Donkey karts loaded with wrapped parcels of unknown goods weave around the large puddles of water left in the dried riverbed.

Young men quickly hop over laid bricks to bridge the puddles followed by women treading carefully with babies on their backs.

The Limpopo River’s seasonal dryness is a natural pathway for those moving into South Africa from Zimbabwe illegally.

A sandy narrow beach undisturbed by border patrols with crossers chatting peacefully under trees on both banks as men furiously load and unload smuggled goods on the roadside.

Against the anti-immigration rage and xenophobia boiling over in South Africa’s urban centres, the tranquillity and ease of the border jumping is astonishingly calm.

“You can’t stop someone who is suffering. They have to find any means to come find food,” one man tells us anonymously as he crosses illegally.

At 55 years old, he remembers the 3,500-volt electric fence called the “snake of fire” installed here by the Apartheid regime.

Hundreds of women and children escaping conflict in the late 1980s and early 1990s were electrocuted.

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Today, people fleeing drought and economic strife are smuggled across or walking through border blindspots like this one.

“Now, it’s easy,” he says. “There is no border authority here.”

He crosses regularly and always illegally. While he laughs at the lack of border agents, he says he has been stopped by soldiers in the past.

“They send us back but then the next day you try to come back and it is fine.”

We find a few soldiers on our way back to the main road. They look confused by our presence but unphased. It is hard to believe they are unaware of the streams of people and goods moving across the dried riverbed just a few hundred metres away.

Border ‘fence’ trampled and full of holes

We drive along the border fence to get to the official border post into Zimbabwe, Beitbridge.

“Fence” is a generous term for the knee-height barbed wire laid across 25 miles of South Africa’s northern edges in 2020. Some sections are completely trampled, and others are gaping with holes.

The concrete fortress is a drastic change to the soft, sandy riverbed. Queues dismantle and reassemble as eager crowds rush from one building to another as instructions change.

Zimbabweans can live, work and study in South Africa on a Zimbabwean exemption permit, but many like Precious, a mother-of-three, cannot even afford a passport.

When we meet her at a women’s shelter in the border town of Musina, she says she only has $30 (£23.90) to find work in South Africa and that a passport costs $50 (£39.80).

“My husband is disabled and can’t work or do anything. I’m the only one doing everything – school, food, everything. I’m the one who has to take care of the kids and that situation makes me come here to find something,” she says tearfully before breaking down.

The shelter next door is home to trafficked children that were rescued. Other shelters are full of men looking for work.

Musina is a stagnant sanctuary for Zimbabweans searching for a better life who become paralysed here – a sign of the declining state of Zimbabwe and the growing hostility deeper in South Africa.

In Johannesburg, South Africa’s economic centre, illegal immigrants are facing raids and deportations organised by the Ministry of Home Affairs at the behest of popular discontent.

The heavy-handed escalation in the interior sits in stark contrast to the lax border control.

“I wonder how serious our government is about dealing with immigration,” says Nomzamo Zondo, human rights attorney and executive director of the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), as we walk through Johannesburg’s derelict inner city.

“I think part of it is that the South Africa we want to build is one that wants to welcome its neighbours and doesn’t forget the people that welcomed us when we didn’t have a home – and that is why I think they are so poor at maintaining the borders.”

She adds: “But then the call has to be one that says once you are here, how do we make sure you are regularised here, that you know who you are, and contribute to the economy at this point in time.”

Climate of anti-migrant hate

In 1994 as South Africa’s first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela ordered that all electric fences be taken down.

His dream for South Africa to become a pan-African haven for civilians of neighbouring countries that provided sanctuary for fighters in the anti-Apartheid movement was criticised by local constituents back then.

Now in a climate of increasing anti-migrant hate, that vision is rejected outright.

“I think that is the highest level of sell-out. When South Africans were in exile, they were in camps and they were restricted to go to other parts of those countries,” says Bungani Thusi, a member of anti-immigrant movement Operation Dudula, at a protest in Soweto.

He is wearing faux military fatigues and has the upright position of an officer heading into battle.

“Why do you allow foreigners to go all over South Africa and run businesses and make girlfriends?” he adds, with all the seriousness of protest.

“South Africans can’t even have their own girlfriends because the foreigners have taken over the girlfriend space.”

Hamas has approved a list of 34 Israeli hostages to be returned as part of a possible Gaza ceasefire deal, an official from the Palestinian group has claimed.

But the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has put out a statement saying Hamas had not provided a hostage list “up to this moment”.

Israel and Hamas argued on Sunday over the details of an agreement to halt fighting in the war-ravaged territory and bring captives home.

A renewed push is under way to reach a ceasefire in the 15-month war before US president-elect Donald Trump takes office on 20 January.

It comes as Hamas released a video of a 19-year-old Israeli hostage in Gaza.

In an undated recording, Liri Albag – one of five female soldiers kidnapped in Hamas’s 7 October attack – speaks under duress and shares her anguish at having been held for 450 days.

Speaking in Hebrew, she calls for the Israeli government to secure her release and says: “Today is the beginning of a new year; the whole world is celebrating. Only we are entering a dark year, a year of loneliness.”

Ms Albag – who has turned 19 while being held hostage – adds that a fellow, unnamed captive has been injured. “We are living in an extremely terrifying nightmare,” she says.

The teenager’s family said the video has “torn our hearts to pieces”.

“This is not the daughter and sister we know. Her severe psychological distress is evident,” they said in a statement shared by the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.

The family has not given permission for the video of Ms Albag to be shared publicly but they have authorised the release of two photos.

Ms Albag’s loved ones are calling on the Israeli government and world leaders to use the current ceasefire talks to bring all remaining hostages back alive.

“It’s time to make decisions as if your own children were there,” they said.

Mr Netanyahu’s office said he has spoken Ms Albag’s parents and told them efforts to bring hostages home are “ongoing, including at this very moment”.

“Anyone who dares to harm our hostages will bear full responsibility for their actions,” he said.

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Roughly 250 people were taken hostage by Hamas on 7 October 2023 and as of December last year, 96 remained in the group’s custody.

Israel’s subsequent military offensive in Gaza has killed at least 45,805 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

It said 88 people have been killed in the past 24 hours. At least 17 were killed in airstrikes on homes in Gaza City on Saturday.

Several children were among those who died, medics said.

Hamas’s video of Ms Albag, and Israel’s airstrikes, come amid a fresh push for an agreement to end the conflict in Gaza.

Israeli representatives arrived in Doha, Qatar, on Friday to resume indirect ceasefire talks brokered by Qatari and Egyptian mediators.

Hamas has said it is committed to reaching an agreement, but it is unclear how close the two sides are.

Joe Biden, whose US presidency comes to an end in just over a fortnight, has urged Hamas to agree a deal – while Mr Trump has said there will “be hell to pay” in Gaza if the hostages are not released before his inauguration in January.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is likely to announce his resignation in the coming days, according to reports.

Sources have told Reuters news agency and Canada‘s Globe and Mail that the 53-year-old could announce as early as today that he would quit as leader of Canada’s ruling Liberal Party.

But Reuters says no final decision on the resignation has been made, however sources expect an announcement to happen before an emergency meeting of Liberal politicians on Wednesday.

It remains unclear whether Mr Trudeau would leave immediately or stay on as prime minister until a new Liberal leader is selected.

Mr Trudeau has led the party since 2013 and has been prime minister since 2015.

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He has faced calls to resign from an increasing number of his MPs amid poor showings in opinion polls. He has also come under increased pressure since his finance minister quit in December over a policy clash.

Unlike the UK, there is no formal way for Mr Trudeau’s party to remove him if he wants to stay.

That said, if members of his own cabinet and a large number of MPs call for him to go, he may conclude his position is untenable.

An election must be held in Canada by this October, with the Liberals expected to lose heavily to the official opposition Conservatives.

The prime minister’s office has not yet responded to Sky News’ request for comment.