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At least 31 people killed in Israeli attacks on the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps, officials say.

Israeli air raids have killed dozens of people, including children, in northern, central, and southern Gaza, Palestinian officials and media have said, as the besieged territory endures its 44th day of bombardment.

At least 31 people were killed in Israeli attacks on the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps in central Gaza, the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-governed enclave said on Sunday.

A woman and her child were also killed in strikes in southern Khan Younis city, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Israeli forces also shot dead two people, including a disabled man, during incursions in the occupied West Bank, Wafa reported.

Issam al-Fayed, a 46-year-old disabled man, was killed at the entrance of the Jenin refugee camp, while 20-year-old Omar Laham was killed at the Dheisheh refugee camp south of Bethlehem, Wafa said.

‘Our life is hell’

The killings come on the heels of devastating assaults on schools and refugee camps in northern Gaza.

At least 50 people were killed in an attack on al-Fakhoora school in the Jabalia refugee camp on Saturday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said, while dozens of casualties were reported from an attack on a second school in Tall az-Zaatar.

“The scenes were horrifying. Corpses of women and children were on the ground. Others were screaming for help,” Ahmed Radwan, a wounded survivor of al-Fakhoora attack, told The Associated Press news agency.

“Dead bodies [are] scattered … pieces of flesh”, an unnamed witness told Al Jazeera. “No one can recognise their sons. Our life is hell.”

Marwan Bishara, a senior political analyst for Al Jazeera, said al-Fakhoora school could be described as the “al-Shifa of schools” as it has been repeatedly hit by Israeli forces like al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, which has been a major target of Israel’s military campaign.

“There is nothing discriminate about the fact that a school that shelters thousands of people has been bombed from the air; that is meant to create damage, human loss, suffering and death,” Bishara said.

Patients fleeing al-Shifa

Meanwhile, al-Shifa Hospital continued to be the focus of humanitarian concerns as hundreds of people fled the facility on foot on orders from the Israeli army, according to its director.

Columns of sick and injured – some of them amputees – were seen leaving with displaced people, doctors, and nurses on Saturday, as loud explosions were heard around the complex.

Philippe Lazzarini, head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA, described “horrifying images” of the scene, while Egypt called the bombing a “war crime” and “a deliberate insult to the United Nations”.

A World Health Organization assessment team on Sunday said 291 patients were left at the hospital. They included 32 babies in extremely critical condition, trauma patients with severely infected wounds and others with spinal injuries who are unable to move, the UN health agency said.

Since Palestinian group Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israeli territory on October 7, Israel has waged a devastating air and ground assault on Gaza, killing at least 11,500 people, more than a third of them children, according to Gaza officials.

The 44-day war has displaced some 1.5 million Palestinians, wrecked much of the territory’s infrastructure and sparked a desperate humanitarian crisis, aid workers say.

Ukrainian military says its defences shot down 15 out of 20 Iranian-made Shahed drones overnight.

Russia has launched several waves of drone attacks on the Kyiv, Poltava and Cherkasy regions of Ukraine, stepping up its assaults on the Ukrainian capital after several weeks of respite, according to Ukrainian officials.

“The enemy’s UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles] were launched in many groups and attacked Kyiv in waves, from different directions, at the same time constantly changing the vectors of movement along the route,” Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said in a message on Telegram messaging app early on Sunday.

“That is why the air raid alerts were announced several times in the capital.”

Popko said preliminary information indicated that Ukraine’s air defence systems downed 10 Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones in Kyiv and the city’s outskirts.

There were no initial reports of “critical damage” or casualties, he said.

The Ukrainian Air Force said on its official Facebook page on Sunday morning that Russia attacked the Ukrainian territories from its Kursk region.

It said air defences shot down 15 out of 20 drones that conducted the strikes.

The reports could not independently be verified and there was no immediate comment from Russia.

Intensified Russian attacks expected

Russia began carrying out strikes on Ukraine’s energy, military and transport infrastructure in October 2022, six months after Moscow’s troops failed to take over the capital and withdrew to Ukraine’s east and south.

Last winter, Russia pounded Ukraine with hundreds of missiles and drones, leaving millions without electricity, heating and water during the coldest months of the year – before easing the assaults in the summer.

After a pause of 52 days, Moscow resumed air strikes on Kyiv earlier this month. On Saturday, Ukrainian officials said all drones heading towards Kyiv were destroyed, but some hit infrastructure facilities elsewhere in Ukraine.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other officials have warned that Russia will resume its large-scale bombardment of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure during the winter months.

In his daily video message on Saturday evening, Zelenskyy announced new steps to bolster Ukraine’s air defences in the coming weeks.

“The closer we get to winter, the greater Russia’s efforts will be to step up its attacks,” Zelenskyy said.

EXPLAINER

Massa represents the ruling establishment while Milei wants to turn the tables with radical policies.

Argentina is heading for a run-off election on Sunday, which will pit a centrist and a far-right candidate against each other in a vote that promises to have wide-ranging consequences for the South American nation.

Sergio Massa, the country’s economy minister and candidate of the ruling Union for the Homeland coalition, will face off against Javier Milei, who has grabbed headlines with his eccentric personality and radical – even controversial – promises.

Here’s what you need to know about who could become Argentina’s next president and why that matters.

Who are Massa and Milei?

The 51-year-old Massa represents the governing Peronist coalition. Based on the ideas and legacy of former president and military commander Juan Peron, the Peronist movement has been the country’s main political force for the past eight decades.

Massa is seen as a pragmatic figure within the leftist movement, which has helped him convince more moderate votes as well.

He is challenged by the 53-year-old Milei, an economist who sits at the helm of the Freedom Advances party. The far-right libertarian describes himself as an “anarcho-capitalist” and was the surprise frontrunner of the primary election in August.

Through his rhetoric and extreme promises, Milei has expressed his interest to “chainsaw” through a system that has left Argentina reeling from its worst economic crisis in decades.

Milei has drawn comparisons to right-wing leaders like former United States President Donald Trump and ex-Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. But unlike both Trump and Bolsonaro, Milei has managed to win support from youth voters.

Why a run-off?

Massa, Milei and several other candidates were on the ballot in an election in late October.

No one managed to secure the 45 percent of the vote — or 40 percent plus a 10-point lead over their closest competitor — that was required for an outright victory during the first round of voting.

Pollsters had given Milei a better chance of winning, but polls proved to be largely unreliable as they had been in some past elections. Massa came out on top with 37 percent of the votes to trump Milei’s 30 percent.

But that still wasn’t enough, so Sunday’s vote will determine the president.

What have they promised?

The economy has been at the centre of campaign promises as Argentina’s inflation is running triple digits at more than 142 percent, and the poverty rate stands at 40 percent.

Massa has rolled out welfare handouts and tax exemptions, but he will likely have to pull them back after the election in case of a victory as he contends with a sizeable budget deficit that stood at 2.4 percent of Argentina’s gross domestic product last year.

He also aims to carry on with his gradual fiscal reform policies as the country owes roughly $43bn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and $65bn to external bondholders from previously restructured debts.

Milei has taken a completely different approach, putting forward policies that almost entirely contradict those of his opponent.

He has promised to drop the national currency, the Argentine peso, and instead adopt the US dollar; “eliminate” the central bank; slash government spending by a whopping 15 percent of GDP; scale back public health expenditure; and privatise some state companies.

He has also ignored warnings by his opponent that touching subsidies for utilities could significantly increase prices, promising to remove subsidies on gas and electricity.

Milei has railed against abortion rights, questioned the role of humans in climate change and promised cultural reforms as he has presented himself as an opponent of socialism at home and abroad. His positions have also sparked concerns among Argentina’s Indigenous peoples.

What happens next?

Argentinians will head to the ballots, which will open at 8am local time (11:00 GMT) and close at 6pm, on Sunday.

The person who manages to garner the most votes will be elected to govern for a four-year term, and will take office on December 10.

Milei could still pick up momentum after he secured backing from conservative Patricia Bullrich, who finished third with 6.3 million votes or about 24 percent during the first round of voting.

Massa, meanwhile, may be able to count on Juan Schiaretti, a Peronist who is outside the main coalition, to support him. Schiaretti, however, has been critical of the economy minister in the past.

Voting is mandatory for people between 18 and 70 in the country of roughly 45 million, and optional for those between 16 and 17 and those over 70.

Mumbai and Ahmedabad, India – It is a case of not just all roads, but all rail lines, air routes – and, who knows, tunnels and teleporters – leading to Ahmedabad, where an unprecedented number of home fans are hoping to be there in the flesh to watch India take on Australia in the Cricket World Cup final.

If they can get into the ground, that is.

On the morning train from Mumbai on Saturday, packed with cricket travellers, every phone conversation seemed to carry the words, “He’s asking for too much,” or “I’ll get back to you” or “We need two more.”

One passenger showed Al Jazeera a black market ticket dealer’s asking-rates on a WhatsApp chat.

A presidential gallery ticket was listed at Rs 467,000 ($5,600), more than twice the country’s annual median per capita income.

Less fancy tickets were being traded for Rs 60,000 upwards, 20 or 30 times the printed price.

Even those with tickets in hand could scarcely contain their frustration at the shambolic rollout by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), run by Jay Shah, son of home minister Amit Shah.

There have been no declarations about what proportion of tickets have been put on public sale. Some travellers only had tickets because they knew a person at the booking portal, giving them a workaround to the endless online queues that would have likely ended in failure.

Meanwhile, rooms in leading hotels in the city are going for Rs 200,000, or $2,400 a night. Up to 200 charter flights are expected to fly in. To return to Mumbai, the nearest megalopolis, since flight and trains are sold out, people are hunting for buses to charter back at exorbitant rates.

In Ahmedabad business is picking up in the predictable sectors.

“I’ve had customers from London, Goa, Pune, Mumbai in the last few hours,” said Vijay Dave, a taxi driver.

“Cinemas that are going to show the match – even those tickets are sold out! The road outside the Indian team hotel was totally jammed this morning. Everyone had gathered there to catch a sight of the team. People have gone mad.”

There is a touch of Beatlemania around the Indian cricket team even at the worst of times. The team’s undefeated run in the competition has escalated the frenzy.

Crowds have been waiting outside stadiums for hours after the matches finish to wave the players off.

It was no different near the gates of the Narendra Modi Stadium on Saturday, as people congregated on streets lined with vendors selling knock-offs of the ubiquitous blue jersey for Rs 200.

Rohit Sharma, the Indian captain, was well cognisant of the expectations.

“Emotionally it’s a big thing, a big occasion, without a doubt,” he told the press on Saturday evening. “Whatever hard work and dreams you have, you have for this. And tomorrow that day will be in front of us. But see, the biggest challenge for professional athletes is how you can put all this aside and focus on their work.”

All through his press interaction he stressed that he would like to keep it “nice and easy”, “nice and relaxed and calm”, “nice and balanced”.

On the other side, the Australian captain Pat Cummins was asked: “A hundred thousand people wanting you to fail is probably something new?”

“I think you’ve got to embrace it,” he replied. “In sport there’s nothing more satisfying than hearing a big crowd go silent and that’s the aim for us tomorrow.”

If Cummins expects “a very one-sided” crowd, part of the reason is the Indian cricket board’s delays in releasing the itinerary – it was finalised a mere two months before the first game – and the subsequent ticket sagas.

Two bus-loads of Australians were spotted making a guided tour of the city, visiting spots such as the Gandhi Ashram. There won’t be too many like them.

By night the crowd of India fans outside the stadium had only grown. They were watching the drone-show rehearsal, one act in a closing ceremony that will resemble a somewhat nationalistic variety show as much as a sporting finale.

Between the toss and start of play the Indian Air Force will perform a nine-aircraft aerobatic show.

The innings break will see a mini-concert, no doubt featuring a few patriotic renditions. A stadium favourite through the competition has been “Maa Tujhe Salam” or I Salute You, Mother India.

A light-and-laser spectacle is slated for a drinks interval at night. Earlier in the tournament, the Australia batter Glenn Maxwell had complained of the disorienting effects of plunging a stadium in darkness mid-match.

“It takes me a while for my eyes to re-adjust and I just think it’s the dumbest idea for cricketers,” Maxwell had said.

In attendance will be Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as the Australia Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles.

The last time Modi attended a cricket match was also in Ahmedabad, and it was a match against Australia in March.

The toss then was delayed as he rode around the outfield with the Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese in a motorised chariot to gushing television commentary, and was afterwards presented a portrait of himself in a stadium he got named after himself.

He would probably settle for presenting the trophy to the Indian captain this time around. That is something even he cannot control.

But Indian triumph, though not ordained, is widely being seen as a natural consequence of the team’s exquisite showing over the past two months.

In times past Indian fans felt trepidation before a big final.

“For once that sense of nervousness is not there,” said one fan.

“This is a special team and we know that.”