Funeral held for 10-year-old Matilda, the youngest Bondi Beach victim
A portrait of 10-year-old Matilda, victim of the Bondi Beach shooting, sits on a flower memorial beside Bondi Pavilion on December 17, 2025 in Sydney, Australia. James D. Morgan/Getty Images
A tiny white coffin was slowly carried out of the synagogue as people sobbed, hugged, clutched teddy bears and held colorful, heart-shaped balloons.
Matilda’s family moved from Ukraine to Australia “for a good life,” a rabbi told The Associated Press.
Matilda’s mother told ABC News that this photo of Matilda in a yellow dress with her face painted was taken on the day she was killed.
In an online fundraiser, a teacher wrote that she knew Matilda — whose last name has not been released — as a “bright, joyful, and spirited child who brought light to everyone around her.”
Matilda was among the 15 people killed when two gunmen opened fire at a Hanukkah celebration this weekend in what officials called an antisemitic terror attack. More than 40 others were wounded.
One gunman was killed at the scene and the second is in custody and facing charges.
ABC News’ Nataliia Popova contributed to this report.
A view of the scene after a crane being used to build a high-speed rail bridge collapsed onto a passenger train killing at least 12 injuring 30 in Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand on January 14, 2026 (Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(LONDON) — At least 32 people were killed on Wednesday as a construction crane for a high-speed rail bridge collapsed onto a moving passenger train in Thailand, government officials said.
At least 64 others were injured, the Thai Ministry of Public Health said in a statement. Thirty-one of those who were killed were pronounced dead at the scene, the ministry said, adding that another person died as they were being transferred to a hospital.
The crane crashed onto the train at about 9 a.m. as the train traveled between the Nong Nam Khun and Sikhiu stations, in the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima, according to the Office of the Prime Minister.
“Train derailed and caught fire. 30+ passengers injured, many trapped in carriages,” the government said in an initial statement posted on social media. “Multiple rescue teams deployed.”
The train, which had departed from Bangkok, was carrying 195 passengers and staff members, according to the State Railway of Thailand.
“These figures are currently being verified and officially confirmed by the relevant agencies on the ground,” the minister said in Thai in a statement posted to social media.
The health ministry raised that figure again, saying several hours later that at least 22 people had been killed. The ministry in a subsequent update at about 4:30 p.m. said the toll had again climbed, hitting 31. The ministry said two hours later that the death toll at the scene had risen by one, adding that three people were also considered missing.
The bodies of the dead were transferred to Sikhiu Hospital, the ministry said, adding that many of the injured were being treated at several local hospitals. Eleven were still hospitalized as of the 4:30 p.m. update, the ministry said.
The train was listed as the Special Express Train No. 21, which connects Bangkok, the capital, with Ubon Ratchithani, a city in the northeast, according to the railway.
The Iran South Pars Gas Complex Company is pictured on Thursday, June 23, 2005 in Assaluyeh, Iran. Ramin Talaie/Bloomberg via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Israel’s strike on the world’s largest natural gas field could severely impact Iran’s energy sector and several nearby Gulf states, energy experts told ABC News.
On Wednesday, Israel launched air strikes on South Pars, a natural gas field that covers about 3,700 square miles and serves as a vital source of fuel for Iran. It is located offshore in the Persian Gulf and contains about 1,800 trillion cubic feet of usable gas, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
South Pars accounts for about 70% of the gas Iran consumes, Ira Joseph, a senior research associate at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, told ABC News.
David G. Victor, a professor of innovation and public policy at the University of California at San Diego, agreed on the importance of South Pars to Iran.
“It’s the single most important natural gas field to Iran,” he told ABC News. “If you start tanking the Iranian economy, eventually, other parts of that infrastructure are going to start falling apart too.”
South Pars is part of a giant gas field that transverses to other nations — another section, the North Dome, is part of the same natural gas field but lies in Qatari territorial waters.
Combined, South Pars and the North Field account for about 10% of the gas traded in the world and about 20% of the world’s liquified natural gas (LNG) annual exports, Joseph noted.
Iran also exports gas into Turkey, Iraq and Central Asia — so those exports have been disrupted by the war, according to Joseph. Turkey acquires up to 15% of its gas from Iran, he added.
The U.S. is relatively insulated from natural gas price shocks due to the strikes on Iran’s gas fields because the U.S. is a big producer and doesn’t have enough export capacity to fully link itself to Asian and European markets, Catherine Wolfram, a professor of energy economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told ABC News.
Countries like Japan, Korea and the Europeans who are dependent on imports will take a big hit to their supply as a result of the attack on South Pars, she said.
But the impacts of the strikes on the South Pars field extend “far beyond” energy prices, Naho Mirumachi, a professor of environmental politics at King’s College in London, told ABC News.
The current volatility of gas production can have “serious” impacts on agriculture and the global production of food, especially since natural gas is vital for fertilizer production, she noted. Fertilizer shortages or higher prices of fertilizer will likely translate to increases in food costs, according to Mirumachi.
“Food production cannot wait for gas production to return to normal, so farmers and businesses could face declining crop yields,” she said.
There has never been an attack of this magnitude on South Pars field because of a historical understanding within the region to not disrupt or inhibit each other’s vital infrastructure, according to the University of California’s Victor.
“There had been a kind of norm that exists in many wars, which is, don’t attack each other’s vital infrastructure,” he said. “Both sides had an interest in not obliterating each other’s energy infrastructure and then causing this enormous harm in the global market.”
The strike on South Pars triggered an escalation of attacks on oil and gas facilities in the region.
Iran launched a series of retaliatory strikes against the vital energy infrastructure in nearby Gulf states. It issued evacuation orders for several energy assets in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, before hitting the world’s largest LNG terminal — an import and export facility — at Ras Laffan in Qatar.
“Targeting energy infrastructure constitutes a threat to global energy security, as well as to the peoples of the region & its environment,” a spokesperson for the QatariMinistry of Foreign Affairs wrote in a post on X on Wednesday.
In a social media post late Wednesday, President Donald Trump said neither the U.S. nor Qatar was aware Israel would attack the South Pars Gas Field, calling for Israel to not do so again unless Iran continues attacking Qatar’s LNG facilities.
“NO MORE ATTACKS WILL BE MADE BY ISRAEL pertaining to this extremely important and valuable South Pars Field unless Iran unwisely decides to attack a very innocent, in this case, Qatar,” Trump said.
Iran warned that it would target energy facilities throughout the region.
The attacks on energy centers began on March 7, with Israeli air strikes on major Iranian oil storage facilities causing “black rain” to fall on the Tehran, Iran’s capital with nearly 10 million residents. The Israeli military said the facilities were struck because they were “used by the Military Forces of the Iranian Terror Regime in Tehran.”
On March 11, the International Energy Agency announced it would release 400 million barrels of oil from its strategic reserve — the largest-ever release of reserve oil in the group’s history — in response to the blockade on the Strait of Hormuz. A fifth of the global oil supply passes through the waterway, which lies between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
The U.S. also executed a strike on Kharg Island on March 13. The small island is situated in the Persian Gulf, off the southwestern coast of Iran, and processes 90% of Iranian oil exports.
Every military target on Kharg Island was “obliterated,” Trump said in a social media post. But its oil infrastructure was left intact.
The conflict has sent energy prices soaring, with Brent crude — the international standard for oil — peaking at $119 per barrel on Thursday morning.
Emergency services work at the site of a train collision on January 19, 2026 after yesterday’s train collision in Adamuz, Spain. Authorities say at least 39 were killed and more than 150 were injured when a train collided with a derailed train on the evening of Sunday, Jan. 18. (Photo by Pablo Blazquez Dominguez/Getty Images)
(ADAMUZ, Spain) — At least 39 people were killed and about 152 others were injured after two high-speed trains collided in southern Spain on Sunday, according to officials.
A train traveling from Málaga to Madrid derailed near Adamuz, crossing over to the adjacent track where it hit another train coming from Madrid to Huelva, according to the Spanish Interior Minister.
The number of confirmed dead rose to 39 from the previously reported 21 and was “not final,” Oscar Puente, the Spanish transport minister, said in a statement early on Monday.
“I want to express all my gratitude for the huge effort of the rescue teams during the night, under very difficult circumstances, and my condolences to the victims and their families in these terribly painful moments,” he said in Spanish on social media.
Spain’s prime minister is expected to visit the crash site this morning.
Officials had earlier said that of those injured, 75 were hospitalized, with 15 in very serious condition and five in life-threatening condition.
Rescue crews are on the scene, and all trains between Madrid and the Andalusia region are suspended, according to officials.
The cause of the train derailment has not yet been released.
Iryo, the company operating the train that initially derailed, released a statement, saying the company “deeply regrets what has happened and has activated all emergency protocols, working closely with the competent authorities to manage the situation.”
The company said there were 300 passengers on the train at the time.
Puente, the transport minister, spoke to reporters late Sunday night and the high-speed Iryo train was “relatively new.”
Puente said the derailment of the Iryo train bound for Madrid and its subsequent collision with the second train happened on a straight stretch of track, which had undergone extensive renovation work that was only finished in May.
The Spanish minister called the accident “extremely strange.”
“It’s very difficult at this moment to explain,” Puente added, and said he hoped the investigation would help clear up what has happened.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti contributed to this report.
