An investigation into the failings of the Israeli military in the lead-up to the devastating Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, has highlighted gaps in intelligence gathering, flawed assumptions about Hamas, and “systemic” failures in the Israel Defense Force’s preparedness and response.

The 19-page report released Thursday by the IDF said there were gaps in the Intelligence Directorate’s understanding of “Hamas’ strategic goals, decision-making processes,” and operational plans that contributed to its failure to stop the biggest terrorist attack in the country’s history, when gunmen killed more than 1,200 people and took more than 250 hostage.

Despite having relevant information, the intelligence community failed to recognize Hamas’ shift from a “determined,” and “pragmatic” group to one actively planning a large-scale offensive, it said.

The report said that as early as 2016, Hamas had begun preparing for “a large-scale attack” aimed at breaching the Gaza border, “occupying Israeli territory,” and causing mass casualties.

It identified several instances where intelligence indicators, such as Hamas’ “training exercises” and operational plans, were “misinterpreted” or dismissed as “unrealistic.”

These indicators, had they been properly analyzed, could have revealed Hamas’ intentions, the report said.

Hamas had deliberately created “a false perception of seeking quiet,” while accelerating its military buildup, the report said, adding that by May 2023 the militant group had decided to carry out an attack during a Jewish holiday that would aim “to shatter Israel’s sense of security” and potentially escalate “into an all-out war aimed at destroying Israel.”

When the attack happened, the IDF was “caught off guard” by its scale and intensity and its Gaza Division, responsible for defending the border, was overrun “within hours,” leading to a collapse in command and control.

The IDF’s response was hampered by a lack of “situational awareness,” delayed force mobilization, and insufficient deployment of troops and firepower, found the inquiry, which added that the IDF’s readiness levels were “inadequate” for the scale of the attack.

Israel’s military chief of staff Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi – who has said he will resign in March over the failure to prevent the attack – addressed the findings in a televised speech, acknowledging the military’s failures and taking responsibility for the lapses.

“This is our learning process. I have received letters and responses, even from people here, saying ‘You…’ and I have no problem with that. I embrace it. My responsibility is mine,” Halevi said.

“I was the commander of the military on October 7, and I have my own responsibility. I also carry the weight of all your responsibility – that, too, I see as mine. And when I see any of my subordinates who made mistakes, I see my own share in it as well,” he added.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s chief of staff Tzachi Braverman said earlier on Thursday that Netanyahu had yet to receive the investigation.

Earlier this month, the American president proposed expelling 2.1 million Palestinians from Gaza and transforming the enclave into a “riviera” that would be owned by the United States, a plan that triggered outrage across the Middle East and firm rejections by regional leaders.

Arab leaders are expected to gather for a wider summit in Cairo on March 4 where a “road map” for Gaza and the conflict is expected to be issued. Arab top diplomats are then expected to travel to the US capital in the following weeks to deliver the proposal to the Trump administration, the sources said.

Arab officials want to make sure it is “a solid plan” before presenting it to Trump, one of the sources said.

In addition to laying out a plan for rebuilding the devastated strip without displacing the population, the Arab counterproposal would also address key issues such as governing Gaza after the war, reforming the Palestinian Authority and the deployment of either peacekeeping or peace enforcing forces inside the strip, the sources said.

It’s unclear who the peacekeeping force would be comprised of.

Last week, Arab leaders held a rare “informal” meeting in the Saudi capital Riyadh to discuss the plan – a gathering that the sources said was “significant” and at which there was “a unified stance.”

Jordan and Egypt – two countries that Trump said were candidates for receiving the Palestinians – reject any displacement and consider it a matter of national security.

“Our position is firm and clear and we won’t accept any threat to our national security,” one official said, describing it as a “red line” for Jordan.

For months, officials in Jordan have warned against attempts to displace Palestinians to the country. The Jordanian foreign minister said in September last year after an Israeli escalation in the West Bank that any attempt to displace Palestinians there to Jordan would be considered a “declaration of war.”

Jordanian officials are also concerned about an explosion in violence in the West Bank and Jerusalem during the Holy Month of Ramadan, which is expected to start on Friday or Saturday.

Egyptian Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouly claimed last week that his country could fully rebuild Gaza in three years to a state that is “better than it was before,” without saying how he planned to achieve that. If a permanent ceasefire is reached in Gaza in the coming months, that would mean the vision could be completed before the end of Trump’s presidential term.

The World Bank, the European Union and the United Nations said in a joint statement last week that, according to their estimates, just the return of essential services including health and education, as well as the clearing of rubble, would take three years. The full rebuilding of the devastated enclave would need 10 years and cost more than $50 billion, with housing alone estimated to cost $15 billion. The Egyptian prime minister said that his country’s plan takes those assessments into consideration.

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia (AP) — Two men in Indonesia’s conservative Aceh province were publicly caned Thursday after an Islamic Shariah court convicted them for having sex with each other.

Dozens of people witnessed the caning at a hall in Banda Aceh’s Bustanussalatin city park. It’s the fourth time that Aceh, the only province in Indonesia to practice Shariah law, has caned people for homosexuality since the Islamic law was implemented in 2006 as a concession made by the government to end a long-running separatist rebellion.

The men, aged 24 and 18, were whipped across the back dozens of times by a team of five enforcers wearing robes and hoods. They were given a break to drink after 20 strokes and their wounds were treated.

The men were arrested in November after residents suspected them of being gay and broke into their rented room, where they were caught naked and hugging each other, and took them to Sharia police.

A Shariah court on Monday sentenced the two college students to receive 85 and 80 strokes respectively, but they were caned 82 and 77 times after a remission for time spent in prison. One of the men had to be carried because he was too weak to move after the last lash.

Two other people were also sentenced to 34 and 8 strokes each for gambling.

Indonesia’s secular central government granted Aceh the right to implement Islamic Shariah law in 2006 as part of a peace deal to end a decades-long separatist war. A religious police and court system have been established, and the law was a significant strengthening of Shariah in the region.

Aceh implemented an expansion of Islamic bylaws and criminal code in 2015 that extended Shariah law to the province’s non-Muslims, who account for about 1% of the population. The region allows up to 100 lashes for morality offenses including gay sex and sex between unmarried people.

Caning is also a punishment in Aceh for gambling, drinking alcohol, women who wear tight clothes and men who skip Friday prayers.

Human rights groups have criticized the law, saying it violates international treaties signed by Indonesia protecting the rights of minorities.

Indonesia’s national criminal code doesn’t regulate homosexuality, and the central government doesn’t have the power to strike down Shariah law in Aceh. However, an earlier version of the law that called for people to be stoned to death for adultery was dropped because of pressure from the central government.

Mexico has extradited notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero and 28 other fugitive cartel members to the United States, according to the US Department of Justice.

Caro Quintero, considered by Mexican authorities to be the founder of the Guadalajara cartel, was allegedly involved in the kidnapping, torture and murder of Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Enrique Camarena Salazar in 1985.

The DEA says Salazar’s murder was in retaliation for a raid in 1984 of Caro Quintero’s 2,500-acre marijuana farm by Mexican authorities.

Caro Quintero spent 28 years in prison in Mexico for his role in the murder before he was released on a technicality in 2013. The Mexican Supreme Court later overturned the decision that freed him.

The fugitive returned to drug trafficking as a senior leader of the Sinaloa cartel, according to the FBI.

In July 2022, Caro Quintero was captured by the Mexican Navy during an operation that resulted in the deaths of 14 Marines in a helicopter crash. He was caught after a navy dog found him hiding in bushes.

“Caro Quintero, a cartel kingpin who unleashed violence, destruction, and death across the United States and Mexico, has spent four decades atop DEA’s most wanted fugitives list, and today we can proudly say he has arrived in the United States where justice will be served,” DEA Acting Administrator Derek S. Maltz said Thursday.

“This moment is extremely personal for the men and women of DEA who believe Caro Quintero is responsible for the brutal torture and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena. It is also a victory for the Camarena family. Today sends a message to every cartel leader, every trafficker, every criminal poisoning our communities: You will be held accountable. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far you run, justice will find you.”

Quintero is expected to appear in court in New York on Friday.

Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office and the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection said 29 people who were held in different correctional facilities across the country were transferred to the US.

They were wanted for their connections to criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, among other crimes.

The US Department of Justice said that those taken into custody Thursday include “leaders and managers of drug cartels recently designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists, such as the Sinaloa Cartel, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), Cártel del Noreste (formerly Los Zetas), La Nueva Familia Michoacana, and Cártel de Golfo (Gulf Cartel).”

It added that among the 29 were Martin Sotelo – also known as Alder Marin-Sotelo – who allegedly participated in the 2022 murder of Deputy Sheriff Ned Byrd in Charlotte, North Carolina; Antonio Oseguera Cervantes, who allegedly helped lead CJNG; and two alleged high-ranking members of Los Zetas, Ramiro Perez Moreno and Lucio Hernandez Lechuga.

“These defendants are collectively alleged to have been responsible for the importation into the United States of massive quantities of poison, including cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heroin, as well as associated acts of violence,” the DOJ statement added.

US Attorney General Pam Bondi said the alleged cartel members would be prosecuted “to the fullest extent of the law in honor of the brave law enforcement agents who have dedicated their careers — and in some cases, given their lives — to protect innocent people from the scourge of violent cartels.”

“As President (Donald) Trump has made clear, cartels are terrorist groups, and this Department of Justice is devoted to destroying cartels and transnational gangs,” she said.

Acting deputy attorney general Emil Bove said the extraditions were “a consequence of a White House that negotiates from a position of strength, and an Attorney General who is willing to lead the Department with courage and ferocity.”

Mexico has extradited notorious drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero and 28 other fugitive cartel members to the United States, according to the US Department of Justice (DOJ). He is accused of kidnapping and conspiring to murder a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent in 1985.

Caro Quintero, who is considered by Mexican authorities to be the founder of the Guadalajara cartel, was allegedly involved in the kidnapping, torture and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique Camarena Salazar in 1985.

The DEA says that his murder was in retaliation for a raid in 1984 of Caro Quintero’s 2,500-acre marijuana farm by Mexican authorities.

Caro Quintero spent 28 years in prison in Mexico for his role in the murder before he was released on a technicality in 2013. The Mexican Supreme Court later overturned the decision that freed him.

The fugitive returned to drug trafficking as a senior leader of the Sinaloa cartel, according to the FBI.

In July 2022 Caro Quintero was captured by the Mexican Navy in an operation that ended with 14 Marines dying in a Black Hawk helicopter crash. He was caught after a navy dog found him hiding in the bushes.

“Caro Quintero, a cartel kingpin who unleashed violence, destruction, and death across the United States and Mexico, has spent four decades atop DEA’s most wanted fugitives list, and today we can proudly say he has arrived in the United States where justice will be served,” DEA Acting Administrator Derek S. Maltz said Thursday.

“This moment is extremely personal for the men and women of DEA who believe Caro Quintero is responsible for the brutal torture and murder of DEA Special Agent Enrique ‘Kiki’ Camarena. It is also a victory for the Camarena family. Today sends a message to every cartel leader, every trafficker, every criminal poisoning our communities: You will be held accountable. No matter how long it takes, no matter how far you run, justice will find you,” Maltz added.

Mexico’s Attorney General’s Office and the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection said 29 people who were held in different correctional facilities across the country were transferred to the US.

They were wanted for their connections to criminal organizations involved in drug trafficking, among other crimes.

The US Department of Justice said that those taken into custody Thursday include “leaders and managers of drug cartels recently designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists, such as the Sinaloa Cartel, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación (CJNG), Cártel del Noreste (formerly Los Zetas), La Nueva Familia Michoacana, and Cártel de Golfo (Gulf Cartel).”

“These defendants are collectively alleged to have been responsible for the importation into the United States of massive quantities of poison, including cocaine, methamphetamine, fentanyl, and heroin, as well as associated acts of violence,” the DOJ statement added.

The Hungarian government is clamping down on the country’s annual Budapest Pride parade, which has been running for almost 30 years, saying that it should not “dominate public spaces” – citing what it claims are “child protection” issues.

Gergely Gulyas, the chief of staff for Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, made the remarks at a government information session Thursday, according to a statement released by the Prime Minister’s International Communications Office.

While Gulyas did not spell out what the clampdown would involve, he also announced changes to the country’s constitution, which will include amending the definition of gender to be “biologically male or female,” and enshrining in law “that a child’s right to physical, mental, and moral development takes precedence over all other considerations.”

On Wednesday, Reuters reported that Gulyas said the Pride should be held in a “closed venue” this year rather than processing along an avenue in central Budapest as in previous years.

“This is autocracy laid bare,” Ghoshal said. “Claims regarding child protection are pure lies, aimed at manipulating the public into accepting the relinquishing of human rights for all.”

“Queer, trans, and intersex children exist – and experience extreme violence and discrimination,” she continued. “If Orban is acting on behalf of Hungary’s children, he can’t pick and choose. The best way to ensure children’s healthy development is to acknowledge science, listen to children, and strive to truly leave no one behind”

Orban’s government has long cited child safety as a reason for undermining LGBTQ+ rights in the country. In 2020, Budapest effectively barred same-sex adoption, with Orban’s office saying at the time that the move strengthened “the protection of Hungarian families and the safety of our children.”

A year later, the country banned the distribution of content related to gender change or homosexuality to under 18s. The European Commission said at the time that the law violated “a number of EU rules,” as well as “human dignity, freedom of expression and information.”

In 2022, the commission referred Hungary to the EU’s Court of Justice for the ban, which it said “discriminates against people on the basis of their sexual orientation and gender identity.”

At Orban’s State of the Nation address on Saturday, he said that Hungary “must not yield – we must not give up on protecting our children.”

“I advise the Pride organizers that they should not bother preparing for this year’s parade. It would be a waste of time and money,” he said.

The same day, Budapest Pride said in a statement that it is already organizing its 30th pride march, which will be held in June. The march’s organizers said that “attacks” on the LGBTQ+ community by those in power are “nothing more than political theater – the ruling party is using the LGBTQ community for its own gain.”

Karácsony will attend a pre-planned meeting with the organizers of Budapest Pride on Friday, the press office said. Though it was originally meant to discuss operations, the meeting has now “taken on a new meaning in the current situation, following the Hungarian Government’s campaign against Pride,” it added.

The slogan of this year’s march will be “We are home,” the organizers said, adding that there have been “countless” attempts to ban the march over the years, which have all failed.

“In the end, Pride is a demonstration, whether with twenty people or tens of thousands, but it will happen,” the statement said. “We’re not just fighting for the Budapest Pride March or the LGBTQ community – we’re fighting for the right of all Hungarians to protest, speak their minds, and stand up for themselves.”

South Korean police said Friday they are summoning a Japanese woman for questioning over allegedly kissing Jin, a member of the K-pop supergroup BTS, without consent during a free hug event last year.

A police officer who answered the phone at Seoul’s Songpa police station said it requested the woman to appear for questioning over an allegation of sexual harassment. The police station refused to disclose her identity citing privacy.

The station said it had launched an investigation after receiving an online complaint and refused to provide further details because an investigation was under way.

Media reports said that South Korean police were able to confirm the identity of the woman with the help of Japanese police. The reports said the woman, who is in her 50s, was refusing to appear for questioning.

A day after finishing his mandatory 18-month military service in June 2024, Jin, whose real name is Kim Seok-jin, celebrated his discharge and the band’s 11-year anniversary by offering free hugs to his fans at an event in Seoul. During the event, reportedly attended by 1,000 people, a woman abruptly kissed Jin, on his cheek. Video footage that went viral showed Jin apparently looking uncomfortable.

The woman wrote in an online blog post that “My lips touched his neck. His skin was so soft,” according to Yonhap news agency.

BTS was created in 2013 and has a legion of global supporters who call themselves the “Army.” Jin, 32, is the oldest member of the band.

Réunion island issued its highest level of threat warning as the French Indian Ocean territory braced for a direct hit by a cyclone packing gusts likely to exceed 200 kilometers per hour (124 miles per hour).

The heart of Tropical Cyclone Garance – with strength the equivalent of a Category 3 Atlantic hurricane – is “very likely” to directly impact the western portion of the mountainous island on Friday morning local time, France’s meteorology agency said.

“On the rest of the island, cyclonic conditions are becoming widespread with gusts of over 150 kph (93 mph) and rapid variations in both direction and strength depending on the sector,” according to Météo-France.

Garance is expected to be the strongest storm to impact the territory of just under 900,000 people since Cyclone Bejisa in January 2014.

Authorities on the island issued a purple cyclone warning, their highest level, as winds are expected across much of the territory, likely knocking down power lines and destroying property.

Rainfall exceeding 200 millimeters (7.8 inches) is also likely to impact much of the island, which could lead to flash flooding.

Réunion lies about 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) to the southeast of Mayotte, another French territory off the east coast of Africa, which suffered destruction likened to an atomic bomb after Cyclone Chido ripped through the archipelago in December, flattening entire neighborhoods and killing at least 31 people.

The government of French President Emmanuel Macron came under heavy fire for its handling of the cyclone – the strongest storm to hit the area in more than 90 years.

Macron faced jeers from locals as he visited the poverty-stricken territory in the storm’s aftermath, but told them they should be “happy to be in France, because if it wasn’t France you’d be 10,000 times even more in the s***.”

The extractor’s part-rusting mechanical arm winds out over the frozen ground, over a sprawling lunar landscape of unnatural colors. The mining of titanium has a greater urgency than ever, here in Irshansk.

The electricity that powers the vast machines is only sometimes on for three hours a day. But resources like titanium are potentially key to the moonshot rare earth minerals deal that is suddenly the focus of talking peace in Ukraine. The deal’s signatories, the United States and Ukraine, appear to have opposing interpretations of its terms, which leave many thorny details for a later discussion.

Some current and former US officials have cast doubt on President Donald Trump’s claim that the potential deal he is on the verge of signing with Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky would offer the US easy access to a plethora of rare earth minerals.

Much of what does exist will be difficult to exploit, particularly at a time of war.

And from this beleaguered mine in the northwestern town of Irshansk, it is hard to see how Ukraine could, in this lifetime, get to the half a trillion dollars Trump has suggested they might repay.

“Now we don’t know what and how our work will go on even tomorrow”, said Dmytro Holik, director of mining and concentrating plant at Ukrainian conglomerate Group DF.

“Every day we see how Ukraine’s energy system is being destroyed. Every day, entire regions are cut off in an emergency,” he added, a reference to the waves of drones and missiles Russia pounds Ukrainian homes and energy infrastructure with each night.

The plant’s staff are mostly men, kept away from conscription as titanium is considered a critical industry. Profits are low, prospects dim. “Our enterprise is now very unstable, and this leads to a very high cost of our products,” Holik said.

The proposed minerals bonanza now at the heart of continued US aid to Ukraine in the largest war in Europe since the 1940s, seems to speak to a fantastical future world of prosperity.

Trump on Thursday held out the possibility of American personnel in Ukraine working to extract minerals once a mineral resources deal – and peace – was in effect.

“When you talk about economic development, we’re going to have a lot of people over there,” he said. “So we’ll be working in the country. So I just don’t think you’re going to have a problem.”

Opaque deal

It refers to half the value of “relevant Ukrainian Government-owned natural resource assets,” but says the specific details will be “agreed by both Participants, as may be further described in the Fund Agreement.” The deal goes on to say these won’t include “current sources of revenues… already part of the budget revenues of Ukraine.”

The extent of Ukraine’s mineral wealth is unclear.

Ukrainian officials accept they sometimes rely on Soviet-era geological dating. Yet in a recent presentation by the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources, Kyiv claimed 7% of the world’s titanium production, and to have 3% of the lithium reserves – which have not been mined yet. It also said Ukraine was in the top five nations of graphite reserves, and had deposits of the rare earth minerals tantalum, niobium and beryllium.

The numbers resemble those in the Ukraine chapter of the US Geological Survey’s 2020-2021 Minerals Yearbook, written before Russia’s full-scale invasion disrupted production. The USGS said at the time that Ukraine was the fifth-ranked producer of titanium sponge, and the sixth largest producer of graphite.

A USGS mineral commodity summary for 2025 had no figure for graphite reserves, and said, among other observations, that Ukraine was a source of the rare earth metal scandium and had shuttered a 1.7 million-ton a year alumina refinery since 2022.

Natalia Bariatska, a doctor of geology and member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, said critical raw materials were all at different stages of research and exploration.

“It is very difficult to talk about the actual value of these deposits,” Bariatska said. “We can speak about the value of the elements in the subsoil, but we have to understand it takes a lot of investment to extract, process and sell them.”

While the framework deal leaves it unclear what assets will be impacted by any future fund, US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz made an explicit reference during a White House briefing on February 20 to one Ukrainian “aluminum foundry.”

“It’s been damaged, it is not at its current capacity, if restored it would account for America’s entire imports of aluminum for an entire year,” Waltz said.

Waltz did not name the foundry, and the White House did not respond to a request for clarification at the time of publication. But the most likely facility he was referring to is the Zaporizhzhia industrial aluminum integrated plant.

Mothballed a decade ago, a video of the plant released by Ukrainian investigators in 2015 shows it in significant disrepair. It is since running on a much-reduced staff, and has been hit by a missile, according to a filing with the State Property Fund of Ukraine.

A blast at an Islamic seminary known for training Afghan Taliban leaders in Pakistan’s northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has injured several people, including the chief of the religious school, police said on Friday.

The seminary is located in the Nowshera area of the province, they said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.