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Protests in Tehran, other cities were held in ‘support of the oppressed children of Gaza’ under the slogan ‘Palestine is not alone’.

Thousands of Iranians held rallies across the country against Israel’s unrelenting bombardment of Gaza, with a top military commander warning that Israel was heading for a long and bloody war with Palestinian group Hamas.

The demonstrations on Saturday in the capital Tehran and other cities were held in “support of the oppressed children of Gaza” under the slogan “Palestine is not alone”, according to local media.

Israel’s air and ground campaign has killed an estimated 12,000 people in the Palestinian territory, including 5,000 children, according to Palestinian authorities.

Israel has pledged to destroy Hamas in response to the group’s October 7 attacks which Israeli officials say killed about 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and in which about 240 people were taken captive.

“Palestine stands on the path of a war of attrition … Israel will face a definitive defeat and end up in the dustbin of history,” Commander Hossein Salami from the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps told the rally in Tehran, which was aired live on state TV.

“The battle is not over. The Islamic world will do whatever it has to do. There are still great [unused] capacities left,” Salami said, without referring to any possible moves by Iran to join the conflict.

“The Zionist regime [Israel] can no longer see peace and security. Muslims will take revenge on behalf of the oppressed people of Gaza, and this revenge has no expiration date.”

In Tehran, demonstrators waved Palestinian flags, while others held banners that read, “Down with America” and “Down with Israel”, according to the AFP news agency.

Others set alight Israeli flags, while some waved the flags of Lebanese Shia group Hezbollah, Iran’s ally, which has been engaged in border skirmishes with Israel since October 7.

State television also showed some protesters carrying bundled white shrouds symbolising the children killed in Gaza, during the marches held in advance of World Children’s Day on Monday.

Similar demonstrations took place in other major cities including Shiraz, Kerman and Isfahan.

Earlier this week, hundreds of body bags were laid out in Palestine Square in Tehran to protest against the continuing Israeli offensive on Gaza.

Iran has made support for the Palestinian cause a centrepiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Iran, which supports Hamas financially and militarily, has hailed the October 7 attacks a “success” but denied any involvement.

It has also lambasted Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as “genocide” while denouncing the United States over its support for Israel.

On Saturday, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Nasser Kanani decried Israel’s “attacks” on hospitals in Gaza.

“Attacking hospitals is in conflict with all human rights standards, international law and Geneva Conventions and makes the criminal nature of this regime even more obvious to the world,” he said on X.

His statement came as hundreds of people fled Gaza’s main al-Shifa Hospital, where more than 2,000 patients, medics and displaced people were trapped.

Israel has been pressing military operations inside the hospital, searching for a Hamas operations centre it claims lies under the sprawling complex – a charge Hamas has denied.

The Hamas-run health ministry has claimed at least 50 people have been killed in an Israeli attack on a school in northern Gaza.

The ministry claimed Israel attacked the UN-run al Fakhoura school, in Jabalia refugee camp, with at least 32 people killed in a separate attack on another building in the same camp, as reported by AFP.

Commissioner general of the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said he has seen “horrifying images” of people killed and injured in a school run by the organisation.

Latest as Gaza health ministry says at least 50 killed in attack on school

He did not specify if this was al Fakhoura and Sky News cannot verify these reports.

“Receiving horrifying images and footage of scores of people killed and injured in another UNRWA school sheltering thousands of displaced in the north of the Gaza Strip,” he posted on X.

“These attacks cannot become commonplace, they must stop. A humanitarian ceasefire cannot wait any longer.”

Sky News has geolocated a video from a building at Jabalia refugee camp, where the school is located, which appears to show dozens of dead bodies.

The footage shows women and children among those motionless on multiple floors of the building.

Many people seen were lying still, surrounded by blood, in one damaged room, which appeared to also contain school desks.

The IDF has told Sky News they are looking into reports of the attacks, while the Hamas-run health ministry also claims Tal al Zaatar school, in Beit Lahia, was attacked too.

Unicef’s director for the Middle East, reacting to the reports, said these “horrible attacks should cease immediately”.

“The scenes of carnage and death following attacks on al Fakhoura… in Gaza killing many children and women are horrific and appalling,” Adele Khodr posted on X.

“Children, schools and shelters are not a target. Immediate ceasefire needed now!”

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Jabalia camp has been converted into a shelter for displaced Palestinians as Israel’s bombardment of the territory continues, with Hamas claiming more than 12,000 people have been killed.

Israel’s current offensive was launched after Hamas attacked the country on 7 October, which Israel says killed 1,200 people and left 242 taken hostage in Gaza.

Family, friends and supporters of Hamas captives marched from Tel Aviv to demand immediate release, government action.

Tens of thousands of protesters have arrived in Jerusalem after a five-day march from Tel Aviv to put pressure on the Israeli government for the immediate release of captives held by Hamas in Gaza.

An estimated 20,000 demonstrators, including family and friends of about 240 captives, held a rally in front of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s office on Saturday. They say the government has been ignoring their pleas to prioritise bringing their loved ones home.

The marchers walked for hours along the highway connecting the two cities, holding posters of the captives with the slogan “Bring them home now.”

They want to put pressure on the government “to do everything they can to bring the hostages back,” said Noam Alon, 25, clutching a photograph of his abducted girlfriend, Inbar.

“We are expecting them to meet with us, we are expecting them to tell us how they are going to do it,” he told the Reuters news agency. “We cannot wait any longer, so we are demand [ing] them to do that now, to pay any price to bring the hostages back.”

The captives were taken during the October 7 attack by the Palestinian group on southern Israel, which also left 1,200 people dead, mostly civilians. Since then, Israel launched a massive aerial and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, which is under Hamas’s control, killing more than 12,000 people, also mostly civilians.

A spokesperson for the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, said on Saturday that it has lost contact with some of the groups responsible for the safety of the captives in the Gaza Strip.

“The fate of the captives and those holding them is still unknown after we lost communication with them,” he said.

Many relatives and friends of the missing fear they will come to harm in Israeli attacks on Gaza designed to destroy Hamas. The government says the offensive improves the chances of recovering hostages by putting pressure on Hamas.

Among those who marched to Jerusalem was centrist opposition leader Yair Lapid, who has been mostly supportive of the war but has demanded Netanyahu’s resignation.

Miki Zohar, a member of Netanyahu’s cabinet and party, was heckled on Friday when he visited the marchers at a rest stop.

Government ‘isn’t talking’

Hamas on Monday released a video of the first hostage confirmed to have died in captivity, and earlier said others have been killed.

That has stoked the anxiety of campaigners and relatives calling on the Israeli government to speed up any prisoner swap, and frustration with Netanyahu’s insistence that discretion is required around the Qatari- and Egyptian-mediated negotiations.

“It’s impossible that there are 240 kidnapped people and the government – our government – isn’t talking to [the relatives], isn’t telling them what’s going on, what’s on the table, what’s on offer, what are the reasons for and against. Nothing,” campaigner Stevie Kerem told Reuters.

Oliver McTernan, who has worked on hostage negation for 20 years, said the families were right to be concerned. The only way to achieve the return of the captives, he said, is a ceasefire of enough duration to move them safely across the battlefield. Israel has said such a move would simply allow Hamas to rearm.

“I think every day that goes on there is a risk — risk with bombings, risk with incursions and whatever — of the civilians, Israeli civilians, dying in Gaza,” McTernan told The Associated Press news agency, adding that that “should be a priority of any government: to ensure their safety and their return to their families”.

Lima, Peru – Strolling up the neoclassical steps of Peru’s Supreme Court with a technicolour Indigenous shawl draped over one shoulder, Lenin Tamayo is keenly aware of the power of symbolism.

The 23-year-old Peruvian singer has shot to viral fame in recent months — earning millions of views on TikTok — thanks to his novel genre of music, which fuses influences from across continents and cultures.

He blends Korean beats, Andean folklore and subversive imagery, in some cases taking aim at the administration of President Dina Boluarte through his music.

“I want to inspire others,” said Tamayo, who sings in Quechua, an Indigenous language spoken by the Incas and still used by an estimated 10 million people across South America. “I want love to unite us, to unite our people.”

Tamayo’s music, which adds a Quechua twist to Korea’s K-pop music, has been dubbed “Q-pop”. Each song from his debut album Amaru, released in August, is inspired by Incan mythology. The title itself refers to a mythic double-headed snake.

In his performances, Tamayo dances flamboyantly — using the highly choreographed dance moves of a K-pop star — to a backing of traditional Andean musical instruments such as pan flutes and rain sticks.

Although he was born in the capital Lima, Tamayo was raised in the culture of the Andes Mountains, the ancestral home of the Incas and other Indigenous groups.

As the only child of Yolanda Pinares, an Andean artist who sings in Spanish and Quechua, Tamayo grew up listening to a broad range of Latin American folk music.

He often waited for his mother backstage, as she juggled stage performance with busking and bartending.

Pinares wove Andean tradition into Tamayo’s everyday life. She would even pack his school lunchbox with foods from the Peruvian highlands such as “cancha” — toasted corn kernels — and “tarwi”, an Andean legume.

But those lunchtime snacks raised eyebrows among his schoolmates in the capital. That, combined with his timid demeanour and atypical looks — a skinny frame, bushy eyebrows and pronounced cheekbones — led to bullying.

“I felt this internalised racism,” he said. “I was timid as a boy.”

Music has long been a way for Tamayo to process his struggles. He first took to the stage at age seven with his mother. By age 14, he was writing songs for her. Later, he learned to use social media to promote her work.

But he went in his own direction when he started to pen his own songs at age 22.

“I was born on the stage,” Tamayo said. “But it was different when I began to write my own songs.”

Departing from his mother’s folk-centred sound, Tamayo’s music embraced contemporary influences like the genre-bending stylings of Spanish singer Rosalía and K-pop icons Girls’ Generation and BTS.

But Tamayo mixes those inspirations with the sounds and rhythms he grew up with. “I wanted to reclaim my identity with my words and my compositions, to explain where I came from.”

That music has struck a chord in the Andes and beyond: On TikTok, he has 5.3 million likes and more than 227,200 followers.

Americo Mendoza, founder of the Quechua Initiative on Global Indigeneity at Harvard University, credited Tamayo’s popularity in part to the fact that Quechua speakers rarely are represented in media.

“Even though one in 10 people in Peru speak Quechua, they are treated as a minoritised community, as second-class citizens,” said Mendoza. “That dates back to colonisation and has been reinforced by violence against them in the late 20th century.”

Mendoza argued that Tamayo is part of a movement of growing cultural pride, particularly among younger Quechua speakers who are often the first in their families to move to cities and study at university.

“Lenin’s story is the story of many young people living in urban spaces affirming their culture,” he said. “Not just in Peru, but in Bolivia, Ecuador and beyond. It is a reminder how Indigenous [peoples] negotiate and adapt their presence and voices on global stages, how they defy stereotypes that Indigeneity is a thing of the past.”

At the same time, Tamayo is also harnessing music as a tool for political change.

Over the past year, deadly protests have shaken Peru since the impeachment and removal of former left-wing President Pedro Castillo, a move critics have called a coup d’état. His vice president, Boluarte, was quickly sworn in to replace him.

However, Castillo enjoyed strong backing in rural and Indigenous regions, and many of his supporters took to the streets to express outrage at his December ouster.

More than 60 people have died in the demonstrations in the months since, with hundreds more injured as government forces clashed with protesters.

A special rapporteur with the United Nations said the violence disproportionately affected Indigenous communities. And the human rights group Amnesty International found evidence of “racial and socio-economic bias” in the government’s use of lethal force.

Tamayo himself participated in the protests, many of which called for a new constitution and early elections to replace Boluarte and the opposition-led Congress.

He also tackled the violence in a music video earlier this year, depicting police beating protesters and chasing a woman who escapes through an Andean forest.

Boluarte has come under fire for her government’s response to the demonstrations, but she has refused to step down. And despite initial support for moving elections forward, she has since backed away from that proposal, saying the issue was “closed”.

“The president has made promises that she must keep,” Tamayo said. “Otherwise, it’s a betrayal.”

Alonso Gurmendi, a Peruvian lecturer in international relations at King’s College London, believes artists like Tamayo are opening new spaces for political discourse, amplifying the call for change.

“People are realising that it won’t be enough to just go to the streets and protest,” he said. “Lenin is channelling that with his music. He is galvanising social change and a grassroots movement through songs and art.”

Tamayo likewise acknowledges the power of new forums — particularly social media platforms like TikTok — to generate change.

“Social networks can democratise,” he said. “It’s a liberty. It’s a cause for hope.”

But change takes time, as Tamayo himself admits. “This is not only a positive message,” he said of his music. “It’s a battle.”

A team of scientists broke new ground when a plane capable of carrying more than 300 passengers landed in Antarctica, with aviators hailing it as a world first.

The plane, a Boeing 787 Dreamliner, successfully slipped down in Troll airfield on Wednesday night, while basking in Antarctica’s all-day summer sunlight.

Carrying a 45-strong team made up of researchers and staff from the Norwegian Polar Institute, the organisation said they managed to bring 12 tonnes of research equipment.

“This is a major operation, and a milestone for air traffic to Queen Maud Land,” said the institute’s director, Camilla Brekke, referring to the location of their research station.

“Taking down such a large aircraft opens up completely new possibilities for the logistics of Troll, which will also contribute to strengthening Norwegian research in Antarctica.”

Troll airfield is a 3,000-metre-long strip of blue ice and operates only between October and March, before winter sets the sun for nearly half a year.

While the landing has been hailed as a landmark achievement, there is no indication that commercial flights are planned, as the institute focuses on improved logistics to boost its research.

The group says it arranges up to 10 crafts of varying sizes to the continent each year, but the possibility of flying far larger planes could reduce the number of trips needed.

“The most important thing is the environmental benefits we can achieve by using large and modern aircraft of this type for Troll,” Ms Brekke said.

“This can help to reduce total emissions and the environmental footprint in Antarctica.”

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The institute’s logistics director, John Guldahl, said there were passengers from several countries onboard headed for other stations, which he says opens up the chances of collaboration.

Norse Atlantic Airways, the airline behind the flight, said in a statement the company is “honoured” to have been part of the trip.

“A historic moment for Norse,” the airline said. “The first ever B787 Dreamliner to land in Antarctica! We are incredibly honoured to be part of this piece of history, marking a very special milestone for Norse.

“We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the Norwegian Polar Research Institute who entrusted us with this important flight.”