Conflict

The United States and the United Nations have warned that violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could escalate into a regional conflict.

Hundreds of people were killed as Rwandan-backed M23 rebels seized another city, just over a week after the US brokered a peace deal.

How dangerous is the situation?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Gatete Nyiringabo – Political commentator and governance and advocacy consultant

Kambale Musavuli – Analyst at the Center for Research on the Congo-Kinshasa

Richard Moncrieff – Project director for the Great Lakes region at the International Crisis Group

Eight people also injured in fighting with ‘terrorists’ in disputed region between Sudan and South Sudan.

At least six Bangladeshi peacekeepers were killed in a “terrorist” attack on a United Nations base in Abyei, a disputed region between Sudan and South Sudan, the Bangladesh army said.

The attack on Saturday also injured another eight people, the army stated.

“The situation in the area is still unstable and clashes with terrorists are ongoing,” the army said in a statement, adding that the authorities were working to provide medical treatment and rescue operations for those injured.

There was no immediate comment from the UN mission.

The attack comes just a month after the United Nations Security Council voted to renew a UN Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), the peacekeeping mission in the oil-rich disputed region between Sudan and South Sudan, for another year.

Bangladesh is one of the largest contributors to UN peacekeeping missions, and its troops have long been deployed in Abyei, a volatile region disputed between Sudan and South Sudan.

UNISFA’s peacekeeping mission was first deployed in 2011.

The 4,000 police and soldiers of UNISFA are tasked with protecting civilians in the region plagued by frequent armed clashes.

The Abyei region is split between two different groups with different loyalties.

The Ngok Dinka tribe have strong ethnic, cultural and linguistic ties to the Dinka of South Sudan, while the Misseriya are a nomadic Arab tribe with links to Sudan.

Abyei’s future was a critical feature of the 2005 peace deal that was signed between the Sudanese government and rebels that ended the civil war then and led the way to South Sudan’s independence.

However, unrest in the disputed area with South Sudan also continues at a time when Sudan is devastated by a more recent civil war that erupted in April 2023, when two generals started fighting over control of the country.

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which have been committing atrocities in Darfur and other regions, have also been active in Abyei.

The army claims the member was working to re-establish Hamas’s capabilities in the Strip.

The Israeli military has said it struck a “key” Hamas member in the area of Gaza City, without elaborating on who they may be.

In a post on Telegram, the army alleged that the member had been operating to re-establish Hamas’s capabilities, which have been severely depleted by more than two years of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

There was no immediate comment from the Palestinian group.

The Wafa news agency reported that an Israeli drone hit a vehicle at the Nabulsi junction in the west of Gaza City, resulting in casualties.

The agency did not report on specific numbers, and it was not clear if the attack was the one that allegedly killed the Hamas member.

Since the ceasefire started in October, Israel has continued to attack Gaza daily – reaching nearly 800 times – in a clear breach of the agreement, according to authorities in Gaza.

Israel also continues to block the majority of aid trucks from entering the enclave. The United Nations General Assembly on Friday overwhelmingly backed a resolution demanding that Israel open unrestricted humanitarian access to the Gaza Strip, stop attacking UN facilities, and comply with international law, in line with its obligations as an occupying power.

Last month, I was waiting for a shared taxi at the Nuseirat roundabout when I witnessed a heartbreaking scene. As I stood by the side of the road, I felt a small hand tugging at my clothes.

I looked down and saw a little girl, no older than eight. She was barefoot, her shirt was torn, and her hair was messy and unwashed. Her eyes were beautiful, and her face showed innocence, yet exhaustion and despair clouded it.

She pleaded: “Please, please, give me just one shekel, God bless you.”

Before I gave her the money, I decided to speak with her. I knelt down and asked, “What is your name, my dear?”

She replied in a frightened voice, “My name is Nour, and I am from the north.” Her name, which means “light” in Arabic, stood in stark contrast to the darkness surrounding her.

I asked her, “Why are you asking for money, Nour?”

She looked at me hesitantly, then whispered, “I want to buy an apple… I crave one.”

In Gaza, a single apple now costs $7; before the war, a kilogramme of apples was less than a dollar.

I tried to ignore the pain rising in my chest. I thought about the circumstances we now face, where young children are forced to beg in the street just to buy an apple.

I gave Nour one shekel ($0.30), but as soon as I did, the situation worsened. A large group of children, all Nour’s age or younger, gathered around me, repeating the same request. I felt immense distress.

For more than two years, we have faced genocide. We have witnessed countless tragedies and horrors. But for me, the sight of children begging in the streets is particularly unbearable.

Before the war, Gaza was still a poor place. We used to see child beggars, but they were few, mostly roaming in a few areas. Now, they are everywhere, from the north to the south.

The genocidal war has destroyed families and livelihoods across Gaza. The carnage has orphaned more than 39,000 children, and the enormous destruction has deprived more than 80 percent of the workforce of their jobs, driving countless children into extreme poverty and forcing them to beg for survival.

But child begging is not just a result of poverty; it is a sign of a deep disintegration affecting the family, the education system, and the community. No parent sends their child to beg because they want to. The war has left many families in Gaza without options, and in many cases, there are no surviving parents to keep the children away from the streets.

Child beggars do not just lose their childhood; they also face exploitation, harsh labour, illiteracy and psychological trauma that leaves a lasting effect.

The more begging children increase in number, the more the hope for this generation diminishes. Houses can be rebuilt, infrastructure can be restored, but a young generation that is deprived of education and hope for the future cannot be rehabilitated.

The strength Gaza possessed before the war was not just about military power; it was about human power, the main pillar of which was education. We had one of the highest levels of literacy in the world. The enrolment rate for primary education stood at 95 percent; for higher education, it reached 44 percent.

Education stood as a counterforce to the debilitating siege that dispossessed the people of Gaza and crippled the economy. It nourished skills and ingenuity within the young generations to help them cope with an increasingly harsh economic reality. More importantly, education gave children a sense of direction, security and pride.

The systematic attack on Gaza’s education system – the destruction of schools, universities, libraries and the killing of teachers and professors – has pushed what used to be a remarkably resilient and effective educational system to the brink. The pillar that protected children and guaranteed them a clear future is now falling apart.

After I left the Nuseirat roundabout, Nour’s eyes stayed with me. It was not just because of the pain of seeing an innocent child being forced to beg. It was also because of the realisation that this encounter brought about: That the capacity of the next generation to rebuild Gaza one day is being taken away.

The world allowed Israel to carry out genocide in Gaza for two years. It knew what was going on, and yet it chose complicity and silence. Today, it cannot erase its guilt, but it can choose to redeem itself. It can take all necessary action to save the children of Gaza and to grant them the rights they are inherently given by the Convention on the Rights of Children: The right to food, water, healthcare, a safe environment, education, and protection from violence and abuse.

Anything short of that would mean continuing support for the slow genocide of Gaza.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

VR headsets are offering injured, traumatised Palestinian children some respite from hardship in war-torn Gaza.

Inside a makeshift tent in the heart of the besieged Gaza Strip, Israel’s genocidal war, which has destroyed neighbourhoods, schools and hospitals, decimated families and shattered lives for more than two years, no longer exists.

Virtual reality technology is taking Palestinian children struggling with physical and psychological wounds to a world away, where they can feel safe again.

“After I was injured in the head, I try to forget the pain,” Salah Abu Rukba, a Palestinian child taking part in the sessions, told Al Jazeera at the VR Tent in az-Zawayda, central Gaza.

“When I put on the headset, I forget the injury. I feel comfort as I forget the destruction, the war, and even the sound of the drones disappears.”

Lama Abu Dalal, communication officer at Gaza MedTech – the technology initiative spearheading the project – said Abu Rukba and the others have constant reminders of the war etched in their bodies.

But the VR headset makes them forget their life-changing wounds and simply be children again, if only for a few moments.

Gaza MedTech was launched by Palestinian innovator Mosab Ali, who used VR to comfort his injured son. Ali was later killed in an Israeli attack.

Studies have confirmed that VR can have beneficial effects in the treatment of mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Offering this service in Gaza is hard to sustain, as spare parts of the equipment are barred from entry into Gaza by Israel’s ongoing punishing blockade.

Since a ceasefire formally went into effect on October 10, Israel has allowed slightly more aid in, although far less than Gaza’s needs and what the agreement clearly stipulated. Israel continues to restrict the free flow of humanitarian aid and medical supplies.

Authorities in Gaza say the truce has been violated by Israel at least 738 times since taking effect.

The United Nations estimates that more than 90 percent of children in Gaza are showing signs of severe stress driven by the loss of safety and stability, and will require long-term support to heal from the psychological effect of the conflict.

Multiple UN bodies, including the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN humanitarian office OCHA, and independent UN experts, have called for immediate and unimpeded access to Gaza for essential medical equipment and psychological support.

Kim Jong Un participates in latest public event to honour North Korean troops who served with Russian forces in war against Ukraine.

North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un has hugged injured soldiers in wheelchairs at a ceremony in the capital, Pyongyang, to welcome home troops who served with Russian forces in the war against Ukraine.

State-run Korean Central News Agency said on Saturday that Kim praised the “mass heroism” of the returning 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army, which had served in Russia’s Kursk region.

Kim hailed the regiment’s conduct during its 120-day overseas deployment, which commenced in early August and involved combat and engineering duties, including mine clearing in the Kursk region of Russia, where Ukrainian forces had infiltrated and occupied for months before withdrawing.

“You could work a miracle of turning a vast area of danger zone into a safe and secure one in a matter of less than three months, the task which was believed to be impossible to be carried out even in several years,” Kim said, according to South Korea’s Yonhap news agency.

“The armed villains of the West, armed with whatever latest military hardware they are, cannot match this revolutionary army with an unfathomable spiritual depth,” Kim added at the ceremony on Friday.

The North’s leader also spoke of the “heartrending loss” of nine members of the regiment and announced that the unit would be conferred with the Order of Freedom and Independence. The deceased troops would also be honoured with the title Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, KCNA said, referring to North Korea’s official name.

Video footage of the ceremony released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft and Kim embracing soldiers seated in wheelchairs, as other soldiers and officials gathered to welcome the troops.

The Russian Ministry of Defence confirmed last month that North Korean troops, who had helped Russia repel Ukraine’s incursion into Kursk, were now involved in clearing the area of mines.

Concluding a key meeting of his ruling Workers’ Party of Korea on Thursday, Kim also praised the deployment of North Korean troops in support of Russia’s war on Ukraine, saying it “demonstrated to the world the prestige of our army”.

North Korea’s “ever-victorious army” was the “genuine protector of international justice”, Kim said.

Under a mutual defence pact between Moscow and Pyongyang, an estimated 14,000 North Korean soldiers were deployed to fight for Russia, with the number of those killed or wounded ranging between 3,000 and 4,000.

The welcoming ceremony held on Friday marks the latest event to publicly honour North Korean soldiers who served in Russia’s war on Ukraine.

In October, Kim was featured embracing weeping soldiers at a ground-breaking ceremony for a planned memorial to those who fought for Russia, and in June, state media showed Kim draping coffins with the national flag in what appeared to be the repatriation of soldiers’ remains from Russia.

Witnesses at the hospital and the UN say the attack killed medics, patients and may ‘amount to a war crime’.

Myanmar’s military has acknowledged it conducted an air strike on a hospital in the western state of Rakhine that killed 33 people, whom it accused of being armed members of opposition groups and their supporters, but not civilians.

Witnesses, aid workers, rebel groups and the United Nations have said the victims were civilians at the hospital.

In a statement published by the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar newspaper on Saturday, the military’s information office said armed groups, including the ethnic Arakan Army and the People’s Defence Force, used the hospital as their base.

It said the military carried out necessary security measures and launched a counterterrorism operation against the general hospital in Mrauk-U township on Wednesday.

However, the United Nations on Thursday condemned the attack on the facility providing emergency care, obstetrics and surgical services in the area, saying that it was part of a broader pattern of strikes causing harm to civilians and civilian objects that are devastating communities across the country.

UN rights chief Volker Turk condemned the attacks “in [the] strongest possible terms” and demanded an investigation. “Such attacks may amount to a war crime. I call for investigations and those responsible to be held to account. The fighting must stop now,” he wrote on X.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he was “appalled”. “At least 33 people have been killed … including health workers, patients and family members. Hospital infrastructure was severely damaged, with operating rooms and the main inpatient ward completely destroyed,” he wrote on X.

Myanmar has been gripped by attritional fighting in a raging civil war.

Mrauk-U, located 530km (326 miles) northwest of Yangon, the country’s largest city, was captured by the Arakan Army in February 2024.

The Arakan Army is the well-trained and well-armed military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement, which seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. It began its offensive in Rakhine in November 2023 and has seized a strategically important regional army headquarters and 14 of Rakhine’s 17 townships.

Rakhine, formerly known as Arakan, was the site of a brutal army counterinsurgency operation in 2017 that drove about 740,000 Muslim-majority Rohingya to seek safety across the border in Bangladesh. There is still ethnic tension between the Buddhist Rakhine and the Rohingya.

The Arakan Army pledged in a statement on Thursday to pursue accountability for the air strike in cooperation with global organisations to ensure justice and take “strong and decisive action” against the military.

The military government has stepped up air strikes ahead of planned December 28 elections. Opponents of military rule charge that the polls will be neither free nor fair and are mainly an effort to legitimise the army retaining power.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army took power in 2021, triggering widespread popular opposition. Many opponents of military rule have since taken up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Cambodia’s Ministry of Defence said Thai F-16 fighter jets continued to bomb targets inside country.

Cambodia has accused Thailand of continuing to drop bombs in its territory hours after United States President Donald Trump said Bangkok and Phnom Penh had agreed to stop fighting.

“On December 13, 2025, the Thai military used two F-16 fighter jets to drop seven bombs” on a number of targets, the Cambodian Defence Ministry said in a post on social media on Saturday.

“Thai forces have not stopped the bombing yet and are still continuing the bombing,” the ministry said, listing aerial attacks on hotel buildings and bridges earlier in the morning.

The reports of continued bombing follow after President Trump said that Thailand and Cambodia had agreed “to cease all shooting” on Friday.

“I had a very good conversation this morning with the Prime Minister of Thailand, Anutin Charnvirakul, and the Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Manet, concerning the very unfortunate reawakening of their long-running War,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.

“They have agreed to CEASE all shooting effective this evening, and go back to the original Peace Accord made with me, and them, with the help of the Great Prime Minister of Malaysia, Anwar Ibrahim,” he said.

This is a breaking news story. More to follow soon.

Incident in November latest reported instance of Trump administration’s increasingly aggressive maritime tactics.

United States forces raided a cargo ship travelling from China to Iran last month, according to the Wall Street Journal, in the latest reported instance of increasingly aggressive maritime tactics by the administration of US President Donald Trump.

Unnamed officials told the newspaper that US military personnel boarded the ship several hundred miles from Sri Lanka, according to the report on Friday. It was the first time in several years US forces had intercepted cargo travelling from China to Iran, according to the newspaper.

The operation took place in November, weeks before US forces seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela earlier this week, citing sanctions violations. It was another action Washington has not taken in years.

US Indo-Pacific Command did not immediately confirm the report. An official told the newspaper that they seized material “potentially useful for Iran’s conventional weapons”. However, the official noted the seized items were dual-use, and could have both military and civilian applications.

Officials said the ship was allowed to proceed following the interdiction, which involved special operation forces.

Iran remains under heavy US sanctions. Neither Iran nor China immediately responded to the report, although Beijing, a key trading partner with Tehran, has regularly called the US sanctions illegal.

Earlier in the day, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun condemned the seizure of the oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, which was brought to a port in Texas on Friday.

The action came amid a wider military pressure campaign against Venezuela, which Caracas has charged is aimed at toppling the government of leader Nicolas Maduro.

Beijing “opposes unilateral illicit sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction that have no basis in international law or authorisation of the UN Security Council, and the abuse of sanctions”, Guo said.

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Thursday the Trump administration would not rule out future seizures of vessels near Venezuela.

Singer’s statement follows walkout by five countries after organisers cleared Israel to participate in next year’s contest.

Swiss Eurovision winner Nemo said they will return their 2024 victory trophy because Israel is being allowed to compete in the pop music competition.

The singer, who won the 2024 edition with operatic pop track, The Code, posted a video on Instagram showing them placing the trophy in a box to be sent back to the Geneva headquarters of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU).

“Eurovision says it stands for unity, for inclusion and dignity for all people,” Nemo said, adding that Israel’s participation amid its ongoing genocidal war on Gaza showed those ideals were at odds with organisers’ decisions.

The EBU, which organises Eurovision, cleared Israel last week to take part in next year’s event in Austria, prompting Spain, the Netherlands, Ireland, Slovenia and Iceland to announce they would be boycotting the contest.

“When entire countries withdraw, it should be clear that something is deeply wrong,” Nemo said on Thursday.

On Friday, contest director Martin Green said in a statement sent to The Associated Press that organisers were “saddened that Nemo wishes to return their trophy which they deservedly won in 2024”.

“We respect the deeply held views Nemo has expressed and they will always remain a valued part of the Eurovision Song Contest family,” he added.

Next year’s Eurovision is scheduled to take place in Austria’s capital, Vienna, after Austrian singer JJ won the 2025 contest in Basel, Switzerland. Traditionally, the winning country hosts the following year.

“This is not about individuals or artists. It’s about the fact that the contest was repeatedly used to soften the image of a state accused of severe wrongdoing, all while the EBU insists that this contest is non-political,” said Nemo.

“Live what you claim. If the values we celebrate on stage aren’t lived off stage, then even the most beautiful songs become meaningless,” they added.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 70,369 Palestinians, according to the territory’s health authorities.

The country’s military has continued to attack the enclave despite a ceasefire with Palestinian group Hamas reached back in October.

Congolese refugees have recounted harrowing scenes of death and family separation as they fled intensified fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), where Rwanda-backed M23 rebels captured a strategic city despite a recent United States-brokered peace agreement.

M23 has cemented control over Uvira, a key lakeside city in DRC’s South Kivu province that it seized on Wednesday, despite a peace accord that President Donald Trump had called “historic” when signed in Washington just one week earlier.

Al Jazeera, which is the first international broadcaster to gain access to the city since M23’s takeover, saw residents tentatively returning home after days of violence, amid a heavy presence of rebel fighters on Friday.

The day before, M23 fighters combed the streets to flush out remaining Congolese forces and allied militias – known as “Wazalendo” – after taking over key parts of the city.

Meanwhile, at Nyarushishi refugee camp in Rwanda’s Rusizi district, Akilimali Mirindi told the AFP news agency she fled South Kivu with just three of her 10 children after bombs destroyed her home near the border.

“I don’t know what happened to the other seven, or their father,” the 40-year-old said, describing corpses scattered along escape routes as about 1,000 people reached the camp following renewed clashes this month.

Regional officials said more than 413 civilians have been killed since fighting escalated in early December, with women and children among the dead.

The offensive has displaced about 200,000 people, and threatens to drag neighbouring Burundi deeper into a conflict that has already uprooted more than seven million across eastern DRC, according to United Nations figures.

Uvira sits on Lake Tanganyika’s northern shore, directly across from Burundi’s largest city, and serves as South Kivu’s interim government headquarters after M23 seized the provincial capital, Bukavu, in February.

Al Jazeera correspondent Alain Uaykani, who gained access to the city on Friday, reported a tenuous calm and the heavy presence of M23 soldiers but described harrowing scenes on the journey there.

“Here in Uvira, we have seen different groups of the Red Cross with their equipment, collecting bodies, and conducting burials across the road,” Uaykani said.

He added that the Al Jazeera crew saw abandoned military trucks destroyed along the road to Uvira, and the remains of people who were killed.

Residents who fled Uvira told AFP of bombardment from multiple directions as M23 fighters battled Congolese forces and their Burundian allies around the port city.

“Bombs were raining down on us from different directions,” Thomas Mutabazi, 67, told AFP at the refugee camp. “We had to leave our families and our fields.”

‘Even children were dying’

Refugee Jeanette Bendereza had already escaped to Burundi once this year during an earlier M23 push in February, only to return to DRC when authorities said peace had been restored. “We found M23 in charge,” she said.

When violence erupted again, she ran with four children as “bombs started falling from Burundian fighters”, losing her phone and contact with her husband in the chaos.

Another refugee, Olinabangi Kayibanda, witnessed a pregnant neighbour killed alongside her two children when their house was bombed. “Even children were dying, so we decided to flee,” the 56-year-old told an AFP reporter.

M23 spokesperson Lawrence Kanyuka announced on Wednesday that Uvira had been “fully liberated” and urged residents to return home.

Fighting had already resumed even as Trump last week hosted Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi and his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame at a widely attended signing ceremony.

The December 4 Washington agreement obliged Rwanda to cease supporting armed groups, though the M23 was not party to those negotiations and is instead involved in separate Qatar-mediated talks with Kinshasa.

DRC’s government accused Rwanda of deploying special forces and foreign mercenaries to Uvira “in clear violation” of both the Washington and earlier Doha agreements.

The US embassy in Kinshasa urged Rwandan forces to withdraw, while Congolese Foreign Minister Therese Kayikwamba Wagner called for Washington to impose sanctions, saying condemnation alone was insufficient.

Rwanda denies backing M23 and blames Congolese and Burundian forces for ceasefire violations.

In a statement on Thursday, President Kagame claimed that more than 20,000 Burundian soldiers were operating across multiple Congolese locations and accused them of shelling civilians in Minembwe.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned the escalation “increases the risk of a broader regional conflagration” and called for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

Rescuers pulled bodies from under the rubble of a collapsed house in Gaza’s Beit Lahiya after heavy rain and winds brought the heavily damaged building crumbling to the ground. At least 12 people have died over the last 24 hours as Storm Byron inflicts further damage on the remnants of Israel’s genocide war.

In the large displacement camps of Gaza, rows upon rows of makeshift tents blanket debris, empty lots and what remains of flattened neighbourhoods. With Storm Byron descending upon the enclave, a sense of terror has seized a population already exhausted from two years of Israel’s genocidal war with its unrelenting bombardment, starvation and chaos.

For the 1.5 million Palestinians living under plastic sheets and tattered tarps, the storm means something more than just bad weather. It’s another danger piled on top of the current battle for survival.

For several days, meteorologists have warned that heavy rainfall and strong winds could hit the strip today, tomorrow and over the weekend, risking flash flooding and significant wind damage. What is certain, though, is that Gaza is not facing this storm with ready infrastructure, stocked shelters or functioning drainage systems.

It faces it with tents propped up with pieces of scrap metal, paths that become mud rivers after only one night of rain and families who have nothing left to protect.

Solidarity a survival strategy

In the camps of Gaza City, the scenes of vulnerability are everywhere. Most tents are constructed from aid tarpaulins, pieces of plastic salvaged from rubble and blankets tied to recycled wooden poles. Many sag visibly in the middle; others are erected inadequately, so much so that they quiver and flap violently under the slightest breeze.

“When the wind starts, we all hold the poles to keep the tent from falling,” said Hani Ziara, a father sheltering in western Gaza City after his home was destroyed months ago.

His tent was flooded last night in the heavy rain, and his children had to stay outside in the cold. Hani wonders painfully what else he can do to protect his children from the rain and strong winds.

In many camps, the ground was already soft from previous rainfall. Wet sand and mud stick to shoes, blankets and cooking pots as people shuffle through. Trenches dug by volunteers to divert water often collapse within hours. With nowhere else to go, families who live in low-lying areas are preparing for the worst: that floodwaters will be pushed directly into their tents.

Stocking up on food, storing clean water and securing shelter are the most basic steps when people prepare for a storm, but that is considered a luxury for the displaced of Gaza.

Most families receive scant water deliveries, going sometimes days without enough to cook or wash. Food supplies are equally strained, and while irregular aid distributions provide basics like rice or canned beans, the quantities seldom last more than a few days. Preparing for a storm by cooking ahead, gathering dry goods or storing fuel is simply not possible.

“We could not sleep last night. Our tent was flooded with rainwater. Everything we had was flushed out by water. We want to prepare, but how?” asked Mervit, a mother of five children displaced near the Gaza port. She added, “We barely have enough food for tonight. We can’t save what we don’t have.”

Despite poverty, solidarity has become Gaza’s strongest survival strategy. Neighbours, with whatever they have, help secure the tents. Young men go through the rubble and scavenge for metal and wood remains to serve as temporary posts. The women organise collective cooking so that hot meals can be distributed to families in need, particularly those with young children or elderly family members, whenever possible.

These unofficial networks become more active the closer a storm gets. Volunteers trudge from tent to tent, helping families raise sleeping areas off the ground, patch holes in canopies with plastic sheets, and dig drainage channels. Crowds try to move those who are in precarious, extremely exposed areas to other locations, sharing information about safer places.

‘We are exhausted’

Beyond physical danger, the psychological impact is deep. After months of displacement, loss and deprivation, another crisis – this time, not war, but forces of nature – feels overwhelming.

“Our tents were destroyed. We are exhausted,” said Wissam Naser. “We have no strength left. Every day there is a new fear: hunger, cold, disease, now the storm.”

Many residents describe the feeling of being sandwiched between the sky and the ground, exposed on both ends and unable to protect their families from either.

As clouds mass along Gaza’s shore, families prepare to take a hit. Some weigh down tent walls against the wind with rocks and sandbags. Others push children’s blankets to the driest corner, hoping a roof will last. Most don’t have a plan. They just wait.

The storm will not be another single-night affair for the displaced in Gaza. It would be a further reminder of how fragile life has become, how survival depends not on preparedness but rather on endurance.

They wait because they have no alternative. They prepare with what little they have. They pray that this time, the winds will be merciful.

In this episode of On the Record, Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem is joined by Iran’s former foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif. They discuss Iran’s political and military involvement in the Middle East and beyond. Zarif reflects on Iran’s involvement with resistance groups in Syria, Gaza and Lebanon and why Iran’s nuclear ambitions have not been obliterated by either the US or Israel.

United States President Donald Trump has said that the US has seized a sanctioned oil tanker close to the coast of Venezuela, in a move that has caused oil prices to spike and further escalates tensions with Caracas.

“We’ve just seized a tanker on the coast of Venezuela, large tanker, very large, largest one ever, actually, and other things are happening,” Trump said on Wednesday.

The Venezuelan government called the move an act of “international piracy”, and “blatant theft”.

This comes as the US expands its military operations in the region, where it has been carrying out air strikes on at least 21 suspected drug-trafficking vessels since September. The Trump administration has provided no evidence that these boats were carrying drugs, however.

Here is what we know about the seizure of the Venezuelan tanker:

What happened?

The US said it intercepted and seized a large oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela, marking the first operation of its kind in years.

The last comparable US military seizure of a foreign tanker occurred in 2014, when US Navy SEALs boarded the Morning Glory off Cyprus as Libyan rebels attempted to sell stolen crude oil.

The Trump administration did not identify the vessel or disclose the precise location of the operation.

However, Bloomberg reported that officials had described the ship as a “stateless vessel” and said it had been docked in Venezuela.

Soon after announcing the latest operation on Wednesday, US Attorney General Pam Bondi released a video showing two helicopters approaching a vessel and armed personnel in camouflage rappelling onto its deck.

“Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran,” Bondi said.

She added that “for multiple years, the oil tanker has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil-shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organisations”.

Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations, and the United States Coast Guard, with support from the Department of War, executed a seizure warrant for a crude oil tanker used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran. For multiple… pic.twitter.com/dNr0oAGl5x

— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) December 10, 2025

Experts said the method of boarding demonstrated in the video is standard practice for US forces.

“The Navy, Coast Guard and special forces all have special training for this kind of mission, called visit, board, search, and seizure – or VBSS,” Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Al Jazeera.

“It is routine, especially for the Coast Guard. The government said it was a Coast Guard force doing the seizure, though the helicopter looks like a Navy SH-60S.”

Which vessel was seized?

According to a Reuters report, British maritime risk firm Vanguard identified the crude carrier Skipper as the vessel seized early Wednesday off Venezuela’s coast.

MarineTraffic lists the Skipper as a very large crude carrier measuring 333m (1,093 feet) in length and 60m (197 feet) in width.

The tanker was sanctioned in 2022 for allegedly helping to transport oil for the Lebanese armed group, Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, and Iran’s Quds Force.

The Skipper departed Venezuela’s main oil terminal at Jose between December 4 and 5 after loading about 1.8 million barrels of Merey crude, a heavy, high-sulphur blend produced in Venezuela.

“I assume we’re going to keep the oil,” President Trump said on Wednesday.

Before the seizure, the tanker had transferred roughly 200,000 barrels near Curacao to the Panama-flagged Neptune 6, which was headed for Cuba, according to satellite data analysed by TankerTrackers.com.

According to shipping data from Venezuela’s state-owned oil and gas company Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the vessel also transported Venezuelan crude to Asia in 2021 and 2022.

Where did the seizure take place?

The US said it seized the oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea.

US officials have said the action occurred near Venezuelan territorial waters, though they have not provided precise coordinates.

MarineTraffic data shows the vessel’s tracker still located in the Caribbean.

Is the US action legal?

Cancian noted that “seizing sanctioned items is common inside a country’s own territory. It is unusual in international waters”.

He added: “Russia has hundreds of sanctioned tankers sailing today, but they have not been boarded.”

Experts say it is unclear whether the seizure was legal, partly because many details about it have not been made public.

Still, the US could make use of various arguments to justify the seizure if needs be.

One is that the boat is regarded as stateless. Under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), ships need “a nationality”.

The government of Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbour, said the Skipper was “falsely flying the Guyana flag”, adding that it is not registered in the country.

If a vessel flies a flag it is not registered under, or refuses to show any flag at all, states have the “right of visit”, allowing their officials to stop and inspect the ship on the high seas – essentially meaning international waters.

If doubts about a ship’s nationality remain after checking its documents, a more extensive search can follow.

In previous enforcement actions against sanctioned ships, the US has seized not the ship itself but the oil on board. In 2020, it confiscated fuel from four tankers allegedly carrying Iranian oil to Venezuela.

US law also allows the Coast Guard, which carried out this operation, to conduct searches and seizures on the high seas in order to enforce US laws, stating that it “may make inquiries, examinations, inspections, searches, seizures, and arrests upon the high seas” to prevent and suppress violations.

But some legal experts argue that the US has overstepped, as it “has no jurisdiction to enforce unilateral sanctions on non-US persons outside its territory”, according to Francisco Rodriguez, a senior research fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).

Rodriguez said the US is relying on maritime rules for stateless vessels “as an entryway to justify enforcing US sanctions outside of US territory”.

“To the extent that the US is able to continue to do so, it could significantly increase the cost of doing business with Venezuela and precipitate a deepening of the country’s economic recession,” he warned in a CEPR article.

The US has no jurisdiction to enforce unilateral sanctions on non-US persons outside its territory. The seizure of ships in international waters to extraterritorially enforce US sanctions is a dangerous precedent and a violation of international law.

— Francisco Rodríguez (@frrodriguezc) December 10, 2025

How has Venezuela responded to the seizure?

Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry stated that “the true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been exposed”.

“It is not migration, it is not drug trafficking, it is not democracy, it is not human rights – it was always about our natural resources, our oil, our energy, the resources that belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people,” the statement said.

The ministry described the incident as an “act of piracy.”

The government added that it will appeal to “all” international bodies to denounce the incident and vowed to defend its sovereignty, natural resources, and national dignity with “absolute determination”.

“Venezuela will not allow any foreign power to attempt to take from the Venezuelan people what belongs to them by historical and constitutional right,” it said.

What are the potential consequences for Venezuela’s oil exports?

Experts say the seizure could produce short-term uncertainty for Venezuelan oil exports, largely because “this has been the first time [the United States has]… seized a shipment of Venezuelan oil”, Carlos Eduardo Pina, a Venezuelan political scientist, told Al Jazeera.

That may make shippers hesitate, though the broader impact is limited, Pina said, since “the US allows the Chevron company to continue extracting Venezuelan oil”, and US group Chevron holds a special waiver permitting it to produce and export crude despite wider sanctions.

Chevron, which operates joint ventures with PDVSA, said its operations in Venezuela remain normal and continue without disruption.

The US oil major, which is currently responsible for all Venezuelan crude exports to the US, increased shipments last month to 150,000 barrels per day (bopd), up from 128,000 bpd in October.

Inside Venezuela, Pina warned the move could spark financial panic, however: “It could instil fear, trigger a currency run… and worsen the humanitarian crisis.”

How will this affect US-Venezuela relations?

Diplomatically, Pina said he views the action as a political message to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, noting its timing – “the same day that [opposition leader] Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Prize” – and calling it “a gesture of strength… to remind that [the US is present in the Latin American region].”

Maduro has long argued that the Trump administration’s strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific are not, in fact, aimed at preventing drug running, but are part of a plan to effect regime change in Venezuela. Trump has authorised CIA operations in Venezuela and has given conflicting messages about whether he would consider a land invasion.

Analysts see this latest action as part of a broader strategy to pressure the Maduro government.

“This is certainly an escalation designed to put additional pressure on the Maduro regime, causing it to fracture internally or convincing Maduro to leave,” said Cancian.

“It is part of a series of US actions such as sending the Ford to the Caribbean, authorising the CIA to move against the Maduro regime, and conducting flybys with bombers and, recently, F-18s.”

Cancian added that the broader meaning of the operation depends on what comes next.

“The purpose also depends on whether the US seizes additional tankers,” he said. “In that case, this looks like a blockade of Venezuela. Because Venezuela depends so heavily on oil revenue, it could not withstand such a blockade for long.”

South Sudan’s military has moved into the Heglig oilfield under an unprecedented agreement between the country and neighbouring Sudan’s warring parties to safeguard critical energy infrastructure from the country’s civil war.

The deployment on Wednesday came after the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured the strategic site on December 8, compelling the government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) units to retreat across the border into South Sudan, where they reportedly surrendered their weapons.

The agreement aims to neutralise the facility from combat operations as fighting intensifies across Sudan’s Kordofan region, threatening both countries’ primary revenue source.

Official Sudanese government sources revealed to Al Jazeera that high-level contacts have taken place between the Sudanese and South Sudanese leaderships since the beginning of this week, after the RSF mobilized to attack the “Heglig” area. Understandings were reached to secure the evacuation of workers in the field and avoid military confrontations to ensure that the oil field and its facilities are not subjected to sabotage and destruction, and tribal leaders also played a role in that.

The deployment of South Sudan forces was based on a previous oil and security cooperation agreement signed between Khartoum and Juba, which stipulates the protection of oil fields, pipelines and central pumping stations for South Sudan’s oil, in addition to the electricity interconnection project and strengthening cooperation in the energy sector.

The new factor is the involvement of the RSF.

South Sudan People’s Defence Forces Chief of Staff Paul Nang said at Heglig that troops entered under a “tripartite agreement” involving President Salva Kiir, SAF chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti, according to state broadcaster SSBC News.

The pact requires both Sudanese forces to withdraw from the area.

Nang stressed that South Sudanese forces would maintain strict neutrality.

“The primary goal is to completely neutralise the Heglig field from any combat operations”, he said, because it “represents an economic lifeline not only for South Sudan but for Sudan as well”.

The deployment followed a deadly drone attack on Tuesday evening that killed dozens, including three South Sudanese soldiers.

SAF confirmed using a drone to target RSF fighters at the facility, though the exact death toll remains unclear. Local media reported that seven tribal leaders and numerous RSF personnel died in the attack.

Approximately 3,900 Sudanese soldiers crossed into South Sudan’s Rubkona County after evacuating Heglig, handing over tanks, armoured vehicles and artillery to South Sudanese authorities, according to Unity State officials in South Sudan.

Thousands of civilians have also fled across the border since Sunday.

Heglig houses a central processing facility able to handle up to 130,000 barrels per day of South Sudanese crude destined for export through Sudanese pipelines. The site also includes Block 6, Sudan’s largest producing field.

Jan Pospisil, a South Sudan expert at Coventry University, explained the strategic calculus behind the unusual arrangement.

“From the SAF’s perspective, they don’t want the RSF to find another possible revenue stream, and it is better from their perspective for South Sudan to take control of the area,” he told Al Jazeera.

He added that the RSF “can’t really defend against air attacks by the SAF, as we saw with this drone strike, and they don’t need money right now”.

The seizure of Heglig marks the latest RSF advance as the conflict’s centre of gravity shifts from Darfur to the vast Kordofan region. The paramilitary force secured complete control of Darfur in October with the fall of el-Fasher, prompting international alarm over mass atrocities.

Activists at the Tawila camp told Al Jazeera that refugees continue arriving, with some forced to sleep outdoors due to insufficient resources.

UN human rights chief Volker Turk repeated a warning he issued last week that he was “extremely worried that we might see in Kordofan a repeat of the atrocities that have been committed in el-Fasher”, amid RSF advances in the region.

The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect echoed his warning, with Executive Director Savita Pawnday stressing that Sudan faces “one of the world’s gravest atrocity crises”, where civilians are enduring “unimaginable harm while the international community fails to respond”.

The fighting has triggered displacement, with the International Organization for Migration reporting more than 1,000 people fled South Kordofan province in just two days this week as combat intensified around the state capital, Kadugli.

In el-Fasher, the Sudan Doctors Network reported this week that the RSF is holding more than 19,000 detainees across Darfur prisons, including 73 medical personnel.

The medical advocacy group said cholera outbreaks are killing people due to overcrowding and the absence of adequate healthcare, with more than four deaths recorded weekly from medical neglect.

Storm threatens hundreds of thousands of displaced people left homeless in Gaza due to Israel’s war on territory.

Russia has claimed to be in full control of Pokrovsk, but Ukrainian forces say they still control the northern part of the strategic city in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian forces have reported an unusually large Russian mechanised attack inside the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk, where Russia has reportedly massed a force of some 156,000 troops to take the beleaguered and now destroyed former logistics hub.

“The Russians used armoured vehicles, cars, and motorcycles. The convoys attempted to break through from the south to the northern part of the city,” Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps said in a statement on Wednesday regarding an assault earlier in the day.

A source in the 7th Rapid Response Corps told the Reuters news agency that Russia had deployed about 30 vehicles in convoy, making it the largest such attack yet inside the city. The source added that previously, Russia had deployed just one or two vehicles to aid troop advances.

While Russia has claimed full control of Pokrovsk, Kyiv maintains that its troops still hold the northern part of the city, where fierce urban battles continue to rage.

Russian troops have pushed into the city for months in small infantry groups, looking to capture the former logistics hub as a critical part of Moscow’s campaign to seize the entire industrial Donbas region of eastern Ukraine.

Video clips shared by the 7th Rapid Response Corps showed heavy vehicles in snow and mud, as well as drone attacks on Russian troops and explosions and burning wreckage.

Russian forces were attempting to exploit poor weather conditions but had been pushed back, the unit said on Facebook.

Capturing Pokrovsk would be Russia’s biggest prize in Ukraine in nearly two years, and the city’s weakening defence amid Moscow’s onslaught has added to pressure on Kyiv, which is attempting to improve terms in a United States-backed proposal for a peace deal that is widely seen as favourable to Moscow.

Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, told journalists earlier this week that the situation around Pokrovsk remained difficult as Russia massed a force of some 156,000 around the beleaguered city.

Syrskii said Russian troops were staging the military buildup in the area under the cover of rain and fog.

George Barros, Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War – a US-based think tank – said Moscow is “hyping” the importance of the fall of Pokrovsk “in order to portray Russia’s battlefield advances as inevitable”.

“That sense of inevitability is being echoed by some members of President Donald Trump’s negotiating team trying to pull together a peace proposal for the Ukraine war,” Barros wrote in an opinion piece shared online.

But Russia has paid a huge price in its push to take the city with “more than 1,000 armoured vehicles and over 500 tanks” lost in the Pokrovsk area alone since the beginning of Russia’s offensive operations in October 2023 to seize nearby Avdiivka, which fell to Russian forces in early 2024 in one of the bloodiest battles of the war so far.

NEW: The Kremlin is significantly intensifying its cognitive warfare effort to present the Russian military and economy as able to inevitably win a war of attrition against Ukraine. ⬇️

The Kremlin’s cognitive warfare effort aims to achieve several of Putin’s original war aims… pic.twitter.com/zXxCKrI06x

— Institute for the Study of War (@TheStudyofWar) December 10, 2025

On Wednesday, President Trump said he had exchanged “pretty strong words” with the leaders of France, Britain and Germany on Ukraine, telling them their plan to hold new talks on a proposed US peace plan this weekend risked “wasting time”.

“We discussed Ukraine in pretty strong words,” Trump told reporters when asked about the phone call with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

“They would like us to go to a meeting over the weekend in Europe, and we’ll make a determination depending on what they come back with. We don’t want to be wasting time,” Trump said.

The initial US peace plan that involved Ukraine surrendering land that Russia has not captured was seen by Kyiv and its European allies as aligning too closely with many of Russia’s demands to end the war, and has since been revised.

Trump has been pushing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to agree to the US plan while Ukrainian officials told the AFP news agency on Wednesday that Kyiv had sent an updated draft of the plan back to Washington.

Storm Byron is threatening to heap new miseries on Palestinians in Gaza, with families making distress calls from flooded tents and hundreds of others fleeing their shelters in search of dry ground as the fierce winter storm lashes heavy rains on the besieged territory.

Officials warned Wednesday that the storm was forecast to bring flash floods, strong winds and hail until Friday, conditions expected to wreak havoc in a territory in the grip of a humanitarian crisis, where hundreds of thousands of displaced people live in tents, temporary structures, or damaged buildings after two years of Israel’s genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza.

Humanitarian workers said Israeli restrictions on the entry of tents, tools to repair water and sewage systems have left Gaza poorly equipped to respond to the storm, and called on the international community to pressure the Netanyahu government to urgently allow in supplies.

In the southern city of Rafah, the Palestinian Civil Defence said its teams had already received distress calls from displacement camps, with families reporting “flooded tents and families trapped inside by heavy rains”.

“Despite limited resources and a lack of necessary equipment, our teams are working tirelessly to reach those in need and provide assistance,” the rescue agency said on Telegram.

Footage posted on social media and verified by Al Jazeera showed Palestinians shovelling a ditch around tents in a desperate attempt to create barriers that would prevent them from flooding.

Displacement camps at risk

Nearly 850,000 people sheltering in 761 displacement sites face the highest risk of flooding, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Flooding has previously been recorded at more than 200 of the highest-risk sites, affecting more than 140,000 people, the office said.

Previous storms had contaminated displacement sites with sewage and solid waste, swept away families’ tents and driven them out of makeshift shelters.

Reporting from Gaza City, Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum said that UN  agencies and local authorities were warning that any significant rainfall could have devastating consequences for Gaza’s population, with the displacement camps built on barren, open terrain that would be highly susceptible to flooding.

The tents available to people were typically flimsy, unreinforced and often torn, he said, offering negligible protection from heavy rains, which were likely to seriously damage whatever possessions families had left.

Risk of water contamination, disease

Amjad Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGOs network, said Israeli restrictions on the entry of aid and equipment had left Gaza ill-equipped to deal with the storm.

He said only 40,000 tents, out of a needed 300,000, had been allowed in, while tools that would likely be needed to repair sewage systems and water networks were also restricted.

Flooding would bring a serious risk of sewage and solid waste contaminating drinking water or food supplies, raising the risk of diseases in the densely populated Strip, where 2.2 million people are crammed into just 43 percent of the territory, while the remaining 57 percent remains under Israeli military control.

“If Israel were to allow the entrance of supplies, things would be different. But for now, it has done all it can to make life more complicated for Palestinians,” Shawa said.

Oxfam humanitarian response adviser Chris McIntosh agreed, telling Al Jazeera that the people of Gaza were bracing for a “very tragic situation”.

“Persistent bureaucracy prevented us from bringing in adequate dwellings for people in Gaza,” McIntosh said. “The Israelis have not permitted tents to enter Gaza for many months. The only thing they’re allowing at this point is some tarpaulin, which isn’t going to do much for people who need proper shelter.”

He said Palestinians were being forced to live in “deplorable conditions”, with well more than 50 percent of the population living in tents.

He anticipated many would attempt to find dry ground inside bombed-out buildings that were at heightened risk of collapse amid the forecast heavy rains and winds.

Families flee flooding risk

Farhan Haq, a spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, warned that vulnerable groups, including newborn children, are at particular risk from the incoming winter storm.

About 200 families were expected to arrive at a new displacement site in eastern Khan Younis in the south of the Strip, fleeing a heightened risk of flooding in their present location, he said.

“These households made the decision to move given the impact of the frequent rains and the risk of flooding,” he said.

Ismail al-Thawabta, director of Gaza’s Government Media Office, told Al Jazeera that about 288,000 Palestinian families were without shelter as Storm Byron bore down on the enclave, and issued a call to the international community to pressure Israel to allow in supplies to help respond to the storm.

“We are issuing an urgent appeal to the world, [United States] President Trump and the [United Nations] Security Council to pressure the Israeli occupation,” he said.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, condemned global inaction as families in Gaza braced for the storm.

“Palestinians in Gaza are literally left alone, freezing and starving in the winter storm,” she posted on X.

“I keep asking how we became such monsters, [i]ncapable of stopping this nightmare.”

Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said Russian, Chinese planes entered its air defence zone during the joint exercise.

South Korea and Japan separately scrambled fighter jets after Russian and Chinese military aircraft conducted a joint air patrol near both countries.

Seven Russian and two Chinese aircraft entered South Korea’s Air Defence Identification Zone (KADIZ) at approximately 10am local time (01:00 GMT) on Tuesday, according to the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Seoul.

The planes, which included fighter jets and bombers, were spotted before they entered the KADIZ – which is not territorial airspace but where planes are expected to identify themselves – and South Korea deployed “fighter jets to take tactical measures in preparation for any contingencies”, according to reports.

The Russian and Chinese planes flew in and out of the South Korean air defence zone for an hour before leaving, the military said, according to South Korea’s official Yonhap news agency.

On Wednesday the defence ministry said that a diplomatic protest had been lodged with representatives of China and Russia over the entry of their warplanes into South Korea’s air defence zone.

“Our military will continue to respond actively to the activities of neighbouring countries’ aircraft within the KADIZ in compliance with international law,” said Lee Kwang-suk, director general of the International Policy Bureau at Seoul’s defence ministry.

Japan separately deployed military aircraft to “strictly implement” air defence measures “against potential airspace violations”, following the reported joint patrol of Russia and China, Japanese Minister of Defence Shinjiro Koizumi said.

In a statement posted on social media late on Tuesday, Koizumi said two Russian “nuclear-capable Tu-95 bombers” flew from the Sea of Japan to the Tsushima Strait, and met with two Chinese jets “capable of carrying long-range missiles”.

At least eight other Chinese J-16 fighter jets and a Russian A-50 aircraft also accompanied the bombers as they conducted a joint flight “around” Japan, travelling between Okinawa’s main island and Miyako Island, Koizumi said.

“The repeated joint flights of bombers by both countries signify an expansion and intensification of activities around our country, while clearly intending to demonstrate force against our nation, posing a serious concern for our national security,” he added.

9日（火）の午前から夕方にかけて、ロシアの核兵器搭載可能な爆撃機Tu-95×2機が日本海→対馬海峡を飛行し、中国の長射程ミサイルを搭載可能な爆撃機H-6×2機と東シナ海において合流したあと、沖縄本島・宮古島間→太平洋の四国沖まで我が国周辺を共同飛行しました。… pic.twitter.com/6RcWJbM99b

— 小泉進次郎 (@shinjirokoiz) December 9, 2025

Koizumi’s statement comes just days after he accused Chinese fighter jets on Sunday of directing their fire-control radar at Japanese aircraft in two separate incidents over international waters near Okinawa.

On Monday, Japan’s Ministry of Defence said that it had monitored the movements of the Chinese aircraft carrier Liaoning and accompanying support vessels near Okinawa since Friday, adding that dozens of takeoffs and landings from Chinese aircraft on the carrier were monitored.

Japan said it was the “first time” that fighter jet operations on a Chinese aircraft carrier had been confirmed in waters between Okinawa’s main island and Minami-Daitojima island to the southeast.

China’s Ministry of National Defence said on Tuesday that it had organised the joint air drills with Russia’s military according to “annual cooperation plans”.

The air drills took place above the East China Sea and western Pacific Ocean, the ministry said, calling the exercises the “10th joint strategic air patrol” with Russia.

Moscow also confirmed the joint exercise with Beijing, saying that it had lasted eight hours and that some foreign fighter jets followed the Russian and Chinese aircraft.

“At certain stages of the route, the strategic bombers were followed by fighter jets from foreign states,” the Russian Defence Ministry said.

Since 2019, China and Russia have regularly flown military aircraft near South Korean and Japanese airspace without prior notice, citing joint military exercises.

In November 2024, Seoul scrambled jets as five Chinese and six Russian military planes flew through its air defence zone. In 2022, Japan also deployed jets after warplanes from Russia and China neared its airspace.

China and Russia have expanded military and defence ties since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago. Both countries are also allies of North Korea, which is seen as an adversary in both South Korea and Japan.

These are the key developments from day 1,385 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here’s where things stand on Wednesday, December 10 :

Fighting

• Ukrainian troops holding parts of the beleaguered city of Pokrovsk have been ordered to withdraw from hard-to-defend positions in the past week, Ukraine’s top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskii, said.

• Syrskii said the situation in Pokrovsk remains difficult for Ukrainian forces, with Russia massing an estimated 156,000 troops in the area under cover of recent rain and fog.

• Russia’s top general, Valery Gerasimov, said that Moscow’s forces were advancing along the entire front line in Ukraine and were also focused on Ukrainian troops in the surrounded town of Myrnohrad.
• Russia said air defence systems intercepted and destroyed 121 Ukrainian drones throughout Tuesday.
• A member of the United Kingdom’s armed forces was killed in Ukraine while observing Ukrainian forces test a new defensive capability, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said. The ministry said the British soldier was killed away from the front lines with Russian forces.

• Ukraine’s state gas and oil company, Naftogaz, said that Russian drones had damaged gas infrastructure facilities, but there were no casualties.

• Russia’s Syzran oil refinery on the Volga River halted oil processing on December 5 after being damaged by a Ukrainian drone attack, the Reuters news agency reported, citing two industry sources.

• Ukraine will introduce more restrictions on power use and will allow additional energy imports as it struggles to repair infrastructure targeted by Russian strikes, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.

Ceasefire

• Ukraine and its European partners, Germany, France and the UK, will present the US with “refined documents” on a peace plan to end the war with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
• Finnish President Alexander Stubb said that allies of Ukraine worked on three separate documents, including a 20-point framework for peace, a set of security guarantees and a post-war reconstruction plan.
• At a United Nations Security Council meeting on Ukraine, Deputy US Ambassador Jennifer Locetta said the United States is working to bridge the divide in peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv. She said the aim is to secure a permanent ceasefire, and “a mutually agreed peace deal that leaves Ukraine sovereign and independent and with an opportunity for real prosperity”.
• Russia’s UN ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said, “What we have on the table are fairly realistic proposals for long-term, lasting settlement of Ukrainian conflict, something that our US colleagues are diligently working on.”
• Pope Leo said Europe must play a central role in efforts to end the war in Ukraine, warning that any peace plan sidelining the continent is “not realistic”, while urging leaders to seize what he described as a great opportunity to work together for a just peace.

Politics and diplomacy

• Zelenskyy said he was prepared to hold elections within three months if the US and Kyiv’s European allies could ensure the security of the vote. Wartime elections are forbidden by law in Ukraine, but Zelenskyy, whose term expired last year, is facing renewed pressure from US President Donald Trump to hold a vote.
• The Kremlin said that European claims that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to restore the Soviet Union were incorrect and that claims Putin plans to invade a NATO member were absolute rubbish.
• The European Union is very close to a solution for financing Ukraine in 2026 and 2027 that would have the support of at least a qualified majority of EU countries, European Council President Antonio Costa said.
• Japan has denied a media report that it had rebuffed an EU request to join plans to use frozen Russian state assets to fund Ukraine.

Regional security

• Three men went on trial in Germany, accused of following a former Ukrainian soldier on behalf of a Russian intelligence service as part of a possible assassination plot.

Sanctions

• US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent said he discussed US sanctions on Russian oil giants Lukoil and Rosneft with Ukrainian Prime Minister Svyrydenko.