Palestinian man forced to abandon loved ones trapped beneath rubble after IDF warning
It was in the evening that the bombing started to intensify.
Salah Jundia, his father and brothers huddled together in their home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City, trying to work out what to do.
It was too risky for them to leave at night. There were a lot of them too. Extended family living across four storeys. They decided they would wait until after dawn prayers.
The explosion tore through the building just before 5am, collapsing one storey on to the next.
The remains of Salah Jundia’s home in Shujaiyya, just east of Gaza City
Salah Jundia
Jundia says he survived because pieces of bedroom furniture fell on top of him.
Then he looked for his father and brothers.
“I found one of them calling for help. I removed the rubble covering him with my hands. Then I saw another brother covered in rubble but he was dead,” he told Sky News.
Jundia added: “My father was also dead. My other brother was also dead. We got them out and that is when I saw that the whole building had collapsed.”
Over the next few hours, they scrambled to rescue who they could.
One of the child victims of the attack on the home near the Gaza City
Another one of child victims of the attack
An aunt and uncle and one of their children, Shaimaa. Uncle Imad and his son Mohammad. The bodies of Montasir and Mustaf.
Jundia says he could hear cries for help, but they were coming from deep in the rubble and were impossible to reach.
The rescue teams on site – civil defence they are called – did not have the kit to clear through three floors of 500 square metres, 30cm slabs of concrete.
Rescuers drilling to try and reach the people trapped below the rubble
Efforts to free those trapped beneath the rubble near the Gaza City
In the afternoon, Jundia says Israel’s Defence Forces (IDF) told rescue teams to leave as they would be resuming their bombardment.
Jundia buried the bodies he had managed to pull out but he knew 15 of his family members, 12 of them children, were still somewhere inside the rubble, still crying for help.
He made a desperate video appeal, begging the Red Cross and Arab countries to pressure Israel to grant access to the site. It was picked up on a few social media accounts.
Israel won’t allow heavy equipment into Gaza. No diggers or bulldozers, nor the fuel or generators to run them.
They say it will fall into Hamas’s hands.
It was a major sticking point during the ceasefire and it is a major issue now as the bombardment continues, given the fact that hundreds if not thousands of civilians might survive if there were the equipment to extract them.
Members of Salah Jundia’s family left alive after the attack
Salah Jundia and his surviving family
Civil defence trying to get to the Jundia family home over the next few days were halted because the IDF were in the vicinity. A family friend tried himself and was killed.
The footage that our camera teams have shot in Shujaiyya over the past two weeks shows how civil defence teams struggle to save those who are trapped and injured with the most rudimentary of equipment – plastering trowels, sledgehammers, ropes and small drills.
“The tight siege stops civil defence equipment from getting in,” says one.
They added: “So we are taking much longer to respond to these events. Time is a factor in getting these people out. So we call immediately for the necessary equipment to be allowed in for the civil defence to use.”
The IDF say they are investigating the circumstances around the Jundia family as a result of our enquiries.
In relation to the access of heavy equipment into Gaza, they say they work closely with international aid organisations to enable the delivery of humanitarian activities in accordance with international law.
The last contact Jundia had from beneath the rubble was a phone call from his uncle Ziad, three days after the strike.
“The line was open for 25 seconds then it went dead. We don’t know what happened. We tried to call, but there was no answer,” he says.
He and his family were displaced several times before they returned home to Shujaiyya – to Rafah in the south, then Khan Younis and Deir al-Balah.
Along the way, Jundia lost one brother and a nephew to Israeli bombs.
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“We were happy and all the family came back. We went back to our house. It was damaged, but we improvised and we lived in it. We have nothing to do with the resistance. We are not interested in wars. But we have been gravely harmed,” he says.
Prince Harry has made a surprise visit to the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, a spokesperson for the royal has said.
Harry, who served 10 years in the British Army, visited the city at the invitation of the Ukrainian government.
The Duke of Sussex travelled to the capital to help with the recovery of military personnel seriously injured in the three-year war with Russia.
Pic: Railway of Ukraine Ukrzaliznytsia/AP
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper will also be travelling to Kyiv on Friday in what will be her first foreign trip since being appointed to the job last week.
Her visit coincides with the UK launching a new package of Russia-related sanctions targeting ships carrying Russian oil as well as companies and individuals supplying electronics, chemicals and explosives used to make Russian weapons.
It comes as Russia and Belarus began a major joint military exercise on on NATO’s doorstep on Friday, just two days after Poland, with support from its NATO allies, shot down suspected Russian drones over its airspace.
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Drones shot down in Poland
The Zapad-2025 exercise – a show of force by Russia and its close ally – will involve drills in both countries and in the Baltic and Barents seas, the Russian defence ministry said.
Meanwhile on the frontline, Russian defence systems intercepted and destroyed 221 Ukrainian drones overnight,
including nine over the Moscow region, the ministry said on Friday.
The duke told the Guardian while on an overnight train to Kyiv: “We cannot stop the war but what we can do is do everything we can to help the recovery process.
“We can continue to humanise the people involved in this war and what they are going through.
“We have to keep it in the forefront of people’s minds. I hope this trip will help to bring it home to people because it’s easy to become desensitised to what has been going on.”
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Harry, who served two tours in Afghanistan, previously travelled to Ukraine in April, when he visited war victims as part of his work with wounded veterans.
The prince visited the Superhumans Center, an orthopaedic clinic in Lviv that treats and rehabilitates wounded military personnel and civilians.
Earlier this week, Harry said the King is “great” after he reunited with him at Clarence House for a private tea.
It was their first meeting in 19 months and lasted just 54 minutes.
The last time the father and son saw each other was in February 2024 when the prince flew to the UK after the monarch announced his cancer diagnosis.
Harry and his wife Meghan Markle have lived in California since they quit roles as senior working royals in March 2020.
Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro has been sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison for attempting a coup to stay in power after his 2022 election defeat.
The far-right politician, who ruled Brazil between 2019 and 2022, is currently under house arrest in the capital, Brasilia.
A panel of five Supreme Court justices handed down the sentence several hours after they found the 70-year-old guilty on five counts.
The counts were trying to stage a coup, being part of an armed criminal organisation, attempting violent abolition of the democratic rule of law, being implicated in violence, and posing a serious threat to the state’s assets and listed heritage.
Bolsonaro‘s lawyers have said they will appeal the verdict.
Pic: AP
The ruling will deepen political divisions in Brazil and is also likely to prompt a backlash from the United States government – with Donald Trump already sharing his thoughts on the vote.
President Trump, an ally of Bolsonaro, has said he was surprised and “very unhappy” with the decision.
Speaking to reporters outside the White House, he said he always found Bolsonaro “outstanding” and said the conviction is “very bad for Brazil”.
Mr Trump previously called the case a “witch hunt”, slapped Brazil with tariff hikes, and revoked US visas for most members of Brazil’s high court.
Bolsonaro is the first former Brazilian president to be convicted of attempting a coup.
He has not attended the court proceedings, and on Thursday, he was seen at the garage of his property, but did not talk to the media.
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Justice Carmen Lucia. Pic: AP
Justice Alexandre de Moraes, who has been overseeing the case, said on Tuesday that Bolsonaro was the leader of a coup plot and of a criminal organisation, and voted in favour of convicting him. Justices Flavio Dino, Carmen Lucia, and Cristiano Zanin sided with Justice Moraes in the trial.
On Wednesday, another justice, Luiz Fux, disagreed and voted to acquit the ex-president of all charges.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Justice Lucia said she was convinced by the evidence the attorney general’s office put forward against Bolsonaro, saying: “He is the instigator, the leader of an organisation that orchestrated every possible move to maintain or seize power.”
Bolsonaro had been previously banned from running for office until 2030 in a different case.
He is expected to choose an heir who is likely to challenge President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva next year.
The FBI and officials have released new video and images of a “person of interest” in connection with the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, as the manhunt continues.
At a news conference on Friday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox showed video footage showing the suspect walking on the roof of the building from where the fatal shot was fired. He is then seen climbing down and heading toward a wooded area, where police say he abandoned his rifle.
Additional images released by police show the suspect wearing a hat, sunglasses, and a backpack.
Investigators have conducted nearly 200 interviews related to the case as 20 law enforcement partners are working on the investigation, Governor Cox said.
Prosecutors will seek the death penalty against the attacker, he said.
Follow the latest updates on Charlie Kirk’s killing
Authorities have released additional images of the attacker. Pic: Utah Public Safety
Earlier, authorities said the shooter was thought to have jumped off a roof and fled into a neighbourhood after firing one shot.
They also said the suspect was a male who “appears to be of college age” and blended in on the Utah Valley University campus in Orem, where Mr Kirk was killed.
Mr Kirk, a 31-year-old right-wing influencer, was fatally shot in the neck on Wednesday afternoon while speaking to university students at an event. He died in hospital after being shot.
Charlie Kirk hands out hats before speaking at Utah Valley University where he was later fatally shot. Pic: AP
The rifle suspected of being used in the shooting has been found.
In a briefing on Thursday, FBI agent Robert Bohls said: “I can tell you that we have recovered what we believe is the weapon that was used in yesterday’s shooting… is a high-powered bolt action rifle.
“That rifle was recovered in a wooded area where the shooter had fled. The FBI laboratory will be analysing this weapon.”
Investigators have collected a footwear impression, a palm print, and forearm imprints for analysis.
Authorities have released additional images of the attacker. Pic: Utah Public Safety
Read more:
Who was Charlie Kirk?
Moment gunshot heard at university event – Watch
The father-of-two was the chief executive and co-founder of Turning Point USA, a prominent organisation that engages conservative youth on school campuses.
He had millions of followers across social media.
Mr Kirk and Turning Point USA played a key role in driving youth support for Mr Trump in last November’s presidential election. His events at college campuses nationwide typically drew large crowds.
Many people listened both in person and online to Mr Kirk, as he advocated for conservatism among younger generations and became a leading voice in the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement.
President Donald Trump paid tribute to Mr Kirk while on stage at a 9/11 memorial event in Virginia, saying he would be awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Authorities have released additional images of the attacker. Pic: Utah Public Safety
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“Before we begin, let me express the horror and grief so many Americans at the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk have felt,” Mr Trump said.
“Charlie was a giant of his generation, a champion of liberty and an inspiration to millions and millions of people. Our prayers are with his wonderful wife, Erika, and his beautiful children.”
He later added the FBI was making “big progress” in finding the shooter and he has “an indication” of the motive, but declined to expand.
“He’s an animal, total animal, hopefully they’ll have him and they’ll get him.”
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