As a bomb descended on a multi-story apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area Friday, hundreds of onlookers gathered in the street at a traffic roundabout several hundred meters (yards) away.

Among them was an Associated Press photographer. Hassan Ammar had donned his flak jacket and helmet and rushed to the scene — taking up his position at a safe distance using a long lens — after the Israeli military issued an evacuation warning with a map marking the targeted building.

The Israeli army said the building contained facilities belonging to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

However, Ammar had different associations with the building. He had grown up less than a kilometer (less than 0.6 miles) from it, and he had been there on multiple occasions.

When he was a child during the 15-year Lebanese civil war that ended in 1990, “this building was on the front line between Muslim and Christian neighborhoods,” the so-called Green Line, he recalled.

But in later years, Ammar said, he visited the building “many times.” There was a notary public on the first floor, and next door was a sports supply store where he used to shop. Next to the building was a cemetery where his family had loved ones buried.

“I know it very well,” he said.

Ammar said he even once considered renting an apartment in the building that was struck, or in the building next door — now he can’t remember which — because it had a beautiful view of the pine trees in Horsh Beirut, a large public park nearby.

When he heard the sound of the projectile overhead, Ammar had his camera already trained on the building set to a high shutter speed, and he began snapping photos immediately, capturing the bomb in mid-air and as it descended, ending with a massive explosion.

There were no immediate reports of casualties, but much of the building was reduced to rubble.

Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed close-up photos of Friday’s bomb to determine what type of weapon was used.

“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s Joint Directed Attack Munition (JDAM) tail kit,” he said.

Weir added that “the use of large, air-dropped bombs, like these, that produce wide-area effects in populated areas carries significant risks to civilians and civilian objects.”

A few weeks earlier, another AP photographer, Bilal Hussein, had captured a nearly identical scene as a similar powerful bomb hit a nearby building in Beirut.

The Israeli military has maintained that it takes measures to reduce civilian casualties by issuing warnings before many of its strikes in Lebanon.

More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah — most of them since mid-September — of whom about 27% were women and children, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

A South African court ordered police to end a standoff with illegal miners and allow emergency workers to gain access to a shaft where hundreds are believed to be holed up.

The High Court in Pretoria, South Africa, said in an interim ruling that all miners underground in the mine in Stilfontein should be allowed to leave and no one should block their exit, according to state broadcaster SABC.

Yasmin Omar, an attorney who helped bring the case to court, told SABC that the ruling was a temporary order and a full hearing will take place next week.

The ruling follows growing concerns about the well-being of the illegal miners – who can spend months below ground – after police cut off food and water supplies.

On Friday, the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) said in a statement it was investigating the police for restricting the miners’ essential supplies.

At least one decomposed body has been recovered from the mine, police said.

The blockade of the Stilfontein mine is part of an escalating clampdown by the government and police on the activity of illegal miners in the country.

Others say the root of the problem is the high levels of unemployment and poverty in the country, which force local people in precarious and dangerous work.

The South African Police Service welcomed the court order but said that the ruling does not prevent the detention of illegal miners who are in good health.

“All those who resurface will continue to be assessed by emergency medical personnel on site, as has been the case,” they said Saturday in a Facebook post.

“Those that are in a good health will be processed and detained. Those that require further medical care will be taken to hospital under police guard,” they added.

The police force said that operations would continue at all abandoned and disused mining shafts in the Stilfontein area and repeated their request for all illegal miners to resurface.

Three illegal miners resurfaced by Saturday afternoon, according to the police. Also on Saturday, a South African national was arrested in Kanana at a house used as a smelter – a facility used to purify gold – they added.

The decision by US President Joe Biden to allow Ukraine to use long-range American missiles in Russia follows a familiar pattern.

The White House refuses for months to grant a weapons request from Ukraine, fearing it would be escalatory. Kyiv loudly decries the refusal, and just when the request seems to have been parked, the Biden administration approves it.

Ukraine’s request for HIMARS, Abrams tanks, F16s – all followed a similar pattern of refuse and prevaricate, and then grant, almost at the moment when it is too late.

Is it too late for the US-made Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, to make a difference if it hits targets deep inside Russia?

The answer is complex and perhaps explains some of the reluctance of the Biden administration to grant permission.

Firstly, there is a limited supply of ATACMS that Ukraine can get its hands on. So even Kyiv being able to hit deep inside Russia – and the longer range of ATACMS is 100km or 62 miles – is not going to yield an overnight change in the battlefield.

Analysts have listed the volume of Russian targets that are in range of these missiles – with the Institute for the Study of War listing hundreds of targets – after the Biden administration apparently briefed that Russian airfields in ATACMS range had seen their attack aircraft evacuated deeper inside Russia.

But really, Ukraine will not get enough ATACMS to alter the course of the war.

Secondly, Ukraine has been able to penetrate deeper inside Russia using domestically manufactured and cheaper drones. The United States has agreed to help fund the development of these devices, which appear to have caused havoc around Moscow’s airports and across Russia’s energy infrastructure.

Thirdly, the permission to use US precision missiles to hit deeper inside Russia is, as it sounds, quite provocative.

It is true that Moscow is quite militarily weak now, and unlikely to seek full conflict with NATO or the US.

But at some point, the Kremlin will seek to restore its deterrence. Moscow’s intelligence services have been blamed for sabotage of civilian targets across Europe, including recent reports that explosive packages were planted on courier planes inside Europe.

The Biden administration was correct to weigh the practical utility of longer range strikes, against the potential for civilian collateral damage in NATO member states, if Russia felt obliged to somehow hit back.

So it was not as simple or obvious decision as some advocates in Kyiv claimed. The wider goal seems to have been to get the Biden administration to put more skin in the game of Ukraine’s war – to truly takes the gloves off.

Yet the White House is keen to stress the deployment of North Korean troops into Kursk fueled its decision – that this is the US’ response to Moscow’s escalation.

Western officials have noted the North Korean deployment represents the Ukraine conflict expanding and becoming something that the United States’ Indo-Pacific adversaries now have a role in; that it has made the war slightly more global for America.

In Biden’s eyes this is an escalation, in response to an escalation.

But the fact he delayed so long because of the extraordinary symbolism of granting this permission just adds to the potency of the decision he just took.

President-elect Donald Trump may think he can talk peace, but he will inherit a war where the stakes have just got significantly higher.

An aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is alleged to have leaked classified information to foreign press in the hopes of influencing public opinion on hostage negotiations, according to a court release published Sunday.

Eliezer Feldstein was arrested earlier this month for allegedly leaking “classified and sensitive intelligence information,” according to court documents. Sunday’s court release outlines more of the details surrounding this alleged leak.

According to the magistrate’s court of Rishon Lezion, the leak began when a non-commissioned officer (NCO) in the Israeli military reserves took a “highly sensitive and classified document” from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

In April this year, the NCO sent a copy of the document to Feldstein, who distributed it to Israeli media outlets in September “with the aim of influencing public opinion on the ongoing negotiations concerning the hostages,” the court release said.

This came shortly after the Israeli military announced on September 1 that six Israeli hostages were killed in Gaza. Four of them were due to be released in the first wave of a potential deal.

Israeli media outlets were prevented from publishing articles related to the leaked document by the country’s censorship authorities, the court release said, so Feldstein “decided to bypass censorship and publish the document in foreign media.”

Two articles published in September, one in the United Kingdom’s Jewish Chronicle and another in Germany’s Bild, included information related to the leaks. Both cited Israeli intelligence sources and supported a narrative being pushed by Netanyahu at the time.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid and Benny Gantz – who quit Netanyahu’s wartime cabinet earlier this year – seized on the alleged leaks as a failure at the very top of government, with Gantz calling it a “national crime.”

Both blamed Netanyahu’s office for the leak, with Gantz accusing Netanyahu of leveraging the leaks for political gains.

A spokesperson for Netanyahu denied earlier this month that there were leaks from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), and said that the “person in question never participated in security-related discussions,” apparently referring to Feldstein.

The PMO also downplayed the possibility that the leak impacted negotiations with Hamas over the release of hostages from Gaza, calling the claim “ridiculous.”

The spokesperson of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Mohammed Afif, was reportedly killed in an Israeli strike on Beirut on Sunday.

The attack was just the fourth Israeli strike inside Beirut’s city limits since 2006, when a 34-day armed conflict between Israel and Hezbollah took place.

Sunday’s strike hit the area, known as Ras al-Nebaa, in the middle of the day, with no evacuation warning issued. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had no comment on the strike.

For years, Afif headed media relations at Hezbollah. After the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in late September, Afif was a prominent public face of the party, delivering speeches from news conferences amid the rubble in the southern suburbs of Beirut, which have been pounded by attacks since Israel began a new offensive on October 1.

Israel’s apparent targeting of Afif comes amid an escalation in its offensive in Lebanon, alongside intensified diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel.

Israel’s war on many fronts

Meanwhile, at least 50 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza on Sunday morning, according to the health ministry in Gaza.

Dozens of Palestinians displaced by the ongoing Israeli operation in the nearby Jabalya area were sheltering in two of the houses hit, a local journalist said.

The resident said the people in the area started removing the dead from the rubble in the absence of civil defense and ambulances. Gaza’s civil defense say they are unable to operate in the area due to the continuing Israeli strikes.

“These were people displaced from Jabalya to Beit Lahiya,” the eyewitness said.

Another toddler is heard in the background crying, “mama, mama.”

Separately, Israeli strikes targeted al-Bureij in central Gaza killing 23 people, according to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, where the bodies were taken.

“It was a very terrifying night, with the sounds of small children screaming — every little one calling for their mother,” one resident in the area, Mahmoud Azaiza, said.

Israel launched a renewed military offensive on Jabalya last month after Israeli intelligence indicated that Hamas was trying to rebuild its capabilities in the area. The offensive displaced thousands of Palestinians and killed dozens.

The operation has inflicted losses on the Israeli military, with 20 soldiers declared to have been killed in northern Gaza since the operation began, including four last week, according to statements published by the IDF since October 6.

“This operation to systematically dismantle terrorist infrastructure in the area will continue as long as required in order to achieve its objectives,” the IDF said last month.

The continued offensive on Gaza coincides with Israel’s expanding operation in southern Lebanon. On Friday night, Israeli forces reached the village of Chama, some 61 miles from the capital of Beirut, in what is understood to be the deepest incursion into southern Lebanese territory.

Israeli forces withdrew after clashing with Hezbollah, Lebanese state media said.

Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes continued pounding the Lebanese capital on Sunday for the sixth consecutive day. The IDF renewed evacuation warnings Sunday morning for residents of Haret Hreik in the southern Beirut suburbs, where Hezbollah is known to have a strong presence.

This story has been updated with additional developments.

Australian police on Monday charged former radio show host Alan Jones with 24 assault and sexual touching offenses, indictments that followed accusations in a newspaper that Jones had assaulted young men for decades.

Police confirmed the arrest and charges against an 83-year-old man in Sydney but did not name him.

He was widely identified by Australian media as Alan Jones and TV footage on Monday showed him in a police car arriving at a police station.

Police allege the offenses took place between 2001 and 2019 against 8 victims, some of whom Jones knew professionally or personally. The youngest was 17 at the time of the offense, they said.

More alleged victims are likely to come forward now charges have been laid, New South Wales police assistant commissioner Michael Fitzgerald told a press conference.

Reuters has sought comment from Jones. He denied the assault allegations made against him last year by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper. Police said the “energy” generated by the stories had helped bring the case to court.

Jones had hosted radio shows for decades and anchored the popular Sydney breakfast show on radio station 2GB for about 18 years until 2020.

A well-known conservative “shock jock,” listeners knew Jones for his sharp questions and equally sharp tongue. In 2019, he said then Prime Minister Scott Morrison should give his then New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern a “few backhanders” and “shove a sock down her throat” because of her views on climate change.

Jones has faced defamation lawsuits many times. After leaving 2GB, he worked at a digital start-up, but had been off the air since the Sydney Morning Herald allegations were made.

India has successfully tested a domestically developed long-range hypersonic missile, it said on Sunday, attaining a key milestone in military development that puts it in a small group of nations possessing the advanced technology.

The global push for hypersonic weapons figures in the efforts of some countries, such as India, which is striving to develop advanced long-range missiles, along with China, Russia and the United States.

The Indian missile, developed by the state-run Defence Research and Development Organisation and industry partners, is designed to carry payloads for ranges exceeding 1,500 km (930 miles) for the armed forces, the government said in a statement.

“The flight data … confirmed the successful terminal maneuvers and impact with high degree of accuracy,” it added.

The test-firing took place from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam island off the eastern coast of Odisha state on Saturday, it said.

Defense Minister Rajnath Singh called the test a “historic achievement” in a post on X, adding that it placed India among a select group of nations possessing such critical and advanced technologies.