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Israel carried out a major airstrike in southern Gaza on Saturday targeting the commander of Hamas’ military wing, Mohammed Deif. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that while Deif’s death could not yet be confirmed, Israel will kill all of the Hamas leaders. Hamas says at least 90 Palestinian civilians were killed. Linda Gradstein reports for VOA from Jerusalem. Camera: Ricki Rosen

MUWASI, Gaza Strip — Hamas said Sunday that Gaza cease-fire talks continue and the group's military commander is in good health, a day after the Israeli military targeted Mohammed Deif with a massive airstrike that local health officials said killed at least 90 people, including children. Deif's condition remained uncertain after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Saturday night "there still isn't absolute certainty" he was killed. Hamas representatives gave no evidence to back up their assertion about the health of a chief architect of the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the war. The Israeli military on Sunday announced that Rafa Salama, a Hamas commander it described as one of Deif's closest associates, had been killed in Saturday's strike. Salama commanded Hamas' Khan Younis brigade. The statement gave no update on Deif, who has long topped Israel's most-wanted list and has been in hiding for years. Hamas rejected the idea that mediated cease-fire discussions had been suspended after the strike. Spokesperson Jihad Taha said "there is no doubt that the horrific massacres will impact any efforts in the negotiations" but added that "efforts and endeavors of the mediators remain ongoing." The killing of Deif would mark the highest profile assassination of any Hamas leader by Israel since the war began. It would be both a huge victory for Israel and a deep psychological blow for the militant group. Netanyahu said all of Hamas' leaders are "marked for death" and asserted that killing them would move Hamas closer to accepting a cease-fire deal. Hamas political officials insisted that communication channels remained functional between the leadership inside and outside Gaza after the strike in the territory's south. Witnesses said it occurred in an area that Israel had designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians. Israel's military would not confirm that. On Sunday, some survivors were angry that the attack targeting Deif occurred without warning in an area they had been told was safe. "Where are we supposed to go?" asked Mahmoud Abu Yaseen, who said he heard two strikes and clutched his children, then woke up in the hospital to find his son had died. The family had already been displaced five times since the war began, he said. Another 300 people were wounded in the strike, one of the deadliest in the nine-month war sparked by Hamas' Oct. 7 assault on southern Israel that killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took more than 200 hostage. More than 38,400 people in Gaza have been killed in Israeli ground offensives and bombardments since then, according to the territory's Health Ministry. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its count. A United Nations official described utter chaos at Nasser hospital where victims of Saturday's strike were taken, many of them treated on bloodstained floors with few supplies available. "I witnessed some of the most horrific scenes I have seen in my nine months in Gaza," Scott Anderson said in a statement. "I saw toddlers who are double amputees, children paralyzed and unable to receive treatment and others separated from their parents. I also saw mothers and fathers who were unsure if their children were alive." He said restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza hamper efforts to provide needed medical and other care. Also on Sunday, police said a Palestinian resident of east Jerusalem carried out a car-ramming attack in central Israel that injured four Israelis, two of them seriously. Israeli border police at the scene shot dead the attacker after he hit people waiting at two bus stops along a busy road. Israel Commissioner Kobi Shabtai said the attacks are often "triggered" by events like Saturday's airstrike in Gaza.

HUDSON, N.Y. — Wooden pilings beneath Hudson-Athens Lighthouse are deteriorating, and the structure, built in the middle of the river when steamboats still plied the water, is beginning to shift. Cracks are apparent on the brick building and its granite foundation. While there are other endangered lighthouses around the nation, the peril to this one 100 miles 161 (kilometers) north of New York City is so dire the National Trust for Historic Preservation placed Hudson-Athens on its 2024 list of the country's 11 most endangered historic places. Advocates say that if action isn't taken soon, yet another historic lighthouse could be lost in the coming years. "All four corners will begin to come down, and then you’ll have a pile of rock in the middle. And ultimately it will topple into the river," Van Calhoun of the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse Preservation Society said during a recent visit. The society is trying to quickly raise money to place a submerged steel curtain around the lighthouse, an ambitious preservation project that could cost as much as $10 million. Their goal is to save a prominent symbol of the river’s centuries-long history as a busy waterway. While the Hudson River was once home to more than a dozen lighthouses, only seven still stand. Elsewhere, there's a similar story of lost history. Across the United States, there were around 1,500 lighthouses at the beginning of the 20th century. Only about 800 of them remain, said U.S. Lighthouse Society executive director Jeff Gales. He said many of the structures deteriorated after they were automated, a process that became more common by the 1940s. “Lighthouses were built to have human beings taking care of them,” Gales said. “And when you seal them up and take the human factor out, that’s when they really start falling into disrepair.” The Hudson-Athens Lighthouse began operating in 1874 offshore from the city of Hudson and was eventually co-named for the village of Athens on the other side of the river. It was built to help keep boats from running aground on nearby mud flats, which were submerged at high tide. “There were shipwrecks because they couldn’t see the sandbar. And so that’s why this lighthouse was put in the middle of the river, unlike most that are on the shoreline,” said preservation society president Kristin Gamble. The lighthouse is still in use, though now with an automated LED beacon. The preservation society owns the building and maintains it as a museum. The last full-time keeper, Emil Brunner, retired in 1949 when the lighthouse became automated. He lived there with his family for much of his tenure. One of his daughters recalled rowing to school and, in the winter, walking across the ice on a safe path marked by her father's tobacco juice stains on the frozen surface. Brunner also is portrayed on a 1946 Saturday Evening Post cover painting rowing with a child, Christmas presents and a tree in tow, as his wife and other children await their arrival on the lighthouse landing. Visitors who are ferried to the lighthouse today can explore the keeper's quarters, which are modest but feature river views from every window. And they can climb up the tight spiral staircase to the tower to take in a unique panorama view of the river and the Catskill Mountains to the west. Roof work on the lighthouse is underway this summer, but repairs to the building will ultimately mean little unless workers address damage to some of the 200 wood pilings packed in mud that hold the lighthouse above water. The support structure has weathered 150 years of currents and ice. But large commercial ships of the modern era — with their big propellors — introduce new problems. “They create a turbulence that’s like being inside a washing machine. And that turbulence actually comes underneath and pulls — churns up — the soil underneath us and sucks it away,” Calhoun said. “In fact, there are boulders as big as your car that are 100 feet out in that river that used to be right next to us." The underwater agitation washes away mud around the pilings, leaving them exposed to water. And that accelerates decay of the wood. Engineers estimate the structure could begin to tilt in three to five years, which Gamble said would be “the beginning of the end.” The proposed ring of corrugated steel would shield the structure from that turbulence. The 100-foot (31-meter) diameter circle, which would project above the water line, would be filled in and covered by a deck, enlarging the area around the lighthouse. The preservation group is optimistic about getting federal money to help pay for the project. Both of New York's U.S. senators, Democrats Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, support the effort, as does local Republican U.S. Rep. Marc Molinaro. Though the project is pricey, Gamble said, it would not only save the lighthouse from being lost to time, but it would also protect the 19th-century beacon for generations to come. “We need, basically, the 100-year fix,” she said.

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Former US President Donald Trump was shot during a campaign rally. The bullet hit his ear and then he was whisked off stage. While the Secret Service killed the assailant, the former President’s staff quickly issued a statement that he was “fine.” The assassination attempt was immediately condemned by US President Joe Biden. What did people see at the rally? What’s been the international reaction to the assassination attempt? And what impact will this have on US politics ahead of the 2024 presidential election?

KATHMANDU, Nepal — The leader of the Nepal's largest communist party, Khadga Prasad Oli, was named the Himalayan nation's new prime minister on Sunday following the collapse of a previous coalition government.    A statement issued by the president's office said Oli will take his oath of office on Monday.    Oli will be leading a coalition government made up of his Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) and the Nepali Congress party, the two largest parties in Nepal.    It is his fourth time as Nepal's prime minister.    The last government headed by Pushpa Kamal Dahal collapsed on Friday after Oli's party, which had been a part of the coalition, withdrew its support to join the new partnership.    Oli would have to seek vote of confidence in parliament to continue in office within a month. The two parties in the new alliance have more than half the members in parliament required to prove their majority.    Oli, 72, was born in a village in east Nepal and has been involved in politics since he was young. He has a kidney illness and has had kidney transplant surgeries. He has made regular trips abroad for medical treatment. 

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Kigali — A small landlocked African nation playing in the big league: with military might, image branding and political influence, Rwanda under President Paul Kagame has become a major strategic player with tentacles spread far and wide.    De facto leader since the 1994 genocide and running for a fourth term as president in elections Monday, the iron-fisted Kagame has established a sphere of influence far outweighing Rwanda's size to develop the country and entrench his own power base.    Unlike many other African nations, "Rwanda is pursuing a real foreign policy strategy", says Paul-Simon Handy, East Africa director at the Institute for Security Studies.   This strategy is similar to "smart power", says Handy, combining hard power — the use of military and economic means for influence — and soft power.   Murky role  The Rwanda Defense Force (RDF) is one of the pillars of this policy, though its role is contradictory.   The Democratic Republic of Congo has for years accused its neighbor of fomenting instability in the east and supporting armed groups, including the Tutsi-led M23, deploying troops and allegedly seeking to plunder its mineral wealth.      A recent U.N. experts report said 3,000-4,000 Rwandan soldiers are fighting alongside M23 rebels and that Kigali had "de facto control" of the group's operations.    Questioned repeatedly on the issue, Kagame has not explicitly denied the presence of Rwandan forces in DRC, instead pointing to the "persecution" of the Tutsi minority and the risk of instability on Rwanda's border.    "By nature, Rwanda's security posture has always been defensive, not offensive. We only act when trouble is brought on us," he said this month.   Its murky role in the DRC has however cost Kigali some financial support from the West, which since 2012-2013 has cut development aid and investment.    'Africa's policeman'  At the same time, Kagame has established his army as the "policeman of Africa."    Since 2024, the RDF has taken part in numerous UN peacekeeping missions. With 5,894 men deployed as of March 31, Rwanda is the fourth largest contributor, with forces in South Sudan and the Central African Republic.   "By participating in and leading peacekeeping and unilateral military missions, Rwanda has significantly enhanced its global image and strategic relevance beyond its historical association with the 1994 genocide," said Federico Donelli, assistant professor of international relations at the University of Trieste.    It also reaps a financial windfall. The UN pays contributors $1,428 per soldier per month, meaning Kigali receives more than $100 million a year.    The RDF has also been deployed under bilateral deals with, for example, CAR and Mozambique.   These military commitments are often accompanied by economic agreements, offering development opportunities for Rwanda, which does not have its own natural resources or industrial base, and is reliant on international funding.    In CAR, Rwandans enjoy privileged investment access to sectors such as mining, agriculture and construction, often led by Crystal Ventures, an investment firm owned by Kagame's ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF).    Diplomatic lever   These deals also represent a valuable diplomatic lever to ward off sanction threats over the DRC or its dismal human rights record.    "Rwanda has never hidden its threat to withdraw from peacekeeping operations if it were to be sanctioned," said Handy.    "It has proven its effectiveness: DRC efforts to have Rwanda sanctioned for its support for the M23 were unsuccessful."   Donelli said Kagame has an ability to read global dynamics.    "He knows that Western actors are increasingly reluctant to get involved in African crises," he added.   "In an increasingly chaotic regional context, he is using Rwanda's role as a reliable partner in crises to reduce Western criticism and divert attention from domestic issues such as the lack of democratic development, centralization of power and human rights concerns."   'Smart power'  Kagame is accused of authoritarian rule, muzzling the media and political opposition, while according to the World Bank almost half the population lives on less than $2.15 a day.   But he has sought to burnish Rwanda's image abroad — selling itself as an African flagship for new technology, a hub for conferences and major sporting events, and a leading ecotourism destination.   Sponsorship deals have seen "Visit Rwanda" emblazoned on the shirts of European football teams Arsenal, PSG and Bayern Munich.   Rwanda has also boosted its presence in global organizations.    In 2009, it became a member of the Commonwealth and hosted its 2022 summit, while a former minister is head the International Organisation of La Francophonie (French-speaking union), another serves as deputy chair of the African Union Commission.     Handy says Rwanda's "smart power" was illustrated by the controversial deal to take in asylum seekers deported from Britain.   "The interest was essentially financial but it was also the projection of an image of a peaceful country where it would be good for refugees to live."   Widely condemned by rights groups and blocked by UK courts, the scheme has now been scrapped by Britain's new government — but Rwanda insists it is not obliged to return the 240 million pound ($311 million) payment already sent by London. 

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Paris — France celebrated military victories of the past at its annual Bastille Day parade Sunday, while its present political future appeared far from clear. President Emmanuel Macron inspected French and allied units which took part in France's World War II liberation 80 years ago. And Paris welcomed the Olympic flame to the city, less than two weeks before it hosts the Summer Games. But behind the pomp — itself in a reduced format while Olympic preparations blocked the traditional Champs Elysees route — France's tense search for a government appeared to be at a stalemate. All eyes were on the host, Macron, who last year cut a more impressive figure, hosting rising superpower India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi as they watched France's military might roll down the Champs Elysees. There was no international star guest this year, and there were no armored vehicles as a reduced number of troops marched down the less majestic Avenue Foch. This month's snap elections, called by Macron to clarify France's direction after the far right sent shockwaves through the political establishment by coming first in EU polls, left the country without a parliamentary majority. Government in limbo Prime Minister Gabriel Attal is hanging on as caretaker head of government but the centrist has reportedly fallen out with Macron and is now focusing on his own future, taking charge of his reduced party in parliament. Other figures are mobilizing with an eye on the 2027 presidential race, but there is little sign of a majority emerging from parliament, split between three camps. With government in limbo and Macron barred by the constitution from calling fresh elections for at least 12 months, far-right figurehead Marine Le Pen is eyeing the 2027 campaign with relish. Meanwhile, a rapidly cobbled-together left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front (NFP), now has the most MPs but no outright majority and no clear candidate for PM. Firebrand hardliner Jean-Luc Melenchon and his France Unbowed (LFI) party have alienated many even on the left and would be rejected by the center and right. But LFI represents a large chunk of the NFP and, along with some greens and communists, had been touting Huguette Bello, the 73-year-old former communist and president of the regional council on Reunion in the Indian Ocean, as premier. But on Sunday she declined the role, saying that there was no consensus behind her candidacy, notably because of opposition from the center-left Socialist Party, and that she wanted the NFP to agree to another name quickly. The European Union's second largest economy, a nuclear-armed G7 power and permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, is thus rudderless, a troubling situation for markets and France's allies alike. Against this backdrop, the reduced and rerouted parade risked becoming a new symbol of drift, even with the addition of the arrival in Paris of the Olympic Torch, ahead of the July 26 to August 11 Games. Olympic relay No tanks took part, and only 4,000 foot soldiers marched, down from 6,500 last year. The military fly-past saw 45 airplanes and 22 helicopters soar over Paris. Regiments honored on the parade included those from France's allies and former French colonies that took part in the country's 1944 World War II liberation. The parade's final section turned to the upcoming games. Colonel Thibault Vallette of the elite Cadre Noir de Saumur cavalry school and 2016 equestrian gold medalist at the Rio Games rode the torch down the route before relay runners were to carry it around the capital.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

Give us 5 minutes, and we'll give you the world. Around the clock, Voice of America keeps you in touch with the latest news. We bring you reports from our correspondents and interviews with newsmakers from across the world.

NEW YORK — The nearly complete fossilized remains of a 161-million-year-old stegosaurus discovered in Colorado in 2022 will be auctioned by Sotheby's in New York next week, auction house officials said. The dinosaur that Sotheby's calls Apex stands 3.3 meters tall and measures 8.2 meters nose to tail, according to Cassandra Hatton, Sotheby's global head of science and popular culture. The stegosaurus, with its distinctive pointy dorsal plates, is one of the world's most recognizable dinosaurs. Apex, which Hatton called "a coloring book dinosaur," was discovered in May 2022 on private land near the town of Dinosaur, Colorado. The excavation was completed in October 2023, Sotheby's said. Though experts believe stegosauruses used their fearsome tail spikes to fight, this specimen shows no signs of combat, Sotheby's said. The fossil does show evidence of arthritis, suggesting that Apex lived to an advanced age. Hatton said Apex was found "with the tail curled up underneath the body, which is a common death pose for animals." The dinosaur will be auctioned on July 17 as part of Sotheby's "Geek Week" series. Sotheby's is estimating that it will sell for $4 million to $6 million, but that's just an educated guess. "This is an incredibly rare animal," Hatton said. "A stegosaurus of this caliber has never sold at auction before, so we will find out what it is actually worth."

PARIS — At least 25 cases of a dangerous new strain of mpox spreading through the Democratic Republic of Congo have been detected in the eastern city of Goma, mostly in camps housing people fleeing a surrounding conflict, health authorities said Wednesday. Congo has seen 20,000 cases and more than 1,000 deaths from mpox, mainly among children, since the start of 2023. Over 11,000 cases, including 443 deaths, have been reported so far this year. Authorities recently approved the use of vaccines to tackle the upsurge, but none are currently available outside of clinical trials in the country. The head of the national response team against the mpox epidemic, Cris Kacita, said in an interview that most of the new reported cases were in displaced people camps. He said cases were infected with a new strain of the virus that is spreading in South Kivu province. Goma is the capital and largest city of the neighboring North Kivu province. The World Health Organization (WHO) and scientists raised the alarm last month about the mpox situation in Congo, including the spread of a new strain of mpox spreading in South Kivu. Mpox has been endemic in Congo for decades but a new variant of the clade I of the virus emerged last year. It is a viral infection that spreads through close contact, causing flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. Most cases are mild, but it can kill. A different, less severe form of mpox - clade IIb - spread globally in 2022, largely through sexual contact among men who have sex with men. This prompted the WHO to declare a public health emergency that has now ended, although there are still cases and the agency has said mpox remains a public health threat. "The national biomedical research institute in Goma has sequenced the virus and this proves that the virus has been circulating for a long time in the city of Goma," Kacita said. "The risk here is the promiscuity in the camps and the speed with which the epidemic is spreading," he warned. Hundreds of thousands of people who fled conflict in Congo's insurgent-hit east are staying in overcrowded camps in and around Goma. The number of displaced has increased since a rebel group known as the M23 launched a major offensive in 2022, prompting national and regional military responses that have struggled to stem the militia's advance. 

WASHINGTON — Astronomers have scrutinized a cluster of stars that is the apparent remnant core of a relatively small galaxy that was swallowed by the sprawling Milky Way 8 to 10 billion years ago. What lurks at the center of this cluster has them excited. The researchers said Wednesday the unusual motion of seven stars in this cluster provides compelling evidence for the presence of an elusive mid-sized black hole at its heart. These are bigger than the class of ordinary black holes formed in the implosion of a single star but smaller than the behemoths residing at the nucleus of most galaxies. The cluster, called Omega Centauri, contains about 10 million stars. The black hole within it is at least 8,200 times as massive as our sun, the researchers said. The supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way possesses 4 million times the mass of the sun. And that is dwarfed by supermassive black holes billions of times the mass of the sun in other galaxies. "There has been a long debate whether intermediate-mass black holes exist in general, and specifically in Omega Centauri, and our detection might help to resolve that debate," said astronomer Maximilian Häberle of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, lead author of the study published in the journal Nature. This black hole is located about 17,700 light-years from Earth. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 9.5 trillion kilometers. The Milky Way's only larger-known black hole is Sagittarius A*, located about 26,700 light-years from Earth. Black holes are extraordinarily dense objects with gravity so strong not even light can escape, making it difficult to spot them. This one was detected based on how its gravitational pull influences the velocity of seven fast-moving stars in its vicinity, documented in two decades of Hubble Space Telescope observations. The researchers believe the smaller galaxy, which had been perhaps 10% the Milky Way's size, harbored a black hole that, if left undisturbed, would have become supermassive as it fed off gas and other nearby material drawn by its gravitational pull. But the galactic merger, which occurred when the Milky Way was about a quarter or third its current age, left the black hole frozen in time. "In this merger process, the galaxy lost all of its gas, and hence the growth of its central black hole got interrupted, leaving it in an intermediate-mass state," Max Planck Institute for Astronomy astronomer and study co-author Nadine Neumayer said. The merger stripped away most of the smaller galaxy's stars, leaving just the central batch -- now the Omega Centauri star cluster. "Intermediate-mass black holes have been suspected in the centers of low-mass galaxies or also in the center of certain star clusters. However, they have been very challenging to detect. Due to their lower mass with respect to supermassive black holes, their region of influence is small," Häberle said. Other candidates for mid-sized black holes have been identified in previous research. Black holes that are the mass of a single star form when large stars explode at the end of their life cycle and the core collapses in on itself. "The most likely scenario for the formation of the intermediate-mass black hole at the center of Omega Centauri is the collision and merging of very massive stars very early on during the formation of the star cluster. These stars get very close to each other, collide and form even more massive stars that evolve to black holes fairly rapidly. The intermediate-mass black hole can grow via the merger of several of these black holes," Neumayer said. These mid-sized black holes may be the key to understanding the formation of the supermassive ones. "Intermediate-mass black holes are likely very common, especially in the early evolution of the universe," Neumayer said. "They are thought to be the seeds for supermassive black holes."

JERUSALEM — Israel's national Holocaust museum opened a new conservation facility in Jerusalem on Monday that will preserve, restore and store its more than 45,000 artifacts and works of art in a vast new building, including five floors of underground storage. Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, serves as both a museum and a research institution. It welcomes nearly a million visitors each year, leads the country's annual Holocaust memorial day and hosts nearly all foreign dignitaries visiting Israel. "Before we opened this building, it was very difficult to exhibit our treasures that were kept in our vaults. They were kind of secret," said Yad Vashem chairman Dani Dayan. "Now there's a state-of-the-art installation (that) will help us to exhibit them." The David and Fela Shapell Family Collections Center, located at the Yad Vashem museum in Jerusalem, will also provide organization and storage for the museum's 225 million pages of documents and half a million photographs. Dayan said the materials will now be kept in a facility that preserves them in optimal temperatures and conditions. "Yad Vashem has the largest collections in the world of materials related to the Holocaust," Dayan said. "We will make sure that these treasures are kept for eternity." The new facility includes advanced, high-tech labs for conservation, enabling experts to revisit some of the museum's trickier items, such as a film canister that a family who fled Austria in 1939 brought with them. It was donated to the museum but arrived in an advanced state of decay. "The film arrived in the worst state it could. It smelled really bad," said Reut Ilan-Shafik, a photography conservator at Yad Vashem. Over the years, the film had congealed into a solid piece of plastic, making it impossible to be scanned. Using organic solvents, conservators were able to restore some of the film's flexibility, allowing them to carefully unravel pieces of it. Using a microscope, Ilan-Shafik was able to see a few frames in their entirety, including one showing a couple kissing on a bench in a park and other snapshots of Europe before World War II. "It is unbelievable to know that the images of the film that we otherwise thought lost to time" have been recovered, said Orit Feldberg, granddaughter of Hans and Klara Lebel, the couple featured in the photo. Feldberg's mother donated the film canister, one of the few things the Lebels were able to take with them when they fled Austria. "These photographs not only tell their unique story but also keep their memory vibrantly alive," Feldberg said. Conservation of items from the Holocaust is an expensive, painstaking process that has taken on greater importance as the number of survivors dwindles. Last month, the Auschwitz Memorial announced it had finished a half-million-dollar project to conserve 3,000 of the 8,000 pairs of children's shoes that are on display at the Nazi concentration camp in Poland.