By Francesca Hangeior

The United States President Donald Trump on Tuesday called for the impeachment of a judge who ordered the suspension of deportation flights of alleged Venezuelan gang members, in one of his most direct attacks to date on the judiciary.

“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, the platform he owns.

By Francesca Hangeior

Israel vowed on Tuesday to continue fighting in Gaza until the return of all hostages as it unleashed its most intense strikes since a ceasefire, with the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory reporting more than 330 people killed.

Hamas accused Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of deciding to “resume war” after an impasse in truce negotiations, and warned that the return to fighting could be a “death sentence” for hostages still alive in Gaza.

The strikes were by far the biggest and deadliest since a truce took effect on January 19. Hamas has not responded to the strikes so far.

Netanyahu warned Hamas this month of consequences it “cannot imagine” if it does not free hostages still in Gaza, and Israeli media said Israel had drafted plans to ramp up pressure on Hamas under a scheme dubbed the “Hell Plan”.

The White House said Israel consulted US President Donald Trump’s administration before launching the wave of strikes, which the health ministry in Gaza said killed mostly women and children.

Netanyahu’s office said the operation was ordered after “Hamas’s repeated refusal to release our hostages, as well as its rejection of all of the proposals it has received from US Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and from the mediators”.

“Israel will, from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength,” the statement said.

“We will not stop fighting as long as the hostages are not returned home and all our war aims are not achieved,” Defence Minister Israel Katz said.

Apart from the release of the remaining hostages, Israel’s other main war aim is to crush Hamas.

In a statement, Hamas said: “Netanyahu and his extremist government have decided to overturn the ceasefire agreement.

“Netanyahu’s decision to resume war is a decision to sacrifice the occupation’s prisoners and impose a death sentence on them,” it said.

A Hamas official said the group was “working with mediators” to stop the strikes, adding that the movement had “adhered to the ceasefire”.

In Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, AFP footage showed people rushing stretchers with wounded people, including young children, to the Nasser Hospital. Bodies covered with white sheets were also taken to the hospital’s mortuary.

Mohammed Jarghoun, 36, was sleeping in a tent near his destroyed house in Khan Yunis when he was woken by huge blasts.

“I thought they were dreams and nightmares, but I saw a fire in my relatives’ house. More than 20 martyrs and wounded, most of them children and women.”

Ramez Alammarin, 25, described carrying children to hospital southeast of Gaza City.

“They unleashed the fire of hell again on Gaza,” he said of Israel, adding that “bodies and limbs are on the ground, and the wounded cannot find any doctor to treat them.

“They bombed a building in the area and there are still martyrs and wounded under the rubble… fear and terror. Death is better than life.”

Families of Israeli hostages in Gaza pleaded with Netanyahu to “stop the killing and disappearance” of their loved ones, and called for a protest in front of the premier’s residence.

Brokered by Qatar, Egypt and the United States, the initial phase of the ceasefire took effect on January 19, largely halting more than 15 months of fighting in Gaza triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.

That first phase ended in early March, and the two sides have been unable to agree on the next steps.

Mohammed Zaqut, head of the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, said “at least 330 deaths” had been recorded, “most of them Palestinian women and children”.

He said there were “hundreds of wounded, dozens of them in critical condition”.

By Francesca Hangeior

Thousands of people in central Ukraine were left without electricity on Tuesday following a countrywide Russian attack involving more than 130 drones that damaged critical infrastructure.

Kyiv and Moscow have recently escalated cross-border drone and missile attacks despite a US-led proposal for a 30-day ceasefire to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, which the Kremlin claims as part of Russia, said around 3,000 people were cut off from the grid following the attack, which he said damaged critical infrastructure.

The governor of the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region, on which Russian forces have been closing in, said the barrage resulted in a fire at another critical infrastructure facility.

In Kyiv, authorities said the debris from a downed Russian drone landed in the courtyard of a school at the beginning of the school day. Pupils were in shelters at the time of the attack, they added.

The Ukrainian air force said it had downed 63 out of 137 Russian drones.

Russia’s defence ministry meanwhile said that 46 Ukrainian drones used in overnight attacks had been neutralised.

The strikes, which targeted several regions of Russia, wounded six people, according to local authorities.

The attacks came shortly before Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump were due to hold talks on a potential ceasefire to the fighting in Ukraine.

Russia’s forces occupy swathes of its neighbour’s territory.

The 46 Ukrainian drones were “destroyed or intercepted” over the regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk near the Ukraine border, as well as over Orlov, the ministry said.

In the city of Belgorod, a man was seriously wounded by falling drone debris, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

Five people were wounded in Kursk when drones struck near a truck transporting bread, interim governor Alexander Khinstein posted on Telegram.