Five people have been killed and dozens of emergency workers were injured as a spate of incidents involving fireworks marred New Year’s Eve celebrations in Germany.

Despite calls for a nationwide ban on the private use of fireworks, they continue to be a significant part of New Year’s celebrations in the country, with thousands of the pyrotechnics set off on city streets each year.

Among those killed were two people in the eastern state of Saxony, according to local public broadcaster MDR, including a 45-year-old man who was killed after handling what was described as a “firework bomb.”

Firefighters and other emergency services personnel were targeted by the fireworks during festivities overnight on Tuesday into Wednesday, authorities said.

In the capital Berlin, firefighters responded to 1,892 incidents on New Year’s Eve – 294 more than the previous year, according to a statement from the city’s fire department. Over 1,500 emergency services personnel were on duty.

At least 13 attacks on emergency workers were reported, the statement said.

According to Berlin police spokesperson Florian Nath, 330 people were detained in the capital on New Year’s Eve. One police officer was severly injured due after being “presumably hit by an illegal firework,” and is undergoing surgery in hospital, Nath said.

“Several people standing around the scene attacked the police officers and it is one of the low points of tonight,” he added.

Meanwhile, Munich’s fire department said that a wayward firework ignited a huge balcony fire on the first floor of an apartment building. The fire then spread to an apartment on the second floor, a statement from the department said.

The statement continued that this year saw “particularly serious” injuries caused by pyrotechnics on Munich. Three children, aged two, eleven and fourteen, were seriously injured during incidents in the city.

While the two-year-old boy and the eleven-year-old boy suffered burns to their hands, neck and face, the 14-year-old boy blew off parts of his hand with a New Year’s Eve firecracker. All of them had to be transported to hospitals for further medical treatment, the department said.

In a statement on X, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser praised the work of the emergency services, adding that the “deployment of strong police forces from the federal states and the federal police and an early and consistent crackdown are the right means against perpetrators of violence and chaos.”

She continued, “However, the many arrests in Berlin alone and the renewed attacks on police officers also show that this crackdown was absolutely necessary.”

The first responders’ union issued a statement Wednesday condemning violence against the emergency services.

tomo‘It is unacceptable that people who work for the common good are repeatedly the target of attacks. Under no circumstances should violence against public service employees be accepted as an occupational hazard,’ said ver.di deputy chairwoman Christine Behle.

The concern lies particularly with illegal and homemade fireworks, according to BVPK, a German pyrotechnics association. “These extremely dangerous crafts have nothing to do with legal and tested New Year’s Eve fireworks from specialist retailers or discounters,” board member Ingo Schubert said.

“Anyone who associates the dangerous tinkering and the illegal handling of dangerous explosives with safe, small fireworks is confusing apples with oranges.”

German environmental organization Deutsche Umwelthilfe renewed its calls for a nationwide ban on the private sale of pyrotechnics on New Year’s Eve in a statement on Wednesday, warning that the turn of the year once again became “a night of horror for countless people.”

The breakaway Moldovan region of Transnistria cut heating and hot water supplies to households on Wednesday after Russia stopped supplying gas via Ukraine.

“There is no heating or hot water,” an employee of local energy company Tirasteploenergo told Reuters by phone from Tiraspol, the main city of the breakaway territory. She said she did not know how long the situation would last.

Transnistria is a pro-Russian entity that split from the rest of Moldova after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. It was receiving Russian gas via Ukraine, but that supply route was halted on Wednesday with the expiry of a transit deal between the two warring countries.

A statement on the energy company’s website said the heating cuts took effect at 7 a.m. local time on Wednesday, but some facilities such as hospitals were exempt.

It urged residents to dress warmly, gather family members together in a single room, hang blankets or thick curtains over windows and balcony doors, and use electric heaters.

“It is forbidden to use gas or electric stoves to heat the apartment – this can lead to tragedy,” the company said.

Transnistria has existed generally peacefully side by side with Moldova since a brief post-Soviet war in 1992. Some 1,500 Russian troops are stationed there.

The local parliament last month sent an appeal to the Kremlin and the Russian parliament to reach a new agreement with Ukraine to enable gas supplies to continue. Moscow said at the time it would protect its citizens and soldiers in Transnistria.

Until the expiry of its gas transit deal with Ukraine, Russia was supplying Moldova with about 2 billion cubic meters of gas per year, pumped via Transnistria.

Moldova accuses Russia of exploiting its energy dependence on Moscow in order to destabilize the country, something Moscow denies.

Israel’s population growth slowed in 2024 compared to the previous year, according to the state’s Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), with the slump mainly attributed to Israelis leaving the country.

This comes as Israel fights a multi-front conflict that has dragged on for more than a year. The CBS cautioned, however, that the impact of war on long-term migration patterns should be fully assessed after one year, “meaning starting from November 2024 and onwards.”

In a report published Tuesday, the census office said that in 2024, Israel’s population grew by 1.1%, compared to 1.6% in 2023.

“The decrease is mainly due to the high number of Israelis emigrating from Israel in 2024,” it said, adding that last year, some 82,700 residents left Israel, compared to 55,000 the year before.

By December 31, 2024, Israel’s population was estimated at 10.027 million, the report said, topping the 10-million mark for the first time. However, the report included foreign nationals in the country as part of its count.

Israel has also been rocked by political turmoil. In 2023, it was shaken by mass protests against controversial plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government to overhaul the country’s judicial system.

It then launched a war on Hamas in Gaza after the Palestinian militant group led brutal attacks that killed more than 1,200 people and kidnapped more than 250 on October 7, 2023. More than 45,000 people have died in Gaza since that war began, according to the health ministry in the enclave.

Israel is also fighting against the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group in Lebanon, which began firing at Israel on October 8, 2023, as well as conflicts with Iran, the Houthis in Yemen, and militants in Syria and Iraq who say they are attacking Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

Several people were killed in a shooting on Wednesday in the Montenegrin city of Cetinje, police and local media said. The shooter is on the run.

Police dispatched special troops to search for the armed shooter in Cetinje, some 30 kilometers (18 miles) northwest of the capital Podgorica.

A statement said the man opened fire in a bar and fled the scene armed. Police identified the shooter only by his initials A.M. and said he was 45 years old.

Police gave no other details. The state RTCG television said seven people were killed in the shooting that followed a bar brawl.

“Armed, he (shooter) left the object and fled,” the statement said.

The RTCG report identified the man as Aco Martinovic, saying he was known for erratic behavior and had been detained in the past for illegal possession of weapons. The TV published the reported suspect’s photo on its website.

The report said he went home to get his gun and came back to the bar where he opened fire and killed and wounded several people. He then went to another site where he killed the bar owner’s children and a woman, the report added.

Authorities did not immediately provide a number of fatalities.

Police appealed on the residents to remain calm and stay indoors, ruling out a clash between criminal gangs.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

A judge in Ecuador has ordered the detention of 16 air force members accused of involvement in the disappearance of four children, whose charred remains were discovered weeks after they were seen being forced into a military patrol car against their will.

The case has shocked the nation and sparked protests against the military, which has been spearheading President Daniel Noboa’s crackdown on violent criminal groups.

On Tuesday, moments after a judge in Guayaquil ordered the detentions, prosecutors announced that forensic tests showed four charred corpses found last week belonged to the children. The bodies were found near to where the children were last seen.

The children, Saúl Arboleda, Steven Medina, and brothers Josué and Ismael Arroyo, were reported missing on December 8 after playing soccer and being detained by soldiers in Guayas province.

Video released last week by the National Assembly showed they had been coerced into getting into a patrol car against their will.

The defense ministry acknowledged that the children, aged from 11 to 15, had been detained but insisted they were later released. It also claimed that the children had been involved in a robbery, but the Prosecutor’s Office said there was no evidence to support that.

News of the forensic identifications was received with frustration and heartbreak.

“What pain to close the year with this tragedy that mourns the country. It is unacceptable that the lives of our children end in this way. Let fear not silence us, and let solidarity become the voice that demands justice so that something like this never happens again,” the prefect of Guayas Marcela Aguiñaga wrote on X.

Guayaquil Mayor Aquiles Álvarez said, “Nothing will calm the pain of the parents, just as nothing will erase the mark of murderers from all those involved, directly or indirectly. The truth is that this country has hit rock bottom. Paradigms have been broken, but to make things worse. It makes you want nothing, everything hurts.”

During the hearing, the Prosecutor’s Office had presented testimonies and video recordings that it said supported “the alleged participation of the defendants in the crime investigated.”

Outside the hearing, dozens of people, including the children’s relatives and friends, gathered en masse to demand truth and transparency.

Some carried photos of the children. Others held banners and shouted slogans such as, “They took them alive, we want them alive!” and “Sir, madam, do not be indifferent, they take children in front of people!”

The National Assembly and the Mayor’s Office of Quito have declared three days of mourning.

Last week, President Noboa said there would be no impunity in this case and asked law enforcement institutions to work with the Attorney General’s Office during the investigations.

The defense ministry and armed forces said on Tuesday that they would collaborate “without reservations or conditions” in the investigations.

Cigarettes have long been associated with fashion so much so that they remain an occasional feature of runways. Smoking, like the color black, seems to never go out of style in the fashion world.

But stylish or not, as of Jan. 1, 2025, smoking is outlawed in “all public spaces, including streets” in Milan, Italy’s financial and fashion capital, meaning anyone who lights up outside faces fines between $41 and $249 (€40 – €240).

The move marks the toughest smoking ban in Italy, where nearly a quarter of the population smokes, according to the country’s health ministry.

The only exception is when people are in isolated places at least 10 meters from other people.

The ban, which does not include vapes or electronic cigarettes, is part of a clampdown focused more on pollution than health, according to the city council, which passed a clean air bill in 2020 that included strict bans on smoking, responsible for 7% of all emissions in Milan and its suburbs.

The complete ban on smoking outdoors is the second part of the clean air strategy, which started with banning lighting up in playgrounds, bus stops and outdoor sport facilities in 2021.

The bill is meant to “improve the quality of the city’s air, to protect the health of citizens, including protection from passive smoking in public places.”

While the ban started at midnight Jan. 1, officials did not arrest any revelers, Milan police said.

Lino Stoppani, president of public business federation Fipe Confcommercio called the ban “symbolic” and hard to enforce since business owners are not compelled to do so.

“Without adequate controls, the ordinances risk remaining measures aimed more at raising awareness than at solving. The positive aspect is that public businesses are not imposed the role of ‘carabinieri’, leaving the burden of checks to the competent authorities,” Stoppani said in a statement, referring to local police.

“This is a provision with several critical issues. For us it is a provision that will not have the desired effects, it has some regulatory weaknesses, it probably also creates a bit of confusion in its application, but we are not making a battle out of it.”

The ban will impact attendees of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in 2026.

Smoking has been prohibited in all public indoor spaces in Italy since 2005, and several cities have added additional regulations, though implementation is rare.

In Turin, it is forbidden to smoke in front of children or pregnant women while outside. In Rome, many restaurants allow smoking at outdoor tables and all major Italian airports have smoking rooms inside the terminals.

The Palestinian Authority has suspended Al Jazeera from broadcasting and operating in the occupied West Bank.

It accused the network of broadcasting “inciting materials” and “misleading reports” that “provoke strife and interfere in Palestinian internal affairs,” Wafa, the official Palestinian news agency, said Wednesday.

“The decision also includes the temporary suspension of all journalists and staff associated with it, as well as the channels under its umbrella, until its legal status is rectified, due to Al Jazeera’s violation of the laws and regulations in force in Palestine,” the Palestinian news agency said.

Al Jazeera condemned the decision, calling it “in line with the practices of the occupation against its crews.”

A video from Al Jazeera shows three Palestinian law enforcement personnel entering a hotel room in Ramallah, in the central West Bank, and handing a letter to journalist Najwan Simri, who then signs it. The letter signed by the Palestinian Authority’s attorney general Akram Al-Khateeb, orders the “banning and freezing of all operations of Al Jazeera Satellite channel and its office in Palestine and freezing the work of all journalists working with the station, crews and affiliate channels temporarily until its situation is corrected due to [Al Jazeera’s] violation of the provisions of the laws and regulations.”

This marks the first time the network has faced such restrictions from Palestinian officials, including the Palestinian Authority which governs parts of the occupied West Bank.

However, Israeli officials have repeatedly attempted to stifle the news network, shutting down its operations in May, seizing equipment, and stopping broadcasts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has long complained about Al Jazeera’s operations, alleging anti-Israeli bias and accusing the network of being a “mouthpiece for Hamas.” Al Jazeera has rejected the claims as “unfounded allegations.”

Months after shutting down the network’s Jerusalem office, Israeli forces raided and shut down its Ramallah office in the occupied West Bank in September. Al Jazeera said it would “continue reporting on the war on Gaza and the ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories and the regional escalation.” Since then, employees from Al Jazeera have used the title of “journalist” rather than “network correspondent” when reporting from the West Bank.

Following Monday’s announcement by the Palestinian Authority, Al Jazeera reiterated its “commitment to continue covering events and developments in the West Bank with full professionalism.”

The decision came from the Palestinian Authority’s specialized ministerial committee, which includes the Ministries of Culture, Interior, and Communications, according to Wafa. Lawyers like Muhannad Karajah from Lawyers for Justice – an independent Ramallah-based Palestinian group of lawyers – have challenged the legality of the order which did not come from a judicial ruling.

A controversial operation

In its statement on Monday, Al Jazeera said it “views the Palestinian Authority’s decision as an attempt to deter it from covering the escalating events taking place in the occupied territories.”

“The closure decision comes in the wake of a continuous campaign of incitement and intimidation from entities sponsored by the Palestinian Authority against our journalists,” the news network said. It called the decision “an attempt to conceal the truth of events in the occupied territories, especially in Jenin and its camp.”

The Qatari-based news network, which has produced dogged, on-the-ground reporting of Israel’s war in Gaza, has also extensively covered an operation by Palestinian security forces that began in December, in the occupied West Bank to combat what they describe as extremist “outlaws” in Jenin. The fighting between the Palestinian Authority’s security forces and Palestinian militant groups aligned with Hamas – who accuse the authority of selling out to Israel – has been highly controversial.

Al Jazeera was also criticized by the Palestinian Authority following the network’s coverage of the killing of Palestinian journalist Shatha Sabbagh, whose family accused Palestinian security forces of shooting her in the head on Saturday during their Jenin operation.

In a virtual interview on Sunday with Al Jazeera anchor Ahmed Taha, alongside Sabbagh’s mother, the spokesperson for the Palestinian security forces Anwar Rajab said he was not notified he would be on air with the mother. After listening to her for about three and a half minutes, in which she accused the security forces of killing her daughter, Rajab offered his condolences and then accused Al Jazeera of being “unprofessional” and “taking advantage of people’s suffering and pain.”

After an apology from the anchor for not notifying the spokesperson beforehand, Rajab said the security forces were not responsible for the killing of Shatha Sabbagh and said investigations were ongoing. Following a further heated exchange with the anchor, Rajab accused Al Jazeera of “inciting and leading sedition” before leaving the interview.

Widespread condemnation

Al Jazeera said it was “astonished” by the Palestinian Authority’s decision and said the authority is “fully responsible” for the safety of the network’s staff in the West Bank. The network demanded the authority revoke their decision and allow teams to continue their coverage in the area “without intimidation.”

Others across the Palestinian territories echoed Al Jazeera’s calls for rescinding the decision.

Independent Palestinian politician and head of the Palestinian National Initiative Mostafa Al Barghouti said the network’s Palestinian reporters “face continuous assaults from the occupation” and said the order against it “does not benefit the Palestinian people or their just cause, nor does it benefit those who made this decision.”

The order also drew condemnation from the Palestinian Journalists’ Protection Center, a Ramallah-based NGO that called the decision a “shameful assault on press freedom.”

Hamas condemned the decision as “illegal and unjustified.”

Standing barefoot in the mud with an empty container in hand at a crowded water station in central Gaza, Palestinian Alaa Al-Shawish is fearing the winter weather and looking for clean water for her family.

Her family are living in a makeshift tent in Deir Al-Balah, after being displaced from Gaza City amid heavy Israeli bombardment. But their new home holds deadly perils of its own.

“We’re dying from the cold, this is not life, this is not living – I pray every day that we die to be relieved from this life,” Alaa says as she fights her tears. “No food, no water, no life.”

Several Palestinians, including at least five babies, have died in recent days due to severe cold weather. The UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) warned on Tuesday that “more babies will likely die” in the coming days.

The babies who died from hypothermia were ere all under one month old, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. A 2-year-old has also died from the cold in recent days, health officials said.

“I am watching my children die before my eyes,” says Yahya Al-Batran, the father of 20-day-old Jumaa, who died on Sunday. “He died from the cold, he froze,” he adds as he holds his child’s lifeless body at the hospital.

The cold weather has not only claimed the lives of children. On Friday, the health ministry said a nurse was found dead in his tent in Al-Mawasi on Friday due to severe cold.

Temperatures in Gaza can reach lows of 10 degrees Celsius (50F), accompanied by wind and rain.

Flooded makeshift tents

The winter has also brought with it heavy rainfall that has flooded tents housing displaced Palestinians across Gaza over the past couple of days.

The Gaza Civil Defense says it received hundreds of distress calls on Monday and Tuesday from displaced Palestinian families whose tents and shelters have been flooded in Al-Mawasi, Rafah, Deir Al-Balah and central Gaza City, among other locations across the strip.

More than 100 tents in Khan Younis have been extensively damaged by the heavy rain, UNRWA said on Tuesday.

“Displaced people, already living through the unlivable due to the war, are now battling heavy rainstorms,” UNRWA added.

UNRWA has called for Israel to allow the entry of more winter supplies into Gaza.

“Blankets, mattresses and warm clothes are sitting outside Gaza waiting for approval to get in,” UNRWA said on Tuesday. “More and regular humanitarian assistance must come into Gaza to help people stay warm this winter.”

According to COGAT, the Israeli agency that approves aid shipments into Gaza, 1,290 humanitarian aid trucks entered the strip last week. This is well below the average of 500 trucks per day before the war started on October 7, 2023.

Salem Abu Amra is among the civilians who are bearing the brunt of the cold and lacking supplies in Gaza. He says his family is “struggling for survival” in their makeshift tent in Deir Al-Balah.

“We are suffering from the rain, we were flooded,” he said. “I have three children who were freezing cold overnight in the camp from this weather. They need clothes, they need tents, proper tents that we can live in.”