Lockdown lifted at US naval base in Italy after ‘security incident’
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(LONDON) — A U.S. naval base in Italy was briefly placed on lockdown on Wednesday due to an “security incident,” officials said.
Naval Air Station Sigonella in Sicily said its shelter-in-place order was cleared at about 11:25 a.m., more than 3 hours after it first posted about an “ongoing situation” at an entry control point.
“We are grateful to our Navy Security Force personnel for their quick response,” the base said, without offering details on the nature of the incident.
The base said in an earlier social media post that a “lockdown/shelter-in-place remains in effect.” Traffic into and out of the base had been “secured” at that time, but was later reopened, the base said.
Signolla supports dozens of U.S. military commands from several branches, including the Navy, Army, Marine Corp and Air Force. NATO commands are also supported by the base.
The air base has been in operation since 1957 and covers some 1,300 acres over four main sites.
ABC News’ Joe Simonetti and Zoe Magee contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — Vladimir Putin said Ukraine must surrender after President Donald Trump urged the Russian leader to spare the lives of Ukrainian soldiers, following ceasefire talks between the U.S. and Russia in Moscow.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump called Thursday’s discussions with Russia “very good and productive” and said there is a “very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end.”
He also claimed that thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are surrounded.
“AT THIS VERY MOMENT, THOUSANDS OF UKRAINIAN TROOPS ARE COMPLETELY SURROUNDED BY THE RUSSIAN MILITARY, AND IN A VERY BAD AND VULNERABLE POSITION,” he said.
“I have strongly requested to President Putin that their lives be spared. This would be a horrible massacre, one not seen since World War II,” he added.
Trump seemed to be referring to the sticking point in Russia’s Kursk region, something Putin has discussed as an issue in the talks. He also appeared to echo remarks Putin made in response to the U.S.-Ukraine ceasefire proposal on Thursday that Ukrainian troops are encircled in Kursk — a scenario Ukraine strongly denied.
Putin responded to Trump’s remarks on Friday, saying the soldiers need to surrender to be spared.
“[In] the event of a ceasefire and surrender, they will be guaranteed life and a worthy treatment in accordance with the norms of international law and the laws of the Russian Federation,” he said.
Ukraine pushed back Friday against the claims that its troops are surrounded in the Kursk region, where Putin this week ordered forces to “destroy” all Ukrainian formations remaining in the contested border region.
“The reports about the supposed ‘encirclement’ of Ukrainian units in the Kursk region are false and are being fabricated by the Russians for political purposes and to put pressure on Ukraine and its partners,” the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said in a statement on Friday.
“The threat of encirclement of our units is absent,” it added.
The statement comes a day after Putin referred to an “encirclement” in the Kursk region while remarking on the U.S.-Ukraine ceasefire proposal.
“We are for it. But there is a nuance,” Putin said of a 30-day ceasefire during a press briefing. “First, what are we going to do with the encirclement in the Kursk region?”
He said the situation in Kursk is “completely under our control, and the group that invaded our territory is in isolation,” and that it would be “very good for the Ukrainian side to reach a truce for at least 30 days.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy countered Friday that Putin is “lying” about the conflict and is blocking any diplomatic efforts to end the war.
“Putin is lying about the real situation on the battlefield, he is lying about the casualties, he is lying about the true state of his economy, which has been damaged by his foolish imperial ambitions, and he is doing everything possible to ensure that diplomacy fails,” he said.
“Putin cannot exit this war because that would leave him with nothing,” he continued. “That is why he is now doing everything he can to sabotage diplomacy by setting extremely difficult and unacceptable conditions right from the start even before a ceasefire.”
The claim that Ukrainian forces are surrounded was also shot down by defense analyst Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment who focuses on the Russian and Ukrainian militaries, who called it “simply untrue.”
Ukrainian forces pushed into Kursk last August in a surprise offensive, seizing the town of Sudzha and surrounding villages. Kyiv’s troops have repelled months of Russian counteroffensives, but recent weeks have seen their salient crumble and Russian forces retake significant ground.
During a visit to a command center in Kursk on Wednesday while clad in military fatigues, Putin said, “Your task is to completely destroy the enemy, which has entrenched itself in the Kursk region and is still conducting warfare here, and fully liberate the Kursk region’s territory within the shortest possible time.”
On Wednesday, Russian troops raised their flags over central Sudzha in Kursk as Ukrainian forces hurriedly retreated toward the shared border.
Russian advances to the border in the Kursk Oblast appeared to have slowed on Thursday compared to recent days, according to the latest assessment from the Institute for the Study of War.
The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said Friday that the situation “has not undergone significant changes over the past day,” and that troops are “regrouping” and have withdrawn to “more advantageous defense lines.”
“Our soldiers are repelling enemy offensive actions and delivering effective fire damage with all types of weapons,” it said.
Russian officials have indicated they will not engage in peace negotiations while any of Kursk remains under Ukrainian control.
Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, met with Putin in Moscow on Thursday to discuss the proposed 30-day ceasefire in Ukraine — a step leaders in Kyiv and Washington, D.C., hope will facilitate a larger peace deal to end Russia’s three-year-old invasion of its neighbor.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there is “reason to be cautiously optimistic” about a ceasefire and said Putin and Trump now need to talk. The timing of that conversation will be determined once Witkoff reports to Trump, he said.
(LONDON) — When she left her home in Gaza City 16 months ago, Tala Herzallah didn’t think she was seeing it for the last time.
Now, walking in the rubble of what used to be her house, the 22-year-old Palestinian can barely recognize the place where she spent most of her life.
“It pains me to say it, but I only can recognize a wall from my home. Just one wall,” she told ABC News. “Otherwise, everything just disappeared as if it wasn’t there.”
Herzallah, an English student at the Islamic University of Gaza, packed her school bag and a few of her most treasured belongings as she evacuated after incessant bombing hit her neighborhood, Tel Al-Hawa.
The northern part of Gaza was the first target of Israel’s retaliatory strikes following the Hamas-led October 2023 terror attack and remained the scene of some of the fiercest fighting. Multiple ground operations and relentless airstrikes damaged or destroyed most of the buildings.
Its residents were forced to evacuate. The lack of aid, medical care and basic resources made life impossible for those who stayed behind.
Still, as soon as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was announced in January, hundreds of thousands made their way back north.
Those that have returned have been shocked by the devastation: their houses and belongings were mostly reduced to rubble and the signs of a humanitarian crisis are apparent on every corner.
But when Herzallah looked behind from her car, as bombs fell across the road that was taking her and her parents to a safer place in the south, she still hoped to return to north Gaza as she always knew it: colorful, vibrant and full of life.
That hope never faded, but with every month of war that went by, Herzallah said she knew there would be nothing waiting for her in Tel Al-Hawa.
“I know that it was destroyed. But until the last moment, I had this tiny hope that no, it won’t be destroyed. The pictures they showed me, I didn’t trust them,” she told ABC News. “I told myself, when I will reach it, it will be good.”
But it was not. As for millions of Palestinians in Gaza, Israel’s war changed everything for Herzallah.
Her house was reduced to rubble. Her education was paused as her university was destroyed and her beloved professor, Dr. Refaat Alareer, killed in an Israeli airstrike.
She was separated from her family, with her brothers in different parts of Gaza and her nephews abroad. She lost all her privacy, having to share a bathroom with more than 20 people for months.
“I don’t want to remember these days. I don’t want to remember how much I suffered because each time I remember these details, I feel that we’re not human beings,” she said. “No human being can tolerate and bear this much of pain and suffering.”
More than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, the Hamas-run Health Ministry reported, and 1.9 million people have been displaced, according to the United Nations.
Unable to process her present, Herzallah said she sometimes struggles to envision her future. Especially when the future she thought she would have had, if the war had not happened, gets in the way of planning anything else.
Entering her school’s campus for the first time since the war began, Herzallah found it changed to a shocking degree.
The Islamic University of Gaza, where she studied English Literature and Translation for the past three years, was hit by an Israeli airstrike on Oct. 10, 2023, as seen in a video shared by the Israeli military. They claimed Hamas used it as a base.
“It was always colorful. Colored with smiles, laughs,” Herzallah said, surrounded by burnt seats and a damaged stage. “I’ve never imagined to enter this place and see it as black as darkness. Pain is everywhere.”
Holding a graduation hat covered in dust, Herzallah said she felt all her losses.
“The first time I came to university, I dreamed of graduation day, of taking photos here with my family, siblings and professors,” she said. “Now I am graduating with nothing.”
Still, Herzallah said her dreams are “stuck between and among this rubble,” in her education. She received a scholarship to pursue her master’s degree in the U.S., which she sees as a second chance to make up for lost time and opportunities.
But she needs to leave Gaza first. Ceasefire talks are ongoing, but a permanent end to the war has yet to be agreed and Gaza’s borders remain closed.
Surrounded by unpredictability and hardship, one certainty remains for Herzallah: that if help is given, Palestinians can rebuild.
“We are strong enough to build it again. But the point is that we need a lot of things to help us. We need a lot of machines and other stuff,” she said.
To President Donald Trump’s proposal that the U.S. take over Gaza, Herzallah has a clear answer: provide the tools and then leave Gaza to Palestinians. She added his comments felt like a slap on her face after everything her people experienced.
“The relationship between Palestinians and their land is like the relationship between any mother and her sons,” Herzallah said. “Even if they leave their mother for a period of time, they will return at last to her hug and her embrace.”
(BANGKOK) — A desperate search for survivors continued Sunday — from a collapsed high-rise building that was under construction in Bangkok, Thailand, to the rubble of ancient buildings in neighboring Myanmar — as a series of powerful aftershocks from Friday’s 7.7-magnitude earthquake made it precarious for rescuers digging through debris, officials said.
The death toll in the Bangkok metropolitan region rose to 18 on Sunday, according to government officials. In Myanmar, the epicenter of Friday’s earthquake, at least 1,644 people were dead and another 139 were officially missing. At least 3,408 people were injured in Myanmar alone, officials said.
The number of deaths across the devastated region is expected to rise, officials said.
In the Bangkok metropolitan area, home to more than 17.4 million people, search-and-rescue workers were focused on a collapsed high-rise building in the Chatuchak district of Bangkok. At least 11 people, believed to all be construction workers, have been confirmed dead and another 78 people remain missing in the rubble of the 34-story Sky Villa condominium, according to the Bangkok Metropolitan administration.
More than 30 people were injured when floors of the building that was under construction began to pancake on top of each other around 1:30 p.m. local time on Friday, trapping construction workers in the debris and creating a large dust cloud that enveloped the area, officials said. The building collapsed about half an hour after the powerful earthquake, centered in Myanmar, struck.
Family members of the missing construction workers gathered near the collapsed building as search-and-rescue crews dug through the pile of debris by hand, racing against time in a search for survivors.
One brother and sister told ABC News their parents were among the workers who were in the building at the time of the collapse and are now among those unaccounted for.
American tourists Garret Briere and his wife told ABC News they never could have imagined that their first vacation to Thailand would end up being one of the most terrifying experiences of their lives.
The couple from Washington state was in the mall across the street from the Sky Villa construction site when the massive earthquake hit. Briere said he watched in horror as the building fell in the quake’s aftermath and described panicked people running for their lives away from the structure. Briere said a huge dust cloud enveloped the area.
“We ran out of the building because it started shaking,” Briere said. “I grabbed my wife’s hand and I said, ‘Don’t let go.’ Immediately, we were just covered in dust and debris, and we couldn’t see, and there were thousands of people just in a panic.”
It took just several seconds for the entire building to be reduced to a 7-story-high pile of rubble, the couple said.
The epicenter of the earthquake was in Mandalay, Myanmar, the country’s second-largest city. Bangkok is about 600 miles from the epicenter.
A series of aftershocks continued to shake the region Sunday. A 5.1 magnitude aftershock struck about 17 miles north of Mandalay on Sunday afternoon, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
The USGS also recorded another strong aftershock as a 4.2 magnitude quake struck near Shwebo, which is about 68 miles northwest of Mandalay, earlier on Sunday.
Several videos emerged Sunday showing rescuers pulling survivors from the rubble in Myanmar. The Myanmar Fire Services Department released a video overnight showing rescuers pulling a woman alive from a collapsed building. People could be heard cheering in the background as the woman was taken to medics for treatment.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted Friday about the potential U.S. response to the earthquake.
“My prayers go out to the people of Burma and Thailand who are impacted by the earthquake,” Rubio wrote in a social media post. “We’ve been in contact with these countries and, as @POTUS said, stand ready to provide assistance.”
Rubio also confirmed the State Department’s teams in the affected countries were “safe and secure.”
The U.S. Embassy in Myanmar has suspended nonemergency consular services for the time being. The U.S. mission to Thailand has not reported any disruption in services.
ABC News’ Karson Yiu, Gamay Palacios and Preechaya Rassadanukul contributed to this report.
