A looming cold front is bringing everything from snow to fire to multiple Australian states this week.

Wind gusts of over 100km/hr were observed in Victoria yesterday, with temperatures dropping and potential showers today.

Weatherzone reported that the cold snap could see snow falling at 600m above sea level for Tasmania, and 800-900m for Victoria – low elevation for this time of year.

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People will also need to huddle up against the chill in our southern states.

The Bureau of Meteorology has forecast a top of 14 degrees for Melbourne, 15 for Adelaide, and just 12 for Hobart.

Weatherzone said that was five to six degrees below average for this time of year.

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Meanwhile, hot, dry winds are expected across New South Wales and Queensland today, increasing the fire danger ratings.

A later southerly change is expected to increase bushfire problems, Weatherzone said, pushing existing blazes in new directions and widening fire fronts.

"Fortunately, an injection of moisture-laden air in the wake of the front will cause rain to develop over parts of eastern and north-east NSW and south-east Queensland from Thursday into Friday," Weatherzone wrote.

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"This rain should help extinguish some of the fires in the region and add some much-needed water into the parched landscape."

However, just to keep things interesting, this rain also has the potential to be accompanied by thunderstorms, Weatherzone warned.

Sydney today is forecast to hit a top of 25 degrees, compared to 31 for Brisbane.

If nurse Miriam Van Zanten was sent a postal test for Australia's second biggest cancer killer a few years ago, she might not have been given the terminal diagnosis she faces now.

But at age 49, the Sydney woman was too young to be eligible for the bowel cancer screening kit.

When she was diagnosed with the disease last year it was already classed as stage 4 and incurable.

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The now-50-year-old is now hoping the federal government will implement a new recommendation to lower the bowel cancer screening age from 50 to 45.

It would help diagnose more younger people like her earlier, potentially saving lives.

"I remember receiving my bowel kit in the mail when I was 50. It was too late for me," Van Zanten said.

"I might have very well been diagnosed at stage 1."

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Government advice body the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) announced a recommendation to lower the screening age this week.

That would mean tens of thousands of younger Aussies could get potentially life-saving testing kits in the post every two years.

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Disease kills more than 300 young Aussies annually

Bowel cancer charities have pushed for several years to lower the screening age.

The disease kills 5350 Australians every year, including 315 people under the age of 50, Bowel Cancer Australia said.

But Bowel Cancer Australia chief executive Julien Wiggins said the government needed to make the next move for the change to actually happen.

"It has been years of tireless advocacy, and we remain grateful to our passionate team of advocates for their support," Wiggins said.

"However, work remains and we are now calling on the federal government to approve, fund and implement a lower National Bowel Cancer Screening Program start age to stop people dying from early-onset bowel cancer."

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Aussies aged 40 to 44 would also be able to request to be tested under the new plan.

Bowel cancer rates in younger people have risen since the 1980s.

There have been scientific breakthroughs but it is incurable unless caught early.

An Australian government spokeswoman said it was "committed to reducing deaths, and improving outcomes for people with bowel cancer in Australia".

"The government is carefully considering the implications of the recommendation in the updated guidelines to lower the eligible age of the NBCSP to 45 years, including the costs and flow on implications for the broader health system," a spokeswoman said.

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Meanwhile, by the time Van Zanten was diagnosed after suffering stomach pains and going to hospital, the cancer had also spread to her liver, making it incurable.

That was 18 months ago, and she was told she had a year, maybe two to live.

In December she faced a mammoth 10-hour surgery but the cancer returned, including in her lungs, and she is back on chemotherapy.

Despite all that, she said she was feeling okay.

"I just take every day as it comes, I have as much fun as I can while I can," she said.

Do you have a story? Contact journalist Sarah Swain at ss****@******om.au

Bowel cancer symptoms

Bowel cancer is the second biggest cancer killer after lung cancer.

However, if caught at the earliest stage, 99 per cent of people survive at least five years.

That drops to 14 per cent at stage four.

One in nine new bowel cancer cases – more than 1700 a year – are in people under 50.

Currently, under the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program (NBSCP), Australians aged 50 to 74 are sent testing kits in the mail to collect a faecal sample that is then posted to a pathology laboratory to be examined.

Blood in stools, unexplained weight loss, abdominal pain, unexplained anaemia and a persistent change in bowel habits can all be signs of the disease.

For more details, visit Bowel Cancer Australia.

An Israeli hostage released by Hamas has described her ordeal after she was kidnapped by gunmen and taken into a tunnel system in Gaza during the Palestinian militant group's deadly assault in Israel on October 7, saying "I went through hell".

Yocheved Lifshitz, a frail 85-year-old grandmother who was one of two hostages released by Hamas on Monday, recounted the moment that militants snatched her from her home in the kibbutz of Nir Oz and drove her away on a motorbike towards Gaza, a "painful act" during which she said she was beaten and sustained bruises.

Lifshitz said she was forced to walk on wet ground and descended into an underground tunnel system she likened to a spiderweb, where she was greeted by "people who told us we believe in the Quran" and promised "not to harm" her and her fellow hostages.

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Lifshitz's daughter Sharone, who helped convey her mother's comments to reporters outside a hospital in Tel Aviv on Tuesday, called it a "huge network" of tunnels.

Lifshitz said she was initially grouped together with 25 other people before her captors separated her into a smaller group with four other individuals from her kibbutz. She said they slept on mattresses on the floor of the tunnels, ate the same food as Hamas fighters and received regular treatment from doctors during her incarceration.

"They really took care of the sanitary side of things so that we didn't get sick," Lifshitz added.

Each of the five hostages in her group received their own doctor and there was a paramedic present who supervised medication, she said.

"They were very generous to us, very kind. They kept us clean," Lifshitz said. "They took care of every detail. There are a lot of women and they know about feminine hygiene and they took care of everything there."

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Lifshitz also accused the Israel Defence Forces and Shin Bet intelligence service of not taking threats from Hamas "seriously" and said the costly Gaza border fence erected by Israel had done nothing to protect her community from Hamas' attack.

"The lack of awareness by Shin Bet and the IDF hurt us a lot," she stressed. "They warned us three weeks beforehand, they burned fields, they sent fire balloons and the IDF did not treat it seriously," she continued.

Lifshitz explained how this culminated in the attack on Nir Oz in southern Israel on October 7.

"All of a sudden on a Saturday morning, everything was very quiet. There was a hard pounding on the settlement," Lifshitz said. Not long after, "hordes" of Hamas fighters broke through the kibbutz's "expensive" fences and kept coming in their "droves", she said.

"It was very, very difficult and unpleasant," a visibly upset Lifshitz added.

As she concluded her remarks, Sharone said her mother's feeling was that "the story's not over until everybody comes back".

Hostage release an 'amazing thing'

Hamas released Lifshitz and her neighbour and friend Nurit Cooper, 79, on Monday, and later they were reunited with family members who rushed to their bedside at Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv.

Lifshitz's grandson Daniel, who heard of her release while staying at a hotel in Eilats with other evacuees from Nir Oz, said on Monday that news of the women's release sent a jolt of joy through the hotel and hope that others may be freed soon.

"For this community to see these two old women was just an amazing thing," said Daniel Lifshitz, who took a helicopter from the hotel to see his grandmother in the early hours of Tuesday.

More than a quarter of the Nir Oz community are dead or remain missing after the Hamas terror attack on October 7, which killed more than 1400 people in barbaric raids, triggering Israeli reprisals that threaten to tip into regional conflict.

The release of the two women takes the total number of captives freed to four, but more than 200 hostages are believed to be trapped in Gaza, some within the labyrinth of Hamas tunnels dug beneath the coastal strip.

The remaining hostages include Lifshitz and Cooper's husbands, Oded Lifshitz, 83, and Amiram Cooper, 85.

Yocheved's daughter Sharone previously told CNN she was "delighted" about her mother's release but fears for her father and others being held.

"My father is there and so many other people we know are waiting for good news about everyone," she said. "We don't know what's going on with them. Not even know if they're alive or what their situation is."

Abducted from home

For decades, Lifshitz and Cooper lived within the close community of Nir Oz, once home to 400 people near the Gaza border. Being so close to the barrier fence, it was one of the first communities targeted by Hamas militants – and one of the worst hit.

Rows of houses now stand devoid of life, their windows broken, bedrooms torched, and residents' possessions strewn all around. Video footage shows dried blood smeared on beds and floors, the walls pocked with bullet holes.

Lifshitz is one of the community's founders and worked as a photographer and a teacher at the regional high school, according to a Nir Oz community statement.

Cooper was also a long-term resident and worked in early childhood education and at the local paint factory, the statement said.

On Tuesday, Eti Uziel, head nurse at Ichilov hospital, said both women appeared to be in "OK medical condition".

"They will stay with us tonight and tomorrow," Uziel said in a video released by the hospital shortly after the women's arrival.

"Right now, for them and family members, it is a very, very emotional situation, and we are happy that they are here with us."

Remaining hostages

The latest hostage release comes amid growing international pressure on the Israeli government to secure the release of hundreds of others still held captive in Gaza.

They include nationals from countries including Mexico, Brazil, the United States, Germany and Thailand as well as Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas in response to the deadly October 7 attacks, and is cutting off Gaza from water, fuel and food as it pounds key targets with airstrikes.

So far, more than 5000 people have been killed in Gaza during the relentless Israeli campaign, according to Palestinian health authorities.

The sustained bombardment of the enclave despite the presence of so many Palestinian civilians has angered Arab nations and drawn condemnation with public protests worldwide.

The US is seeking to delay an Israeli ground offensive in hopes of getting more hostages out and aid into Gaza, according to two sources briefed on discussions. However, a senior Israeli official told CNN there will be "no ceasefire".

US President Joe Biden on Monday called on Hamas to release its hostages before talks could start on a ceasefire.

For the families of those held, there's no time to waste.

Daniel Lifshitz said seeing his grandmother had shown him that other hostages need to be freed as soon as possible.

"I'm telling you we have to be fast, seeing my grandmother like that," he said.

"The clock is ticking and… bringing all those hostages back is so evident now – it's the top mission now for everybody."

A man who caught a group of teenagers trying to steal from his ute ended up hospitalised after they turned on him in an alleged brutal daylight bashing.

Just before 5pm on a Thursday afternoon earlier this month, in a leafy campground in Beenleigh, a suburb of Logan, David Abbott found himself confronted by the gang.

The group surrounded him, while his partner Carroll tried to calm them, but he was outnumbered and allegedly knocked out cold.

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The 65-year-old has no memory of the alleged bashing, some of which was recorded on video, but had one word to describe his alleged attackers.

"Cowards," Abbott told 9News.

"Just a coward, that's all I can say about it."

He does remember when emergency services arrived.

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"When I came around I was just bewildered, I didn't know what was going on," he said.

David and Carroll had been camping at Hugh Muntz Park before heading off to Perth to fulfil a lifelong dream.

"There it goes… see that wasn't supposed to happen like that, they don't give a stuff," Carroll said.

Queensland Opposition Leader David Crisafulli has seen the confronting footage of the attack.

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"That video just leaves you feeling sick in the stomach, not only how callous the attack is but to leave someone lying motionless on the ground," he said.

A 16-year-old boy has been charged with assault and 9News can reveal he was already on bail.

Despite the new charges, he has once again been granted bail.

"The way I see it, do the adult crime, you've got to do the adult time," Abbott said.

Aid agencies are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza as doctors warn an Israeli blockade on fuel means many more vulnerable babies and wounded people in hospitals will soon die.

One agency says at least 2000 children in Gaza have been killed in the past few weeks.

Israel has intensified its bombing campaign in the besieged strip after its defence minister Yoav Gallant said the country is preparing for a "multilateral operation" on the militant group Hamas that controls Gaza from the "air, ground, and sea".

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Israel's leadership has vowed to wipe out Hamas in response to its October 7 deadly terror attacks and kidnap rampage in which 1400 people, mostly civilians, were killed and more than 200 taken hostage.

Today, Hamas freed two Israeli citizens – both elderly women – amid growing international pressure to secure the release of the rest of those abducted and taken to Gaza.

Inside Gaza, cut off from the world by a near-total blockade, Israeli airstrikes have decimated entire neighbourhoods, levelling homes, schools and mosques.

CNN drone footage showed the level of destruction across parts of the strip, with whole streets flattened in the al-Rimal neighbourhood in Gaza City and a row of destroyed buildings known as al-Zahra towers in central Gaza.

Save the Children said that over 1 million children are "trapped" in Gaza with no safe place to go and warned of the devastating impacts of lacking medication and electricity to power vital health infrastructure in the enclave.

"At least 2000 children have been killed in Gaza over the past 17 days, and a further 27 killed in the West Bank," the aid agency said.

"We call on all parties to take immediate steps to protect the lives of children, and on the international community to support those efforts," Save the Children said, adding that Israeli airstrikes are "killing and injuring children indiscriminately".

Latest figures from the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said the death toll resulting from Israeli strikes on the strip has reached at least 5087, including 2055 children.

"The health system has reached the worst stage in its history," said health ministry spokesperson Ashraf Al-Qudra in a statement.

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Fuel is a lifeline

Fuel means life in Gaza. Without fuel, water cannot be pumped or desalinated, and generators that power hospitals – that keep incubators, ventilators and dialysis machines running and sterilise surgical equipment – will fail.

Twelve hospitals and 32 medical centres are now out of service after Israeli strikes and fuel depletion, according to the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza.

This evening, the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza had no electricity due to the fuel shortage, Hamas said.

Despite the urgency, no fuel trucks have entered Gaza as part of a humanitarian aid convoy from Egypt's Rafah border crossing over the weekend, according to Israeli and UN authorities.

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Israel has repeatedly said fuel would be purloined by Hamas for its own war effort, including rocket attacks.

On Monday, Mark Regev, senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told CNN that Israel would not allow fuel into Gaza even if all hostages were released.

"At the moment we have no interest in more fuel going to the Hamas military machine and we have not authorised fuel," Regev said.

"We have authorised medicine, we have authorised water. We've authorised foodstuffs, we've not authorised anything else.

"The government decision is that fuel doesn't go in because it will be stolen by Hamas and it'll be used by them to power rockets that are fired into Israel to kill our people."

However, US State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said that while the UN is "watching closely" for signs that Hamas is diverting humanitarian aid meant for civilians in Gaza, they have not reported any such signs to date.

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Hospitals could become 'mass graves'

In Gaza, outbreaks of smallpox, scabies, and diarrhoea have emerged due to the deteriorating health environment, lack of sanitation, and consumption of water from unsafe sources, according to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health based in the occupied West Bank.

Hospitals are nearing collapse, operating at more than 150 per cent of their capacity and situations have become so dire that surgeries are being conducted without anaesthesia, and in some cases, under the illumination of phone lights, the health ministry added.

Around 50,000 pregnant women are struggling to access health care, with about 166 unsafe births happening daily, and more than 5000 women due to give birth in the next month, it said.

The Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City – the largest hospital in the enclave – has enough fuel to last a maximum of two days, according to senior surgeon Marwan Abusada.

Conditions in Al-Shifa are dire, with another doctor saying that without electricity, the hospital "will just be a mass grave" and "there's nothing to do for these wounded".

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British-Palestinian surgeon Ghassan Abu-Sittah told CNN the "system is disintegrating" and without a ceasefire and a proper humanitarian corridor, "there's going to be an even larger catastrophe than the one that already exists here".

The overwhelmed hospital has run out of burns dressings for the more than 100 patients in the facility with burns covering over 40 per cent of their bodies, Abu-Sittah said.

More than 150 patients on ventilators with critical injuries are relying on electricity to stay alive, he said.

Hospitals across Gaza are facing similar situations.

A neonatal doctor working in a hospital in southern Gaza told CNN that premature babies relying on oxygen supplies will die if fuel is not urgently delivered into the enclave.

Hatem Edhair, head of the neonatal intensive care unit at Nasser Medical Complex, said all non-emergency facilities have been turned off, as well as lights and air conditioning.

He said 11 babies – most weighing under 1.5 kilograms – are in his ICU, with admission rates rising as residents from northern Gaza flee south.

Twenty more trucks carrying vital relief aid crossed into Gaza today, but aid agencies warn that the current rate of delivery will do little to address the needs of more than 2 million people living in the enclave.

The territory normally receives 455 aid trucks per day, according to the United Nations. That means that with the weekend deliveries, Gaza is more than 7200 truckloads of aid short of what would normally have been received between October 7 and October 22, CNN calculations suggest.

That's half of 1 per cent – or one two-hundredth – of the amount of aid it ordinarily receives.

A heartbroken father has described the moment his four-year-old son heroically shielded his two younger siblings from a deadly fire that ripped through a shed at the family's home near Geelong.

Kane McGregor said his family had experienced the worst two days of their lives after Saige, three, and their 18-month-old sister Ashlynn were killed in the Corio fire on Sunday.

His other two children, Mavis, six, and Isaac, four, were airlifted to hospital, where they remain.

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McGregor described four-year-old Issac, who attempted to protect his siblings from the fire, as one of the "strongest children (he) has known".

"Issac had two huddled under him so they didn't burn," he told reporters.

"He stayed there until he died himself, (paramedics) revived him and flew him to (hospital).

"I couldn't be any prouder really."

Issac suffered burns to 82 per cent of his body and is showing signs of kidney and liver failure.

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His sister Mavis is in a stable condition and is due to undergo surgery tomorrow.

"All seems well with Mavis at the moment," McGregor said.

"She is a lot less burnt, she should be on the mend soon."

Their mother Jasmine Beck also received burns to her hands after dragging her children out of the blaze.

It's understood all four children were inside the shed playing together when a couch caught alight.

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Anthony McGregor, who is the brother of the children's father, told reporters yesterday that Beck was still struggling to come to terms with the loss.

"She's distraught. She's not handling herself," he said.

"She's trying to be the best mum she can be right now and be there to support her children that are suffering.

"If anyone wants to know how a mother has just lost two kids and has two fighting for their lives is going — if you're a parent, you know.

"When your kid cuts their hand, you know how it feels to be worried about their child, and this is just multiplied by 1000, by a million. She's not coping. She's having a really hard time."

Police are continuing to investigate the cause of the fire, with McGregor saying a "clicky lighter" could be to blame.

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Major national builder NPM has gone into voluntary administration with over 100 full-time employees terminated.

The NPM Group, which stands for National Projects and Maintenance, was a commercial fit-out, construction, minor works and maintenance company behind 45,000 projects across six states and territories.

It ceased operations yesterday.

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The group had 10 companies to its name across the country.

"The ongoing market pressures have made NPM's continued operation untenable, due to skilled labour shortages, inflationary pressures, interest rate rises and a commercial sector that continues to suffer from flow-on effects of (the) COVID-19 pandemic," director Daniel Afonso said in a statement.

Graeme Beattie, Christopher Darin, and Aaron Lucan of Worrells have been appointed administrators.

"The administration process is in its infancy and we are working hard to immediately establish the group's financial position, including identifying assets available for realisation and quantifying creditors' claims with the assistance of the director and the senior staff of the NPM Group," Beattie said.

"We are conscious of the impact the appointment will have on everyone involved."

A collaborative network based in Tairāwhiti is investigating health benefits

The campervan had to be towed after the tourist collided with a parked car.