Yale University's School of Medicine analyzed satellite imagery revealing piles of bodies and massive pools of blood clearly visible from orbit. These findings came after experts told The Guardian that RSF agents executed more than 2,000 civilians following the group's capture of El Fasher from Sudanese army forces after an eight-month siege.

"We saw many of our relatives being slaughtered," said a man who lost contact with his family in El Fasher, speaking to the BBC. He recounted how the militia gathered people together before shooting them one by one and said communication was completely cut off with all of North Darfur.

Rebel factions declared control of the Sudanese army's last position in western Darfur. Simultaneously, video evidence of men and women killed in gruesome scenes fueled global concerns about ethnic massacres across the region.

Sudan's civil war, which erupted in April 2023 between army forces under Abdel-Fattah al-Burhan and RSF troops led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo ("Hemedti"), has since killed tens of thousands, displaced twelve million, and left half the nation facing starvation – a tragedy the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian disaster.

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Macron said discussions were "ongoing", and that the countries "will decide in the next couple of days if we need to harden our tone and take concrete steps regarding Israel." France is expected to host a conference on Gaza this month, without Israel's participation, which is expected to culminate with a push for Palestinian statehood.

The US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee mocked Macron for this effort and said the president could "carve out a Palestinian state from the French Riviera."

Israel's Foreign Ministry has rejected the claims of hunger and food shortages in Gaza, with a new scheme successfully launched several days ago to distribute goods through a US company and without going through Hamas. Israel calls the accusations "a blatant lie."

Several weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a blistering condemnation of Macron, accusing him of siding with Hamas following his sharp criticism of Israel's military campaign in Gaza. reported the extraordinary diplomatic clash that has further strained relations between the two nations.

"Macron has once again chosen to stand with a murderous Islamist terrorist organization and echo its despicable propaganda, accusing Israel of blood libels. Israel is engaged in a multi-front war for its very existence following the horrific massacre committed by Hamas against innocent people on October 7, including the murder and kidnapping of dozens of French nationals. Instead of supporting the Western democratic camp fighting the Islamist terrorist organizations and calling for the release of the hostages, Macron is once again demanding that Israel surrender and reward terrorism," Netanyahu's office said in a statement.

After utterly failing as President of France, @EmmanuelMacron is now thriving in his new role as head of the PLO - alongside that great defender of democracy, @LulaOficial https://t.co/hKLqTlpx3N pic.twitter.com/RqIxCXK420

— עמיחי שיקלי - Amichai Chikli (@AmichaiChikli) June 5, 2025

The harsh rebuke from Jerusalem followed Macron's interview with TF1 television, where the French leader delivered some of his strongest criticisms yet of Israel's military operations. "What the government of Benjamin Netanyahu is doing is unacceptable… There is no water, no medicine, the wounded cannot get out, the doctors cannot get in. What he is doing is shameful," Macron told TF1.

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In what could be a significant blow to Hezbollah, Prime Minister Netanyahu announced that Hashem Safieddine, widely expected to succeed slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, has been "eliminated," CBC reports.

Safieddine, a cousin of Nasrallah and top Hezbollah official, has not been heard from publicly since an Israeli airstrike late last week. "We eliminated Nasrallah himself, Nasrallah's successor, and the successor of Nasrallah's successor," Netanyahu said in a press release video.

Earlier, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told officers at the Israeli military's northern command center, "Hezbollah is an organization without a head. Nasrallah was eliminated; his replacement was probably also eliminated."

IDF has eliminated Sayed Hashem Safieddine, a cousin of Hassan Nasrallah and the new leader of Hezbollah's Executive Council.

He was reportedly the target of tonight's Israeli Airstrikes on the Dahieh Suburb of Southern Beirut, eliminated using bunker buster bombs. pic.twitter.com/f6GbMDf6Nr

— Menachem Begin (@lalish1415) October 3, 2024

The Israeli military claims to have killed another senior Hezbollah commander, Suhail Husseini, in a strike on Beirut. Husseini was reportedly responsible for overseeing the group's logistics, budget, and management. Hezbollah has not yet commented on either claim.

In a televised speech, Hezbollah deputy leader Naim Qassem stated that the group supports efforts to reach a ceasefire in Lebanon. Notably, Qassem omitted any mention of a Gaza truce deal as a precondition to halting attacks on Israel, a departure from previous statements. "We support the political activity being led by Berri under the title of a ceasefire," Qassem said, referring to attempts by Lebanese Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, to secure a halt.

Israel's military announced it had begun ground operations in southwest Lebanon, expanding its incursions to a new zone a year after exchanges of fire began with Hezbollah.

Iran warned Israel on Tuesday against any attacks on the Islamic Republic, a week after Tehran fired a barrage of missiles at Israel. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi stated that any attack on Iran's infrastructure would be met with retaliation.

UN officials stated that their repeated appeals for restraint had "gone unheeded" in the year since the exchanges of fire began between Hezbollah and Israel. "Today, one year later, the near-daily exchanges of fire have escalated into a relentless military campaign whose humanitarian impact is nothing short of catastrophic," they said in a joint statement.

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In November 2020, many months after cutting off all ties with Israel and with the matter of Israeli sovereignty being declared in parts of Judea and Samaria off the table, the Palestinian Authority agreed to renew security and defense cooperation. The formal announcement came after lengthy behind-the-scenes contact. The person behind them, even during the time when ties were severed between Jerusalem and Ramallah, was the Coordinator for Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), Maj. Gen. Kamil Abu Rukun. At the time, he warned decision-makers in Israel that an Israeli declaration of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria would result in the cancellation of the Oslo Accords. 

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"I warned them that it would be a huge blow, that the Palestinian Authority would pull out. They were willing to go all the way. I remind you that for seven months, they received no money, and their debt to the banks piled up to almost 9 billion shekels ($2.7 billion), which is almost half the PA budget," he tells Israel Hayom.  

Even when the Palestinians agreed to climb down and renew ties with Israel – primarily, security coordination – they demanded that Israel recommit to the accords. 

"The situation [in the PA] was catastrophic. They had no money. They weren't paying salaries. Their system was collapsing, and this is what they cared about," Abu Rukun observes. 

Q: What did you tell them? 

"I told them that gently that they're a bunch of idiots. That they wouldn't find any Israeli diplomatic or political official who would sign off on something like that now." 

But the Palestinians refused to drop their demand. Israel was worried that the PA would fall apart, so a creative solution was reached – that Abu Rukun would be the one to sign in Israel's name. 

"It took the Palestinians an hour to say yes, and ties were renewed immediately," he says. 

'Aid helps security' 

At the beginning of April, Abu Rukun is slated to finish a stormy three-year term as head of COGAT. For 42 years he has been following every twist and turn of the Palestinian system, and it's doubtful that anyone else in Israel is as familiar with it as he is. 

"I've been here since the attempt to transition to a civil administration following the Camp David accords, the attempt to find an alternative to the PLO through village organizations, and after that the First Intifada, the peace agreements, the Second Intifada, and everything after that. But the last few years have been more complicated and problematic than anything I remember from the past," he says. 

Q: Why? 

"Because matters have become more complicated. The separation between the Gaza Strip and Judea and Samaria; the PA cutting off ties with Israel and the US, and of course, COVID. All these only increased the distress and problems that already existed there." 

The COVID crisis piggybacked on the constant crisis facing Abu Rukun from the Gaza Strip. Currently, there is 45% unemployment in Gaza, but the situation has gotten better by some parameters. Electricity is available an average of 12 hours a day, and 16 in some areas – a dramatic improvement compared to the past, when Gaza only had an average of four hours of electricity per day. Abu Rukun was a key partner in the process that led to this development, as the person who put together an agreement that stipulated that $8 million of the Qatari aid money sent to Gaza each month would go directly to pay Israeli energy companies that supply the diesel fuel to run the PA's power plant. 

Q: Break down for us the money that comes from Qatar. 

"The aid money is divided into three. $8 million goes to keep the power plant running; $10 million goes to help needy families, which get $100 each based on a list we approved; and the other $7 million goes to pay salaries of the civil servants who keep the public infrastructure in the Gaza Strip running." 

This is only a partial solution to the troubles in Gaza, where Abu Rukun describes the situation as "a serious but stable humanitarian crisis." 

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, for example, feeds 1.3 million people in Gaza a day, supplies schools for 300,000 children and employs 20,000 adults. Abu Rukun says that after the US slashed funding for UNRWA, the organization was forced to "beg," as he put it, for an extension for its payments and other commitments. 

Abu Rukun has been fighting to increase Gaza's fishing zone to allow the residents a way to make a living, and he is also battling to have Gazan laborers allowed into Israel. 

"When I took over the role, 1,800 merchants would leave Gaza for Israel every day, and by the time COVID hit, that number was up to 7,000. I thought we should let more in. I said, 'Let me bring in 10,000 laborers a day, and I'll get you a deal with Gaza.' That didn't happen because of COVID, but also because the Shin Bet [security agency] objected to it out of concern that Israel allowing in workers would be exploited to carry out terrorist attacks from Gaza."

Hamas, he says, agreed, but the Shin Bet didn't want it to happen. 

Q: What is the COVID situation in Gaza like? 

"To everyone's surprise, the situation there is fantastic. There are almost no fatalities, and there is very little spread." 

Abu Rukun explains that this is the case because the authorities in Gaza enforced regulations stringently. The Rafah border crossing, which was closed for months, recently reopened, but anyone who came through was required to quarantine. 

"Gaza isn't Judea and Samaria. In Judea and Samaria, the Palestinians behave like people do in Israel – they walk around, come and go, have parties. In Gaza, there is strict discipline, so they have a very low COVID rate." 

Q: Still, isn't it possible to take advantage of the situation for a deal – let's say, vaccines in exchange for the return of Israel's dead soldiers and captive civilians? 

"It's a very sensitive issue, and I'll only say that I think Hamas would agree to link the two things." 

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Abu Rukun does not think that Israel should make humanitarian aid to Gaza conditional upon a solution to the problem of its missing and captive citizens. He quotes former IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. (res.) Gadi Eizenkot, who said that Israel should help the Gazans on five basic matters: electricity, water, sewage, food, and healthcare.

"I think that this aid also helps our security. The protests at the border fence started because of the distress in Gaza, and our role is also to keep southern Israel calm." 

In the meantime, the Gazans have started receiving vaccines from other sources, some of which come from the quota Israel delivered to the PA, and some from donations from the rest of the world. Mohammad Dahlan, a rival to PA President Mahmoud Abbas, sent them 25,000 vaccines, and the WHO intends to send then 40,000 more. Abu Rukun does not think that Israel needs to vaccinate everyone in Gaza, but does support a vaccine initiative for everyone in Judea and Samaria. 

Q: Explain that. 

"The Gaza Strip is closed off, but Israel and Judea and Samaria are one epidemiological unit. Therefore, we started vaccinating the Palestinians who work in Israel. By the way, we aren't paying for those vaccines, the money comes from part of the taxes their employers pay on their behalf. But we made it clear to the Palestinians that it was their responsibility to get vaccinated." 

Q: Why? 

"Because we don't need the world to come down on us. We don't control them. They're an independent entity." 

An uprising in Gaza? No chance 

Last week, Gaza held another round of Hamas party elections that resulted in Yahya Sinwar beating Nizar Awadallah in a close race. 

"The old guard united against the existing system and put up a fight. I'm just reminding you that Awadallah was behind the Gilad Schalit incident," Abu Rukun says. 

Q: Which of them would have been better for Israel? 

"Neither. They're a terrorist organization, and that's how they should be treated. It's imprinted on their brains."  

Q: Does Hamas want a long-term ceasefire deal with Israel? 

"I don't think it's an option. First, the problem of the missing and captives has to be solved, then they need to acknowledge existing agreements, and say they reject terrorist. At the moment, they won't accept these terms, so they're a terrorist organization." 

Q: It won't happen? 

"In my opinion, no. They are motivated by hardline Islamist ideology. Their main goal right now is to take control of Judea and Samaria and establish an Islamist state there." 

Q: In the meantime, they are screwing over their own citizens. 

"There are quite a few projects that could move ahead. A gas pipeline to Gaza, industrial zones. We've made it clear to them and every possible player that these won't happen until the matter of our missing and captives is resolved." 

Q: And what is their answer? 

"They don't answer. They're stuck in their ideology. Why do they take money and dig attack tunnels rather than investing in hospitals?  

Abu Rukun thinks there is no chance that the people of Gaza will rise up and revolt in an Arab Spring-like movement: "A year and a half ago, there was an attempt to challenge them [Hamas], and Hamas really gave it to them. Hamas is very powerful, and people don't dare stick their necks out. I don't think it will happen." 

For now, the main challenge he foresees is the PA elections. 

"Hamas really wants these elections, so they're going along with things that they could have insisted on having their own way, like legal oversight, because their goal is to get into Judea and Samaria. They'll cooperate with anything that can lead them there." 

Abu Rukun says the current expectation is that Hamas will win some 40% of the vote, with 60% going to Fatah. He notes that the results of the 2006 election defied expectations and thinks that "there could be a surprise this time, too." 

Such a surprise, he explains, would not occur because of popular support for Hamas, but because of the alienation the Palestinian public feels from the PA, as well as because of internal rifts in Fatah and Hamas' well-oiled party machine. 

"They [Hamas] don't' have a majority among the population, but they are very well-organized and they have a goal," he says. 

Q: And Abbas doesn't understand that? 

"Abbas is 86, and he doesn't want to be remembered as the one who split the Palestinians and lost the Gaza Strip. He is busy with his legacy. He also wants to keep all the factions in the Palestinian political system, and apparently curry favor with the new US administration, which supports democratic processes. Other than that, he's a little detached. It reminds me of what happened to [former Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak before the Arab Spring." 

Q: Explain. 

"The people who bring things to him and issue things in his name don't understand the alienation between them and the Palestinian population." 

Q: But the population in Judea and Samaria wants to live in freedom, not under a radical Islamist regime like in Gaza. 

"That's true, but most people are busy with their day-to-day lives. I assume that most of them don't really believe that Hamas would take over. They're busy with themselves." 

Q: If Hamas wins the elections, what should Israel do? 

"We're preparing for every scenario, including the possibility of a rise in terrorism. I remind you that even when the PA cut ties with us last year, we continued to function and provided solutions." 

Abu Rukun says that Israel is not intervening in the internal Palestinian matter, but he does not envision a situation in which Israel would continue to abide by agreements made with the PA if it were under the leadership of Hamas. 

"If that happens, automatically there would be no … security coordination, so we would have to ask ourselves what the agreements were still worth." 

Q: Whom do you expect will succeed Abbas as PA leader? 

"I am betting on Nasser al-Kidwa [Yasser Arafat's nephew, who represented the Palestinians in the UN and was the PA's former foreign minister]." 

Q: Not Mohammad Dahlan? 

"I don't see any chance of that. Hamas is letting him bring people into Gaza and toss money around there, but they aren't suckers, and he has almost no traction in Judea and Samaria." 

'The Palestinians are like us' 

Abu Rukun, 62, lives in Ussafiya. He has three children and three grandchildren ("one of them named Kamil, after me.") April will be the third time he leaves the IDF, and he hasn't yet decided what he will do next. 

"At the moment, I don't think I'll hold another public position," he says. 

He enjoys very good relations with the top PA brass. "When Naftali Bennett was defense minister, he told me they loved me. I said that was right, and that I used it for the sake of Israel's security interests." He tells his staff that their job is to prevent a humanitarian crisis among the Palestinians, "Because it would reach us." 

According to Abu Rukun, the Palestinians – after an initial angry response – accepted the Abraham Accords and are now expecting them to result in aid for themselves. But anyone who thinks that they will demonstrate flexibility and become willing to make political concessions, he says, is wrong. 

"Unfortunately, they are losing time. Soon it won't be possible to do anything," he says. 

Q: Is it solvable? Is there willingness? 

"Where, with us or with them?" 

Q: You handle them. 

"Yes. I think that they really want to make progress." 

Q: Their actions don't indicate that. Look at how they went to The Hague. 

"They did that because of the impasse, and because they wanted to shake up the system and exert some influence. I have no doubt that our military is the most moral in the world, and if The Hague has any questions about it, they should look into what [Syrian President Bashar] Assad did or what they're doing in Iran, and then get back to us." 

Q: Do they take an interest in our election? Are they involved in our elections? 

"At every meeting, they take care to say that Israel's elections are an Israeli matter. There is Muhammad  al-Madani, Abbas' advisor on Israeli society. In my opinion, he is in touch with the Israeli side, but I don't think they're really involved." 

Q: What does the average Israeli reading this interview not know about the Palestinians? 

"They are an educated people similar to us. It's not Jordan or Egypt. We live close to one another, work with each other. The Palestinians aren't the devil. Most of them are good people, who just want to live. The young generation wants to be left along. They want rights. They want to live like any other young people in the west. They want economic security. I was in Hebron two weeks ago. Everything there is broken – the markets, the shopping malls. All the display windows. It's like Istanbul." 

Q: You're basically saying that what the accords didn't do, economics will. 

"If I were a Palestinians, I probably wouldn't say that because they have national aspirations, but the economy is definitely the major thing. In 2030, 3 million people will be living in the Gaza Strip. We need to think two steps ahead. The economy leads to stable security, and our job is to give the political echelon the flexibility and the freedom to work. I think that there is an opportunity right now to move toward bigger things with the Palestinians." 

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The fighting has also wounded more than 650 people, the statement from its health authority said.

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Abandoned by their US allies, the Kurds turned to Syrian President Bashar Assad and Russia for protection, and over the past two days, Syrian and Russian forces have moved into several towns and villages as the US has pulled its remaining troops from the region.

So far, most of the displacement has been within northern Syria, but hundreds of refugees have crossed into Iraq in the past week, mostly through unofficial border points. On Wednesday, a first group of 890 people was bused to a camp in Bardarash, in northern Iraq's semiautonomous Kurdish region, which up until two years ago housed displaced people from the Iraqi city of Mosul.

"Where can go except here?" said Omar Boobe Hose, a refugee from the northern Syrian town of Ras al-Ayn, which has seen heavy fighting. "We can't go to Turkey, because they are our enemy, and the other side is also our enemy, the Syrian [government] side. Where can we go? We have only here. There are no other places for Kurds."

Doctors Without Borders, which operates in war zones around the globe and is known by its French acronym MSF, said Tuesday it had decided to suspend most of its activities and evacuate all its international staff from northeastern Syria.

"The highly unpredictable and fast-changing situation at present has made it impossible for MSF to negotiate safe access to deliver healthcare and provide humanitarian assistance to people in distress," it said in a statement. "Given the numerous groups fighting on different sides of the conflict, MSF can no longer guarantee the safety of our Syrian and international staff."

The International Rescue Committee also said it has suspended its health operations in the northeast because of "hostilities and uncertainty."

Humanitarian groups in northeastern Syria are scrambling to provide aid to hundreds of thousands of people as rapidly shifting battle lines make it increasingly difficult to reach them.

Nearly all foreign aid workers have been evacuated because of security concerns, and there are fears that local staff could face reprisals, either at the hands of Turkish-led forces pushing in from the north or Syrian troops fanning out across territory held by the embattled Kurds.

The front lines are being rapidly redrawn as more than 160,000 people flee the fighting, including many who were displaced by earlier battles in Syria's eight-year civil war. The offensive has created a new refugee crisis in a region where some 1.6 million people already rely on humanitarian aid.

Sonia Khush, the Syria response director at Save the Children, which was operating in the camp, now says it is "nearly empty," with most of the residents having fled further south and the Islamic State supporters melting away. She said the aid group can no longer access its office in Ein Eissa, and that most of its local staff have themselves been displaced.

"We have to leave as the battle lines change," she said.

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Russian jets joined the Syrian army on April 26 in the biggest offensive against parts of rebel-held Idlib province and adjoining northern Hama provinces in the biggest escalation in the war between Syrian President Bashar Assad and his enemies since last summer.

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The Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR), which monitors casualties and briefs various UN agencies, said the 544 civilians killed in the hundreds of attacks carried out by Russian jets and the Syrian army include 130 children. Another 2,117 people have been wounded.

"The Russian military and its Syrian ally are deliberately targeting civilians with a record number of medical facilities bombed," Fadel Abdul Ghany, chairman of SNHR, told Reuters.

Russia and its Syrian army ally deny their jets hit indiscriminately civilian areas with cluster munitions and incendiary weapons, which residents in opposition areas say are meant to paralyze every-day life.

Moscow says its forces and the Syrian army are fending off terror attacks by al-Qaida operatives whom they say hit populated, government-held areas, and it accuses rebels of wrecking a ceasefire deal agreed on last year between Turkey and Russia.

Last month US-based Human Rights Watch said the Russian-Syrian joint military operation had used cluster munitions and incendiary weapons in the attacks along with large air-dropped explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated civilian areas, based on reports by first responders and witnesses.

Residents and rescuers say the two-month-old campaign has left dozens of villages and towns in ruins. According to the UN, at least 300,000 people have been forced to leave their homes for the safety of areas closer to the border with Turkey.

"Whole villages and towns have been emptied," said Idlib-based Civil Defense spokesman Ahmad al Sheikho, saying it was the most destructive campaign against Idlib province since it completely fell to the opposition in the middle of 2015.

On Friday, 15 people, including children, were killed in the village of Mhambil in western Idlib province after Syrian army helicopters dropped barrel bombs on a civilian quarter, the civil defense group and witnesses said.

The heads of 11 major global humanitarian organizations warned at the end of last month that Idlib stood at the brink of disaster, with 3 million civilian lives at risk, including 1 million children.

"Too many have died already" and "even wars have laws" they declared, in the face of multiple attacks by government forces and their allies on hospitals, schools, and markets," the UN-endorsed statement said.

Last Thursday, an airstrike on Kafr Nabl hospital made it the 30th facility to be bombed during the campaign, leaving hundreds of thousands with no medical access, according to aid groups.

"To have these medical facilities bombed and put out of service in less than two months is no accident. Let's call this by what it is, a war crime," Dr. Khaula Sawah, vice president of the US-based Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, which provides aid in the northwest, said in a statement.

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The report by Secretary General António Guterres said the killings and injuries were among 11,779 grave violations against children during the period between April 1, 2013 and Dec. 31, 2018.

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It said the figures are likely to be worse because monitoring Yemen has become increasingly difficult.

The conflict in the Arab world's poorest country began with the 2014 takeover of Yemen's capital Sanaa by Iranian-backed Houthi Shiite rebels, who toppled the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi. A Saudi-led coalition allied with Yemen's internationally recognized government has been fighting the Houthis since 2015.

Saudi-led airstrikes have hit schools, hospitals and wedding parties. The Houthis have used drones and missiles to attack Saudi Arabia and have targeted vessels in the Red Sea.

Civilians have borne the brunt of the conflict, which has killed thousands of people, created the world's worst humanitarian crisis, and brought Yemen to the brink of famine.

Virginia Gamba, the UN special representative for children in conflict, said that while some positive measures have been adopted by the warring parties, "the suffering of children in Yemen has worsened during the reporting period, becoming simply appalling."

"The children of Yemen had nothing to do with the start of this conflict," she said. "They should now be given the opportunity to exit from it and be assisted to fully recover."

Gamba called on all parties to the conflict and those who can influence them to "prioritize peace and actively engage in the ongoing peace negotiations."

According to the report, the largest number of violations against children in the 5 ½ years were the 7,508 youngsters who were verified to have been killed or maimed.

The recruitment and use of 3,034 children by the warring parties – including 1,940 by the Houthis and 274 by the government – was the second largest violation, it said.

The report also said 340 boys were verified to have been detained for their actual or alleged association with the warring parties.

It said only 11 incidents of rape and sexual violence were verified, explaining that the number remains under-reported "mainly for fear of stigmatization and lack of appropriate response services." The verification of abductions of children was also limited during the reporting period, with just 17 verified incidents, it said.

The report said the number of children denied access to humanitarian assistance sharply increased over the 5 ½ years, "with catastrophic consequences." It said the UN verified 828 incidents where aid was denied.

The secretary-general's second report on children in Yemen's conflict also noted that attacks on schools and hospitals remained high, with 345 of the 381 that were verified causing the partial or total destruction of the building.

Of "great concern," the report said, is the verified military use of 258 schools, which is higher than the 244 schools that were attacked. The result is that thousands of boys and girls were prevented "safe access to education," it said.

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