Israel has accused Hamas of murdering Shiri Bibas’ and her sons. Hamas says they were killed in an airstrike — and that her remains may have been ‘mixed’ with others. Grief, outrage and confusion consumed Israel on Friday after its military said Hamas had failed to return the body of Shiri Bibas, the mother of the two youngest hostages taken captive Oct. 7, 2023. While Hamas returned the bodies of her sons, Ariel and Kfir, who were just 4 years old and 9 months old when they were captured, the Israel Defense Forces said Thursday that identification efforts found the female remains belonged to an “anonymous body.” Accusing Hamas of “an unimaginably cynical act,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement Friday said Hamas had not returned “Shiri alongside her small children — these little angels — and instead placed the body of a Gazan woman in the coffin.” Later, Hamas’ media office said Bibas’ remains may have been “mixed” with others when they were hit by an Israeli airstrike that killed her and her sons. Israel has accused Hamas of murdering the Bibas family members in November 2023, the month after they were taken hostage. Hamas also released the body of 84-year-old Oded Lifshitz on Thursday in a grisly ceremony that saw four black caskets placed on a stage against a backdrop of slogans which said that Israel had killed Shiri Bibas and her sons using “USA bombs.” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres condemned the scenes in a post on X late Thursday. “Under international law, any handover of the remains of the deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families,” he wrote. Netanyahu on Friday vowed to “act decisively to bring Shiri home,” along with the rest of the hostages. “We will ensure that Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and wicked violation of the agreement,” he said. The incident underscored the fragility of the ceasefire agreement reached with the help of Qatari and Egyptian mediators last month and backed by the United States. But six living people, Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Tal Shoham, Hisham Al-Sayed and Avera Mengistu, who are currently in Hamas captivity, are expected to be released Saturday. Mengistu and Al-Sayed entered Gaza more than a decade ago and have been held by the militant group since then. Their release will bring to an end the first phase of the current ceasefire deal and, with the second phase of the agreement yet to be finalized, the future of the truce is shrouded in uncertainty. Calling Hamas’ apparent failure to return the body of Shira Bibas as promised a “serious violation,” far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said in a post on X on Friday that “the only solution is the destruction of Hamas.” His comments came after a series of explosions on buses in a parking lot rocked central Israel on Thursday in what authorities suspected was a militant attack. Israeli Police spokesman Haim Sargrof told Israeli TV that the explosives appeared to match those used in the occupied West Bank, though he declined to elaborate on why, The Associated Press reported. The attack came as Israel continued to carry out a sweeping military assault in the northern West Bank, as part of the operation it has dubbed "Iron Wall." Israel has said it is aimed at dismantling militant groups and to prevent future attacks on the country. The International Rescue Committee — a global aid organization —warned in a news release Thursday that the “ongoing military operations in the West Bank” had “displaced thousands, destroyed water networks, and restricted movement.” Children were among those killed in the operations, it said. It came after the United Nations agency that assists Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, said earlier this month that the forced displacement of Palestinian communities in the West Bank’s north was escalating “at an alarming pace.”

Delta Air Lines is offering US$30,000 (£23,792) to each person on board a plane that crash-landed in Toronto on Monday - all of whom survived. As it landed in the Canadian city, the plane skidded along the runway in flames before flipping over and coming to a halt upside down. Passengers described their amazement as most of them walked away without injuries. It remains unclear what caused the incident, which is under investigation. There were 76 passengers and four crew on the flight, which had travelled from the US city of Minneapolis before making its crash-landing in Canada. A spokesperson for Delta said the money offer had no strings attached and did not affect customers' rights. Toronto law firm Rochon Genova says it has been retained by certain passengers and their families over the crash-landing. Lawyer Vincent Genova said the group expected a "timely and fair resolution", highlighting that his clients "suffered personal injuries of a serious nature that required hospital attention". In an email to the BBC, Mr Genova said the $30,000 compensation is an "advance" payment meant to assist plane crash victims with short-term financial challenges, and the airline will seek to deduct it from any later settled claims. There is precedent to these types of payments, like in 2013, when Asiana Airlines offered passengers of a San Francisco plane crash $10,000 in initial compensation. Last year, Alaska Airlines offered a $1,500 cash payment to passengers after mid-air door-plug blowout on a flight from Portland. Following this week's incident in Toronto, the plane crew and emergency responders were praised for their quick work in removing people from the wrecked vehicle. The plane's various safety features have also been credited for ensuring no loss of life. All of the 21 passengers who were taken to hospital had been released by Thursday morning, the airline said. The airline's head Ed Bastian told CBS the plane crew had "performed heroically, but also as expected", given that "safety is embedded into our system". He said Delta was continuing to support those affected. Several theories about what caused the crash have been suggested to the BBC by experts who reviewed footage, including that harsh winter weather and a rapid rate of descent played a role. One passenger recalled "a very forceful event", and the sound of "concrete and metal" at the moment of impact. Another said passengers were left hanging upside down in their seats "like bats". The cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder have been recovered from the wreckage. The investigation is being led by Canada's Transportation Safety Board (TSB), supported by US officials. On Wednesday evening, the wreckage was removed from the airport runway. The accident was the fourth major air incident in North America in a space of three weeks - and was followed on Wednesday by a crash in Arizona in which two people lost their lives when their small planes collided. Experts continue to insist that air travel is overwhelmingly safe - more so than other forms of transport, in fact. That message was emphasised by US Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy, who told CBS on Wednesday there was no pattern behind the incidents, each of which he said was "very unique".

Video released by the Israel Defense Forces of the reunion shows Sagui Dekel-Chen becoming emotional after he learned the name of the baby he never met. American-Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen spent “the vast majority” of his almost 500 days in captivity not knowing that his family had survived Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack or that his wife had given birth to their third child while he was held in Gaza, his father told NBC News. The 36-year old was released from Hamas captivity Saturday along with two other hostages in exchange for 369 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. He is the second U.S. citizen after Keith Siegel, 65, to be freed in phase one of the ceasefire and hostage release deal. His father, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, said in an interview Monday that his son, who was wounded in his right shoulder and his left leg when he was kidnapped from kibbutz Nir Oz during the October 2023 Hamas-led attack, “was given minimal medical treatment once he got to Gaza.” “There was no follow-up treatment, and so there’s considerable damage,” he said. “He was in the tunnels for the vast majority of the time. Even in the short period that he was aboveground, there was no sunlight whatsoever,” he added. On the morning of the attack, Dekel-Chen put his wife, Avital Dekel-Chen, 34, and their two daughters, Bar, 7, and Gali, 3, into the safe room of their home. He then went out to confront the militants storming their kibbutz and was taken captive. He was one of around 250 people taken hostage on a day that also saw 1,200 killed, according to Israeli tallies. Avital Dekel-Chen was seven months pregnant when her husband was kidnapped and gave birth to their third daughter two months later. Dekel-Chen spent most of his 498 days in Gaza unsure whether his wife and daughters were still alive, Jonathan Dekel-Chen said. “In the tunnels, they’re in a complete information vacuum,” he said. “And so Sagui only began to piece together a partial picture two days before he was released.” Only then was he able to pick up “bits of information here and there, which led him to believe that his wife and two older daughters survived,” Jonathan Dekel-Chen said, but “he still didn’t know whether his third daughter had survived, if she was ever born.” During the pregnancy, Dekel-Chen jokingly referred to the unborn baby as Mazal, an old-fashioned name meaning “luck” in Hebrew, Jonathan Dekel-Chen said. Moments after Dekel-Chen was reunited with his wife in southern Israel on Saturday, she told him she had named their daughter, Shachar Mazal. Shachar is the Hebrew word for “dawn.” Video released by the Israel Defense Forces of the reunion shows Dekel-Chen becoming emotional after he learned the name of the baby he never met. “Wow, perfect,” he whispered in response. “What a name.” Later, he held the year-old Shachar for the first time at Sheba Hospital in Tel Aviv, where he also reunited with Bar and Gali. “There are not words in the English language or any other language that I know that can truly express the power of that moment, of his reunion with his little girls.” Jonathan Dekel-Chen said. In the lead up to Saturday’s exchange, which also saw Sasha Alexander Troufanov, 29, and Yair Horn, 46, freed by Hamas, the militant group had threatened to indefinitely delay the release of the hostages, accusing Israel of violating the ceasefire by not allowing temporary shelters and heavy digging equipment into the Gaza Strip. That sparked a furious reaction from both Israel and President Donald Trump, who warned that unless they were freed, “all hell is going to break loose” in Gaza, where health officials say more than 48,000 people have been killed since Israel launched its military campaign Oct. 7, 2023. The first phase of the agreement — which calls for the release of 33 hostages in exchange for a six-week ceasefire and the release of around 1,900 prisoners and detainees — is due to expire March 2. Negotiations are underway to try to reach the second phase of the agreement, which would see the release of all living hostages in exchange for more Palestinian prisoners and detainees, a permanent ceasefire and a full withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza. Ultimately, ahead of Dekel-Chen’s release, both sides backed down and reverted to the original terms of the ceasefire brokered by Qatar and 369 Palestinian prisoners were freed in exchange for the three men. The days of uncertainty were “brutal” as they waited to see if the ceasefire would collapse, Jonathan Dekel-Chen said, adding, “honestly, it was terrifying, not just for us but for the families of all of the remaining hostages.”

The bodies of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, the two youngest captives seized in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack, were confirmed to be among those released as part of a ceasefire deal. Hamas released the bodies of four Israeli hostages Thursday, parading four black caskets on a stage against a backdrop of propaganda slogans and behind white missiles spattered with red paint bearing the phrase "they were killed by USA bombs." In what is likely to be one of the defining images of the war in the Gaza Strip, the four caskets sat on a raised platform in front of smiling illustrations of three members of the Bibas family and 84-year-old Oded Lifshitz. Among the bodies believed to be handed over by Hamas were those of Kfir and Ariel Bibas, the two youngest captives seized in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack that triggered Israel's military campaign in Gaza. The bodies of the two children were later confirmed to be those of Kfir and Ariel Bibas — but the body that was believed to be that of their mother, Shiri, was not in fact her, the Israel Defense Forces said. "This is a very serious violation by the Hamas terrorist organization, which is required by the agreement to return four dead abductees," the IDF said. "We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all of our abductees." The bodies handed over were the first to be returned under the current ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas. Lifshitz's family said Thursday that his body had been identified. Each casket also carried a small photograph of one of the four hostages. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents the families of those in Hamas captivity, had earlier said that the body of Shiri Bibas was handed over, along with the bodies of her two children and that of Lifshitz. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said in a statement that "We are horrified and devastated by the news that their mother, Shiri, was not returned — despite the agreement and our desperate hopes." The IDF said that Ariel and Kfir Bibas "were brutally murdered in captivity in November 2023, by terrorists," the month after the family were taken from their kibbutz, Nir Oz. Kfir was just shy of 9 months old and Ariel was 4 at the time of the abduction. The IDF said that the identification process determined the other body was not Shiri Bibas, and "no match was found for any other abductee. It is an anonymous body without identification." The handover took place in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, where large crowds gathered and armed Hamas militants in black and camouflage uniforms patrolled the area. The caskets were displayed in front of a large banner that showed a caricature replicating antisemitic tropes of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with vampiric teeth and blood running down his face. Netanyahu reacted to the release of the deceased hostages in a post on X later Thursday, saying that "we bow our heads for the heavy loss of our four hostages." "We are all in pain, a pain that is mixed with rage," he said, adding that he planned to return the remaining hostages, "destroy the murderers and eliminate Hamas." After representatives from Hamas and the Red Cross signed paperwork on a table with a camouflage cover and two Palestinian flags, the caskets were carried into white Red Cross vehicles that then drove them away to be transferred to the Israel Defense Forces and Israel Security Agency. The children's father, Yarden Bibas, 35, was released Feb. 1 under the first phase of the ceasefire deal. He had been held in a different part of Gaza from his wife and children, according to hostages who were with him in captivity and have since been freed. While all other child hostages were released in exchange for Palestinian prisoners during a one-week ceasefire in November 2023, the Bibas family never emerged from Gaza. On one of the final days of the brief pause in fighting, Hamas released a statement claiming that Shiri Bibas and the children had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, although Israel’s military said the claim could not be confirmed before later acknowledging its fears for the family. The Hamas leader in Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya, announced Tuesday that the bodies of Shiri Bibas and the two children would be among those returned this week. He also announced that four of the remaining living captives would be released Saturday, in addition to two others who have been held in Gaza for about a decade. The Israeli prime minister’s office confirmed it had reached an agreement on the releases during negotiations held in Cairo last week, but refrained from naming any of the hostages. On Tuesday, the Bibas family said it was “in turmoil” over the Hamas leader’s announcement of the return of Shiri Bibas and the children. “Until we receive definitive confirmation, our journey is not over,” the family said in a statement. The Hostage and Missing Families Forum also named the six living hostages slated for release Saturday: Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Omer Wenkert, Tal Shoham, Hisham Al-Sayed and Avera Mengistu. Cohen, 27, Shem Tov, 22, and Wenkert, 23, were abducted from the Nova music festival, where an estimated 364 people were killed. Shoham, 40, was taken from the community of kibbutz Beeri, according to the group. Civilians Al-Sayed and Mengistu have been separately held in Gaza for about a decade after they were kidnapped while crossing the border in 2015 and 2014, respectively. About 1,200 people were killed and 251 were captured in the Oct. 7 terror attack, according to Israeli officials. Israel's ensuing military offensive in Gaza has killed more than 48,000 Palestinians, according to the local Hamas-run Health Ministry, and forcibly displaced most of its 2.3 million population. Saturday’s handover, if successful, will mean that four hostages, all presumed dead, are left in Gaza from the group of 33 scheduled for release under the first phase of the ceasefire deal in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians prisoners and detainees in Israel. Negotiations over the second stage of the ceasefire deal, originally slated to begin Feb. 4, will work to secure the release of the remaining 64 hostages and oversee the administration of post-war Gaza. Talks are expected to get underway in the coming days.

Investigators are looking into what made a Delta plane crash land and flip over at Toronto's Pearson Airport on Monday, an incident all 80 people on board survived. Airport CEO Deborah Flint said investigators will be reviewing the aircraft on the runway for the next 48 hours, adding that this was "not the time" to speculate on the cause of the crash. The Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis skidded along the runway with flames visible before it came to a halt upside down. Twenty-one people were injured, of which 19 have been released from the hospital, authorities said on Tuesday. The two patients do not face life-threatening injuries. There were 76 passengers and four crew on board the 16-year-old CRJ900 aircraft, made by Canada's Bombardier company. Injuries at the time of the crash ranged from head injuries to back sprains, and nausea and vomiting due to jet fuel exposure, a representative for Peel Regional Paramedic Services said. Passengers on board said they were hanging upside down in their seats and had to release themselves, falling on to the ceiling before clambering out on to the snow-covered tarmac. Firefighters quickly came to the rescue. Although the airport had been experiencing "extreme" weather conditions, Monday was categorised as a "clear day" for operational recovery following prior disruption, officials said. Toronto was hit by a major snow storm over the weekend, but authorities said the runway was dry at the time of landing and that there were no cross-wind conditions. Cross-wind conditions refer to when wind blows across the direction of travel which could affect vehicles and aircraft by pushing them sideways and requiring corrective action to maintain control. Before the crash, authorities said snow had stopped and "frigid temperatures and high winds [were] moving in". Audio recording from Pearson's air traffic control tower, reported on by the Canadian Press, shows the flight was cleared to land shortly after 14:00 on Monday, and that the tower had warned the pilots of a possible air flow "bump" in the glide path from a plane in front of it. Analysts say it is possible the plane may have struck an item on the runway such as a light when it landed. The crash is at least the fourth major aviation incident in North America in the past month, including an American Airlines plane in Washington, DC, that collided with a US Army helicopter, killing all 67 people on board. Correction 11 March 2025: The definition of a cross-wind was amended to say that this occurs when a wind blows across the direction of travel

Passengers have described their amazement after most of them escaped unscathed from a plane that crash landed in Toronto on Monday afternoon. The Delta flight skidded along the runway in flames before flipping over and coming to a dramatic halt upside down, losing its tail and an entire wing in the process. Some of the 80 people on board were then left hanging upside down while still strapped to their seats, before they scrambled over luggage to escape onto the snowy runway. No-one died in the incident, which is under investigation. Analysts have suggested the harsh winter weather may be to blame, or that the plane landed badly. They have also credited the plane's safety features with saving lives. What happened when the plane crashed? The incident took place shortly after 14:00 local time on Monday (19:00 GMT). It involved a model CRJ-900 plane, operating as Delta Air Lines flight DL4819. The aircraft arrived at Toronto from the US city of Minneapolis and was carrying 76 passengers and four crew members. As it landed, the plane appears to have struck the runway, slid for some distance and then flipped over, observed Dan Ronan, a journalist and pilot licensed by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), who spoke to BBC News. In a video statement released on Tuesday, Transportation Safety Board senior investigator Ken Webster said that after the initial impact parts of the aircraft separated. The fuselage came to rest slightly off the right side of the runway, upside down and facing the other direction, he said. Footage obtained by TMZ showed part of the aircraft bursting into flames as the landing happened. Firefighters rushed to put these out. Passenger Pete Carlson told broadcaster CBC it was "a very forceful event", recalling the sound of "concrete and metal" at the moment of impact. He and others on board were suspended upside down in their seats, and had to release themselves on to the cabin ceiling before leaving the inverted aircraft. All 80 people on board survived. On Tuesday morning, Delta said 21 injured passengers were initially transported to local hospitals - with 19 later released. Delta has promised to give more updates. Mr Webster said investigators have recovered the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the wreckage as part of their investigation. How does a plane flip over? BBC Verify has analysed recordings of communications between the plane and air traffic control. At no point in discussions was there anything to suggest trouble was anticipated with the landing. This was confirmed by Marco Chan, a former pilot and a senior lecturer at Buckinghamshire New University in the UK, and plane crash investigator Ismo Aaltonen, who also listened to the audio recording. Mr Chan also said the plane appeared to have made a hard landing - involving an unusually high rate of descent. It seems to have touched down with one wheel first, Mr Chan told the BBC, which might have caused the landing gear to collapse on impact. This could have led to the right wing hitting the runway and in turn causing the plane to roll. The weather may also have been significant. The airport fire chief stated that the runway was dry at the time of the incident. Airport authorities had said earlier that although recent heavy snow had stopped, "frigid temperatures and high winds [were] moving in". As the plane came in to land, air traffic controllers told the pilots of 38mph (61km/h) gusts and the possibility of a "slight bump in the glide path", CNN reported. The pilots appear to have attempted what is known as a crab manoeuvre, Mr Ronan said. This involves turning a plane into the wind, and then directly on to the runway at the last moment. Graham Braithwaite, professor of safety and accident investigation at the UK's Cranfield University, said planes were also designed so that passengers involved in an accident did not hit things likely to cause injury. "Even the design of the seat back or the tray table is all part of how we consider making that survivable space," he told the BBC. "And the seatbelt that people have is so important - that is the ultimate thing that stops people being thrown around the cabin like this," he added. The flight attendants have also been praised for getting everyone off the flipped aeroplane quickly. Emergency crews on the ground were labelled "heroic" by the airport chief after reaching the crash site in a matter of minutes. Mr Carlson said the passengers themselves had worked together very effectively. "What I saw was everyone on that plane suddenly became very close in terms of how to help one another, how to console one another," he said. How did the seat design help? Mr Ronan highlighted the importance of the plane's high-impact 16g seats, which he said were "designed to absorb a great deal of punishment". The seats can withstand deceleration of 16 times the force of gravity, and must pass rigorous testing using human dummies to model crash dynamics. The seat legs, attached to a track on the floor, must be able to pitch down 10 degrees on one side and roll 10 degrees on the other side so that they do not break, said Kevin Campbell, founder of Aviation Consulting & Engineering Solutions, who is FAA-authorised to approve seats that are required to comply with the regulations. In previous accidents, the FAA had seen seats piled up in the fronts of aircrafts, with bodies still attached in many cases, Mr Campbell said. Mr Ronan said the regulations keep "the seat in place and bolted to the floor, so you have a higher degree of survivability in your seat itself and you have less likelihood that the seat is going to become detached, where you're now strapped into a moving object that's being bounced around the cabin". The regulations also require a passenger to be able to withstand hitting their head and legs on the seat in front of them, and seats help absorb weight in their spine so that they do not break their back. Seatbelts are also less stretchy than they used to be so the restraint is more secure. "As a result of that aircrafts are much, much safer," Mr Campbell said, and those factors were "absolutely" at play in improving safety in this crash. "It really is remarkable that the seats did exactly what they were supposed to do, they stayed intact... the seatbelts worked just as they were supposed to, and the seats did not become detached from the floor," Mr Ronan said. "Think of how many head injuries we would have had, spinal injuries we would have had, if the seat became detached." Which other plane crashes have happened recently? This marks the fourth major air crash in North America in less than a month, and other recent incidents remain under investigation. All 67 people on board a passenger aeroplane and military helicopter died after the two aircraft collided in midair near Washington DC on 29 January Seven people were killed on 1 February when a medical transportation plane carrying six people crashed in Philadelphia. Another person was killed on the ground All 10 people were killed when a small plane came down in Alaska on 6 February Those incidents followed another high-profile crash in South Korea in December, in which 179 people were killed. Despite these, experts say air travel remains overwhelmingly safe - and increasingly so.

A key organiser behind the "Freedom Convoy" trucker protests that gridlocked Canada's capital for weeks in 2022, has been sentenced to three months of house arrest. Pat King, 47, was convicted in November on five of nine criminal charges: mischief, counselling to commit mischief, counselling to obstruct a public or peace officer, and two counts of disobeying a court order. In his Wednesday sentencing, an Ontario Superior Court judge gave King nine months credit for time already spent behind bars. Prosecutors had asked for a 10-year sentence. King was part of a group that led a convoy of trucks to Ottawa during the pandemic to protest against Covid-19 measures. Speaking outside the courthouse on Wednesday, King's lawyer Natasha Calvinho called the sentencing decision "balanced". "This is an end to a very long and very drawn out process," she said. As part of the conditional sentence, King will also have a period of probation after his release from house arrest, which he will serve in his home province of Alberta. The trucker protests received international attention in 2022 and inspired similar copycat demonstrations abroad. King is the first organiser of the Freedom Convoy to be convicted and sentenced. Two other organisers, Tamara Lich and Chris Barber, will learn the outcome of their trial next month. King's lawyers argued during his trial that he was part of a peaceful demonstration against public health restrictions and government mandates, and that police were to blame for rising tensions during the protest. Crown prosecutors argued that he was a key figure behind the protests, which they say had disrupted and harmed the residents and workers of downtown Ottawa for weeks. The February 2022 protests were initially sparked by a federal vaccine mandate for truck drivers crossing the US-Canada border. Convoys of some 400 heavy trucks and other vehicles descended on Ottawa and blockaded city streets around parliament for three weeks. They were stopped after Prime Minister Trudeau enacted the never-before-used Emergencies Act, which allowed police to clear the streets and freeze the bank accounts of protesters. King was arrested shortly after on 18 February and was released on bail five months later. He was ordered back behind bars briefly after he breached court-imposed rules on his social media use.

European leaders have been "stunned" by President Donald Trump's swift reversal of American policy toward Russia, as well as on its stance toward Ukraine, one analyst said. In just days, the Trump administration has torn up Washington's script on the war in Ukraine and its relationship with Europe. Now, even as the U.S. and Russia press ahead with peace talks that exclude Kyiv, Ukraine's European neighbors are struggling to unite around a shared response. French President Emmanuel Macron was preparing to host his second set of emergency talks this week in Paris on Wednesday, amid mounting pressure to form a clear and cohesive response to Trump’s decision to negotiate directly — and so far exclusively — with Russia to end the war in Ukraine. “The understanding that Europe is going to be treated in a very different way by this administration is something that’s left European leaders stunned,” John Lough, an associate fellow at Chatham House’s Russia and Eurasia Program in London, said in a telephone interview Wednesday. Macron hosted talks on Monday after President Donald Trump excluded European leaders, including members of NATO, from ceasefire talks Tuesday in Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh. Talks on Wednesday will include NATO-constituent Canada and Ukraine’s neighbors from Europe's Baltic and Nordic regions, according to a spokesperson from the Élysée Palace. The latest talks take place on the same day that Zelenskyy hit back at comments from Trump on Tuesday in which he blamed Ukraine for starting its war with Russia. The Ukrainian leader accused Trump of being trapped in a "disinformation bubble" and added that his country was not for sale. Trump's swift reversal of American policy toward Russia may have thawed relations with Moscow, which has faced diplomatic and financial isolation since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, but it has brought with it a sharp turn away from Kyiv and sparked alarm across Europe. “We are in, I think, a very serious situation here where the assumptions of many decades have simply been blown away — and principally, the assumption that the U.S. will underwrite Europe’s security,” said Lough, who previously served as a NATO representative based in Moscow. The sharp shift in Washington comes at a rare moment for the European Union — the disparate and sprawling 27-nation bloc of more than 500 million people — when the region has few strong leaders. With German Chancellor Olof Scholz's party expected to perform poorly in elections on Sunday and after Macron's party lost its parliamentary majority last summer, the E.U.'s usual power centers are weak. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who won a landslide election last year and heads one of Europe's largest economies, can only advise the E.U. from the outside following the U.K.'s departure from the bloc in 2020. Now, drained of firm leadership and fatigued by Ukraine's long war, “the Europeans have been really slow to recognize” America's shift, said Ed Arnold, a senior research fellow for European security at the Royal United Services Institute, a London-based think tank. That Europeans “can’t fully rely on the U.S., that’s something that’s just been around for a number of years but it’s now that the Europeans are starting to panic at it because actually it could be worse than they have assumed,” he said. Whether that realization has set in remains unclear. After European leaders consulted Tuesday with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio following talks in Saudi Arabia with his Russian counterparts, E.U. foreign affairs chief Kaja Kallas wrote on X that “Russia will try to divide us. Let’s not walk into their traps.” “By working together with the U.S., we can achieve a just and lasting peace — on Ukraine’s terms,” she said. But so far, European leaders have failed to present a clear and cohesive response to the rapid-fire developments in diplomatic efforts to end the war in Ukraine. Instead, turmoil over Trump's stance on the war is highlighting divisions and disunity within Europe, Arnold said. "I think that’s what Trump’s trying to do in Europe. He’s trying to circumvent the organization," he said, adding that Trump wants to "almost play them a little bit off each other to almost get what he wants." A key focus in emergency discussions has been determining what potential security guarantees for Ukraine might look like, with French President Emmanuel Macron and other European leaders maintaining that any agreement to end the war in Ukraine must come with “strong and credible security guarantees for the Ukrainians.” After leaders discussed the possibility of countries including Britain, France and Poland deploying troops to Ukraine as peacekeepers, the U.K.’s Starmer said he was considering committing British forces but maintained that “a U.S. security guarantee is the only way to effectively deter Russia.” With Starmer and Trump due to meet in Washington next week, Lough said European leaders were having a "panic reaction" as they "try to figure out what they can do to persuade Trump" to jointly safeguard Ukraine's security. So far, Russia has known what it wants. The talks Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov engaged in this week culminated in a plan to restore embassy staffing on both sides and to continue discussions on a path to ending the war in Ukraine. "The constant expulsion of diplomats from Washington and Moscow does not lead to anything good," Putin told reporters in St. Petersburg on Wednesday. He added that, in Tuesday's talks in Riyadh, "on the American side, there were entirely different people who were open to the negotiation process without any bias, without any prejudice to what was done in the past.” Keith Kellogg, Washington’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia arrived in Kyiv on Wednesday for what is likely to be a tense visit. Zelenskyy said earlier this week he hoped to take Kellogg “to the front line” and to meetings with intelligence officials and diplomats so he could “bring more information back to America.”

JERUSALEM — Israel is preparing to receive six hostages Saturday, in addition to a number of captives' bodies to be delivered from Gaza on Thursday, a source briefed on the talks told NBC News on Monday. Talks mediated by Qatar and Egypt are ongoing, said the source, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, and would involve Israel sending in a number of temporary housing structures into the besieged Palestinian enclave. That would be more than the number of Israeli hostages that have been released every Saturday since the ceasefire was agreed on Jan. 19. So far, Hamas has sent the names of those to be released on the Friday before the exchange, which has also involved the freeing of dozens of Palestinian detainees and prisoners. The source said there were also discussions about handing over the bodies of deceased hostages on Thursday. Six live hostages and eight dead ones remain out of the 33 due to be released in the first phase of the three-part ceasefire deal Hamas and Israel agreed to on Jan. 19. Israel’s security cabinet earlier met to discuss the second phase of ceasefire, even as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced his support for President Donald Trump's controversial plan to take over Gaza. Following a call with Trump’s special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, Netanyahu instructed Israel’s negotiating team to depart for the Egyptian capital of Cairo to discuss the “continuation of the implementation” of the first stage of the deal, the Israeli leader’s office said in a statement Sunday. Netanyahu’s office said the negotiating team would receive “instructions for the continuation of negotiations on Phase B issues” after the Israeli security cabinet’s discussion on the matter. The prime minister's office also pushed back on reports suggesting Israel had dispatched the negotiating team under U.S. pressure. Recommended

"Our plane crashed. It's upside down." These were the words of John Nelson, a passenger on a Delta Air Lines flight that had just crashed and flipped while landing at Toronto Pearson International Airport. All 80 people on board the flight from Minneapolis - 76 passengers and four crew - have survived, the airport's chief executive has said. Eighteen people were injured but only a small number are thought to be seriously hurt, and investigators are looking into what caused the crash. "Most people appear to be okay. We're all getting off," Mr Nelson said in a video posted to Facebook soon after the incident. "We skidded on our side, then flipped over on our back," he said, adding that "there was a big fire ball out the left side of the plane". Like Mr Nelson, Ashley Zook took immediately to social media to express her disbelief, filming herself saying: "I was just in a plane crash. Oh my God." Mr Nelson said he was able to unbuckle himself and push himself to the ground. "Some people were kind of hanging and needed some help... and others were able to get down on their own," he said. Mr Carlson said passengers quickly acted as a team. "What I saw was everyone on that plane suddenly became very close, in terms of how to help one another, how to console one another." Video footage shared on social media shows people clambering out of the overturned aircraft, with fire crews spraying it with foam. Passengers were seen being helped out of the plane's doors by airport staff, with some then running away from the plane's entrance. Despite a plane flipping on the runway, Diane Perry said she learned of the crash when her family called her while she was in line to check her luggage. The reason for the crash is not yet clear. Two runways will remain closed for several days for investigation and passengers have been told to expect some delays. That sentiment was echoed by Mr Carlson, who said it was "really amazing" to be alive, while sporting a cut on his head. "I'm a little balder than I was this morning," he said.