World

Yolande Knell Middle East correspondent Rushdi Abualouf Gaza correspondent EPA Armed members of Hamas’s military wing took part in hostage handover ceremonies during the recent ceasefire Hamas is said to have rejected an Israeli proposal for a six-week ceasefire in Gaza which called for the armed group to give up…

The Vatican has put Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí on the path to sainthood in recognition of his “heroic virtues”. Gaudí – who has been dubbed by some as “God’s architect” – is the designer of one of Spain’s most famous religious sites and tourist attractions, the unfinished Sagrada Familia basilica…

Several prisons in France have been hit by a wave of attacks overnight, the justice minister has said. Gérald Darmanin said prisons had faced “intimidation attempts” ranging from vehicle burning to automatic weapon fire. La Parisien reports that vehicles were set on fire in several prison car parks, while a…

Mahjooba Nowrouzi BBC Afghan Service BBC Carpet weaving is one of few professions open to women since the Taliban government took power in 2021 At a workshop in Kabul where carpets are made, hundreds of women and girls work in a cramped space, the air thick and stifling. Among them…

Heba Bitar BBC Eye Investigations, el-Geneina Hafiza Hafiza and her brother lost their mother in August 2024 when a shell hit the market where she was working “She left no last words. She was dead when she was carried away,” says Hafiza quietly, as she describes how her mother was…

Donald Trump has said Volodymyr Zelensky shares the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin for “millions of people dead” in the Ukraine war. The US president was responding to reporters’ questions during a meeting with El Salvador’s leader at the White House. “When you start a war you got to…

Watch: Bukele says he will not return Ábrego García to the US El Salvador will not return Kilmar Ábrego García, whom the US government deported to his home country where he is being held in a mega-prison. President Nayib Bukele made the comments during a meeting on Monday at the…

Alfie Tobutt BBC World Service Getty Images The sandstorm blanketed parts of southern Iraq in an orange haze More than a thousand people have been left with respiratory problems after a sandstorm swept across Iraq’s central and southern parts of the country, health officials said. One official in Muthanna province…

The Trump administration has said it is freezing more than $2bn in federal funds for Harvard University, just hours after the elite college rejected a sweeping list of demands from the White House. “Harvard’s statement today reinforces the troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation’s most prestigious universities…

More than 400 people have been killed in recent attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan’s Darfur region, says the UN citing “credible sources”. Last week, the RSF launched an intense ground and aerial assault on refugee camps surrounding the city of El-Fasher in an attempt to…