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.

More than a week after Bashar al-Assad fled Syria and his regime collapsed, hundreds of thousands of Syrians still have no answer to two questions that have haunted them for years, even decades.

What happened to family members and friends after they vanished or were detained by Assad’s secret police? And how do we bring their torturers and killers to justice?

With every passing day, Syrians’ slim hopes finding a loved one still alive are fading. But they want some form of closure; they scour prison and hospital walls where lists of names and images of bodies are posted. They cling to a sliver of hope, yearn for a miracle.

But they also want retribution.

One of those waiting for news was Hazem Dakel from Idlib, who is now in Sweden. His uncle Najeeb was arrested in 2012 and was later confirmed by the family as having been killed. His brother Amer was detained the following year. Former detainees at the horrific Saydnaya prison near Damascus said Amer had disappeared in mid-April 2015 after being tortured there. But the regime never acknowledged his death.

“I want this (new Syrian) country to stand on its feet so we can hold them accountable through the law and courts.”

Amid the celebrations in Idlib after the fall of Assad, he said, there was also mourning. “They are mourning their children. Yes, the regime fell after resistance and struggle, but there was sorrow—like, where are our children?”

“Justice is coming, and our right will not be erased no matter how long it takes,” Dakel posted on Facebook. The family is now “certain” Amer died under torture in Saydnaya, he said.

Human rights groups have begun visiting the many prisons and detention centers across Syria where those perceived as regime critics were confined. An Amnesty International team scoured security branches of the former regime around Damascus this week.

Mazjoub also posted photographs on X of instruments of torture left behind.

“Nothing could have prepared us for what we saw,” said one of the team, Aya Mazjoub. In a series of posts on X she described “underground labyrinths (that) are literally hell on earth. They were overcrowded, crawling with cockroaches and other insects, lacked ventilation. They still smell of blood and death.”

“This is ‘bisat ar-reeh’, a notorious torture device where detainees would be strapped to a wooden slab that would be folded until their back cracked,” she wrote.

“This is the ‘doulab’. Detainees would be stuffed into the tyre and beaten, usually on the soles of their feet.”

Identifying the bodies that are found will require a legion of forensic pathologists. “Many are beyond recognition, mutilated by years of torture and starvation,” said Mazjoub.

Desperate relatives have taken to social media with details of sons, brothers, fathers and sisters who disappeared.

In a video posted on X, Lama Saud said her brother Abdullah was detained in 2012. Regime records had registered his death in 2014, but she said she still had hope he might be alive. “There are many detainees whose families were told they were dead but were later found to be alive,” she said.

“We hope to find them, my situation is like hundreds of thousands of Syrian families who are waiting for news about their loved ones, and we will not give up hope until now.”

So far, he has found no trace.

Al Shahabi also asked on Facebook where the recordings of surveillance cameras at regime security branches had gone, why some documents had been destroyed and why human rights groups had not done more to protect records.

Preserving whatever evidence is left in prisons and around possible burial sites is critical to documenting what happened and tracking down the perpetrators.

But following that trail of evidence is also a race against time. Several human rights groups issued a joint appeal last week, saying: “The real toll will only be known after mass graves and documents from the detention centers are examined and authenticated by trained experts. This documentation must be preserved from destruction.”

Based on the accounts of former prisoners, doctors and regime personnel, it said that an “olive-green Honda with a closed shed that could accommodate around 50 bodies” was used to take the bodies to a site in Najha near Damascus – “which has been called cemetery no.1 (the term used by regime forces is ‘cemetery of the bastards’).”

Bodies at the military hospital stayed for two or three days until there were “enough to transport to Najha graveyard, and sometimes to Al Qutayfah graveyard,” and other sites, according to the report.

The Association of Detainees and the Missing at Saydnaya prison, which describes itself as a coalition of prison survivors, victims, and their families, has meticulously documented what has happened there in recent years, based on witness accounts and other evidence, such as satellite imagery. It reported last year how bodies were taken from the prison and a military hospital to a mass burial site.

In 2020, a man known as “the Gravedigger” told a German court he was recruited by the Assad regime to bury hundreds of bodies in mass graves, including Najha, according to the International Commission on Missing Persons.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said burial sites or mass graves “must be protected and preserved to allow organized exhumation” as soon as possible. “This is also crucial to identify and ascertain the fate of those missing and provide the much-awaited answers to their families.”

After its investigators found documents strewn all over Saydnaya prison, the ICRC appealed for all records to be safeguarded at hospitals and in security centers run by the ousted regime.

The ICRC has also asked relatives of the missing – abroad and in Syria – to register with it, as the mammoth task of identifying the dead begins.

The conflict had killed more than 350,000 since 2011 – an “under-count of the actual number of killings,” a United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said in 2021 – and sent nearly six million refugees out of the country. Other groups put the estimated number of dead higher. An Amnesty International investigation published in 2017 said that as many as 13,000 people, most of them civilians believed to be opposed to the government, were hanged in secret at Saydnaya between 2011 and 2015 alone. With reports of civilians killed under torture in the detention centers and prisons for decades, the numbers of those who have lost their lives are still being counted.

In all likelihood, the vast majority of the missing are indeed dead.

In a tearful statement on Syrian television last week, the head of The Syrian Network for Human Rights, Fadel Abulghany, said: “I apologize for the tenth and thousandth time, before this announcement…Most of the forcibly disappeared in Syria are dead – and I am sorry.”

Now the almost overwhelming mission is to find those who died, and to identify them and their killers.

Reports of widespread damage are emerging from Mayotte after a 100-year cyclone ripped across the French archipelago Saturday, inflicting devastation that one resident likened to an atomic bomb, with hundreds and possibly even thousands of feared victims.

“We lost everything. The entire hotel is completely destroyed,” Garcia said. “There is nothing left. It’s as if an atomic bomb fell on Mayotte.”

Mayotte lies in the Indian Ocean off the east coast of Africa, just west of Madagascar. Made up of two main islands, its land area is about twice the size of Washington DC.

Cyclone Chido, a category 4 storm, tore through the southwestern Indian Ocean over the weekend, impacting northern Madagascar before rapidly intensifying and slamming Mayotte with winds above 220 kilometers per hour (136 miles per hour), according to France’s weather service. It was the strongest storm to hit the islands in more than 90 years, Meteo-France said.

Chido then continued into northern Mozambique where it continued to cause damage, though the storm has now weakened.

The cyclone – the worst to hit the territory of just over 300,000 in at least 90 years – flattened neighborhoods, knocked out electrical grids, crushed hospitals and schools and damaged the airport’s control tower.

“Honestly, what we are experiencing is a tragedy, you feel like you are in the aftermath of a nuclear war… I saw an entire neighborhood disappear,” Mohamed Ishmael, a Mamoudzou resident, told Reuters.

At least 11 people have been confirmed dead by the French Interior Ministry, but the true death toll is expected to be much higher, with local officials predicting the number of victims could be in the hundreds or even thousands, the Associated Press reported.

“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 1ère.

The worst damage was to neighborhoods composed of metal shacks and informal structures that are found across Mayotte, Bieuville said.

Of the official death toll, Bieuville said “this figure is not plausible when you see the images of the slums.”

“Everything has been razed”

Debris from the storm has blocked access to roads across the archipelago, making aid delivery challenging and hindering the search for survivors, BMFTV reported.

About two thirds of the island is currently unreachable, Estelle Youssouffa, member of parliament for the first constituency of Mayotte told BMFTV.

“We must not confuse the villages that are cut off from communication (…) and the shanty towns, where there is very little chance of there being survivors. Everything has been razed,” Yousouffa said.

Desperate family members took to social media to search for news of their loved ones after the storm disrupted telecommunications networks.

As of Monday morning, Mayotte had been almost entirely offline for over 36 hours, according to the website NetBlocks.

Located about 5,000 miles from Paris, Mayotte is the poorest place in the European Union and has long struggled with poverty, unemployment, social unrest and water shortages.

Over 100,000 undocumented migrants live in Mayotte, according to France’s Interior Ministry.

Hundreds of rescuers, firefighters and police have been sent to the territory from France and the nearby French territory of Reunion, though damage to the airport’s control tower means only military planes can land there, the Associated Press reported.

Cyclones, also known as typhoons and called hurricanes in North America, are enormous heat engines of wind and rain that feed on warm ocean water and moist air. Cyclone season in the southwest Indian Ocean typically runs from mid-November to the end of April, according to France’s weather agency.

Scientists say climate change is making tropical cyclones more destructive, in part due to rising sea levels caused by greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2019, two powerful cyclones, Idai and Kenneth, pummeled Mozambique over a period of two months, killing hundreds and leaving millions in need of humanitarian assistance.

Chad Youyou, a resident in Hamjago in the north of Mayotte, posted videos to Facebook showing flattened trees and extensive damage to his village, the Associated Press reported.

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

New Delhi (AP) — Zakir Hussain, one of India’s most accomplished classical musicians who defied genres and introduced tabla to global audiences, died on Sunday. He was 73.

The Indian classical music icon died from idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic lung disease, at a hospital in San Francisco, his family said in a statement.

“His prolific work as a teacher, mentor and educator has left an indelible mark on countless musicians. He hoped to inspire the next generation to go further. He leaves behind an unparalleled legacy as a cultural ambassador and one of the greatest musicians of all time,” the statement read.

Hussain was the most recognizable exponent of tabla, a pair of hand drums that is the main percussion instrument in Indian classical music.

Considered the greatest tabla player of his generation, Hussain had a career that spanned six decades in which he collaborated with the likes of singer-songwriter George Harrison, jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd, drummer Mickey Hart and cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

The son of legendary tabla artist Ustad Alla Rakha, Hussain was born in 1951 in Mumbai and was taught how to play the instrument by his father at the age of 7. A child prodigy, he began performing alongside India’s classical music legends during his teens.

In 1973, Hussain formed the Indian jazz fusion band “Shakti” with jazz guitarist John McLaughlin. The band played acoustic fusion music that combined Indian music with elements of jazz, introducing a new sound to Western audiences.

In 2024, Hussain became the first musician from India to win three Grammy awards in the same year.

Hussain’s “Shakti” won Best Global Music Album, and his collaboration with Edgar Meyer, Béla Fleck and flutist Rakesh Chaurasia won Best Global Music Performance and Best Contemporary Instrumental Album. He had earlier won a Grammy in 2009.

In 2023, Hussain received the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award.

Hussain is survived by his wife and two daughters.

Seven tourists are being treated for suspected poisoning after drinking cocktails at a bar in an upscale Fiji resort that’s now being investigated by police.

Four Australians ages 18 to 56, along with other three people believed to be foreign nationals, were taken to the hospital after being served drinks made at a bar at the Warwick Fiji on Saturday.

The tourists suffered nausea, vomiting and “neurological symptoms,” according to a statement from Fiji’s Health Ministry, and as of Monday were in a stable condition.

The case comes just weeks after six tourists died from methanol poisoning after drinking at a bar in Laos, in a case that prompted safety warnings about consuming alcohol abroad.

Asked whether methanol was to blame, Dr Jemesa Tudravu, permanent secretary for Fiji’s Ministry of Health & Medical Services, said it was too soon to tell.

“We don’t have the results of the investigation yet and we don’t know if it was spiking or any other cause until we complete our investigations,” he said in a briefing Monday.

Sydney resident David Sandoe told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation he’d received a call saying his daughter and granddaughter were among those hospitalized. He said they were among a group of people who drank a piña colada cocktail before falling ill.

“There was a group of them in the lounge of this resort and they had a similar cocktail and unfortunately, seven people came down with the symptoms that have been talked about,” Sandoe said.

He said his relatives were scheduled to fly home late Monday.

‘Isolated’ occurrence

Fiji’s Deputy Prime Minister Viliame R. Gavoka assured travelers to the Pacific nation that the incident was “extremely isolated.”

“No other incidents have been reported either at the resort, or across Fiji. The resort has been operating in Fiji successfully for many years and holds a strong reputation, particularly among our Australian visitors,” he said in a statement Monday.

“The resort management has assured us that they have not engaged in practices such as substituting ingredients or altering the quality of drinks served to guests,” he added.

The Warwick Hotels and Resorts operates luxury accommodation worldwide, including in the US, Europe and the Middle East.

In Fiji, king suites offering views of palm trees and the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean cost roughly $500 a night.

In a statement, Warwick Fiji said it was taking the matter “very seriously.”

“At this moment, we do not have conclusive details, but we are committed to ensuring the safety and well-being of our guests,” the hotel said.

Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers confirmed that four Australians were receiving support from department officials.

He said the situation was “very concerning” and pointed to updated travel advice from the Department of Foreign Affairs to be wary of drink spiking and alcohol poisoning in Fiji.

“Don’t leave your drinks unattended. Pay attention when your drinks are being mixed and get urgent medical help if you suspect that something is wrong,” he said.

Gavoka, who is also Fiji’s tourism minister, said close to a million tourists visit the island every year and thousands of tourists were currently holidaying on the Pacific Island.

“This is the only reported case of its kind that we’ve experienced in recent memory, and certainly nothing like this has been experienced this year,” he said.

“While we understand the concern, we want to emphasize that the tourism experience in Fiji is typically very safe, and we have acted immediately to try and discover the cause of what made these guests, at this resort, fall ill.”

In November, the deaths of two Australian teenagers, a British woman, an American man and two Danish women after drinking shots in Laos prompted warnings from several Western nations about the potentially fatal consequences of drinking tainted alcohol.