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Four people, including two children, have been killed by a relative in New York, according to police.

Those stabbed to death included a 12-year-old boy, an 11-year-old girl, a 44-year-old woman and a man in his 30s.

Officers were called to reports of an incident in the city’s Queens borough after a girl said “her cousin is killing her family members”.

The 11-year-old was found in front of the house and the other three were found inside bedrooms, police added.

A fifth person, a 61-year-old woman, is in a critical condition in hospital after suffering from multiple stab wounds.

Suspect Courtney Gordon, 38, was shot dead by police.

The two officers who responded to the scene on Sunday morning were also stabbed, police said.

Jeffrey Maddrey, NYPD chief of patrol, said one officer was struck in the neck and the other in the face.

The two officers were taken to hospital and are expected to recover.

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“The weapon that was used to injure the officers was a typical kitchen steak knife,” Mr Maddrey told a press conference on Saturday.

He said it is unknown at this stage if it was the same weapon used against the other victims.

Mr Maddrey said additional offers sent to the scene were not able to enter the home immediately because there was a fire inside the living room.

It is believed Gordon had been visiting the family at their home in the Far Rockaway neighbourhood.

“This scene was chaos. Multiple victims, a house on fire, and a mad man on a rampage, on a mission,” Patrick Hendry, the head of the New York Police Department’s police union, said.

“The skill that this police officer had shooting and stopping the threat after he was being stabbed. Unbelievable skill,” he said.

The US says three commercial ships have been attacked in the Red Sea – with one of its destroyers shooting down three armed drones as it went to help

The attacks happened near Yemen and Houthi rebels have claimed responsibility, saying they would stop Israeli-linked ships passing while the war in Gaza is ongoing.

Israel said the ships are not connected to the country.

US Central Command said all the ships attacked were in international waters and that the USS Carney went to help after receiving distress calls.

Follow live: Israel-Hamas war

It said it believed the attacks were “fully enabled by Iran” and called it a “direct threat to international commerce and maritime security”.

It potentially marks a major escalation in a series of maritime attacks linked to the Israel-Hamas war.

The first attack was about 9.15am local time on Sunday, when the Carney detected a missile fired from Yemen towards the cargo ship M/V Unity Explorer.

The missile landed “in the vicinity of the vessel”, according to the US, which said the ship is “UK-owned and operated” and has crew from two countries – which it didn’t name.

About 12pm, the American ship shot down a drone – again launched form Houthi areas of Yemen. The US said it was headed towards the Carney but that its final target was unclear.

“We cannot assess at this time whether the Carney was a target of the UAVs,” said US Central Command.

About half an hour later, the M/V Unity Explorer was attacked by a second missile – which this time hit the ship and caused “minor damage”, according to the US.

While assessing the damage, another drone was detected and shot down by the USS Carney.

The second vessel attacked was another large cargo ship, M/V Number 9, described as “Bermuda and UK owned and operated”, at about 3.30pm.

It was also hit by a missile from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen, said Central Command – which posted the timeline on X – and said no damage or casualties were reported.

The third ship attacked was the M/V Sophie II – which was hit by a missile and sent a distress call at about 4.30pm.

USS Carney shot down a third drone “headed in its direction” as it went to help, said US Central Command.

It said the M/V Sophie II had a crew from eight countries and was a Panamanian-flagged bulk carrier.

Houthi spokesperson, Brigadier General Yahya Saree, claimed responsibility for attacking the Unity Explorer and M/V Number 9.

He claimed they were targeted after rejected warnings from its navy.

“The Yemeni armed forces continue to prevent Israeli ships from navigating the Red Sea (and the Gulf of Aden) until the Israeli aggression against our steadfast brothers in the Gaza Strip stops,” he said.

“The Yemeni armed forces renew their warning to all Israeli ships or those associated with Israelis that they will become a legitimate target if they violate what is stated in this statement.”

The Houthis are an ally of Iran and control most of Yemen’s Red Sea coast.

They have previously fired ballistic missiles and armed drones at Israel and vowed to target more Israeli vessels.

Last month, an Israeli-linked cargo shop was seized by Houthi militants.

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An Israel Defence Forces spokesman, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the ships attacked had no connection to Israel.

Speaking before the US statement, he said missiles had been fired at two commercial vessels and one was “significantly damaged”.

“It is in distress and apparently is in danger of sinking, and another ship was lightly damaged,” he said.

Iron dome interceptor missiles explode in the skies above us, halting the passage of Hamas rockets heading for southern Israel.    

Moments later the rocket attack is followed by the deafening booms of an Israeli artillery battery just a few metres from where we had pulled over next to a bomb shelter.

We are deep in the south of the country. We haven’t been able to get this close to the Gaza border since the war began. We’re just 400 metres or so away.

The south of Gaza, clearly visible, is meant to be a safe zone for the people on the other side of the border fence. It doesn’t feel safe at all.

Follow live: Israel-Gaza latest

The roads to Israel’s south are eerily quiet, military vehicles pass us at high speed, among them lorries carrying cargos of neatly packed shells.

As we drive, we pass row after row of tanks and artillery pieces. In the north, Israel continues to hammer Hamas positions, engage its fighters, and track down their tunnels.

The northern mission is far from finished. The southern mission has barely started but the air raids and artillery attacks are causing large numbers of casualties in Gaza.

Our teams on the ground in Gaza film, day in and day out, as the injured keep coming from across this huge battlefield.

The air strikes might be targeted – but the shrapnel and the shards of glass and pieces of flying masonry are not. Every hospital and clinic is overwhelmed now and short of absolutely everything; all they can do is patch people up.

The seriously injured often can’t be saved in this environment.

And so, the dead wrapped in white are placed together on the street, while the living pray for them. There are many constants in Gaza now – and mourning is just one of them.

Those who can are following Israeli military orders to move further south.

They leave with their families and whatever they can carry, many of them on foot. But few believe anywhere is safe.

The Israel Defence Forces have been telling people to go further south, and to the southwest. And Israel’s ambassador to the UK told Sky News there is a safe zone for Palestinians, which she identified as a place called “Mawasi“.

“Israel made sure there is a place for the people of Gaza to have their shelters,” ambassador Tzipi Hotovely said.

“There is a place in Gaza called the Mawasi. The Mawasi is the place where they can all have shelters. Together with the aid organisations we have created shelters for the Palestinian people, so you cannot say Israel is not facilitating that, together with humanitarian aid,” she added.

Three days ago, we asked the Sky News team in Gaza to go to Al Mawasi to see if any preparations had been made for the evacuees.

They sent back the pictures showing a desolate wasteland of sand dunes next to the Mediterranean Sea. Al Mawasi is an old Bedouin settlement and has little infrastructure, if any.

There is no aid, there are no agency tents, there are no food kitchens. Simply put, there is no help.

The team filmed as families set up tents, and young boys tried to light a fire in the sand next to their home – which is now a plastic-covered shack built by their father Mahmood Afghani.

The Afghani family has six children.

“You see this small tent? See how we made it. I did this to protect my children from the winter and we haven’t even entered the winter season yet,” Mr Afghani said, pointing at the family’s shack.

“Imagine when we reach the middle of winter – what are we going to do? I want the whole world to hear what I am saying. I want the whole world to feel our pain so they can press Israel to stop this war.”

When he was asked if he has received any aid, he reiterated what many have said, there isn’t any.

“No, not at all, nothing. I have to be honest; I have only received one bag of flour since October,” he answered.

We have since spoken to people who are there, and they have told us – as of Sunday 3 December – nothing has changed.

There was outrage and frustration at COP28 and beyond, when it emerged the man running the climate summit had said there is “no science” behind demands for a “phase out” of fossil fuels.

And taken at face value – the outrage is justified.

There is clear, global scientific consensus that unless carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere are cut by nearly half in the next few years – and reach zero by 2050 – we will exceed the danger level of 1.5 degrees of warming by mid-century.

But the anger, in my view, is misplaced (hear me out) and potentially counterproductive.

First “no science” isn’t all that Dr Sultan al Jaber said on the issue. The president of COP28 (and CEO of Abu Dhabi’s national oil company), qualified his statement saying that keeping global warming below 1.5C was his sole objective at COP28 and that fossil fuel phase-out was “inevitable”.

His argument – and it is a tenuous one – is that under scenarios presented by independent bodies like the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the IEA (International Energy Agency), there is still the possibility some fossil fuel could be used after the world gets to net zero.

The only way that view can be justified is if there is radical reductions in fossil fuels and the emissions of what little remain are buried underground.

The carbon capture and storage technologies needed to do that, at the scale required, currently don’t exist. So it’s a fairly naive argument.

So why make it?

Well, it could simply be a continuation of the slippery, denialist and often downright deceptive language that oil states and fossil fuel companies have used for years to prevent progress at climate summits.

It’s one of the reasons why COP1 didn’t solve the climate crisis and 28 years – and a degree’s worth of warming – later we’re still talking about cutting carbon emissions. And carbon emissions are still going up.

But the other reason is that it’s equally naive to ignore the reality of where the negotiations around climate change currently stand.

An immovable block of fossil fuel economies have resisted every attempt to get a global commitment to phasing out fossil fuels for decades: Saudi Arabia, India, Iran, Canada, even the US is still squeamish about it. Many of them will likely do the same at this summit.

Remember too, 80% of the world’s primary energy demand is currently provided by the fossil fuels they control.

And Dr Sultan may offer the key to unlocking that obstacle.

Read more:
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The UAE is one of the world’s largest oil producers. It has also invested impressive amounts of its oil wealth in renewable energy. Right now, it spends significantly more on oil exploration than clean energy. But its message is one of diverting its economy rapidly away from oil.

And because it is allied with other petrostates it might – even by tiny degrees – be able to shift their position towards consensus at a climate summit like COP28.

Given the speed at which many countries are deploying renewables – and the undeniable impacts of climate change – even the most die-hard of fossil fuel economies know the world is losing its taste for their product.

If Dr Sultan’s stated aim of “keeping 1.5 alive” is just a ruse to allow his country and other fossil fuel states to continue as normal – nothing much has changed.

Every year COP has ended with much ambition from a coalition of the willing (read: countries rich enough to afford alternatives to fossil fuels) versus those who have obfuscated so they can keep pumping oil until the world burns.

But even if the COP president only half means what he says – there is hope for a different type of progress at this summit and one we have been needing for a long time.