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Hamas has agreed to a cease-fire agreement framework put forward by Egypt and Qatar, the terrorist group announced in a Monday statement.

The White House and State Department could not confirm the agreement as of press time, but a Hamas spokesman confirmed it to Fox News Digital. Israel has not announced its stance on the framework. If it is approved, however, it would bring an extended pause to the fighting that has raged in Gaza for seven months.

"The fighter brother Ismail Haniyeh, head of the political bureau of the Hamas movement, had a phone call with the Qatari Prime Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdul Rahman Al-Thani, and with the Egyptian Minister of Intelligence, Mr. Abbas Kamel, and informed them of the Hamas movement’s approval of their proposal regarding the ceasefire agreement," the Hamas statement read.

News of the agreement comes just as Israel appeared to be preparing for a ground assault on Rafah, the final stronghold of Hamas in Gaza. The city is also playing host to more than 1 million Gazans displaced from the north.

HAMAS KINGPIN HOLED UP DEEP BELOW GAZA, SURROUNDED BY HOSTAGES USED AS HUMAN SHIELDS, SAYS EXPERT

Israel urged Palestinians to flee Rafah ahead of the expected operation. Overnight on Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that Israel was left with no choice but to act in Rafah after Hamas terrorists carried out a deadly rocket attack from Rafah earlier in the day that left four Israeli soldiers dead.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PUTS HOLD ON US AMMUNITION SHIPMENT TO ISRAEL: REPORT

President Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on the phone about Rafah on Monday, Fox News has learned. Netanyahu has vowed repeatedly to carry out a military operation in Rafah. According to Israel’s army, forces are beginning with a "limited scope operation."

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said some 100,000 people were being ordered to move to a nearby Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi. He said Israel published a map of the evacuation area.

BIDEN ADMIN ACCUSES ISRAELI MILITARY OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN STUNNING CONDEMNATION

These orders were issued through air-dropped leaflets, text messages and radio broadcasts so that Palestinians could get the information.

"Anyone found near (militant) organizations endangers themselves and their family members. For your safety, the (army) urges you to evacuate immediately to the expanded humanitarian area," one flyer read.

Israel's army said on the social media platform X that it would act with "extreme force" against Hamas terrorists, and urged the population to evacuate immediately for their safety.

Fox News' Lawrence Richard and Trey Yingst contributed to this report

A multi-story apartment building under construction collapsed Monday in a coastal city in South Africa, injuring at least 22 workers and trapping more than 40 others in the rubble, authorities said.

The injured workers were taken to a hospital, but authorities did not immediately provide details of their injuries. South African media reported that at least five workers had sustained serious injuries.

Local media reports said at least 59 people were trapped under the rubble after the collapse of what appeared to be a multi-story apartment block that was being built. The reports said 10 people had been rescued, with five sustaining serious injuries.

BUILDING FIRE THAT KILLED 76 IN SOUTH AFRICA WAS CAUSED BY BUILDING NEGLIGENCE, REPORT SAYS

The building collapsed just after 2 p.m. in the city of George, about 250 miles east of Cape Town on South Africa's south coast.

The George Municipality said in a statement that its disaster management services, ambulances and police were responding to the building collapse. The building was located close to the municipal offices, it said.

It said there were multiple injuries but did not give any more details.

George Municipality spokesperson Ntobeko Mangqwengqwe told the News24 media outlet that the structure looked like it had four or five stories.

"At the moment, we don’t have the exact number of injuries," Mangqwengqwe said. "Our emergency personnel and local ambulances are on site."

The provincial Western Cape government said it was closely monitoring the situation and had sent resources to assist city authorities with the emergency response.

"All the necessary support has been offered to emergency personnel to expedite their response. At the moment, officials are focused on saving lives. This is our top priority at this stage," Western Cape Premier Alan Winde, the head of the provincial government, said in a statement.

The national government was being briefed, Winde said.

Alexander Vinnik, a Russian suspected cybercrime kingpin who was arrested in Greece in 2017, convicted of money laundering in France three years later and is now awaiting trial in California, has pleaded partially guilty, TASS news agency cited his lawyer as saying on Saturday.

The lawyer, Arkady Bukh, said that as a result of the plea bargain he now expected Vinnik to get a prison term of less than 10 years.

"He pleaded guilty on a restricted number of charges," TASS quoted Bukh as saying, adding that Vinnik had faced life imprisonment.

RUSSIAN HACKERS ARRESTED ON VACATION IN US-LED OPERATION

"The culmination of the negotiations was a deal with the prosecutor's office. We expect that the prison term will be up to 10 years."

Vinnik, accused of laundering more than $4 billion through the digital currency bitcoin, was arrested in 2017 in Greece at the request of the United States, although Moscow has repeatedly demanded he be returned to Russia.

He was extradited to France from Greece where he was sentenced to five years in prison for money laundering before he was sent back to Greece and then on to the United States in 2022.

The U.S. Department of Justice has said Vinnik "allegedly owned, operated, and administrated BTC-e, a significant cybercrime and online money laundering entity that allowed its users to trade in bitcoin with high levels of anonymity and developed a customer base heavily reliant on criminal activity."

The maximum penalty for the U.S. charges against Vinnik is 55 years in prison, according to the U.S. Department of Justice website.

Several thousand Jews, including Holocaust survivors personally affected by the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel, walked through the former Auschwitz Nazi German death camp on Monday for the annual March of the Living ceremony in Poland.

Walking along the 1.8 mile path towards the crematoria of Birkenau, they paid tribute to the millions of Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War Two.

This year's ceremony was overshadowed by the events last year when 1,200 people were killed in a Hamas-led rampage through Israeli towns and 253 hostages were taken, according to Israeli tallies.

HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS CONFRONT RISING DENIAL, ANTISEMITISM IN NEW DIGITAL CAMPAIGN

Daniel Louz, a 90-year-old whose hometown Kibbutz Beeri lost a tenth of its residents to the Palestinian attackers, came to the Auschwitz camp on Monday for the first time since his mother's family was killed there in 1942.

"I am convinced that on October 7 in Beeri the good souls (of the Holocaust dead) protected me and did not let the Hamas criminals shoot at our home," Louz told Reuters. "So that I might be able to tell the story. I am really thankful to you all."

More than 1.1 million people, mostly Jews, perished in gas chambers or from starvation, cold and disease at Auschwitz, which Germans set up in occupied Poland during World War Two.

More than three million of Poland's 3.2 million Jews were murdered by the Nazis, accounting for about half of the Jews killed in the Holocaust.

"Prior to October 7 it is my belief ... that the worst event in human history happened on these grounds. That this place, the very word Auschwitz, speaks volumes in one word about fear, death, destruction, annihilation," Phyllis Greenberg Heideman, President of the International March of the Living, said during Monday's event.

"And then came October 7, and perhaps we have to come as a people to the realization that perhaps in some ways the Shoah (Holocaust) isn't over for us. It's not a competition, certainly not a comparison, it's a continuum."

Polish prosecutors have discontinued an investigation into human skeletons found at a site where German dictator Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders spent time during World War II because the advanced state of decay made it impossible to determine the cause of death, a spokesman said Monday.

The remains were found Feb. 24 at Wolf's Lair, which served as Hitler’s chief headquarters from 1941-44 when the area was part of Germany. The compound of about 200 Nazi bunkers and military barracks hidden in deep woods was the site of the failed assassination attempt on Hitler by Col. Claus Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944. The site is now a tourist attraction.

The spokesman for the prosecutor's office in nearby Ketrzyn town, Daniel Brodowski, said police officers secured the remains after they were found by a local group, Latebra, which searches for historical objects.

HITLER’S VEGETABLE GARDEN DISCOVERED AT HIS SECRET HEADQUARTERS

A forensic medical expert examined them under the supervision of the prosecutor's office, which was trying to determine if manslaughter had occurred. It discontinued the investigation in late March due to a lack of evidence that a crime had been committed, Brodowski told The Associated Press in an emailed statement.

"The expert stated that the preserved bone remains were of human origin and came from at least four people, three of whom were most likely middle-aged men, and the fourth was a child several years of age whose sex cannot be determined," Brodowski wrote.

But due to advanced decay of the remains, it was no longer possible to determine the cause of death, he said, noting that at least several dozen years had passed.

JERUSALEM – The Israel Defense Forces and the country’s domestic security agency Shin Bet announced that a military strike on Sunday targeted a Hamas command center located in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) compound in the Gaza Strip.

According to an IDF statement, "The strike was carefully planned and carried out using precise munition in order to minimize harm to uninvolved civilians."

The statement said, "The command and control center was used as a staging ground for multiple attacks on IDF troops located in Gaza's central corridor in recent weeks. Furthermore, the forward operations base was used to carry out attacks on humanitarian efforts, which aims to increase the distribution of humanitarian aid to Gazan civilians."

ISRAEL SHARES DOSSIER SPELLING OUT ALLEGATIONS AGAINST 12 UN EMPLOYEES ALLEGEDLY INVOLVED IN HAMAS ATTACK

The IDF statement added, "Hamas oversaw the supply of weapons to dozens of Hamas terrorists from inside the command and control center, including those located and operating inside underground terror tunnels. Hamas intentionally positioned the command and control position within the vicinity of an active UNRWA location, jeopardizing the Gazan civilians taking refuge there. As a result of the strike, the Hamas’ command and control center located in the UNRWA complex is no longer operational."

When approached about the IDF strike on the UNRWA facility and the contention that the U.N.’s facility was a Hamas terrorist command center, a UNRWA spokesperson, Juliette Touma, told Fox News Digital, "On this particular incident we don’t have more information. For all violations of the inviolability of United Nations premises we call for investigations."

The IDF and Shin Bet joint statement said, "The Hamas terrorist organization systematically exploits the civilian population and institutions as human shields for their terrorist activities against the State of Israel."

When asked if Hamas was endangering UNRWA employees and Palestinians by using UNRWA schools and other buildings to store weapons and lodge terrorists, Touma told Fox News Digital, "You see, we don’t know if the above claim is true."

David Bedein, an Israeli expert on UNRWA, told Fox News Digital that "the past seven months of combat, UNRWA facilities in Judea and Samaria (West Bank), in Jerusalem and in Gaza, have been shown to be filled with weapons, ammunition and missiles. What we have uncovered over a period of over 37 years is UNRWA is Hamas and Hamas is UNRWA." 

WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION SILENT OVER HAMAS' USE OF GAZA HOSPITAL AS TERROR HQ

Bedein is the director of the Center for Near East Policy Research and has published numerous reports on UNRWA's curriculum that documented pro-terrorism and pro-antisemitic teaching.

Bedein added, "Since the IDF discovered so many weapons in 40 schools and hospitals over the last six months, how does UNRWA account for the massive amount of weapons found in UNRWA schools and medical facilities in Gaza and Jenin in the West Bank?"

When Fox News Digital sent Touma from UNRWA Bedein’s question, she wrote, "We call for accountability and investigations into ALL violations by ALL parties to the conflict into the breaches of international law and the lack of protection of U.N. premises and personnel in Gaza."

UN, HUMAN RIGHTS, MEDIA GROUPS RELY ON HAMAS DEATH TOLL IN 'SYSTEMATIC DECEPTION': EXPERT

Over the weekend, Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner in charge of UNRWA, took to X to complain, "The Israeli Authorities continue to deny humanitarian access to the United Nations. Just this week, they have denied – for the second time – my entry to Gaza where I planned to be with our @UNRWA teams including those on the front lines. The past while recorded an increase in the denial of humanitarian access & attacks on humanitarian workers and convoys."

Fox News Digital sent a press query to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs about Lazzarini’s complaints. Touma, the UNRWA spokeswoman, said, "I’m not sure if the government of Israel responded" to Lazzarini’s X post.

In January, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz urged Lazzarini to resign over accusations that his agency’s workers participated in the Hamas-run massacre of nearly 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7. Hamas murdered over 30 Americans during the invasion.

Katz said Israel would no longer be meeting with UNRWA. "I have just canceled the meetings of UNRWA head, Lazzarini, with officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Israel on Wednesday," Katz wrote, adding. "UNRWA employees participated in the massacre of October 7."

Israel is slated to launch an incursion into the last major bastion of Hamas control in the city of Rafah, where Hamas mastermind terrorist Yahya Sinwar has reportedly surrounded himself with hostages as human shields.

A Nigerian journalist’s arrest last week has triggered criticism of worsening press freedoms in the West African country.

Daniel Ojukwu with the Foundation for Investigative Journalism went missing last Wednesday in the economic hub of Lagos. His family and employer found out on Friday that he was detained and held in a police station for allegedly violating the country’s Cybercrime Act, often criticized as a tool for censorship.

The arrest of Ojukwu, who was later transferred to the Nigerian capital of Abuja, follows his report about alleged financial mismanagement of over $104,600 involving a senior government official, according to his employer, the foundation.

RUSSIAN JOURNALIST DETAINED FOR POSTS CRITICIZING THE MILITARY, LAWYER SAYS

Nigeria is ranked 112th out of 180 countries in the latest World Press Freedom Index by Reporters Without Borders. It is known for the country's tough environment for journalists who face frequent abductions, arrests and prosecution, usually after reporting on chronic corruption and bad governance plaguing the oil-rich country.

At least 25 journalists have been prosecuted under the country’s Cybercrime Act since it was introduced in 2015, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. They include eight detained under President Bola Tinubu whose government, in power since May last year, touts itself as one encouraging press freedoms — a claim it repeated last week during World Press Freedom Day events.

The Cybercrime Act was amended this year to remove some harsh provisions but the police still use it to "silence journalists and critics," Amnesty International’s Nigeria office said.

Nigeria's law requires a suspect to be charged or released within 48 hours following arrest. Ojukwu, however, was not allowed any means of communication or access to a lawyer until his third day in custody, said Oke Ridwan, a human rights lawyer who met with the journalist at the police station where he was held.

Nigeria's Minister of Information Mohammed Idris Malagi told The Associated Press that he is making efforts to resolve the case and is "on top of the issue." Local and international civil society groups have condemned the detention.

It is a "symptom of a larger problem within Nigeria’s law enforcement agencies, and their relationship with politically exposed persons undermining democratic principles," a coalition of at least 30 civil society groups known as the Action Group on Protection of Civic Actors said in a statement on Monday.

"The Nigerian Police Force has veered off course from its duty to uphold law and order to become an oppressive tool in stifling dissent and independent journalism," it added.

A 16-year-old boy who was shot dead by police after stabbing a man in the Australian west coast city of Perth had been in a deradicalization program but had no links to an alleged network of teen extremists in the east coast city of Sydney, authorities said.

The boy had participated in the federally funded Countering Violent Extremism program for two years but had no criminal record, Western Australia Police Minister Paul Papalia said Monday.

"The challenge we confront with people like the 16-year-old in this incident is that he’s known to hold views that are dangerous and potentially he could be radicalized," Papalia said. "But the problem with individuals like this is they can act at short notice without warning and be very dangerous."

AUSTRALIA ACCUSES CHINA OF RECKLESS BEHAVIOR AFTER FIGHTER JET DROPPED FLARES IN FRONT OF HELICOPTER

On the potential for the boy to have been radicalized, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he was concerned by social media pushing extreme positions.

"It’s a dynamic that isn’t just an issue for government. It’s an issue for our entire society, whether it be violent extremism, misogyny and violence against women. It is an issue that of course I’m concerned about," Albanese told reporters.

Western Australia Police Commissioner Col Blanch said the boy had phoned police late Saturday saying he was about to commit "acts of violence" but did not say where. Minutes later, a member of the public reported to police seeing the boy with a knife in a hardware store parking lot.

Three police officers responded, one armed with a gun and two with stun guns. Police deployed both stun guns but they failed to incapacitate the boy before he was killed by a single gunshot, Blanch said.

The stabbing victim is a man in his 30s who was wounded in his back. He was in serious but stable condition at a Perth hospital, police said.

Blanch said members of the local Muslim community had raised concerns with police about the boy’s behavior before he was killed on Saturday.

The boy had said in a text message to associates, "I am going on the path of jihad tonight for the sake of Allah," Australian Associated Press reported, prompting several to alert police.

Police said the stabbing had the hallmarks of a terrorist attack but have not declared it as such. Factors that can influence that decision include whether state police need federal resources, including the Australian Security Intelligence Organization domestic spy agency.

Blanch said the Western Australia Police Force investigation did not need additional federal resources and he was confidence the situation was different from the one in Sydney.

"We are dealing with complex issues, both mental health issues but also online radicalization issues," Blanch said Sunday. "But we believe he very much is acting alone and we do not have concerns at this time that there is an ongoing network or other concerns that might have been seen over in Sydney."

Western Australia Premier Roger Cook said his government and the state education department had been aware of concerns at the boy's school about his behavior. Cook didn't directly respond to reports that several boys at Rossmoyne Senior High School, the prestigious government school he attended, were attempting to radicalize classmates.

"I'll leave that up the the Education Department to clarify," Cook told reporters. "This young man was harboring some extremist thoughts, which is the reason why he was part of the Countering Violent Extremism program."

Amanda Spencer-Teo, a parent of a Rossmoyne student, said multiple "red flags" had been raised about the behavior of some students.

"Parents have been raising this with the school for some time," Spencer-Teo, who will be an opposition party candidate at state elections next year, told The Australian newspaper. "The school and the department have failed to provide information to those concerned parents."

In the stabbings at a Sydney church on April 15, New South Wales Police Commissioner Karen Webb declared the stabbings of an Assyrian Orthodox bishop and priest as a terrorist act within hours. The boy arrested was later charged with committing a terrorist act. In the subsequent investigation, six more teenagers were charged with terror-related offenses.

Police alleged all seven were part of a network that "adhered to a religiously motivated, violent extremist ideology."

Some Muslim leaders have criticized Australian police for declaring the church stabbing a terrorist act but not a rampage two days earlier in a Sydney shopping mall in which six people were killed and a dozen wounded.

The 40-year-old attacker, who was shot dead by police, had a history of schizophrenia and most of the victims he targeted were women. Police have yet to reveal the man’s motive.

A report into a building fire that killed 76 people in South Africa last year has concluded that city authorities should be held responsible because they were aware of serious safety issues at the rundown apartment block at least four years before the blaze.

The nighttime fire at the five-story building in downtown Johannesburg on Aug. 31 was one of South Africa's worst disasters. At least 12 children were among the dead and another 86 people were injured, with some having to leap out of windows to escape the flames.

Others said they threw small children out the windows in the hope that they would be caught by people below. Many of the victims were burned beyond recognition having become trapped in the overcrowded building and it took authorities weeks to identify bodies using DNA tests.

JOHANNESBURG BUILDING FIRE LEAVES AT LEAST 73 DEAD, 52 INJURED

Retired Judge Sisi Khampepe was put in charge of the inquiry, which began in October. She delivered the first part of her report on Sunday and concluded that the City of Johannesburg, which owns the building, had shown "total disregard" for its "calamitous state."

In the wake of the fire, hundreds of people were found to be living illegally in the building, some of them in shacks that had been erected in the corridors, the bathrooms and the basement, which was meant to be a parking garage. Emergency services said that the fire extinguishers had been taken off the walls and the main fire escape was found to be locked on the night of the fire.

The inside of the building was strewn with waste and that combined with the makeshift wooden shacks to make the blaze especially deadly, Khampepe's report found.

Yet city officials, national immigration officials and police officers had raided the building in 2019, and "found the distressing living conditions in the building that contributed to the devastation of the fire," Khampepe told reporters after delivering her report.

She recommended that disciplinary action be taken against the chief executive officer of the Johannesburg Property Company, which oversees the city's buildings. She also said that the building should be demolished and a plaque erected as a memorial to the dozens of victims.

The tragedy revealed the extent of the decay in parts of South Africa's biggest city and economic hub, where many buildings have been "hijacked" by illegal landlords, who rent out space to people desperate for somewhere to live. The buildings are often overcrowded and safety precautions are disregarded.

There was a stunning development at the inquiry in January when a man due to testify as a resident of the building said that he had started the fire to burn the body of a man he had killed on the orders of a drug dealer.

The man who made the shocking confession was arrested and charged with 76 counts of murder and arson.

China's President Xi Jinping arrived at the French presidential palace on Monday for a two-day state visit that is expected to focus both on trade disputes and diplomatic efforts to convince Beijing to use its influence to move Russia toward ending the war in Ukraine.

In Paris, Xi first joined a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen meant to address broader EU concerns. Macron said in his introductory remarks the meeting would first address trade issues and how to ensure "fair competition," then the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.

"We are at a turning point in our history" as the Europe-China relationship is faced with challenges, Macron said.

FRENCH CYBERWARRIORS READY TO TEST THEIR DEFENSE AGAINST HACKERS AND MALWARE DURING THE OLYMPICS

The talks are aimed at sharing "both our shared positions and our concerns, to try to overcome them, because the future of our continent will very clearly also depend on our ability to develop balanced relations with China," he said.

Macron, a strong advocate of Europe’s economic sovereignty, wants to raise French concerns about a Chinese antidumping investigation into cognac and other European brandy, and tensions over French cosmetics and other sectors.

In a recent speech, he denounced trade practices of both China and the United States as shoring up protections and subsidies.

At the start of the meeting in Paris, Xi said "the world today has entered a new period of turbulence and change."

"As two important forces in the world, China and Europe should ... continuously make new contributions to world peace and development," he said.

The EU launched an investigation last fall into Chinese subsidies and could impose tariffs on electric vehicles exported from China.

"The European Union and China want good relations," von der Leyen said. "We have a substantial EU-China economic relationship. ... But this relationship is also challenged, for example, through state-induced overcapacity, unequal market access and overdependencies."

Paris is the first stop on Xi's European trip, seeking to rebuild relations at a time of global tensions. After France on Monday and Tuesday, he will head to Serbia and Hungary.

France hopes the discussions will help convince China to use its leverage with Moscow to ‘’contribute to a resolution of the conflict" in Ukraine, according to a French presidential official. Russian President Vladimir Putin recently announced plans to visit China this month.

Macron will press Xi over supplies from Chinese companies supporting the Russian war effort despite EU sanctions, he said. China claims neutrality in the Ukraine conflict. France also wants China to maintain a dialogue with Kyiv, added the official, who was not authorized to be identified according to presidential policy.

Last year, Macron appealed to Xi to "bring Russia to its senses," but the call was not followed by any apparent action by Beijing.

"French authorities are pursuing two objectives that are ultimately contradictory," said Marc Julienne, director of the Center for Asian Studies at the French Institute of International Relations. "On the one hand, to convince Xi that it's in his interest to help Europeans to put pressure on Vladimir Putin to end the war and, on the other hand, to dissuade the Chinese president from delivering arms to his Russian friend."

"In short, we think that Xi can help us, but at the same time we fear that he could help Putin," Julienne wrote.

As France prepares to host the Summer Olympics, Macron said he would ask Xi to use his influence to make the Games "a diplomatic moment of peace."

The discussions will also be closely watched from Washington, a month before President Joe Biden is expected to pay his own state visit to France.

Xi's visit marks the 60th anniversary of France-China diplomatic relations, and follows Macron’s trip to China in April 2023. Macron prompted controversy on that trip after he said France wouldn’t blindly follow the U.S. in getting involved in crises that are not its concern, apparently referring to China’s demands for unification with Taiwan.

Several groups — including International Campaign for Tibet and France’s Human Rights League — urged Macron to put human rights issues at the heart of his talks with Xi. Protesters demonstrated in Paris as Xi arrived on Sunday, calling for a free Tibet.

Amnesty International called on Macron to demand the release of Uyghur economics professor Ilham Tohti, who was jailed in China for life in 2014 on charges of promoting separatism, and other imprisoned activists.

On Monday morning, media watchdog Reporters Without Borders staged a protest in front of the Arc de Triomphe monument to denounce Xi's visit, calling the Chinese president "one of the greatest predators of press freedom." The group says 119 journalists are imprisoned in the country.

Macron said in an interview published Sunday that he will raise human rights concerns.

Later on Monday, a formal ceremony is to take place at the Invalides monument before bilateral talks at the Elysee presidential palace. Macron and Xi will conclude a nearby French-Chinese economic forum and then join their wives for a state dinner.

The second day of the visit is meant to be a more personal moment.

Macron has invited Xi to visit the Tourmalet Pass in the Pyrenees mountains on Tuesday, where the French leader spent time as a child to see his grandmother. The trip is meant to be a reciprocal gesture after Xi took Macron last year to the residence of the governor of Guangdong province, where his father once lived.

Voters in Chad headed to the polls on Monday to cast their ballot in a long delayed presidential election that is set to end three years of military rule under interim president, Mahamat Deby Itno.

Deby Itno seized power after his father who ran the country for more than three decades was killed fighting rebels in 2021. Last year, the government announced it was extending the 18-month transition for two more years, which provoked protests across the country.

There are 10 candidates on the ballot, including a woman. Some 8 million people are registered to vote, in a country of more than 17 million people, one of the poorest in the world. Analysts say Deby Itno is expected to win the vote. A leading opposition figure Yaya Dillo, the current president’s cousin, was killed in February in circumstances that remain unclear.

US TO PULL TROOPS FROM CHAD AND NIGER AS THE AFRICAN NATIONS QUESTION ITS COUNTERTERRORISM ROLE

The oil-exporting country of nearly 18 million people has not had a free-and-fair transfer of power since it became independent in 1960 after decades of French colonial rule.

Chad is seen by the U.S. and France as one of the last remaining stable allies in the vast Sahel region following military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger in recent years. The ruling juntas in all three nations have expelled French forces and turned to Russia’s mercenary units for security assistance instead.

Earlier this year, Niger’s junta ordered all U.S. troops out, meaning Washington will lose access to its key base in Agadez, the center of its counter-terrorism operations in the region. The U.S. and France still have a military presence in Chad, who consider it an especially critical partner.

The West also fears that any instability in Chad, which has absorbed over half a million refugees from Sudan, could increase the flow of illegal migrants north towards Europe.

US SAYS IT WILL RETURN TO CHAD FOR TALKS TO KEEP TROOPS IN THE COUNTRY

"These are all the reasons the West is staying relatively quiet about the democratic transition in Chad," said Ulf Laessing, head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. "Everybody just wants this vote to pass so Deby Itno gets elected so they continue to work with him and preserve the stability of the region," he added.

Along with the arrival of refugees from Sudan, Chad is also dealing with high food prices partly caused by the war in Ukraine and a renewed threat from the Boko Haram insurgency spilling over from its southwestern border with Nigeria.

In March, an attack the government blamed on Boko Haram killed 7 soldiers, reviving fears of violence in the Lake Chad area after a period of peace following a successful operation launched in 2020 by the Chadian army to destroy the extremist group’s bases there. Schools, mosques and churches reopened and humanitarian organizations returned.

"For years now, we’ve had to cope with the high cost of living, without any solution," said Adoumadji Jean, a teacher at a state secondary school in Moyen-Chari province, in an interview with The Associated Press. "We want a change this year through this election", he added.

Boko Haram launched an insurgency more than a decade ago against Western education and seeks to establish Islamic law in Nigeria’s northeast. The insurgency has spread to West African neighbors including Cameroon, Niger and Chad.

Human rights groups have called for an investigation in to the killing of Chad’s main opposition figure, Dillo. The government has said Dillo was killed during an attack on the the National State Security Agency by his group, known as The Socialist Party Without Borders. But a photo of Dillo showed he was killed by a single bullet wound to the head.

Human Rights Watch said the killing raised serious concerns about the environment for the election.

"With his most significant opponents either co-opted or eliminated, and critical electoral institutions stacked with his supporters, Déby Itno’s victory is all but certain," wrote Michelle Gavin for the Council of Foreign Relations, a Washington DC based think tank.

Votes will be first counted at polling stations after polls close at 5pm, but preliminary results will be announced three weeks later on May 21. If no candidate wins outright, a runoff will be held on June 5.

Russia said Monday it plans to hold drills simulating the use of battlefield nuclear weapons amid rising tensions following comments by senior Western officials about the possibility of deeper involvement in the war in Ukraine.

The announcement came on the eve of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration to a fifth term in office and in a week when Moscow on Thursday will celebrate Victory Day, its most important secular holiday, marking its defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

The drills are a response to "provocative statements and threats of certain Western officials regarding the Russian Federation," the Defense Ministry said in a statement.

PUTIN WARNS THE WEST THAT RUSSIA IS 'READY' FOR NUCLEAR WAR: 'WEAPONS EXIST IN ORDER TO USE THEM'

It was the first time Russia has publicly announced drills involving tactical nuclear weapons, although its strategic nuclear forces regularly hold exercises. Tactical nuclear weapons include air bombs, warheads for short-range missiles and artillery munitions and are meant for use on a battlefield. They are less powerful than the strategic weapons — massive warheads that arm intercontinental ballistic missiles and are intended to obliterate entire cities.

The Russian announcement was a warning to Ukraine’s Western allies about becoming more deeply engaged in the 2-year-old war, where the Kremlin's forces have gained an upper hand amid Ukraine's shortage of manpower and weapons. Some of Ukraine’s Western partners have previously expressed concern that the conflict could spill beyond Ukraine into a war between NATO and Russia.

French President Emmanuel Macron repeated last week that he doesn’t exclude sending troops to Ukraine, and U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron said Kyiv’s forces will be able to use British long-range weapons to strike targets inside Russia. Some other NATO countries providing weapons to Kyiv have balked at that possibility.

The Kremlin branded those comments as dangerous, heightening tension between Russia and NATO. The war already has placed significant strain on relations between Moscow and the West.

RUSSIA HAS GROUNDS TO SEIZE WESTERN ASSETS AFTER US LEGISLATIVE MOVE, TOP LAWMAKER SAYS

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that Macron’s recent statement and other remarks by British and U.S. officials had prompted the nuclear drills.

"It’s a new round of escalation," Peskov said, referring to what the Kremlin regarded as provocative statements. "It’s unprecedented and requires special attention and special measures."

Russia’s Foreign Ministry summoned both the French and British ambassadors.

Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said the nuclear exercises "contribute to increasing instability."

"In the current security situation, Russia’s actions may be considered particularly irresponsible and reckless," Billström told Swedish news agency TT.

Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council that's chaired by Putin, said in his typically hawkish fashion that the comments by Macron and Cameron risked pushing the nuclear-armed world toward a "global catastrophe."

It wasn’t the first time Europe’s military support for Ukraine has prompted nuclear saber-rattling. In March 2023, after the U.K.’s decision to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing shells containing depleted uranium, Putin said he intends to deploy tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Ukraine neighbor Belarus.

RUSSIA'S KREMLIN PARADES WESTERN EQUIPMENT CAPTURED FROM UKRAINIAN ARMY AT EXHIBITION

The ministry said the exercise is intended to "increase the readiness of non-strategic nuclear forces to fulfill combat tasks" and will be held on Putin’s orders. The maneuvers will involve missile units of the Southern Military District along with the air force and the navy, it said.

The Russian announcement stirred little reaction in Ukraine, where the spokesman for the Military Intelligence agency, Andrii Yusov, said on national television: "Nuclear blackmail is a usual practice of Putin’s regime; it does not constitute major news."

Western officials have blamed Russia for threatening a wider war through provocative acts. NATO countries said last week they are deeply concerned by a campaign of hybrid activities on the military alliance’s soil, accusing Moscow of being behind them and saying they represent a security threat.

Peskov dismissed those claims as "new, unfounded accusations leveled at our country."

Germany said Monday it recalled its ambassador to Russia for a week of consultations in Berlin following an alleged computer hack of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian drones hit two vehicles Monday in Russia’s Belgorod region, killing six people and injuring 35 others, including two children, local authorities said. The area has been hit by Kyiv’s forces in recent months.

One of the vehicles was a minibus carrying farm workers, Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

It was not possible to independently confirm the report.

While Ukraine’s army is largely pinned down on the 600-mile front line due to a shortage of troops and ammunition after more than two years of fighting, it has used its long-range firepower to hit targets deep inside Russia.

In what has largely been a war of attrition, Russia also has relied heavily on long-range missile, artillery and drones to wreak damage on Ukraine.

The Kremlin's forces kept up their bombardment of Ukraine's power grid, with a nighttime Russian drone attack targeting energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s northern region of Sumy. Multiple towns and villages in the region, including Sumy, lost power, regional authorities said.

Russia attacked Ukrainian targets with 13 Shahed drones overnight, 12 of which were intercepted in the Sumy region, Ukraine’s air force said.

Germany said Monday it recalled its ambassador to Russia for a week of consultations in Berlin following an alleged hacker attack on Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s party.

Germany last week accused Russian military agents of hacking into the top echelons of Scholz's Social Democrats’ party and other sensitive government and industrial targets. Berlin has joined NATO and fellow European countries in warning that Russia’s cyberespionage would have consequences.

The Foreign Office in Berlin said Monday that the government is taking the latest incident "seriously" and that Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had decided to call back German Ambassador Alexander Lambsdorff. He would return to Moscow after a week, it said.

RUSSIA WILL FACE CONSEQUENCES FOR 'ABSOLUTELY INTOLERABLE' CYBERATTACK, GERMAN FOREIGN MINISTER SAYS

"The German government takes this event very seriously as behavior against our liberal democracy and the institutions that support it," Foreign Office spokeswoman Kathrin Deschauer said.

Baerbock said last week that Russian military cyber operators were behind the hacking of emails of the Social Democrats, the leading party in the governing coalition. Officials said the hackers had exploited Microsoft Outlook.

The German Interior Ministry said in a statement last week that the hacking campaign began as early as March 2022, a month after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with emails at the Social Democrat party headquarters accessed beginning that December. It said German companies, including in the defense and aerospace sectors, as well as targets related to the war in Ukraine were the focus of the hacking attacks.

Officials said the attacks persisted for months.

Relations between Russia and the West have been tense since Moscow's attack on Ukraine. Germany has been providing military support to Ukraine in the ongoing war.

In Copenhagen, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said that "some Europeans still think that the war is only taking place in Ukraine, but right now we are seeing more and more aggressiveness from Russia."

"We will probably see hybrid attacks in different areas. It can be critical infrastructure," he added after a meeting with his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen. "What Russia is doing and planning is not acceptable. Russia is ready to use any means possible to harm our societies."

U.S. Marines and their Filipino counterparts darted out of Black Hawk helicopters during combat drills Monday in the Philippines’ northernmost island town, along the strategic Bashi Channel off southern Taiwan.

The show of allied battle readiness in Itbayat in Batanes province is part of annual military exercises that started last month, dubbed Balikatan, Tagalog for "shoulder-to-shoulder," and involving more than 16,000 American and Philippine military personnel.

This year's exercises by the longtime treaty allies — the largest yet — are meant to deter possible aggression. They come against the backdrop of China’s increasingly assertive actions in the disputed South China Sea, where Chinese and Philippine coast guards and accompanying ships have had several increasingly tense faceoffs since last year.

PHILIPPINE PRESIDENT REJECTS FURTHER US MILITARY ACCESS TO ADDITIONAL ARMY CAMPS

More than 250 French and Australian forces are also participating, along with observers from several allied and security partner nations, led by Japan and European nations. The drills, which began April 22, end later this week.

In Monday's mock battle scenario, American and Filipino forces took positions at the airfield, ringed by low-lying hills, as three Army CH-47 Chinook helicopters landed to deliver combat supplies.

Marine 1st Lt. Annie Pentaleri said there would also be aerial combat reconnaissance and counter-reconnaissance drills in the far-flung region. The Associated Press was among a small group of journalists invited to attend the maneuvers.

"We are absolutely battle-ready and that’s what we train for day in and day out," Marine Maj. Robert Patterson said. "It’s important to enhance inter-operability with our Filipino counterparts."

US, AUSTRALIA, JAPAN AND PHILIPPINES VOW TO DEEPEN DEFENSE COOPERATION AMID SOUTH CHINA SEA TENSIONS

Washington and Manila say the drills are not directed at any country and are crucial for improving the response to emergencies in the Philippines, one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

However, this year's drills focus on territorial defense and are being staged mainly in two of the most sensitive fault lines in the regional rivalry between China and the United States: the disputed South China Sea and the Bashi Channel.

The critical waterway between Taiwan and the Philippines, an important trade conduit laden with international undersea cables, has been closely watched and guarded by Chinese and American forces. China considers Taiwant a part of its territory, to be annexed by force if necessary.

In a telephone call last month, Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed to President Joe Biden that Beijing will not tolerate separatist activities by Taiwan’s independence forces, as well as "exterior indulgence and support," an apparent reference to Washington’s support for the island.

Biden raised concerns about China’s actions in the South China Sea, including efforts to impede the Philippines, which Washington is treaty-obligated to defend, from resupplying its forces on the fiercely disputed Second Thomas Shoal.

The Balikatan exercises have included live-fire drills in the disputed South China Sea during joint naval sails by the U.S., France and the Philippines. An aircraft also dropped food and other supplies on a disputed island occupied by Filipino forces as part of the maneuvers in the disputed waters.

Separately on Monday, U.S. and Philippine forces practiced repelling invading forces in the coastal province of Ilocos Norte by firing missiles and artillery rounds on floating targets at sea. The northwestern province faces the South China Sea.

"It was a huge success, the weapons were spot on," Marine Lt. Gen. Michael Cederholm said.

In escalating high-seas encounters in disputed areas, Chinese coast guard vessels have resorted to water cannons, blocking and other dangerous maneuvers that have left Philippine navy personnel injured and supply boats damaged. The Biden administration has repeatedly warned the U.S. is obligated to defend the Philippines, its oldest treaty ally in Asia, should it come under attack.

Washington lays no claim to the contested waters but has declared that freedom of navigation and overflight and the peaceful resolution of the disputes are in its national interest.

China has strongly criticized the exercises, saying the Philippines and countries outside Asia are joining forces against Beijing, warned that the drills could lead to confrontation and undermine regional stability.

Ahead of the drills, China specifically opposed the transport of a U.S. ground-launched missile system to the northern Philippines. No missile was to be fired as the goal was only to familiarize military participants with the hi-tech weaponry in a tropical setting.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian expressed China’s grave concern over the deployment of the missile system "at China’s doorstep."

China should increase the number of intensive care unit (ICU) beds over the next few years as part of its public health measures, several state agencies recommended in a joint statement published on Monday.

The world's second most populous country has gradually increased ICU beds over the years, but critics say its health system remains under-resourced. 

It was also severely stretched after authorities abruptly ended national COVID pandemic restrictions in late 2022.

CHINA PRESSED BY WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION AFTER RESPIRATORY ILLNESS CLUSTERS REPORTED

China had only 4.37 ICU beds per 100,000 people in 2021, compared with 34.2 in the United States as of 2015, according to a paper by Shanghai's Fudan School of Public Health.

ICU beds nationwide should reach 15 per 100,000 people by the end of 2025 and 18 per 100,000 by the end of 2027, the National Health Commission and other state agencies said in a proposal.

The proposal also recommended the number of hospital beds convertible to ICU should reach 10 per 100,000 people by 2025 and 12 by 2027.

Denmark’s King Frederik X arrived in Stockholm on Monday with his Australian-born wife Queen Mary, as they begin their first official visit abroad as new Danish monarchs.

The 55-year-old Frederik was proclaimed king on Jan. 14 after his 83-year-old mother, Queen Margrethe II, who was Europe's longest-reigning monarch, abdicated.

In the Swedish capital, Frederik and Mary were first greeted by Crown Princess Victoria and her husband Prince Daniel, who boarded the Danish royal yacht Dannebrog.

DENMARK'S NEWLY CROWNED KING FREDERIK X EMBARKS ON OFFICIAL DUTIES WITH PARLIAMENT VISIT

They then took the gilded Swedish Royal Barge to shore and were welcomed there by King Carl XVI Gustaf, Sweden's longest-reigning monarch, and German-Brazilian-born Queen Silvia.

The welcome also included a cannon salute and music by Sweden's Royal Guards, lined up on the quay at the foot of the Swedish royal palace.

Relations between the two royal houses are close. Frederik’s grandmother, Queen Ingrid who died in 2000, was a Swedish princess.

The May 6-7 visit includes meetings with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kirstersson and the speaker of the Swedish Parliament. A visit to a military facility is also scheduled.

Danish government members also accompanied the royals, among them Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen and Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen.

Danish monarchs, whose roles are ceremonial, traditionally travel to other Scandinavian countries first. Although Frederik had a solo visit to Poland in January, it was planned before his mother's surprise New Year's Eve abdication.

Later this month, Frederik and Mary will travel to Oslo, where they will be greeted by King Harald V and Queen Sonja.

Frederik's mother was t he first Danish monarch to voluntarily relinquish the throne in nearly 900 years, causing the Nordic nation to experience its first royal succession in more than a half century.

Denmark’s monarchy traces its origins to 10th century Viking king Gorm the Old, making it the oldest in Europe and one of the oldest in the world.

Australia has protested to Beijing that a Chinese fighter jet endangered an Australian navy helicopter with flares in international waters, officials said Monday.

The incident occurred on Saturday as the Australian air warfare destroyer HMAS Hobart was enforcing United Nations Security Council sanctions against North Korea in international waters in the Yellow Sea, the Defense Department said in a statement.

A Chinese Chengdu J-10 fighter jet released flares in the flight path of an Australian navy Seahawk deployed from the Hobart 986 feet in front of the helicopter and 197 feet above, Defense Minister Richard Marles said.

AUSTRALIAN LAWMAKERS SEND LETTER URGING BIDEN TO DROP CASE AGAINST JULIAN ASSANGE ON WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY

"This was an incident which was both unsafe and unprofessional," Marles told Nine News television.

"We will not be deterred from engaging in lawful activities and activities which are there to enforce U.N. sanctions in respect of North Korea," Marles added.

There were no injuries or damage, the Defense Department said, adding the Australian government expressed concerns to the Chinese government. There was no immediate comment from Beijing on Monday.

It was the most serious encounter between the two nations’ forces since Australia accused the Chinese destroyer CNS Ningbo of injuring Australian navy divers with sonar pulses in Japanese waters in November last year. Australia said China disregarded a safety warning to keep away from the Australian frigate HMAS Toowoomba.

China maintains that the encounter happened outside Japanese territorial waters and that the Chinese warship caused no harm.

Chinese President Xi Jinping plans to visit Australia this year for the first time in a decade as bilateral relations have improved in recent years from unprecedented lows.

After a participant in the historic Tiananmen Square protests entered a 2022 congressional race in New York City, a Chinese intelligence operative wasted little time enlisting a private investigator to hunt for any mistresses or tax problems that could upend the candidate's bid, prosecutors say.

"In the end," the operative ominously told his contact, "violence would be fine too."

As an Iranian journalist and activist living in exile in the United States aired criticism of Iran’s human rights abuses, Tehran was listening too. Members of an Eastern European organized crime gang scouted her Brooklyn home and plotted to kill her in a murder-for-hire scheme directed from Iran, according to the Justice Department, which foiled the plan and brought criminal charges.

POLITICO MOCKED FOR BEING SURPRISED ON WHO IS FUNDING ANTI-ISRAEL PROTESTS: 'SURPRISING TO WHO?'

The episodes reflect the extreme measures taken by countries like China and Iran to intimidate, harass and sometimes plot attacks against political opponents and activists who live in the U.S. They show the frightening consequences that geopolitical tensions can have for ordinary citizens as governments historically intolerant of dissent inside their own borders are increasingly keeping a threatening watch on those who speak out thousands of miles away.

"We’re not living in fear, we’re not living in paranoia, but the reality is very clear — that the Islamic Republic wants us dead, and we have to look over our shoulder every day," the Iranian journalist, Masih Alinejad, said in an interview.

The issue has grabbed the attention of the Justice Department, which has built cases against dozens of suspects. Senior FBI officials say the tactics have grown more sophisticated, with countries more willing to cross "serious red lines" from harassment into violence as they seek to project power abroad.

"This is a huge priority for us," said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the Justice Department's top national security official.

UNIVERSITIES CAVE TO ANTI-ISRAEL AGITATORS TO END OCCUPATIONS, WHILE SOME ALLOW ENCAMPMENTS TO CONTINUE

The trend is all the more worrisome because of an ever-deteriorating relationship with Iran and tensions with China over everything from trade and theft of intellectual property to election interference.

A leading culprit, officials and advocates say, has been China. The Chinese Embassy in Washington disputed that the country engages in the practice and said in a statement that the government "strictly abides by international law."

"We resolutely oppose ‘long-arm jurisdiction,'" the statement said.

Yet U.S. officials say China created a program to do exactly that, launching "Operation Fox Hunt" to track down Chinese expatriates wanted by Beijing, with a goal of coercing them into returning to face charges.

A former city government official in China living in New Jersey found a note in Chinese characters taped to his front door that said: "If you are willing to go back to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison your wife and children will be all right. That’s the end of this matter!" according to a 2020 Justice Department case charging a group of Chinese operatives and an American private investigator.

Though most defendants charged in transnational repression plots are based in their home country, making arrests and prosecutions rare, that particular case led to U.S. convictions of the private investigator and two Chinese citizens.

Bob Fu, a Chinese American Christian pastor whose organization, ChinaAid, advocates for religious freedom in China, said he has endured far-ranging harassment campaigns for years. Large crowds of demonstrators have amassed for days at a time outside his West Texas home in well-coordinated actions he believes can be linked to the Chinese government.

Phony hotel reservations have been made in his name, along with bogus bomb threats to police stating that he planned to detonate explosives. Flyers depicting him as the devil have been distributed to neighbors. He said he's learned to take precautions when he travels.

"I'm not really feeling safe," Fu told AP.

Wu Jianmin, a former student leader in China’s 1989 pro-democracy movement, was targeted in 2020 by a group of protesters outside his home in Irvine, California.

"They shouted slogans outside my home and made verbal abuses," he said. "They paraded in the neighborhood, distributed all sorts of pictures and flyers, and put them in the neighbors’ mailboxes."

Last year, the Justice Department charged about three dozen officers in China's national police force with using social media to target dissidents inside the U.S. and arrested two men who it says had helped establish a secret Chinese police outpost in Manhattan's Chinatown neighborhood.

The year before, federal prosecutors disclosed a series of wide-ranging plots to silence dissidents.

Besides the little-known and unsuccessful congressional candidate about whom China wanted to dig up dirt, other victims of harassment in the case included American figure skater Alysa Liu and her father, Arthur, a political refugee who prosecutors say was surveilled by a man who posed as an Olympics committee member and asked them for their passport information.

"We should be under no illusion that somehow these are rogue actors or people that are unaffiliated with the Chinese government," Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat and member of a special House committee on China, said of the Chinese operatives who have been charged.

Alinejad, the Iranian journalist, was targeted even before the Justice Department last year revealed the plot against her involving the organized crime proxies. Prosecutors in 2021 charged a group of Iranians said to be working at the behest of the country's intelligence services with planning to kidnap her.

She remains active as a journalist and activist and says she's determined to keep speaking out. But the details of the crime are chillingly etched in her mind, with the criminal cases laying bare the gravity of the threat.

The FBI disrupted the plot but also encouraged her to move, which she has done. But that also meant saying goodbye to her garden, which had brought her joy as she gave homegrown cucumbers and other vegetables to neighbors.

"They didn't kill me physically, but they killed my relationship with my garden, with my neighbors," she said.

The head of the United Nations' atomic watchdog traveled Monday to Iran, where his agency faces increasing difficulty in monitoring the Islamic Republic's rapidly advancing nuclear program as tensions remain high in the wider Middle East over the Israel-Hamas war.

Rafael Mariano Grossi already has warned Tehran has enough uranium enriched to near-weapons-grade levels to make "several" nuclear bombs if it chose to do so. He has acknowledged the agency can't guarantee that none of Iran's centrifuges may have been peeled away for clandestine enrichment.

Those challenges now find themselves entangled in attacks between Israel and Iran, with the city of Isfahan apparently coming under Israeli fire in recent weeks despite it being surrounded by sensitive nuclear sites. Grossi is likely to attend an Iranian nuclear conference there while on his two-day trip to Iran.

HEAD OF UNITED NATIONS CALLS FOR REPARATIONS TO 'OVERCOME GENERATIONS OF EXCLUSION AND DISCRIMINATION'

"Problems will not disappear," Grossi told an International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors' meeting in March. "They will only get worse. So, we need to address this in a serious way."

Iranian media said Grossi arrived to Tehran would meet with Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian on Monday afternoon. Grossi will travel to Isfahan on Tuesday before heading back to Vienna, where he plans to give an update to journalists there.

Tensions have grown between Iran and the IAEA since then-President Donald Trump in 2018 unilaterally withdraw America from Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers. Since then, Iran has abandoned all limits the deal put on its program and enriches uranium to 60% purity — near weapons-grade levels of 90%.

IAEA surveillance cameras have been disrupted, while Iran has barred some of the agency’s most experienced inspectors.

IRAN'S NUCLEAR ACTIVITIES RAISE CONCERNS AS UN WATCHDOG WARNS OF LACK OF TRANSPARENCY

Meanwhile, Iranian officials have increasingly threatened they could pursue atomic weapons.

"For us, making the atomic bomb is easier than not building atomic bomb," said Mahmoud Reza Aghamiri, the chancellor of Tehran Shahid Beheshti University and a specialist in nuclear physics.

Iranian media quoted Aghamiri acknowledging Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had previously said making an atomic bomb is forbidden.

"But if his fatwa and viewpoint is changed, we have ability to build atomic bomb, too," Aghamiri added.

Aghamiri's comments follow a drumroll of others by Iranian lawmakers, those in its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard and a former head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran suggesting Tehran could build the bomb.

Iranian diplomats for years have pointed to Khamenei’s preachings as a binding fatwa, or religious edict, that Iran wouldn’t build an atomic bomb.

"We do not need nuclear bombs. We have no intention of using a nuclear bomb," Khamenei said in a November 2006 speech, according to a transcript from his office. "We do not claim to dominate the world, like the Americans, we do not want to dominate the world by force and need a nuclear bomb. Our nuclear bomb and explosive power is our faith."

But such edicts aren’t written in stone. Khamenei’s predecessor, Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, issued fatwas that revised his own earlier pronouncements after he took power following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And anyone who would follow the 85-year-old Khamenei as the country’s supreme leader could make his own fatwas revising those previously issued.

Meanwhile, tensions between Iran and Israel have hit a new high. Tehran launched an unprecedented drone-and-missile attack on Israel after years of a shadow war between the two countries reached a climax with Israel's apparent attack on an Iranian consular building in Syria killed two Iranian generals and others.

Israel's own nuclear weapons program, widely known by experts though never acknowledged by the country, didn't deter Iran's assault. And now experts increasingly suggest Iran could pursue the bomb itself after a major attack on it.

"With a tiny open attack on Iranian soil by the U.S. and Israel, I believe Iran will conduct its first atomic test," analyst Saeed Leilaz said in April.

Israel is preparing to launch what is expected to be a massive ground operation inside Rafah, a city in southern Gaza where some 1.5 million Palestinians have taken shelter. The Israeli army has begun ordering tens of thousands of Palestinians living in the city to evacuate.

On Monday, Israel’s Defense Forces ordered an evacuation of Rafah, signaling that a long-promised ground operation could be imminent. The Israeli army has described Rafah as the last significant Hamas stronghold after seven months of war, and its leaders have repeatedly said clearing Rafah is necessary to defeat the Islamic militant group.

Overnight, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin that Israel was left with no choice but to act in Rafah after Hamas terrorists carried out a deadly rocket attack from Rafah earlier in the day that left four Israeli soldiers dead.

A potential ground operation comes as last-ditch efforts by international mediators, including the CIA, to broker a cease-fire have failed to produce a deal.

BIDEN ADMINISTRATION PUTS HOLD ON US AMMUNITION SHIPMENT TO ISRAEL: REPORT

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to carry out a military operation in Rafah. According to Israel’s army, forces are beginning with a "limited scope operation."

Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesman, said some 100,000 people were being ordered to move to a nearby Israel-declared humanitarian zone called Muwasi. He said Israel published a map of the evacuation area.

BIDEN ADMIN ACCUSES ISRAELI MILITARY OF HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN STUNNING CONDEMNATION

These orders have been issued through air-dropped leaflets, text messages and radio broadcasts so that Palestinians could get the information.

"Anyone found near (militant) organizations endangers themselves and their family members. For your safety, the (army) urges you to evacuate immediately to the expanded humanitarian area," one flyer read.

He said Israel has expanded humanitarian aid into Muwasi, including field hospitals, tents, food and water.

Israel's army said on the social media platform X that it would act with "extreme force" against Hamas terrorists, and urged the population to evacuate immediately for their safety.

The move also comes as the Biden administration reportedly put a hold on a shipment of U.S.-manufactured ammunition to Israel for the first time since the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack.

Two Israeli officials told Axios that the weapons shipment was stopped last week, leaving officials within the Israeli government scrambling to understand why.

About 1.5 million Palestinians – more than half of Gaza's population – are sheltering in Rafah, as they have been forced to evacuate other areas in the Gaza Strip, amid Israel’s ongoing war with Hamas.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.