Australian identical twin sisters Bridgette and Paula Powers have captured the internet’s attention after a video of them recounting a frightening experience with a carjacker went viral. On April 21, 7News Queensland, a local news station in Australia, uploaded a clip to X about twin sisters who observed a car thief on Steve Irwin Way. When journalist Marlina Whop introduced the segment, she said the network interviewed two sisters who explained how their mother and another man interacted with the thief. But the Powers sisters’ retelling was far from what viewers were anticipating. In the interview, Bridgette and Paula Powers spoke in unison while dressed in the same bunny-covered shirts. “One guy, he was up there with our mom. He went up there and he was coming back down toward us. And he goes, ‘Run, he’s got a gun!’” the sisters reenacted at the same time. “Oh, our hearts started to pound. I said, ‘Mom, where’s mom?’” They then heard their mom approach the carjacker, who had blood on his face, and ask if he was OK. The two said the man threatened to shoot their mother. “Mom distracted him to make him look the other way,” they continued, still talking as one. “Mom ran into the bush behind the fence and the guy goes to her, ‘I’ll find you and I’ll shoot you.’” They said they were “blessed” that he didn’t harm their mother. Bridgette and Paula Powers only differed at the end of their joint statement when one said they “ran for their life” and the other said they “ran for their safety.” X users quickly reacted to the clip, which racked up over 1 million views in less than 24 hours. “Nothing can prepare you for the witness interview 7 News decided to run with on this story,” one tweeted. Another said, “This is the kind of scene you couldn’t script, characters you couldn’t invent. Watch it immediately with the sound on. Australia can’t be real.” A third labeled it an, “Instant classic.” Although the interview is currently going viral, Bridgette and Paula Powers, also known as the Twinnies, have been local celebrities for years as wildlife rescuers. In 2021, the sisters were interviewed by the Australian broadcasting network ABC News about their conservation efforts and their history working with the late Steve Irwin. According to the news outlet, the sisters had to leave school in year 10 due to health issues. They then started focusing on their passion for taking care of animals and have been doing so ever since. “We love all creatures great and small,” they told the Australian network. One day, they met Irwin when they were helping a sick green sea turtle. He arrived to also save the sea turtle and was “quite taken with them,” according to their sister Liz Eather. Following their meeting, Bridgette and Paula Powers began working at the Australia Zoo and launched a charity called Twinnies Pelican and Seabird Rescue, which they have operated for over 20 years, the Australian news outlet said. Bridgette and Paula Powers also explained in the article why it is “natural” for them to speak in unison. “Our brains must think alike at the same time,” they said. The two acknowledged that it is “weird” to some and revealed they tried to alter the way they speak in the past. “We do annoy a lot of people,” they continued, before adding that changing “doesn’t feel right to us at all.” They spoke about dressing the same, too. The sisters shared they weren’t fans of wearing different outfits. “We did try once but we still got stared at. So what the heck. We might as well wear the same clothes again,” they said. They described the “special” bond between them as being “like a magnet.”

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said Friday that it had test-launched new anti-aircraft missiles, as its military threatened unspecified grave steps against the U.S. and South Korea over their joint military drills that it views as an invasion rehearsal. The official Korean Central News Agency said that leader Kim Jong Un oversaw the tests Thursday and called the missiles involved “another major defense weapons system” for North Korea. The missile launches, North Korea’s sixth weapons testing activity this year, occurred on the same day that the U.S. and South Korean militaries concluded their annual Freedom Shield command post exercise. The 11-day training was the allies’ first major joint military exercises since the inauguration of President Donald Trump in January, and the two countries held diverse field training exercises alongside the Freedom Shield drills. U.S. and South Korean officials describe their combined military drills as defensive in nature, but North Korea slams them as a major security threat. Hours after this year’s Freedom Shield training began on March 10, North Korea fired several ballistic missiles into the sea. On Friday, the North Korean Defense Ministry alleged that the recent U.S.-South Korean drills involved simulations to destroy underground tunnels in the North to remove its nuclear weapons. An unidentified ministry spokesperson said the U.S. and South Korea would face consequences if they performed similar provocative actions again. “The accumulated reckless military moves of the U.S. and the ROK, seized with the daydream that they can jeopardize the sovereignty and security of a nuclear weapons state, can undoubtedly bring the gravest consequences they do not want,” the spokesperson said in a statement carried in KCNA. ROK is the Republic of Korea, South Korea’s official name.

A Georgetown University graduate student from India who was taken into custody this week and targeted for deportation by the Trump administration never made any pro-Hamas or antisemitic comments, his lawyer said. Immigration agents detained Badar Khan Suri, a postdoctoral fellow who teaches at Georgetown and has a visa, outside his home in Arlington, Virginia, on Monday night, his attorney has said. The Department of Homeland Security claimed Suri is “actively spreading Hamas propaganda and promoting antisemitism on social media.” Suri’s lawyer, Hassan Ahmad, denied Thursday that Suri ever made pro-Hamas or antisemitic statements. Ahmad has objected to Suri’s detention as "beyond contemptible." “This is still the United States of America, and we don’t punish people, we don’t whisk them away and send them 1,000 miles away from their family, based on what they may have said, what they may have posted on social media or who they are related to,” Ahmad said. A federal judge in Virginia ordered Thursday that Suri not be removed from the United States unless ordered by the court. Sophia Gregg, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia, said the judge’s block on any deportation was “exactly what we were hoping for.” “We were very concerned for our client, especially when we learned that he was at a Louisiana staging facility, which is the last stop on the way to tarmac,” she said Thursday. “That was a big concern for us, that he would be summarily deported.” Suri was at the Alexandria Staging Facility in Alexandria, Louisiana, on Thursday, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement website. Assistant DHS Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Wednesday on X, “Suri has close connections to a known or suspected terrorist, who is a senior advisor to Hamas.” Suri has a wife who is a U.S. citizen and three children in Virginia. His wife’s father, Ahmed Yousef, who lives in Gaza, is a former adviser to now-deceased Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh — but he told The New York Times that he left the Hamas-led government of Gaza more than a decade ago and does not have a senior position with Hamas. Yousef told the newspaper that Suri was not involved in any “political activism,” including on behalf of Hamas, the Times reported. Yousef has also publicly criticized Hamas’ decision to attack Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the newspaper reported. Ahmad told NBC News that he has no information that Suri has been in regular contact with Yousef. “I’m only aware of one instance when my client had contact with his father-in-law, and that was to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage,” Ahmad said. The Trump administration is trying to deport two other people involved in protests against the war in Gaza at Columbia University. One of them, Mahmoud Khalil, is a Columbia graduate student who is a legal permanent resident and is married to a U.S. citizen. The second is Leqaa Kordia, a Palestinian woman who attended Columbia but overstayed her visa, officials said. The Trump administration is seeking to deport Suri and Khalil under part of U.S. immigration law that allows it if a person “would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” The ACLU and others have called the administration's actions an attempt to punish people for expressing their constitutionally protected views about Israel and the war in Gaza. "Political speech — however controversial some may find it — may never be the basis for punishment, including deportation," Mary Bauer, the executive director of ACLU of Virginia, said in a statement Thursday. "We will not let this egregious, unprecedented, and illegal abuse of power go unchecked.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio has defended attempts to deport Khalil by saying that “no one has a right to a student visa.” A judge has temporarily blocked Khalil's deportation. President Donald Trump in his election campaign condemned student protests against Israel's military action in Gaza, which followed the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks against Israel. Some congressional Republicans have also criticized universities for what they called antisemitic behavior at protests. The Justice Department in February announced what it called an antisemitism task force focused on college campuses. The Trump administration on March 7 also said it was canceling around $400 million in federal grants to Columbia. On March 4, Trump said on his social media platform, Truth Social, "All Federal Funding will STOP for any College, School, or University that allows illegal protests." Suri is a postdoctoral fellow at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown. The director of that center, Nader Hashemi, told NBC Washington that he is shocked by Suri’s arrest and the attempt to deport him. Hashemi said that that Suri was not political or an activist, and that he was focused on his teaching and research. “I would never imagine in a million years to see a faculty member, a student who’s engaged in exercising their First Amendment rights would be picked up by the state and thrown into jail and then deported,” Hashemi told the station. “That’s what they do in Putin’s Russia. That’s what they do in Xi Jinping’s China,” he said. “That’s what they do in the Islamic Republic of Iran, not in the United States, at least until now.”

NEW DELHI — India’s IT ministry has unlawfully expanded censorship powers to allow the easier removal of online content and empowered “countless” government officials to execute such orders, Elon Musk’s X has alleged in a new lawsuit against New Delhi. The lawsuit and the allegations mark an escalation in an ongoing legal dispute between X and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government over how New Delhi orders content to be taken down. It also comes as Musk is getting closer to launching his other key ventures Starlink and Tesla in India. In the new court filing dated March 5, X argues that India’s IT Ministry is asking other departments to use a government website launched by the Ministry of Home Affairs last year to issue content blocking orders and mandate social media companies to join the website too. This mechanism, X says, does not contain the stringent Indian legal safeguards on content removal that required such orders to be issued in cases such as harm to sovereignty or public order, and came with strict oversight of top officials. India’s IT ministry redirected a Reuters’ request for comment to the home affairs ministry, which did not respond. The website creates “an impermissible parallel mechanism” that causes “unrestrained censorship of information in India,” X said, adding it is seeking to quash the directive. X’s court papers are not public and were reported for the first time by media on Thursday. The case was briefly heard earlier this week by a judge in the High Court of southern Karnataka state but no final decision was reached. It will now be heard on March 27. In 2021, X, formerly called Twitter, was locked in a standoff with the Indian government over noncompliance with legal orders to block certain tweets related to a farmers’ protest against government policies. X later complied following public criticism by officials, but its legal challenge to the decision is continuing in Indian courts.

NEW DELHI — U.S. Vice President JD Vance began a four-day visit to India on Monday and will hold talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as New Delhi rushes to avoid steep U.S. tariffs with an early trade deal and boost ties with the Trump administration. Their discussions will cover the first day of Vance’s largely personal visit to the country with his family, which includes visiting the Taj Mahal and attending a wedding in the city of Jaipur, people familiar with the matter said. Vance’s wife, Usha, is the daughter of Indian immigrants. Vance landed at New Delhi’s Palam airport on Monday following a visit to Rome, where he held a private meeting with Pope Francis on Easter Sunday. Modi and Vance are expected to review progress made on the bilateral agenda outlined in February when the Indian leader met President Donald Trump in Washington. It includes “fairness” in their two-way trade and growing their defense partnership. The Indian prime minister was one of the first world leaders to meet Trump after he took office, and Reuters has reported that his government is open to cutting tariffs on more than half of its imports from the U.S., which were worth a total $41.8 billion in 2024, as part of a trade deal. However, the U.S. president has continued to call India a “tariff abuser” and “tariff king.”“We are very positive that the visit will give a further boost to our bilateral ties,” Indian foreign ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal told reporters on Thursday, speaking about Vance’s engagements in India. The U.S. is India’s largest trading partner and their two-way bilateral trade reached $129 billion in 2024, with a $45.7 billion surplus in favor of India, U.S. government trade data show. Officials in New Delhi are expecting to clinch a trade deal with the U.S. within the 90-day pause on tariff hikes announced by Trump on April 9 for major trading partners, including Delhi. Vance’s tour in India is also seen as laying the ground for Trump’s visit to the country later in the year for the summit of leaders of the Quad grouping that includes India, Australia, Japan and the U.S. Harsh Pant, foreign policy head at the Observer Research Foundation think tank in Delhi, said the timing of Vance’s visit was critical in the backdrop of trade talks.“The fact that the US-China tensions are ramping up, and Vance in particular seems to have taken a very high-profile role in American diplomacy, also means that the visit assumes an added layer of significance,” he said. Vance is accompanied by U.S. administration officials, but the two sides are unlikely to sign any deals during the visit, people familiar with the matter said. India and the U.S. expect to ink a framework for defense partnership this year, while New Delhi also plans to procure and co-produce arms including Javelin anti-tank guided missiles and Stryker infantry combat vehicles, according to a joint statement issued after the February meeting. Discussions on such procurements would be taken forward during U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s expected visit to India in the next couple of months, people familiar with the matter said.

BEIJING — China on Monday accused Washington of abusing tariffs and warned countries against striking broader economic deals with the United States at its expense, ratcheting up its rhetoric in a spiraling trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. Beijing will firmly oppose any party striking a deal at China’s expense and “will take countermeasures in a resolute and reciprocal manner,” its Commerce Ministry said. The ministry was responding to a Bloomberg report, citing sources familiar with the matter, that the Trump administration is preparing to pressure nations seeking tariff reductions or exemptions from the U.S. to curb trade with China, including imposing monetary sanctions. President Donald Trump paused the sweeping tariffs he announced on dozens of countries on April 2 except those on China, singling out the world’s second largest economy for the biggest levies. In a series of moves, Washington has raised tariffs on Chinese imports to 145%, prompting Beijing to slap retaliatory duties of 125% on U.S. goods, effectively erecting trade embargoes against each other. Last week, China signaled that its own across-the-board rates would not rise further. “The United States has abused tariffs on all trading partners under the banner of so-called ‘equivalence’, while also forcing all parties to start so-called ‘reciprocal tariffs’ negotiations with them,” the ministry spokesperson said. China is determined and capable of safeguarding its own rights and interests, and it is willing to strengthen solidarity with all parties, the ministry said. “The fact is, nobody wants to pick a side,” said Bo Zhengyuan, partner at China-based policy consultancy Plenum. “If countries have high reliance on China in terms of investment, industrial infrastructure, technology know-how and consumption, I don’t think they’ll be buying into U.S. demands. Many Southeast Asian countries belong to this category.” Pursuing a hardline stance, Beijing will this week convene an informal United Nations Security Council meeting to accuse Washington of bullying and “casting a shadow over the global efforts for peace and development” by weaponizing tariffs. Earlier this month, U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer said nearly 50 countries have approached him to discuss the steep additional tariffs imposed by Trump. Several bilateral talks on tariffs have taken place since, with Japan considering raising soybean and rice imports as part of its talks with the U.S. while Indonesia is planning to increase U.S. food and commodities imports and reduce orders from other nations. Caught in crossfire Trump’s tariff policies have rattled financial markets as investors fear a severe disruption in world trade could tip the global economy into recession. On Monday, Chinese stocks inched higher, showing little reaction to the commerce ministry comments, though investors have generally remained cautious on Chinese assets due to the rising growth risks. The Trump administration also has been trying to curb Beijing’s progress in developing advanced semiconductor chips which it says could be used for military purposes, and last week imposed port fees on China-built vessels to limit China’s dominance in shipbuilding. AI chip giant Nvidia said last week it would take $5.5 billion in charges due to the administration’s curbs on AI chip exports. China’s President Xi Jinping visited three Southeast Asian countries last week in a move to bolster regional ties, calling on trade partners to oppose unilateral bullying. Beijing has said it is “tearing down walls” and expanding its circle of trading partners amid the trade row. The stakes are high for Southeast Asian nations caught in the crossfire of the Sino-U.S. tariff war, particularly given the regional ASEAN bloc’s huge two-way trade with both China and the United States. Economic ministers from Thailand and Indonesia are currently in the United States, with Malaysia set to join later this week, all seeking trade negotiations. Six countries in Southeast Asia were hit with tariffs ranging from 32% to 49%, threatening trade-reliant economies that have benefited from investment from levies imposed on Beijing by Trump in his first term. ASEAN is China’s largest trading partner, with total trade value reaching $234 billion in the first quarter of 2025, China’s customs agency said last week. Trade between ASEAN and the U.S. totalled around $476.8 billion in 2024, according to U.S. figures, making Washington the regional bloc’s fourth-largest trading partner. “There are no winners in trade wars and tariff wars,” Xi said in an article published in Vietnamese media, without mentioning the United States.

The IDF fatally shot 15 emergency workers in Gaza, including paramedics, civil defense staff members and a U.N. employee. TEL AVIV — The Israeli Defense Forces faulted a series of “professional failures” and “breaches of order” in an incident last month when Israeli soldiers killed 15 Palestinian emergency workers in Gaza, an event that sparked widespread condemnation and calls for an independent investigation. In the summary of an internal report on the killings and a briefing to foreign media Sunday, the IDF said it “regrets the harm caused to uninvolved civilians” and announced that it had discharged the field commander leading the implicated unit and formally reprimanded a senior officer. The report and the IDF’s rare acceptance of blame were the culmination of a weekslong scandal that had heaped further criticism on Israel’s military just days after it broke a two-month ceasefire agreement with Hamas and restarted its offensive in the Gaza Strip. The controversy around the killings worsened after United Nations personnel recovered the bodies from a shallow mass grave near the scene of the incident on March 23, and cellphone video found on one of the corpses revealed serious inconsistencies in the IDF’s original version of events. “It’s like a chain of professional mistakes but with no ethical gaps,” Brig. Gen. Ephraim Defrin, said the newly appointed IDF spokesperson, in a presentation to reporters Sunday evening. “There was never any intention to deceive the public.” Some initial reports from Palestinian examiners claimed that some of the medics had been found with their arms bound. However, other Palestinian medics said there was no evidence that the medics had been restrained before they were shot execution-style, a claim the IDF also denied. The Palestine Red Crescent Society said in a statement after the bodies were found that the targeting of the medics “can only be considered a war crime punishable under international humanitarian law, which the occupation continues to violate before the eyes of the entire world.” The aid workers included paramedics, civil defense staff members and a U.N. employee. Israel previously said its soldiers shot and killed people they considered to be “terrorists” who were “advancing suspiciously.” The IDF also claimed that vehicles that were approaching its position lacked headlights or emergency signals. At the time, Israeli forces reported that they killed nine militants from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The military later walked that back after video from the Palestine Red Crescent challenged its version of events. NBC News reviewed video from the phone of a paramedic who was killed, showing an ambulance with its headlights and emergency lights flashing at the moment the soldiers opened fire. The vehicle was clearly marked with the insignia of the Palestine Red Crescent Society. Flashing lights from two other vehicles are also visible in the video. The investigation revealed “several professional failures, breaches of orders, and a failure to fully report the incident,” the IDF said. But the public report and the presentation, which retired Maj. Gen. Yoav Har-Even, who led the presentation, said were conducted “outside the chain of command,” did not answer all of the questions surrounding the shootings. It did not provide evidence to back up the Israeli military’s contention that six of the 15 slain emergency workers were actually Hamas operatives, nor did it explain why the number of slain medics whom the IDF considered terrorists had changed. The report and the presentation also left it unclear why one of the surviving medics, Asaad al-Nassasra, was detained by the IDF and still remains in its custody. Alongside the report summary, Har-Even showed a video presentation that featured aerial surveillance of the early-morning shootings, including night-vision reconnaissance video. The probe found that troops were hampered by poor visibility and that they misidentified ambulances and rescue vehicles as threats during a mission targeting Hamas operatives, according to Sunday's report. Har-Even laid partial blame on the soldiers’ night vision goggles for leading to what he called the “tragic and undesirable result of a complex combat situation.” The goggles’ limited peripheral perspective, among other factors, made it difficult for the soldiers to recognize the trucks as civilian emergency vehicles despite their flashing emergency lights, he said. Another strike on a U.N. vehicle resulted from a breach of operational rules, the IDF’s report says. The field commander in charge of the operation on the ground, whom the report did not name but whom IDF public relations officers identified as a major, was dismissed in part for “providing an incomplete and inaccurate report during the debrief.” The commanding officer of the 14th Brigade received a formal reprimand that will appear in his personnel file, the report summary said, both because of his “overall responsibility” for the shooting and his “management of the scene afterward.”

Zimbabwe, meaning “House of Stone,” has long used stone sculpture as a form of storytelling to immortalize history. The exhibition will grapple with the religious deception, forced labor and sexual abuse of the colonial era. CHITUNGWIZA, Zimbabwe — A pair of white hands blinding a Black face. A smiling colonizer with a Bible, crushing the skull of a screaming native with his boot. Chained men in gold mines, and a pregnant woman. These stone sculptures from Zimbabwe will take center stage at an upcoming exhibition at Oxford University in Britain, aiming to “contextualize” the legacy of British imperialist Cecil John Rhodes with depictions of religious deception, forced labor and sexual abuse. Rhodes conquered large parts of southern Africa in the late 19th century. He made a fortune in gold and diamond mining and grabbed land from the local population. His grave lies under a slab of stone atop a hill in Zimbabwe. Oxford’s Oriel College, where the exhibition will be held in September, is a symbolic setting. A statue of Rhodes stands there despite protests against it since 2015. Rhodes, who died in 1902, was an Oriel student who left 100,000 pounds (now valued at about 10.5 million pounds, or $13.5 million) to the school. His influence endures through a scholarship for students from southern African countries. For Zimbabwean stone carvers at Chitungwiza Arts Center near the capital, Harare, the exhibition is more than an opportunity for Western audiences to glimpse a dark history. It is also a chance to revive an ancient but struggling art form.Stone sculpture, once a thriving local industry, has suffered due to vast economic challenges and declining tourism. “This will boost business. Buyers abroad will now see our work and buy directly from the artists,” said sculptor Wallace Mkanka. His piece, depicting the blinded Black face, was selected as the best of 110 entries and will be one of four winning sculptures on display at Oxford. Zimbabwe, meaning “House of Stone,” derives its identity from the Great Zimbabwe ruins, a 1,800-acre Iron Age city built with precision-cut stones delicately stacked without mortar. It is a UNESCO World heritage site. The southern African country has long used stone sculpture as a form of storytelling to immortalize history. The craft survived close to a century of colonial rule that sought to erase local traditions, religion and art forms. It thrived internationally instead. Thousands of pieces were plundered from Africa. Some later became subjects of repatriation campaigns. Others became prized by tourists and collectors. A permanent collection of 20 Zimbabwean stone sculptures is displayed in a pedestrian tunnel at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, one of the world’s busiest. At its peak following independence, Zimbabwe’s stone sculpture industry thrived, with local white farmers purchasing pieces for their homes and facilitating international sales.“Customers were everywhere. They would pay up front, and I always had a queue of clients,” recalled Tafadzwa Tandi, a 45-year-old sculptor whose work will feature in the Oxford exhibition. However, the industry has struggled over the past two decades. Zimbabwe’s global image suffered after controversial land reforms more than two decades ago displaced over 4,000 white farmers to redistribute land to about 300,000 Black families, according to government figures. Late ruler Robert Mugabe defended the reforms as necessary to address colonial-era inequities, but they had unintended economic consequences. “Many of our customers were friends of the farmers. That is where the problem originated from,” said Tendai Gwaravaza, chairman of Chitungwiza Arts Center. At the center, the sound of grinders filled the air as sculptors carved. Hundreds of finished pieces, ranging from small carvings to life-sized sculptures, waited for buyers. “The only solution now is to get out there to the markets ourselves. If we don’t, no one will,” Gwaravaza said. The Oxford exhibition represents such an opportunity for exposure, he said. It is the brainchild of the Oxford Zimbabwe Arts Partnership, formed in response to the “Rhodes Must Fall” campaign during the Black Lives Matter protests in the U.S. The group, consisting of Zimbabwean artists, an Oxford alumnus and a professor of African history, initially envisioned a larger project titled “Oxford and Rhodes: Past, Present, and Future.” It included enclosing Rhodes’ statue in glass, installing 100 life-size bronze statues of African liberation fighters and creating a collaborative sculpture using recycled materials to represent the future. However, the project required an estimated 200,000 pounds, far beyond available resources. Eventually, Oriel College provided 10,000 pounds for a scaled-down exhibition. “It’s still my hope that one day it could happen, but for now we have just accepted something very small to make a start and to do something,” said Richard Pantlin, the Oxford alumnus and OZAP co-founder.

Israel has vowed to intensify attacks across Gaza and occupy large “security zones” in the strip. Israeli strikes in Gaza have killed more than 90 people in 48 hours, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday, as Israeli troops ramp up attacks to pressure Hamas to release its hostages and disarm. The dead include 15 people who were killed overnight, among them women and children, some of whom were sheltering in a designated humanitarian zone, according to hospital staff. At least 11 people were killed in the southern city of Khan Younis, several of them in a tent in the Mwasi area where hundreds of thousands of displaced people are living, hospital workers said. Israel has designated it as a humanitarian zone. Four other people were killed in separate strikes in Rafah city, including a mother and her daughter, according to the European Hospital, where the bodies were brought. At the funeral in Khan Younis Saturday afternoon, families wept over the bodies of their relatives and cried out in pain. “Omar is gone ... I wish it was me,¨ screamed the brother of one of the victims. Israel has vowed to intensify attacks across Gaza and occupy large “security zones” inside the strip. For six weeks Israel also has blockaded Gaza, barring the entry of food and other goods. This week, aid groups raised the alarm, saying that thousands of children have become malnourished and most people are barely eating one meal a day as stocks dwindle, according to the United Nations. On Friday, Dr. Hanan Balkhy, the head of the World Health Organization’s eastern Mediterranean office, urged the new U.S. ambassador in Israel, Mike Huckabee, to push the country to lift Gaza’s blockade so medicines and other aid can enter the strip. “I would wish for him to go in and see the situation firsthand,” she said. In his first appearance as ambassador on Friday, Huckabee visited the Western Wall, the holiest Jewish prayer site in Jerusalem’s Old City. He inserted a prayer into the wall, which he said was handwritten by U.S. President Donald Trump. Huckabee said every effort was being made to bring home the remaining hostages held by Hamas. The war began when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Most of the hostages have since been released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israel’s offensive has since killed over 51,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. The war has destroyed vast parts of Gaza and most of its food production capabilities. Around 90% of the population is displaced, with hundreds of thousands of people living in tent camps and bombed-out buildings.

In a video, Mahmoud Ajjour is beaming as he skips into the breeze. He breaks into laughter as he watches his kite flutter in the sky, pulling it along with a string tied around his waist, in a moment that captured the irrepressible joy of childhood. At 9 years old, Mahmoud has known more trauma than most will see in a lifetime. On Dec. 6, 2023, the fourth grader was hit by an Israeli airstrike in Gaza, a blast that severed one of his arms and left the other so badly damaged it had to be amputated. On Thursday, an image of Mahmoud, taken by Palestinian photographer Samar Abu Elouf for The New York Times, was named World Press Photo of the Year, a haunting portrait of the impact of the war on children. Mahmoud now lives in Doha, Qatar, with his family, after becoming one of a very small number of Palestinians to be evacuated from Gaza for urgent medical treatment. When Mahmoud smiles, his happiness seems infectious, but some days are harder than others. “There are bad moments for him,” his mother, Nour Ajjour, 36, told NBC News by phone from Doha, Qatar’s capital. “He doesn’t want to play or go outside.” “We keep him busy and have fun with him,” Ajjour said. She sent videos of him gleefully speeding down a hallway on an electric bike, steering with his feet on the handlebars, and using his feet to play with a lump of bright-green clay. For now, Ajjour said, there’s not much Mahmoud can do on his own, and he’s impatient for prostheses, asking when he can have them so he can drink water on his own or help his family. “He likes to help a lot, and I let him help me and carry things on his shoulder,” Ajjour said. Doctors at Doha’s Hamad Limb Hospital are currently fitting him for protheses, and in another video, he smiles brightly as he tries on a pair of prosthetic arms. In Gaza, such treatment isn’t possible, and Mahmoud is one of at least 1,000 children in the enclave to have lost at least one limb during the war, according to UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund. Many of the children, like many adults, underwent surgery without anesthesia as the health care system buckled under Israel’s siege. “The first few days were very difficult,” Ajjour said. Both of his hands were gone, and without anesthetic, Mahmoud was in both physical and existential pain. “He would look at his hands and not see them,” the boy’s mother said. “He would scream and say, ‘Where are my hands,’ and the first thing he said was, ‘How will I hug you, how will I pray?’” These days, Mahmoud is learning how to type on a computer, write and use a phone with his feet. Ajjour said he dreams of going to university and becoming a journalist so he can tell the stories of Gaza’s children.