weeks since the end of Labour conference.

A source told the Financial Times that he had been “chastened” by the depth of discontent within the party and increasingly concerned that Ms Gray had “become the story”.

Ms Gray said alongside the official announcement: “I am pleased to have accepted a new role as the Prime Minister’s envoy for the regions and nations.”

She added: “It has been an honour to take on the role of chief of staff, and to play my part in the delivery of a Labour government. Throughout my career, my first interest has always been public service.

“However, in recent weeks it has become clear to me that intense commentary around my position risked becoming a distraction to the government’s vital work of change. It is for that reason I have chosen to stand aside, and I look forward to continuing to support the Prime Minister in my new role.”

Sir Keir said: “I want to thank Sue for all the support she has given me, both in opposition and government, and her work to prepare us for government and get us started on our programme of change.

“Sue has played a vital role in strengthening our relations with the regions and nations. I am delighted that she will continue to support that work.”

Ms Gray’s new role will be connected to the Cabinet Office, where she was working years ago before quitting to join the Labour team, rather than Number 10.

She will be focused on trying to keep the UK together – an issue close to her heart having served in senior positions in the Northern Ireland executive – and pushing forward devolution.

McSweeney heads up new team

Mr McSweeney, credited with a ruthlessly efficient election campaign that won Labour a vast House of Commons majority, will become the new chief of staff.

He had been in charge of political strategy in Downing Street. Vidhya Alakeson, who had been working in Mr McSweeney’s team, will become a deputy chief of staff. Jill Cuthbertson, director of Sir Keir’s office while in opposition, has also been made deputy chief of staff.

Nin Pandit, a former chief of staff to the chief executive of the NHS, has become Sir Keir’s principal private secretary.

James Lyons, a former NHS director of communications who had been a political journalist with the Daily Mirror and The Sunday Times, will head up a new strategic communications team in Downing Street.

John McDonnell, who was Labour shadow chancellor under Jeremy Corbyn, said: “We’re facing the potential of a war setting the Middle East alight, already thousands are being killed in Lebanon. What is the focus of the boys around Keir Starmer’s office? Carving up Sue Gray and grabbing her job and salary. Words fail me.”

On Sunday night Tory leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch said Sir Keir showed a “lack of integrity” by hiring MsGray while she was still a neutral civil servant. 

She wrote in the Daily Mail: “When I worked with Sue Gray (who, by the way, I quite like), she tried to pressure me into dropping my opposition to the SNP’s crazy Gender Recognition Bill.

“Ignoring Sue Gray’s advice turned out to be one of my best decisions. Hiring her, however, will go down as one of Starmer’s worst – because it shows that Labour has no principles.” 

Nearly 1000 migrants crossed the Channel in small boats on Saturday, the highest number this year.

A total of 973 migrants in 17 boats reached the UK, beating the previous record for 2024 – which was 882 people on 18 June.

It comes as French authorities said four people died while attempting to cross the Channel on Saturday – including a two-year-old boy who was “trampled to death”. The other victims were a woman and two men. They died in “two tragedies” on small boats, according to the prefect of the Pas-de-Calais region in northern France.

The four deaths mean more than 40 migrants have died trying to cross the Channel this year, four times the number for the whole of last year.

Jacques Billant, prefect of Pas-de-Calais region, said the French coastguard had responded to a boat carrying almost 90 people, which suffered engine failure.

Fifteen people were transferred to a tow vessel, including the boy, who was unconscious. A medical team was sent by helicopter, but he was pronounced dead.

He was “trampled to death”, French interior minister Bruno Retailleau said on X.

He added: “The people smugglers have the blood of these people on their hands and our government will intensify the fight against these mafias who are getting rich by organising these crossings of death.”

Saturday’s total takes the number to be picked up in two days to 1,368.

It means 13,038 migrants in 230 boats have crossed the Channel since Labour came into power in July.

A total of 26,612 in 503 boats have now made the crossing so far this year, more than at the same point last year but down on the record year of 2022.

Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister and Tory leadership contender, said: “This is the highest number crossing the Channel in a single day for years.

“Starmer needs to rip up his dangerous so-called ‘plan’ on small boats. Our country’s security is at stake.

“He wants to lock up the criminals and terror suspects after they’ve got here – we should be stopping them in the first place.”

Labour is poised to U-turn on plans to tax investors after discovering the policy could have a “net cost to the exchequer”, according to reports.

In its manifesto, the party pledged to stop private equity investors from paying capital gains tax rates of 28 per cent on the money they make, and instead force them to pay 45 per cent income tax rates.

Sir Keir Starmer claimed the policy could raise £560 million but investment firms warned it could backfire and drive millions of pounds out of the UK to save it from the tax grab.

Further analysis by the Government has now come to a similar conclusion, it is understood, suggesting the policy could cost the Treasury hundreds of millions of pounds a year instead of raising any money.

The analysis, carried out by the Treasury, found it would incur a “net cost to the exchequer” of as much as £350 million a year after five years.

This was because wealthy individuals were more likely to leave the UK than pay the higher rates, The Times reported.

A government source told the newspaper: “We are absolutely in the revenue-raising maximising space rather than doing things for ideological reasons.”

In June, before Labour came to power, Rachel Reeves, then shadow chancellor, told the Financial Times: “I don’t think it is right that … what is essentially a bonus is taxed at a lower rate than employment income”.

The Chancellor did also say the Government would exempt private equity bosses who risked their own capital.

The tax break has allowed private equity fund managers to pay capital gains tax on some of their profits, rather than the higher rate of income tax, for decades.

Called “carried interest”, the tax loophole has seen firms earn more than £780 billion since 2000, according to a paper by Ludovic Phalippou, an Oxford School of Business professor.

Earlier this year, a report by investment bank Investec warned that nearly a third of private equity investors would relocate outside of the country if Labour’s tax policy went ahead.

The Government’s U-turn on taxing investors follows a similar decision by Ms Reeves to soften promises of a crackdown on non-doms.

Last month, it emerged the Chancellor was considering abandoning her pledge to abolish non-dom status altogether over fears it may fail to raise any money.

Labour had pledged to end the tax perk for wealthy residents who are domiciled overseas in its manifesto, hoping the policy would raise £1 billion a year.

A Treasury spokesman said: “We do not comment on speculation around tax changes outside of fiscal events.”

An Israeli border guard has been killed in a terror attack at a bus station on the eve of the Oct 7 anniversary.

Officials named the victim as Sgt Shira Chaya Soslik, a 25-year-old working for Israel’s south military police.

At least 10 others were injured in the stabbing attack in the southern city of Be’er Sheva before the suspect was shot dead.

It follows a terror attack at a railway station near Tel Aviv last week as Israel continues its invasion of Lebanon and bombardment of Gaza.

The suspect, a Bedouin from the country’s southern Negev region, was killed by off-duty soldiers at the scene, around Be’er Sheva’s central bus station.

According to Israel’s Ynet news outlet, the terrorist had a criminal record and belonged to the family of Mohannad al Okbi, who carried out a terror attack that killed a soldier at the central station in Be’er Sheva in October 2015. He was said to be in contact with Hamas.

Hamas praised the killing in Be’er Sheva, branding it “heroic”.

Walid al Huashla, a Bedouin parliament member, quickly distanced the community from the attack. The Bedouin community largely stay away from terror activities, with several also voluntarily joining the army. “This is not the way of Bedouin society,” he said.

However, Bedouin areas in Israel’s south are still home to Gazans from the time when there was free movement between Israel and Gaza.

‘Huge chaos’

Paramedics said they arrived to find “huge chaos” at the scene of Sunday’s attacks.

Speaking to Israel’s Ynet, Rubik Danilovich, the mayor of Be’er Sheva, said at the scene: “This is a cold-blooded killer … We as a city are doing everything to return life to full normality. We are in challenging and sensitive days, please be vigilant.”

Itamar Ben Gvir, the national security minister, was met with shouts of “You have failed! Resign!” from the crowd when he arrived at the scene of the attack.

Unfazed, the hard-Right parliamentarian and lawyer said: “There are a lot of Bedouin loyal to the state, but there are some who are not loyal. Those who are not loyal should have their houses destroyed … I call on the prime minister today to pass the law that we proposed for deporting families of terrorists.”

Ismail Haniyeh, the assassinated Hamas leader, has a sister in the small community of Israel’s desert region, married to a local Bedouin.

In April, the prosecutor’s office submitted an indictment against Sabah Abdel Salam Haniyeh, who was arrested in March on suspicion of support of a terrorist organisation and incitement. She was accused of sending dozens of Whatsapp messages after October 7 praising the attacks.

Sunday’s attack happened as Israel was already on high alert on the eve of the first anniversary of the October 7 atrocities and just days after a terror attack in the mixed city of Jaffa killed seven people.a

Melania Trump has said she understands why people do not like her husband’s social media posts but has insisted he “needs to fight back.”

Asked what she would want to say to women who might have a certain impression of Donald Trump, the former First Lady said he is “passionate” and “warm.”

“I understand that maybe sometimes they see him tough and some tweets, maybe they would not like it, and they didn’t like it,” Mrs. Trump, 54, told Fox News.

In her latest interview to promote her memoir, Melania, which will be released on Tuesday, she added: “I understand that, but he needs to fight back, too. When he’s attacked, he needs to fight back.”

Asked about a passage in the book in which she reveals she is pro-choice, a position at odds with the Republican presidential candidate, Mrs. Trump said her husband has known about her views on abortion “since the day we met.”

The mother-of-one’s personal beliefs have riled some of Trump’s pro-life supporters who have claimed she is “wrong” and hurting her husband’s campaign.

Others have suggested the publication has been purposefully timed by the Trump campaign to soften his image with female voters ahead of the election.

Defending the timing, Mrs. Trump said the book “was written months before” and her husband “knew” that the chapter about abortion would be in the book.

In the interview, Mrs. Trump also claimed she was the victim of a “canceling project” when a university refused to accept her donation for foster children after she left the White House.

“Because of the board directors, they call back, they find out that it was me… They said: ‘We cannot go on’,” Mrs. Trump said, adding: “And it’s very, very sad, because who suffered? They were children from [the] foster community.”

She added: “They didn’t want to do business with me because of political affiliation, my political beliefs.”

‘Donald calls my doctor’

Mrs. Trump also described how her bank said they could no longer “do business” with her and an email distribution service provider “abruptly” ended their agreement.

While she did not name the university, it was previously reported that Holberton School, a software engineering university in Tulsa, Oklahoma, had declined a donation from Mrs. Trump.

Julien Barbier, the chief executive of the school, said at the time they had not been able to “reach an agreement on the logistics of the scholarship.”

In her upcoming memoir, Mrs. Trump also gives an insight into her relationship with her husband, revealing that he calls her personal doctor to check up on her health.

According to The Daily Beast, which obtained an early copy of the book, she said as she got to know her future husband she discovered that he was a “gentleman, displaying tenderness and thoughtfulness.”

She adds: “For example, Donald to this day calls my personal doctor to check in on my health, to ensure that I am okay and that they are taking perfect care of me.

“He isn’t flashy or dramatic, just genuine and caring.”

Mrs. Trump also discloses that false claims about her son Barron being autistic led to him being bullied and caused “irreparable harm.”

A viral video in November 2016, when Barron was 10, claimed to show the former US president’s youngest child displaying signs of autism spectrum disorder.

At the time, comedian Rosie O’Donnell wrote on Twitter: “Barron Trump autistic? If so, what an amazing opportunity to bring attention to the AUTISM epidemic.”

Addressing the allegations, Mrs. Trump writes: “I was appalled by such cruelty.

“It was clear to me that she was not interested in raising awareness about autism. I felt that she was attacking my son because she didn’t like my husband.”

Mrs. Trump adds: “There is nothing shameful about autism (though O’Donnell’s tweet implied that there was), but Barron is not autistic.”

She accuses Ms. O’Donnell of “sheer malice,” and calls it “devastating as a parent.”

“It felt like my heart was breaking into pieces.”

Ms. O’Donnell later deleted the tweet and apologized.

Mrs. Trump adds: “Barron’s experience of being bullied both online and in real life following the incident is a clear indication of the irreparable damage caused.”

Grandparents are avoiding booking holidays so they can save money to give to their grandchildren, a new survey suggests.

One in seven grandparents (16 per cent) are forfeiting holidays so they can financially support their youngest loved ones, the poll commissioned by cruise company Ambassador Cruise Line indicated.

The survey suggested other ways grandparents are making sacrifices so they can pass on more cash include holding back on socialising with friends (12 per cent) and remortgaging their home (8 per cent).

The poll also indicated 40 per cent of people in the UK have turned to their grandparents for money, while grandparents who spend time looking after their grandchildren clock up an average of 24.6 hours of childcare per month even though 38 per cent receive nothing in return.

Ambassador Cruise Line has launched a campaign for Grandparents’ Day – which falls on Sunday – to be afforded the same status as Mother’s Day and Father’s Day.

Christian Verhounig, chief executive of the company, which caters primarily for the over-50s market, said: “Grandparents are the anchors of the family and Ambassador Cruise Line wants to provide a platform for people to recognise how important they truly are.

“Grandparents offer valuable wisdom, comfort and lessons to the younger generation, as well as support in times of need.

“We are proud to champion this amazing generation.”

The survey of 2,100 UK adults was conducted by research company Mortar Research in September.

The British mountaineer rescued from an unsummited Himalayan mountain has told The Telegraph she feared she would die after being stranded in a -15C snowstorm.

Fay Manners, 37, and her American friend Michelle Dvorak, 31, lost almost all of their equipment, food and water in a rockfall on Thursday as they tried to become the first people to summit the 6,995-metre Chaukhamba III in India.

The professional climbers were left to survive for two nights in temperatures as low as -15C in nothing but a sleeping bag and could only watch as a rescue helicopter flew by twice without spotting them.

They were found on Saturday by a team of French mountaineers who were in the area for their own attempt on the remote peak – which Ms Manners said was a “small miracle”.

She told The Telegraph: “What would have happened if those climbers had not come to rescue us?

“We would have either frozen to death or attempted to cross the steep glaciers without the right equipment and slipped to our peril.”

Ms Manners and Ms Dvorak set out on their expedition to climb Chaukhamba III from a base camp on the nearby Satopanth Glacier on Sept 27.

But six days later, on Thursday, they were climbing up a rock spur 700 metres below the summit when a sudden rockfall severed a rope they were using to haul a rucksack behind them.

“I watched the bag tumble down the mountain and I immediately knew the consequence of what was to come,” Ms Manners said.

The bag contained the pair’s tent and stove and all of Ms Manners’ warm clothing, crampons and ice axes, meaning they were now in danger of freezing, starving or falling to their deaths in crevasses if they tried to cross the glacier to get back to base camp.

‘My body was running out of energy’

“We found a ledge, it started snowing and we luckily had our double sleeping bag in the other bag we could crawl into for that night. I was freezing, my down trousers, thicker socks and all the warmer clothes I had in my bag for the evenings were no longer accessible.”

That night, having sent out an emergency SOS, they survived a -15C snowstorm.

“I felt hypothermic, constantly shaking and with the lack of food my body was running out of energy to keep warm,” Ms Manners recalled.

On Friday, she and Ms Dvorak saw a rescue helicopter approach – but it flew by without spotting them.

Fearing that no one would be able to rescue them in the “brutal” conditions, they decided to descend the mountain themselves.

But progress was slow because of their lack of equipment and they were forced to survive another night in just the sleeping bag.

“Saturday morning came, we both barely survived the night,” Ms Manners said. “The helicopter flew past again but couldn’t see us. We were destroyed and we were losing faith.”

As they continued their descent – during which Ms Manners said she thought of nothing but “solutions on how we could survive” – a team of three experienced French mountaineers were searching for them.

The trio – Palin Clovis, Jacques Olivier Chevallier and Vivien Berlaud – had been aiming to summit Chaukhamba III themselves but gave up to find the missing women after being alerted to their peril by one of Ms Manners’ friends.

“As we were abseiling down on Saturday we could see a team of climbers coming up the mountain towards us,” Ms Manners said.

“When we reached them, they said they were there to help us and I cried with relief knowing we might survive.

“They supported us to get across the steep glacier that would have been impossible without our equipment, crampons and ice axes.

“They gave us their tent and sleeping bags, gave us water and food and finally told the helicopter where to come and collect us.”

At 7am local time on Sunday (2.30am BST), an Indian air force helicopter landed at 5,300 metres above sea level on the Panpatia Bank Glacier and airlifted Ms Manners and Ms Dvorak to safety in Joshimath, a town 21 miles to the south-east.

Col Madan Gurung, who co-ordinated the rescue operation for the Indian Mountaineering Foundation (IMF), said the women were found to be “exhausted” but in otherwise “perfectly fine” health.

“Their experience as mountaineers helped them conserve food and energy, which was crucial for their survival over the 55 hours they were stranded,” he said.

From Joshimath, Ms Manners is travelling to New Delhi where she plans to “eat plenty of local food, relax my mind and sleep as much as possible” over the coming days.

But despite her brush with death, the professional climber, who has opened eight new mountain routes in the past eight years, has no plans to give up mountaineering.

“I want to go home and go climbing in Europe in the sun,” she said. “But I will avoid the big mountains until the winter comes.”

The mother of the only British hostage still captive in Gaza said her daughter had been forgotten by Britain as she called on the Government to push for her release.

Mandy Damari’s 28-year-old British daughter, Emily, was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists from her village in southern Israel on Oct 7 last year.

On the eve of the first anniversary of the largest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, Mrs Damari appealed to the Government not to let her daughter or the other 100 innocent people still being held hostage “continue to be tortured or even murdered”.

She said: “I implore those in power here to use every ounce of influence they have to advocate for the release of all the hostages, and to secure the release of their UK citizen.”

No 10 has repeatedly called for a ceasefire in Gaza and for both sides to reach an agreement to release the remaining hostages.

Some 100 hostages are thought to be held in Gaza still as Israel and the world prepares to mark the first anniversary of the kidnappings. Mrs Damari said she feared her daughter had been “forgotten”.

Given her daughter’s dual British-Israeli citizenship, Mrs Damari told the crowd in Hyde Park, central London: “How is it that she is still imprisoned there after one year?

“Why isn’t the whole world, especially Britain, fighting every moment to secure her release? She is one of their own. But her plight seems to have been forgotten.

“I know we could and should be doing more. I, and everyone else has failed her, and the only way to make us all feel whole again is to get Emily and all the 101 hostages back to their families.”

She implored the British public not to forget her “beautiful, charismatic” daughter locked away in Hamas tunnels.

“Emily, is 28 years old, full of life, with dual nationality, British and Israeli. She is a daughter of both countries, but no one here mentions the fact that there is still a female British hostage being held captive by Hamas for a year now, and I sometimes wonder if people even know there is a British woman there,” she said.

In the early hours of Oct 7 Emily was kidnapped from her home of Kibbutz Kfar Aza, a village near the Gaza border, where she was born and raised.

Her beloved golden cockapoo, Choocha, was shot dead in her arms, and she was left with a gunshot wound to the hand.

At the commemorative event in central London organised by leading Jewish community groups, Mrs Damari asked the crowd to “imagine for a moment” that Emily was their daughter.

“Try to picture what she is going through. Since Oct 7  last year, she has been held a hostage by Hamas terrorists in the Gaza terror tunnels, 20 metres or more underground, kept in captivity, tortured, isolated, unable to eat, speak or even move without someone else’s permission. Stripped of every human right. It is almost impossible to comprehend her pain. Yet it is the reality she is living every single day.”

Mrs Damari was born in Surrey and brought up in Beckenham, south London. She told the crowd that she was “raised with the great British ideals of pubs, parties and freedom”.

Emily has British citizenship as it is automatically passed down one generation from Mrs Damari, who feels she has been let down by the British Government.

Mrs Damari told the crowd that the women and children hostages who came back last November, when the last ceasefire deal was reached, said that Emily was alive then.

She says: “They told me that some of them had met her while they were being moved around, some for short periods, some for longer. But they all told me about her bravery and courage and even her laughter and the way she helped hold everyone together even in the worst times. One even said she sang a song every morning called ‘boker shel kef’ – which means ‘it’s a great morning’, despite the darkness.”

But she added: “But who knows? I’m sure she’s not singing now. I keep thinking of the six hostages that were murdered hours before they were discovered by the IDF. About Eden Yerushalmi who weighed just 32 kilos. In the tunnel they were kept in, there was no room to stand up in and hardly any air to breathe, with just a bucket to relieve themselves in.”

She expressed the pain the family was in: “Every day is a living hell, not knowing what Emily is going through. I do know from the hostages that returned that they were starved, sexually abused and tortured.

“Every moment lost is another moment of unimaginable suffering or even death.

“Please, I ask of you all, and also the British government, do not let my daughter Emily Damari or the other innocent people held hostage continue to be tortured or even murdered. I implore those in power here to use every ounce of influence they have to advocate for the release of all the hostages, and to secure the release of their UK citizen.

“We must all stand on the side of humanity, life, justice and freedom and act with urgency and determination to obtain the release of Emily and the other hostages now. Please help us to return them home before it’s too late for them all. We must act now.”

Mrs Damari has also shared a message that she handed to the Prime Minister in Downing Street on Monday.

She hopes the note will reach her daughter when she is “alive and home” with her family, but said that if she reads it in Gaza “know that we all love you and miss you and are sick with worry about what is happening to you every day and we are praying and meeting whoever we can to get you back home”.

Mrs Damari goes on to strengthen her daughter’s resolve, writing: “Please keep strong, keep praying and just be your beautiful self that I love to the moon and back.

The heartfelt note ends with a promise to her young daughter: “You will come home. And I promise that I’ll never complain again about your perfume sticking to me when you’re home.”

At the No 10 meeting, the mother instructed Sir Keir Starmer to get the message to Emily by any means possible – and asked the Government to do far more to bring her home.

She also asked that every time the Government mentions the hostages they must mention Emily specifically.

Sunday’s event was organised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Jewish Leadership Council, and UJIA – a British charity supporting vulnerable communities in Israel – working with Israel’s embassy in London.

Hassan Nasrallah is dead. The Hezbollah he led is in tatters. Israel and Iran stand on the brink of all out, devastating war. For the optimists, it is the supreme opportunity. 

The Iranian regime will fall “sooner than people think,” as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put it in an address to the Iranian public (delivered in English).

“When that day comes, the terror network that the regime built in five continents will be bankrupt, dismantled,” he announced. “Our two ancient peoples, the Jewish people and the Persian people, will finally be at peace.”

“Israel has now its greatest opportunity in 50 years, to change the face of the Middle East,” Naftali Bennet, former prime minister and perennial Netanyahu rival, wrote after Iran fired rockets at Israel on Tuesday night. “The leadership of Iran, which used to be good at chess, made a terrible mistake this evening.

“We must act now to destroy Iran’s nuclear program, its central energy facilities, and to fatally cripple this terrorist regime.”

It’s not just the politicians who are pushing for a decisive, region-changing war. There’s also a large constituency inside Israel who believe things must change fundamentally, and via airstrike and infantry assault if necessary.

It is driven by a cocktail of fatigue, years of conflict, cynicism about the moribund peace-process, and fury and fear at the slaughter perpetrated on October 7 last year.

“Look at it this way,” said Major Moshiko Giat, a veteran IDF special forces officer who fought in the last war in Lebanon (in 2006). Israel is surrounded by people who “want to kill you. To butcher you. They proved it on the seventh of October. They’re proving it in various other examples.

“So to come and tell me, ‘Listen, I gained 18, 20, 25 years of peace.’ What’s the meaning of that? That in another 10 years, maybe 15 years, they’ll come back? Yes. So probably my son, or my daughter, or my granddaughter or my future family are going to be at risk? Yes.

“Why? Why? Why can’t we actually get to some thought that it’s going to be different?”

Major Giat’s preferred answer to changing the paradigm is to “teach them a lesson by telling them Israel is here forever” in such a way even the terror groups will acknowledge.  

For many Israelis there is an obvious emotive appeal to finally beheading the snake (or decapitating the “octopus”, as Bennett put it). But beyond Israel’s borders, allies fear doing so my prompt a catastrophic, even nuclear, bloodbath. 

So with the region on the brink, which fate awaits. 

‘If you play this game, you have to pick between peace and war’

In some ways, the conflict between Iran and Israel makes no sense at all. They share no land border or territorial quarrels, they have common historic enemies in the form of the Sunni Arab monarchies, and the general public in Iran does not really share the anti-Israel animus of the regime.

After all, it was Cyrus the Great who freed the Jews from Babylonian captivity. Before the 1979 revolution, the two countries were quite close allies.

But the Islamic Republic of Iran “has never really been a project about how Iran should be,” says Arash Azizi, author of What Iranians Want. “It has always been a project about how the world should be: a world without Israel and in which the United States is not a power broker.”

“It’s Bader-Meinhoff meets Nasserism. But Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamaeni is the last of the revolutionary generation who really believes in this stuff,” explained Mr Azizi.  

Perhaps that is why yesterday, at a rare address to Iranians at Friday prayers, Khamenei said that Israel “will not last long”.

Faced with overwhelmingly superior enemies in the United States and Israel, and a population with bitter memories of all-out war with Iraq in the 1980s, he has long advocated “strategic patience” – spending billions on building an “Axis of Resistance” that at an unspecified date in the future would finally eliminate Israel, but which for now would foment revolution and act as a forward line of defence for the Iranian homeland and regime.

It is a vision with obvious parallels to revolutionary Soviet ideology of the 20th century. And to borrow another phrase of that era, it is now falling apart under its internal contradictions.

“Since 2019, Iran’s policy was no war, no peace. It’s a bit like the Israeli idea of de-escalation through escalation – it’s too smart by half, and it turns out there is no such a thing as no war, no peace, and that if you play this game, you have to pick between peace and war,” said Mr Azizi.

“And that’s exactly where Khamenei is. Now, he has to pick between peace and war. The problem is, peace means giving away his anti-Zionist street cred, and war means destruction of his regime.”

Mr Azizi says his military contacts in Iran are genuinely worried. Hezbollah was the jewel in the crown of the Axis, its massive rocket arsenal viewed as Iran’s principal non-nuclear deterrent against Israel – and most specifically against potential Israeli strikes on Tehran’s nuclear facilities.

It is now in tatters and Iran does not have much of an airforce to meet an Israeli strike on the homeland. The hawkish Mr Bennet is right: Iran is more exposed than at any time in recent history. So obvious is the danger that some hardliners in Tehran have even denounced Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader who planned and executed the October 7 massacre, as a “Zionist spy”.

“A former official of the Ahmadenijad government said it, and he didn’t face any blow back for it,” said Mr Azizi. “Iran is crazy with conspiracy theories. But in reality the conspiracy theories reflect a truth, and the truth is the October 7 attack has proved the undoing of the Axis in many ways.”

So far, the Iranians have tried to walk a very narrow line. Bizarre as it is, the hope in Tehran seems to have been that Tuesday night’s 200-missile barrage against Israel would be seen as restrained, within the rules, and even responsible.

As with the last Iranian attack on Israel in April they signalled it well in advance and gave Israel and its allies time to evacuate key targets and intercept many of the rockets. Only one person, a Palestinian man in the West Bank, was killed.

It even wrote a letter to the United Nations Security Council saying it acted “in full compliance with the principle of distinction under international humanitarian law, has only targeted the regime’s military and security installations with its defensive missile strikes”.

“If you read some of the statements made by Iranians in the past 24 hours after the attack, it’s pretty clear what they are saying is ‘we would like to draw a line under this,” Sir Simon Cass, a former British ambassador to Tehran and nuclear negotiator, said this week.

“They found themselves in an impossible position. If they didn’t respond to the killing of Nasrallah they would look weak. That always worries the Iranians, that people will take them lightly. On the other hand if you do respond, what is the risk that you pull the roof in down on your own head?

“I think they would like to de-escalate. But my word, that is going to be very difficult to do.”

Nuclear tipping point

For Israeli hawks, that is all the more reason to act now. But this is where Israel, once again, differs sharply from many of its allies.

Until now it was thought (or hoped) by many Western watchers of Iran that the regime was content to remain just below the nuclear threshold.

It was a logical way of having some of the diplomatic leverage of nuclear deterrence without incurring the massive international punishments that actually building a bomb would incur.

That’s hardly an ideal situation, but it gave some space for diplomats like Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, to keep talks going in a bid to avert possible proliferation.

For many Western governments, giving Iran a reason to abandon that cautious stance and actually build a weapon is the opposite of good statecraft.

But with its non-nuclear deterrent exposed as a paper tiger, Mr Netanyahu calling for regime change, and the United States and Israel more or less publicly debating a strike on Iranian oil facilities, that calculation could change.

Strikes on refineries would be much more disruptive and dangerous for Iran’s economy and public – and hence for the survival of the regime – than the destruction of the nuclear labs.

Which means at this point, regime insiders would not have to share the Supreme Leader’s revolutionary anti-Zionism to see the case for a nuclear insurance policy.

In theory, it wouldn’t take them long. Iran is believed to have enough near-weapons grade uranium to build a bomb in months, if not weeks, of choosing to do so. They already have the long-range missiles to tip with the warheads.

That does not mean there would be a nuclear war – although there might well be. The enduringly weird point of nuclear weapons is that they are not meant to be used, and with the exception of the end of the Second World War, they never have been.

Perhaps Iran and Israel, which has long had its own unacknowledged nuclear arsenal, would just end up locked in a Cold-War style missile standoff. That would probably suit the regime in Tehran, clearly the weaker side in the current war.

But they would not remain the only members of the Middle Eastern nuclear club for long. Saudi Arabia has been explicit about its own intention to seek a bomb if Iran gets one, for example.

And it is not just the Saudis. Mr Grossi of the IAEA told the Telegraph in July that several “other countries in the region” have said they too would seek a deterrent. “The moment you have two or three countries with nuclear weapons, the possibility of their use is very high,” he warned.

A grand bargain for peace

There is another view of how this ends. “History would tell that you’re never wrong if you take a pessimistic view,” said Alastair Burt, a former UK minister for the Middle East who has spent years wrestling with the topic of a two-state solution.

“But I have written fairly regularly since October the seventh, on the basis that this is now so awful, and we are never going back to October the sixth, that only something positive can come out of it.”

“By that, I mean  that whether or not you agree that the Palestinian issue is the central issue in the region, it is certainly used as a cause for those who can hitch their wagon to it, to make their case for a Middle East which is anti-West, anti-American.

“Now that it’s very clear that if normalisation of Israeli ties with UAE and Saudi is to mean anything at all, it has to encompass a Palestinian dimension. I see in that an opportunity.”

Arab nations insist they are prepared to do their part. Only this week, Ayman Safadi, the Jordanian foreign minister, vented his frustration at the United Nations. “Ask any Israeli official what is their plan for peace, and you’ll get nothing,” he said. “We are members of the Muslim Arab Committee, mandated by 57 Arab and Muslim countries, and I can tell you unequivocally that all of us are willing, right now, to guarantee the security of Israel in the context of Israel ending the occupation [of the West Bank] and allowing for the emergence of a Palestinian state.”

Trust is low on all sides, making a deal almost impossibly hard to secure, but Joe Biden’s White House is putting huge effort into making it work. 

The grand bargain envisioned by the Americans and Saudis, among others, goes something like this: To cement the peace gained by a ceasefire and release of hostages, Israel would commit to an arrangement for a two-state solution leading to a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.

Saudi Arabia and the other neighbouring Arab states would in turn guarantee Israeli security and shoulder the cost of rebuilding the new Palestinian state, including in Gaza.

A cleverly-structured deal in which the benefits of peace ratchet up and offer a clear, non-violent path to the goal of a Palestinian state would put the terror groups out of business. Hamas or Hezbollah would have the option of putting on suits and attempting to govern legitimately, or fading into irrelevance.

Israel would get security and the Palestinians would get a state and reconstruction. Israel, its Sunni Arab neighbours and the United States would form a single security bloc against Tehran.

The Gulf states would get their own benefits. America has reportedly offered sweeteners, including a bilateral security guarantee and civilian nuclear technology for the Saudis.

And for America, it would have the added benefit of rebottling the Iranian genie it unleashed with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, which opened the door to the westward expansion of Iranian influence into Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. 

This neat solution is highly appealing to those who view international relations as a clever parlour game.

The problem with that idea is selling it to the people on the ground. The two-state solution is very popular among western politicians and diplomats, acknowledges Mr Burt, but not so much with people on the ground.

Maj Giat rather gloomily complains that outsiders do not understand the mentality of Israel’s enemies. He’s not alone in feeling that there is no peace to be made with people who want to kill you.

Demarcation of borders and the future of Israeli settlements on the West Bank would be a very difficult sticking point, and not only for ideological reasons. Israel is a tiny country with a growing population and not enough room. Rents, not to mention other consumer costs, are through the roof. Anxiety about finding a place to live is a constant part of day-to-day life.

So the Right-wing settler movement is mixed up with the kind of basic bread-and-butter politics that makes any move that looks like giving up land difficult.

The answer, some hope, lies in an old axiom of Middle Eastern politics: that it is only the hardmen who have the political credibility to make the generous concessions that can bring peace.

The greatest single step towards peace in the Middle East, the Israel-Egypt peace agreement of 1978, was made by Anwar Sadat, ruthless dictator and architect of the Yom Kippur war, and Menachim Begin, a former terrorist so extreme that mainstream Zionists for a long time wanted nothing to do with him.

By the same token it was Yitzhak Rabin, hero of the Six-Day war, and Yasser Arafat, a career terrorist, who signed the Oslo Accords. Ariel Sharon, the general who led the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, pulled Israeli settlements out of Gaza.

Could the man who killed Hassan Nasrallah, crushed Hezbollah, and reduced Gaza to fine powder have enough credibility to do the same?

American diplomats, it is said, have been trying to persuade Benjamin Netanyahu that he could. Be a statesman, they whisper in his ear. Lead the country where no one has before. The public could follow you.

Return to the grim status quo

So far, Mr Netanyahu has resisted those voices. There are domestic political reasons to do so. He is reliant on a coalition including small far-right parties in the Knesset to stay in power, although a recent addition has neutered the threat of Itamar Ben Gvir’s ultra nationalists’ bringing him down by quitting.  

He has also built a political career on opposing the two-state solution. To turn around now and accept it would take chutzpah that even he might struggle to muster.

For some, it is simply a question of character. Netanyahu, said another former official who spoke on condition of anonymity, is just not Menachim Begin. Nor is there anyone of the stature of Sadat or Arafat on the other side.

And history tells us that the most likely outcome is a continuation of a grim status quo. Israeli conscripts will fight on three fronts. Palestinians will continue to live with the humiliation of blockade or occupation. Maj Giat’s grandchildren probably will have to fight again, despite his best efforts. 

For Lebanon there is the prospect of an open-ended Israeli occupation in the south, a collapsed state, and the threat of another inter-confessional civil war as armed groups take advantage of the chaos.

For Iran, an even deeper social and economic crisis than the one already underway, which will either cement the IRGC’s mafia-like grip on power, or trigger a collapse that would make “Iraq after 2003 look like a walk in the park,” said Mr Azizi.

“Israel attacking a couple of places in Iran won’t create an alternative. The military people I have talked to are very worried,” he said.  “Yes it could be the unravelling of the regime. Hell, for a lot of us it could be the unravelling of our country. And that’s what is so worrying.”

The ruins of countries where despots have recently been challenged offers grim warning. 

“Do we want the regime gone? Yes. Do we want the regime gone at any price? No. Do I want Iran to be Syria? No. Do I want Iran to be Libya? No.”

Israel has banned large gatherings as thousands of people are expected to turn out across the country to commemorate the Oct 7 massacre.

The IDF Home Command Front has limited gatherings in Israel to 2,000 people, citing the ongoing threat of rockets from Hezbollah as the reason.

However, anti-government campaigners, who had organised a 40,000-strong march on Monday, the first anniversary of Oct 7, claim the ban is a political ploy by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to quash dissent.

Israel has in recent months been rocked by protests seeking to pressure the government to negotiate a ceasefire deal with Hamas in return for the release of the 101 hostages still held in Gaza. The demonstrations have had little effect on the government’s prosecution of the war, which is ongoing.

Thousands of Israelis are expected to assemble on Sunday at Tel Aviv’s Hostage Square for a commemoration event to mark the day on which 1,100 mostly civilians were murdered by Hamas and 251 taken hostage.

Around the country, dozens more memorials are due to take place, in spite of a cap of 2,000 per event.

The Telegraph understands that many Israelis are planning to openly flout the army’s ban on mass gatherings in a show of solidarity with the families of the hostages.

Israeli Roni Tsuk, an Israeli war veteran who served in the Yom Kippur war, said the restrictions will not stop him from attending. “We will not be silenced on this important day when it’s so critical for us to come together as a family,” he told The Telegraph.

Another event, which organisers claim 40,000 people have purchased tickets for, is set to be held at Tel Aviv’s Yarkon Park at 7 pm on Monday.

Israeli Lior Gat said she and her family, who have all lost loved ones in the war, and on Oct 7, will be going out to show solidarity in spite of the bans on gatherings. “This is the one time we have to show the world and each other that we are united, beyond political division,” she said.

“What happened on Oct 7 touched all our lives and continues to, and I will not let our government stop us from being together at this tragic time, even if there are security risks. This is our life in Israel and we are sadly all too used to this.”

The hostage families are calling for the return of their relatives in captivity through a deal which has faltered since November as Israel and Hamas remain intransigent. On Saturday, Basem Naim, a Hamas spokesman, told The Telegraph there will be “no negotiations” for a ceasefire.

Protests in Tel Aviv in recent months have been full of signs blaming Mr Netanyahu for the ongoing war and hostage situation, with many featuring images of the prime minister with blood on his hands and placards saying “guilty”.

Gatherings will also be taking place from 6.29am on Oct 7, including outside the prime minister’s residence in Jerusalem. The hour marks the time Hamas invaded Israel by air, land and sea one year ago. It will commence with a siren for two minutes of silence.

Hezbollah agents were duped by Israel into holding their exploding pagers in both hands in a ploy to maximise their wounds, reports claim.

Booby-trapped devices used in the Sept 17 attack were equipped with a decryption feature that required the user to push two buttons at once to read coded messages.

As device owners responded to a text saying they had received an encrypted message by attempting to decode it, the pagers exploded, the Washington Post reported.

“You had to push two buttons to read the message,” one Israeli intelligence official told the newspaper, adding that the intention was that the blast would “wound both their hands”, rendering the user incapable of fighting.

Less than a minute after that, thousands of other pagers were detonated by remote command, regardless of whether the user ever touched his device. 

As many as 3,000 Hezbollah officers and members are thought to have been killed or injured in the attack, along with an unknown number of civilians.

The attack has been described as one of the most successful penetrations by a spy agency in intelligence history.

Israel began hatching the pager plan in 2022, a year before Hamas’s Oct 7 attacks triggered an escalation in its war with Hezbollah.

Israeli success in penetrating the group and technical prowess in electronic eavesdropping had left Hezbollah increasingly concerned about surveillance and looking for hack-proof methods of communicating.

Mossad, Israel’s equivalent of MI6, began inserting booby-trapped walkie-talkies into Lebanon in 2015, with oversized battery packs hiding an explosive and a transmission system that gave Israel the ability to listen in.

Officials told the paper that for nine years the Israelis held off detonating the walkie-talkies and contented themselves with eavesdropping.

The pager plot was hatched later, and in 2023, Hezbollah began receiving sales pitches for a bulk buy of Taiwanese-branded Apollo pagers. 

The brand was a recognised worldwide trademark with no discernible links to Israeli or Jewish interests. Officials said the Taiwanese company had no knowledge of the plan.

The pitch came from a marketing executive trusted by Hezbollah with links to Apollo and who was a former Middle East sales representative for the Taiwanese firm who had set out on her own.

“She was the one in touch with Hezbollah, and explained to them why the bigger pager with the larger battery was better than the original model,” said an Israeli official.

The marketing executive was unaware that the production had been outsourced and the pagers were being built in Israel under Mossad oversight.

Each included a battery pack hiding a tiny but powerful explosive that was almost impossible to spot, and the devices could be triggered remotely by an electronic signal to detonate all at once.

Israeli leaders were unaware of what Mossad had achieved until Sept 12, when details of the scheme were disclosed in a meeting about potential action against Hezbollah. 

The revelation sparked intense debate about whether detonating the devices would further escalate the conflict. Eventually, Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, gave the go ahead.

US officials said they were not informed of the scheme.

After the shock of the pager attacks, Hezbollah was hit again the following day, this time with the exploding walkie-talkies.

Since then, Hassan Nasrallah, its leader, and many of its top leadership have been killed by air strikes.

Hashem Safieddine, Nasrallah’s potential successor, is reported to have been out of contact since Friday, when an Israeli strike near the city’s airport was reported to have targeted him.

Emile Hokayem, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies think tank, said: “The incredible penetration of Hezbollah’s security apparatus and the elimination of nearly its entire command structure, including Nasrallah himself, suggest internal betrayals, terrible security protocols and communications weaknesses.

“Losing its image of competence leaves the movement vulnerable to internal criticism but also to scorn from its foes.”

A Cabinet minister called on Israel to show “restraint” on the eve of the anniversary of the Oct 7 attacks after airstrikes killed dozens overnight.

Peter Kyle, the Science, Innovation and Technology Secretary, made the plea as the start of the war between Israel and Hamas approached its first anniversary.

It comes after Sir Keir Starmer urged Israel to “return to a political and not military solution” as he reflected on the past year of conflict in the Middle East.

Israel said airstrikes on Hezbollah in Beirut overnight had destroyed a weapons dump while Lebanon said the explosions killed at least 23. Najib Mikati, the Lebanese prime minister, urged renewed “pressure on Israel” for a ceasefire.

Meanwhile, Hamas said airstrikes in Gaza killed at least 24 when bombs hit a mosque and a school sheltering displaced people. Israel said it had carried out “precise strikes on Hamas terrorists”.

‘Advice is very clear and unanimous’

Asked about the events overnight, Mr Kyle told the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: “We can’t instruct Israel as a sovereign state to do anything, but as key allies we can advise them.

“And the advice is very clear and it is unanimous from our international allies that we must exercise restraint.”

He insisted the Government “do understand deeply what Israel has suffered in this year” but added: “The only way forward is restraint, a ceasefire to create the space for a political solution, because this is getting more complicated.

“The war is deepening and it is not moving towards the peace that we need, so we are urging the steps that will take us towards that peaceful settlement”.

In an article for The Sunday Times, Sir Keir called on all sides to “do everything in their power to step back from the brink” after weeks of escalating tensions.

His approach to the conflict was criticised as having “no coherence” on Sunday by Boris Johnson, the former prime minister, in the wake of the partial arms embargo.

Mr Johnson told Camilla Tominey on GB News: “How can you say we stand shoulder to shoulder with Israel while at the same time he is the first UK prime minister in modern history to put an arms embargo on Israel when Israel is under existential threat?

“So no, I don’t see any coherence.”

Asked about the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, Mr Johnson said he “presents a very clear and coherent case” for ensuring the security of Israel.

The Archbishop of Canterbury joined Sir Ephraim Mirvis, the Chief Rabbi, and Qari Asim, the chairman of the Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board, in writing a joint letter to the Observer on the eve of Oct 7.

“It has been a year since the brutal Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel, and the start of this devastating war in Gaza and beyond,” they said.

“As people of faith from Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities in the UK, while we may hold different views about aspects of the conflict, we stand united in our grief and in our belief that our shared humanity must bring us together.”

Hamas terrorists killed around 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds more hostage in a number of attacks on Oct 7, 2023, leading Mr Netanyahu to order the military bombardment of Gaza.

Olaf Scholz, the German Chancellor, repeated his calls for a ceasefire on Sunday, saying peace and reconciliation in the Middle East “seem more distant than ever”.

He condemned rising anti-Semitism in German society as he said Israeli hostages must be returned and the bombing of the Gaza Strip must stop.

On 7 October last year, Ziv Koren was at home in Tel Aviv with his seven-year-old daughter when he woke to the sound of sirens.

‘Over my 35-year career, I have always run towards what other people are running away from,’ he says, over the phone from his office in central Tel Aviv. ‘I understood immediately that I had to do what needed to be done. My first thought was about how quickly I could get my daughter back to her mother’s and get myself down south, even before I understood the magnitude of how big and dangerous the day was going to be.’

Koren, 54, is one of Israel’s most respected documentary photographers. Born in 1970, he began his career as a photographer for the Israeli Army during his national service.

He has documented countless military campaigns, as well as humanitarian subjects including Guantanamo Bay, the Haitian earthquake and the Aids crisis. His work has appeared in publications from Time to Le Figaro and been featured in exhibitions all over the world. But his latest book, The October 7 War, is his most intense and personal yet – an eyewitness account of the war between Israel and Palestine since the attacks last autumn.

On the morning of 7 October, Koren picked up his camera and got in a car with other journalists to head south. Going off-road to avoid the military checkpoints that had already closed routes leading south, Koren found himself perilously close to some of the heaviest fighting of that day.

‘Our aim was to get to Sderot [a city in the south, by the border with the Gaza Strip], because that is what we had seen and heard on TV: Hamas entering Sderot in white pickup trucks and assassinating every person on the street.

‘When we arrived, we saw it with our own eyes. So many dead people in the cars, in the bus station. Bodies everywhere. The first time we crossed the city, we did not see a single person alive.’

Leaving the city to continue their way south, they came to a crossroads where there were dozens of stopped cars, many shot up or burned out, filled with dead young people. ‘We stopped to see if anyone was still alive inside,’ Koren recalls. ‘The cars were full of young people, dressed nicely, with tattoos and earrings and bracelets. I thought to myself, where did they all come from, on the road on a Saturday morning?’

Suddenly they found themselves under fire from Hamas fighters, who had been lying in wait in sight of the road.

‘We lay under the cars while they were shooting over us,’ Koren says. ‘The cars were full of bullet holes. I’ve been under fire before, but here we were the target and there was nobody around. We were alone in the street. It was quite an experience. I was taking photographs and trying to call for help, but there were a few very lonely moments, where I thought, “This is how I’m going to end my life, lying on the road.” I can’t say it didn’t cross my mind.’

Only later did he realise the convoy of ruined cars had been trying to escape Nova, the music festival held near a Kibbutz south of Sderot that endured some of the most horrifying violence that day: 364 mostly young attendees were slaughtered as they tried to get away.

That day was the start of almost a year of intense non-stop work for Koren, during which he has taken around 350,000 photographs, a tiny selection of which have made it into his book. ‘I always go deep into the stories I document, but here, I was obsessed from the very first day with documenting everything possible, because I understood that the pictures I was taking were not just for tomorrow’s newspaper. This is documenting history, and the pictures I take today will be learnt and studied by my grandchildren in schools 50 to 60 years from now.’

Given the subject, he says it has been difficult to maintain objective distance. ‘I covered the war in Ukraine, too, and I can’t say I was neutral when I was photographing that either. I’m not part of any propaganda, I’m not shooting for the government. But I’m Israeli. It’s my backyard. I lost friends and relatives and friends of my daughters on 7 October. I cannot say it’s not personal, but I’m not shooting it differently to any other major story. Obviously it’s emotional. I think somehow most of the world doesn’t remember the atrocities that took place on 7 October, and the rest don’t believe it existed.

‘Everything is difficult to witness. My heart goes out to the civilians who are suffering from the acts of the Israeli troops going into Gaza, too.’

Koren hopes people who see the images in his book will come away with a ‘combination of knowledge and understanding’.

Recently, he says, he has been documenting survivors – hostages, survivors of the kibbutzim, soldiers that were fighting that day.

‘I’ve been taking them back to where they were on 7 October. Their stories are monstrous. You cannot imagine the atrocities that took place that day.’ 

The October 7 War by Ziv Koren, £52, is out on November 10. Available on Amazon for pre-order

Chris Packham has been forced to pay £200,000 to a pensioner and country sportsman he was accused of pursuing ‘vindictively” through the courts, it has been claimed.

In 2023, the naturalist and BBC presenter was awarded £90,000 in damages after the High Court upheld his defamation claims against two contributors to Country Squire, an online magazine that wrongly accused him of misleading people into donating to a tiger rescue charity.

But his case against Paul Read, a 70-year-old grandfather who was the proofreader for some of the magazine articles, was thrown out by the High Court judge.

It meant Packham, 63, became liable for the pensioner’s legal costs, and Mr Read has now claimed his damages have been dwarfed by that bill.

It is understood the Springwatch presenter had to pay £196,008, more than double the £90,000 he was awarded as damages.

“It looks to have been something of a pyrrhic victory for Mr Packham,” Mr Read said from his home in Selby, North Yorkshire.

Mr Read added: “I felt violated. I believe Packham’s pursuit of me was vindictive. I am so relieved all this is behind me now and I can get on and enjoy what’s left of my retirement. It has been a tough time.”

Mr Read, a retired IT consultant and father of three grown-up children, was informed by Leigh Day, Packham’s solicitors, in March 2021 that he was being sued. He feared that if he lost, he could lose his family home.

He added: “The case, after the initial exchange of letters that March, dragged on until the judge threw out the case against me in 2023. That is a long time for my wife and I to be under that sort of stress.”

Mr Read said he had proofread two of the articles Packham complained about as a favour to a friend.

Dominic Wightman and Nigel Bean, the editor and writer of Country Squire, were found to have defamed Packham in May 2023.

They were ordered to pay the damages after their articles falsely claimed the presenter played the “Asperger’s victim card” and had lied to appeal for donations for a tiger rescue charity.

Packham claimed the articles meant he feared he would not “live a long life free from violence and intimidation”.

OAP had no editorial responsibility

The judge ruled that Packham had not taken part in any fraud. However, he found that Mr Read “had no editorial or equivalent responsibility”, and dismissed the case against him.

Tessa Gregory, of Leigh Day, who refused to confirm or deny the £200,000 costs payment, said: “Our client was forced to challenge the serious and damaging lies being published about him, which not only disparaged him personally but also his work for wildlife charities.

“Whilst the court found that Mr Read was a mere proofreader, our client was entirely vindicated in the judgment in relation to Mr Wightman and Mr Bean.

“The court concluded that, contrary to the articles published, our client did not lie, each of his statements was made with a genuine belief in its truth and there was no fraud of any type committed by him.

“This provides a strong deterrent to anyone who sets out to gratuitously smear someone’s character simply because they don’t agree with their views.”

Packham did not respond to a request for comment

A planning row has erupted in a Georgian conservation area after the council ordered an orange and blue shopfront to be repainted.

Peters’ Cleaner in Stamford, Lincolnshire was given the bold makeover in October 2022 in an attempt to make it “stand out”.

Vicky Whiter, its owner, has since been locked in a battle with South Kesteven district council because she did not apply for planning permission before the “unacceptable” paint job.

Conservation rules in her area of Stamford, which has been dubbed “Britain’s most picturesque” town, mean that any repainting of shopfronts needs to be approved by the council.

Ms Whiter said that she was unaware of the rules when she had it painted the shopfront and that she cannot afford to pay to have it changed, which she estimates would cost as much as £5,000.

She said: “I budget to re-decorate the shop front every four years and will happily adhere to all planning when I plan to re-decorate in the summer of 2026.”

“At this time however I cannot put the survival of my business at risk by spending now.”

Ms Whiter’s shop was previously painted dark blue, which she said made it hard to identify.

The new colours were introduced along with a vinyl orange screen covering the top of the front window which Ms Whiter said was necessary to protect her and her employees from the sun which shines into the shop for most of the day.

Several other shops in Stamford have eye-catching shades, including Oliver Bonas, which stands out in pink in the High Street, and Joules, which sports yellow.

Ms Whiter said she fears that she will be taken to court by the council if her request for more time to repaint the shopfront is refused.

According to the Stamford Shopfront Design Guide, a document drawn up by the district council to ensure that the heritage is retained, the maximum penalty for breaking the rules is two years in prison and an unlimited fine.

The rules include a recommendation to use white or neutral colours on slender shopfronts, and a single colour for all the major elements of the design.

But there is no indication of what colours are and are not allowed.

“This bullish attitude is unfathomable,” Ms Whiter said.

“Stamford’s independent shops are the heart and soul of the town and are what makes it special.”

She added: “I very much hope the council will take a pragmatic and supportive stance and work with small independent retailers to ensure that by improving the look of the high street they don’t immeasurably damage it by driving independents out of business.”

A spokesman for South Kesteven district council said any changes to the shop were subject to conservation area and listed building rules.

They said: “Listing ensures that the architectural and historic interests of buildings are carefully considered separately from the merits of any development proposals and before any alterations, either external or internal, are agreed.

“Listed building consent is required for any changes that would alter their special character.

“No advice or guidance was sought prior to the painting of these premises but council officers have since suggested alternative paint colours that would be appropriate and are happy to continue to work with the applicant to agree both these and a timescale for the repainting of the shopfront.”

Britain has never been fatter – with the average man weighing 14st by middle age, according to new data.

The NHS statistics show that we weigh around a stone more than we did 30 years ago – while waistlines keep expanding.

Middle-aged women now weigh an average of 12st, the figures show, with waists of around 36in.

Men of the same age tip the scales at 14st, with a waistband of around 40in.

Health officials said the figures, which reflect the average weights for those aged between 45 and 64, were “worrying” – saying obesity is now one of the greatest challenges facing the country.

It comes as new research suggests that adult obesity may now have peaked in the US. Rates have fallen by around two percentage points since 2020, to 40 per cent.

In England the figure is 26 per cent. Experts said increased employment of weight-loss drugs, which one in eight American adults have used, could be behind the recent US dip.

The NHS is now gearing up for the mass rollout of weight-loss jabs for the first time. The proposals will see up to 1.6 million people offered injections of tirzepatide, marketed as Mounjaro, with some prescriptions issued via “remote clinics” following online consultations.

The jabs will be targeted at the heaviest patients with the most health problems, starting with those with a BMI over 40 and multiple chronic illnesses.

But the national research results reveal a far wider problem – with two in three people losing in the battle of the bulge.

‘Diabetes, heart attack and stroke’

Dr Clare Hambling, NHS national clinical director for diabetes and obesity, said: “These worrying figures highlight that obesity is now one of the greatest public health issues we face in this country.

“It has a major impact on our health, increasing the risk of many diseases including diabetes, heart attack and stroke, and action is urgently needed across society to turn the tide on the rising rates seen in recent decades and stop so many lives being cut short.”

She said the NHS was “here to help” those trying to lose weight, rolling out 12-week courses which offer behavioural coaching and lifestyle advice for obese patients with health conditions such as Type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure.

“Maintaining a healthy weight can be difficult, but the NHS is here to help those at greatest risk through our effective digital weight management programme and providing access to new weight loss treatments, while supporting wider efforts to tackle the issues contributing to obesity to help save lives and reduce its cost to families, the health service and the economy,” Dr Hambling said.

The figures for England show that in 1993, when data collection began, the country was already battling a major weight problem.

In total, 44 per cent of men were overweight, while 13 per cent were obese.

Now 39 per cent are overweight – while 28 per cent are obese.

For women, 32 per cent were overweight and 16 per cent obese.

Now, the figures are 31 per cent and 30 per cent respectively.

The statistics from the Health Survey for England 2022 shows that the peak age for excess weight is 55 to 64, when 80 per cent of men and 69 per cent of women are overweight or obese.

Average heights come in at 5ft 9in for men, and 5ft 4in for women.

Across all ages, the average woman now has a waistline of 34.9in – around two and half inches more than in 1993. For men it is 38.3in, almost two inches more than it was 30 years ago.

The rest of the UK collects data in different ways, but the figures show similar trends.

Tam Fry from the National Obesity Forum said the statistics “highlight the abysmal failure of every administration since 1993 to tackle obesity.”

Katherine Jenner, director of the Obesity Health Alliance, a coalition of charities and medical royal colleges, which is calling for extra taxes on unhealthy foods said: “We all want to grow old healthily, and maintaining a healthy weight is an important factor in living out our years in good health.

“However, it is not always easy to access a healthy, nutritious diet, especially if you are juggling responsibilities such as being a parent, carer, worker and managing a household, as many people in middle age are.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Social Care said: “This country has failed to tackle the obesity crisis, harming people’s health and costing the NHS billions of pounds.

“This government is urgently tackling the obesity crisis head on – shifting our focus from treatment to prevention – to ease the strain on our NHS and helping people to live well for longer.”

A motorist has been fined six times for parking outside his own flat – because the designated bay isn’t long enough for his car.

Tom Mulholland started receiving £35 fines for parking his Volkswagen Golf in May.

The 29-year-old says Southampton city council is being “highly disingenuous” with claims his vehicle blocks the pavement.

However, the council has rejected his appeals against the fines.

Now he is launching a new appeal but faces having to pay £660 if unsuccessful.

Mr Mulholland, who lives in Southampton, Hants, said: “It just doesn’t seem like there’s any clarity.

“These flats were office blocks before being converted in 2017. The council approved these spaces and now I’m being fined for parking outside my home, which I think is unreasonable.

“If the council were to say these spaces are too small, I’d understand, but they approved them in the first place – so perhaps they shouldn’t have been approved initially or otherwise it doesn’t seem right to get tickets for parking where you’re supposed to.

“I think it’s highly disingenuous of the council to argue that I’m obstructing the highway given the width of the pavement.

“There are double yellow lines in place on the other side of the pavement to enforce no parking in the road in order to prevent obstruction of the highway.”

‘You have to do something’

He added: “I think many people would just accept it and pay these fines but when it’s a case of parking in a space outside your own home and you’re repeatedly handed them, you have to do something otherwise I just won’t be able to park here.”

In a statement, Eamonn Keogh, a councillor at Southampton city council, said: “No waiting restrictions apply to any adjacent footway and verge to maintain access for pedestrians, pushchairs, wheelchairs, mobility scooters and the visually impaired.

“Vehicles parked in a private property designated parking space that overhang on to the footway where a restriction is on the adjacent carriageway would be subject to enforcement.

“If the resident has submitted a stage 2 appeal and this has been rejected by the council, they are entitled to submit an appeal to the traffic penalty tribunal.”

After a string of solo appearances from her husband Prince Harry, the Duchess of Sussex made one of her own on Saturday night, at the 2024 Children’s Hospital Los Angeles gala.

Her vibrant red gown was by Carolina Herrera from the label’s pre-fall 2022 collection. Featuring a deep, U-shaped neckline and thigh-high slit, it couldn’t be further from the more reserved looks Meghan was required to wear as a working royal. Clearly, she’s still relishing the sartorial freedom she’s enjoyed since moving to the US.

If you think the dress looks familiar, it is: Meghan wore it for the first time in November 2021 at the Salute to Freedom gala. The gown has undergone a significant transformation since then: the full, fairytale overskirt of the 2021 outing has been removed, leaving just the sleek, minimal column dress that had been underneath.

Getting an old evening gown altered to look more current is a style strategy for which Meghan’s sister-in-law, the Princess of Wales, has become famous. Catherine’s attendance at Trooping the Colour in June was a case in point – the sash of her Jenny Packham dress was updated with a stripe, and a black-and-white striped bow added to the collar.

Over the years, Catherine has also had the sleeves of three different Alexander McQueen evening gowns altered ahead of the Baftas, which requests that guests “keep sustainability in mind” when choosing their outfits. Meghan may not appreciate the comparison, but evidence that she has adopted the same practice with one of her own go-to labels can only be a good thing. 

Image consultant Annabel Hodin agrees – and believes it’s an improvement on the original dress, too. “The overskirt was rather matronly,” she says. “There will have been a fitting for the removal of the skirt top layer and [a number of alteration] options considered, but there was no surplus material to create a flattering drape. There is nowhere to put a dart or a ruche and the fabric has no stretch.”

It’s worth noting that the Duchess has been criticised in the past for wearing poorly fitting or creased clothes, but the slight volume at the hips in this case appears to be intentional – it’s a clever way to create the illusion of a smaller waist, while also allowing a little more freedom of movement. 

“This more streamlined look with a front slit could not easily be tighter as it would pull when walking or bending over,” Hodin explains. However, she gives the look her seal of approval: “Meghan has an incredible eye for stylish dressing and would not make the mistake of an ill-fitting dress.”

Meghan debuted a new hair look on Saturday too. Usually, she prefers a low bun, or loose, straightened hair, so these glossy curls with a centre parting are a departure from what we’ve seen in the past. “It’s a totally different look for her,” says Zoe Irwin, creative director at John Frieda. “What struck me the most is how young she looks all of a sudden.”

It’s a trend Irwin has already identified as the next big thing. “We’re calling this ‘La Belle Boheme’, she says. “I always like this kind of hair juxtaposed against the minimalist silhouette of the dress.”

This look is nothing like the beachy, boho waves we aspired to in the early 2000s though. It’s sleeker, with far less volume. It’s inspired by the modern boho look spearheaded by new Chloé creative director Chemena Kamali. The key ingredient, Irwin says, is gloss.

“The reason it’s of-the-moment is the high amount of shine in the hair,” she says. “You need to use a very lightweight oil through the hair when you’re blow drying it.”

Nor do you even need curling tongs: “What makes this really groomed is when you do it with a straightener – you get a lot of polish when you’re curling it with a straightening iron.”

The overall verdict? She looks great – although it’s probably not the easiest dress in which to sit down, and those Aquazzura sandals are not the easiest shoes in which to stand for a long period of time. But as a red carpet moment on its own, she’s nailed it.

President Kais Saied looks on course to tighten his grip on power in Tunisia after exit polls for the presidential election predicted he would win in a landslide.

Supporters of Mr Saied – who on Sunday night promised to “cleanse the country of conspirators” – erupted with joy in the capital as the poll was announced on state television.

According to the results, Mr Saied will comfortably beat two rivals, one of whom is now in prison. He had run against Zouhair Maghzaoui, his former ally turned critic, and Ayachi Zammel, who was jailed last month.

In a bitter election, Mr Saied has been accused by rights groups of political repression, including locking up rivals on false charges and barring opponents from standing against him.

Official results are not expected until Monday evening but the exit poll showed Mr Saied in the lead with 89.2 per cent of votes.

Turnout was only 27.7 per cent, the election commission said, just half what it was in the run-off round of the 2019 presidential election.

On Sunday night Mr Saied told state television, “This is a continuation of the revolution. We will build and will cleanse the country of the corrupt, traitors and conspirators.”

Representatives for Mr Zammel and Mr Maghzaoui, who were the only two candidates approved to run against Mr Saied, rejected the exit poll results.

On the main avenue of Habib Bourguiba in the capital city of Tunis, supporters raised pictures of Mr Saied and the Tunisian flag, chanting “The people want to build and develop”.

“We rejoice for a person because he served the state and not for his own benefit, he serves for the benefit of the people and the state”, Mohsen Ibrahim said when he was celebrating.

Tunisia is considered the birthplace of the 2011 Arab Spring and for years had been hailed as the only relative success story of the uprisings in the region.

After the political revolution that swept dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali from power, Tunisia set about introducing a democracy following decades of autocratic rule.

But rights groups now say that Mr Saied, in power since 2019, has undone many of those democratic gains while removing institutional and legal checks on his power, including dissolving Tunisia’s supreme court.

Mr Saied, 66, a retired law lecturer, has rejected criticism of his actions, saying he is fighting treachery and corruption, and that he will not be a dictator.

Senior figures from the biggest parties, which largely oppose Mr Saied, have been imprisoned on various charges over the past year and those parties have not publicly backed any of the three candidates on Sunday’s ballot. Other opponents have been barred from running.

“The scene is shameful. Journalists and opponents in prison, including one presidential candidate.” said Wael, a bank employee in Tunis, who gave only his first name.

Political tensions have risen since an electoral commission named by Mr Saied disqualified three prominent candidates last month, amid protests by opposition and civil society groups.

Lawmakers loyal to Saied then approved a law last week stripping the administrative court of authority over election disputes. 

This court is widely seen as the country’s last independent judicial body, after Mr Saied dissolved the Supreme Judicial Council and dismissed dozens of judges in 2022.

Mr Saied, elected in 2019, seized most powers in 2021 when he dissolved the elected parliament and rewrote the constitution, a move the opposition described as a coup.

A referendum on the constitution passed with turnout of only 30 per cent, while a January 2023 run-off for the new, nearly powerless, parliament he created with that constitution had turnout of only 11 per cent.

Although tourism revenues are on the rise and there has been financial help from European countries worried about migration, state finances remain strained. 

Shortages of subsidised goods are common, as are outages of power and water.

An explosion has ripped through a block of flats in Scotland, leaving one man dead and several others injured.

Fire and emergency crews were called to Alloa at around 6pm amid reports of an explosion at a block of flats.

One man, who was inside the Kellie Road property when the explosion happened, was killed in the blast.

He was pronounced dead at the scene, and has not been formally identified.

Three other people from the same block of flats were taken to Forth Valley Royal Infirmary for treatment to minor injuries.

Sergeant Neill Drummond said: “We are still working to establish the full circumstances of what happened at this property, however, we can confirm that one male has passed away.

“Our inquiries to confirm his identity and provide his next of kin with all the necessary support they may require are ongoing.

“We are grateful to the local community for their continued co-operation and support of our investigation, and we’ll provide more information in due course.”

After the explosion, police and emergency crews implemented a number of road closures to allow room for the multi-agency response.

A number of road closures along the A907, B9096, Kellie Place and Tullibody Road were being lifted as the “major incident” was stood down just before midnight, Police Scotland said.

Further utilities work may be required, however, and could result in additional closures.

Alloa Town Hall has been opened as a respite centre for occupants of the other flats as gas and electrical work is undertaken.

Police Scotland said if they could not return to their homes, residents will be supported with alternative accommodation for the night.

Britain is home to more illegal migrants than any other European nation, a new study has found.

There are up to 745,000 illegal migrants in the UK, accounting for one in 100 of the population, according to the research led by Oxford University experts.

This is more than double the 300,000 in France and ahead even of the upper estimate of 700,000 in Germany, which has the second-largest population of illegal migrants in Europe.

The figures were disclosed as the Home Office said 973 migrants in 17 small boats crossed the English Channel on Saturday, the biggest daily number this year.

The total number of people to cross in 2024 is 26,612, up five per cent on 2023 at the same stage, but 21 per cent behind the record 33,611 at this point in 2022.

French authorities confirmed four people died while trying to cross the Channel on Saturday, including a two-year-old boy who was “trampled to death” in a dinghy.

Senior Tories demanded that Sir Keir Starmer rethink Labour’s approach after the Prime Minister scrapped a scheme in which asylum seekers would have been sent to Rwanda while they were processed.

The Government is under intense pressure to tackle people-smuggling gangs responsible for the crisis, and to crack down on crime committed by migrants in Britain. The Telegraph disclosed last week that one in 50 Albanians in the UK is in jail.

James Cleverly, the shadow home secretary, said: “We need to deter people from coming here illegally and to root them out of our economy when they are here.”

Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister, who has called for the UK to quit the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), said: “This is the highest number crossing the Channel in a single day for years. Sir Keir needs to rip up his dangerous so-called ‘plan’ on small boats. Our country’s security is at stake.”

The up to 745,000 people estimated to have come to Britain illegally include foreign arrivals who have overstayed their visas, failed asylum seekers who have disappeared and some migrants who have crossed the Channel in small boats.

Labour has pledged to smash the people-smuggling gangs by setting up a Border Security Command to work with European and G7 partners and giving UK law enforcement and intelligence agencies new counter terror-style powers.

Sir Keir has rejected calls to quit the ECHR to help tackle the crisis, and at the weekend French and European sources told The Telegraph that Britain would only get an EU deal to send Channel migrants back to France if it remained in the European Court of Human Rights.

Illegal migrants would fill city size of Leeds

A Home Office source said: “Far from softening the response, this new Government has increased returns of those living here illegally and set up a new Border Security Command to relentlessly pursue the criminal smuggling gangs making millions out of small boat crossings, undermining our border security and putting lives at risk. We are getting a grip after the chaos of the last Government’s approach.

“The Tory leadership candidates are clinging on to the Rwanda partnership, which spent £700m to send four volunteers. Perhaps it’s time for them to learn from their mistakes, rather than simply doubling down.”

The research – published on Monday and compiled by 18 institutions including Oxford University’s Compas centre – estimated the number of illegal migrants in the UK was between 594,000 and 745,000, ahead of Germany (up to 700,000), France (300,000), Italy (458,000) and Spain (469,000).

Germany and the UK’s upper estimates accounted for a quarter of all illegal migrants in the 12 EU nations covered by the research. 

The Home Office does not publish data on the number of illegal migrants in the UK except for those crossing the Channel. Most of those are, however, not included in Oxford research because they seek asylum on arrival.

The 745,000 illegal migrants – equivalent to a city the size of Leeds – come on top of the overall backlog of 224,742 asylum seekers who are either awaiting a decision on their claim or are appealing its rejection.

Experts suggested the size of the UK’s illegal migrant population could reflect its bigger black economy than other countries, the Government’s reluctance to grant amnesties unlike other nations and “hostile environment” policies that incentivised migrants to stay away from public services.

Although the Home Office does not publish the data, leaked internal Home Office estimates five years ago suggested that at least 150,000 foreign nationals entered the UK illegally each year and then disappeared into the black economy.

The Oxford researchers said they did not believe that the overall numbers had increased over recent years but said the Government should follow the example of countries such as the US and Italy, which aim to assess and record the size of their illegal migrant population.

The research will form the basis for a new public database which will bring together and assess the latest estimates of how many illegal migrants live in European countries and North America.

Denis Kierans, senior researcher at Oxford’s Compas migration centre, said it was important for policymakers to know the scale because “these are people who are living and working in the UK, but who are operating outside the mainstream tax and benefits system. What that means is the state is missing out on their contributions to the public purse while they end up at the fringes of society, at risk of exploitation and destitution”.

The Metropolitan Police has been criticised for not updating officers’ uniforms with the King’s royal cypher.

Officers are still being provided with uniforms with the late Queen’s cypher, two years ago on from her death, according to The Mail on Sunday.

Greater Manchester Police updated their uniforms several months ago, replacing Queen Elizabeth’s distinctive cypher with her son’s.

The King’s cypher combines his initial ‘C’ with the letter ‘R’, meaning Rex – the Latin word for king – and III.

Dai Davies, the former head of royalty protection at Scotland Yard, told the Mail: “All officers swear allegiance to King Charles, but how can you do that wearing the late Queen’s cypher? It is bizarre.”

The Met also received criticism when officers wore the old cypher during the King’s Coronation in May of last year.

A Met spokesman told The Telegraph that the Home Office had advised the force to take a “no cost” approach to changing uniforms and that uniforms need only be replaced due to wear and tear.

They said that new uniforms with the King’s emblem would be phased in over the “coming months and years”.

The Home Office said that decisions on all front line policing, including uniforms, lie with chief constables and police and crime commissioners.

When the cypher was unveiled in September 2022, it was reported that the decision to replace cyphers would be at the discretion of individual organisations, and the process would be gradual.

Sir Mark Rowley, the Met’s commissioner, told a policing think tank last month that the force has a shortfall of hundreds of millions of pounds in its budget. 

He warned that the shortage of funds was affecting his ability to invest in new technology and staff.

Sir Mark has been overseeing a major attempt to improve the Met’s image in the public eye, trying to encourage new recruits who share the force’s values of “courage, empathy and respect”.

But the force has come under heavy scrutiny in recent years after being plagued by accusations of racism and sexism.

A man has been filmed damaging a Jewish memorial in Brighton on the eve of the anniversary of October 7 attacks on Israel.

The footage, which has been shared across social media, shows a man tearing down tributes, teddy bears and flowers.

The perpetrator is then confronted by another man who moves him away from the memorial, while the woman filming can be heard saying “what the f—” and “why?”

Sussex Police responded to the video on X, formerly Twitter, and confirmed the incident was being treated as a “hate crime”.

The force said: “We are aware of a video circulating online of a man damaging a Jewish memorial in Hove and are treating it as a hate crime.

“An investigation is under way and any information can be reported online or via 101, quoting reference 158 of 04/10.”

The video was posted on X, formerly Twitter, with the caption: “A memorial in #Brighton honoring the victims murdered on October 7, 2023, in Israel by Hamas has been completely destroyed by this man.

“Vandalism at its worst—disrespecting the memory of the innocent lives lost.”

The police probe comes just one day before a memorial event in Hove’s Palmeira Square to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the October 7 attacks on Israel.

Around 1,200 Israelis were killed, including 797 civilians and 36 children, and 250 others were taken hostage in a series of attacks by Palestinian militants.

Commemorative events took place across the UK on Sunday, with thousands gathering in London’s Hyde Park and memorial ceremonies being held in Manchester and Leeds.

Six Muslim and six Jewish women also met at St John’s Church in Waterloo to talk about the impact the conflict in the Middle East is having on communities in the UK and to help “stop the hate on (Britain’s) streets”.

At least one person was killed and 10 injured in an explosion near Karachi airport on Sunday night, according to Pakistan media.

The nature of the blast was not immediately clear, broadcaster Geo News cited a provincial official as saying.

He said at least one foreigner had been injured and that a convoy of foreigners was close to the explosion.

In a statement emailed to journalists, separatist militant group Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) claimed the explosion was an attack carried out by them using a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device targeting Chinese nationals, including engineers.

Karachi police did not immediately respond to request for comment.

The BLA seeks independence for the province of Balochistan, located in Pakistan’s southwest and bordering on Afghanistan and Iran.

In August, it launched coordinated attacks in the province, in which more than 70 people were killed.

BLA specifically targets Chinese interests – in particular the strategic port of Gwadar on the Arabian Sea, accusing Beijing of helping Islamabad exploit the province.

It has killed Chinese citizens working in the region and attacked Beijing’s consulate in Karachi.

Benjamin Netanyahu has urged Western allies to stand behind Israel or risk strengthening Iran’s “axis of evil”, speaking on the eve of the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.

The Israeli prime minister warned of a world in peril as his nation prepared to remember those who fell one year ago in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

His words came as Israeli jets and artillery continued to pound Hezbollah and Hamas positions in Lebanon and Gaza, despite international calls for restraint.

Facing calls for a ceasefire and threats of weapons embargoes, Mr Netanyahu said: “Israel expects its friends to stand behind it and not impose restrictions that will only strengthen the Iranian axis of evil.”

His comments came in a crisis call to Emmanuel Macron, who announced on Saturday that France was withholding arms from Israel, citing the ongoing escalation in Lebanon.

“Israel’s actions against Hezbollah are creating an opportunity to change the reality in Lebanon in favour of stability, security and peace in the entire region,” Mr Netanyahu insisted in the call on Sunday.

Calls for restraint

Western calls for Israel to rein-in its attacks on Iranian proxies across the Middle East continued on Sunday night, however.

The US warned: “Military pressure can at times enable diplomacy. Of course, military pressure can also lead to miscalculation. It can lead to unintended consequences.”

Sir Keir Starmer, who has also restricted arms sales to Israel, called for a ceasefire as he marked the anniversary of Oct 7.

“One year on from these horrific attacks we must unequivocally stand with the Jewish community and unite as a country. We must never look the other way in the face of hate,” he said.

But he added: “We must also not look the other way as civilians bear the ongoing dire consequences of this conflict in the Middle East. I reiterate my call for immediate ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, and for the removal of all restrictions on humanitarian aid into Gaza.”

Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, and Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, also called for a ceasefire.

Heaviest bombardment

Israel’s bombardment of Beirut on Sunday was the heaviest of the war so far.

Israel was on Sunday night also weighing its response to a barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles on Tuesday. Flights from all Iran’s airports were cancelled from Sunday night at 9pm until 6am Monday, according to Iranian state media.

The cancellations came amid fears that a new attack, or counter-attack, could be launched to coincide with the anniversary of Oct 7. Iran also implemented restrictions on flights last Tuesday when it launched its missile barrage at Israel.

Remembrance gatherings around Israel will start at 6.29am on Monday, local time, the moment the Hamas attack started one year ago.

Protests are expected to take place around Israel, including outside the Prime MInister’s residence in Jerusalem as calls for a ceasefire deal to free the hostages continue.

In spite of restrictions on public gatherings being limited to 2,000 in Tel Aviv, 3,500 people congregated at Hostage Square on Sunday evening.

Showing “solidarity” with the families of the 101 captives held by Hamas in Gaza, thousands flouted rules which they regarded as a means to silence dissent.

Mr Netanyahu showed no signs of scaling back Israel’s war on two fronts on Sunday as he addressed troops on the northern border with Lebanon.

In a veiled acknowledgement of the security failures which led to Oct 7, he added: “A year ago, we took a terrible blow. In the 12 months since then, we have changed the reality across the board. 

“The entire world is astonished by the blows you are landing on our enemies. I salute you and tell you: you are the generation of victory.”

Benjamin Netanyahu has urged Western allies to stand behind Israel or risk strengthening Iran’s “axis of evil”, speaking on the eve of the anniversary of the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.

The Israeli prime minister warned of a world in peril as his nation prepared to remember those who fell one year ago in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.

His words came as Israeli jets and artillery continued to pound Hezbollah and Hamas positions in Lebanon and Gaza, despite international calls for restraint.

Facing calls for a ceasefire and threats of weapons embargoes, Mr Netanyahu said: “Israel expects its friends to stand behind it and not impose restrictions that will only strengthen the Iranian axis of evil.”

His comments came in a crisis call to Emmanuel Macron, who announced on Saturday that France was withholding arms from Israel, citing the ongoing escalation in Lebanon.

“Israel’s actions against Hezbollah are creating an opportunity to change the reality in Lebanon in favour of stability, security and peace in the entire region,” Mr Netanyahu insisted in the call on Sunday.

Calls for restraint

Western calls for Israel to rein-in its attacks on Iranian proxies across the Middle East continued on Sunday night, however.

The US warned: “Military pressure can at times enable diplomacy. Of course, military pressure can also lead to miscalculation. It can lead to unintended consequences.”

Sir Keir Starmer, who has also restricted arms sales to Israel, called for a ceasefire as he marked the anniversary of Oct 7.

“One year on from these horrific attacks we must unequivocally stand with the Jewish community and unite as a country. We must never look the other way in the face of hate,” he said.

But he added: “We must also not look the other way as civilians bear the ongoing dire consequences of this conflict in the Middle East. I reiterate my call for immediate ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, and for the removal of all restrictions on humanitarian aid into Gaza.”

Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, and Olaf Scholz, the German chancellor, also called for a ceasefire.

Heaviest bombardment

Israel’s bombardment of Beirut on Sunday was the heaviest of the war so far.

Israel was on Sunday night also weighing its response to a barrage of Iranian ballistic missiles on Tuesday. Flights from all Iran’s airports were cancelled from Sunday night at 9pm until 6am Monday, according to Iranian state media.

The cancellations came amid fears that a new attack, or counter-attack, could be launched to coincide with the anniversary of Oct 7. Iran also implemented restrictions on flights last Tuesday when it launched its missile barrage at Israel.

Remembrance gatherings around Israel will start at 6.29am on Monday, local time, the moment the Hamas attack started one year ago.

Protests are expected to take place around Israel, including outside the Prime MInister’s residence in Jerusalem as calls for a ceasefire deal to free the hostages continue.

In spite of restrictions on public gatherings being limited to 2,000 in Tel Aviv, 3,500 people congregated at Hostage Square on Sunday evening.

Showing “solidarity” with the families of the 101 captives held by Hamas in Gaza, thousands flouted rules which they regarded as a means to silence dissent.

Mr Netanyahu showed no signs of scaling back Israel’s war on two fronts on Sunday as he addressed troops on the northern border with Lebanon.

In a veiled acknowledgement of the security failures which led to Oct 7, he added: “A year ago, we took a terrible blow. In the 12 months since then, we have changed the reality across the board. 

“The entire world is astonished by the blows you are landing on our enemies. I salute you and tell you: you are the generation of victory.”