Israel has held ceremonies to remember the victims of the mass killings and abductions carried out by Hamas on 7 October 2023, against a backdrop of continuing fighting in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

A year on from the attack – that saw some 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostage – Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to stop such an assault happening again, saying Israel’s armed forces were “changing the security reality” of the region.

Since 7 October, nearly 42,000 people have been killed during Israel’s offensive in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

As the day of commemorations unfolded, Israel said it had intercepted more than 100 rockets fired by Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as projectiles launched by Yemen’s Houthis and from Hamas in Gaza.

• Israeli kibbutz struggles to heal, one year after 7 October
• Gaza Strip in maps: How a year of war has drastically changed
• Jeremy Bowen’s analysis – is the Middle East on the edge of a wider war?
• Hamas hostages: Stories of the people taken from Israel

Last October, gunmen from Hamas in Gaza broke through the border fence and rampaged through nearby Israeli villages, Kibbutzim, military posts and the Nova music festival.

On Monday, families of the hundreds killed and dozens of people taken hostage at the festival gathered at the site early for the first memorial event of the day.

Holding pictures of loved ones they listened to the last track played at the festival before Israeli President Isaac Herzog led a minute’s silence at 06:29, the moment that the attack began.

In nearby communities also attacked by Hamas gunmen, smaller events were held.

Elsewhere, Netanyahu visited the Iron Sword memorial in Jerusalem for victims of the Hamas attacks, lighting a candle to “remember our fallen, our hostages”.

In Tel Aviv’s biggest park, Israeli families gathered for an event billed as the Bereaved Families Memorial Ceremony, which served as an alternative to the official government memorial ceremony.

Some of Israel’s most popular singers gave emotional performances, while images of victims flashed on the screens.

The stage was adorned with items symbolising the attacks including burnt and broken cars from the Nova music festival, and a child’s bicycle and swing set from the Be’eri kibbutz.

Outside Israel, US President Joe Biden joined other world leaders in condemning what the “unspeakable brutality” of the Hamas attacks a year ago.

He also expressed horror at the subsequent war, saying “far too many civilians had suffered, far too much”.

Mourners also gathered at vigils around the world including in Australia, South Africa, Germany and the US.

In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer told the House of Commons he supported Israel’s right to defend itself. But Britain’s prime minister insisted there was no military solution to the current crisis and appealed for all sides to “step back”.

However as the memorial services took place, the wider conflict in the region raged.

The Israeli military said Hezbollah had fired more than 130 rockets across the border from Lebanon. Most were shot down, but some hit the cities of Haifa and Tiberius.

Earlier Hamas also launched rockets at Tel Aviv from Gaza. The army said ballistic missiles had been fired at Israel from Yemen but had been intercepted.

Through the day, Israel carried out multiple air strikes and several ground incursions in Lebanon.

The Israeli military said it was expanding operations against Hezbollah, warning residents in southern Lebanon to avoid using boats in the sea or rivers south of the Awali river.

Three weeks of intense Israeli strikes and other attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 1,400 people, and displaced another 1.2 million, according to Lebanese authorities.

Hezbollah – a Shia Islamist political, military and social organisation that wields considerable power in Lebanon – has remained defiant despite suffering a series of devastating blows in recent weeks, including the killing of its leader and most of its top military commanders.

On Monday, the group insisted it was “confident… in the ability of our resistance to oppose the Israeli aggression”.

Israel’s government – which designates Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation – has pledged to make it safe for tens of thousands of displaced residents to return to their homes near the Lebanese border after a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the Gaza war.

The hostilities have escalated steadily since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel on 8 October 2023, the day after its ally Hamas deadly attack on southern Israel.

Suddenly, Malak stops speaking, leans forward a fraction and kisses the baby sitting on her lap. Her sister Rahma is fair-haired and has blue eyes. There is a 13-year age difference between them. But to Malak – who lost her father in an Israeli attack – the four-month-old baby is an unimaginably precious gift.

“I love her so much, in a way no-one else knows,” she says.

The BBC went back to meet Malak and others in Gaza as the first anniversary of the war approached. We first interviewed Malak in February, just after the death of her father, Abed-Alrahman al-Najjar, a 32-year-old farm labourer.

The father of seven, believed to have been hit by shrapnel, was among more than 70 people killed during an Israeli commando operation to rescue two hostages held by Hamas in Rafah. He was asleep with his family in a refugee tent when the raid happened.

Their tent was close to the scene of the fighting. Malak lost an eye in the attack. She also suffered a wound in her side. Back then she was severely traumatised – when she met a BBC colleague, she called out in anguish, “I am in pain. I lost my dad. Enough!”

Since then, doctors have fitted a small white sphere in her empty eye socket. It will have to suffice until the war ends and she hopefully can be fitted with a proper prosthetic eye.

But Malak does not complain about this loss – rather, she imagines how her father would react if he could hold baby Rahma, born three months after his death. She smiles and says: “He always wanted to have a daughter with blue eyes.”

After what has happened, Malak wants to train as an eye doctor, to help others who suffer as she does.

She is sitting on a concrete floor in Khan Younis in southern Gaza with the baby and her five other younger siblings – three sisters, two brothers, aged between four and 12 years old. Before the war, their father worked hard on other people’s farms to support his family.

“Our father used to take us out and buy us clothes in the winter. He was so kind to us. He would deny himself but never us,” Malak remembers.

Then came 7 October 2023, and the Hamas assault on Israel in which over 1,200 Israelis were killed – among them, dozens of children. More than 250 hostages were abducted into Gaza. There were 30 children seized, including a baby of nine months.

The attack triggered Israel’s ground invasion, relentless air strikes and fighting with Hamas. Almost 42,000 people have now been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. About 90% of Gaza’s population – nearly two million people – are displaced, according to the United Nations. Malak’s family has been uprooted four times.

“I carry a pain that even mountains cannot bear,” she says. “We were displaced, and it feels like our whole life is displacement. We move from place to place.”

• Israel kibbutz struggles to heal, one year after 7 October
• Gaza Strip in maps: How a year of war has drastically changed life in the territory

The Israeli government refuses to allow foreign reporters into Gaza, and the BBC relies on a team of local journalists to cover the humanitarian crisis. We briefed them with questions and asked them to contact some of the Palestinians we have spoken to in Gaza over the past 12 months.

These journalists share the fear and displacement of the people they report on. Displacement means uncertainty. Constant fear. Will the child, sent for a bucket of water, come home? Or will they return to find their home flattened, and their family buried under the rubble? These are the questions that haunt Abed-Alrahman’s young widow, Nawara, every day.

“There is always shelling and we are always afraid, terrified. I constantly hold my children close and hug them,” she says.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tell people to move to so-called “humanitarian zones”. People flee but often find no safety. When they move, the struggle to locate food, firewood and medicine in an unfamiliar place starts again.

The al-Najjars are now back in their family home, but they know they may have to flee again. That is the inescapable reality of their lives after a year of war. In the words of Nawara, there is “no safe place in the Gaza Strip”.

Nawara complains of the overflowing sewage in the street. The lack of medical supplies. Like so many in Gaza, with no income, she depends on what food her in-laws or charities can supply.

There are no schools open for her children, who are among the 465,000 that Unicef – the UN Children’s Fund – estimate are affected by school closures there.

“Our health – my children’s and mine – is bad. They are always sick, always have fevers or diarrhoea. They are always feeling unwell,” Nawara adds.

Through all of this, she holds on to the memory of her husband Abed-Alrahman.

“I look at his picture, and keep talking to him. I imagine he’s still alive,” she says. “I keep talking to him on the phone as if he’s replying to me, and I imagine answering back. Every day I sit by myself, bring up his name, talk to him, and cry. I feel like he’s aware of everything I’m going through.”

And Malak too has her daily ritual. She and one of her sisters try to do a charitable deed each day in memory of their father. When possible, their aunt makes a gift of food for the dead man. “At night, we put it out and pray for him,” Malak says.

The stories of Nawara al-Najjar and Malak are a fragmentary glimpse into the suffering of the last 12 months. As the war enters its second year, our BBC colleagues on the ground continue to report on death and displacement. In northern Gaza we re-visited the family of a disabled man who died after being attacked in an Israeli search operation.

___

Muhammed Bhar was terrified. The dog growled and lunged. It was biting, drawing blood and he could not stop it. Around him, the sitting room was full of noise – his mother and little niece screaming, the Israeli soldiers shouting orders.

Muhammed, aged 24, had Down’s syndrome and was autistic – he could not have understood what was happening. When a BBC colleague first spoke to his family in July, they were still struggling with the shock of what had happened.

Muhammed’s mother, Nabila, 70, described what she remembered: “I constantly see the dog tearing at him and his hand, and the blood pouring from his hand.

“This scene I will never forget – it stays in front of my eyes the whole time, it never leaves me at all. We couldn’t save him, neither from them, nor from the dog.”

The incident happened on 3 July, as troops were engaged in intense close-quarter combat in Shejaiya. The IDF said that there were “significant exchanges of fire between [its troops] and Hamas terrorists”.

According to the IDF, troops were searching buildings for Hamas using a dog – these animals are regularly used to hunt for fighters, booby traps, explosives and weapons.

“Inside one of the buildings,” the IDF said, “the canine detected terrorists and bit an individual.” The soldiers restrained the animal and gave Muhammed some “initial medical treatment” in another room.

Nabila Bhar said a military doctor arrived and went into the room where Muhammed was lying. His niece, Janna Bhar, 11, remembered troops saying he was “fine”.

Two of Muhammed’s brothers were arrested during the raid, according to the family. They say one has since been released.

Nabila said the rest of the family was ordered to leave. They pleaded to be allowed to stay with the wounded Muhammed. The IDF said they were “urged to leave to avoid staying in the combat area”.

Some time after this – the army has not said how long – the troops left. The IDF said they went to help soldiers who had been ambushed. The army report for 3 July named Capt Roy Miller, 21, as having been killed, and three other soldiers wounded, during fighting in Shejaiya.

Muhammed was now alone. The IDF statement did not say what condition he was in when the soldiers left. His brother Jibreel believes he had not been given proper treatment.

“They could have treated him much better than they did, but they just put some gauze on him, as if they did a quick, careless job. Whether he lived or died didn’t seem to matter to them,” he says.

The Israelis withdrew from the neighbourhood a week later and Muhammed’s family returned. They found him dead on the kitchen floor.

It is still not known what exactly caused his death after he was attacked by the dog. In the current wartime circumstances the family has not been able to have an autopsy carried out.

The young man was buried in an alleyway beside the house because it was too dangerous to go to the cemetery where his father – who died before the war – was interred.

Three months later, Muhammed is still interred in the alleyway. His brother Jibreel has covered the grave with plastic sheeting, some concrete blocks and a sheet of corrugated iron. It is surrounded by a mess of rubble and pieces of metal, the detritus from bombed-out buildings nearby.

Inside, Muhammed’s bedroom has been left shuttered. Jibreel opens the door, walks into the darkness, opens a wardrobe and takes out some of his brother’s clothes. Along with some photographs and family videos, they are the remaining mementoes of his life in the house.

“His personal room was where he exercised, played, and ate, and no-one entered this room except for him,” he says. In the sitting room, Jibreel points to the couch where Muhammed was sitting when the dog attacked. The blood stains have dried into the fabric.

“Every corner of this house reminds us of Muhammad,” Jibreel says. “This is the spot where he would always sit. We would sit around him, making sure not to disturb him. He loved peace and quiet.”

The family wants an independent investigation into his death.

“Once the war ends and international human rights organisations and legal groups return,” says Jibreel, “we will definitely file a legal case against the Israeli army.

“Muhammad was a special case – he wasn’t a fighter, he wasn’t armed, just an ordinary civilian. He wasn’t even just any civilian, he had special needs.”

___

Most of Dr Amjad Elawa’s neighbours and friends have gone. They are either dead or have fled south, hoping it will be safer there. When he walks home from the hospital, he sees people on the streets talking to themselves.

“No one is in their right mind anymore,” he says.

Dr Elawa, 32, works in the Emergency Services department of al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza. Back at the start of the war it was the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip. Now, much of the hospital is in ruins following two major raids by the IDF, who said Hamas and other gunmen used the facility to plan and launch attacks in breach of international law. The charge is rejected by Gaza’s health ministry, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes at al-Shifa.

Dr Elawa has seen children die in front of him. Victims of war wounds. Of disease, often caused by the lack of clean water. And when the BBC first met him, the area was facing acute malnutrition.

In February – when the BBC first interviewed Dr Elawa – he described witnessing the death of two-month-old Mahmoud Fatou. The baby boy died soon after being brought to the hospital.

“This child could not be provided with milk. His mum was not provided with food to be able to breastfeed him,” said Dr Elawa. “He had symptoms of severe dehydration, and he was taking his last breaths when he came.”

Dr Elawa’s own son was born 12 days after the 7 October attacks. After the death of Mahmoud Fatou, he reflected on his own family situation.

“We were all shocked – this child could be our child. Maybe my son after a few days will be just like him,” he said. Thankfully, Dr Elawa’s son is healthy and about to celebrate his first birthday.

The doctor faces the same problems as almost everybody else in northern Gaza. His house was destroyed and he had to move with his family to a patient’s home.

The UN and humanitarian NGOs in Gaza say Israel has regularly blocked aid from entering. For example, in the first two weeks of January (the month before we met Dr Elawa), the UN said 69% of requests to move aid and 95% of missions to provide fuel and medicines to water reservoirs, water wells and health facilities in northern Gaza, were refused. Israel denies blocking aid.

Dr Elawa queued for food whenever he could get any free time. This led to him being wounded when Israeli forces opened fire at Nabulsi roundabout in northern Gaza on 29 February.

Thousands of people had gathered, hoping to be given flour from an aid convoy escorted by the IDF. More than 100 people were killed and over 700 wounded according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The IDF said most of the casualties were caused by a stampede as people rushed the trucks.

The army said there were two incidents at the roundabout. It fired warning shots and then shot at individuals who the troops believed were a threat. Numerous survivors challenge that account, and say the stampede was caused by the army firing into the crowd.

Dr Elawa treated his own wound and then went to help survivors. Within days he was back on duty at al-Shifa.

A BBC colleague returned recently to find Dr Elawa still working in the emergency section. He returns to the theme of the wounded children he treats.

“They are the only ones who really stir our emotions, especially when their limbs are lost. It’s a truly emotional and heartbreaking situation. We see children who haven’t experienced much of life yet, losing their legs.”

On a break, he goes outside and points to the ruins of different buildings. “It used to have an intensive care unit, an operating room, and a cardiology department,” he says.

“Whether it’s medical devices, equipment, or anything else, all are completely destroyed, even the beds. We need a fully-equipped hospital, built from scratch.”

When Dr Elawa returned after the second Israeli raid there was an overpowering stench of death from several mass graves. One of the hospital directors, Mohamed Mughir, says there were “signs of field executions, binding marks, gunshot wounds to the head and torture marks on the limbs” of some of the corpses.

The IDF deny allegations of war crimes and say the graves contain bodies exhumed and then re-buried by the army when searching for dead Israeli hostages.

“The claim that the IDF buried Palestinian bodies is baseless and unfounded,” it says.

The UN Human Rights Director, Volker Turk, says that, given what he calls “the prevailing climate of impunity”, there should be an independent international investigation.

There is more food now. Dr Elawa has a supply of flour but says there are no vegetables, fruit or meat. They use canned foods instead.

Like so many who work to save lives in Gaza, Dr Elawa prays for the war to end.

“We want to return to our old lives, to be able to sleep safely, to walk in the streets safely, to visit our loved ones and relatives – those who are still alive.”

A pair of red shoes, two beaded necklaces and a British 10p coin are among the few clues that could help to identify a teenage girl found murdered in western France more than 40 years ago.

Her death is one of 46 cold cases European police are seeking to solve as part of the second phase of a campaign aimed at finding the names of unidentified murdered women.

BBC coverage of last year’s appeal helped to identify a British woman some 30 years after her murder.

“We want to identify the deceased women, bring answers to families, and deliver justice to the victims,” Jürgen Stock, secretary-general of Interpol, which is co-ordinating the effort, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Whether it is a memory, a tip, or a shared story, the smallest detail could help uncover the truth.”

The second phase of the Operation Identify Me campaign includes cases in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain.

Details of each one have been published on Interpol’s website, along with photographs of possible identifying items and facial reconstructions.

Most of the victims are thought to have been aged between 15 and 30.

The body of the teenager with red shoes, beaded necklaces and a 10p piece was found underneath layers of leaves in a layby near a village called Le Cellier in 1982. It had been there for several months.

Speaking near the area she was found, now overgrown with brambles, nettles and horse chestnut trees, detective Franc Dannerolle says the teenager’s body was “disposed of like garbage”.

“There was no respect, no care for her before her death,” he adds.

The 10p coin led investigators to believe that she was either British or had been travelling in Britain before her murder, though they acknowledge that she could have found it, or been given it.

Police have chosen not to go into detail about the nature of her killing to avoid “fake perpetrators” from claiming responsibility.

Unfortunately, the teenager’s remains can no longer be found, which complicates the cold case investigators’ task.

“If we manage to find them, it could be possible to work on her DNA to have a link with the family,” says Det Dannerolle.

Retired detective Alain Brillet worked on the case at the time and describes it as a “triple enigma”.

“The strangest and most incredible thing was that we had someone who had been murdered, because we knew she had been murdered, but we could never find out what her name was, where she was from, or who had killed her,” he says.

The BBC found one woman who recalled the fear the discovery of her body sparked in the village, but because the victim wasn’t local, most people forgot about it and moved on.

The launch of the Operation Identify Me campaign last year marked the first time that Interpol had ever gone public with a list known as “black notices”, seeking information about unidentified bodies. Such notices had historically only been circulated internally among Interpol’s network of police forces.

Across Europe, the ease of movement due to open borders, increased global migration, and human trafficking has led to more people being reported missing outside their home country, says Dr Susan Hitchin, co-ordinator of Interpol’s DNA unit.

“These women have suffered a double injustice. They’ve become victims twice: they’ve been killed through an act of violence and they’ve been denied their name in death,” she says.

Interpol is using targeted social media to advertise the campaign in specific locations and demographics. The global police force has also been asking celebrities to speak on behalf of the unknown, unnamed women.

Another case that Interpol is hoping people may be able to help solve is that of a woman whose body was discovered in Wassenaar in the Netherlands some two decades ago.

The discovery was Dutch forensic investigator Sandra Baasbank’s first case. She remembers seeing the woman lying face down in sand dunes, with no obvious signs of injury or struggle.

Det Baasbank says the woman was wearing brown plaid leggings and red shiny patent shoes – “unusual if you are going for a walk on the beach”.

“She was very fit, sporty. Wearing a headband, and sunglasses. Her buttons were done up and she was wearing a scarf,” the detective adds.

Forensic analysis found the woman was born in Eastern Europe and spent the final five years of her life in Western Europe.

One of the keys she was carrying was traced back to Germany.

“Maybe she made me better at what I do. ‘Never give up,’ is my motto. I’m determined in the work I do, and maybe she’s the reason why,” Det Baasbank says.

She is hopeful that the new Identify Me campaign will help ignite some new leads and provide a form of closure.

And there is reason for her optimism.

Rita Roberts, a British woman murdered in Belgium, was identified when her family spotted her distinctive black rose tattoo in a BBC report based on the first appeal.

The last contact her family had with her was via a postcard in May 1992. Her body was found the following month.

When her family were told the body was indeed Rita, her sister Donna says she “broke into tears crying”. For them, it had ended decades of uncertainty.

While it has been hard learning of her sister’s death, she says she takes comfort in feeling that Rita is “at peace”.

Now she has been identified, her family are appealing to the public for any information however small to help with the investigation.

And they’re also hoping that other murdered women will also be identified.

They are “sisters, mothers, aunties,” Donna says. “Just because they don’t have names, don’t assume they’re not people.”

Two grey shapes, visible from satellites for most of this year at Cambodia’s Ream naval base, seem to confirm growing fears in Washington: that China is expanding its military footprint, beyond the three disputed islands in the South China Sea which it has already seized and fortified.

The shapes are type A56 corvettes of the Chinese navy – 1,500-tonne warships – and they have been berthed alongside a new, Chinese-built pier that is big enough to accommodate much larger vessels. Onshore there are other facilities, also built by China, which are presumed to be for the use of the Chinese navy.

The Cambodian government has repeatedly denied such a possibility, citing its constitution which bans any permanent foreign military presence, and stating that Ream is open to use by all friendly navies.

“Please understand this is a Cambodian, not a Chinese base,” said Seun Sam, a Policy Analyst at the Royal Academy of Cambodia. “Cambodia is very small, and our military capacities are limited.

“We need more training from outside friends, especially from China.”

Others, however, are watching with suspicion.

For all the talk about the rapid rise of Chinese sea power – the country now has more ships in its navy than the US – China currently has only one overseas military base, in the African state of Djibouti, which it built in 2016.

The United States, by contrast, has around 750 – one also in Djibouti, and many others in countries close to China like Japan and South Korea.

The US believes the imbalance is changing, however, because of China’s stated ambition to be a global military power. That, and the scale of its investments in overseas infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative, which under Chinese law must be built to military standards.

Some in Washington predict that China will eventually have a global network of bases, or civilian ports that it can use as bases. And one of the first of these is Ream.

Until a few years ago, Ream – which sits on Cambodia’s southern tip – was being upgraded with US assistance; part of the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of yearly military aid provided to Cambodia. But the US cut back this aid after 2017, when Cambodia’s main opposition party was banned and its leaders exiled or jailed.

Already increasingly dependent on Chinese aid and investment, the Cambodian government abruptly switched partners. It cancelled the regular joint military exercises held with the US, and switched to the so-called Golden Dragon exercises it now holds with China.

By 2020, two US-funded buildings in Ream had been torn down and an extensive, Chinese-funded expansion of the facilities there had begun. By the end of last year the new pier had been built. It was almost identical to the 363 meter-long pier at the base in Djibouti, and long enough to accommodate China’s largest aircraft carrier.

Soon the two corvettes were docked at Ream – and either they, or identical replacements, have stayed there for most of this year.

Cambodia claims the ships are for training, and to prepare for this year’s Golden Dragon exercises. It also says China is constructing two new A56 corvettes for its own navy, and insists that the Chinese presence in Ream is not permanent, so does not count as a base.

That has not stopped US officials from expressing their concern over the expansion of the site, though, which satellite photographs show has, in addition to the new pier, a new dry dock, warehouses, and what look like administrative offices and living quarters with four basketball courts.

In 2019 the Wall Street Journal reported on what it said was a leaked agreement between Cambodia and China to lease 77 hectares of the base for 30 years. This allegedly included the stationing of military personnel and weapons.

The Cambodian government dismissed the report as fake news – but it is noteworthy that only Chinese warships have so far been allowed to dock at the new pier. Two Japanese destroyers visiting in February were instead told to dock at the nearby town of Sihanoukville.

Even if the Chinese presence does start to become more permanent and exclusive, however, some analysts doubt it would violate Cambodia’s constitution.

It is technically true that Ream is not a permanent base. And while its expansion is Chinese-funded, the base itself is not leased to China, said Kirsten Gunness, a Senior Policy Researcher at the California-based Rand Corporation.

“We are seeing a pattern of Chinese ships being continuously docked [at Ream],” she said. “One way to get around the constitutional prohibition is not to call it a foreign base, but allow foreign forces continuous access on a rotational basis.”

The US and the Philippines operate under similar agreements, Gunness added.

Most analysts believe a long-term Chinese presence at Ream would offer very few real advantages to China. They point to the three bases it has already built on Mischief, Fiery Cross and Subi Reefs in the South China Sea, and the formidable naval forces it maintains on its south coast.

But a Chinese base in Ream, at the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand, does worry Cambodia’s neighbours, Thailand and Vietnam. Together with other bases further north, it could be seen as an attempt by China to encircle the long Vietnamese coast.

Like the Philippines, Vietnam disputes China’s claim to almost all the islands in the South China Sea, and its forces have clashed with China’s in the past.

Thai national security officials have also privately expressed alarm at the thought of a Chinese base just south of the Thai navy’s main port in Sattahip, covering their exit from the Gulf of Thailand. Thailand and Cambodia still have unresolved territorial disputes, after all.

Neither country is likely to voice these complaints publicly, though. Thailand will want to avoid causing ripples in its economically vital relationship with China, while Vietnam will want to avoid stirring up anti-Vietnamese sentiment in Cambodia. Public resentment of China in Vietnam, where such feelings are never far from the surface, is also something the Vietnamese government will want to steer clear of.

US and Indian strategists, meanwhile, are more concerned about the future possibility of a Chinese base in the Indian Ocean – like the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota, which a Chinese state-owned company acquired a 99-year lease for in 2017, or the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, which has also been redeveloped with Chinese funding.

But these are still very distant prospects. Few analysts believe China will be able to rival the global military reach of the US for many more years.

“The Ream base does not add much in the way of power projection – it doesn’t get the Chinese navy any closer to places it wants to go,” said Greg Poling, director of the CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

What it could do is make a big difference in gathering intelligence, tracking satellites and detecting or monitoring long-range targets.

“These are not necessarily the best options for China,” Mr Poling added. “But they are the only ones on offer.”

A US federal judge has ruled that Google must allow Android apps made by rival technology firms onto its Google Play app store for three years starting next month.

The change was among several remedies ordered by Judge James Donato in a case brought against Google by Epic Games, the maker of the hit video game Fortnite.

Google says it will appeal against the decision and ask for a pause to the proposed remedies.

In December, a jury sided with Epic, which says Google stifled competitors by controlling the distribution of apps and payments on Android phones.

“The changes would put consumers’ privacy and security at risk, make it harder for developers to promote their apps, and reduce competition on devices,” Google said in a statement.

Some legal experts have hailed the ruling as a meaningful challenge to the dominance of a handful of technology giants.

“It shows that courts are not necessarily opposed to asking dominant platforms to share access with rivals in the name of competition,” said Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School.

Among other remedies, the ruling called for Google to make its catalogue of apps available to competing app stores.

“That isn’t something antitrust law would normally require,” said Mark Lemley, professor at Stanford Law School. “But the judge correctly noted that once you have violated the antitrust laws, courts can order you to do affirmative things to undo the harm you caused, even though you didn’t have the obligation to do those things in the first place.”

Google had argued that its Play app store operates in a competitive landscape, citing competition with iPhone-maker Apple, which was also sued by Epic Games in 2020.

That case ended with an appeals court ruling that Apple does not have a monopoly in mobile games.

Monday’s order is the latest legal blow suffered by Google in recent years on competition grounds.

In August, US District Judge Amit Mehta sided with the US Department of Justice, which accused the company of operating an illegal monopoly in online search.

Last month, District Judge Leonie Brinkema finished hearing arguments over similar government allegations that Google dominates the advertising technology market.

The company’s critics say Google’s fees of up to 30% on every payment made on its app store has meant higher prices for consumers.

“That is a rate they were able to charge because they were a monopoly,” said Lee Hepner, Senior Legal Counsel at the American Economic Liberties Project.

Mr Hepner said that the ruling is likely change that.

“There’s going to be a lot more incentive for developers to enter this market, and prices should be lower for consumers,” he said.

A year ago, the images were searing.

With Israel still reeling from the worst terrorist attack in its history and Gaza already under devastating bombardment, it felt like a turning point.

The Israel-Palestine conflict, largely absent from our screens for years, had exploded back into view.

It seemed to take almost everyone by surprise. The US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan had famously declared just a week before the attacks: “The Middle East region is quieter today than it has been in two decades.”

A year on, the region is in flames.

More than 41,000 Palestinians are dead. Two million Gazans have been displaced. In the West Bank, another 600 Palestinians have been killed. In Lebanon, another one million people are displaced and more than 2,000 dead.

More than 1,200 Israelis were killed on that first day. Since then, Israel has lost 350 more soldiers in Gaza. Two hundred thousand Israelis have been forced from their homes close to Gaza and along the volatile northern border with Lebanon. Around 50 soldiers and civilians have been killed by Hezbollah rockets.

Across the Middle East, others have joined the fight. Dogged US efforts to prevent the crisis from escalating, involving presidential visits, countless diplomatic missions and the deployment of vast military resources, have all come to nothing. Rockets have been fired from far away in Iraq and Yemen.

And mortal enemies Israel and Iran have exchanged blows too, with more almost certain to come.

Washington has rarely looked less influential.

As the conflict has spread and metastasised, its origins have faded from view, like the scene of a car crash receding in the rear view mirror of a juggernaut hurtling towards even bigger disasters.

The lives of Gazans, before and after October 7, have been almost forgotten as the media breathlessly anticipates “all-out war” in the Middle East.

Some Israelis whose lives were turned upside down that terrible day are feeling similarly neglected.

“We have been pushed aside,” Yehuda Cohen, father of hostage Nimrod Cohen, told Israel’s Kan news last week. Mr Cohen said he held Mr Netanyahu responsible for a “pointless war that has pitted all possible enemies against us”.

“He is doing everything, with great success, to turn the event of October 7 into a minor event,” he said.

Not all Israelis share Mr Cohen’s particular perspective. Many now see the Hamas attacks of a year ago as the opening salvo of a wider campaign by Israel’s enemies to destroy the Jewish state.

The fact that Israel has struck back – with exploding pagers, targeted assassinations, long-range bombing raids and the sort of intelligence-led operations the country has long prided itself on – has restored some of the self-confidence the country lost a year ago.

“There is nowhere in the Middle East Israel cannot reach,” Mr Netanyahu confidently declared last week.

The prime minister’s poll ratings were rock bottom for months after October 7. Now he can see them creeping up again. A license, perhaps, for more bold action?

But where’s it all going?

“None of us know when the music is going to stop and where everybody will be at that point,” Simon Gass, Britain’s former ambassador to Iran, told the BBC’s Today Podcast on Thursday.

The US is still involved, even if the visit to Israel of US Central Command (Centcom) chief Gen. Michael Kurilla feels more like crisis management than an exploration of diplomatic off-ramps.

With a presidential election now just four weeks away and the Middle East more politically toxic than ever before, this doesn’t feel like a moment for bold new American initiatives.

For now, the immediate challenge is simply to prevent a wider regional conflagration.

There’s a general assumption, among her allies, that Israel has the right – even the duty – to respond to last week’s ballistic missile attack by Iran.

No Israelis were killed in the attack and Iran appeared to be aiming at military and intelligence targets, but Mr Netanyahu has nevertheless promised a harsh response.

After weeks of stunning tactical success, Israel’s prime minister seems to harbour grand ambitions.

In a direct address to the Iranian people, he hinted that regime change was coming in Tehran. “When Iran is finally free, and that moment will come a lot sooner than people think, everything will be different,” he said.

For some observers, his rhetoric carried uncomfortable echoes of the case made by American neoconservatives in the run up to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

But for all the danger of the moment, fragile guardrails do still exist.

The Iranian regime may dream of a world without Israel, but it knows that it’s far too weak to take on the region’s only superpower, especially at a time when Hezbollah and Hamas – its allies and proxies in the so-called “axis of resistance” – are being crushed.

And Israel, which would dearly like to get rid of the threat posed by Iran, also knows that it cannot do this alone, despite its recent successes.

Regime change is not on Joe Biden’s agenda, nor that of his vice president, Kamala Harris.

As for Donald Trump, the one time he seemed poised to attack Iran – after Tehran shot down a US surveillance drone in June 2019 – the former president backed down at the last moment (although he did order the assassination of a top Iranian general, Qasem Soleimani, seven months later).

Few would have imagined, a year ago, that the Middle East was heading for its most perilous moment in decades.

But looked at through that same juggernaut’s rear view mirror, the past 12 months seem to have followed a terrible logic.

With so much wreckage now strewn all across the road, and events still unfolding at an alarming pace, policy makers – and the rest of us – are struggling to keep up.

As the conflict that erupted in Gaza grinds on into a second year, all talk of the “day after” – how Gaza will be rehabilitated and governed when the fighting finally ends – has ceased, or been drowned out by the din of a wider war.

So too has any meaningful discussion of a resolution of Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, the conflict which got us here in the first place.

At some point, when Israel feels it has done enough damage to Hamas and Hezbollah, Israel and Iran have both had their say – assuming this doesn’t plunge the region into an even deeper crisis – and the US presidential election is over, diplomacy may get another chance.

But right now, that all feels a very long way off.

A stock market rally in China has fizzled out as a highly-anticipated announcement on plans to boost the country’s ailing economy disappointed investors.

Shares had jumped by more than 10% as trading restarted after the Golden Week holiday but fell back after a news conference by the country’s economic planners.

In a volatile session, the Shanghai Composite Index in mainland China was up by around 5% in late morning trade, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong was 5% lower.

Investors had been hoping for more information about how the government plans to support economic growth but the announcement gave little in the way of details.

The chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission Zheng Shanjie said he is “fully confident” the country will achieve its full-year economic and social goals.

But he added: “The downward pressures on China’s economy is also increasing with some industries seeing rat-race competition.”

Mr Zheng’s comments came as he announced that China will issue 200 billion yuan ($28bn; £21.5bn) for spending and investment projects by the end of this year.

“The market really expected more. The correction will be even stronger if the data on the Golden Week in terms of consumption is weak,” said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for the Asia Pacific region at investment bank Natixis.

“The market is reacting to the lack of a real fiscal stimulus. I would not have organised a press conference not to announce anything new.”

The Chinese government has been trying to boost confidence in the world’s second largest economy as concerns increase that it may miss its own 5% annual growth target.

Investors have been pouring into Chinese stocks since officials began rolling out a raft of measures aimed at boosting the economy.

The plans included help for the country’s crisis-hit property industry, support for the stock market, cash handouts for the poor and more government spending.

But some economists have questioned whether the policies will be enough to fix China’s economic problems.

They say deep reforms might be needed in order to set the country on a more sustainable growth path.

Growth has been slowing in the world’s second largest economy as it continues to face a property market slump, falling prices and other challenges.

India has agreed to extend hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support to the Maldives to help strengthen its struggling economy.

The deal was announced after Maldives President Mohammed Muizzu held talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his five-day visit to India.

The support includes a $400m currency swap deal and an additional 30bn rupees ($357m; £273m) in another swap agreement which will allow companies to do business in local currencies rather than in US dollars.

The Maldivian president was given red carpet treatment after relations soured in recent months. Modi called his visit a “new chapter” in ties.

“India will always be there for the progress and prosperity of the people of Maldives,” he said.

The statements – and the Indian financial package – signal a significant improvement in relations between Male and Delhi, which have been strained since Muizzu came to power in November 2023.

Soon after taking over, he chose to travel to Turkey and China – his visit to the latter in January was seen especially as a high-profile snub to India as previous Maldivian leaders traditionally visited Delhi first after being elected.

Around the same time, India was angered by derogatory comments from three Maldivian officials about Modi.

But analysts say the country’s ailing economy has made its leadership mend its ties with India.

The Maldives is staring at a debt default as its foreign exchange reserves have dropped to $440m (£334m), just enough for one-and-a-half months of imports.

On Monday, Muizzu said he held “extensive discussions” with Modi to chart “a path for the future collaboration between our two countries”.

He thanked India and said the budgetary support would be “instrumental in addressing foreign exchange issues”.

The two countries have also agreed on a deal to start talks on a free trade agreement.

Ahead of his meeting with Modi, Muizzu had told the BBC that he expected India to help the country as it has done in the past.

“India is fully cognisant of our fiscal situation, and as one of our biggest development partners, will always be ready to ease our burden, find better alternatives and solutions to the challenges we face,” he said.

Without referring to his anti-India campaign, he said: “We are confident that any differences can be addressed through open dialogue and mutual understanding.”

This was in contrast to his previous decisions, some of which were seen as a way to reduce Delhi’s influence and forge closer ties with India’s rival China.

In February, his administration allowed a Chinese research ship to dock in the Maldives, much to Delhi’s displeasure. Some saw it as a mission to collect data which could be used by the Chinese military for submarine operations.

Muizzu has however rejected the pro-China tag, calling his policies as “Maldives First”.

But the country also continues to depend on China, which has so far extended $1.37bn in loans.

Hurricane Milton has rapidly intensified into an extremely dangerous category five storm as it tears its way towards the US state of Florida.

Milton is packing ferocious winds of up to180mph (285km/h) as it skirts the northern edge of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Forecasters warn of potentially catastrophic storm surges along coastal areas.

The storm is expected to hit the heavily populated city of Tampa Bay with full force on Wednesday.

Floridians have been told to prepare for the state’s largest evacuation effort in years, with Governor Ron DeSantis warning that time for people to evacuate is quickly running out.

“We have to assume this is going to be a monster,” Governor DeSantis said at press conference on Monday afternoon.

Warnings over Hurricane Milton come just 10 days after Hurricane Helene – the deadliest mainland storm since Katrina in 2005 – pummelled the US south-east, killing at least 225 people. Hundreds more are missing.

At least 14 of those deaths were in Florida, where 51 of 67 counties are now under emergency warnings as Milton approaches.

“Unfortunately, some of the Helene victims are in the path of this storm,” DeSantis said.

Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service [NWS], said Milton became a category five hurricane at record-breaking speed – with wind speeds intensifying by 80 knots (148km/h) over 24 hours.

“That’s the third highest we have on record,” he said.

Hurricanes are separated into five categories based on their wind speed.

Those reaching category three and higher are considered major hurricanes because of their potential for significant loss of life and damage, according to the NWS.

Hurricane Milton is expected to weaken on Tuesday as it travels over the Gulf of Mexico, dropping to a category three storm by the time it makes landfall in Florida’s Tampa Bay on Wednesday evening or early on Thursday.

The National Hurricane Center warned torrential rain and flash-flooding can be expected across parts of Florida from late Monday.

It added that life-threatening storm surges and damaging winds along portions of Florida’s west coast were possible from late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

Rainfall totals could reach localised highs of 15in (38cm), and coastal areas could see storm surges of 10-15ft (3-4.5m).

Counties began issuing evacuation orders on Monday, and tolls will be suspended on roads in western and central Florida.

Long queues at petrol stations began forming in south Florida, with some reports of stations running out of fuel.

Traffic congestion in some areas has increased by as much as 90% above average, DeSantis said.

School closures in several counties begin on Tuesday.

Keith Turi, a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), said: “I’m encouraged by the amount of evacuation that’s going on right now.”

“This is actually a good sign.”

Parts of Pinellas County, where at least a dozen people were killed by Helene, were placed under evacuation orders on Monday.

Airports in Tampa and Orlando announced they would be suspending flight operations from Tuesday because of the storm.

• Are you in Florida? Please share your experiences
• Helene is deadliest mainland US storm since Katrina
• What made Helene so damaging?
• Hurricanes: A look inside the deadly storms
• Misinformation swirls around hurricane response effort

Foul weather derailed the presidential campaign as well.

DeSantis spoke by phone with President Joe Biden, but according to NBC News, he has refused to take any calls from Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is running for president against former President Donald Trump.

“I didn’t know she called me…. I was not aware of that,” DeSantis said.

Harris, asked about her calls not being answered on Monday afternoon, responded that “playing political games with this moment, in these crisis situation[s], these are the height of emergency situation[s], [is] utterly irresponsible,

“And it is selfish and it is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”

A town hall style event to be filmed with former Trump in Miami on Tuesday was postponed until next week.

“The health and safety of everyone involved in this event is the highest priority,” said the host network Univision.

The approach of the new hurricane comes as the US government warns that clean-up efforts could take years after Hurricane Helene.

Over 12,000 cubic yards of debris have been removed in Helene-affected areas of Florida in less than two days, officials said.

DeSantis said debris removal will continue “until it is no longer safe to do so”.

Hundreds of roads in affected areas remain closed, hampering efforts to send aid to hard-hit communities.

Helene made landfall in late September as a category four hurricane – damaging structures, causing flash flooding and knocking out power to millions of homes.

As well as in Florida, deaths were recorded in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – and the worst-hit state, North Carolina.

Biden has ordered another 500 soldiers to be deployed to North Carolina. The troops – who now number 1,500 in all – will work with thousands of government relief workers and National Guard.

Biden has so far approved nearly $140m (£107m) in federal assistance.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to get exclusive insight on the latest climate and environment news from the BBC’s Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, delivered to your inbox every week. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

Two Chinese nationals have been killed and at least 10 people injured in a suspected suicide attack near Karachi airport in Pakistan.

A third body, not yet officially identified, is thought to be that of the attacker, the BBC understands.

The Chinese embassy in Pakistan said the explosion on Sunday night was a “terrorist attack” targeting a convoy of Chinese engineers working on a power project in Sindh province.

The separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), which has in recent years carried out attacks on Chinese nationals involved in development projects in Pakistan, has said it carried out the attack.

In a statement released on Monday, the militant group said it had “targeted a high-level convoy of Chinese engineers and investors” arriving from Karachi airport.

A later statement from the group described it as a suicide attack, and named the perpetrator as Shah Fahad, part of a BLA suicide squad called Majeed Brigade.

The attack was carried out using a “vehicle-borne improvised explosive device”, Reuters news agency quoted the BLA as saying.

The explosion happened around 23:00 local time (17:00 GMT) on Sunday.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif called the attack a “heinous act” and offered his condolences to the Chinese people.

“Pakistan stands committed to safeguarding our Chinese friends,” he wrote on X.

The country’s foreign ministry said it is “in close contact” with Chinese authorities and will “bring to justice those responsible for this cowardly attack”.

“This act of terrorism is an attack not only on Pakistan, but also on the enduring friendship between Pakistan and China,” the ministry said.

“This barbaric act will not go unpunished,” it added.

The Chinese embassy said that the engineers were part of the Chinese-funded enterprise Port Qasim Power Generation Co Ltd, which aims to build two coal power plants at Port Qasim, near Karachi.

Thousands of Chinese workers are in Pakistan, many of them involved in creating an economic corridor between the two countries as part of Beijing’s multibillion dollar Belt and Road Initiative.

The Port Qasim plant is part of the corridor, along with a number of infrastructure and energy projects in Pakistan’s Balochistan province, which has a rich supply of natural resources, including gas and minerals.

The BLA along with other ethnic Baloch groups has fought a long-running insurgency for a separate homeland.

It has regularly targeted Chinese nationals in the region, claiming ethnic Baloch residents were not receiving their share of wealth from foreign investment the province and natural resources extracted there.

The Chinese embassy on Monday reminded its citizens and Chinese enterprises in Pakistan to be vigilant and to “do their best to take safety precautions”. The embassy added that it hoped Pakistan would thoroughly investigate the attack and “severely punish the murderer”.

The blast was reportedly heard in various areas around the city, with footage from local media showing thick smoke and cars set alight.

Pictures online show security officials and firefighters investigating the explosion site, with several vehicles charred by the blast.

A police surgeon, Dr Summaiya told Dawn news: “Ten injured persons, including one in critical condition, have been brought the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre [JPMC].”

She added the injured included a police constable and a woman.

A statement posted on X from Sindh’s Interior Minister’s office said that a “tanker truck” had exploded on Airport Road. Roads leading to Jinnah International Airport were sealed off following the attack, but the airport is functioning as usual on Monday.

There has also been heightened security in Pakistan as it prepares to host the leaders’ summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

There have been multiple attacks on Chinese nationals in Pakistan in recent years. The BLA has claimed responsibility for several of them, including an attack in March on a Pakistani naval airbase near Gwadar port, another main feature of the China-Pakistan economic corridor.

In April 2022, the group killed three Chinese tutors and a Pakistani driver in a suicide bombing near Karachi University’s Confucius Institute.

In November 2018, gunmen killed at least four people in an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi.

Japan’s government has admitted an official photo of its new cabinet was manipulated to make members look less unkempt after online speculation that it had been edited.

Photos taken by local media showed the new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, and his defence minister with small patches of white shirt showing under their suits.

But in the official photo issued by the prime minister’s office on Thursday, the untidiness had disappeared.

After plenty of online mockery, a government spokesperson on Monday said “minor editing was made” to the image.

Spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters the image had been manipulated as group photos taken by the prime minister’s office “will be preserved forever as memorabilia”.

He added that “minor editing is customarily performed on these photos”.

His comments come after a barrage of mockery on social media.

“This is more hideous than a group picture of some kind of a seniors’ club during a trip to a hot spring. It’s utterly embarrassing,” one user wrote on X.

Another user said it was clear the cabinet members were wearing suits in the incorrect size.

Other users have been referring to the cabinet – and their trousers – as “ill-fitting”, according to local media.

The photograph was taken on Thursday following the first meeting of Japan’s new cabinet.

A few days earlier, Ishiba, 67, replaced outgoing prime minister, Fumio Kishida, as chief of the country’s ruling party.

He was officially appointed to the role of prime minister on Tuesday.

Ishiba has already announced plans for a snap election on 27 October.

“It is important for the new administration to be judged by the people as soon as possible,” he told a news conference in Tokyo, according to Reuters.

The election, which is set to take place more than a year before it is due, will decide which party controls parliament’s lower house.

Suddenly, Malak stops speaking, leans forward a fraction and kisses the baby sitting on her lap. Her sister Rahma is fair-haired and has blue eyes. There is a 13-year age difference between them. But to Malak – who lost her father in an Israeli attack – the four-month-old baby is an unimaginably precious gift.

“I love her so much, in a way no-one else knows,” she says.

The BBC went back to meet Malak and others in Gaza as the first anniversary of the war approached. We first interviewed Malak in February, just after the death of her father, Abed-Alrahman al-Najjar, a 32-year-old farm labourer.

The father of seven, believed to have been hit by shrapnel, was among more than 70 people killed during an Israeli commando operation to rescue two hostages held by Hamas in Rafah. He was asleep with his family in a refugee tent when the raid happened.

Their tent was close to the scene of the fighting. Malak lost an eye in the attack. She also suffered a wound in her side. Back then she was severely traumatised – when she met a BBC colleague, she called out in anguish, “I am in pain. I lost my dad. Enough!”

Since then, doctors have fitted a small white sphere in her empty eye socket. It will have to suffice until the war ends and she hopefully can be fitted with a proper prosthetic eye.

But Malak does not complain about this loss – rather, she imagines how her father would react if he could hold baby Rahma, born three months after his death. She smiles and says: “He always wanted to have a daughter with blue eyes.”

After what has happened, Malak wants to train as an eye doctor, to help others who suffer as she does.

She is sitting on a concrete floor in Khan Younis in southern Gaza with the baby and her five other younger siblings – three sisters, two brothers, aged between four and 12 years old. Before the war, their father worked hard on other people’s farms to support his family.

“Our father used to take us out and buy us clothes in the winter. He was so kind to us. He would deny himself but never us,” Malak remembers.

Then came 7 October 2023, and the Hamas assault on Israel in which over 1,200 Israelis were killed – among them, dozens of children. More than 250 hostages were abducted into Gaza. There were 30 children seized, including a baby of nine months.

The attack triggered Israel’s ground invasion, relentless air strikes and fighting with Hamas. Almost 42,000 people have now been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. About 90% of Gaza’s population – nearly two million people – are displaced, according to the United Nations. Malak’s family has been uprooted four times.

“I carry a pain that even mountains cannot bear,” she says. “We were displaced, and it feels like our whole life is displacement. We move from place to place.”

• Israel kibbutz struggles to heal, one year after 7 October
• Gaza Strip in maps: How a year of war has drastically changed life in the territory

The Israeli government refuses to allow foreign reporters into Gaza, and the BBC relies on a team of local journalists to cover the humanitarian crisis. We briefed them with questions and asked them to contact some of the Palestinians we have spoken to in Gaza over the past 12 months.

These journalists share the fear and displacement of the people they report on. Displacement means uncertainty. Constant fear. Will the child, sent for a bucket of water, come home? Or will they return to find their home flattened, and their family buried under the rubble? These are the questions that haunt Abed-Alrahman’s young widow, Nawara, every day.

“There is always shelling and we are always afraid, terrified. I constantly hold my children close and hug them,” she says.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tell people to move to so-called “humanitarian zones”. People flee but often find no safety. When they move, the struggle to locate food, firewood and medicine in an unfamiliar place starts again.

The al-Najjars are now back in their family home, but they know they may have to flee again. That is the inescapable reality of their lives after a year of war. In the words of Nawara, there is “no safe place in the Gaza Strip”.

Nawara complains of the overflowing sewage in the street. The lack of medical supplies. Like so many in Gaza, with no income, she depends on what food her in-laws or charities can supply.

There are no schools open for her children, who are among the 465,000 that Unicef – the UN Children’s Fund – estimate are affected by school closures there.

“Our health – my children’s and mine – is bad. They are always sick, always have fevers or diarrhoea. They are always feeling unwell,” Nawara adds.

Through all of this, she holds on to the memory of her husband Abed-Alrahman.

“I look at his picture, and keep talking to him. I imagine he’s still alive,” she says. “I keep talking to him on the phone as if he’s replying to me, and I imagine answering back. Every day I sit by myself, bring up his name, talk to him, and cry. I feel like he’s aware of everything I’m going through.”

And Malak too has her daily ritual. She and one of her sisters try to do a charitable deed each day in memory of their father. When possible, their aunt makes a gift of food for the dead man. “At night, we put it out and pray for him,” Malak says.

The stories of Nawara al-Najjar and Malak are a fragmentary glimpse into the suffering of the last 12 months. As the war enters its second year, our BBC colleagues on the ground continue to report on death and displacement. In northern Gaza we re-visited the family of a disabled man who died after being attacked in an Israeli search operation.

___

Muhammed Bhar was terrified. The dog growled and lunged. It was biting, drawing blood and he could not stop it. Around him, the sitting room was full of noise – his mother and little niece screaming, the Israeli soldiers shouting orders.

Muhammed, aged 24, had Down’s syndrome and was autistic – he could not have understood what was happening. When a BBC colleague first spoke to his family in July, they were still struggling with the shock of what had happened.

Muhammed’s mother, Nabila, 70, described what she remembered: “I constantly see the dog tearing at him and his hand, and the blood pouring from his hand.

“This scene I will never forget – it stays in front of my eyes the whole time, it never leaves me at all. We couldn’t save him, neither from them, nor from the dog.”

The incident happened on 3 July, as troops were engaged in intense close-quarter combat in Shejaiya. The IDF said that there were “significant exchanges of fire between [its troops] and Hamas terrorists”.

According to the IDF, troops were searching buildings for Hamas using a dog – these animals are regularly used to hunt for fighters, booby traps, explosives and weapons.

“Inside one of the buildings,” the IDF said, “the canine detected terrorists and bit an individual.” The soldiers restrained the animal and gave Muhammed some “initial medical treatment” in another room.

Nabila Bhar said a military doctor arrived and went into the room where Muhammed was lying. His niece, Janna Bhar, 11, remembered troops saying he was “fine”.

Two of Muhammed’s brothers were arrested during the raid, according to the family. They say one has since been released.

Nabila said the rest of the family was ordered to leave. They pleaded to be allowed to stay with the wounded Muhammed. The IDF said they were “urged to leave to avoid staying in the combat area”.

Some time after this – the army has not said how long – the troops left. The IDF said they went to help soldiers who had been ambushed. The army report for 3 July named Capt Roy Miller, 21, as having been killed, and three other soldiers wounded, during fighting in Shejaiya.

Muhammed was now alone. The IDF statement did not say what condition he was in when the soldiers left. His brother Jibreel believes he had not been given proper treatment.

“They could have treated him much better than they did, but they just put some gauze on him, as if they did a quick, careless job. Whether he lived or died didn’t seem to matter to them,” he says.

The Israelis withdrew from the neighbourhood a week later and Muhammed’s family returned. They found him dead on the kitchen floor.

It is still not known what exactly caused his death after he was attacked by the dog. In the current wartime circumstances the family has not been able to have an autopsy carried out.

The young man was buried in an alleyway beside the house because it was too dangerous to go to the cemetery where his father – who died before the war – was interred.

Three months later, Muhammed is still interred in the alleyway. His brother Jibreel has covered the grave with plastic sheeting, some concrete blocks and a sheet of corrugated iron. It is surrounded by a mess of rubble and pieces of metal, the detritus from bombed-out buildings nearby.

Inside, Muhammed’s bedroom has been left shuttered. Jibreel opens the door, walks into the darkness, opens a wardrobe and takes out some of his brother’s clothes. Along with some photographs and family videos, they are the remaining mementoes of his life in the house.

“His personal room was where he exercised, played, and ate, and no-one entered this room except for him,” he says. In the sitting room, Jibreel points to the couch where Muhammed was sitting when the dog attacked. The blood stains have dried into the fabric.

“Every corner of this house reminds us of Muhammad,” Jibreel says. “This is the spot where he would always sit. We would sit around him, making sure not to disturb him. He loved peace and quiet.”

The family wants an independent investigation into his death.

“Once the war ends and international human rights organisations and legal groups return,” says Jibreel, “we will definitely file a legal case against the Israeli army.

“Muhammad was a special case – he wasn’t a fighter, he wasn’t armed, just an ordinary civilian. He wasn’t even just any civilian, he had special needs.”

___

Most of Dr Amjad Elawa’s neighbours and friends have gone. They are either dead or have fled south, hoping it will be safer there. When he walks home from the hospital, he sees people on the streets talking to themselves.

“No one is in their right mind anymore,” he says.

Dr Elawa, 32, works in the Emergency Services department of al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza. Back at the start of the war it was the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip. Now, much of the hospital is in ruins following two major raids by the IDF, who said Hamas and other gunmen used the facility to plan and launch attacks in breach of international law. The charge is rejected by Gaza’s health ministry, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes at al-Shifa.

Dr Elawa has seen children die in front of him. Victims of war wounds. Of disease, often caused by the lack of clean water. And when the BBC first met him, the area was facing acute malnutrition.

In February – when the BBC first interviewed Dr Elawa – he described witnessing the death of two-month-old Mahmoud Fatou. The baby boy died soon after being brought to the hospital.

“This child could not be provided with milk. His mum was not provided with food to be able to breastfeed him,” said Dr Elawa. “He had symptoms of severe dehydration, and he was taking his last breaths when he came.”

Dr Elawa’s own son was born 12 days after the 7 October attacks. After the death of Mahmoud Fatou, he reflected on his own family situation.

“We were all shocked – this child could be our child. Maybe my son after a few days will be just like him,” he said. Thankfully, Dr Elawa’s son is healthy and about to celebrate his first birthday.

The doctor faces the same problems as almost everybody else in northern Gaza. His house was destroyed and he had to move with his family to a patient’s home.

The UN and humanitarian NGOs in Gaza say Israel has regularly blocked aid from entering. For example, in the first two weeks of January (the month before we met Dr Elawa), the UN said 69% of requests to move aid and 95% of missions to provide fuel and medicines to water reservoirs, water wells and health facilities in northern Gaza, were refused. Israel denies blocking aid.

Dr Elawa queued for food whenever he could get any free time. This led to him being wounded when Israeli forces opened fire at Nabulsi roundabout in northern Gaza on 29 February.

Thousands of people had gathered, hoping to be given flour from an aid convoy escorted by the IDF. More than 100 people were killed and over 700 wounded according to the Hamas-run health ministry. The IDF said most of the casualties were caused by a stampede as people rushed the trucks.

The army said there were two incidents at the roundabout. It fired warning shots and then shot at individuals who the troops believed were a threat. Numerous survivors challenge that account, and say the stampede was caused by the army firing into the crowd.

Dr Elawa treated his own wound and then went to help survivors. Within days he was back on duty at al-Shifa.

A BBC colleague returned recently to find Dr Elawa still working in the emergency section. He returns to the theme of the wounded children he treats.

“They are the only ones who really stir our emotions, especially when their limbs are lost. It’s a truly emotional and heartbreaking situation. We see children who haven’t experienced much of life yet, losing their legs.”

On a break, he goes outside and points to the ruins of different buildings. “It used to have an intensive care unit, an operating room, and a cardiology department,” he says.

“Whether it’s medical devices, equipment, or anything else, all are completely destroyed, even the beds. We need a fully-equipped hospital, built from scratch.”

When Dr Elawa returned after the second Israeli raid there was an overpowering stench of death from several mass graves. One of the hospital directors, Mohamed Mughir, says there were “signs of field executions, binding marks, gunshot wounds to the head and torture marks on the limbs” of some of the corpses.

The IDF deny allegations of war crimes and say the graves contain bodies exhumed and then re-buried by the army when searching for dead Israeli hostages.

“The claim that the IDF buried Palestinian bodies is baseless and unfounded,” it says.

The UN Human Rights Director, Volker Turk, says that, given what he calls “the prevailing climate of impunity”, there should be an independent international investigation.

There is more food now. Dr Elawa has a supply of flour but says there are no vegetables, fruit or meat. They use canned foods instead.

Like so many who work to save lives in Gaza, Dr Elawa prays for the war to end.

“We want to return to our old lives, to be able to sleep safely, to walk in the streets safely, to visit our loved ones and relatives – those who are still alive.”

Millions of people in the Middle East dream of safe, quiet lives without drama and violent death. The last year of war, as bad as any in the region in modern times, has shown yet again that dreams of peace cannot come true while deep political, strategic and religious fault lines remain unbridged. Once again, war is reshaping the politics of the Middle East.

The Hamas offensive came out of well over a century of unresolved conflict. After Hamas burst through the thinly defended border, it inflicted the worst day the Israelis had suffered.

Around 1,200 people, mostly Israeli civilians, were killed. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, phoned President Joe Biden and told him that “We’ve never seen such savagery in the history of the state”; not “since the Holocaust.” Israel saw the attacks by Hamas as a threat to its existence.

Since then, Israel has inflicted many terrible days on the Palestinians in Gaza. Nearly 42,000 people, mostly civilians have been killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. Much of Gaza is in ruins. Palestinians accuse Israel of genocide.

The war has spread. Twelve months after Hamas went on the offensive the Middle East is on the edge of an even worse war; wider, deeper, even more destructive.

A year of killing has stripped away layers of assumptions and illusions. One is Benjamin Netanyahu’s belief that he could manage the Palestinian issue without making concessions to their demands for self-determination.

With that went the wishful thinking that had comforted Israel’s worried Western allies. Leaders in the US and UK, and others, had convinced themselves that Netanyahu, despite opposing a Palestinian state alongside Israel all his political life, could somehow be persuaded to accept one to end the war.

Netanyahu’s refusal reflected almost universal distrust of Palestinians inside Israel as well as his own ideology. It also torpedoed an ambitious American peace plan.

President Biden’s “grand bargain” proposed that Israel would receive full diplomatic recognition by Saudi Arabia, the most influential Islamic country, in return for allowing Palestinian independence. The Saudis would be rewarded with a security pact with the US.

The Biden plan fell at the first hurdle. Netanyahu said in February that statehood would be “huge reward” for Hamas. Bezalel Smotrich, one of the ultra-nationalist extremists in his cabinet, said it would be an “existential threat” to Israel.

• Latest coverage as Israel strikes Gaza and Beirut
• Israeli kibbutz struggles to heal, one year after 7 October
• Gaza Strip in maps: How life in the territory has been upended
• Journalists from across the BBC reflect on the year-long war
• New accounts reveal how one military base was overrun

The Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, presumed to be alive, somewhere in Gaza had his own illusions. A year ago, he must have hoped that the rest of Iran’s so-called “axis of resistance” would join, with full force, into a war to cripple Israel. He was wrong.

Sinwar kept his plans to attack Israel on 7 October so secret that he took his enemy by surprise. He also surprised some on his own side. Diplomatic sources told the BBC that Sinwar might not even have shared his plans with his own organisation’s exiled political leadership in Qatar. They had notoriously lax security protocols, talking on open lines that could be easily overheard, one source said.

Far from going on the offensive, Iran made it clear it did not want a wider war, as Israel invaded Gaza and President Biden ordered American carrier strike groups to move closer to protect Israel.

Instead, Hassan Nasrallah, and his friend and ally, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, restricted themselves to rocketing Israel’s northern border, which they said would continue until a ceasefire in Gaza. The targets were mostly military, but Israel evacuated more than 60,000 people away from the border. In Lebanon, perhaps twice as many had to flee over the months as Israel hit back.

Israel made clear it would not tolerate an indefinite war of attrition with Hezbollah. Even so, the conventional wisdom was that Israel would be deterred by Hezbollah’s formidable fighting record in previous wars and its arsenal of missiles, provided by Iran.

In September, Israel went on the offensive. No one outside the senior ranks of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Mossad spy agency believed so much damage could be inflicted so quickly on Iran’s most powerful ally.

Israel remotely exploded booby-trapped pagers and radios, destroying Hezbollah’s communications and killing leaders. It launched one of the most intense bombing campaigns in modern warfare. On its first day Israel killed about 600 Lebanese people, including many civilians.

The offensive has blown a big hole in Iran’s belief that its network of allies cemented its strategy to deter and intimidate Israel. The key moment came on 27 September, with the huge air strike on the southern suburbs of Beirut that killed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah and many of his top lieutenants. Nasrallah was a vital part of Iran’s “axis of resistance”, its informal alliance and defence network of allies and proxies.

Israel broke out of the border war by escalating to a bigger one. If the strategic intention was to force Hezbollah to cease fire and pull back from the border, it failed. The offensive, and invasion of south Lebanon, has not deterred Iran.

Iran seems to have concluded that its open reluctance to risk a wider war was encouraging Israel to push harder. Hitting back was risky, and guaranteed an Israeli response, but for the supreme leader and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, it had become the least bad option.

On Tuesday 1 October, Iran attacked Israel with ballistic missiles.

___

Kibbutz Kfar Aza is very close to the wire that was supposed to protect Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip. The kibbutz was a small community, with modest homes on an open-plan campus of lawns and neat gardens. Kfar Aza was one of Hamas’s first targets on 7 October. Sixty-two people from the kibbutz were killed by Hamas. Of the 19 hostages taken from there into Gaza, two were killed by Israeli troops after they escaped from captivity. Five hostages from Kfar Aza are still in Gaza.

The Israeli army took journalists into Kfar Aza on 10 October last year, when it was still a battle zone. We saw Israeli combat troops dug into the fields around the kibbutz and could hear gunfire as they cleared buildings where they suspected Hamas fighters might be sheltering. Israeli civilians killed by Hamas were being carried out in body bags from the ruins of their homes. Hamas fighters killed by Israeli soldiers as they fought their way into the kibbutz still lay on the neat lawns, turning black as they decomposed in the strong Mediterranean sun.

A year later the dead are buried but very little has changed. The living have not returned to live in their homes. Ruined houses have been preserved as they were when I saw them on 10 October last year, except the names and photos of the people who lived and were killed inside them are displayed on big posters and memorials.

Zohar Shpak, a resident who survived the attack with his family, showed us round the homes of neighbours who were not as lucky. One of the houses had a large photo on its wall of the young couple who lived there, both killed by Hamas on 7 October. The ground around the houses has been dug over. Zohar said the young man’s father had spent weeks sifting earth to try to find his son’s head. He had been buried without it.

The stories of the dead of 7 October, and the hostages, are well known in Israel. Local media still talk about their country’s losses, adding new information to old pain.

Zohar said it was too early to think about how they might rebuild their lives.

“We are still inside the trauma. We are not in post-trauma. Like people said, we’re still here. We are still in the war. We wanted the war will be ended, but we want it will be ended with a victory, but not an army victory. Not a war victory.

“My victory is that I could live here, with my son and daughter, with my grandchildren and living peacefully. I believe in peace.”

Zohar and many other Kfar Aza residents identified with the left wing of Israeli politics, meaning that they believed Israel’s only chance of peace was allowing the Palestinians their independence. Israelis like Zohar and his neighbours are convinced that Netanyahu is a disastrous prime minister who bears a heavy responsibility for leaving them vulnerable and open to attack on 7 October.

But Zohar does not trust the Palestinians, people he used to ferry to hospitals in Israel in better times when they were allowed out of Gaza for medical treatment.

“I don’t believe those people who are living over there. But I want the peace. I want to go to Gaza’s beach. But I don’t trust them. No, I don’t trust any one of them.”

Hamas leaders do not accept that the attacks on Israel were a mistake that brought the wrath of Israel, armed and supported by the United States down on to the heads of their people. Blame the occupation, they say, and its lust for destruction and death.

In Qatar, an hour or so before Iran attacked Israel on 1 October, I interviewed Khalil al-Hayya, the most senior Hamas leader outside Gaza, second only in their organisation to Yahya Sinwar. He denied his men had targeted civilians – despite overwhelming evidence – and justified the attacks by saying it was necessary to put the plight of the Palestinians on the world’s political agenda.

“It was necessary to raise an alarm in the world to tell them that here there is a people who have a cause and have demands that must be met. It was a blow to Israel, the Zionist enemy.”

Israel felt the blow, and on 7 October, as the IDF was rushing troops to the Gaza border, Benjamin Netanyahu made a speech promising a “mighty vengeance”. He set out war aims of eliminating Hamas as a military and political force and bringing the hostages home. The prime minister continues to insist that “total victory” is possible, and that force will in the end free the Israelis held by Hamas for a year.

His political opponents, including relatives of the hostages, accuse him of blocking a ceasefire and a hostage deal to appease ultra-nationalists in his government. He is accused of putting his own political survival before the lives of Israelis.

Netanyahu has many political enemies in Israel, even though the offensive in Lebanon has helped repair his poll numbers. He remains controversial but for most Israelis the war in Gaza is not. Since 7 October, most Israelis have hardened their hearts to the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza.

Two days into the war, Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said he had ordered a “complete siege” of the Gaza Strip.

“There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed… We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.”

Since then, under international pressure, Israel has been forced to loosen its blockade. At the United Nations at the end of September, Netanyahu insisted Gazans have all the food they need.

The evidence shows clearly that is not true. Days before his speech, UN humanitarian agencies signed a declaration just demanding an end to “appalling human suffering and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza”.

“More than 2 million Palestinians are without protection, food, water, sanitation, shelter, health care, education, electricity and fuel – the basic necessities to survive. Families have been forcibly displaced, time and time again, from one unsafe place to the next, with no way out.”

BBC Verify has analysed the condition of Gaza after a year of war.

The Hamas-run health ministry says nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed so far. Analysis of satellite imagery by US academics Corey Scher and Jamon Van Den Hoek suggests 58.7% of all buildings have been damaged or destroyed.

But there is another human cost – displacement – with civilians repeatedly instructed to move by the IDF.

The effects of the movement of people can be seen from space.

Satellite images show how tents have amassed and dispersed in central Rafah. It’s a pattern that has been repeated across the strip.

These waves of displacement began on 13 October, when the IDF told residents of the northern half of the strip to move south for their own “safety”.

BBC Verify has identified more than 130 social media posts like these shared by the IDF, detailing which areas were designated combat zones, routes to take out and where temporary pauses in fighting would take place.

In total, these often-overlapping posts amounted to about 60 evacuation orders covering more than 80% of the Gaza strip.

On many of the notices, BBC Verify has found key details to be unreadable and drawn boundaries inconsistent with the text.

The IDF has designated a coastal area – al-Mawasi – in southern Gaza as a humanitarian zone. It still gets bombed. BBC Verify has analysed footage of 18 air strikes within the zone’s borders.

___

Satellite pictures show a huge bottleneck of people on Salah al-Din Street, after Israel ordered the effective depopulation of northern Gaza. Somewhere in the crowds moving down Salah al-Din, Gaza’s main north-south route, was Insaf Hassan Ali, her husband and two children, a boy of 11 and a girl of seven. So far, they have all survived, unlike many members of their extended family.

Israel does not allow journalists into Gaza to report freely. We assume that is because Israel does not want us to see what it has done there. We commissioned a trusted Palestinian freelancer inside Gaza to interview Insaf Ali and her son.

She spoke about the terrible fear they felt as they walked south, with perhaps one million others, on the orders of the Israeli army. Death was everywhere, she says.

“We were walking on Salah al-Din Street. A car in front of us was hit. We saw it, and it was burning… On the left, people were killed, and on the right, even the animals—donkeys were thrown around, they were bombed.

“We said, ‘That’s it, we’re done.’ We said, ‘now the rocket that is coming will be for us’.”

Insaf and her family had a comfortable middle-class life before the war. Since then, they have been displaced 15 times on the orders of Israel. Like millions of others, they are destitute, often hungry, living in a tent at al-Mawasi, a desolate area of sand dunes. Snakes, scorpions and venomous giant worms invade the tents and have to be swept out. As well as the risk of death in an air strike, they face hunger, disease and the faecal dust generated when millions of people do not have access to proper sanitation.

Insaf wept for her old life, and the people they have lost.

“Our lives were beautiful, and suddenly we had nothing—no clothes, no food, no essentials for life. Constantly being displaced is incredibly hard on my children’s health. They’ve had malnutrition and they have been infected with diseases, including amoebic dysentery and hepatitis.”

Insaf said that the beginning of months of Israeli bombing felt like the “horrors of judgement day”.

“Any mother would feel the same, anyone who owns something precious and is afraid it might slip from their hands at any moment. Each time we moved to a house, it would be bombed, and someone in our family would be killed.”

The only chance of making even small improvements in the lives of Insaf and her family and well over two million others in Gaza is to agree a ceasefire. If the killing stops, diplomats might have a window to stop the slide into a much wider catastrophe.

More disasters await in the future, if the war drags on and a new generation of Israelis and Palestinians cannot shake the hatred and horror many currently feel about the actions of the other side.

Insaf’s 11-year-old son, Anas Awad, has been deeply affected by everything he has seen.

“There’s no future for Gaza’s children. The friends I used to play with have been martyred. We used to run around together. May God have mercy on them. The mosque where I used to memorise the Quran has been bombed. My school has been bombed. So has the playground… everything has gone. I want peace. I wish I could return with my friends and play again. I wish we had a house, not a tent.”

“I don’t have friends anymore. Our whole life has turned to sand. When I go out to the prayer area, I feel anxious, and hesitant. I don’t feel right.”

His mother was listening.

“It has been the hardest year of my life. We saw sights we should not have seen – scattered bodies, the desperation of a grown man holding a bottle of water to drink for his children. Of course, our homes are no longer homes; they are just piles of sand, but we hope for the day when we can return.’

UN humanitarian agencies have condemned both Israel and Hamas: “The parties’ conduct over the last year makes a mockery of their claim to adhere to international humanitarian law and the minimum standards of humanity that it demands.”

Both sides deny accusations they have broken the laws of war. Hamas claims it ordered its men not to kill Israeli civilians. Israel says it warns Palestinian civilians to get out of harm’s way but Hamas uses them as human shields.

Israel has been referred to the International Court of Justice, accused by South Africa of genocide. The chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court has applied for arrest warrants on a range of war crimes charges for Yahya Sinwar of Hamas, and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant.

For Israelis the Hamas attacks on 7 October were a painful reminder of centuries of pogroms against Jews in Europe that culminated in the genocide carried out by Nazi Germany. In the first month of the war, the Israeli writer and former politician Avraham Burg explained the profound psychological impact on his country.

“We, the Jews,” he told me, “we believe that the state of Israel is the first and best immune system and protective system versus Jewish history. No more pogroms, no more Holocaust, no more mass murderers. And all of a sudden, all of it is back.”

Ghosts of the past tormented Palestinians as well. Raja Shehadeh, the celebrated Palestinian writer and human rights campaigner believes that Israel wanted to make another Nakba – another catastrophe: in his latest book What Does Israel Fear From Palestine? he writes “as the war progressed I could see that they meant every word and did not care about civilians, including children. In their eyes, as well as the eyes of most Israelis, all Gazans were guilty”.

No one can doubt Israel’s determination to defend its people, helped enormously by the might of the United States. It is clear though, that the war has shown that nobody can fool themselves that Palestinians will accept lives lived forever under an Israeli military occupation, without proper civil rights, freedom of movement and independence.

After generations of conflict Israelis and Palestinians are used to confronting each other. But they are also used to living alongside each other, however uncomfortably. When a ceasefire comes, and with a new generation of leaders, there will be chances to push again for peace.

But that is a more distant future. The rest of the year and into 2025, with a new president in the White House, are uncertain and full of danger.

For months after Hamas attacked Israel, the fear was that the war would spread, and get worse. Slowly, and then very quickly, it happened, after Israel’s devastating attacks on Hezbollah and Lebanon.

It is too late to say the Middle East is on the brink. Israel is facing off against Iran. The warring parties have plunged over it, and countries not yet directly involved are desperate not to be dragged over the edge.

As I write Israel has still not retaliated for Iran’s ballistic missile attack on 1 October. It has indicated that it intends to inflict a severe punishment. President Biden and his administration, Israel’s constant supplier of weapons and diplomatic support, are trying to calibrate a response that might offer Iran a way to stop the accelerating climb up the ladder of escalation, a phrase strategists use to describe the way wars speed from crisis to disaster.

The proximity of the US elections, along with Joe Biden’s steadfast support for Israel, despite his misgivings about the way it has been fighting, do not induce much optimism that the US will somehow finesse a way out.

The signals from Israel indicate that Netanyahu, Gallant, the generals of the IDF and the intelligence agencies believe they have the upper hand. October 7th was a disaster for them. All the major security and military chiefs, except the prime minister, apologised and some resigned. They had not planned for a war with Hamas. But planning for the war with Hezbollah started after the last one ended in 2006 in a humiliating stalemate for Israel. Hezbollah has suffered blows from which it might never recover.

So far Israel’s victories are tactical. To get to a strategic victory it would need to coerce its enemies into changing their behaviour. Hezbollah, even in its reduced state, is showing that it wants to fight on. Taking on Israeli infantry and tanks now that south Lebanon has once more been invaded might negate some of Israel’s advantages in air power and intelligence.

If Iran answers Israel’s retaliation with another wave of ballistic missiles other countries might get pulled in. In Iraq, Iran’s client militias could attack American interests. Two Israeli soldiers were killed by a drone that came from Iraq.

Saudi Arabia is also looking on nervously. Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman has made clear his view of the future. He would contemplate recognising Israel, but only if the Palestinians get a state in return and Saudi Arabia gets a security pact with the United States.

Joe Biden’s role, simultaneously trying to restrain Israel while supporting it with weapons, diplomacy and carrier strike groups, exposes the Americans to getting involved in a wider war with Iran. They don’t want that to happen, but Biden has pledged that he will come to Israel’s aid if it becomes necessary.

Israel’s assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, and the damage done to Iran’s strategy and its “axis of resistance” is fostering a new set of illusions among some in Israel and the United States. The dangerous idea is that this is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reshape the Middle East by force, imposing order and neutering Israel’s enemies. Joe Biden – and his successor – should be wary of that.

The last time that restructuring the Middle East by force was contemplated seriously was after al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks on America, when US President George W Bush and Tony Blair, the UK’s prime minister, were getting ready to invade Iraq in 2003.

The invasion of Iraq did not purge the Middle East of violent extremism. It made matters worse.

The priority for those who want to stop this war should be a ceasefire in Gaza. It is the only chance to cool matters and to create a space for diplomacy. This year of war started in Gaza. Perhaps it can end there too.

In the week since Hurricane Helene caused devastation in parts of the US – in the middle of the election campaign – misinformation about the government’s response has been spreading on social media.

Many of the hurricane victims are in swing states, including North Carolina and Georgia, and Republican Donald Trump has been highly critical of how the Biden-Harris administration has handled the disaster.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) has disputed a number of his claims and Vice-President Kamala Harris has called his comments “extraordinarily irresponsible”.

As Fema prepares for Hurricane Milton, it has described misinformation about its efforts as “extremely damaging” and believes this has discouraged some survivors from seeking help.

BBC Verify has been looking at the claims made by Trump and other senior Republicans.

At multiple campaign events since the hurricane struck, Trump and his allies have claimed that government money earmarked for disaster victims has been spent on migrants who crossed illegally into the US.

“Kamala spent all her Fema money—billions of dollars—on housing for illegal migrants”, Trump said in Michigan last week.

Trump’s claim that Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate, has spent “all her Fema money” on housing these people is false.

Fema, a US government agency, has a Disaster Relief Fund (worth more than $20bn for the last financial year) which is ring-fenced to spend on responding to hurricanes and other natural disasters.

Fema also has a dedicated budget from Congress to be spent on food, shelter, transportation, and other support services for immigrants released from Department of Homeland Security (DHS) custody.

This budget amounts to around one billion dollars over the last two financial years – not the “billions” Trump claims.

So, these are two separate pots of money – administered by the agency – which Trump appears to be conflating.

Fema, which has now set up a fact-checking page on its website, called Trump’s claim “false” saying, “no money is being diverted from disaster response needs”.

In 2019, while Trump was President, money was diverted from Fema’s Disaster Relief Fund – around $38m – to give to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The focus on Fema’s current funding comes after the Secretary of Homeland Security, Alejandro Mayorkas – who oversees the agency – warned that it was running low on funds for the rest of the hurricane season.

But Fema says it has “enough money right now for immediate response and recovery needs”.

Donald Trump and JD Vance have repeatedly highlighted a $750 payment from Fema to hurricane victims, often contrasting it with the money the US government spends on Ukraine or on illegal migrants.

“They promised $750 to American citizens who have lost everything,” Vance said at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday.

It is true that the victims are getting $750 but some context is needed.

This is just one type of assistance provided by Fema.

The $750 is what people can get as an upfront payment to help cover the costs of food, water, medication, and other emergency supplies.

Following this initial payment, disaster victims may receive additional funds following a Fema assessment.

This can go towards repairing damage to homes and personal property, and to help find a temporary place to stay.

So far, Fema has said that more than $210m has been given to communities affected by Hurricane Helene – this includes upfront payments and money to support housing needs.

When the hurricane first hit, Trump claimed that the governor of Georgia hadn’t spoken to President Biden following the state being badly affected.

“He has been calling the president, hasn’t been able to get him,” Trump said at a news conference in Georgia on the afternoon of 30 September.

But earlier that day, Georgia’s Governor Brian Kemp – a Republican – said in an interview: “The president just called me yesterday afternoon, I missed him and called him right back, and he just said ‘hey what do you need?’ and I told him we’ve got what we need, we’re working through the federal process.”

“He offered if there’s other things we need to call him directly, which I appreciate,” he added.

Trump said at the Butler rally that “Kamala wined and dined in San Francisco, and all of the people in North Carolina — no helicopters, no rescue — it’s just — what’s happened there is very bad.”

This is false. By the time Trump made this remark on 5 October, the North Carolina National Guard, which is under the dual command of federal and state governments, had already posted on X that its “air assets have completed 146 flight missions, resulting in the rescue of 538 people and 150 pets”.

The post, published on 3 October, featured a video of a National Guard helicopter.

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety’s website says that President Biden approved the state governor’s request for military personnel and equipment to support rescue operations in North Carolina.

The National Guard and military personnel “are operating 50 helicopters” as part of search and rescue missions, and are also helping to deliver critical supplies in the state, the Department said.

What do you want BBC Verify to investigate?

The US presidential election is just weeks away and one essential voting bloc is getting a lot of attention from both parties: young voters. But it’s economic woes – from inflation to housing – that could drive them to the polls.

It’s Isabella Morris’s first presidential election, and the 21-year-old mum from Rosenberg, Texas, said she’s listening closely to what both candidates have to say.

Recently married with a two-year-old, Isabella works part-time to supplement her husband’s full-time income. She stays at home with her child while her family rents a small one-bedroom apartment.

The plan seemed solid—two incomes, no mortgage, or daycare costs—but it’s not enough.

“Our debts are paid off, but we can’t afford any mistakes. We have no savings, nothing. One job used to be enough to live on, even at a minimum wage. Now it feels like we’re barely scraping by,” she said.

Economic fears about her future will drive her to vote in November, but when she spoke to the BBC, she was still undecided which candidate she would support.

“As these elections draw closer, we cannot possibly fathom a candidate not addressing the economic crisis right now,” she said.

Isabelle is one of 8 million young people who will be voting in a presidential election for the first time. Comprising about a third of the US electorate, voters under 35 are being fought over by both parties, and polls show the economy is their top priority this election season.

Though reproductive rights, the war in Gaza and gun violence have dominated headlines when it comes to young voters’ policy priorities, 18-26 year-olds rank economic growth, income inequality and poverty as the most important problems facing the country, according to a Gen Forward Survey conducted by the University of Chicago and released in September.

That’s in contrast to the 2020 election, when COVID-19, racism, and healthcare outranked the economy as the main issue driving young voters to the polls, according to the same survey.

Isabella’s concerns reflect the broader challenges facing young voters, who are entering a world of high rents, unaffordable homes and slowing job creation – not to mention a once-in-a-generation surge in prices, according to economics Tiktoker Kyla Scanlon.

Last month, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates for the first time in more than four years, a decision which could lead to lower borrowing costs on mortgages, credit cards and saving rates for millions of people. But it remains to be seen whether the change in rates will change people’s outlook on the economy.

“The overall situation has degraded,” Ms Scanlon, 27, told the BBC, noting that young people today have it worse than previous generations – even millennials who entered the workforce after the 2008 financial crisis.

A Gen Z-er herself, Ms Scanlon often turns to TikTok, where she has more than 180,000 followers, to educate young people about the economy.

People ages 22-24 hold more debt of all kinds – credit cards, car loans and mortgages – than millennials did at the same age, the credit agency TransUnion found. And their debt is rising faster than their income.

“There’s no beginner mode anymore—the bottom rung of the ladder just feels completely gone, I think, for most of the generation,” Ms Scanlon said.

And those fears of being left behind could drive voters to the ballot box, experts say.

Abby Kiesa, deputy director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), told the BBC she expects about half of young voters to turn out this election – a similar turnout to 2020, which had the highest turnout in decades and an 11% increase compared to the presidential election in 2016.

Meanwhile, the 2018 midterms saw a record-breaking turnout among young voters, according to CIRCLE.

That’s still far below the turnout of other age groups. In 2020, 69% of eligible Americans 35-64 voted, while 74% of voters over the age of 65 went to the polls, according to the US Census. But in an election that will be won by a razor’s edge, being able to rally a significant percentage of new voters could help give a candidate the boost they need to win.

Ms Kiesa said focusing on addressing economic hardship will be key if politicians hope to boost turnout among Gen Z-ers feeling disconnected from politics.

“For the past three elections, turnout among young voters has been historic,” she said. “We need candidates who understand, engage, and speak with them. That’s what has to change.”

The two presidential nominees – Trump and Harris – have both sharpened their economic message in recent weeks and stepped-up efforts to appeal to young voters.

Harris has expanded on the Biden administration’s economic initiatives around student loan forgiveness, consumer pricing and housing affordability. She’s proposed a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers and a $6,000 tax credit for families with newborns.

Her campaign has doubled her youth organising staff and invested heavily in digital ads. She has enjoyed endorsements from high-profile celebrities including Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, and built momentum by embracing viral memes about the vice-president on social media. Harris has also spent the last year touring college campuses in key battleground states.

Meanwhile, Trump has sought to capitalise on economic dissatisfaction among young people, attacking Harris and Biden’s economic record and highlighing lower prices on goods under his administration. Both he and Harris have promised to eliminate tip taxation – a move aimed at the service industry, which employs millions of young people – and committed to ending regulatory barriers on cryptocurrency.

The former president has also tried to reach younger voters through social media, podcasts, and partnerships with influencers. He’s posted TikToks with influencers like Logan Paul and Adin Ross.

Polls showed Trump made inroads among young voters while he was running against Biden, who is 81. When he was still in the race, he led Trump by only a few percentage points, and the GenForward survey showed young people thought he handled the economy better than the Biden administration.

But momentum has shifted back to the much younger Harris.

She now holds a 31-point lead over Trump among likely voters aged 18-29, according to the Harvard Institute of Politics poll released in late September.

Economic woes aren’t just driving people to vote, they’re lighting a fire in some young people to run for office themselves.

Gabriel Sanchez, 27, a Democratic candidate for the Georgia state legislature, said he’s running for office to try to help ease the financial strain on his generation.

As a waiter at a sports bar, he said rent hikes have forced him to move repeatedly. He is concerned that essentials like stable housing are becoming a privilege for many young Americans.

“Most of us aren’t able to own a home, afford healthcare or buy the basic things we need,” Sanchez said in a TikTok posted on his campaign account.

In May, Sanchez and three other young candidates cruised to victory in Georgia’s Democratic primary election, an outcome dubbed as Gen Z’s night in Atlanta.

Sanchez said he believes his economic struggles resonated with voters.

“We’re working hard but not seeing any rewards. This economy isn’t working for us,” Sanchez said. “We need representation – candidates who understand what young people are going through.”

But it’s not only Democrats that are luring young candidates.

Wyatt Gable, a 21-year-old in his last year at East Carolina University, won the Republican primary for North Carolina’s House of Representatives. He defeated George Cleveland, a 10-term, 85-year-old, incumbent.

If elected in November, Wyatt will become the youngest person ever to hold a seat in the state legislature.

As he prepares for the November vote, he said he expects the economy to be top of mind for young people at the polls this year.

“My generation feels it. Seeing how bad inflation is, and with interest rates skyrocketing, that’s going to be the biggest thing on young people’s minds when they go to the ballot box,” he said.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• EXPLAINER: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• VOTERS: What young Democrats want from Harris
• ANALYSIS: Don’t mention Trump – Republicans trying to sway women
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

It was a regeneration idea that started half a century ago in the US, and has spread to other parts of the world. But do $1 homes reverse urban decay and who are the winners and losers?

Judy Aleksalza’s house in the Pigtown area of Baltimore feels like a real-life version of the Tardis, Doctor Who’s famous time-travelling police box. It seems bigger on the inside than the outside.

It’s part of a row of impeccably kept 19th Century terrace houses – there are freshly watered plant pots outside many of the front steps, and no litter or graffiti.

Ms Aleksalza bought the then abandoned, derelict property back in the 1976 for the same price as her neighbours – $1 (77p).

Since then she has spent tens of thousands of dollars, and much more in blood sweat and tears, transforming it. Poor weather, contractors who failed to do the work, it was, in Judy’s words – “a horror story”.

“I came very close to declaring personal bankruptcy,” she says. “It’s kind of like childbirth, you know. It was horrible while it was going on.

“But you know, after it was all over, I said ‘it is mine, it’s all mine’. And the stability of having your own home is everything.”

Baltimore, 40 miles (64km) northeast of Washington DC, was one of the first cities in the US to try what it called “urban homesteading”. Vacant properties were sold off for just one dollar, allowing people to get on the housing ladder who might not otherwise be able to afford it.

The scheme was run by Jay Brodie who at the time was a senior figure in the city’s housing department.

“We picked names out of a hat and started meeting with them,” he remembers. “Once it was finished, it made the cover of the American Express magazine… and we said ‘we have something here’.

“We’re talking about something that you can see and touch. They were living examples of what could be done with Baltimore row houses.”

The project came to a halt in 1988 after Mr Brodie left the department in the early 1980s. But some ideas never quite go away, and instead spread their wings.

Fast forward to 2013, and three and a half thousand miles away, another port city that had faced similar issues of urban decay decided to try something similar – Liverpool.

Tony Mousedale from Liverpool City Council’s housing department had heard about the idea of selling off abandoned properties cheaply. He suggested Liverpool try it.

So they offered properties in the Webster Triangle area of Wavertree for just £1.

“I think we just felt that there was an appetite for people who were keen to renovate derelict houses, starting from scratch, putting their own stamp on it,” says Mr Mousedale.

“We put that sort of concept out there, and received a very positive response. I think it really captured people’s imagination.”

It might have raised a lot of interest, but some of the more than 100 buyers were brought down to earth with a bump.

“There was a rat infestation, and I had a tree growing out of the front bay window frame,” says Maxine Sharples, one of those who bought into the scheme. “It was gruelling, backbreaking work. It was filthy.”

Despite all the heartache and hard work, Maxine Sharples says it was worth it. “It’s completely changed my life. I don’t take it for granted that I’m living in the home of my dreams that I renovated and got for a quid.”

Similar schemes have also introduced in other countries, including Italy, and Spain.

And things have in some ways come full circle. Earlier this year Baltimore unveiled new plans to help regenerate its blighted neighbourhoods.

Part of that? A scheme called the Fixed Pricing Program that would allow residents to buy a derelict property for just $1.

Any individual wishing to buy a house for a dollar needs to show that they have $90,000 for the renovation. Plus, they must already live in the city, and promise to reside in the renovated property for five years.

Interest in the project is said to be high. Alice Kennedy, the Baltimore Housing Commissioner, tells me: “I think that it definitely got people more excited or interested than even, I think, we recognized that would happen.”

Yet so far only a handful of people have met the criteria and actually been successful.

Meanwhile, non-profit providers of affordable housing, known as “community land trusts”, can also buy the Baltimore buildings for $1, while large housing developers can apply to purchase them for $3,000.

Such $1 home schemes are quick to make media headlines, but critics questions what they can achieve. One such sceptic is David Simon, the creator of the hit TV series The Wire, which was set in Baltimore.

The gritty show, which was broadcast from 2002 to 2008, was inspired by Mr Simon’s own experience as a reporter for the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

He says that the original Baltimore scheme didn’t benefit those who were economically marginalised, as the properties were bought by people who had enough money to do them up.

“I mean it brought tax base back to the city,” says Mr Simon, who still lives and works in Baltimore. “But it wasn’t socialistic in the sense that I don’t think it was successful in, in spreading the wealth. But I don’t think any urban renewal, or any urban reclamation, that I’m familiar with in the city, has ever been egalitarian.”

In Liverpool Tony Mousedale accepts that while its scheme has helped improve the area in question, there are still issues with anti-social behaviour, and there are still boarded up properties that haven’t been renovated, a decade later.

“I would say anti-social incidents are not as frequent as they used to be,” he says. “Generally speaking, the homes for a pound scheme has been a driver for regenerating the area. There is still a way to go. I think in some ways regeneration never finishes, does it? There’s always more to do.”

Back in Baltimore, David Lidz runs Waterbottle Cooperative, a grassroots organisation that buys up decaying properties in Baltimore and renovates them to rent to people on low incomes.

He is concerned that individuals buying homes for a $1 may lead to areas being gentrified, which results in general rent levels being “jacked up” and people on lower incomes being “pushed out”.

“So then you ask yourself where do those people go? Well they move over to the next rotting neighbourhood. That’s not good.”

At the Baltimore Housing Commissioner’s office, Alice Kennedy says she’s aware of the problems previous renewal schemes have created, and is keen to learn the lessons of the past.

“A top priority for all of us that work in the city is to redress the racist housing policies of the past and the socioeconomic segregation,” she says.

“For me, success is really knowing that our communities are going to be whole again, and that they’re going to have the ability to thrive from birth to death as a human in the city of Baltimore.”

A new nine-month term begins for the US Supreme Court on Monday with major cases that will shape many aspects of American life.

The court’s nine justices are back after last year’s blockbuster term, which saw rulings that protected a widely used abortion pill or granting former President Donald Trump partial immunity from prosecution.

The coming months may bring legal disputes over the looming presidential elections, potentially consequential in what should be a closely-fought contest.

With its six-three conservative majority intact, its rulings may fuel further scepticism among the American public whose approval for its work is now at 43%, according to Gallup, a near-record low.

With a new year ahead, here’s a look at some of the major cases on its docket.

Perhaps the most high-profile case of the term will be US v Skrmetti, where the justices will hear the Biden administration’s challenge to a Republican-backed ban on gender care for minors.

The Tennessee ban, which took effect in July 2023, prohibits certain treatments for minors experiencing gender dysphoria, including the prescription of any puberty blockers or hormones, if the treatment is meant to “enable a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity”.

• BMA takes ‘neutral position’ on gender review
• Gender care review disappointing, says trans man
• Three trans journeys: ‘I spent so long hiding’

A group of young transgender people, their families and medical providers, have joined the Biden administration in challenging a decision from the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that upheld the Tennessee ban.

The nine Supreme Court justices will be asked to weigh whether the ban violates the 14th Amendment of the US constitution, which grants equal protection under the law.

The decision could have consequences nationwide. More than 20 states have enacted laws in recent years to restrict access to bespoke care for transgender youth.

The restrictions have been opposed by major medical groups including the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

On the second day of its term, the Supreme Court will hear a challenge to a new regulation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) on so-called “ghost guns”, the mostly untraceable firearms made from at-home kits.

The case, Garland v VanDerStok, centres on whether the ATF may regulate these weapons in the same way it regulates commercial gun sales, including serial numbers and federal background checks.

The Biden administration first imposed the restrictions in 2022, but was quickly blocked by a lower court, which sided with a group of firearms owners, gun rights groups and firearms manufacturers who argued the ATF had overstepped its authority.

The Justice Department then appealed, bringing the case to the country’s highest court.

• Why ghost guns are America’s fastest-growing gun problem

The case could have major implications for US gun control. The White House has said the unregistered weapons pose an increasing threat, with 20,000 suspected ghost guns found during criminal investigations in 2021 – a tenfold increase from five years earlier.

The top court will also hear a case to clarify how courts can determine if a police officer acted with reasonable force.

A three-judge panel for the Fifth Circuit ruled this year that a Texas police officer reasonably feared for his life when he shot and killed a driver during a traffic stop in Houston in 2016.

Ashtian Barnes had been driving a vehicle his girlfriend rented, which had unpaid toll fees when officer Roberto Felix Jr stopped him. Mr Barnes initially stopped and opened his boot, but then began to drive away. Officer Felix jumped on to the vehicle and fired two shots into the car, according to dashcam footage. A bullet struck Mr Barnes in the head and he died.

• How the Supreme Court became a political battlefield
• Biden considering major Supreme Court reform: report
• Who are the justices on the US Supreme Court?

Mr Barnes’s mother, Janice Hughes Barnes, sued on her son’s behalf, arguing the deadly use of force against her son was unreasonable and violated his Fourth Amendment rights, which protect people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

The judges found that Officer Felix had behaved reasonably under the Fourth Amendment’s “moment of threat” doctrine, which asks whether the officer had been in danger at the moment he used force. Under this standard, the officer’s actions until that moment are not taken into account.

One of the justices on the panel, Judge Patrick Higginbotham, wrote a concurring opinion expressing frustration with the test, and asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

If he had been allowed to consider the “totality of circumstances”, Judge Higginbotham said, he would have found the officer had violated Mr Barnes’s Fourth Amendment rights.

Though a date on this case has not yet been set, at some point this term the Supreme Court justices will consider a challenge from the adult entertainment industry over a Texas law requiring pornography websites to verify the age of their users.

The law requires porn sites where one-third of their content is harmful to minors to use age-verification measures to ensure all visitors are 18 years of age or older.

It also requires the sites to post health warnings, saying porn is addictive, impairs development and increases the demand for child exploitation – claims the industry disputes.

Several other US states, including Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana and North Carolina, require certain websites to verify the ages of visitors.

The Free Speech Coalition, which represents the porn industry, has challenged the law, saying it violates the First Amendment’s free speech protection.

The challenge was successful before a federal district court, but that ruling was overturned on appeal by a Fifth Circuit panel.

The ruling could have broad implications for First Amendment protections, possibly upending past ruling which found the free speech rights of adults outweighed the possible harm to minors.

Dorothy Masasa happily walks down a dirt road on a sunny afternoon, her baby securely strapped on her back.

Just six months ago the 39-year-old, originally from southern Malawi’s Thyolo district, was in Kenya for life-saving radiotherapy.

Malawi has only recently received its first such machines, so other women with cancer may no longer have to travel abroad for treatment.

“I was registered as an emergency case after doctors discovered I had cervical cancer while 13 weeks pregnant. They told me these two things don’t go together,” the mother of three tells the BBC.

She says the doctors in Malawi told her that she could have an operation to remove the cancer but this would terminate the pregnancy, or she could have chemotherapy but this would risk the baby being born with a disability.

She opted for chemotherapy until the baby was born via Caesarean section – without any disability.

Her uterus was removed in the same operation.

Before the diagnosis, Ms Masasa experienced cramping in her lower abdomen, bleeding and a foul-smelling vaginal discharge that just wouldn’t go away. At first doctors thought it was a sexually transmitted infection.

But despite the chemotherapy and the operation, she still needed further treatment to cure the cancer – treatment which wasn’t available in Malawi until earlier this year.

She joined a group of 30 women who were taken to a Nairobi hospital in Kenya by the aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to undergo radiotherapy to kill the cancerous cells.

This was the first time she had travelled on a plane so she was quite worried and also reluctant to leave her newborn baby behind.

“But because I was going there for treatment, I encouraged myself that I should indeed go and get treatment and that I will come back home healthy and happy.”

When the BBC visited her at the hospital, Ms Masasa was still frail from the effects of the treatment, having lost weight and her hair.

She is one of 77 patients who was airlifted from Malawi to Kenya for cervical cancer treatment since 2022.

Sixty years after gaining independence from the UK, Malawi only installed its first radiotherapy machine, at the privately owned International Blantyre Cancer Centre, in March this year, marking a huge step in the country’s healthcare system.

More machines arrived in June and are due to be placed at the National Cancer Centre still under construction in the capital, Lilongwe.

Although Malawi still has a long way to go to provide comprehensive cancer treatment, it is ahead of many other countries in the region.

In sub-Saharan Africa more than 20 countries have no access to radiotherapy, which is critical to fighting cancer.

This means patients are forced to undertake expensive and exhausting journeys for treatment.

Cancer of the cervix is the fourth most common cancer among women worldwide, with an estimated 660,000 new cases and 350,000 deaths reported in 2022, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

All but one of the 20 countries with the highest rates of cervical cancer in 2018 were in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.

This is down to a lack of access to preventative human papillomaviruses vaccines (HPV), adequate screening and treatment, meaning many women are treated late.

The Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH), Malawi’s oldest and largest government-owned treatment centre, receives a huge number of cervical cancer patients from across the country.

An obstetrician and gynaecologist at the hospital, Dr Samuel Meja, says cervical cancer is a big problem for most countries in the region.

“Poor access to screening, and the scourge of HIV, which has been ravaging most parts of sub-Saharan Africa, have worsened the situation,” he says.

In 2018, Malawi was only second to Eswatini in southern Africa, which had the highest rate of cervical cancer in the world.

Outgoing WHO regional director for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, says that globally a woman dies of cervical cancer every two minutes. Africa accounts for 23% of the deaths.

In order to reverse these grim statistics, Africa has seen massive campaigns to vaccinate girls against the HPV that causes cervical cancer.

Lesotho has reached an exceptional 93% coverage after vaccinating 139,000 girls against HPV.

But stigma around cervical cancer in various African countries has affected the numbers of people getting vaccinated.

In Zambia, for instance, talking about anything gynaecological is frowned upon.

In Malawi, Dr Meja says that cervical cancer screening has been introduced.

“This is a very simple strategy that identifies women at risk and you treat them before they become cancer patients. This investment is what we need to make as a nation before it gets out of hand,” he says.

As for Ms Masasa, she is now back at her home in Malawi.

The treatment she received in Kenya has given her a new lease of life. Her hair has grown back, she can walk around with her baby on her back, tend to her cow, and work in the fields.

She says she now knows that cervical cancer can be treated and that the vaccine can help other women avoid the disease, so has no doubts about vaccinating her daughter.

“Cervical cancer took me through a hard phase and I wouldn’t want my daughter to go through the same,” she says.

“There is a huge difference between how I was then and how I am now. I feel so happy that I am healed.”

• Banana wine brings sweet taste of success to Malawi farmers
• The Malawi music icon who became a ‘soldier for the poor’
• ‘I was sold into marriage for £7 at the age of 12’

Two grey shapes, visible from satellites for most of this year at Cambodia’s Ream naval base, seem to confirm growing fears in Washington: that China is expanding its military footprint, beyond the three disputed islands in the South China Sea which it has already seized and fortified.

The shapes are type A56 corvettes of the Chinese navy – 1,500-tonne warships – and they have been berthed alongside a new, Chinese-built pier that is big enough to accommodate much larger vessels. Onshore there are other facilities, also built by China, which are presumed to be for the use of the Chinese navy.

The Cambodian government has repeatedly denied such a possibility, citing its constitution which bans any permanent foreign military presence, and stating that Ream is open to use by all friendly navies.

“Please understand this is a Cambodian, not a Chinese base,” said Seun Sam, a Policy Analyst at the Royal Academy of Cambodia. “Cambodia is very small, and our military capacities are limited.

“We need more training from outside friends, especially from China.”

Others, however, are watching with suspicion.

For all the talk about the rapid rise of Chinese sea power – the country now has more ships in its navy than the US – China currently has only one overseas military base, in the African state of Djibouti, which it built in 2016.

The United States, by contrast, has around 750 – one also in Djibouti, and many others in countries close to China like Japan and South Korea.

The US believes the imbalance is changing, however, because of China’s stated ambition to be a global military power. That, and the scale of its investments in overseas infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative, which under Chinese law must be built to military standards.

Some in Washington predict that China will eventually have a global network of bases, or civilian ports that it can use as bases. And one of the first of these is Ream.

Until a few years ago, Ream – which sits on Cambodia’s southern tip – was being upgraded with US assistance; part of the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of yearly military aid provided to Cambodia. But the US cut back this aid after 2017, when Cambodia’s main opposition party was banned and its leaders exiled or jailed.

Already increasingly dependent on Chinese aid and investment, the Cambodian government abruptly switched partners. It cancelled the regular joint military exercises held with the US, and switched to the so-called Golden Dragon exercises it now holds with China.

By 2020, two US-funded buildings in Ream had been torn down and an extensive, Chinese-funded expansion of the facilities there had begun. By the end of last year the new pier had been built. It was almost identical to the 363 meter-long pier at the base in Djibouti, and long enough to accommodate China’s largest aircraft carrier.

Soon the two corvettes were docked at Ream – and either they, or identical replacements, have stayed there for most of this year.

Cambodia claims the ships are for training, and to prepare for this year’s Golden Dragon exercises. It also says China is constructing two new A56 corvettes for its own navy, and insists that the Chinese presence in Ream is not permanent, so does not count as a base.

That has not stopped US officials from expressing their concern over the expansion of the site, though, which satellite photographs show has, in addition to the new pier, a new dry dock, warehouses, and what look like administrative offices and living quarters with four basketball courts.

In 2019 the Wall Street Journal reported on what it said was a leaked agreement between Cambodia and China to lease 77 hectares of the base for 30 years. This allegedly included the stationing of military personnel and weapons.

The Cambodian government dismissed the report as fake news – but it is noteworthy that only Chinese warships have so far been allowed to dock at the new pier. Two Japanese destroyers visiting in February were instead told to dock at the nearby town of Sihanoukville.

Even if the Chinese presence does start to become more permanent and exclusive, however, some analysts doubt it would violate Cambodia’s constitution.

It is technically true that Ream is not a permanent base. And while its expansion is Chinese-funded, the base itself is not leased to China, said Kirsten Gunness, a Senior Policy Researcher at the California-based Rand Corporation.

“We are seeing a pattern of Chinese ships being continuously docked [at Ream],” she said. “One way to get around the constitutional prohibition is not to call it a foreign base, but allow foreign forces continuous access on a rotational basis.”

The US and the Philippines operate under similar agreements, Gunness added.

Most analysts believe a long-term Chinese presence at Ream would offer very few real advantages to China. They point to the three bases it has already built on Mischief, Fiery Cross and Subi Reefs in the South China Sea, and the formidable naval forces it maintains on its south coast.

But a Chinese base in Ream, at the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand, does worry Cambodia’s neighbours, Thailand and Vietnam. Together with other bases further north, it could be seen as an attempt by China to encircle the long Vietnamese coast.

Like the Philippines, Vietnam disputes China’s claim to almost all the islands in the South China Sea, and its forces have clashed with China’s in the past.

Thai national security officials have also privately expressed alarm at the thought of a Chinese base just south of the Thai navy’s main port in Sattahip, covering their exit from the Gulf of Thailand. Thailand and Cambodia still have unresolved territorial disputes, after all.

Neither country is likely to voice these complaints publicly, though. Thailand will want to avoid causing ripples in its economically vital relationship with China, while Vietnam will want to avoid stirring up anti-Vietnamese sentiment in Cambodia. Public resentment of China in Vietnam, where such feelings are never far from the surface, is also something the Vietnamese government will want to steer clear of.

US and Indian strategists, meanwhile, are more concerned about the future possibility of a Chinese base in the Indian Ocean – like the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota, which a Chinese state-owned company acquired a 99-year lease for in 2017, or the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, which has also been redeveloped with Chinese funding.

But these are still very distant prospects. Few analysts believe China will be able to rival the global military reach of the US for many more years.

“The Ream base does not add much in the way of power projection – it doesn’t get the Chinese navy any closer to places it wants to go,” said Greg Poling, director of the CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

What it could do is make a big difference in gathering intelligence, tracking satellites and detecting or monitoring long-range targets.

“These are not necessarily the best options for China,” Mr Poling added. “But they are the only ones on offer.”

“Our people respect the Russian and Ukrainian people,” says Savo Dobrovic. “I simply haven’t noticed any bad relations.”

It sounds like a recipe for tension and confrontation: tens of thousands of people from opposing sides in a bitter, protracted war descending on a small Balkan nation with its own very recent memories of conflict.

But Montenegro has managed the influx so far.

Since February 2022, Ukrainian refugees and Russian exiles have fanned out across Europe, fleeing war, conscription and Vladimir Putin’s rule.

More than four million people have fled Ukraine for temporary protection in the European Union – to Germany and Poland and elsewhere.

But beyond the EU, Montenegro has let in more than 200,000 Ukrainians, making it the highest per capita Ukrainian refugee population in the world.

“Montenegrins are very patient, they are people who want to help,” says Dobrovic, a property owner in the Adriatic resort of Budva.

The word , meaning “slowly”, is integral to their way of life.

“It amazes me – they’re a mountain people, but all that’s left from that noisy temperament is a desire to hug you,” says Natalya Sevets-Yermolina, who runs the Russian cultural centre Reforum in Budva.

Montenegro, a Nato member and candidate for EU status, has not been without its problems.

It has a substantial ethnic Serb population, many of whom have pro-Russian sympathies, and six Russian diplomats were expelled two years ago on suspicion of spying.

But it has won praise for its response to the refugee crisis – in particular its decision to grant Ukrainians temporary protection status, which has now been extended until March 2025.

The most recent figures from September last year show more than 10,000 had benefited, and the UN says 62,000 Ukrainians had registered some legal status by then. That is nearly 10% of Montenegro’s population.

Thousands more have come from Russia or Belarus.

For all of these groups Montenegro is attractive for its visa-free regime, similar language, common religion and Western-leaning government.

That welcome does not always extend to their quality of life.

While there are plenty of jobs for immigrants in coastal areas, they are often seasonal and poorly paid. Better quality, professional work is harder to find. The luckier ones have been able to retain the jobs they had back home, working remotely.

Another difficulty is that it is almost impossible to get citizenship here, a problem for those who, for whatever reason, are unable to renew their passports.

There has been a strong Russian presence in Montenegro for years, and it has a reputation, perhaps unfairly, as a playground for the very rich.

Many Russians and Ukrainians have property or family connections, but there is also a large contingent who ended up here almost by chance, feeling completely lost.

It was for them that non-profit shelter (Haven) was set up.

Based in Budva, it gives the most desperate arrivals a safe place and a warm welcome for two weeks as they find their feet.

They are given help with documentation, hunting for jobs and flats, and Ukrainians can also come for two weeks as a “holiday” from the war.

Valentina Ostroglyad, 60, came here with her daughter a year ago from Zaporizhzhia, a regional capital in south-eastern Ukraine that comes under repeated, deadly Russian bombardment.

“When I first arrived in Montenegro I couldn’t handle fireworks, or even a roof falling in – I associated it with those explosions,” she said.

Now she is working as an art teacher and enjoying her adopted country: “Today I went up to a spring, admired the mountains and sea. And people are very kind.”

The ongoing grimness of the war ensures that Ukrainians keep coming, no longer able to endure the pain and suffering at home.

Sasha Borkov, a driver from Kharkiv, was separated from his wife and six children, aged four to 16, as they left Ukraine in late August.

He was turned back at the Polish border – he previously did jail time in Hungary for transporting irregular migrants and is banned from the EU. His family were allowed to continue to Germany while he, after a tense few days travelling around Europe, was finally allowed to touch down in Montenegro.

Visibly stressed and exhausted, he described how the war had finally driven him and his family from their home.

“When you see and hear every day houses being destroyed, people being killed, it’s impossible to convey,” he said.

“Our flat isn’t damaged but windows get broken, and [the bombs] are getting closer and closer.”

Borkov said he had been looking at the possibility of going to Montenegro since the start of the war: “[Pristaniste] took me in, gave me food and drink, a place to stay. I rested, then I started looking for work.”

He has already found a job and his family are due to join him here. He is applying for temporary protection, and a place at a Ukrainian refugee centre.

Elsewhere in Budva, Yuliya Matsuy has set up a children’s centre for Ukrainians to take lessons in history, English, maths and art – or just to dance, sing and watch films.

Many were traumatised by war, she says: “They weren’t interested in the mountains or the sea, they wanted nothing.”

“But when they started interacting, their eyes were smiling. Those children’s smiles and emotions were something that’s impossible to convey. And only then we understood we were doing the right thing.”

Now most are settled. The younger children learned Montenegrin and now attend local schools, while the older ones have continued their learning remotely at Ukrainian schools.

Both charities have volunteers from several countries and don’t check passports – there’s no emphasis on citizenship here.

Other parts of Europe have seen occasional friction between Ukrainians and Russians. At the start of the war, Germany recorded a rise in attacks on both.

But there has been little of that so far in Montenegro.

There is a sense of tolerance here and Pristaniste and its volunteers have had a role in promoting it.

Sasha Borkov distinguishes between Russians he has met in Budva and those fighting the war in Ukraine.

“People here are trying to help, they’re not doing anything against our country, against us, against my children, [unlike] those who fire at and destroy our houses, and say that they’re liberating us.”

Friendships have grown among volunteers and residents, and between residents, and one Russian-Ukrainian couple who lived at Pristaniste recently married.

Empathy is a major factor. A recent talk in Budva by Kyiv-based journalist Olha Musafirova about her work, in Ukrainian, had Russians in the audience in tears, horrified by their country’s actions.

For Ukrainian actor Katarina Sinchillo, Russian diasporas can vary and Montenegro’s is “sensitive”.

“I think the people who live here are a somewhat different community because it’s the intelligentsia,” she says, “educated people who can’t live without the arts.”

Sinchillo set up a theatre here, with husband and fellow actor Viktor Koshel, using actors from all over the former Soviet Union.

Their plays are well attended, she says: “Progressive Russian people, who are helping Ukraine, go with interest and pleasure.”

Koshel says the environment here is perfect for such contacts. ”Here the countryside is heavenly, it takes you away from those urbanist, gloomy, depressive moods, political propaganda etc. You go to the sea and all that disappears.”

They have also collaborated with veteran Russian rock musician Mikhail Borzykin, who has seen big changes in the Russian diaspora over the past three years. Russian-Ukrainian joint musical projects are vanishingly rare.

Before the war, he says, “fierce arguments” about Putin in the Russian community were commonplace, but the recent influx of anti-war immigrants created a different atmosphere.

“The overwhelming majority of young people who have come here, they of course understand the horror of what’s happening, so there is agreement on the main questions,” he says.

As for the pro-Kremlin former members of Russia’s corrupt elite, who he calls the they are sitting quietly in the properties they bought in Montenegro years ago.

“Conflicts are not aired in public,” he says.

Borzykin is part of a volleyball group of Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians and says they are “all on the same wavelength”.

Despite the relatively warm welcome, the future of some immigrants remains uncertain.

Strict citizenship laws mean many of them will not be able to stay here indefinitely.

Most Ukrainians seem keen to return home if the war ends, assuming they still have homes to go to.

“Currently there’s a huge threat to our lives, but if it ends of course we’ll go home,” says Sasha Borkov. “There’s nowhere better than home”.

But most Russians say it will take much more than the fall of the regime to persuade them to go back permanently.

Natalya Sevets-Yermolina, who comes from the northern city of Petrozavodsk, says she’s not in a hurry.

“I have the problem that it’s not Putin that persecuted me but those little people I lived in the same city with,” she says. “Putin is far away but those who do his bidding will remain, even if he dies soon.”

Borzykin says he too is unlikely to return quickly, as attitudes could take decades to change.

“Germany needed 30 years [after the Nazis] while the new generation came along. I’m afraid I won’t have that long.”

When Taylor Swift is making $2bn in ticket sales, and Coldplay can sell out 10 nights at Wembley Stadium, it’s easy to conjure an image of touring musicians swimming in sweet piles of cash, like guitar-wielding Scrooge McDucks.

But for many artists, touring is becoming less and less viable. The cost of putting a show on the road – from van hire and petrol, to crew fees and accommodation – has skyrocketed since 2019.

Little Simz and Rachel Chinouriri are among the artists who’ve cancelled US tours this year because the finances didn’t add up.

In the middle of our interview about her new album, Everybody Needs A Hero, Dublin indie artist Orla Gartland explains how dire the situation has become.

In exactly one month, she’s setting off for her first ever North American tour, playing 13 dates in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Seattle, Detroit and Philadelphia. Every night is sold out. Several venues have been upgraded due to high demand.

But she says, “the amount of money I’m going to lose on that tour is really eye-watering”.

How much, exactly?

“About 40 grand,” she winces.

“I even had to pay to expedite the band’s visas the other day… It’s pretty scary but it’s fine. Everything will go ahead.”

Gartland is determined to make it work, because a US tour has been at the top of her bucket-list since she was a 13-year-old posting music to YouTube under the name “MusicMaaad”.

“I’ve never gigged there properly, so putting this tour on sale was a real fingers-crossed-behind-the-back moment,” she says. “It was so cool when it sold out.”

The singer isn’t a household name yet but, to those in the know, she’s been one of indie’s most promising talents from the moment early EPs like Lonely People and Roots showcased her knack for sharp lyrics and sophisticated songwriting.

She cultivated her audience (and a degree of financial independence) by launching a “Secret Demo Club” in 2016 – with about 1,000 fans paying up to £13 a month to receive demo recordings, livestreams and “deep dive” songwriting videos direct from the singer herself.

And she picked up a new wave of fans in 2022 when her song Why Am I Like This was used in a pivotal scene of Netflix’s coming-of-age drama Heartstopper.

In the week after the show premiered, it was streamed 1.4 million times in America alone.

US fans have been begging Gartland to tour over there for years. With her second album about to hit the shelves, 2024 felt like the right time.

“America is such a big place, I’m just fascinated by it,” she says.

“The fans there seem to love music in a different way. I’ve had messages from people saying they’re going to drive 12 hours from North Carolina to see me.

“We wouldn’t do that here. People would just be like, ‘Why aren’t you playing in w London?’”

Gartland’s new album, Everybody Needs A Hero, is built for playing live. It’s packed with jagged guitar lines and fiery melodies that nip hungrily at your earlobes.

First single Kiss Ur Face Forever is a grunge-pop anthem to physical infatuation, while the follow-up Little Chaos is a frantic reflection of an unsettled mind.

Those bombastic songs are paired with more vulnerable, singer-songwriter tracks like The Hit – a homespun ballad where Gartland describes a friendship so close that “”.

The 12 songs act as an autopsy of a single, long-term relationship, examining all the different feelings you can have about the same person, from the heady rush of first love to the uneasy realisation that something’s gone wrong.

Incisive and wise, it recognises that all those emotions can co-exist – something she states explicitly in the opening song, Both Things Are True.

“When I listen to really, really commercial pop, I just find it a bit dumb,” Gartland explains.

“It’s so simplified – you fall in love or you break up. That’s just not my experience of relationships. It’s way more dense, and I thought it’d be interesting to commit to that as a thread running through the album.”

The complexity comes to the fore on Who Am I?, where Gartland sings about the tendency to put her partner’s interests before her own.

The song starts with an idle thought – “” – that spirals into an existential crisis. By the end of the song, Gartland is singing, “

“I see that in myself and in a lot of my female friends,” she says. “You’re sort of manic, running around, giving your energy to other people, then being left with this feeling of like, ‘God, I don’t even know what I want’.

“So that song was about trying to take your foot off the gas, and thinking, ‘If I take you out of the equation, does that leave my identity in shreds?’”

Released last Friday, critics have already given Everybody Needs a Hero an enthusiastic thumbs up. Far Out Magazine called it an “incredible evolution”, Dork magazine praised its “delightfully rebellious” sound, and Golden Plectrum named Gartland a “blue-ribbon songwriter in the alt-pop universe”.

The musician, conversely, has no idea what she thinks of the record.

“I have no perspective,” she laughs. “In my gut, I feel proud of it. I think it juts out at the edges a bit more than the music I made before – but I would love the ability to just wipe my memory and just hear it for the first time.”

Fair enough. She’s been living with the album for two years at this point, working in fits and starts around her commitments with the indie-pop supergroup Fizz.

The band, which she formed with her friends Dodie, Greta Isaac and Martin Luke Brown, delivered a ridiculously enjoyable album of harmony-driven psychedelic pop last year, and quickly found themselves becoming festival favourites.

That record was written and recorded in a little under a week, as the band shook off the pressures of their solo careers. For Gartland, who had spent years obsessing over tiny details in her home studio, the anything-goes approach was a revelation.

“It was such a big thing,” she says. “I realised how easy it is to suck the magic out of the song by tinkering too much.”

She still writes on her own – claiming that collaborators would find her methods “insufferable” – but approached recording sessions with a newfound looseness.

“Making sure everyone’s eating well, having a nice walk in the afternoon – all of that made it into the music,” she says. “You can hear it in someone’s vocal when they’re having a good time.”

Although some of the songs were written in her London apartment, others were constructed from improvised jam sessions held in Devon’s Middle Farm studios.

“Little Chaos was like that,” she says. “We picked a key, recorded for 40 minutes, and then I took all the separate parts home and cut them up.

“I made a chorus section, made a verse section and sang a vocal over the top.

“It was so exciting to have well-recorded drums to write over. It made me want to match that energy. I’d stand a bit taller when I was singing.”

The result is a record that bursts out of the speakers, brimming with confidence, assured in its worldview.

Gartland can’t wait to play the new music live. She might be losing money going to the US, but she’s expecting a “fun, gnarly” couple of weeks on the tour bus.

Her only regret is leaving her kitchen behind.

“Hotel food and endless deliveries just make my soul feel depleted,” she says.

“I’ve definitely watched YouTube videos of people making elaborate food with the apparatus given to you in a hotel room.”

Such as?

“Oh, like, cooking a toasted sandwich in a trouser press, or frying an egg on an iron covered in tinfoil.

“But I don’t know… I don’t think I can’t bring myself to try it.”

The mother of the only British-Israeli hostage still being held by Hamas in Gaza has asked why the UK is not “fighting every moment to secure her release”.

Emily Damari, 28, was shot and taken from an Israeli kibbutz across the border into Gaza on 7 October.

Speaking at a London memorial event marking the attacks a year ago, her mother Mandy Damari said her daughter’s “plight seems to have been forgotten”.

Prime Minster Sir Keir Starmer said in a statement the UK “must unequivocally stand with the Jewish community”.

The dual national is among 97 hostages who remain unaccounted for.

Speaking at the Hyde Park memorial event, her mother said: “[Emily] 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.

“Imagine, for a moment if Emily was your daughter. Try to picture what she is going through.

“Since 7 October 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.”

• Latest coverage as Israel strikes Gaza and Beirut
• Israeli kibbutz struggles to heal, one year after 7 October
• Gaza Strip in maps: How life in the territory has been upended
• New accounts reveal how one military base was overrun
• Jeremy Bowen: Middle East is at the edge of a deeper, wider war

The crowd heard how Emily, who was born to her British mother in Israel and lived there, loved to visit the UK – her “second home across the sea”. She loved watching Spurs play, going to the pub, shopping at Primark and had also watched Ed Sheeran in concert, her mother said.

Her mother pleaded with Britain and other countries to do more to secure the release of her daughter, and the other hostages.

“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’s one of their own.”

She said some of the women and children who were released in the hostage deal in November had told her Emily was alive then, and spoke about how she helped the other hostages try to stay positive, even in the worst of times.

“Every day is 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.”

BBC News has approached the UK Foreign Office for comment.

Other hostages with British relatives held include Eli Sharabi, Oded Lifschitz and Avinatan Or. British-Israeli Nadav Popplewell was also kidnapped on 7 October and his body was recovered by Israeli soldiers in Gaza in August.

Families of Israeli hostages met Sir Keir and Foreign Secretary David Lammy on Monday, calling on them to “do more” to bring them home.

The prime minister agreed that the hostages must be freed and returned immediately, a subsequent press conference was told.

On Sunday, he said the country must “unequivocally” stand with the Jewish community and described 7 October as the “darkest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust”.

“As a father, a husband, a son, a brother – meeting the families of those who lost their loved ones last week was unimaginable. Their grief and pain are ours, and it is shared in homes across the land,” Sir Keir said.

He also reiterated his call for ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon.

The Hyde Park event, organised by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and other groups, was attended by thousands of British Jews and supporters of Israel who waved British and Israeli flags with chants of “bring them home”.

Among the crowd, many of whom have family and friends in Israel, there was disbelief that the hostages still had not been freed, one year on.

Israeli ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely told the crowd: “We will do whatever we can to bring them home.”

Michael Wegier, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, told BBC News: “The British Jewish community is traumatised like much of the Jewish community around the world, especially in Israel.

“There are 30,000 Jews from Britain who live in Israel. Many of us have friends and family there and we go there, and so we take what happens there very deeply and very personally.”

A vigil to remember the victims of the Hamas attack was also held in Glasgow where hundreds gathered at the steps of Kelvingrove Art Gallery.

On the eve of 7 October, a man was filmed damaging a Jewish memorial in Hove.

Sussex Police responded to the video, which had been circulated on X and other social media platforms, and confirmed the incident was being treated as a “hate crime”.

On Saturday tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protestors marched through central London calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and an end to the escalating conflict in the Middle East.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to the unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October by Hamas gunmen, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

At least 41,870 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

A stock market rally in China has fizzled out as a highly-anticipated announcement on plans to boost the country’s ailing economy disappointed investors.

Shares had jumped by more than 10% as trading restarted after the Golden Week holiday but fell back after a news conference by the country’s economic planners.

In a volatile session, the Shanghai Composite Index in mainland China was up by around 5% in late morning trade, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong was 5% lower.

Investors had been hoping for more information about how the government plans to support economic growth but the announcement gave little in the way of details.

The chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission Zheng Shanjie said he is “fully confident” the country will achieve its full-year economic and social goals.

But he added: “The downward pressures on China’s economy is also increasing with some industries seeing rat-race competition.”

Mr Zheng’s comments came as he announced that China will issue 200 billion yuan ($28bn; £21.5bn) for spending and investment projects by the end of this year.

“The market really expected more. The correction will be even stronger if the data on the Golden Week in terms of consumption is weak,” said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for the Asia Pacific region at investment bank Natixis.

“The market is reacting to the lack of a real fiscal stimulus. I would not have organised a press conference not to announce anything new.”

The Chinese government has been trying to boost confidence in the world’s second largest economy as concerns increase that it may miss its own 5% annual growth target.

Investors have been pouring into Chinese stocks since officials began rolling out a raft of measures aimed at boosting the economy.

The plans included help for the country’s crisis-hit property industry, support for the stock market, cash handouts for the poor and more government spending.

But some economists have questioned whether the policies will be enough to fix China’s economic problems.

They say deep reforms might be needed in order to set the country on a more sustainable growth path.

Growth has been slowing in the world’s second largest economy as it continues to face a property market slump, falling prices and other challenges.

A woman who spent 48 years wondering why an application for her dream job was never answered has finally found out why.

Tizi Hodson, 70, from Gedney Hill in Lincolnshire, could not believe her eyes when she opened the post to discover her original letter applying for a job as a motorcycle stunt rider, sent in January 1976, had been stuck behind a post office drawer all these years.

Despite it getting lost in the post, the setback did not hamper her daredevil career as she found a job that took her all over the world.

Describing the letter being returned as “amazing”, Ms Hodson said: “I always wondered why I never heard back about the job. Now I know why.”

At the top of the letter is a handwritten note that reads: “Late delivery by Staines Post Office. Found behind a draw [sic]. Only about 50 years late.”

Ms Hodson doesn’t know who returned the letter, or how it even found its way to her.

“How they found me when I’ve moved house 50-odd times, and even moved countries four or five times, is a mystery,” she said.

“It means so much to me to get it back all this time later.

“I remember very clearly sitting in my flat in London typing the letter.

“Every day I looked for my post but there was nothing there and I was so disappointed because I really, really, wanted to be a stunt rider on a motorcycle.”

Luckily for Ms Hodson, the silence following her application did not put her off from trying for other jobs.

She moved to Africa, worked as a snake handler and horse whisperer, learned to fly and became an aerobatic pilot and flying instructor.

Looking back at the letter she sent when she was just starting out, Ms Hodson said: “I was very careful not to let people who were advertising for a stunt rider know that I was female, or I thought I would have had no chance of even getting an interview.

“I even stupidly told them I didn’t mind how many bones I might break as I was used to it.

“It seems incredible to get the letter back after all this time.

“If I could speak to my younger self, I would tell her to go and do everything I’ve done. I’ve had such a wonderful time in life, even if I have broken a few bones.”

Lincolnshire on BBC Sounds latest episode of Look North here.

Maldivian President Mohammed Muizzu has told the BBC that he is confident that India will come to the aid of the island nation as it faces an economic crisis.

Muizzu, who begins a five-day visit to India on Sunday, is expected to seek a bailout worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Maldives is staring at a debt default as its foreign exchange reserves have dropped to $440m (£334m), just enough for one-and-a-half months of imports.

“India is fully cognizant of our fiscal situation, and as one of our biggest development partners, will always be ready to ease our burden, find better alternatives and solutions to the challenges we face,” Muizzu told the BBC in an email interview ahead of his visit.

Experts point out that Muizzu’s reconciliatory tone towards Delhi is a far cry from the rhetoric he adopted during his election campaign a year ago. That campaign had centred on an “India out” policy, demanding that Delhi must withdraw its troops from the island nation.

Speaking to the BBC, Muizzu did not directly address his anti-India campaign but said: “We are confident that any differences can be addressed through open dialogue and mutual understanding.”

• The Maldives’ new president wants India out
• Maldives president visits India amid trouble in tourist paradise

An Indian relief package will bolster the country’s foreign currency reserves.

Last month, global agency Moody’s downgraded the Maldives’ credit rating, saying that “default risks have risen materially”.

But Muizzu told the BBC that Male is not facing a sovereign debt default, adding that the country would not join an International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme to handle the crisis.

“We have our own home-grown agenda,” he said.

However, Moody has said that “(foreign) reserves remain significantly below the government’s external debt service of around $600m in 2025 and over $1bn in 2026”.

It’s not clear where Muizzu will find the money to overcome the reserves crisis and that’s where his Delhi visit is seen as crucial. India has already offered financial support worth $1.4bn to Male for various infrastructure and development projects.

Since Muizzu came to power in November 2023, relations between Male and Delhi have become strained.

Soon after taking over, he chose to travel to Turkey and China – his visit to the latter in January was seen especially as a high-profile snub to India as previous Maldivian leaders first visited Delhi after being elected. Around the same time, a controversy erupted in India after three Maldivian officials made derogatory comments about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Muizzu also gave an ultimatum to India to withdraw about 80 troops based in the country. Delhi said they were stationed there to maintain and operate two rescue and reconnaissance helicopters and a Dornier aircraft it had donated years ago.

In the end, both countries reached a compromise by agreeing to replace soldiers with Indian civilian technical staff to operate the aircraft.

• Indian troops to exit the Maldives as China gains foothold
• Chinese ship’s port call in Maldives fans India tensions

Muizzu’s administration also announced that it would not renew a hydrographic survey agreement with India that was signed by the previous government to map the seabed in Maldivian territorial waters.

But the Maldivian president defended his decision.

“The decisions taken are based on our evolving domestic interests and strategic priorities. The will of the people, that elected me 10 months ago,” Muizzu said.

“I believe both the Maldives and India have a better understanding of each others’ priorities and concerns,” he added.

Some of Muizzu’s decisions were seen as a way to reduce Delhi’s influence and forge closer ties with India’s rival China.

In February, Muizzu’s administration allowed the port call of a Chinese research ship, Xiang Yang Hong 3, in the Maldives, much to Delhi’s displeasure. Some saw it as a mission to collect data which could – at a later date – be used by the Chinese military for submarine operations.

But Muizzu rejects the pro-China tag.

“I have made clear our foreign policy the day I took office – that it is a ‘Maldives First’ policy. Our relationships with other nations are guided by the principles of mutual respect and trust, non-interference and the pursuit of peace and prosperity,” he insists.

“We believe that through open communication and collaboration, we can address any concerns, contributing to a peaceful and prosperous Indian Ocean region,” he says.

Despite Muizzu’s attempts to move Male closer to Beijing, analysts say financial assistance from China hasn’t been forthcoming,

As a result, the president’s extraordinary turnaround towards India now is based on harsh realities.

Muizzu’s Delhi visit “is a realisation of how dependent the Maldives is on India, a dependency that no other country will find easy to fill”, says Azim Zahir, a Maldivian analyst.

Hurricane Milton has rapidly intensified into an extremely dangerous category five storm as it tears its way towards the US state of Florida.

Milton is packing ferocious winds of up to180mph (285km/h) as it skirts the northern edge of Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula. Forecasters warn of potentially catastrophic storm surges along coastal areas.

The storm is expected to hit the heavily populated city of Tampa Bay with full force on Wednesday.

Floridians have been told to prepare for the state’s largest evacuation effort in years, with Governor Ron DeSantis warning that time for people to evacuate is quickly running out.

“We have to assume this is going to be a monster,” Governor DeSantis said at press conference on Monday afternoon.

Warnings over Hurricane Milton come just 10 days after Hurricane Helene – the deadliest mainland storm since Katrina in 2005 – pummelled the US south-east, killing at least 225 people. Hundreds more are missing.

At least 14 of those deaths were in Florida, where 51 of 67 counties are now under emergency warnings as Milton approaches.

“Unfortunately, some of the Helene victims are in the path of this storm,” DeSantis said.

Ken Graham, director of the National Weather Service [NWS], said Milton became a category five hurricane at record-breaking speed – with wind speeds intensifying by 80 knots (148km/h) over 24 hours.

“That’s the third highest we have on record,” he said.

Hurricanes are separated into five categories based on their wind speed.

Those reaching category three and higher are considered major hurricanes because of their potential for significant loss of life and damage, according to the NWS.

Hurricane Milton is expected to weaken on Tuesday as it travels over the Gulf of Mexico, dropping to a category three storm by the time it makes landfall in Florida’s Tampa Bay on Wednesday evening or early on Thursday.

The National Hurricane Center warned torrential rain and flash-flooding can be expected across parts of Florida from late Monday.

It added that life-threatening storm surges and damaging winds along portions of Florida’s west coast were possible from late Tuesday or early Wednesday.

Rainfall totals could reach localised highs of 15in (38cm), and coastal areas could see storm surges of 10-15ft (3-4.5m).

Counties began issuing evacuation orders on Monday, and tolls will be suspended on roads in western and central Florida.

Long queues at petrol stations began forming in south Florida, with some reports of stations running out of fuel.

Traffic congestion in some areas has increased by as much as 90% above average, DeSantis said.

School closures in several counties begin on Tuesday.

Keith Turi, a spokesperson for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), said: “I’m encouraged by the amount of evacuation that’s going on right now.”

“This is actually a good sign.”

Parts of Pinellas County, where at least a dozen people were killed by Helene, were placed under evacuation orders on Monday.

Airports in Tampa and Orlando announced they would be suspending flight operations from Tuesday because of the storm.

• Are you in Florida? Please share your experiences
• Helene is deadliest mainland US storm since Katrina
• What made Helene so damaging?
• Hurricanes: A look inside the deadly storms
• Misinformation swirls around hurricane response effort

Foul weather derailed the presidential campaign as well.

DeSantis spoke by phone with President Joe Biden, but according to NBC News, he has refused to take any calls from Vice-President Kamala Harris, who is running for president against former President Donald Trump.

“I didn’t know she called me…. I was not aware of that,” DeSantis said.

Harris, asked about her calls not being answered on Monday afternoon, responded that “playing political games with this moment, in these crisis situation[s], these are the height of emergency situation[s], [is] utterly irresponsible,

“And it is selfish and it is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”

A town hall style event to be filmed with former Trump in Miami on Tuesday was postponed until next week.

“The health and safety of everyone involved in this event is the highest priority,” said the host network Univision.

The approach of the new hurricane comes as the US government warns that clean-up efforts could take years after Hurricane Helene.

Over 12,000 cubic yards of debris have been removed in Helene-affected areas of Florida in less than two days, officials said.

DeSantis said debris removal will continue “until it is no longer safe to do so”.

Hundreds of roads in affected areas remain closed, hampering efforts to send aid to hard-hit communities.

Helene made landfall in late September as a category four hurricane – damaging structures, causing flash flooding and knocking out power to millions of homes.

As well as in Florida, deaths were recorded in Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia – and the worst-hit state, North Carolina.

Biden has ordered another 500 soldiers to be deployed to North Carolina. The troops – who now number 1,500 in all – will work with thousands of government relief workers and National Guard.

Biden has so far approved nearly $140m (£107m) in federal assistance.

Sign up for our Future Earth newsletter to get exclusive insight on the latest climate and environment news from the BBC’s Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt, delivered to your inbox every week. Outside the UK? Sign up to our international newsletter here.

Two grey shapes, visible from satellites for most of this year at Cambodia’s Ream naval base, seem to confirm growing fears in Washington: that China is expanding its military footprint, beyond the three disputed islands in the South China Sea which it has already seized and fortified.

The shapes are type A56 corvettes of the Chinese navy – 1,500-tonne warships – and they have been berthed alongside a new, Chinese-built pier that is big enough to accommodate much larger vessels. Onshore there are other facilities, also built by China, which are presumed to be for the use of the Chinese navy.

The Cambodian government has repeatedly denied such a possibility, citing its constitution which bans any permanent foreign military presence, and stating that Ream is open to use by all friendly navies.

“Please understand this is a Cambodian, not a Chinese base,” said Seun Sam, a Policy Analyst at the Royal Academy of Cambodia. “Cambodia is very small, and our military capacities are limited.

“We need more training from outside friends, especially from China.”

Others, however, are watching with suspicion.

For all the talk about the rapid rise of Chinese sea power – the country now has more ships in its navy than the US – China currently has only one overseas military base, in the African state of Djibouti, which it built in 2016.

The United States, by contrast, has around 750 – one also in Djibouti, and many others in countries close to China like Japan and South Korea.

The US believes the imbalance is changing, however, because of China’s stated ambition to be a global military power. That, and the scale of its investments in overseas infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative, which under Chinese law must be built to military standards.

Some in Washington predict that China will eventually have a global network of bases, or civilian ports that it can use as bases. And one of the first of these is Ream.

Until a few years ago, Ream – which sits on Cambodia’s southern tip – was being upgraded with US assistance; part of the tens of millions of dollars’ worth of yearly military aid provided to Cambodia. But the US cut back this aid after 2017, when Cambodia’s main opposition party was banned and its leaders exiled or jailed.

Already increasingly dependent on Chinese aid and investment, the Cambodian government abruptly switched partners. It cancelled the regular joint military exercises held with the US, and switched to the so-called Golden Dragon exercises it now holds with China.

By 2020, two US-funded buildings in Ream had been torn down and an extensive, Chinese-funded expansion of the facilities there had begun. By the end of last year the new pier had been built. It was almost identical to the 363 meter-long pier at the base in Djibouti, and long enough to accommodate China’s largest aircraft carrier.

Soon the two corvettes were docked at Ream – and either they, or identical replacements, have stayed there for most of this year.

Cambodia claims the ships are for training, and to prepare for this year’s Golden Dragon exercises. It also says China is constructing two new A56 corvettes for its own navy, and insists that the Chinese presence in Ream is not permanent, so does not count as a base.

That has not stopped US officials from expressing their concern over the expansion of the site, though, which satellite photographs show has, in addition to the new pier, a new dry dock, warehouses, and what look like administrative offices and living quarters with four basketball courts.

In 2019 the Wall Street Journal reported on what it said was a leaked agreement between Cambodia and China to lease 77 hectares of the base for 30 years. This allegedly included the stationing of military personnel and weapons.

The Cambodian government dismissed the report as fake news – but it is noteworthy that only Chinese warships have so far been allowed to dock at the new pier. Two Japanese destroyers visiting in February were instead told to dock at the nearby town of Sihanoukville.

Even if the Chinese presence does start to become more permanent and exclusive, however, some analysts doubt it would violate Cambodia’s constitution.

It is technically true that Ream is not a permanent base. And while its expansion is Chinese-funded, the base itself is not leased to China, said Kirsten Gunness, a Senior Policy Researcher at the California-based Rand Corporation.

“We are seeing a pattern of Chinese ships being continuously docked [at Ream],” she said. “One way to get around the constitutional prohibition is not to call it a foreign base, but allow foreign forces continuous access on a rotational basis.”

The US and the Philippines operate under similar agreements, Gunness added.

Most analysts believe a long-term Chinese presence at Ream would offer very few real advantages to China. They point to the three bases it has already built on Mischief, Fiery Cross and Subi Reefs in the South China Sea, and the formidable naval forces it maintains on its south coast.

But a Chinese base in Ream, at the mouth of the Gulf of Thailand, does worry Cambodia’s neighbours, Thailand and Vietnam. Together with other bases further north, it could be seen as an attempt by China to encircle the long Vietnamese coast.

Like the Philippines, Vietnam disputes China’s claim to almost all the islands in the South China Sea, and its forces have clashed with China’s in the past.

Thai national security officials have also privately expressed alarm at the thought of a Chinese base just south of the Thai navy’s main port in Sattahip, covering their exit from the Gulf of Thailand. Thailand and Cambodia still have unresolved territorial disputes, after all.

Neither country is likely to voice these complaints publicly, though. Thailand will want to avoid causing ripples in its economically vital relationship with China, while Vietnam will want to avoid stirring up anti-Vietnamese sentiment in Cambodia. Public resentment of China in Vietnam, where such feelings are never far from the surface, is also something the Vietnamese government will want to steer clear of.

US and Indian strategists, meanwhile, are more concerned about the future possibility of a Chinese base in the Indian Ocean – like the Sri Lankan port of Hambantota, which a Chinese state-owned company acquired a 99-year lease for in 2017, or the port of Gwadar in Pakistan, which has also been redeveloped with Chinese funding.

But these are still very distant prospects. Few analysts believe China will be able to rival the global military reach of the US for many more years.

“The Ream base does not add much in the way of power projection – it doesn’t get the Chinese navy any closer to places it wants to go,” said Greg Poling, director of the CSIS Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative.

What it could do is make a big difference in gathering intelligence, tracking satellites and detecting or monitoring long-range targets.

“These are not necessarily the best options for China,” Mr Poling added. “But they are the only ones on offer.”

Israel has held ceremonies to remember the victims of the mass killings and abductions carried out by Hamas on 7 October 2023, against a backdrop of continuing fighting in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

A year on from the attack – that saw some 1,200 people killed and 251 taken hostage – Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to stop such an assault happening again, saying Israel’s armed forces were “changing the security reality” of the region.

Since 7 October, nearly 42,000 people have been killed during Israel’s offensive in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

As the day of commemorations unfolded, Israel said it had intercepted more than 100 rockets fired by Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as projectiles launched by Yemen’s Houthis and from Hamas in Gaza.

• Israeli kibbutz struggles to heal, one year after 7 October
• Gaza Strip in maps: How a year of war has drastically changed
• Jeremy Bowen’s analysis – is the Middle East on the edge of a wider war?
• Hamas hostages: Stories of the people taken from Israel

Last October, gunmen from Hamas in Gaza broke through the border fence and rampaged through nearby Israeli villages, Kibbutzim, military posts and the Nova music festival.

On Monday, families of the hundreds killed and dozens of people taken hostage at the festival gathered at the site early for the first memorial event of the day.

Holding pictures of loved ones they listened to the last track played at the festival before Israeli President Isaac Herzog led a minute’s silence at 06:29, the moment that the attack began.

In nearby communities also attacked by Hamas gunmen, smaller events were held.

Elsewhere, Netanyahu visited the Iron Sword memorial in Jerusalem for victims of the Hamas attacks, lighting a candle to “remember our fallen, our hostages”.

In Tel Aviv’s biggest park, Israeli families gathered for an event billed as the Bereaved Families Memorial Ceremony, which served as an alternative to the official government memorial ceremony.

Some of Israel’s most popular singers gave emotional performances, while images of victims flashed on the screens.

The stage was adorned with items symbolising the attacks including burnt and broken cars from the Nova music festival, and a child’s bicycle and swing set from the Be’eri kibbutz.

Outside Israel, US President Joe Biden joined other world leaders in condemning what the “unspeakable brutality” of the Hamas attacks a year ago.

He also expressed horror at the subsequent war, saying “far too many civilians had suffered, far too much”.

Mourners also gathered at vigils around the world including in Australia, South Africa, Germany and the US.

In the UK, Sir Keir Starmer told the House of Commons he supported Israel’s right to defend itself. But Britain’s prime minister insisted there was no military solution to the current crisis and appealed for all sides to “step back”.

However as the memorial services took place, the wider conflict in the region raged.

The Israeli military said Hezbollah had fired more than 130 rockets across the border from Lebanon. Most were shot down, but some hit the cities of Haifa and Tiberius.

Earlier Hamas also launched rockets at Tel Aviv from Gaza. The army said ballistic missiles had been fired at Israel from Yemen but had been intercepted.

Through the day, Israel carried out multiple air strikes and several ground incursions in Lebanon.

The Israeli military said it was expanding operations against Hezbollah, warning residents in southern Lebanon to avoid using boats in the sea or rivers south of the Awali river.

Three weeks of intense Israeli strikes and other attacks in Lebanon have killed more than 1,400 people, and displaced another 1.2 million, according to Lebanese authorities.

Hezbollah – a Shia Islamist political, military and social organisation that wields considerable power in Lebanon – has remained defiant despite suffering a series of devastating blows in recent weeks, including the killing of its leader and most of its top military commanders.

On Monday, the group insisted it was “confident… in the ability of our resistance to oppose the Israeli aggression”.

Israel’s government – which designates Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation – has pledged to make it safe for tens of thousands of displaced residents to return to their homes near the Lebanese border after a year of cross-border fighting sparked by the Gaza war.

The hostilities have escalated steadily since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel on 8 October 2023, the day after its ally Hamas deadly attack on southern Israel.

India has agreed to extend hundreds of millions of dollars in financial support to the Maldives to help strengthen its struggling economy.

The deal was announced after Maldives President Mohammed Muizzu held talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his five-day visit to India.

The support includes a $400m currency swap deal and an additional 30bn rupees ($357m; £273m) in another swap agreement which will allow companies to do business in local currencies rather than in US dollars.

The Maldivian president was given red carpet treatment after relations soured in recent months. Modi called his visit a “new chapter” in ties.

“India will always be there for the progress and prosperity of the people of Maldives,” he said.

The statements – and the Indian financial package – signal a significant improvement in relations between Male and Delhi, which have been strained since Muizzu came to power in November 2023.

Soon after taking over, he chose to travel to Turkey and China – his visit to the latter in January was seen especially as a high-profile snub to India as previous Maldivian leaders traditionally visited Delhi first after being elected.

Around the same time, India was angered by derogatory comments from three Maldivian officials about Modi.

But analysts say the country’s ailing economy has made its leadership mend its ties with India.

The Maldives is staring at a debt default as its foreign exchange reserves have dropped to $440m (£334m), just enough for one-and-a-half months of imports.

On Monday, Muizzu said he held “extensive discussions” with Modi to chart “a path for the future collaboration between our two countries”.

He thanked India and said the budgetary support would be “instrumental in addressing foreign exchange issues”.

The two countries have also agreed on a deal to start talks on a free trade agreement.

Ahead of his meeting with Modi, Muizzu had told the BBC that he expected India to help the country as it has done in the past.

“India is fully cognisant of our fiscal situation, and as one of our biggest development partners, will always be ready to ease our burden, find better alternatives and solutions to the challenges we face,” he said.

Without referring to his anti-India campaign, he said: “We are confident that any differences can be addressed through open dialogue and mutual understanding.”

This was in contrast to his previous decisions, some of which were seen as a way to reduce Delhi’s influence and forge closer ties with India’s rival China.

In February, his administration allowed a Chinese research ship to dock in the Maldives, much to Delhi’s displeasure. Some saw it as a mission to collect data which could be used by the Chinese military for submarine operations.

Muizzu has however rejected the pro-China tag, calling his policies as “Maldives First”.

But the country also continues to depend on China, which has so far extended $1.37bn in loans.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris was pressed on issues including the Middle East, Ukraine, gun ownership and immigration during a one-on-one interview with CBS News’ 60 Minutes.

The recorded interview comes as Harris ramps up media appearances on a series of podcasts and TV networks amid criticism that she has made very few.

Donald Trump also was invited to 60 Minutes, but declined.

There is less than a month to go before Election Day in the race for the White House between the Democrat and her Republican opponent.

The interview on CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, aired Monday night after both Harris and Trump appeared at events to commemorate one year since the 7 October attack on Israel.

Harris declined to agree when asked by reporter Bill Whitaker whether Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu is a “strong ally” of the United States, after recent public disagreements between the White House and Jerusalem.

“The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles,” Harris said.

“I think, with all due respect, the better question is, do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people,” she continued. “And the answer to that question is yes.”

In a more tense moment, Harris also was pressed to defend her immigration record, which has been heavily attacked by Trump and Republicans.

Mr Whitaker asked her whether it was a “mistake” to loosen border restrictions put in place during Trump’s presidency, given that the Biden-Harris administration re-enacted restrictions three years after taking control of the White House.

“It’s a longstanding problem. And solutions are at hand. And from day one, literally, we have been offering solutions,” she said, blaming Trump for pressuring Republicans in Congress to torpedo a border deal that would have increased immigration enforcement.

The reporter responded: “What I was asking was, was it a mistake to kind of allow that flood to happen in the first place?”

Harris replied that “the policies that we have been proposing are about fixing a problem, not promoting a problem”. She said that she and Biden have “cut the flow of illegal immigration by half”.

On Ukraine, Harris said she would not sit down with Russian President Vladimir Putin unless Ukraine was also at the table.

She slammed Trump’s position, saying: “He talks about, oh, he can end it on day one. You know what that is? It’s about surrender,” she said.

If Trump was still president, she said, “Putin would be in Kyiv right now”.

She also was asked about her economic plan and how her administration would fund its plans, which could add $3tr (£2.3tr) to the US national deficit over the next decade.

“My economic plan would strengthen America’s economy. His would weaken it,” she said, adding that her plan relied on “strengthening small businesses”.

Asked again how she would pay for it, Harris responded that she would raise taxes on “the richest among us who can afford it”.

On Monday, a new analysis by the non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget found Trump’s proposals would increase the US national debt by double the amount of Harris’.

Trump would add $7.5tn and Harris would add $3.5tn, the group said.

The think tank warned that neither was addressing the country’s growing $35.6tn debt.

• US debt would increase under Harris and soar under Trump – study
• Election polls – is Harris or Trump ahead?

In her interview, Harris also discussed owning a firearm, revealing that her pistol is made by Austrian company Glock.

“I’ve had it for quite some time,” she said, noting that her “background is in law enforcement”.

Harris, a former district attorney in California, laughed when asked if she had ever fired it, saying, “of course I have, at a shooting range.”

Also speaking on the same programme, Harris’s running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, criticised Trump for his comments on his opponents and migrants.

“They’re dehumanising, they go beyond weird because, I said this, it becomes almost dangerous. Let’s try to debate policy in a real way and let’s try to find objective truth again.”

He also defended his record of making false statements about his military service and travels in Asia in the 1980s.

Walz described himself as a guy “telling a story, getting a date wrong”, rather than a “pathological liar” like Trump.

“I will own up to being a knucklehead at times, but the folks closest to me know that I keep my word.”

Trump also was invited to 60 Minutes. He accepted, but later changed his mind and declined, according to CBS.

Trump’s campaign disputed that he ever agreed to be interviewed. His spokesman, Steven Cheung called it “fake news”.

During his 2020 presidential campaign, Trump walked out of his interview with CBS presenter Leslie Stahl after growing frustrated with questions about Covid-19.

Earlier on Monday, Harris commemorated those killed or taken hostage on 7 October by planting a pomegranate tree at the vice-president’s residence in Washington.

“A symbol of hope and righteousness… to remind future vice-presidents of the United States not only of the horror of October 7th but the strength and endurance of the Jewish people,” Harris said.

Former President Donald Trump donned a black yarmulke as he visited Ohel Chabad Lubavitch, the final resting place of Rabbi Schneerson in Queens, New York on Monday.

The site is considered the holiest Jewish site in North America, according to some Orthodox Jews.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• EXPLAINER: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• ANALYSIS: Only one candidate is talking about China
• DISINFO: Pro- and anti-Trump voters united by one belief
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

A stock market rally in China has fizzled out as a highly-anticipated announcement on plans to boost the country’s ailing economy disappointed investors.

Shares had jumped by more than 10% as trading restarted after the Golden Week holiday but fell back after a news conference by the country’s economic planners.

In a volatile session, the Shanghai Composite Index in mainland China was up by around 5% in late morning trade, while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong was 5% lower.

Investors had been hoping for more information about how the government plans to support economic growth but the announcement gave little in the way of details.

The chairman of China’s National Development and Reform Commission Zheng Shanjie said he is “fully confident” the country will achieve its full-year economic and social goals.

But he added: “The downward pressures on China’s economy is also increasing with some industries seeing rat-race competition.”

Mr Zheng’s comments came as he announced that China will issue 200 billion yuan ($28bn; £21.5bn) for spending and investment projects by the end of this year.

“The market really expected more. The correction will be even stronger if the data on the Golden Week in terms of consumption is weak,” said Alicia Garcia-Herrero, chief economist for the Asia Pacific region at investment bank Natixis.

“The market is reacting to the lack of a real fiscal stimulus. I would not have organised a press conference not to announce anything new.”

The Chinese government has been trying to boost confidence in the world’s second largest economy as concerns increase that it may miss its own 5% annual growth target.

Investors have been pouring into Chinese stocks since officials began rolling out a raft of measures aimed at boosting the economy.

The plans included help for the country’s crisis-hit property industry, support for the stock market, cash handouts for the poor and more government spending.

But some economists have questioned whether the policies will be enough to fix China’s economic problems.

They say deep reforms might be needed in order to set the country on a more sustainable growth path.

Growth has been slowing in the world’s second largest economy as it continues to face a property market slump, falling prices and other challenges.

Voters in the US go to the polls on 5 November to elect their next president.

The election was initially a rematch of 2020 but it was upended in July when President Joe Biden ended his campaign and endorsed Vice-President Kamala Harris.

The big question now is – will America get its first woman president or a second Donald Trump term?

As election day approaches, we’ll be keeping track of the polls and seeing what effect the campaign has on the race for the White House.

Harris has been ahead of Trump in the national polling averages since she entered the race at the end of July, as shown in the chart below with the latest figures rounded to the nearest whole number.

The two candidates went head to head in a televised debate in Pennsylvania on 10 September that just over 67 million people tuned in to watch.

A majority of national polls carried out in the week after suggested Harris’s performance had helped her make some small gains, with her lead increasing from 2.5 percentage points on the day of the debate to 3.3 points just over a week later.

That marginal boost was mostly down to Trump’s numbers though. His average had been rising ahead of the debate, but it fell by half a percentage point in the week afterwards.

You can see those small changes in the poll tracker chart below, with the trend lines showing how the averages have changed and the dots showing the individual poll results for each candidate.

While these national polls are a useful guide as to how popular a candidate is across the country as a whole, they’re not necessarily an accurate way to predict the result of the election.

That’s because the US uses an electoral college system, in which each state is given a number of votes roughly in line with the size of its population. A total of 538 electoral college votes are up for grabs, so a candidate needs to hit 270 to win.

There are 50 states in the US but because most of them nearly always vote for the same party, in reality there are just a handful where both candidates stand a chance of winning. These are the places where the election will be won and lost and are known as battleground states or swing states.

• What is the electoral college?

Right now, the polls are very tight in the seven states considered battlegrounds in this election with just one or two percentage points separating the candidates.

That includes Pennsylvania, which is key as it has the highest number of electoral votes of the seven states and therefore winning it makes it easier to reach the 270 votes needed.

In a sign of how the race has changed since Harris became the Democratic nominee, on the day Biden quit the race he was trailing Trump by nearly five percentage points on average in these seven states.

One thing to note is that there are fewer state polls than national polls being carried out at the moment so we have less data to go on and every poll has a margin of error that means the numbers could be higher or lower.

But looking at the trends since Harris joined the race does help highlight the states in which she seems to be in a stronger position, according to the polling averages.

In the chart below you can see that Harris has been leading in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin since the start of August – but the margins are still small.

All three had all been Democratic strongholds before Trump turned them red on his path to winning the presidency in 2016. Biden retook them in 2020 and if Harris can do the same this year then she will be on course to win the election.

The figures we have used in the graphics above are averages created by polling analysis website 538, which is part of American news network ABC News. To create them, 538 collects the data from individual polls carried out both nationally and in battleground states by lots of polling companies.

As part of its quality control, 538 only includes polls from companies that meet certain criteria, like being transparent about how many people they polled, when the poll was carried out and how the poll was conducted (telephone calls, text message, online, etc).

You can read more about the 538 methodology here.

At the moment, the polls suggest that Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are within a couple of percentage points of each other in swing states – and when the race is that close, it’s very hard to predict winners.

Polls underestimated support for Trump in both 2016 and 2020. Polling companies will be trying to fix that problem in a number of ways, including how to make their results reflect the make-up of the voting population.

Those adjustments are difficult to get right and pollsters still have to make educated guesses about other factors like who will actually turn up to vote on 5 November.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• ANALYSIS: Harris goads Trump into flustered performance
• EXPLAINER: Seven swing states that could decide election
• IMMIGRATION: Could Trump really deport a million migrants?
• FACT CHECK: Was US economy stronger or weaker under Trump?
• Read more about: Kamala Harris | Donald Trump | US election

The US presidential election is just weeks away and one essential voting bloc is getting a lot of attention from both parties: young voters. But it’s economic woes – from inflation to housing – that could drive them to the polls.

It’s Isabella Morris’s first presidential election, and the 21-year-old mum from Rosenberg, Texas, said she’s listening closely to what both candidates have to say.

Recently married with a two-year-old, Isabella works part-time to supplement her husband’s full-time income. She stays at home with her child while her family rents a small one-bedroom apartment.

The plan seemed solid—two incomes, no mortgage, or daycare costs—but it’s not enough.

“Our debts are paid off, but we can’t afford any mistakes. We have no savings, nothing. One job used to be enough to live on, even at a minimum wage. Now it feels like we’re barely scraping by,” she said.

Economic fears about her future will drive her to vote in November, but when she spoke to the BBC, she was still undecided which candidate she would support.

“As these elections draw closer, we cannot possibly fathom a candidate not addressing the economic crisis right now,” she said.

Isabelle is one of 8 million young people who will be voting in a presidential election for the first time. Comprising about a third of the US electorate, voters under 35 are being fought over by both parties, and polls show the economy is their top priority this election season.

Though reproductive rights, the war in Gaza and gun violence have dominated headlines when it comes to young voters’ policy priorities, 18-26 year-olds rank economic growth, income inequality and poverty as the most important problems facing the country, according to a Gen Forward Survey conducted by the University of Chicago and released in September.

That’s in contrast to the 2020 election, when COVID-19, racism, and healthcare outranked the economy as the main issue driving young voters to the polls, according to the same survey.

Isabella’s concerns reflect the broader challenges facing young voters, who are entering a world of high rents, unaffordable homes and slowing job creation – not to mention a once-in-a-generation surge in prices, according to economics Tiktoker Kyla Scanlon.

Last month, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates for the first time in more than four years, a decision which could lead to lower borrowing costs on mortgages, credit cards and saving rates for millions of people. But it remains to be seen whether the change in rates will change people’s outlook on the economy.

“The overall situation has degraded,” Ms Scanlon, 27, told the BBC, noting that young people today have it worse than previous generations – even millennials who entered the workforce after the 2008 financial crisis.

A Gen Z-er herself, Ms Scanlon often turns to TikTok, where she has more than 180,000 followers, to educate young people about the economy.

People ages 22-24 hold more debt of all kinds – credit cards, car loans and mortgages – than millennials did at the same age, the credit agency TransUnion found. And their debt is rising faster than their income.

“There’s no beginner mode anymore—the bottom rung of the ladder just feels completely gone, I think, for most of the generation,” Ms Scanlon said.

And those fears of being left behind could drive voters to the ballot box, experts say.

Abby Kiesa, deputy director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), told the BBC she expects about half of young voters to turn out this election – a similar turnout to 2020, which had the highest turnout in decades and an 11% increase compared to the presidential election in 2016.

Meanwhile, the 2018 midterms saw a record-breaking turnout among young voters, according to CIRCLE.

That’s still far below the turnout of other age groups. In 2020, 69% of eligible Americans 35-64 voted, while 74% of voters over the age of 65 went to the polls, according to the US Census. But in an election that will be won by a razor’s edge, being able to rally a significant percentage of new voters could help give a candidate the boost they need to win.

Ms Kiesa said focusing on addressing economic hardship will be key if politicians hope to boost turnout among Gen Z-ers feeling disconnected from politics.

“For the past three elections, turnout among young voters has been historic,” she said. “We need candidates who understand, engage, and speak with them. That’s what has to change.”

The two presidential nominees – Trump and Harris – have both sharpened their economic message in recent weeks and stepped-up efforts to appeal to young voters.

Harris has expanded on the Biden administration’s economic initiatives around student loan forgiveness, consumer pricing and housing affordability. She’s proposed a $25,000 subsidy for first-time home buyers and a $6,000 tax credit for families with newborns.

Her campaign has doubled her youth organising staff and invested heavily in digital ads. She has enjoyed endorsements from high-profile celebrities including Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish, and built momentum by embracing viral memes about the vice-president on social media. Harris has also spent the last year touring college campuses in key battleground states.

Meanwhile, Trump has sought to capitalise on economic dissatisfaction among young people, attacking Harris and Biden’s economic record and highlighing lower prices on goods under his administration. Both he and Harris have promised to eliminate tip taxation – a move aimed at the service industry, which employs millions of young people – and committed to ending regulatory barriers on cryptocurrency.

The former president has also tried to reach younger voters through social media, podcasts, and partnerships with influencers. He’s posted TikToks with influencers like Logan Paul and Adin Ross.

Polls showed Trump made inroads among young voters while he was running against Biden, who is 81. When he was still in the race, he led Trump by only a few percentage points, and the GenForward survey showed young people thought he handled the economy better than the Biden administration.

But momentum has shifted back to the much younger Harris.

She now holds a 31-point lead over Trump among likely voters aged 18-29, according to the Harvard Institute of Politics poll released in late September.

Economic woes aren’t just driving people to vote, they’re lighting a fire in some young people to run for office themselves.

Gabriel Sanchez, 27, a Democratic candidate for the Georgia state legislature, said he’s running for office to try to help ease the financial strain on his generation.

As a waiter at a sports bar, he said rent hikes have forced him to move repeatedly. He is concerned that essentials like stable housing are becoming a privilege for many young Americans.

“Most of us aren’t able to own a home, afford healthcare or buy the basic things we need,” Sanchez said in a TikTok posted on his campaign account.

In May, Sanchez and three other young candidates cruised to victory in Georgia’s Democratic primary election, an outcome dubbed as Gen Z’s night in Atlanta.

Sanchez said he believes his economic struggles resonated with voters.

“We’re working hard but not seeing any rewards. This economy isn’t working for us,” Sanchez said. “We need representation – candidates who understand what young people are going through.”

But it’s not only Democrats that are luring young candidates.

Wyatt Gable, a 21-year-old in his last year at East Carolina University, won the Republican primary for North Carolina’s House of Representatives. He defeated George Cleveland, a 10-term, 85-year-old, incumbent.

If elected in November, Wyatt will become the youngest person ever to hold a seat in the state legislature.

As he prepares for the November vote, he said he expects the economy to be top of mind for young people at the polls this year.

“My generation feels it. Seeing how bad inflation is, and with interest rates skyrocketing, that’s going to be the biggest thing on young people’s minds when they go to the ballot box,” he said.

• SIMPLE GUIDE: Everything you need to know about the vote
• EXPLAINER: What Harris or Trump would do in power
• VOTERS: What young Democrats want from Harris
• ANALYSIS: Don’t mention Trump – Republicans trying to sway women
• POLLS: Who is winning the race for the White House?

North America correspondent Anthony Zurcher makes sense of the race for the White House in his twice weekly US Election Unspun newsletter. Readers in the UK can sign up here. Those outside the UK can sign up here.

Japan’s government has admitted an official photo of its new cabinet was manipulated to make members look less unkempt after online speculation that it had been edited.

Photos taken by local media showed the new prime minister, Shigeru Ishiba, and his defence minister with small patches of white shirt showing under their suits.

But in the official photo issued by the prime minister’s office on Thursday, the untidiness had disappeared.

After plenty of online mockery, a government spokesperson on Monday said “minor editing was made” to the image.

Spokesman Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters the image had been manipulated as group photos taken by the prime minister’s office “will be preserved forever as memorabilia”.

He added that “minor editing is customarily performed on these photos”.

His comments come after a barrage of mockery on social media.

“This is more hideous than a group picture of some kind of a seniors’ club during a trip to a hot spring. It’s utterly embarrassing,” one user wrote on X.

Another user said it was clear the cabinet members were wearing suits in the incorrect size.

Other users have been referring to the cabinet – and their trousers – as “ill-fitting”, according to local media.

The photograph was taken on Thursday following the first meeting of Japan’s new cabinet.

A few days earlier, Ishiba, 67, replaced outgoing prime minister, Fumio Kishida, as chief of the country’s ruling party.

He was officially appointed to the role of prime minister on Tuesday.

Ishiba has already announced plans for a snap election on 27 October.

“It is important for the new administration to be judged by the people as soon as possible,” he told a news conference in Tokyo, according to Reuters.

The election, which is set to take place more than a year before it is due, will decide which party controls parliament’s lower house.

A pair of red shoes, two beaded necklaces and a British 10p coin are among the few clues that could help to identify a teenage girl found murdered in western France more than 40 years ago.

Her death is one of 46 cold cases European police are seeking to solve as part of the second phase of a campaign aimed at finding the names of unidentified murdered women.

BBC coverage of last year’s appeal helped to identify a British woman some 30 years after her murder.

“We want to identify the deceased women, bring answers to families, and deliver justice to the victims,” Jürgen Stock, secretary-general of Interpol, which is co-ordinating the effort, said in a statement on Tuesday.

“Whether it is a memory, a tip, or a shared story, the smallest detail could help uncover the truth.”

The second phase of the Operation Identify Me campaign includes cases in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy and Spain.

Details of each one have been published on Interpol’s website, along with photographs of possible identifying items and facial reconstructions.

Most of the victims are thought to have been aged between 15 and 30.

The body of the teenager with red shoes, beaded necklaces and a 10p piece was found underneath layers of leaves in a layby near a village called Le Cellier in 1982. It had been there for several months.

Speaking near the area she was found, now overgrown with brambles, nettles and horse chestnut trees, detective Franc Dannerolle says the teenager’s body was “disposed of like garbage”.

“There was no respect, no care for her before her death,” he adds.

The 10p coin led investigators to believe that she was either British or had been travelling in Britain before her murder, though they acknowledge that she could have found it, or been given it.

Police have chosen not to go into detail about the nature of her killing to avoid “fake perpetrators” from claiming responsibility.

Unfortunately, the teenager’s remains can no longer be found, which complicates the cold case investigators’ task.

“If we manage to find them, it could be possible to work on her DNA to have a link with the family,” says Det Dannerolle.

Retired detective Alain Brillet worked on the case at the time and describes it as a “triple enigma”.

“The strangest and most incredible thing was that we had someone who had been murdered, because we knew she had been murdered, but we could never find out what her name was, where she was from, or who had killed her,” he says.

The BBC found one woman who recalled the fear the discovery of her body sparked in the village, but because the victim wasn’t local, most people forgot about it and moved on.

The launch of the Operation Identify Me campaign last year marked the first time that Interpol had ever gone public with a list known as “black notices”, seeking information about unidentified bodies. Such notices had historically only been circulated internally among Interpol’s network of police forces.

Across Europe, the ease of movement due to open borders, increased global migration, and human trafficking has led to more people being reported missing outside their home country, says Dr Susan Hitchin, co-ordinator of Interpol’s DNA unit.

“These women have suffered a double injustice. They’ve become victims twice: they’ve been killed through an act of violence and they’ve been denied their name in death,” she says.

Interpol is using targeted social media to advertise the campaign in specific locations and demographics. The global police force has also been asking celebrities to speak on behalf of the unknown, unnamed women.

Another case that Interpol is hoping people may be able to help solve is that of a woman whose body was discovered in Wassenaar in the Netherlands some two decades ago.

The discovery was Dutch forensic investigator Sandra Baasbank’s first case. She remembers seeing the woman lying face down in sand dunes, with no obvious signs of injury or struggle.

Det Baasbank says the woman was wearing brown plaid leggings and red shiny patent shoes – “unusual if you are going for a walk on the beach”.

“She was very fit, sporty. Wearing a headband, and sunglasses. Her buttons were done up and she was wearing a scarf,” the detective adds.

Forensic analysis found the woman was born in Eastern Europe and spent the final five years of her life in Western Europe.

One of the keys she was carrying was traced back to Germany.

“Maybe she made me better at what I do. ‘Never give up,’ is my motto. I’m determined in the work I do, and maybe she’s the reason why,” Det Baasbank says.

She is hopeful that the new Identify Me campaign will help ignite some new leads and provide a form of closure.

And there is reason for her optimism.

Rita Roberts, a British woman murdered in Belgium, was identified when her family spotted her distinctive black rose tattoo in a BBC report based on the first appeal.

The last contact her family had with her was via a postcard in May 1992. Her body was found the following month.

When her family were told the body was indeed Rita, her sister Donna says she “broke into tears crying”. For them, it had ended decades of uncertainty.

While it has been hard learning of her sister’s death, she says she takes comfort in feeling that Rita is “at peace”.

Now she has been identified, her family are appealing to the public for any information however small to help with the investigation.

And they’re also hoping that other murdered women will also be identified.

They are “sisters, mothers, aunties,” Donna says. “Just because they don’t have names, don’t assume they’re not people.”