As people take a break for the Easter holiday, in the Gaza Strip there is no respite from the 18-month-long war with Israel.

Gaza has a tiny Christian community of Greek Orthodox Christians, Catholics, Evangelicals, and Anglicans.

For Ramez al-Souri, the pain is unimaginable. His three children were killed by an Israeli airstrike, on an annex of Gaza’s Saint Porphyrius Greek Orthodox Church.

Palestinian health officials say the attack on 19 October 2023 killed 18 people inside the building.

“My home has changed completely because there are no smiles, no laughter, no joy,” Mr Al-Souri says.

“I lost my flower – my daughter Julie – and my boys Suhail and Majd. They were salt of the Earth.”

Shrouded in darkness

Julia was 12 years old, Suhial 14 and Majd 11.

It is a loss that never leaves Mr Al-Souri, and one shared by almost every family in Gaza.

Walking through the cemetery, he gently places a small bouquet of flowers on his children’s grave. Gunfire crackles in the distance. The neighbourhood is full of rubble and destruction.

“This Easter is no different than the last,” Mr Al-Souri says.

“We are tending to our wounds.

“We continue to hope for an end to this war and suffering, for the darkness over Gaza to finally lift.”

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No end in sight

But there is no sign of light for more than two million people trapped inside Gaza.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a special address to the nation on Saturday night and vowed to continue the war until Hamas is destroyed.

Mr Netanyahu said Israel has “no choice” but to keep fighting “for our very own existence until victory.”

Israel is calling for Hamas to disarm and to release 10 Israeli hostages in exchange for a 45-day ceasefire.

There are 59 hostages still inside Gaza. It is believed 24 of them are still alive.

Hamas has rejected the proposal. It argues Israel reneged on the first ceasefire deal by refusing to move to phase two of the agreement and withdraw Israeli troops from the Gaza Strip.

A disaster on the ground

Since the ceasefire collapsed on 2 March, Israel’s bombing campaign has intensified.

Palestinian health officials say more than 1,700 people have been killed in the last month, and more than 90 people in the last 24 hours.

The humanitarian situation is a disaster. At the few remaining soup kitchens in Gaza, children scramble for food. They carry pots for their family and push forward trying to secure a bowl of lentils or rice.

Israel has blocked aid trucks from entering for the last seven weeks. It says it is to put pressure on Hamas.

But the pressure is being felt by civilians, creating what aid groups say is the most severe crisis Gaza has ever faced.

Israel has cut off vital supplies of food and medicine, but insists it is not using starvation as a weapon of war. It rejects any suggestion Gaza does not have enough food and accuses Hamas of stealing it.

‘We’re craving food’

Seven members of the Al-Asheh family are displaced and live in a tent in Deir al-Balah.

Twelve-year-old Ahmed says before the war he didn’t like lentils, now it is all he eats.

“Before the war, we used to have fruits, chicken, vegetables, everything was available. We were never hungry,” Ahmed explains.

“Now, we’re craving food, chicken – anything. The only thing we can eat now is what the soup kitchen provides.”

It is clear that ceasefire talks are going nowhere, and Israel has tightened its blockade and deepened its war.

More than 400,000 Palestinians have recently been displaced yet again as Israel has expanded a buffer zone inside Gaza, levelling houses to create a “security zone”.

For Palestinians, this constitutes a “land grab”.

‘A symbol of the world’s conscience’

Israel has also established another military corridor in southern Gaza, calling it Morag corridor.

The corridor is north of Rafah and has cut Gaza’s second-largest city off from the rest of the territory. Israel says it has now taken control of 30% of the Gaza Strip and insists it will not withdraw.

For Palestinians, the future has never looked more bleak. They are blockaded, displaced, struggling for food, water, basic sanitation and in constant search of safety.

“Gaza is calling on the world to stand by it,” Mr Al-Souri says.

“Gaza stands as a symbol of the world’s moral conscience.”

London-born teenager Carlo Acutis is about to become the first millennial saint, almost 20 years after his death.

The teenager, whose Italian family moved to Milan months after his birth in 1991, dedicated his short life to Catholicism, and died of leukaemia in 2006 aged 15.

Having passed all the posthumous trials necessary for sainthood, he will be canonised on 27 April in St Peter’s Square in Vatican City.

But what does it take to become a saint and how did Carlo achieve it?

Here’s everything you need to know.

What does it mean to be a saint?

All Christians are called to be saints, but only a select few throughout history have been officially recognised as one.

A saint is defined in Catholicism as people in heaven who lived heroically virtuous lives, offered their life for others, or were martyred for the faith, and who are worthy of imitation.

How do you become a saint – and how did Carlo do it?

There are four steps on the path to becoming a saint:

Stage 1 – Servant of God

A postulator – essentially a cheerleader advocating for the candidate – gathers testimony and documentation and presents the case to the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints.

This process usually begins at least five years after the death of the person in question.

Carlo was dedicated to the church throughout his short life, receiving first communion at the age of seven and regularly attending daily Mass, praying the rosary and participating in eucharistic adoration.

But it was through mixing his faith with technology that Carlo had the most impact, informally becoming known as “God’s influencer” as he used his computer skills to spread the Catholic faith.

He started publishing newsletters for his local churches, taking care of his parish website and later of a Vatican-based academy.

He became particularly interested in something called Eucharistic miracles.

These are events deemed miracles which take place around the Eucharist, which is the traditional name the Christian church gives to the re-enactment of the Last Supper.

It’s the moment when the faithful are given a small piece of bread and a sip of wine, called the Holy Communion. They believe that, through the consumption of the bread and wine, Jesus Christ enters those who take part.

Carlo started logging miracles on a website, which eventually went viral and has since been translated into many of the world’s most widely spoken languages.

Stage 2 – Venerable

If worthy, the case is forwarded to the Pope, who signs a decree confirming the candidate’s “heroic virtues”. The person is now called “venerable”.

Carlo was named venerable in 2018 after the church recognised his virtuous life, and his body was taken to a shrine in Assisi’s Santuario della Spogliazione, a major site linked to St Francis’ life.

Stage 3 – Beatification

You become beatified – the declaration by the Pope that a dead person is in a state of bliss – when a miracle in your name is identified and formally declared a miracle by the Pope.

The Roman Catholic Church teaches that only God performs miracles, but that saints who are believed to be with God in heaven intercede on behalf of people who pray to them.

Typically, miracles are the medically inexplicable healing of a person.

The Pope tends to accept it as such when witnesses “verify” someone was healed after prayer and doctors/clergy conclude that it had no medical explanation, was instant and lasting.

If verified, the candidate is beatified and becomes “blessed”.

Carlo’s first supposed miracle was the healing of a boy called Mattheus Vianna, who was born in 2009 in Brazil with a serious birth defect that left him unable to keep food in his stomach.

As a young boy, he was forced to live on vitamins and protein shakes but regularly vomited after meals and was unable to put on weight.

Mattheus, according to his priest, touched one of Carlo’s relics in church and said “stop vomiting” – an act which is said to have cured him.

In February 2014, his family ordered further tests and he was found to be fully cured, the priest said.

In 2019, the claimed miracle was acknowledged by the Vatican and confirmed by Pope Francis a few months later, paving the way for Carlo to become beatified in 2020.

Stage 4 – Sainthood

A second miracle is required in order to reach sainthood.

If verified, the candidate can be canonised and made a saint. A formal canonisation ceremony at the Vatican follows.

The second miracle in Carlo’s name was the reported healing of a Costa Rican girl studying in Italy who suffered a major head trauma.

Her mother said she prayed at Carlo’s tomb after the incident, invoking his spirit and leading to her daughter’s full recovery.

Pope Francis attributed the second miracle to Carlo after a meeting with the head of the Vatican’s saint-making department, Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, in May 2024.

Sainthood is rare – but not as much as it used to be

It isn’t known exactly how many sainthoods have been handed out in the Catholic church’s history, though estimates tend to sit at around 10,000.

For hundreds of years, they were selected through public acclaim, until Pope John XV led the first canonisation in the year 993, making Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg a saint.

Canonisation has been more common in recent years, though, with the late Pope John Paul II, who was the Pope from 1978 until his death in 2005, declaring 482 saints during his tenure – more than all of his predecessors.

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That record was overtaken just two months into Pope Francis’ tenure, as he canonised more than 800 15th-century martyrs, the so-called “Martyrs of Otranto,” who were beheaded for refusing to convert to Islam.

Since then, the Pope has gone on to grant a number of other high-profile sainthoods, including his predecessors Pope John Paul II and John XXIII, married couple Louis and Zelie Martin, who lived in France during the 19th century, and Mother Teresa.

He’ll take to St Peter’s Square on 27 April at 9.30am UK time – in conjunction with the celebration of the Holy Year’s jubilee for teens – and canonise the first ever millennial saint.

America’s oldest serving astronaut has touched down on Earth on his 70th birthday. 

NASA astronaut Donald Pettit and two Russian cosmonauts had been on a seven-month mission to the International Space Station (ISS).

The Soyuz MS-26 spacecraft carrying Mr Pettit and Russians Alexey Ovchinin and Ivan Vagner landed in Kazakhstan on Sunday.

“Its deorbiting and descent to Earth were normal,” Russia’s Roscosmos space agency said.

The crew’s seven-month science mission started on 11 September 2024. They orbited the Earth 3,520 times over 220 days in space.

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Mr Pettit had been conducting research to enhance in-orbit metal 3D printing capabilities, advance water sanitisation technologies, explore plant growth under varying water conditions and investigate fire behaviour in microgravity, according to NASA.

It was the fourth time in space for Mr Pettit and Mr Ovchinin, while it was Mr Vagner’s second spaceflight.