The death toll in the French territory of Mayotte from Cyclone Chido is “several hundred” and may run into the thousands, the island’s top government official told a local broadcaster Sunday.

France rushed rescue teams and supplies to its largely poor overseas department in the Indian Ocean that has suffered widespread destruction.

“I think there are some several hundred dead, maybe we’ll get close to a thousand. Even thousands … given the violence of this event,″ Mayotte Prefect François-Xavier Bieuville told TV station Mayotte la 1ere.

He had previously said it was the worst cyclone to hit Mayotte in 90 years.

Bieuville said it was extremely difficult to get an exact number of deaths and injuries after Mayotte was pummeled by the intense tropical cyclone on Saturday, causing major damage to public infrastructure, including the airport, flattening neighborhoods and knocking out electricity supplies.

The French Interior Ministry confirmed at least 11 deaths and more than 250 injuries earlier Sunday but said that was expected to increase substantially.

Mayotte in the southwestern Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa is France’s poorest island and the poorest territory in the European Union. It has a population of just over 300,000 spread over two main islands.

Bieuville said the worst devastation had been seen in the slums of metal shacks and informal structures that mark much of Mayotte. Referring to the official death toll so far, he said ″this figure is not plausible when you see the images of the slums.”

“I think the human toll is much higher,” he added.

Mayotte took the brunt of Chido

Chido blew through the southwestern Indian Ocean on Friday and Saturday, also affecting the nearby islands of Comoros and Madagascar. Mayotte was directly in the cyclone’s path, though, and took the brunt. Chido brought winds in excess of 220 kph (136 mph), according to the French weather service, making it a category 4 cyclone, the second strongest on the scale.

Later, Chido made landfall in Mozambique on the African mainland and there were fears for more than 2 million people in the country’s north who could be impacted, according to authorities there.

French President Emmanuel Macron said his “thoughts” were with the Mayotte people and Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau was due to travel to Mayotte on Monday. Retailleau had warned Saturday night after an emergency meeting in Paris that the death toll “will be high,” while new Prime Minister François Bayrou, who took office on Friday, said infrastructure had been severely damaged or destroyed across Mayotte.

Pope Francis offered prayers for the victims while on a visit Sunday to the French Mediterranean island of Corsica.

France wants air and sea bridge

Rescuers and firefighters were sent from France and the nearby French territory of Reunion and supplies were also rushed in on military aircraft and ships. Damage to the airport’s control tower meant only military aircraft were able to fly in.

Patrice Latron, the prefect of Reunion, said authorities aim to establish an air and sea bridge from Reunion to Mayotte. About 800 more rescuers were to be sent in the coming days and more than 80 tons of supplies had been flown in or were on their way by ship. Some of the priorities were restoring electricity and access to drinking water, Latron said.

The French Interior Ministry said 1,600 police and gendarmerie officers have been deployed to “help the population and prevent potential looting.”

In some parts of Mayotte, entire neighborhoods of metal shacks and huts were flattened, while residents reported trees had been uprooted, boats flipped or sunk and many areas were without power.

Chad Youyou, a resident in Hamjago in the north of the island, posted videos on Facebook showing the extensive damage in his village and across the surrounding fields and hills, where almost every tree had been leveled.

“Mayotte is destroyed … we are destroyed,” he said.

Cyclone slams into Mozambique

Chido continued its eastern trajectory and into northern Mozambique where it continued to cause serious damage, while farther inland landlocked Malawi and Zimbabwe warned they might have to evacuate people because of flooding.

In Mozambique, UNICEF said Cabo Delgado province, home to around 2 million people, was the first region to be hit and many homes, schools and health facilities have been partially or completely destroyed.

UNICEF Mozambique spokesman Guy Taylor said that communities faced the prospect of being cut off from schools and health facilities for weeks and Mozambique authorities warned there was a high danger of landslides.

December through to March is cyclone season in the southwestern Indian Ocean and southern Africa has been pummeled by a series of strong ones in recent years. Cyclone Idai in 2019 killed more than 1,300 people, mostly in Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. Cyclone Freddy left more than 1,000 dead across several countries in the Indian Ocean and southern Africa last year.

The cyclones bring the risk of flooding and landslides, but also stagnant pools of water may later spark deadly outbreaks of the waterborne disease cholera as well as dengue fever and malaria.

Studies say the cyclones are getting worse because of climate change. They can leave poor countries in Africa, which contribute a tiny amount to global warming, having to deal with large humanitarian crises, underlining their call for more help from rich nations to deal with the impact of climate change.

Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced the closure of the country’s embassy in Ireland on Sunday, accusing Ireland of “extreme anti-Israel policies.”

“The actions and antisemitic rhetoric used by Ireland against Israel are rooted in the delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish state, along with double standards. Ireland has crossed every red line in its relations with Israel,” Sa’ar said, according to a foreign ministry statement.

“Israel will invest its resources in advancing bilateral relations with countries worldwide according to priorities that also take into account the attitudes and actions of these states toward Israel,” he added.

The statement pointed to action taken by the Irish government, including Ireland’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state, and its support for South Africa’s legal action against Israel in the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Yair Lapid, Israel’s opposition leader, criticized the move in a post on X, calling it a “victory for anti-Semitism and anti-Israel organizations.”

“The way to deal with criticism is not to run away, but to stay and fight!”

His comments sparked backlash from Sa’ar, who on his own X account wrote: “Shame on you, Yair!… This is clear anti-Semitism based on delegitimization, dehumanization and double standards towards the Jewish state.”

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris described Israel’s decision as “deeply regrettable.”

“I utterly reject the assertion that Ireland is anti-Israel. Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-International law,” he wrote on X.

Dublin in March said it would intervene in a genocide case against Israel at the ICJ, reflecting the country’s long-standing position of solidarity with the Palestinian cause.

The case was first brought to the ICJ by South Africa, and in an initial ruling in January, the court ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power” to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza, but stopped short of accusing it of genocide.

Milei, who has three Italian grandparents who emigrated to Argentina in 1926, before he was born, was accorded it on the grounds of “ius sanguinis,” or his bloodline, the spokesperson said.

Milei’s sister and political adviser Karina Milei was also granted Italian citizenship during the visit to Rome, during which the pair attended the political convention of Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s far-right Brothers of Italy party.

Milei started the process – which can last years for most people – earlier this year, according to Meloni, speaking to Italian media Sunday afternoon on the sidelines of the annual convention, called “Atreju” for a character in the 1984 fantasy film “The NeverEnding Story.”

While the Milei siblings qualify to become Italian, the timing puts them within weeks of the introduction of new rules for the process, which will raise the cost of applications and make it even more difficult for children born in Italy to foreign parents to become citizens.

The new rules stipulate that an Italian citizen who was born in Italy but gave up their Italian citizenship after leaving the country may not automatically transfer citizenship to their descendants.

It is not clear if Milei’s grandparents retained their Italian citizenship or if they gave it up to become Argentine nationals.

Riccardo Magi, an opposition parliamentarian who has campaigned for birthright citizenship, criticized the granting of citizenship to the Milei siblings on X, calling it a “slap in the face to girls and boys who were born here or reside permanently and have been waiting for citizenship for years and years, sometimes without any result.”

“Have you lived in Italy since you were born? Do you go to schools in the country? Do you speak Italian but are your parents of foreign origin? Citizenship, then, you can dream of,” he wrote.

“You have practically never set foot in Italy but your name is Javier Milei, you are a friend of Giorgia Meloni and you discover that you have a distant relative from Calabria called ‘don Ciccio’? Don’t worry, the government will give it to you.”

Meloni, on a recent visit to Argentina, expressed solidarity with the conservative leader, with whom she has been working to strengthen ties.

Milei, who likes to brandish a chainsaw to symbolize budget cuts, gave her an action figure of himself holding the power tool.

In the early years of Xi Jinping’s war on corruption, the Chinese leader consolidated control over the world’s largest military by taking down powerful generals from rival factions and replacing them with allies and proteges loyal to himself.

A decade on, having given the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) a structural overhaul and stacked its top ranks with his own men, the supreme leader is still knee-deep in his seemingly endless struggle against graft and disloyalty.

And, like many strongman leaders in history, he is increasingly turning against his own handpicked loyalists.

Late last month, Xi purged one of his closest proteges in the military – a decades-old associate entrusted with instilling political loyalty in the PLA and vetting senior promotions.

Adm. Miao Hua, who sits on the Central Military Commission (CMC), the top command body chaired by Xi, has been suspended under investigation for “serious violations of discipline,” the Defense Ministry announced, using a common euphemism for corruption and disloyalty.

As the head of the CMC’s political work department, which oversees political indoctrination and personnel appointments, Miao is the most senior scalp in Xi’s latest military purge. Since last summer, more than a dozen high-ranking figures in China’s defense establishment have been ousted, including the last two defense ministers promoted to the CMC by Xi.

But none of them boast the kind of long-standing relationship Miao shared with the top leader, dating back decades to Xi’s early political career in the coastal province of Fujian.

The probe into Miao opens a new front in a widening purge that has raised questions over Xi’s ability to end systematic corruption in the military and enhance its combat readiness at a time of heightened geopolitical tensions.

Over the past decade, Xi has overseen an ambitious transformation of the PLA into a “world class” fighting force that can rival the US military. A key goal of that modernization drive is to ensure China is ready to fight and win a war over Taiwan, the self-governing democratic island Beijing claims as its own.

But Miao’s downfall renews questions – raised during last summer’s purges – about how much confidence Xi has in his top generals who would be responsible for leading a war, said Joel Wuthnow, a senior research fellow at the Pentagon-funded National Defense University.

“If he fears that he has brought in people who are not unquestionably loyal to him or his agenda, that would be a huge problem.”

Experts say Xi’s purge of a longtime acolyte points to a familiar dilemma for autocrats, including his predecessor Mao Zedong: after eliminating political rivals, the supreme leader never stops looking for new threats to their absolute hold on power – including from their own close circle.

‘Obscene extent of corruption’

Miao’s history with Xi goes back three decades. The Fujian native served as a political officer in the former 31st Group Army from the 1980s to the early 2000s, when Xi was rising through the ranks as a local official to become the provincial governor of Fujian.

“According to credible sources, Xi regularly visited the 31st Group Army at the time” and is known to have had personal contacts with Miao, said James Char, a longtime PLA-watcher and research fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore.

Miao’s military career took off soon after Xi came to power. In 2014, he received a major promotion to become the political commissar of the PLA Navy, making an unusual switch from a career in the Ground Force. Three years later, he was promoted again into the CMC, the apex of military power.

“We cannot find a more apodictic acolyte of Xi than Miao,” Char said. “If Miao is eventually indicted of graft, clearly Xi himself had not anticipated the obscene extent of corruption that exists among PLA elites.”

For the past 18 months, Xi’s cleanup had largely targeted officials connected to the procurement of weapons and the Rocket Force, which oversees China’s nuclear and conventional missiles. But Miao’s downfall signals a broadening of that crackdown into new sectors, such as political work – which Xi has described as the “lifeline” of the military – and the Navy.

“Wherever they look, I’m sure they will find issues and cases. It’s just a matter of which sector they pick,” Char said.

‘Loss of confidence’

The Defense Ministry has offered no details about the allegations against Miao.

As the chief political commissar of the PLA, Miao is tasked with ensuring its loyalty to the ruling Communist Party. He oversees promotions in the military, vetting key candidates for their political loyalty – a role he also held in the Navy.

In the past, such roles have offered fertile ground for graft, especially bribes for promotions. Miao’s predecessor, Gen. Zhang Yang, killed himself while under disciplinary investigation for bribery.

As the geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China heats up, the PLA Navy has also seen a drastic increase in the procurement of warships and other weapons, providing ample opportunities for corruption, said Victor Shih, a political science professor at the University of San Diego.

But there could be another potential reason behind Miao’s downfall, Shih said, for “being too obvious in his attempt to foster a faction in the military.”

Xi has repeatedly warned against the forming of factions in both the party and the military. “Of course, the only person who is allowed to do that is Xi himself,” Shih added.

Miao is seen by some analysts as having recommended multiple associates in the Navy for promotions to key positions, including Rocket Force Commander Wang Houbin and Defense Minister Dong Jun.

The announcement of Miao’s investigation came a day after the Financial Times reported that Dong had been placed under investigation for corruption, citing current and former US officials. The Defense Ministry dismissed the report as “sheer fabrication,” and days later, Dong made a public appearance at a security forum.

Wuthnow, the expert at the National Defense University, said what led to Miao’s downfall was a “loss of confidence,” but the reasons for that remain elusive.

In one scenario, Wuthnow said, Xi might have viewed Miao as becoming too powerful and independent, and wanted to uproot what he saw as a bastion of influence that he could not fully control.

“I don’t think this is how leaders who are confident in their own power and ability to corral the bureaucracy behaves. It actually strikes me as a sign of weakness, if not paranoia, that he feels he needs to constantly overturn the apple cart,” he said.

‘This happens over and over again’

Miao’s downfall comes less than a year after former defense minister Li Shangfu was removed from the CMC.

The powerful body had six members – all deemed as Xi’s loyalists – serving under the top leader when he began his unprecedented third term two years ago. If Miao is also removed, it would leave two vacant seats.

Shih, the expert on Chinese elite politics, said many dictators, from former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin to Mao, have eventually turned against their own proteges.

“Once all of their real competitors are gone, a dictator can never think to themselves: ‘Oh well, all the threats are gone. I can just relax.’ Because they always think that new threats could emerge, including from people who once were very close to them. This happens over and over again,” he said.

As a result, the dictator is always looking for increasingly subtle signs that someone is plotting against them, said Shih, the author of “Coalitions of the Weak,” which examines Mao’s hold on power in the late stage of his life.

During Mao’s last years, he turned against Lin Biao, his longtime protege, former defense minister and heir apparent, accusing him of plotting a coup.

“This kind of dynamic will become increasingly severe as Xi Jinping gets older, as his health is not as robust as previously. His sensitivity to signs of potential challenge to his power will also become keener over time,” Shih said.

For now, the top leader appears determined to carry on his crusade against corruption and disloyalty.

Earlier this month, Xi inspected the PLA’s Information Support Force with his four remaining loyalists on the CMC.

“We must ensure the troops remain absolutely loyal, absolutely pure and absolutely reliable,” Xi told an audience of note-taking officers.

An Israeli airstrike in Gaza killed an Al Jazeera photojournalist on Sunday – exactly one year to the day after an attack killed one of his colleagues.

Ahmad Al-Louh, 39, and four other people were killed by the strike that targeted an office of the Civil Defense service in central Gaza’s Nuseirat Camp area, according to Al Awda Hospital, which treated the casualties.

Al Jazeera has condemned the attack, saying Al-Louh was “brutally killed” while covering the service’s attempt to rescue a family that had been severely injured in an earlier bombing.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it had targeted the Civil Defense offices in a “precise strike,” claiming the site was being used as a “command-and-control center” by Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists who were planning an “imminent terror attack against IDF troops.”

It said Al-Louh was among those killed in the strike and alleged he was a “terrorist” who had previously served with Islamic Jihad. The IDF did not provide any proof for their allegations.

In late July, an IDF strike killed Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul, who it accused of being a Hamas member – an allegation the network slammed as “baseless.”

According to the hospital, the other people killed in the strike were three Civil Defense workers and one civilian.

A spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense strongly denied the IDF’s claim of a terrorist presence at the site.

“These teams work around the clock to rescue people. Everyone knows that the Civil Defense organization is a humanitarian body that provides services during both peace and war to civilians and has no political involvement. The team was directly targeted,” said Zaki Imad Eddine.

This ‘follows a pattern’: Al Jazeera

Al Jazeera, which has in the past accused Israel of systematically targeting its journalists – a charge Israel denies, described Al-Louh’s killing as a crime and said it followed a pattern of attacks in which its workers had been killed or injured by Israeli attacks.

It noted that Al-Louh’s death coincided with the first anniversary of the killing of one of its cameramen, Samer Abu Daqqa, who died on December 15, 2023, after sustaining injuries in an Israeli attack on southern Gaza.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Abu Daqqa was the first Al Jazeera journalist to have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war since the October 7 terror attack of 2023. Since then, a string of other journalists with the network have been killed or injured in Gaza, in disputed circumstances.

On Sunday, Al Jazeera extended its condolences to Al-Louh’s wife and family, adding that just days earlier an Israeli strike had destroyed his house in the Da’wa neighborhood of Nuseirat Camp.

The network also said it was committed to pursuing “all legal measures to prosecute the perpetrators of these crimes against journalists” and urged international legal institutions to take “urgent measures” to hold the Israeli authorities to account and “to put an end to the targeting and killing of journalists.”

Israel’s military has in the past said it “takes all operationally feasible measures to protect both civilians and journalists” and that it “has never and will never deliberately target journalists.”

The Committee to Protect Journalists says the Israel-Gaza war has killed more journalists in a year than any other conflict the group has documented. At least 137 journalists have been killed in Gaza, the West Bank, Israel and Lebanon since the war began, according to the CPJ, making it the deadliest period for journalists since it began collecting data in 1992. Of those killed, 129 were Palestinian. According to Gaza’s government media office, at least 196 journalists have been killed.

“He was a very fun person to be with, he always tried to help everyone and bring joy to everyone’s face,” Al Sawalhi said.

“He had a great relationship with all journalists, helping them all because he knew central Gaza very well.”

Dozens killed across Gaza

Al-Louh was just one of dozens of people killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza on Sunday.

At least 15 people were killed early Sunday when an Israeli airstrike hit a school sheltering displaced people in Beit Hanoun, northern Gaza, according to the Civil Defense.

Eyewitnesses reported 10 to 15 charred bodies after fires caused by “intensive Israeli bombing” at the Khalil Awida school, which was sheltering about 1,500 displaced people, the Civil Defense said.

The IDF said it had carried out a “targeted raid on a terrorist meeting point in the Beit Hanoun area.”

In Deir al Balah, a strike on tents killed four people and a strike on a family home east of Gaza city killed six, according to the Civil Defense.

Meanwhile in the south, Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis said 12 people were killed in an Israeli strike.

Correction: This write has been updated to reflect that the strike that killed Al Jazeera correspondent Ismail al-Ghoul was in late July.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he had a “very warm” phone call with US President-elect Donald Trump, during which they spoke about the need for Israel’s victory in its war on Hamas in Gaza and its stance on Syria.

In a video statement, Israel’s leader said he discussed a range of issues with Trump during the call on Saturday evening, including Israel’s commitment to preventing Lebanon-based Hezbollah from rearming and Israel’s conflict with Hamas, which has killed nearly 45,000 Palestinians in the besieged Gaza strip.

The leaders also spoke of the need to bring home the remaining hostages in Gaza, Netanyahu said.

“I discussed all of this again last night with my friend, US President-elect Donald Trump,” Netanyahu said.

“It was a very friendly, very warm and very important conversation. We spoke about the need to complete Israel’s victory, and we also spoke at length about the efforts we are making to free our hostages.”

Hamas and other groups are believed to still be holding 100 hostages in Gaza, including seven Americans. All but four of the hostages were captured during Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Netanyahu said that Israel continues to “work tirelessly to bring our hostages home, both the living and the dead. And I add, the less we talk about it, the better, and so with God’s help, we will succeed.”

‘No interest in confronting’ Syria

Regarding Syria, where a rebel coalition overthrew the regime of President Bashar al-Assad last weekend following a lightning advance through the country, Netanyahu said that Israel had “no interest in a conflict” the country, but would adjust its policy according to the “emerging reality on the ground.”

His latest comments come after Israeli forces following Assad’s fall took control of a long-standing buffer zone that had separated Israeli and Syrian forces for decades – a move the rebels now in charge of Syria and some of the country’s neighbors have criticized.

Israeli officials have said the measure is temporary and Netanyahu has previously insisted Israel has “no intention” of intervening in Syria’s internal affairs.

However, in his statement Sunday, the Israeli leader noted that Syria had “allowed Iran to arm Hezbollah through its territory” and said Israel was committed to preventing the militant group from rearming.

“This is an ongoing test for Israel, we must meet it – and we will meet it. I say to Hezbollah and Iran in no uncertain terms – to prevent you from harming us, we will continue to act against you as much as necessary, in every arena and at any time,” he said.

Israel reached a ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah in November after a 13-month conflict largely fought along Israel’s border with Lebanon which saw Israel kill a string of high-ranking Hezbollah commanders. Continuing tit-for-tat strikes have put strain on the deal.

Plan to expand Golan settlements

Israel’s control of the buffer zone has added to tensions with Syria over its decades-long presence in the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau in southwestern Syria that Israel has occupied since a war in 1967. Syria attempted to retake the territory in a surprise attack in 1973, but failed, and Israel annexed it in 1981.

Since the fall of Assad last week, the Israeli military has also taken control of Mount Hermon, which abuts the Golan Heights and lies within the buffer zone that had previously separated the two sides’ troops.

Despite Israel’s insistence the move is temporary, several Arab states have accused Israel of exploiting instability in Syria to execute a land grab, while the rebel coalition now in charge of Syria has accused it of “crossing the lines of engagement.”

Adding to those tensions, the Israeli government on Sunday approved a plan by Netanyahu to expand settlements in the occupied Golan Heights, according to a statement from the prime minister’s office.

“In light of the war and the new front against Syria, and out of a desire to double the population of the Golan Heights, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today submitted for government approval the first amendment to the plan to encourage demographic growth in the Golan Heights and Katzrin Heights,” the statement said. Katzrin is an Israeli settlement in the Golan.

The plan “will assist the Golan Regional Council in absorbing the new residents who will arrive,” the statement added.

“Strengthening the Golan Heights is strengthening the state of Israel, and it is especially important at this time. We will continue to hold on to it, make it flourish, and settle it,” Netanyahu said, according to the statement.

The occupation is illegal under international law, but the United States recognized Israel’s claim on the Golan during the Trump administration in 2019. Israel does not view its presence in the Golan as settlements.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar condemned the plan to expand the Golan settlement. Qatar said it considered the expansion plan a “blatant violation of international law” and a new aggression on Syrian territories; Saudi Arabia said the move would derail Syria’s chances of restoring security and stability.