After 12 days of intense strikes between Israel and Iran – punctuated by the United States’ bombing of Iranian nuclear sites over the weekend and Tehran’s performative retaliation – a US-brokered ceasefire appeared to be holding on Tuesday.

But in Gaza, Israel’s offensive has shown no signs of abating, with Israeli fire killing hundreds of people there since the Iran-Israel conflict began. As Iran dominates headlines, the Palestinians and hostage families caught up in the region’s longest war have slipped from the front pages, largely forgotten amid the devastating blows between two of the Middle East’s most powerful countries.

On Tuesday, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum called for the ceasefire between Israel and Iran to be expanded to include Gaza.

“Those who can achieve a ceasefire with Iran can also end the war in Gaza,” said the group, which advocates for the return of the hostages held by Hamas. Fifty hostages remain in captivity in the enclave, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive, according to the Israeli government.

“To conclude this decisive operation against Iran without leveraging our success to bring home all the hostages would be a grave failure,” the forum said, adding that there was now a “critical window of opportunity.”

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid echoed those sentiments, writing in a post on X: “And now Gaza. This is the moment to close that front as well. To bring the hostages home, to end the war. Israel needs to start rebuilding.”

Qatar, which has been a lead mediator in ceasefire and hostage release talks between Israel and Hamas, said Tuesday that it is hoping for indirect talks to resume in the next two days. The Qatari prime minister said talks were “ongoing,” adding that Qatar and Egypt are in touch with both sides to try to find a “middle ground” regarding the latest US-conceived truce on the table.

It calls for the release of 10 Israeli hostages and the bodies of a further 18 Israelis taken in the October 7, 2023, attacks as part of a 60-day ceasefire. Earlier this month, Hamas said it had not rejected the proposal but required stronger guarantees around the end of the war.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told reporters that “there is no doubt that our major achievements in Iran also contribute to our goals in Gaza.”

Iran has provided financial and military backing for Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the enclave.

Hamas has said that it is open to a truce but is not willing to lay down its arms.

For Gaza’s 2.1 million residents, there has been no respite from over 20 months of death, violence and desperation.

More than 55,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, of which more than 17,000 are children.

Meanwhile, the United Nations has repeatedly warned that a man-made famine is becoming increasingly likely in the territory.

Attacks on civilians attempting to access food supplies are escalating, with more than 500 people killed by the Israeli military while seeking aid since May 27, according to the health ministry.

In a Tuesday statement, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) called Israel’s actions “a likely war crime.”

Philippe Lazzarini, executive director of UNRWA, the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, underlined the fears of Palestinians and many supporting humanitarian organizations about their plight.

“Atrocities continue in Gaza while global attention shifts elsewhere,” he said.

Russia killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians in less than 48 hours on Monday and Tuesday, according to Ukrainian officials, two of the deadliest days in many months.

A five-year-old boy and an 11-year-old girl were among the victims of the Russian attacks, launched just as Ukraine’s allies began gathering for a key NATO meeting in the Netherlands.

Ukrainian officials said 15 people were killed in Dnipro on Tuesday after a Russian ballistic missile hit the city, the largest in the country’s south-east, while 9 people were killed in a strike on a Kyiv apartment building on Monday.

At least two dozen others were killed in strikes across the country, including in Sumy, Kherson, Donetsk and Odesa regions.

In Dnipro, local officials said the missile caused damage unlike any previous attacks on the city.

Mayor Borys Filatov said almost 50 buildings were damaged, including schools, medical facilities, municipal sites and residential buildings.

“This is an unprecedented amount of destruction that the city has never seen before in the entire time of the full-scale war. The number of victims is so high that even ambulances cannot keep up,” he added.

More than 170 people were injured, according to authorities, with around 100 remaining in city hospitals as of Tuesday evening.

A passenger train carrying some 500 people was also damaged in the strike.

“In residential buildings and various municipal facilities throughout the city, we have over 2,000 shattered windows alone,” he said.

Zelensky highlights Russia’s ties to Iran

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was in The Hague for the NATO summit on Tuesday, meeting several European leaders on its sidelines before addressing the Dutch parliament.

Ukraine is not a member of NATO and, while it wants to join, the issue of its potential future membership remains contentious. Russia has tried to prevent Ukraine from ever being able to join the alliance, with Moscow arguing that NATO’s eastward expansion following the end of the Cold War has posed threats to its security.

Zelensky met NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, President of the European Council Antonia Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, all of whom have reiterated their support for Ukraine.

He was hoping to meet US President Donald Trump later on Tuesday, according to Ukrainian officials.

The two were scheduled to meet at the G7 summit in Canada earlier this month, but that meeting did not happen as Trump left the summit earlier than expected because of the Iran-Israel conflict.

As the world turned its attention to the Middle East, Zelensky was keen to highlight the connection between Iran and Russia.

Iran has been among Russia’s strongest backers since President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The Iranian regime has supplied Moscow with weapons, including short-range ballistic missiles and thousands of Shahed drones; according to US officials, it has also built a drone factory in Russia.

Moscow has in turn stood by Iran during the recent conflict with Israel and after the US strikes against Iranian nuclear sites on Sunday.

Russia has intensified its aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities in recent weeks, after successfully scaling up its domestic production of its most frequently used type of drone – the Iran-designed Shahed.

Zelensky said on Tuesday that Russia has launched 28,743 Shahed drones against Ukraine since 2022, with 2,736 fired by so far this month.

“Russia could never have done this without its ties to the Iranian regime,” he said.

The Ukrainian leader told reporters at the summit that there were no signs Putin wanted to stop his war against Ukraine.

“Russia rejects all peace proposals, including those from the United States of America. Putin only thinks about war. That’s a fact. Maybe he connects his own political survival with his ability to keep killing, so long as he kills, he lives,” Zelensky said.

Talks between Russia, Ukraine and third countries have mostly stalled after Moscow refused to back off its maximalist demands and presented a ceasefire proposal that would essentially amount to Ukraine’s capitulation.

Speaking on the sidelines of the summit, British Defense Secretary John Healy said that while “all eyes have been on the Middle East,” it was crucial not to forget about Ukraine.

“Putin wants our focus to slip, and part of the strong message from NATO is that we will not let that happen, and this session is an important part of that,” he said.

Zelensky was in London on Monday, where he met British Prime Minister Keir Starmer as well as King Charles III.

Kyiv officials said the attack on the apartment building on Monday killed multiple members of several families.

Lusy Alekseenkova, a journalist with a Ukrainian TV channel, said her brother, his wife and her sister-in-law’s father were killed in the attack on Kyiv, with her 16-year-old nephew the sole survivor.

The same strike left a mother and her 11-year-old daughter dead, Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv Military Administration, said on Telegram, adding that it took many hours to recover the little girl’s body.

It was around 1.30 a.m., after the crowds had thinned from the streets of Bordeaux, when Manon felt the prick of a hypodermic needle going into her arm.

Despite not knowing what she had been injected with – or who had done it – she said she “didn’t want to panic.”

Manon, 22, was one of nearly 150 people in France who reported being pricked with syringes during a nationwide street music festival at the weekend. According to the interior ministry, it remains unclear if date-rape drugs such as Rohypnol or GHB were used in the “needle spiking” attacks, which took place across the country and appear to have involved multiple perpetrators.

Ahead of the festival, which drew crowds of millions of people to the streets, a feminist influencer had warned that calls had been made on social media for women to be targeted with syringes.

After spending 4 a.m. to 7.a.m on Sunday in the emergency room, Manon shared a video of her experience on TikTok.

“It was important for me to raise awareness, because I hadn’t seen any testimonies from people who had been injected,” said Manon, who declined to give her last name for safety reasons.

“We had been told on social media to be careful, but I think people want to know more – how it happens, the symptoms, how it unfolds. It reassured me to talk about it, because at the time, I was completely alone.”

After she got home from the hospital, Manon filed a police report. “It’s important because if we’re too lax, if we say, ‘oh, others will file complaints’, nothing ever changes. I told myself maybe it can have an impact.”

Since Saturday, French police have detained 14 men – aged between 19 and 44 and including both French citizens and foreign nationals, police spokeswoman Agathe Foucault told Radio France Tuesday – but have made no arrests in connection with the needle spikings.

The minister said authorities would also pursue those who had called for the attacks online.

“We are implementing a criminal policy to prosecute those responsible on social media for these very unhealthy injection games targeting women,” Darmanin said.

“When people start saying that there will be needle attacks, it spreads in the form of rumor –– some people mention it in group chats, others pick it up, it just gets amplified,” she said, adding, “We need to help women feel safer.”

Manon, who faces a wait of three weeks for her toxicology results, said she had “barely slept the last few days” – but she refuses to be cowed by her experience.

“The Fête de la Musique is meant to be a time of good vibes, music, dancing, having fun. Someone wanted to ruin that moment, to kill that spirit. I told myself I wasn’t going to let it defeat me. I don’t want to be sad or angry. I don’t want to let them win.”

A young Brazilian hiker who fell hundreds of meters from the ridge of a towering Indonesian volcano and was trapped there for almost four days was found dead on Tuesday, Brazil’s government said. For days, millions of people in Brazil had watched, posted and prayed as rescuers tried to locate her.

The tourist, 26-year-old Juliana Marins, began summiting on June 21 Mount Rinjani, an active 3,726-meter (12,224-foot) volcano on the Indonesian island of Lombok, with a guide and five other foreigners when she fell some 600 meters (1,968 feet), Indonesian authorities said.

“No signs of life were found,” said Mohammad Syafii, head of Indonesia’s National Search and Rescue Agency.

Marins’ family in Brazil confirmed her death.

The Indonesian rescue team said it found Marins’ body beside a crater using a thermal drone after four days of intensive searches complicated by extremely harsh terrain and weather.

The difficult conditions and limited visibility delayed the evacuation process, Syafii said, as the rescue team climbed carrying Marins’ body to Sembalun basecamp but would have to wait until Wednesday for transport to a police hospital.

Brazil’s Foreign Ministry called her death a tragedy and said that the country’s embassy in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, had coordinated the rescue with local authorities.

Marins’ ordeal has riveted her home country, Brazil, with millions following the dramatic search-and-rescue efforts since news broke of her fall.

Authorities did not say when exactly she died.

Adding to the frenzy in Brazil over her ordeal, Brazil’s embassy in Jakarta had accused the Indonesian government of fabricating Marins’ rescue and misinforming her family that she had been located and given food and water just hours after her fall.

There was no immediate response from the Indonesian government on that claim.

Indonesia’s island of Lombok lies east of Jakarta and neighbors the island of Bali. Mount Rinjani, the country’s second-tallest peak, is a popular destination for trekkers.

In an Instagram post, Marins’ family thanked the many Brazilians who had prayed for their daughter’s safety.

Marins, a dancer who lived in Niteroi, outside Rio de Janeiro, had been traveling across Asia since February, her family said. She had visited the Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand before reaching Indonesia.

The United Kingdom is to purchase 12 F-35A jets, which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, from the United States.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will make the announcement during Wednesday’s NATO summit, as he calls on NATO members to do more to support the alliance.

“The UK’s commitment to NATO is unquestionable, as is the alliance’s contribution to keeping the UK safe and secure,” Starmer will say, according to Downing Street.

“But we must all step up to protect the Euro-Atlantic area for generations to come.”

The announcement follows repeated criticisms by US President Donald Trump that NATO countries are not spending enough on defense.

The fifth-generation fighter aircraft, built primarily by US manufacturer Lockheed Martin, is one of the most advanced fighter jets on the planet – but it is also one of the most expensive.

The decision to acquire aircraft with the capacity to carry nuclear weapons also represents a major strengthening of Britain’s nuclear posture.

It means that in addition of UK’s existing sea-borne nuclear deterrent, the country will also now join NATO’s dual capable aircraft nuclear mission.

“In an era of radical uncertainty we can no longer take peace for granted,” Starmer will say.

According to the British government, the decision will support 20,000 jobs in the F35 program in the UK, with 15% of the global supply chain for the jets based in Britain.

A Venezuelan influencer who criticized both gangs and allegedly corrupt cops was shot and killed on Monday while livestreaming on TikTok, authorities said.

Venezuela’s Ministry of Public Safety said in a statement on Instagram that influencer Gabriel Jesús Sarmiento died in the city of Maracay.

Sarmiento often criticized criminal groups and alleged corruption in law enforcement through his content online, and the ministry added that his death came shortly after he reported “threats made against him by members of the GEDOs (Organized Crime Structured Groups, in Spanish) and alleged police officials.”

Maracay is the capital of Aragua, the region from which the notorious Tren de Aragua gang takes its name, though there is no known connection between the TikToker’s death and the criminal group.

The ministry also said it assigned the 69th Prosecutor’s Office Against Organized Crime to “investigate, identify, and prosecute” those responsible for Sarmiento’s death.

“What happened, what happened?” shouts the man in the recording, followed by a heavy burst of gunfire.

“They shot me!” the man then screams. The video ends with the image of two unidentified armed men. Seconds later, the livestream stops and the video ends.

Sarmiento’s death comes just over a month after another Latin American influencer was killed while livestreaming. Mexican beauty influencer Valeria Marquez was shot and killed in a salon in Jalisco in May, sparking outrage over high rates of femicide in the region.

Just days before Marquez’s death, another woman – a mayoral candidate in the state of Veracruz – was shot dead, also during a livestream, alongside three other people.

Canada believes US President Donald Trump is no longer interested in turning it into the 51st state, Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday.

“He admires Canada,” Carney told Amanpour. “I think it’s fair to say, maybe for a period of time (he) coveted Canada.”

Carney has frequently pronounced the old, close partnership between Canada and the United States as “over.” He began his term by courting European partners in the United Kingdom and France, and even collaborating with Australia on new radar systems for the Canadian Arctic.

Still, Carney credited Trump for pushing Canada toward higher defense spending, especially meeting the defense spending benchmark for NATO members.

“The president is focused on changing a series of bilateral relations,” Carney told Amanpour. “We’re at NATO. He’s been focused on making sure that all members, Canada included … pay their fair share. I think we’re doing that now.”

Trump now has the “potential to be decisive” in the situation in the Middle East, Carney also told Amanpour. While a broader peace in the region is the ultimate goal, he added, the current priority should be getting “the basics”: a ceasefire, a full resumption of humanitarian aid and the release of all hostages held in the strip.

“He’s used his influence and US power in other situations. We’ve just seen it in Iran. It does create possibility of moving forward and there’s a moral imperative to move forward,” Carney added.

The Canadian leader also credited Iran for its “proportionate” response to the US having bombed three nuclear sites: a highly telegraphed strike on a regional US military base, which was largely intercepted.

“The military action was also a diplomatic move by Iran. We never welcome, obviously, hostilities and reactions, but it was proportionate, it was de-escalatory, it appears to have been previewed,” Carney said.