At least 13 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes on homes in the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza on Saturday, according to hospital officials and Gaza’s Civil Defense.

“The IDF is making significant efforts to mitigate harm to uninvolved civilians and is operating in accordance with international law against the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist organizations in the Gaza Strip that are systematically and cynically operating from within civilian infrastructure.”

Gaza’s Civil Defense also said a residential block was hit south of Nuseirat, with hospital officials saying they received three bodies.

The Israeli military has launched numerous deadly strikes on Nuseirat, including the targeting of multiple UN-run schools housing displaced people. The Israeli military has said its targets were Hamas compounds operating inside the schools.

Nuseirat residents described living in constant fear of being bombed and a deteriorating humanitarian situation.

“The situation is scary,” said Rahma Abu Hajjaj, a 39-year-old mother of five from Nuserirat. “There are no warnings, there are no alarms when homes are bombed, we are hiding all the time and we do not know why they are targeting these homes.”

The Ministry of Health in Gaza said that 37 people have been killed and 54 injured in the past 24 hours due to ongoing Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip.

The ministry said the total number of deaths since October 7 now stands at 38,919 people, with another 89,622 people injured. The ministry does not differentiate between civilians and combatants killed.

Israel launched its ground campaign in Gaza following Hamas’ October 7 attacks, which killed around 1,200 people.

At least 12 people have died and 31 others are missing after a bridge partially collapsed in China’s northern province of Shanxi, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.

Authorities said a portion of the bridge in Zhashui County in the city of Shangluo collapsed on Friday evening after recent rains and flash flooding.

As of 12 p.m. local time (12 a.m. ET) Saturday, search and rescue operations were ongoing after 17 cars and 8 trucks fell into the river, state media reported.

China’s national fire and rescue authority said Saturday it had dispatched a rescue team made up of nearly 900 people, 90 vehicles, 20 boats and 41 drones, according to Reuters.

One person has been rescued, CCTV said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has called for all-out rescue efforts Saturday and said the country is in a critical period for flood control, urging local government to take action, Reuters reported, citing local media.

Parts of China have been grappling with devastating floods, just weeks after scarce rainfall and sweltering temperatures created drought conditions.

In neighboring Henan province, more than 100,000 people across the province have been evacuated from their homes as a result of flooding, according to state media.

In the southwestern Sichuan province, more than 30 people are also missing after flash floods hit a village in Hanyuan County early Saturday, CCTV reported citing the local emergency management agency.

Authorities said sudden floods struck around 2:30 a.m. local time, while many were sleeping and caused damage to homes, roads and bridges.

Police in South Africa arrested four people including two Mexican nationals after uncovering a multimillion-dollar drug manufacturing lab on a farm in the country’s north.

The South African Police Service (SAPS) and the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation, commonly known as Hawks, raided the property in the town of Groblersdal after receiving information suspicious activity was taking place there, SAPS said in a statement.

After searching four structures on the property, police found large quantities of chemicals used to make illicit drugs including acetone and crystal meth, with an estimated street value of 2 billion South African rand ($109.4 million).

The four suspects detained on Friday include the farm owner and two Mexican nationals, the police service said, adding that the Hawks are not ruling out the possibility of further arrests.

“What makes this different from other [seizures] is the involvement of Mexican citizens,” Katlego Mogale, national spokesperson for the Hawks told Reuters, adding: “It means that our task has just become very difficult.”

It is not clear if the drugs seized were intended for South African market or overseas.

The suspects will appear at Groblersdal Magistrate’s court on Monday on charges of manufacturing, dealing and possessing illicit drugs, according to the police service.

In January, police said around 131 drug labs had been shut down across the country since 2019, adding that during the festive season last year more than 19,000 people were arrested for drug possession.

So far this year, the Hawks have discovered 10 secret drug labs and arrested 34 people as they continue their war on drugs in the country, the statement said.

South Africa is dubbed as potentially one of the “largest meth consumer markets in the world,” researchers at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime highlighted in a 2021 report.

It was also described by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) last year as “an attractive drug transit country.” The UNODC attributed the nation’s growing market for synthetic drugs to its “porous borders,” as well as its geography and international trade links.

Air raid sirens wailed across Cyprus’s divided capital Nicosia at dawn on Saturday as Greek Cypriots mourned, and Turkish Cypriots celebrated, 50 years since Turkey invaded part of the island in response to a brief Greek-inspired coup.

The ethnically split island is a persistent source of tension between Greece and Turkey, which are both partners in NATO but are at odds over numerous issues.

Their differences were laid bare on Saturday, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attending a celebratory military parade in north Nicosia to mark the day in 1974 when Turkish forces launched an offensive that they call a “peace operation.”

Later in the day, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis was due to attend an event in the south of the city to commemorate what Greeks commonly refer to as the “barbaric Turkish invasion.”

Mitsotakis posted an image of a blood-stained map of Cyprus on his LinkedIn page with the words “Half a century since the national tragedy of Cyprus.”

There was jubilation in the north.

“The Cyprus Peace Operation saved Turkish Cypriots from cruelty and brought them to freedom,” Erdogan said, criticizing the south for having a “spoiled mentality” and seeing itself as the sole ruler of Cyprus.

But Erdogan left open a window to dialogue in deadlocked negotiations. “We are ready for negotiations, to meet, and to establish long-term peace and resolution in Cyprus,” he said.

Peace talks are now stalled at two seemingly irreconcilable concepts – Greek Cypriots want reunification as a federation. Turkish Cypriots want a two-state settlement.

Cyprus gained independence from Britain in 1960, but a shared administration between Greek and Turkish Cypriots quickly fell apart in violence that saw Turkish Cypriots withdraw into enclaves and led to the dispatch of a UN peacekeeping force.

The crisis left Greek Cypriots running the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus, a member of the European Union since 2004 with the potential to derail Turkey’s own decades-long aspirations of joining the bloc.

Remembering the dead

Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides, whose office represents the Greek Cypriot community in the reunification dialogue, said the anniversary was a somber occasion for reflection and for remembering the dead.

“Our mission is liberation, reunification and solving the Cyprus problem,” he said. “If we really want to send a message on this tragic anniversary … it is to do anything possible to reunite Cyprus.”

Turkey, he said, continued to be responsible for violating human rights and international law over Cyprus.

Across the south, church services were held to remember the more than 3,000 people who died in the Turkish invasion.

“It was a betrayal of Cyprus and so many kids were lost. It wasn’t just my son, it was many,” said Loukas Alexandrou, 90, as he tended the grave of his son at a military cemetery.

In Turkey, state television focused on violence against Turkish Cypriots prior to the invasion, particularly on bloodshed in 1963-64 and in 1967.

Turkey’s invasion took more than a third of the island and expelled more than 160,000 Greek Cypriots to the south.

Reunification talks collapsed in 2017 and have been at a stalemate since. Northern Cyprus is a breakaway state recognized only by Turkey, and its Turkish Cypriot leadership wants international recognition.

Hamas-led armed groups committed “numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity” against civilians during the October 7 attack in southern Israel, according to a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report released Wednesday.

In a 236-page report titled “‘I Can’t Erase All the Blood from My Mind’: Palestinian Armed Groups’ October 7 Assault on Israel,” the rights watchdog said that the October 7 attack was “directed against a civilian population,” and that “killing civilians and taking hostages were central aims of the planned attack, not an afterthought, a plan gone awry, or isolated acts.”

“The Hamas-led assault on October 7 was designed to kill civilians and take as many people as possible hostage,” said Ida Sawyer, crisis and conflict director at HRW.

The assault was led by Hamas’ military wing – the Qassam Brigades – but included at least four other Palestinian armed groups, the report said.

The report details several dozen cases of serious violations of international humanitarian law by Palestinian armed groups at most civilian attack sites on October 7, when militants killed 1,200 people in Israel and took more than 250 people hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

The rights group said it interviewed 144 people, including 94 Israeli and other nationals, who witnessed the October 7 assault, which targeted at least 19 kibbutzim (agricultural communes) and five moshavim (cooperative communities). The cities of Sderot and Ofakim, two music festivals, and a beach party were also targeted, HRW added.

“The armed groups committed numerous violations of the laws of war that amount to war crimes,” the report said. These include “attacks targeting civilians and civilian objects, willful killing of people in custody, cruel and other inhumane treatment.” Palestinian fighters committed summary killings and hostage-taking along with murder and wrongful imprisonment, HRW added.

Sexual and gender-based violence

The report also highlighted “crimes involving sexual and gender-based violence, hostage-taking, mutilation and despoiling bodies, use of human shields, and pillage and looting.”

Israel and the United Nations have also accused Hamas-led militants of committing sexual violence on October 7.

In March, the UN special envoy on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, said her team found “reasonable grounds to believe that conflict related sexual violence, including rape and gang rape occurred” that day. It was the UN’s most definitive finding on allegations of sexual assault in the aftermath of the attack.

HRW said that Hamas responded to its questions, stating that its forces were instructed not to target civilians and to abide by international human rights and humanitarian law. “In many cases, Human Rights Watch investigations found evidence to the contrary,” the watchdog said.

Hamas rejected the findings of the report and called for it to be retracted, according to a statement on Wednesday.

“We reject the lies and blatant bias towards the occupation and the lack of professionalism and credibility in the Human Rights Watch report. We demand its withdrawal and an apology,” the Palestinian group said.

‘Atrocities do not justify atrocities’

In response to the October 7 attack, Israel launched an air and ground offensive on Gaza that has killed more than 38,000 people in the enclave, according to Palestinian authorities. The war has displaced almost all of Gaza’s population of 2 million, turned swathes of the territory into rubble and triggered a massive humanitarian crisis.

Previous HRW reports have addressed several alleged serious violations by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7. In its Wednesday report, HRW called on all parties involved in the conflict to abide by international humanitarian law.

“The Palestinian armed groups in Gaza should immediately and unconditionally release civilians held hostage,” the report said, adding that both parties “should surrender for prosecution anyone facing an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant.”

In May, the ICC said it was seeking arrest warrants for Yahya Sinwar, the Hamas leader in Gaza, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, among other Israeli and Hamas officials, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity over the October 7 attacks and the subsequent war in Gaza.  A case is also being heard by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over an accusation by South Africa that Israel is committing genocide in its war in Gaza.

“Atrocities do not justify atrocities,” Sawyer said. “To stop the endless cycle of abuses in Israel and Palestine, it’s critical to address root causes and hold violators of grave crimes to account. That’s in the interests of both Palestinians and Israelis.”