The US has warned Israel it must improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza in the coming 30 days or face potential cuts in US military aid, but critics have cast doubt on the threat and the timing of it so close to US elections.
An Italian navy ship has docked in Albania to deliver refugees and migrants, the first such mission under a controversial deal between the two countries that sends asylum seekers outside the European Union while their claims are processed.
The ship, carrying 16 men who were picked up in Italian waters, arrived at Shengjin port on Wednesday. The arrangement has been heralded by Italy’s right-wing government as unprecedented and eyed by other EU states seeking to tighten immigration policies, but rights groups have slammed it as undermining human rights.
Ten men from Bangladesh and six from Egypt disembarked from the ship. They are the first arrivals under the deal, which was agreed by Italy and Albania in November.
The naval ship Libra left the port of Lampedusa on Monday. The refugees were rescued at sea after departing from Libya last week, according to officials.
On arrival in Albania, they were escorted towards the gates of a processing centre a few metres from the vessel. Their cases will be heard at a nearby airbase in Gjader, which can hold 3,000 people.
Italy has opened two centres in Albania, where it plans to process up to 36,000 asylum seekers per year. The centres will be operated under Italian law with Italian security and staff and judges hearing cases by video from Rome.
According to the deal, agreed for an initial five years by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her Albanian counterpart, Edi Rama, people will be screened initially on board the ships that rescue them before being sent to Albania for further screening.
Refugees intercepted in Italian waters who are deemed the most vulnerable, including women and children, will be taken to Italy.
The deal is being implemented while other EU states are seeking to adopt harsher immigration stances amid pressure from the far right, which made significant headway in EU elections in the summer.
Albania has said it will work exclusively with Italy.
A small group of activists gathered at the entrance of the port to protest the arrival of the refugees, holding a banner saying, “The European dream ends here.”
Rights groups have questioned whether the deal complies with international law.
Amnesty International has called the centres a “cruel experiment [that] is a stain on the Italian government”. Doctors Without Borders said the new strategy “raises serious human rights concerns”.
Meloni brushed aside the criticism in comments on Tuesday.
“It is a new, courageous, unprecedented path but one that perfectly reflects the European spirit and has everything it takes to be followed also with other non-EU nations,” she said.
The first mission under the deal comes before an EU summit in Brussels this week, at which migration is set to be a major topic.
In a letter to member states before the talks, European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen said the bloc would “be able to draw lessons from this experience in practice”.
Critics have declared that given the high cost of the operation, the limited capacity of the processing centres and the fact that Italy is unlikely to be able to eventually deport most of the refugees, the deal won’t have the desired effect of “deterrence”.
Migration researcher Matteo Villa of Datalab Europe said: “The more migrants decide to undertake the journey, the higher the probability of being brought to Italy because the capacity of the Albanian centre is fixed.”
“No matter how you look at it, not only will the idea of opening a centre in Albania not be part of the solution, but it will become part of the problem,” he argued.
The number of people reaching Italy along the central Mediterranean migration route from North Africa fell by 61 percent in the first nine months of 2024 compared with the same period of 2023.
According to the Italian Ministry of the Interior, as of Tuesday, 54,129 refugees had arrived in Italy by sea so far this year, compared with 138,947 by the same date last year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says his “victory plan” to end the war with Russia includes requests for specific weapons and an “unconditional” invitation to join NATO now.
“If we start moving according to this victory plan now, it may be possible to end the war no later than next year,” Zelenskyy said on Wednesday in a speech to the Verkhovna Rada, Ukraine’s parliament.
The first, he told lawmakers, was receiving an “unconditional invitation” to join the military alliance, which would show “how our partners truly see Ukraine’s place in the security architecture”.
The Ukrainian leader recently concluded a whirlwind tour of several European capitals, trying to win approval for the five-point plan from Western partners, which have stopped short of publicly voicing their support for it so far.
“Regardless of what [Russian President Vladimir] Putin wants, we must all change the circumstances so that Russia is forced to peace,” he told parliament of the proposal that also includes military, political and economic elements.
Ukraine’s defence forces and weapons must be bolstered from Russian missile and drone attacks, he said, reiterating a call for his country’s allies to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of long-range arms on military targets in Russia.
Russia was quick to dismiss Zelenskyy’s proposal, calling it “some ephemeral peace plan”.
“The only peace plan there can be is for the Kyiv regime to realise the futility of the policy it is pursuing and understand the need to sober up,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.
The plan’s main elements also include a refusal to cede more Ukrainian territory, the continuation of the incursion into the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukraine launched a surprise incursion in August, and post-war reconstruction pledges.
Zelenskyy emphasised that the solution to end the more than two years of war since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 was not a frozen conflict and “not a trade-in Ukraine’s territory or sovereignty”.
He also criticised China, Iran and North Korea for supporting Russia, calling them a “coalition of criminals”.
The speech comes as Ukraine is suffering losses along the eastern front as Russian forces inch closer to a strategically significant victory of gaining Pokrovsk.
Ukraine is also struggling to replenish its forces with an unpopular mobilisation drive, limited ammunition stocks and Russian dominance in the skies.
Zelenskyy’s speech sought to persuade a public exhausted by the war that the fighting could be ended soon.
“We achieved and are achieving results in battles thanks to our unity. Therefore, please do not lose unity,” he said.
He subsequently posted on social media platform X that his plan “is a guarantee that the madmen in the Kremlin will lose the ability to continue the war”, calling it a “path to honest diplomacy”.
“But on this path, Ukraine must remain strong, united, and aware – aware that while Russia cannot let go of Ukraine, it must lose Ukraine.”
The plan was shared with US President Joe Biden, as well as presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump in September, along with allies such as the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Germany.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing for the removal of UN peacekeepers as Israel escalates its attacks in southern Lebanon.
Experts believe this is aimed at removing international observers who could keep a record of Israel’s actions on Lebanon.
About 10,000 members of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) are present in a territory stretching for more than 1,000 square kilometres (386 square miles) between Lebanon’s de facto southern border and the Litani River.
Israel has fired on several front-line UNIFIL positions since it launched a ground incursion into southern Lebanon in early October, claiming it aims to dismantle the infrastructure of Hezbollah, a Lebanese group that has been trading fire with the Israeli army in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
On Sunday, Netanyahu said that he demands that UN chief Antonio Guterres get UNIFIL troops out of “combat zones”, alleging that their presence was providing a “human shield” for Hezbollah.
But the UN says the mission – with members from 50 countries – is not going anywhere. “The UN flag continues to fly,” UN secretary-general spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said on Sunday.
A high-ranking diplomatic source, who requested anonymity, told Al Jazeera that UNIFIL’s mandate is part of the international order and removing it would give Israel “an easy win after its unacceptable behaviour”.
UNIFIL was set up by the UN in 1978, after the first Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon, to confirm the pullout of Israeli forces, maintain peace and assist the Lebanese government in restoring authority.
Israel invaded Lebanon again in 2006, and the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1701, expanding UNIFIL’s mandate to monitor the ceasefire and guarantee that no armed force other than the Lebanese army was present in the area – meaning no Hezbollah or Israeli fighters in the south.
UNIFIL was only ever meant to provide a framework for the Lebanese and Israelis to resolve their differences and facilitate the establishment of Lebanese army control south of the Litani River but that never happened, with both Hezbollah and Israel routinely violating the resolution and the army remaining on the sidelines.
The string of recent Israeli attacks, which UNIFIL said were intentional, has been widely condemned as a flagrant violation of international law.
Shane Darcy, senior lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, in the National University of Ireland Galway, said getting UNIFIL out of the way would make it impossible to monitor international law violations as Israel ramps up its attacks in southern Lebanon.
“The exclusion of outside observers, whether it is journalists or UN peacekeepers, seems a deliberate strategy to limit the scrutiny of Israeli forces at a time when they are most needed,” Darcy added.
This would be in line with a pattern of exclusion already seen in Gaza, where Israel has killed at least 175 journalists, according to the Palestinian media office in Gaza, and barred international reporters and UN human rights observers. In Lebanon, there have also been deadly Israeli attacks against journalists.
The International Court of Justice in May ordered Israel “to ensure the unimpeded access to the Gaza Strip of any commission of inquiry, fact-finding mission or other investigative body mandated by competent organs of the United Nations to investigate allegations of genocide”. Israel has not complied with this demand.
“There have already been appalling breaches of international humanitarian law and the risk of further atrocities can only increase when the eyes of the world are deliberately blocked,” Darcy said.
Israel has denied allegations that it deliberately harmed peacekeepers but the push for their removal comes as it keeps issuing forced evacuation threats to people in southern Lebanon – again similar to the warnings for people in Gaza to flee their homes or face bombardment.
According to a tally compiled by Al Jazeera, the Israeli army has over the past two weeks issued such orders for at least 233 villages – an area that the UN estimates covers a quarter of Lebanon’s territory.
“If they manage to get civilians to leave, including peacekeepers, they can stay for as long as they want till they get some deal they want,” said Rob Geist Pinfold, lecturer in international peace and security at Durham University.
That could be a political settlement that sees Hezbollah withdraw north of the Litani River, Pinfold added, noting that Israel views UNIFIL’s presence as an “impediment” to its advance.
Having UNIFIL in a live war zone means the peacekeepers could be hit by accident, which could result in significant pressure on Israel to constrain or end its military campaign, Pinfold said.
Richard Gowan, the UN director at the International Crisis Group, said Israel has long been “frustrated that UNIFIL has not stopped Hezbollah from establishing strong positions” south of the Litani River.
“I suspect that Israel will argue that UNIFIL should either be given a more robust mandate to tackle Hezbollah or, alternatively, a new non-UN-commanded force should deploy to secure southern Lebanon,” Gowan added.
Addressing reporters in New York on Monday, UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix rejected suggestions that UNIFIL was to blame for the non-implementation of Resolution 1701.
“[It] was never its mandate,” he said, clarifying that UNIFIL’s mandate has been “to support” the parties in the implementation of the resolution and not to enforce it.
“It is important in relation to our current decision to stay in the position because we all hope that there will be a return to the negotiating table and that there will be finally a real effort towards the full implementation of Resolution 1701,” Lacroix added.
In a statement on Monday, the UN Security Council expressed support for UNIFIL following the Israeli attacks and urged “all parties” to respect the safety and security of the mission.
Thousands of people gathered in Paris to protest the lack of action from French and European leaders against Israel during more than a year of genocide in Gaza. The demonstrators condemned France’s continued arms support to Israel.
The war in Ukraine, a conflict that continues to expand, has been devastating, with civilian casualties this summer reaching an all-time high since 2022.
Just how many people have been killed in the war since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022?
Here’s what we know:
Last month, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing intelligence and undisclosed sources, reported a grim milestone: about one million Ukrainians and Russians have been killed or wounded since the war began.
The majority of dead are soldiers on both sides, followed by Ukrainian civilians.
According to government figures, in the first half of 2024, three times as many people died in Ukraine as were born, the WSJ reported.
Experts have long warned of a bleak demographic future for Ukraine.
Population loss is one of the reasons why Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has refused to mobilise men aged 18-25, as most of them have not had children yet, according to Ukrainian officials. The eligible age range for Ukraine’s military is 25 to 60.
Statistics vary.
In June, Ukrainian officials said “Russian invaders” had killed more than 12,000 civilians, including 551 children.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reported in February that more than 10,200 civilians had been confirmed as killed, with nearly 20,000 injured.
The London-based Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) charity reported that 7,001 people had been killed in Ukraine as of September 23, with more than 20,000 civilians injured.
About 95 percent of civilian casualties occurred in populated areas, with the Donetsk region the most affected, AOAV said.
But these figures are the lowest estimates as the charity solely records “incident-specific casualty figures” reported in English-language media, it added.
Last month, the NRC reported that this summer Ukraine marked its highest three-month civilian casualty total since 2022.
More than 3,200 civilian casualties were recorded in Ukraine between June and August this year – a 33.7 percent increase compared with the same period last year, the NRC said.
The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) also documented a sharp increase in civilian deaths and injuries over the summer.
Attacks in government-controlled territory from August 26 to September 6 killed 64 civilians and injured 392 people, it said.
In August alone, 184 civilians were killed and 856 injured, the second-highest monthly casualty figure of the year after July, when at least 219 civilians were killed and 1,018 were injured.
Joachim Giaminardi, NRC’s advocacy manager in Ukraine, told Al Jazeera that the conflict has widened.
“We are seeing an expansion of the conflict, both geographically and in terms of the frequency and intensity of the attacks,” Giaminardi said. “The people who are paying the price are civilians.”
Danielle Bell, the head of HRMMU, said in a statement last month that “powerful missiles and bombs have struck populated areas, killing and injuring civilians across the country”.
“Targeted attacks on Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure have again triggered lengthy nationwide power cuts while recent attacks have destroyed or damaged hospitals, schools, supermarkets, and critical energy infrastructure.”
Yes, but Russia has suffered far fewer civilian deaths than Ukraine.
Russian civilians have been killed in border areas amid fighting.
Moscow has not released an official overall casualty toll.
Media outlets, some linked to the state, occasionally report on civilian deaths.
Last August, The Moscow Times, citing independent news website 7×7, said 80 civilians had been killed since the invasion began.
Two months ago, the Kremlin-aligned outlet TASS reported that 31 people had been killed during Ukraine’s surprise incursion into Kursk.
The death toll is impossible to verify. More on that later. Let’s start with what has been reported.
More than 71,000 Russian soldiers have been identified and confirmed to have been killed in Ukraine, according to a late-September report by the independent Russian media outlet Mediazona.
Using open source research, Mediazona has been documenting the names of Russian soldiers killed, verifying the information through obituaries, posts by relatives, statements from local authorities and other public reports.
Leaked US documents suggest that more Russian soldiers have been killed than previously estimated.
In July, The Economist reported that between 462,000 and 728,000 Russian soldiers had been killed, injured or captured by mid-June, citing documents by the US Department of Defense.
“Russia’s losses in Ukraine since 2022 dwarf the number of casualties from all its wars since the second world war combined,” The Economist reported, referring to wars in Chechnya, Afghanistan and Ukraine from 2014 until February 2022.
According to Ukraine’s General Staff, as of October 1, more than 654,000 Russian personnel have died.
As for Ukrainian troops, the Russian Ministry of Defence estimates that Kyiv has lost almost half a million men, according to a report published last month by the RT news website.
However, according to Western estimates, some 80,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since February 2022.
In June, Russian President Vladimir Putin told reporters that Ukrainian losses are five times higher than Russia’s, with Kyiv losing at least 50,000 service personnel a month.
Both Russia and Ukraine face manpower woes.
A Ukrainian platoon commander cited by the Reuters news agency estimated that only 60-70 percent of the several thousand men in the brigade at the start of the war were still serving. The rest had been killed, wounded or signed off due to old age or illness.
Marina Miron, a researcher at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that governments do not publicly report on their casualties to avoid giving the enemy information on how effective their operations have been.
During World War II, for instance, each side underreported their casualties by half and exaggerated enemy casualties by two to three times, she said.
A death is confirmed only once the body has been found, and the concerned defence ministry thereby sends a death notification to the family. But many bodies have not been recovered and are categorised as MIA (missing in action). They could be an army deserter or could have been taken prisoner, Miron said.
If a government does not officially accept a soldier as dead, it manages to evade the obligation to pay the families of the deceased, which has become a problem in Russia and Ukraine, she added.
Casualties among non-state actors, like Russia’s Wagner Group, are not included in available statistics.
Miron told Al Jazeera that she does not see the war as sustainable for Ukraine, which faces numerous problems: a shortage of troops, a struggling economy, and its dependence on Western aid.
“Ukraine does not have an actual strategy, neither does NATO,” she said.
While the Russians operate their equipment, Ukraine does not have enough troops who know how to operate Western weapons systems; training them is time-consuming. Training 20 pilots to operate F-16 fighters took more than a year, she said.
“Russia will have enough resources to go on for a couple [of] years more. Ukraine does not have that time, neither does NATO because NATO itself is facing shortages in air defence systems,” Miron said, adding that Ukraine is not a priority for policymakers as the Middle East crisis worsens.
With Ukraine’s counteroffensive lagging, officials are searching for a diplomatic solution to end the war, one that would include Russia.