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Nato ‘very disappointing’, says Trump, in fresh attack ahead of Rutte speech – Europe live

… and on that note, it’s a wrap for today! US president Donald Trump has doubled down on his criticism of Nato saying it was “very disappointing” in another critical social media post on the alliance, just a day after meeting with Nato’s secretary general Mark Rutte (15:13). Rutte is about to deliver a speech in Washington this afternoon, with further live coverage over on the Middle East blog. But Trump’s criticisms prompted mixed reactions across Europe, with German chancellor Friedrich Merz warning against “a split in Nato” and offering help with securing the strait of Hormuz (16:28). But Czech president Petr Pavel warned that Donald Trump’s recent comments questioning the role of Nato have damaged the alliance’s credibility more than anything the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has done in several years (13:33). Separately, The European Commission has demanded an urgent explanation from Hungary after another leaked phone call between foreign minister Péter Szijjártó and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, reignited concerns over Budapest’s relationship with the Kremlin (11:08, 12:55). The French foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, accused Hungary of “betrayal of the solidarity required between countries of the European Union” (11:08). The controversy comes just three days before the key parliamentary election in Hungary, with polls suggesting the opposition Tisza party could have a chance of ousting Viktor Orbán after 16 years in power (14:25, 15:54). On that note, hopefully I will see you from Budapest tomorrow as we enter the final days of the Hungarian campaign ahead of the big vote on Sunday and will be on the ground to bring you the latest. If you have any tips, comments or suggestions, email me at jakub.krupa@theguardian.com. I am also on Bluesky at @jakubkrupa.bsky.social and on X at @jakubkrupa.

Israel’s bombing of Lebanon after US-Iran ceasefire prompts condemnation

Israel’s devastating bombardment of Lebanon in the hours after a US-Iranian ceasefire was announced has been widely condemned amid global efforts to salvage the truce. More than 200 people were killed by Israeli bombing, including strikes with heavy munitions on densely populated areas, which drew outrage from the International Committee of the Red Cross and other international humanitarian organisations. Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Lebanon was not included in the Tuesday night ceasefire agreed by Donald Trump, and vowed the Israeli military would continue to strike Hezbollah targets “wherever necessary”. The Israeli prime minister said his forces had killed the secretary to Hezbollah’s leader, Naim Qassem. The US vice-president, JD Vance, backed Netanyahu, claiming the US had never agreed to the inclusion of Lebanon in the truce. “I think this comes from a legitimate misunderstanding,” Vance said. He is expected to lead a US delegation to Pakistan for talks on Saturday to try to salvage the ceasefire and turn it into a more durable peace agreement. However, Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said that further Israeli strikes on Lebanon would render negotiations “meaningless”. Iran would not abandon the Lebanese people, he said. Pakistan, which led the efforts to broker a ceasefire after Trump threatened a civilisation-ending onslaught, has said Lebanon had been part of the agreement. Robert Malley, a former American envoy who led earlier US-Iranian negotiations, said: “I would trust the Pakistani mediator that Lebanon was included. They put out a statement that it was included and we did not hear any American correct the Pakistani version for many hours. “It looks like a case of the US reneging and giving the Israeli prime minister [permission] to go ahead [with bombing] for another 24 hours before they are ‘restrained’”. Malley said the best-case scenario for peace talks in Pakistan was that the region was returned to the status quo before the US-Israeli attacks began on 28 February, with the strait of Hormuz open, and options for limiting Iran’s nuclear programme on the table along with some form of financial compensation for Tehran. Authorities in Islamabad began implementing strict security measures in anticipation of the arrival of delegations for talks, expected to begin on Saturday. As the future of the ceasefire looked in peril, Trump issued his latest ultimatum on social media, vowing a return to US attacks (as he put it, the “Shootin’ Starts”) if Iran failed to comply with “the real agreement”. He made clear that Tehran had to reopen the strait of Hormuz fully to international shipping, and that it should have “no nuclear weapons”. He did not mention Lebanon. US allies have insisted the ceasefire should be comprehensive. A joint statement by the UK, EU countries, Canada and Japan called on “all sides to implement the ceasefire, including in Lebanon”, where Israel is seeking to destroy the Iranian-backed Hezbollah movement. Kaja Kallas, the EU foreign policy chief, said on Thursday: “Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the war, but Israel’s right to defend itself does not justify inflicting such massive destruction. “Israeli strikes killed hundreds last night, making it hard to argue that such heavy-handed actions fall within self-defence.” France’s foreign minister, Jean-Noël Barrot, condemned the Israeli strikes as “unacceptable” and his British counterpart, Yvette Cooper, described them as “deeply damaging”, adding that failure to include Lebanon in the ceasefire would “destabilise the whole region”. Diplomatic efforts worldwide have focused on reopening the strait of Hormuz, the gateway to a fifth of the global flow of oil and liquefied natural gas. Only 11 ships – four Iranian, four Greek, one Chinese, one Omani and one unknown – were allowed to pass through the Hormuz strait in the 24 hours after the ceasefire, less than a tenth of the prewar flow. About 1,400 ships remain anchored in the Gulf, trapped first by the war then the uncertainty that has accompanied the vague and shaky truce. After an initial plunge in the global oil price following the announcement of the ceasefire, it began to creep up again towards $100 a barrel on Thursday.

Did Israel attack Lebanon to spoil Iran war ceasefire?

What was the point of Israel’s surprise mass strikes on Lebanon that killed more than 200 people and drew widespread international condemnation? Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other officials have claimed the largest strike against Hezbollah during the month-long war against Iran was carefully aimed at members of the armed group, but the attacks appeared to be as much a piece of violent spectacle to benefit Netanyahu as militarily useful. Others have speculated that the attack – without warning and initially hitting more than 100 targets in 10 minutes including in densely populated residential areas in central Beirut – was aimed at undermining the US-Iran ceasefire that many see as being imposed on an unhappy Netanyahu. The version being briefed in the Israeli media is that Hezbollah had sought to move command posts to civilian areas outside its historical centres, such as the sprawling Dahieh suburb, to better conceal and protect them – a claim Israel has previously made about Hamas in Gaza. But the huge scale of the attack, combined with the lack of the warning and the details of some of those killed – including the Hezbollah secretary general Naim Qassem’s nephew and personal adviser Ali Yusuf Harshi – could point to something more ambitious: a failed attempt to kill Qassem himself. His predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah, was assassinated by Israel in 2024. What is clear is that in the half-baked ceasefire negotiations conducted by Donald Trump and his coterie of amateur diplomats, the question of Israel’s war in Lebanon against a proxy of Tehran has – deliberately or not – been left ticking like a timebomb. The Israeli strikes came despite the fact that Hezbollah had said it had been “notified of a ceasefire” and had been “committed to it since this morning”, according to Lebanese political sources. By Thursday, Hezbollah and Israel were trading heavy fire again. Netanyahu’s justification for such a horrific attack on civilian centres hours after the ceasefire had been announced appeared thin at least. His boasts about killing an aide to Qassem and his insistence of Israel’s right to continuing striking in Lebanon suggested to some that it was an attempt to act as a spoiler in a ceasefire he had argued against. Instead, Israeli officials – despite believing that the wider ceasefire may collapse – appear to believe that they have at least two weeks to continue operations in Lebanon as talks between Iran and the US are due to continue. The irony not lost on observers is that it is Israel’s continued fighting that could collapse a deal, with senior Iranian figures warning of a response against Israel on Thursday. The president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said the Israeli strikes on Lebanon violated the ceasefire agreement and would render negotiations meaningless. The Soufan Center thinktank in New York said: “Even if Lebanon was formally outside the deal, the scale of Israel’s strikes was likely to be viewed as escalatory, nonetheless. Israel’s strikes can be understood both as an effort to drive a wedge between Iran and its proxies and as a response to being allegedly sidelined in the original ceasefire discussions.” In its newsletter, the thinktank added: “The Wall Street Journal reported that Israel was informed of the deal only at the last minute and ‘wasn’t happy’. Netanyahu now seems determined to pursue a scorched earth policy in Lebanon, even if – or perhaps especially because – it might scuttle the ceasefire deal. “At the same time, Iran is likely seeking to exploit and widen any existing tensions between the United States and Israel in an effort to divide the two allies.” For Marion Messmer, the director of the international security programme at Chatham House, Israel’s strikes on Lebanon point to a deeper issue: Washington’s difficulty in managing its relationship with Israel, its ally in the war against Iran. In a briefing, Messmer wrote: “Israel’s insistence that its military action in Lebanon is not part of the agreement reveals a key vulnerability and shows the limits of the US ability to manage its allies: the ongoing bombing campaigns in Lebanon could undermine the ceasefire overall and keep the US trapped in a conflict it is now seeking to exit. “After weeks of President Trump being furious with European allies for not sufficiently supporting the US, it now appears to be the alliance relationship with Israel that provides more of a risk to US interests in the Middle East.” Underlining questions about the purpose and timing of Wednesday’s strikes are claims that the Israel Defense Forces’ own assessment is that – despite Israel’s latest invasion into southern Lebanon and its bombing campaign – disarming or defeating Hezbollah is unrealistic.

‘Am I going to die?’: more women join challenge to Arkansas abortion ban

Leitaea Lowrimore had hallmark symptoms of a dangerous ectopic pregnancy in February: vaginal bleeding, sharp pain, low hormone levels and no visible embryo on a uterine ultrasound. The 28-year-old mother and former nursing assistant was stunned when an Arkansas emergency room doctor said he wanted to discharge her, as ectopic pregnancies – or when an embryo implants somewhere other than the uterine lining – are never viable and can be life-threatening. She and her husband refused because they lived 45 minutes away in rural Oklahoma. The doctor agreed to admit her for monitoring, eventually saying that her pregnancy was probably ectopic, but if he treated her now, “he could do 10 years in prison”, Lowrimore said. This doctor was far from the only one to deny Lowrimore medical care: over the course of a week, a total of three emergency rooms in two states – Arkansas and Oklahoma, which also bans abortion – either denied her screenings or discharged her. Lowrimore felt defeated and exhausted, thinking no one would help her. But at the urging of her husband, they got in the car with their one-year-old daughter and mother-in-law and drove three hours north to Wichita, Kansas, where a hospital finally gave her two injections of the drug methotrexate, the standard of care. When her legs started to go numb during the drive, she turned to her husband and asked: “Am I going to die? Am I going to make it home?” She knows now, about two months later, that death was a real possibility. She’s terrified of what could happen if she gets pregnant again. On Thursday, Lowrimore and one other woman who was denied an abortion joined an ongoing lawsuit that seeks to overturn Arkansas’s near-total ban. The suit argues that the law violates the state constitution’s guarantee that people have the right to life, liberty, equality and the pursuit of happiness. The other new plaintiff, Kishaya Holloway, said she did not want to have children and left before dawn to travel to get an abortion out of state. The 31-year-old artist living in north-west Arkansas called abortion clinics in multiple states before getting an appointment in Kansas. She and her partner had to make the trip in a single day because they couldn’t afford staying overnight, even after getting financial assistance from the clinic and multiple abortion funds, including help to cover the cost of gas. The case was filed by Amplify Legal, the litigation arm of Abortion in America, a reproductive rights group that shares stories of abortion patients and was co-founded by the late Cecile Richards, a former Planned Parenthood president. “My autonomy was threatened. It felt like I was being forced to live in a way that I didn’t want to live,” Holloway said, who noted that she joined the lawsuit to protect other people in the state, including her younger sister. The existing plaintiffs are an OB-GYN and four women who were denied abortions in Arkansas, three after their pregnancies had effectively ended and one who became pregnant from sexual assault. The ban doesn’t permit abortions in the cases of rape. Two of the women traveled to Illinois to get abortions, one was transported via ambulance to a Kansas hospital for labor induction and another was forced to continue her pregnancy and experienced a stillbirth. Lowrimore and Holloway were denied abortions just days after the original lawsuit was filed. Dozens of women have said they were denied medically necessary abortions under state bans that proliferated after the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade. Many of those women joined lawsuits against states including Texas, Tennessee and Idaho, where lawmakers say their bans are supposed to allow people to get abortions in emergencies. Doctors and patients have found these exceptions unworkable in practice. Past cases involving patient plaintiffs sought to clarify exceptions in the bans, not to overturn the laws outright as this newest lawsuit is seeking. Molly Duane, the litigation director of Amplify Legal, said her experience challenging medical exceptions to abortion bans since the Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision has shown that conservative-led states aren’t interested in compromise. “There was a part of me at the beginning that thought: ‘Surely there are some [health] conditions we could all agree on,’” Duane said. “Frankly, they don’t care if their citizens suffer or even die.” The organization is pursuing a different strategy of using state constitutional language on liberty to strike down abortion bans in their entirety. The promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness appears in the US Declaration of Independence, but not the US constitution. However, it’s codified in multiple state constitutions, including those of Arkansas, Kansas and Oklahoma. Those protections mean a broader range of plaintiffs can sue the state. Duane said this was the first lawsuit since Dobbs that brings together plaintiffs who illustrate the ways that abortion bans harm people, including women who experience obstetrical emergencies, fatal fetal conditions, ectopic pregnancies, sexual assault and simply being pregnant against their will. “It shows through very visceral and real individual stories of real people who have been harmed by these bans,” she said. Lowrimore said she wanted to sue to help other women. Her story can “voice what’s truly going on behind closed doors and how the laws are affecting pregnant women,” she said. The Kansas supreme court ruled in 2019 that the constitution’s liberty language protects the right to abortion. That ruling is why abortion is still legal in the state, which allowed three of Duane’s clients to get the care they needed there. Duane declined to comment about potential future litigation challenging Oklahoma’s abortion ban on liberty grounds. Amplify Legal also filed a complaint with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on behalf of Lowrimore arguing that, by failing to treat her ectopic pregnancy, three hospitals violated a federal law. The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (Emtala) requires hospitals to stabilize patients experiencing medical emergencies, but the Trump administration has rejected the longstanding interpretation that hospitals must provide emergency abortions to protect patients’ health. It’s not clear whether Trump’s CMS will side with her clients, but Duane said it was still important to put the health systems on notice. “The hospitals that turned Leitaea away need to take a hard look at their policies,” Duane said. “No one’s hands are clean. Everyone who has the ability to protect patients needs to be doing absolutely everything that they can to do so, even when they feel their hands are tied behind their back.”

The deadliest 10 minutes in decades: Lebanese reel from Israeli strikes that killed hundreds

It took Israel only 10 minutes to carry out one of the worst mass-killings in Lebanon since the end of the country’s civil war in 1990. Omar Rakha heard the war planes but did not feel the explosions; it was only when he woke up face down on the street, bleeding, that he understood what had happened: the building next to his in the Barbour neighbourhood of central Beirut had been destroyed by two Israeli bombs. He then ran through the flaming wreckage to find his sister, screaming. Shaden Fakih, a 24-year-old calisthenics trainer, also ran towards the impact site; his friend Mahmoud was inside the struck building. He could only get so close; the multistorey building was a pile of burning rubble. Fakih began to pull people out of the apartments in front of the site, carrying in his arms an old woman who could not walk. There was no sign of Mahmoud and the neighbourhood – once thought to be safe from Israeli bombs – felt like a war zone. Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was in the emergency room when the casualties began to arrive. Among the wounded were children pulled from under the rubble; many arrived alone, without parents, their identities unknown. “The youngest was an 11-month-old. I had to operate on him just to relieve some pressure in the head,” said Abu-Sittah, who works as a surgeon at the American University of Beirut Medical College (AUBMC). The flood of wounded came after Israel bombed more than 100 targets across Lebanon in those 10 minutes on Wednesday, killing at least 254 people and wounding 1,165, according to an initial count by Lebanon’s civil defence. The death toll, which was expected to rise as more bodies were found, was higher than Beirut’s 2020 port explosion – one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in human history. The Israeli military said it had hit Hezbollah “command and control centres” in the bombing campaign, which it dubbed “Operation Eternal Darkness”. But residents and Lebanese officials said the strikes, which used 1,000lb bombs in densely packed residential areas of Beirut, mainly killed civilians. Lebanon’s prime minister, Nawaf Salam, accused Israel in a statement of targeting “densely populated residential neighbourhoods” and killing unarmed civilians in breach of international law. Abu-Sittah said most of the people were wounded in a very short period of time, which was “intentional to flood the health system”, and he compared the aftermath to the mass casualty events he saw while working in Gaza. The AUBMC received about 70 wounded people all at once; many critically injured, according to Dr Firass Abiad, a surgeon and Lebanon’s former health minister. Crush injuries, lots of elderly people, a woman who had to have both her legs amputated – Abiad rattled off the toll of the day in a tired voice. “There was a 90-year-old who I just left a bit ago. He passed away from his wounds … There was nothing we could do,” Abiad said. “These are civilians who, without any warning, their whole apartment building was flattened. So you can imagine the severity of injuries that we’re getting.” First responders in Barbour worked to find people trapped under the rubble. Firefighters sprayed water on the smouldering remains of the building while forklifts lifted crumpled cars to clear the road for ambulances. An emergency worker on the scene said they had not yet found any survivors, only pieces of people. A man FaceTimed his son, showing him a crumpled car. “You said it was a Volkswagen?” he said, haplessly looking at the crowd around him as he inspected the car. Its badge had been blown off the bumper and the twisted metal left the car unrecognisable. Rakha watched as the civil defence worked. “I really didn’t think something like this would happen here. Nothing like this happened in the last war [and] because of that all of the refugees came here for safety,” the 38-year-old supermarket owner said, his head wrapped in a blood-stained bandage. Barbour, like many of the areas in Beirut that Israel struck on Wednesday, is a mixed neighbourhood where Hezbollah enjoys little support. As more than 1.1 million people were displaced by Israeli bombing over the last month, schools in Barbour opened their doors to shelter the fleeing families. The neighbourhood had not previously been considered within the scope of Israel’s war in Lebanon. But Israel’s military suggested on Wednesday that such areas had now become targets, claiming they had been infiltrated by Hezbollah fighters. Israel’s Arabic language spokesperson Avichay Adraee said on Wednesday: “Recently, the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] observed the terrorist group Hezbollah began leaving the Shiite strongholds in the suburbs and repositioning itself towards northern Beirut and the mixed areas of the city.” He vowed that Israel would “continue to pursue” Hezbollah fighters wherever they might be located. The Israeli military’s statements and bombing erased any hope that the ceasefire with Iran might also halt the war in Lebanon. The war, which started after Hezbollah launched rockets at Israel on 2 March prompting an Israeli bombing campaign and invasion of Lebanon, has left around 1,800 people dead and 5,873 wounded in Lebanon. Barbour’s residents rejected Israel’s explanation of its attacks, saying the strikes were driving even Hezbollah’s critics towards the group. Fakih said: “It’s getting ridiculous. There’s no Hezbollah here, the Israelis are just getting happy when they bomb people, it’s not about Hezbollah. “Just stop bombing us. If you want to kill Hezbollah, go for it, but don’t kill civilians, because you’re creating anger in us against Israel and we will have to act like Hezbollah just to defend our country. But I don’t want to do that, I just want to live in peace.” As night fell, people began to take stock of the dizzying, bloody day. Pictures of dust-covered babies pulled out from under rubble circulated on WhatsApp groups as people searched for their relatives. People shared a selfie of a smiling elderly couple, Mohammed and Khatoun Karshat, desperately asking if anyone had seen them after they went missing in one of the strikes. Their bodies were found under the rubble late in the night, and people kept sharing their selfie, now in memoriam. Fakih lingered by the impact site in Barbour as rescuers worked. It had been hours and he had not heard from his friend Mahmoud; his calls went to voicemail. “It’s been the worst day since the war started,” Fakih said. “And what I’m most sad about is that my pretty Lebanon, our beautiful Lebanon, soon it will all be brought down to the ground.”

Cost of living and mental health crisis driving mass animal rescues, says RSPCA

The cost of living crisis and an increase in people experiencing mental health difficulties have led to a rising number of multi-animal rescues in England and Wales, an RSPCA superintendent has said. The animal charity this week had to confirm that a shocking photograph of more than 250 poodle-cross dogs found at a property in the UK was not faked with artificial intelligence. The RSPCA took in 87 of the dogs and the remainder went to the Dogs Trust, another charity. Superintendent Jo Hirst believes the charity has seen an increase in the number of pets being abandoned as people cannot afford their vaccinations or medical care, or find people to re-home accidental litters. “People abandon animals because of the financial crisis we are all in,” she said. “Sometimes people take them on because they care and then they become overwhelmed, but that whole issue of not being able to say no starts its own problems.” She added: “It costs money to neuter your animals, they breed and they have to take the litter as they can’t re-home them, it becomes out of control very quickly.”A recent case involved the rescue of more than 450 animals from appalling conditions, including approximately 70 horses and donkeys. Barns and enclosures were knee-deep in faeces, with rotting, mouldy forage underfoot. Mares had been left to mix with stallions, leaving many pregnant and adding to the growing numbers of horses. Another involved more than 30 alpacas that were recently re-homed in the Midlands when the owners were struggling to care for them. Earlier this month, 25 Scottish Fold cats were rescued from a caravan in south London. In December, the RSPCA assisted Devon and Cornwall police by removing more than 100 cats, a dog and a tortoise from a three-bedroom house. Hirst said mental health was a factor. “We are finding a lot of people in crisis sometimes because of their finances, but their mental crisis means they become overwhelmed, can’t see the issues and don’t know where to reach out for help,” she said. The RSPCA has reported a six-year high of animals in its care, with almost half in emergency boarding because centres are full. Last year alone, it responded to 75 large-scale incidents involving 100 or more animals being rescued from the same property. There were 1,752 mass cat incidents and 1,119 mass dog reports. RSPCA investigators have also uncovered cases of “exploitative people” who overbreed pedigree animals for sale. When there is cruelty involved, the charity pushes for prosecution. For people who are simply overwhelmed, the RSPCA does not seek punishment and simply wants to help. “In some of these cases,” Hirst said, “that would just turn someone’s life more upside down. If someone is deliberately cruel, that is different, if someone is in need and in difficulties, we are here to help.” The charity struggles when it receives a large volume of animals because every pet needs to be checked to see if it can be re-homed, and whether it has any needs: for example, if it can live in a house with children. The animals are also often in bad health, which needs to be resolved before they can be re-homed. “We have to educate people around how much an animal actually costs,” Hirst said, adding that some live for “a very long time” and that vet and neutering bills have to be taken into account. The charity has many pets from the multi-animal raids up for adoption, including some of the Scottish Fold cats and a number of the poodle-cross dogs from the photograph.

Four people die in Channel small-boat sinking

Two men and two women have died after a small boat sank in the Channel between France and Britain, French local authorities have said. They died after being swept away by strong currents while trying to board a dinghy, according to François-Xavier Lauch, the prefect of Pas-de-Calais. The dinghy was described as a taxi-boat, which travels along stretches of the northern French and Belgian coasts, picking up refugees and migrants along the shore. At least 42 others were rescued in the incident off the coast of Boulogne, between Équihen-Plage and Hardelot-Plage. Lauch said of the four people who died: “They were already quite far into the sea. The currents, which can be dangerous here, swept them away. This provisional toll – and I insist that it is provisional – states four deceased: two men, two women.” One other person had developed hypothermia and another 37 people were being treated by emergency services. Thursday’s incident occurred the day after 102 people got into difficulty trying to cross the Channel and had to be rescued. In another recent incident, two people died trying to make the crossing at the beginning of April. People smugglers who operate taxi-boats move along the coast picking up people at different points rather than having one fixed launching point into the sea. There have been reports that some of the taxi-boats are starting their journeys from Belgium and then moving along the French coast. Imran Hussain, the director of external affairs at the Refugee Council, said: “Our thoughts are with the families and loved ones of the four people who have tragically died in the Channel attempting to reach safety in the UK. “People who have escaped devastating wars and brutal regimes in countries like Sudan and Afghanistan are being driven into small boats by desperation. A lack of safe routes to the UK has left people feeling they have no other choice to rebuild their lives: the government has even shut down family reunion for refugees, which overwhelmingly supported women and children.” Charlotte Khan, the head of advocacy and public affairs at Care4Calais, said: “Another four lives have been needlessly lost to our deadly border. As our government continues to focus on ineffective deterrents, tragedies continue to happen. These deaths are on their hands. They could end the deaths on our border overnight by introducing safe routes for refugees to claim asylum in the UK. That they won’t is a political choice which shames them.” Elsa Faucillon, a French Communist party MP who is involved in the national assembly’s inquiryinto the Le Touquet agreement between the UK and France, said tributes would be paid in the assembly on Thursday to those who had died. She posted on X: “Favourable weather windows are multiplying and the deaths are piling up in the Channel … This must stop.” Sam Turner, the director of migration and displacement at British Red Cross, said: “It is devastating to see people lose their lives attempting to cross the Channel. We continue to see men, women and children taking these perilous journeys in search of safety, as they flee war, violence and persecution. Our thoughts are with all those affected by this tragedy. “We know from our decades of experience supporting people seeking asylum, no one risks their life like this unless they feel they have no other option. We need more safe routes to prevent people taking these dangerous journeys to reach the UK.” A UK government spokesperson said:“We are deeply saddened to hear about the deaths in French waters today. Every death in the Channel is a tragedy and a stark reminder of the dangers posed by criminal gangs exploiting vulnerable people for profit. We will continue working relentlessly with the French and our partners overseas to prevent these perilous journeys. “The French authorities are leading the response to this incident and we are supporting their investigation.” The UK and France are negotiating a fresh deal to stop small boats crossing the Channel, with an interim arrangement in place after they failed to renew an agreement that expired on 31 March. More than 5,000 refugees and migrants have crossed the Channel, one of the world’s busiest shipping lanes, to the UK so far this year. About 41,500 people made the crossing last year.