Five migrants including a child have died during an attempt to cross the English Channel in a small boat.

A seven-year-old girl, a woman and three men died in the incident off the coast of Wimereux in northern France, local official Jacques Billant said.

The French coastguard said there was a failed attempt to cross the Channel and there were several “lifeless bodies”.

The tragedy came just hours after the UK government’s controversial Rwanda bill – intended to deter migrants from crossing the Channel in small boats – was passed.

Politics latest: ‘Inevitable’ there will be challenges to Rwanda flights

Some 112 people were on board the overcrowded boat, Mr Billant said.

A total of 47 people were rescued, with four taken to hospital, while more than 50 others chose to continue on their journey, the official added.

Charity worker Sandrine, who witnessed the incident, told Sky News she saw two dinghies in difficulty.

“I saw them bringing in the bodies and the father (of the girl who died) fell into my arms,” she said.

“I said to myself: ‘This can’t be possible. He has a child’.

“They tried to resuscitate her but she had died. The helicopters arrived and then there were four other bodies.

“The father saw his daughter die before him.”

Writing on X, UK Home Secretary James Cleverly said: “These tragedies have to stop. I will not accept a status quo which costs so many lives.”

He said ministers are “doing everything we can to end this trade”.

Conservative MP, Robert Jenrick, who resigned as immigration minister over the government’s Rwanda plan in December, urged the EU to grant member states legal cover “to seize these unseaworthy boats” after what he called “another intolerable tragedy”.

Earlier, Sky News filmed a suspected migrant boat attempting to cross the Channel but it is not known if that was the one involved in the deadly incident.

Some suspected migrants were pictured arriving at the Port of Dover on a British Border Force vessel on Tuesday.

Follow Sky News on WhatsApp

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Tap here

Sky’s Europe correspondent Adam Parsons, reporting from the northern French coast, said at least four vessels were involved in the rescue operation off the coast of Wimereux, as well as helicopters.

Sea conditions were “perfect”, he said [and], “if you were trying to cross the Channel in a small boat, this is the day you would do it, so if you can’t make it on a day like this, it shows how dangerous it is”.

The boat, he said, is believed to have hit a sandbar at around 5am, causing people to enter the water.

The Channel is one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes and currents are strong, making the crossing on small boats extremely hazardous.

People smugglers typically overload rickety dinghies, leaving them barely afloat and at risk of being lashed by the waves as they try to reach Britain.

Read more:
Migrants trying to cross Channel explain why they won’t be deterred by Rwanda bill
Asylum seekers warn others against seeking refuge in the UK

The Rwanda bill, which Rishi Sunak says will curb the illegal trade, is set to finally become law after the House of Lords decided they would no longer oppose it following hours of wrangling. The measure was finally approved at around midnight.

Mr Sunak has pledged the first flights will take off “in 10 to 12 weeks”.

Human rights groups have described the legislation as inhumane and cruel.

If you want to understand why people are still risking everything to cross the Channel, let me take you to a quiet street near Dunkirk, where chaos is in the air.

A group of around 40 or 50 people – migrants who have just failed in their latest attempt to cross the Channel – are being corralled down the road. They are tired and bruised. The police are around them, like teachers trying to take control of an unruly school trip.

Behind, police officers on foot, shouting instructions in French that almost nobody can understand. The group turns, as one, and heads down a side road that leads to a field.

“Non, non,” shouts the policeman, exasperated. His head rolls back. “NON,” he bellows, then runs after them.

These people are mostly strangers to each other, united by the single aim of reaching Britain. We had seen the group 12 hours earlier, crossing another field, clearly on their way to a nearby beach, but then they disappeared from our sight, heading off down an alleyway between houses.

Like so many people, they had attempted to make the crossing, and failed. This time, according to one of those we spoke to, the cause was the police, patrolling these beaches throughout the night.

As the group tried to take a boat to the shore, the police punctured it, rendering the vessel useless.

But that’s not all. They also claimed the police had used rubber bullets to disperse them.

Bich, a Vietnamese woman who we find sitting on the ground, tearfully exhausted, rolls up her trouser to expose a nasty, vivid bruise.

“We went towards the boat but the police shot at us. They destroyed the boat and it sank. And then they shot me.”

“Plastic pistols,” is how another man described the weapons, showing me a much bigger bruise on his thigh. A third has a circular bruise, with a dot in the middle, as if he has been hit by the top of a canister.

The group was a varied bunch. Very often, over the years of talking to migrant groups of northern France, they have been united by background – one boat is full of Iraqi Kurds, say, while another is packed with Afghans.

But here, we found an international group.

Yes, Kurds, Iraqis and Afghans, but also Syrians, Vietnamese, Sudanese and, hidden behind a cap and jumper pulled over his mouth and nose, a man who told me he was from Morocco.

Some have been determined to reach Britain ever since they left their home countries. Others are more pragmatic. One more told me he had wanted to stay in France but had just been told he was going to be deported.

Read more:
Rwanda enforcement officers told all leave is cancelled
Migrants refused asylum to be offered thousands to move to Rwanda – report

“We have problems but we are being deported, so we want to go to Britain for a better life,” says one. “Deport, deport,” shouts another man.

So Britain may represent his last chance at asylum as a host of European nations start to increase the number of deportation orders they issue.

The European Union has just concluded a long-debated agreement on migration, intended to toughen both its borders and its resolve.

Sweden, France, Italy and plenty of others are using much tougher rhetoric about removing people from their territory who have been refused asylum. And the results are beginning to be seen.

Follow Sky News on WhatsApp

Keep up with all the latest news from the UK and around the world by following Sky News

Tap here

Germany, which opened its doors to more than a million people fleeing Syria, is among those increasing its number of deportations, with 20% more migrants sent away in the first two months of this year compared with the same period of 2023.

And then, of course, there is the UK’s Rwanda plan, designed to deter people from making these crossings, backed by the prime minister’s unequivocal promise to bring down the number of small boats crossing the Channel.

If they knew about the Rwanda plan, and certainly some did, then they shrugged it off as either ineffective, unjust or simply untrue.

“The UK cannot send me to Africa after what you have done to my country and my area,” said one Syrian man. He knew about the Rwanda policy and said it was “not true”.

“It is not safe in Rwanda so you cannot send people there,” insisted another person, perhaps unwittingly getting to the nub of so many parliamentary exchanges.

“There are people who are trying to escape from Rwanda because of what is happening there. So you cannot say it is safe.”

There is a great deal stacked up against these groups of migrants. The British government doesn’t want them to come, they claim the police in the Dunkirk area have attacked them, the crossing is dangerous and expensive and there is a growing tide of antipathy towards migrants across much of Europe.

Yet none of these people seem deterred, promising to persevere, resolutely sure that reaching British shores will be a panacea to their woes.

“We will be back tomorrow,” says a young man with a wispy beard and a wide smile. “We want to get to the UK.”

His friend next to him simply grinned at me. “UK is good,” he said, with a thumbs-up.

The group amble off, back towards their camp near Grande-Synthe, a town that has become a magnet for migrants. They are exhausted and, in some cases, battered. But they will try again. Soon.

The Israeli military intelligence chief has resigned after failures that led to the deadly 7 October Hamas attack on Israel.

Major General Aharon Haliva was one of several senior commanders who said they failed to predict and prevent the most devastating attack in the country’s history.

He is the first senior figure to quit the IDF since the assault.

In his resignation letter, he said the intelligence division under his command “did not live up to the task we were entrusted with”.

Major General Haliva, who has served 38 years in the IDF, added: “I carry that black day with me ever since, day after day, night after night. I will carry the horrible pain of the war with me forever.”

Follow latest updates on Israel-Hamas war

Lower-level intelligence officials reportedly had information that Hamas was hatching a plan to launch an attack, but Israel did not foresee the group’s surprise attack when militants stormed the Gaza border and rampaged through Israeli communities, military bases and a music festival.

Some 1,200 Israelis and foreigners were killed, mostly civilians, while about 250 were taken as hostages in Gaza.

Hours after the assault, Israel declared war on Hamas – which is now into its seventh month – with the aim of eradicating the militant group and rescuing the hostages.

More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed since, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Other IDF chiefs were expected to resign after 7 October as some acknowledged the failures involved, including Lieutenant-General Herzi Halevi, and the head of the domestic intelligence agency Shin Bet Ronen Bar, but both have remained as the war continues.

On the failures, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously said “everyone will have to give answers” including himself, but he has so far not accepted direct responsibility.

The IDF said its chief of general staff had thanked Major General Haliva for his service where he made “significant contributions to the security of the State of Israel as both a combat soldier and commander”.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid welcomed the resignation on X, saying it was “justified and dignified” adding: “It would be appropriate for Prime Minister Netanyahu to do the same.”

Netanyahu ‘will fight’ IDF sanctions

Meanwhile, the US is set to impose sanctions against the IDF battalion Netzah Yehuda for alleged human rights violations while operating in the occupied West Bank, the US-based Axios news site reported on Saturday.

The IDF said it was not aware of such measures as Mr Netanyahu added: “If anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the IDF – I will fight it with all my strength.”

Read more:
Baby saved from womb of mother killed in Israeli strike
Trail of destruction in Lebanon’s ‘ghost towns’

Washington had called for a criminal investigation after the battalion’s soldiers were accused of being involved in the death of Palestinian American, Omar Assad, who died of a heart attack in 2002 after he was detained and later found abandoned at a building site.

A battalion commander was reprimanded and two officers were dismissed, but Israel did not seek criminal charges.

There have been other incidents more recently, some captured on video, where Netzah Yehuda troops were accused of, or charged with, abusing Palestinian detainees.

US President Joe Biden said an announcement could be made “very soon”.