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A doctor reportedly walked out of an operating theatre midway through a bout of surgery after becoming angry at not being served tea.

The medical worker was said to have been carrying out scheduled family planning procedures on eight women at a local health centre in Nagpur, central India.

Having performed the surgery on four of the women and administered anaesthesia to the other patients, he reportedly asked hospital staff to make him a cup of tea.

But after the workers failed to provide him with the hot beverage as requested, he promptly left the operating theatre without carrying out the remaining procedures, according to NDTV.

The chief of Nagpur’s district council, Soumya Sharma, told NDTV that she understood the doctor “left the operation due to not receiving tea” – and suggested he should face criminal charges.

‘The utmost seriousness’

“This incident is a matter of the utmost seriousness,” she said.

“If doctors are willing to abandon such critical procedures over a mere cup of tea, they should be held accountable under section 304 of the Indian Penal Code.”

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Another doctor was reportedly sent to perform surgeries on the rest of the anaesthetised women after the authorities were informed.

The district administration is said to have ordered an investigation into the incident.

About 40,000 housing units in the besieged enclave were completely destroyed by the Israeli army, Gaza officials say.

Israeli bombardments have caused damage to more than 50 percent of housing units across Gaza, according to local officials.

In a statement published on Friday, the media office of Gaza’s government said about 40,000 housing units in the besieged enclave were completely destroyed by the Israeli army.

It also said about 32,000 tons (29,000 tonnes) of explosives had been dropped on Gaza since the start of the war on October 7 when Hamas, the group that rules Gaza, attacked Israel, prompting a retaliation.

The estimated preliminary losses in the housing sector and infrastructure are estimated to be $2bn each, the office said.

A new analysis by two United States-based researchers, James Van Den Hoek and Corey Scher, and Al Jazeera’s AJ Labs unit showed that overall at least 16 percent of all buildings in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed. In Gaza City alone, the building destruction reached at least 28 percent.

According to the latest data from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Palestinian government, and as of November 7, Israeli attacks have damaged at least 222,000 residential units, with more than 40,000 completely destroyed.

The UN report also said 278 educational facilities, 270 healthcare facilities and 69 places of worship were damaged, including mosques and churches.

A man who found a snake while out hiking took it home to show his children, only to be rushed to hospital after being bitten.

The father from New South Wales, Australia, believed the creature was a non-venomous diamond python when he picked it up, and was promptly bitten by the reptile.

He took the snake back home anyway, assuming the bite had been harmless.

But he realised all was not well when he began vomiting violently and his hand became badly swollen, triggering an emergency visit to hospital.

A nurse at Bowral Hospital contacted snake expert Ray McGibbon, who was sent a photo of the animal.

He immediately identified it as a broad-headed snake – which inject neurotoxins into the bloodstream when they bite, which can lead to incapacitation and, in some cases, death.

“The hiker was extremely lucky to make it out after being bitten and envenomated [with] no first aid,” he said.

“It could have ended up a lot worse than it did.

“All species of broad-headed snakes have bites that could potentially cause fatalities.”

Mr McGibbon said the man was kept in hospital for six hours before being sent home to recover.

The expert, who runs the South Highlands Snake Catchers service, said he collected the reptile before returning it to its habitat a few days later.

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He said the hiker “was happy for me to share this story for educational purposes and hopefully people will take note and not follow the same mistakes he did”.

“So please, if you see a snake or any reptile in the wild, admire it in its own habitat. Take photos or a video and please DO NOT try and capture it or take it home,” he said on his Facebook page.

“This is a learning curve for all.”

Mr McGibbon told Sky News the broad-headed snake was now an endangered species due to the destruction of its natural habitat, which is believed to be caused by urbanisation, illegal removal of rocks and vandalism.

You would need a large piece of paper to list every national crisis faced by the people of Lebanon over the past 50 years.

This multi-religious nation has long struggled to make itself work, with political disagreements ending in violent confrontation – and a 15-year civil war.

The current situation offers few reasons to feel cheerful as a caretaker government tries to navigate a disastrous economic crisis.

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Yet people have something else to worry about with the threat of all-out war with Israel now looming on its southern border.

The country’s most powerful faction, the Shiite group Hezbollah, is currently engaged in a tit-for-tat battle with the Israelis, largely being fought within several kilometres of their shared border.

But this limited conflict could quickly change with the leader of Iran-backed Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, backing militant group Hamas in the month-long war in Gaza.

In a speech broadcast last week, Nasrallah warned “all options are open”.

Speaking to NBC News on Tuesday, he again said Hezbollah were “ready for all possibilities”.

The key question here in Lebanon is both simple and complex. Do the people of Lebanon favour a fully-fledged war with Israel?

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Crucially, everyone knows how destructive a war would be because Lebanon has been through it before.

In 2006, Hezbollah and Israel fought a calamitous 33-day war which displaced a million people in Lebanon. Large parts of south Beirut were levelled by Israeli bombing.

Former Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, was credited with leading the negotiations which resolved that conflict and in an exclusive interview with Sky News, he told us that Lebanon cannot handle another war.

“In the past 50 years Lebanon suffered from six Israeli invasions in 1969 in 78 in 82, in 93, 96 and 2006. How much conflict can this country take? I cannot [take it].

“Now Lebanon suffers from a series of major crises that go hand in hand with each other. We have a political crisis, we can’t agree on electing a new president, we can’t rejuvenate our institutions and we have a grave economic crisis… this is why I have made myself clear. We cannot get involved in this war.”

Like many Lebanese however, the former prime minister is deeply angry about the Israeli invasion of Gaza – and the failure of the international community to intervene.

He chose to express his feelings with this question: “Assume that there are 500 cats dying from a disease of something in Gaza.

“Tell me how the international community would react? But we are talking about 2.2 million people being massacred and what are we doing with them? If they were cats, I think that international community would come and save them.”

And it is here that Mr Siniora finds himself in agreement with Hezbollah, who say the situation faced by Palestinians in Gaza is unacceptable.

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We spoke to Kassem Kassir, a figure widely considered to be close to Hezbollah’s leadership.

“I want peace [with Israel]. We all want peace, but there will be no peace [in the region] without peace in Gaza.

“What is happening cannot be tolerated. The question should be asked the other way around: ‘Is it possible to remain silent about what is happening in Gaza?’”

The anger and frustration expressed by Mr Siniora and Hezbollah’s leadership are shared and remarkably similar.

Where the two parties diverge is in terms of what to do about it. The former prime minister says the international community has to stop the war – and to do it quickly.

“There is a situation that has to be addressed otherwise nobody can stop the situation from engulfing many other countries and many other players – that’s why the matter is so urgent, sensitive and [potentially] destructive.”

Hezbollah views the exasperation and indignation in a different way. In a divided country, such emotions are an asset to be exploited according to Mr Kassir.

“Hezbollah takes into account the presence of supportive public opinion. The more Israel continued the massacres, the closer the people came to the idea of accepting war… every day that the war expands inside Gaza, the Lebanese people get closer to accepting the war.”

This is an important revelation, and it gets us closer to Hezbollah’s strategic thinking.

With a military wing that can fight – but cannot defeat – the Israelis, their leaders are looking for a groundswell of support in Lebanon and the region.

Without it, people like Nasrallah will worry about the destructive consequences that will follow a major clash.

“There are 5 million people in Lebanon, half of whom may support the Palestinians, but there are a billion Arabs in the region who are ready to enter the war and support Gaza,” says Kassir.

“We will [make the] sacrifice when the right time comes. The party will not remain silent any longer and the entire region will enter the war, including Egypt and Jordan.

“It will be a historic moment.”

Dozens of Ukrainians have been evacuated from the Gaza Strip, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as Israel remains vague over reports of pauses in fighting.

The US claimed yesterday that Israel has agreed to pause fighting in Gaza for four hours each day to allow civilians safe escape, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu only described “a few hours here, a few hours there”.

Among those trying to flee the bombarded Palestinian enclave are Ukrainians, including Tatyana Tapalova, who fears returning to Ukraine with her young child.

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“I don’t want to go from one war to another,” she said, as she waited at the Rafah border crossing in southern Gaza with her Ukrainian passport in hand.

A total of 89 Ukrainians have been evacuated, Mr Zelenskyy said, since the evacuation process began on Wednesday for his compatriots.

They are now in Egypt, he said, adding efforts to evacuate any remaining Ukrainian nationals from the strip are ongoing.

“It is very important that as many civilians as possible are protected and that the war that is going on in the Middle East does not lead to a full-scale collapse of international stability,” he said.

“Everyone needs security and peace. We continue this work. A very painstaking and delicate process.”

Russia is continuing its onslaught of Ukraine, with particular focus currently on the key eastern town of Avdiivka, where shelling is “round the clock”.

Drone attacks have been reported across the country, including over Kyiv, which gives Ukrainians in Gaza a potentially deadly dilemma.

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A senior US official said on Thursday the number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip is “very possibly” higher than the 10,000 reported by the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry.

Despite near-constant shelling, Israel says it is encouraging civilians to flee to the south, where bombing has also been reported.

But it isn’t clear what arrangement – if any – has actually been agreed by Israel for temporary pauses in fighting.

When questioned by Fox News on the matter, Mr Netanyahu said “the fighting continues against the Hamas enemy”.

“But in specific locations for a given period – a few hours here, a few hours there – we want to facilitate a safe passage of civilians away from the zone of fighting,” he added.

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Israel has already opened the Salah al Din road as a “humanitarian corridor” on several days this week, to allow Gazan citizens to flee south, but it is unclear whether the pauses would take place on a wider scale across a bigger area.

The White House and President Biden indicated the daily four-hour pauses would take place in areas of northern Gaza, but Mr Netanyahu did not confirm this.

The Israeli PM also said there was no timetable for the war, only that it would end after Hamas is defeated.

He added that though Israel had no intention of occupying or governing Gaza, it did envision a radically reshaped territory and wider region.

“We don’t want to seek to govern Gaza, we don’t seek to occupy, but we seek to give it and us a better future in the entire Middle East,” he said.