A fire at a hotel in a popular ski resort in Turkey has killed at least 66 people, the country’s interior minister has said.

Ali Yerlikaya added that at least 51 other people were injured in the fire at the Grand Kartal hotel in Kartalkaya in Bolu province’s Koroglu mountains in northwest Turkey, about 185 miles (300km) east of Istanbul.

The health minister said at least one of the injured was in serious condition and 17 others had been discharged from hospital after being treated.

At least two of the victims died after jumping from the building in panic, Bolu Governor Abdulaziz Aydin told the state-run Anadolu media agency, adding that 234 guests were staying at the 12-storey, 161-room hotel.

Other reports said some people tried to climb down from their rooms using sheets and blankets.

The fire broke out at about 3.30am in the restaurant, with pictures showing several fire engines surrounding the charred building, and white bed sheets tied together could be seen hanging from one upper-floor window.

Third-floor guest Atakan Yelkovan told the IHA news agency his wife smelled burning but “the alarm did not go off”.

“We tried to go upstairs but couldn’t, there were flames. We went downstairs and came here [outside],” he said.

Mr Yelkovan said it took about an hour for the firefighting teams to arrive.

“People on the upper floors were screaming. They hung down sheets… some tried to jump,” he said.

Ski instructor Necmi Kepcetutan said he was asleep when the fire began and, after rushing outside, he helped some 20 guests escape.

He said the hotel was engulfed in smoke and admitted he couldn’t get to some of his students.

“I hope they are OK,” he said.

Mr Aydin’s office said 30 fire trucks and 28 ambulances were sent to the site. Other hotels at the resort were evacuated as a precaution and guests were placed in hotels around Bolu.

A team of six government-appointed prosecutors is investigating how the fire started.

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German TV station NTV suggested the wooden cladding on the outside of the hotel may have accelerated the spread of the fire and that efforts to put it out were hampered by the fact it is built on the side of a cliff.

The Grand Kartal hotel passed a fire inspection last year, tourism minister Mehmet Nuri Ersoy told reporters.

Turkey President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to take “all necessary steps” to find out what happened and “hold those responsible accountable”.

Donald Trump will pull the US, the world’s second-largest climate polluter, out of the most important global treaty for tackling climate change for the second time.

The White House announced the move to withdraw from the Paris Agreement shortly after Mr Trump’s inauguration on Monday.

The decision would place the United States alongside Iran, Libya and Yemen as the only countries in the world outside the landmark global 2015 pact to limit global warming.

Mr Trump also withdrew the US from the Paris deal during his first term, but it was reversed by Joe Biden on his first day in office.

Last month, the UK’s climate envoy warned Paris was “more fragile than ever” due to countries disagreeing over whether the agreement goes too far – or not far enough.

The withdrawal, which will take one year to come into effect, is one in a blitz of measures designed to exploit every last drop of oil and gas from US soil – something Mr Biden somewhat tempered, though he still oversaw record oil production.

President Trump says the moves will lower prices and inflation.

In another executive order he pledged to “unleash America’s affordable and reliable energy and natural resources”, which would “restore American prosperity”.

The new president is also expected to scrap other environmental regulations and cut off green technology subsidies that formed part of Mr Biden’s landmark green legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).

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Dr Rachel Cleetus from the Union of Concerned Scientists called the withdrawal from Paris a “travesty” and “abdication of responsibility”.

“Such a move is in clear defiance of scientific realities and shows an administration cruelly indifferent to the harsh climate change impacts that people in the United States and around the world are experiencing,” she said.

But America has long been a climate laggard, whether under Mr Trump or other presidents.

Members of the climate movement put a brave face on, saying the global climate fight continues regardless.

Laurence Tubiana, who spearheaded the Paris Agreement and now runs the European Climate Foundation, called the withdrawal “unfortunate”.

“But multilateral climate action has proven resilient, and is stronger than any single country’s politics and policies.”

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The COP29 climate conference in November was the first test of global climate action after it had been rocked by Mr Trump’s election, and managed to scrape through.

The context today is also “very different” to the last time President Trump withdrew America from the agreement in 2017, added Ms Tubiana.

Momentum behind the global switch to clean energy is gathering pace, and the market for clean technologies is expected to triple by 2035, according to the International Energy Agency.

Simon Stiell, the UN climate chief who oversees the Paris Agreement, said ignoring the clean energy boom “only sends all that vast wealth to competitor economies, while climate disasters like droughts, wildfires and superstorms keep getting worse, destroying property and businesses, hitting nation-wide food production, and driving economy-wide price inflation”.

The US Climate Alliance, a bi-partisan alliance of more than 20 state governors, vowed to carry on pursuing climate goals set by the outgoing Mr Biden.

“We will continue America’s work to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement and slash climate pollution,” said the governors of New York and New Mexico, Kathy Hochul and Michelle Lujan Grisham.

Three Israeli hostages have been reunited with their families, while 90 Palestinian prisoners were released in return in a ceasefire deal that has put an end, for now, to 15 months of bitter war in Gaza.

Amid a chaotic crowd in Gaza, the Israeli hostages were handed by masked, armed gunmen to the Red Cross on Sunday, before being transferred to the Israeli military and then entering southern Israel.

All three were in a stable condition, Sheba Medical Center said, and authorities released footage of them fiercely hugging their families and sobbing.

“An entire nation embraces you,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Meanwhile, Palestinian families welcomed the 90 prisoners freed by Israel early on Monday morning, with crowds gathering to celebrate with the first bus of detainees in the West Bank city of Ramallah.

All are from the occupied West Bank or East Jerusalem. The youngest is a 15-year-old boy from East Jerusalem. Two 17-year-olds, a boy and a girl, were also named.

Israel had detained them for what it said were offences related to Israel’s security, from throwing stones to more serious accusations like attempted murder.

One of the three hostages released by Hamas was 28-year-old British-Israeli Emily Damari, who was shot in the hand and taken to Gaza during the 7 October attack that sparked the war in 2023.

The other two hostages freed on Sunday were 31-year-old Doron Steinbrecher, abducted from the same Kibbutz Kfar Aza in southern Israel as Ms Damari, and Romi Gonen, 24, who was taken from the Supernova music festival.

Emily Damari’s mother, Mandy Damari, thanked “everyone who never stopped fighting for Emily throughout this horrendous ordeal”.

Relief and grief in ravaged Gaza

In Gaza, Palestinians have been both celebrating the relief from the bombing and grieving the loss of loved ones and livelihoods.

Some started the trek back through the rubble to what is left of their bombed-out homes, hoping to pick up any pieces of their lives.

“I feel like at last I found some water to drink after getting lost in the desert for 15 months. I feel alive again,” said a woman from Gaza City, who had been sheltering in Deir al Balah in the central Gaza Strip, for over a year.

Ceasefire arrived after last minute delay

The long-sought ceasefire for Gaza was delayed before it eventually took effect at 11.15am local time on Sunday (9.15am UK time).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the ceasefire, which had been due to start at 6.30am, would not begin until Israel received the names of the three hostages to be released.

After receiving the list, his office confirmed in a statement the ceasefire had started.

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Hamas blamed the delay on “technical field reasons”, during which time Israel continued to launch military strikes on Gaza, killing a further 13 people, and injuring dozens, the Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said.

The Israeli military said it struck “terror targets”.

Medics reported tanks firing at the Zeitoun area in Gaza City, and said an airstrike and tank fire also hit the northern town of Beit Hanoun, sending residents who had returned there in anticipation of the ceasefire fleeing.

Sky’s Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall said he understood these technical issues may have been related to Hamas’s difficulties passing messages between its leadership in Gaza. It has long avoided using mobile phones to prevent detection by the Israeli military.

“Many in Israel will naturally blame Hamas for playing games,” Bunkall said.

“The mediating teams knew the ceasefire would be shaky, they knew that there would be bumps in the road and have encouraged both Israel and Hamas to remain calm as any difficulties are worked through.”

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As the fragile ceasefire started, Israeli forces started withdrawing from parts of Gaza, allowing thousands of displaced Palestinians to begin the journey back to their battered homes.

Two-thirds of all structures in the Gaza Strip have been damaged or obliterated, the United Nations Satellite Centre found back in September.

Weary residents returning to Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza found their homes reduced to rubble.

A deal hard-won

The deal was agreed by Israel’s cabinet on Friday night after a breakthrough in negotiations – mediated by the US, Qatar and Egypt – was announced on Wednesday.

Its first stage will last six weeks, during which 33 of the remaining 94 hostages – women, children, men over 50, the ill and wounded – will be released in return for almost 2,000 Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

The Palestinians to be set free include 737 male, female and teenage prisoners, some of whom are members of militant groups convicted of attacks that killed dozens of Israelis, as well as hundreds of Palestinians from Gaza in detention since the start of the war.

The pause in fighting is also supposed to enable humanitarian aid into the war-ravaged territory. The UN World Food Program said trucks started entering through two crossings on Sunday.

470 days of war

The war began after Hamas militants rampaged into Israel and killed around 1,200 people and abducted another 250 on 7 October 2023.

Israel responded with an offensive in Gaza that has killed more than 46,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, who do not distinguish between civilians and militants, but say women and children make up more than half the dead.