Case of Osama Najim puts spotlight on controversial migration pact between Italy and Libya

Giorgia Meloni’s government is under pressure to clarify why a Rome court refused to approve the arrest of a Libyan general accused of war crimes, allowing him to return home to a hero’s welcome on an Italian secret services flight in what critics believe was a tactic to shield alleged abuses committed in the north African country as a result of a migrant pact with Italy.

Osama Najim, also known as Almasri, was detained in Turin on Sunday on a warrant issued by the international criminal court (ICC) before being freed on Tuesday owing to a procedural technicality.

Mohammad Javad Zarif says he hopes new Trump administration will be more serious, focused and realistic

A senior Iranian politician has appealed to Donald Trump to begin new negotiations with Tehran over its civil nuclear programme, saying: “I hope that this time around, [Trump 2.0] will be more serious, more focused, more realistic.”

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s vice-president for strategic affairs, pointed out that the returning US president had not reappointed figures from his first term such as the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, who persuaded him in 2018 to quit the nuclear deal on the basis that withdrawal would lead to the regime’s collapse.

Israel defence minister calls Jenin siege ‘shift in … security strategy’, as Palestinian Red Crescent says ambulances cannot reach dead and wounded

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Israeli forces have besieged a Palestinian government hospital in Jenin and a nearby refugee camp in the heart of the city, as the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said the assault marked “a shift in … security strategy” in the West Bank.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday they had carried out airstrikes in Jenin as well as detonating roadside explosive devices. The Palestinian health ministry said at least 10 people had been killed in Jenin, and more than 40 wounded.

Commonwealth War Graves Commission begins project to honour those who, unlike white counterparts, were never commemorated

Elliot Malunga Delihlazo’s grandmother would say that her brother Bhesengile went to war and never came back. The family knew he had died in the first world war, but they never had a body to bury, only a memorial stone in the rural family homestead in Nkondlo in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province.

Now the Delihlazos know that Bhesengile died on 21 January 1917 of malaria in Kilwa, Tanzania, more than 2,000 miles from home. He was a driver in the British empire’s military labour corps, but was never given a war grave.

The Iraqi parliament has passed a ‘terrifying’ law permitting children as young as nine to marry

Iraqi MPs and women’s rights groups have reacted with horror to the Iraqi parliament passing a law permitting children as young as nine years old to marry, with activists saying it will “legalise child rape”.

Under the new law, which was agreed yesterday, religious authorities have been given the power to decide on family affairs, including marriage, divorce and the care of children. It abolishes a previous ban on the marriage of children under the age of 18 in place since the 1950s.

The maritime group, founded in 1760 by merchants and underwriters, issued the apology after commissioning research into its links to slavery

Lloyd’s Register, the maritime and industrial group owned by one of Britain’s biggest charities, has apologised for its role in the trafficking of enslaved African people but has been criticised for not going far enough.

Founded in 1760 as the Society for the Registry of Shipping by merchants and underwriters who met at Edward Lloyd’s coffee house in Lombard Street in London, the company provided classification for ships.

Proponents of the amendments – described by activists as ‘disastrous’ – say they align with Islamic principles

Iraq’s parliament has passed amendments to the country’s personal status law that opponents say would in effect legalise child marriage.

The amendments give Islamic courts increased authority over family matters, including marriage, divorce and inheritance. Activists argue that this undermines Iraq’s 1959 Personal Status Law, which unified family law and established safeguards for women.

Wiwwaeo Sriaoun, whose son Watchara is one of six Thais held by Hamas, says ceasefire deal has given her more hope

• Middle East crisis – live updates

The mother of a Thai man held in Gaza has pleaded for her son to be freed, saying the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas that will allow for the gradual release of hostages had given her greater hope.

Wiwwaeo Sriaoun’s son Watchara was one of dozens of Thai workers kidnapped from the farms on which they were working in southern Israel on 7 October 2023. Six are still being held in Gaza.

Communication lines open 24 hours intended to avoid breakdown over reported violations and other issues

Qatari, US and Egyptian negotiators are running a communications hub in Cairo to protect the ceasefire in Gaza, as Donald Trump said he was not confident the break in fighting would hold.

Violations have already been reported. Medics in Gaza said on Monday that eight people had been hit by Israeli fire. The start of the ceasefire was also delayed when Hamas did not provide the names of hostages to be released.

Osama Najim was arrested amid claims he used detained migrants in ‘a form of slavery’, but then freed after after a mistake by prosecutors

A Libyan general wanted for alleged war crimes and violence against inmates at a prison near Tripoli has been arrested in the northern Italian city of Turin – and then released after an apparent mistake by prosecutors.

Osama Najim, also known as Almasri, was detained on Sunday on an international arrest warrant after a tipoff from Interpol, a source at the prosecutors office for the Piedmont region confirmed.

Neighbouring Rwanda reported 15 deaths and 66 cases in last year’s outbreak of Marburg

Cheaper foodstuffs and being able to go out without fear of death or mutilation bring relief but conditions remain dire

On the first morning of the first day after the ceasefire, the market of Asdaa camp, a sprawling area of tents and makeshift shelters on the central Gaza coast, was busy.

Some shoppers had come because prices of the small range of basic necessities available had dropped since the ceasefire was declared, making once prohibitively expensive items just about affordable.

Police were widely condemned for the months-long operation in which they cut off food and water supplies to the miners

A new Syria is emerging from the shadow of the brutal Assad regime. The Guardian’s Bethan McKernan and Ayman Abu Ramouz meet people celebrating their hard-won freedom, but also those grappling with a traumatic past. The pair travel to the notorious Sednaya prison, where they meet a former prisoner who was liberated by his family just days before

• Resistance was not a choice’: how Syria’s unlikely rebel alliance took Aleppo

• 'The Syrian regime hit us with chemical weapons: only now can we speak out' – video

• Syria’s disappeared: one woman’s search for her missing father

A Guardian investigation has found that Israel used a US munition to target and kill three journalists and wound three more in an attack in south Lebanon on 25 October that legal experts have called a potential war crime. The Guardian's reporter William Christou explains what he uncovered when he visited the site of the strike

• Read more about the investigation

Syrian airforce helicopters dropped two cylinders of chlorine gas onto the town of Douma on 7 April 2018. At least 43 people choked to death. For six years, afraid of reprisals, the town has grieved in silence for loved ones lost to chemical attacks and countless others killed by conventional weapons.

But after an astonishing and rapid offensive by rebel forces led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), more than 50 years of Assad family rule collapsed last week, and the residents of Douma are finally free to tell their stories. The Guardian’s Bethan McKernan travelled to the town to listen to them

• Middle East crisis - live updates

• US urges Syrian rebels to form ‘inclusive’ government

• American found in Damascus appears to have been released from Syrian prison

Syrians returned to a mausoleum in Qardaha near Latakia that housed the remains of Hafez al-Assad, who seized control of Syria in 1970. A day after the remains of the former leader were burned by armed Islamist rebels, people fired bullets into the building and visited the charred remains. Assad ruled over Syria until 2000 in what has been described as one of the most oppressive police states in the Middle East. His son, Bashar al-Assad, was ousted and fled the country after rebels captured the capital after a lightning advance completed in just under two weeks

• Middle East crisis live: American freed in Syria after seven months in detention; Iran warns it must live with ‘new realities’

• US urges Syrian rebels to form ‘inclusive’ government

• American found in Damascus appears to have been released from Syrian prison

For years, fighters and displaced people in the north-west of Syria were unable to return home to government-held territories. Thousands were greeted with teary embraces and celebratory gunfire as they reunited with their families in Damascus in its surrounding countryside.

• ‘This is a happy day’: Syrian rebels return home to reunite with family and rebuild

• Who are the main actors in the fall of the regime in Syria?

• Inside the hunt for hidden cells in Sednaya prison, Syria’s ‘human slaughterhouse’