Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza and killed more than 400 people, said Palestinian health authorities on Tuesday, in an onslaught across the enclave that ended weeks of relative calm after talks to secure a permanent ceasefire stalled.
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the Ukraine war on Tuesday in a phone call in which Putin agreed to Trump’s proposal that Russia and Ukraine cease attacking each other’s energy infrastructure for 30 days.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Helsinki ahead of an official visit to Finland on Wednesday, said the office of Finnish President Alexander Stubb on Tuesday.
US judge bars Musk, DOGE from further efforts to shut down USAID
A federal judge on Tuesday blocked billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOCE) from taking any more steps to shut down the US Agency for International Development (USAID), saying their efforts to close the agency likely violated the US Constitution.
In a preliminary ruling, US District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland ordered President Donald Trump’s adviser Musk and DOGE to restore access to USAID’s computer systems for the agency’s direct and contract employees, including thousands who have been placed on leave. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit by current and former employees, one of several currently pending over the rapid dismantling of the foreign aid agency.
Israeli strikes kill over 400 in Gaza
Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza and killed more than 400 people, said Palestinian health authorities on Tuesday, in an onslaught across the enclave that ended weeks of relative calm after talks to secure a permanent ceasefire stalled.
Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas each accused the other of breaching the truce, which had broadly held since January, offering respite from war for the two million inhabitants of Gaza, where most buildings have been reduced to rubble.
Hamas, which still holds 59 of the 250 or so hostages Israel says the group seized in its 7 October 2023 attack, accused Israel of jeopardising efforts by mediators to negotiate a permanent deal to end the fighting, but the group made no threat of retaliation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he ordered strikes because Hamas had rejected proposals to secure a ceasefire extension during faltering talks.
“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” said the prime minister’s office.
The strikes hit houses and tent encampments from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip, and Israeli tanks shelled from across the borderline, said witnesses. Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said 404 people had been killed in one of the biggest single-day tolls since the war erupted.
“It was a night of hell. It felt like the first days of the war,” said Rabiha Jamal (65), a mother of five from Gaza City, who said her building shook as the explosions began.
Families in Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip and eastern areas of Khan Younis in the south fled their homes, some on foot, others in cars or rickshaws, carrying some of their belongings after the Israeli military issued evacuation orders warning the areas were “dangerous combat zones”.
Egypt and Qatar, mediators in the ceasefire deal along with the US, condemned the Israeli assault.
The UN emergency relief coordinator, Tom Fletcher, said the “modest gains” made during the ceasefire had been destroyed.
He said humanitarian aid and commercial essentials must be allowed to enter Gaza. Israel has halted aid deliveries into Gaza for over two weeks, exacerbating a humanitarian crisis.
However, Dorothy Shea, acting US ambassador to the United Nations, said the blame for the resumption of Gaza hostilities “lies solely with Hamas” and expressed support for Israel in its next steps.
The airstrikes earned Netanyahu a political boost at home. Former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who left the government over disagreements about the Gaza ceasefire, was rejoining the coalition after the resumption of Israeli strikes, said a statement.
But former hostages and the families of some still held in Gaza expressed outrage over the resumption of war.
Released hostage Yarden Bibas, whose wife and two young sons were slain in captivity, said on Facebook:
“Israel’s decision to return to fighting brings me back to Gaza, to the moments where I heard the sounds of explosions around me and where I feared for my life as I was afraid that the tunnel where I was being held would collapse. Military pressure endangers hostages, an agreement brings them back.”
In Gaza, witnesses contacted by Reuters said Israeli tanks shelled areas in Rafah in the south. Bewildered children sat next to bagged-up belongings, ready to flee north again having returned to Rafah with the ceasefire.
In hospitals strained by 15 months of bombardment, piles of bodies in white plastic sheets smeared with blood were stacked up as casualties were brought in. The health ministry said many of the dead were children, and 562 people were injured.
Among the Hamas officials killed in the airstrikes were Essam Addalees, the de facto head of the Hamas government, Ahmed Al-Hetta, deputy justice minister and Mahmoud Abu Watfa, the head of the Hamas-run security services, said Hamas.
As Israel launched its operation in Gaza, its forces have pressed on with an operation in the occupied West Bank and Israeli jets have struck targets in southern Lebanon and Syria in recent days.
Negotiating teams from Israel and Hamas had been in Doha as mediators sought to bridge the gap between the two sides after the end of an initial phase in the ceasefire, which saw 33 Israeli hostages and five Thais released in exchange for some 2,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Israel had been pressing for the return of the remaining hostages in exchange for a truce until after the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and the Jewish Passover holiday in April.
However, Hamas has insisted on moving to negotiations for a permanent end to the war and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces, under the terms of the original ceasefire agreement.
On Tuesday, Hamas spokesperson Abdel-Latif Al-Qanoua told Reuters the group was still in touch with mediators, and it was keen to complete the implementation of the original deal.
Egyptian mediators were engaged in intense contacts to salvage the ceasefire, said two Egyptian security sources.
Much of Gaza now lies in ruins after the war, which erupted on 7 October 2023 when Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel, killing some 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies.
The Israeli campaign in Gaza has killed more than 48,000 people, say Palestinian health authorities, and destroyed much of the housing and infrastructure in the enclave.
Russia agrees to stop hitting Ukraine energy targets
US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the Ukraine war on Tuesday in a phone call in which Putin agreed to Trump’s proposal that Russia and Ukraine cease attacking each other’s energy infrastructure for 30 days.
The two countries also planned to begin negotiations “immediately” in the Middle East on a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, according to a readout from the White House.
“The leaders agreed that the movement to peace will begin with an energy and infrastructure ceasefire, as well as technical negotiations on implementation of a maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea, full ceasefire and permanent peace,” said the White House readout.
The Kremlin, however, made it clear that it wanted foreign military aid to Ukraine to stop.
“It was emphasised that the key condition for preventing the escalation of the conflict and working towards its resolution by political and diplomatic means should be a complete cessation of foreign military assistance and the provision of intelligence information to Kyiv.”
Putin, whose forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022, said last week he supported in principle Washington’s proposal for a truce but that his forces would fight on until several crucial conditions were worked out.
Zelensky arrives in Finland
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Helsinki ahead of an official visit to Finland on Wednesday, said the office of Finnish President Alexander Stubb on Tuesday.
The two presidents would discuss Finland’s support for Ukraine, including steps to end Russia’s war, and meet with defence industry companies, it added.
Finland’s finance, defence and foreign ministers would participate in Wednesday’s presidential palace meeting, and Zelensky would also meet with Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and parliament speaker Jussi Halla-aho, said Finland.
Trump administration reinstating 24,500 fired workers after court order
The Trump administration in court filings has for the first time acknowledged that it fired nearly 25,000 recently hired workers, and said agencies were working to bring all of them back after a judge ruled that their terminations were probably illegal.
The filings made in Baltimore, Maryland, federal court late on Monday include statements from officials at 18 agencies, all of whom said the reinstated probationary workers were being placed on administrative leave at least temporarily.
The mass firings, part of Trump’s broader purge of the federal workforce, were widely reported, but the court filings were the first full accounting of the terminations by the administration.
Most of the agencies said they had fired a few hundred workers. The Treasury Department terminated about 7,600 people, the Department of Agriculture about 5,700 and the Department of Health and Human Services more than 3,200, according to the filings.
US District Judge James Bredar on 13 March said the mass firings of probationary workers that began last month violated regulations governing the mass layoffs of federal employees, and ordered them to be reinstated pending further litigation.
Probationary workers typically have less than one year of service in their current roles, though some are longtime federal employees.
Bredar’s ruling came in a lawsuit by 19 Democrat-led states and Washington, DC, who said the mass firings would trigger a spike in unemployment claims and greater demand for social services provided by states.
The Trump administration has appealed against Bredar’s decision and on Monday asked a Richmond, Virginia-based appeals court to pause the ruling pending the outcome of the case.
Hours before Bredar issued his ruling, a federal judge in San Francisco had ordered that probationary workers be reinstated at six agencies, including five also covered by Bredar’s order and the US Department of Defense. The administration has also appealed that decision.
In the filings late on Monday, agency officials said they had either reinstated all of the fired employees or were working to do so, but warned that bringing back large numbers of workers had imposed significant burdens and caused confusion and turmoil.
The officials also noted that an appeals court ruling reversing Bredar’s order would allow agencies to again fire the workers, subjecting them to multiple changes in their employment status in a matter of weeks.
“The tremendous uncertainty associated with this confusion and these administrative burdens impede supervisors from appropriately managing their workforce, wrote Mark Green, deputy assistant secretary at the Department of the Interior, in one of the filings.
“Work schedules and assignments are effectively being tied to hearing and briefing schedules set by the courts.”
UK to use police stations as prisons under emergency measure
Police cells will temporarily be used to hold prisoners in a stopgap measure to cope with overcrowding in jails, said the British government on Tuesday.
The emergency action, dubbed “Operation Safeguard”, allows inmates to be held in police cells when prisons are full, and was previously used from February 2023 to October last year.
The prison population in England and Wales has doubled in the last 30 years, according to official data, leading to overcrowding as new places have failed to keep pace with demand. Justice systems in Scotland and Northern Ireland are run separately.
In a statement to parliament, Justice Minister Shabana Mahmood said the prison system was operating at more than 99% occupancy.
US Justice Department orders lawyers to review JFK documents
The US Justice Department ordered some of its lawyers who handle sensitive national-security matters to urgently review records from the assassination of former President John F Kennedy that were due to be released on Tuesday, according to an email seen by Reuters.
Christopher Robinson, a National Security Division official, announced that “all” attorneys who work in the Operations Section of the Office of Intelligence were being ordered to review between 400 and 500 documents each, according to a Monday evening email seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
It is not clear whether that would interfere with the lawyers’ regular work, which includes filing court requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to monitor foreigners on US soil.
Robinson imposed a deadline of noon Tuesday to complete the review, which includes records related to the assassinations of John F Kennedy, as well as Robert F Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr, and “possibly others”.
Trump has ordered roughly 80,000 pages of material related to Kennedy’s assassination to be released, along with government records related to the assassinations of former Attorney-General Robert F Kennedy and civil-rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr.
Hundreds evacuated as more heavy rain hits Spain
Heavy rains hit Spain for a third week in a row on Tuesday, with at least two people missing and hundreds evacuated in the southern region of Andalusia, where several rivers had overflowed, or were at risk of doing so.
Spaniards are still on edge after torrential rains four months ago in the eastern Valencia region led to the country’s deadliest natural disaster in decades. Many blamed local and national officials for being too late in sending emergency alerts.
The regional leader of Andalusia, Juan Manuel Moreno, urged citizens to exercise extreme caution on Tuesday.
“Please be very careful, even if the rain eases. Crossing a stream is highly dangerous,” Moreno said after two people went missing in the regional capital, Seville.
Authorities believe the couple tried to cross a ravine and may have been swept away. Their empty car was found overturned nearby.
Andalusian authorities said 368 families were evacuated as a preventive measure in the province of Malaga. In one of the towns, Cartama, around 20 people and their pets were rescued from their flooded homes.
In Aguilas, a coastal Mediterranean town in Murcia, emergency services rescued nine people who were trapped inside their cars in a ravine. The occupants of several boats were also helped to safety in the same area.
The unusual string of back-to-back storms has helped the country — whose generally sunny weather is a major draw for tourists — put an end to a long-term drought, with many dams now having water released to prevent them from overflowing.
After two weeks of rains, Spanish reservoirs were at 65.6% of their capacity, above the 10-year-average, with a 5% increase in the last week alone.
USAID suspension endangers Colombia’s peace deal with Farc
The global suspension of USAID funding is shuttering peace and anti-gang programmes in Colombia’s most impoverished places, endangering the implementation of the country’s 2016 peace deal with leftist Farc rebels, according to officials, people working with the agency and beneficiaries.
The Trump administration’s freeze of nearly all funding for the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has thrown humanitarian initiatives around the world into turmoil.
In recent years, Colombia received as much as $440-million annually in USAID assistance for more than 80 programmes, making it the largest recipient of the agency’s funds in the Western Hemisphere, according to US government data.
Cuts will endanger the implementation of the accord with the leftist Farc rebels, which includes efforts to cut production of cocaine, said Colombia’s former foreign minister, a legislator, an official who worked on USAID programmes and another source with knowledge of the funding.
Luis Gilberto Murillo, who until January was Colombia’s foreign minister and previously served as the country’s ambassador to the US and an adviser to USAID, said the cuts would affect numerous organisations focused on human rights, democracy, peace-building and helping Indigenous and Afro-Colombian people.
“I think it will create more risk of violence and more vulnerability because the role of USAID programmes in those regions has been decisive,” he said.
The US provided 42% of the foreign aid for the implementation of the deal — which includes land reform and a transitional justice system to sentence combatants for war crimes — between 2018 and 2024, totalling some $1.26-billion, according to figures from Colombia’s government.
“The USAID cuts will have a significant, negative impact on the implementation of the peace accords,” said James Hermenegildo Mosquera, a lower house legislator from Choco province who occupies a seat specially reserved for conflict victims. He said victim reparations and land reform would be affected, “increasing the risks of violence stemming from drug trafficking”. DM