An Israeli strike targeting a Hamas commander in the densely populated Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza has left catastrophic damage and killed a large number of people, according to eyewitnesses and medics in the enclave.

"I was waiting in line to buy bread when suddenly and without any prior warning seven to eight missiles fell," an eyewitness, Mohammad Ibrahim, told CNN.

"There were seven to eight huge holes in the ground, full of killed people, body parts all over the place," he said.

"It felt like the end of the world."

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According to a statement by the Israel Defense Forces, the airstrike targeted and killed Ibrahim Biari, whom it described as one of the Hamas commanders responsible for the October 7 attack on Israel, which left more than 1,400 people dead and hundreds taken hostage.

The IDF also said "numerous other Hamas terrorists" were hit in the strike, and claimed the Central Jabalya Battalion had taken control of civilian buildings.

Hamas however has strongly denied the presence of one of its leaders in the refugee camp.

Hazem Qassem, a spokesman for the militant group, accused Israel of attempting to justify what he described as a "heinous crime against safe civilians, children, and women in Jabalya camp".

Eyewitness Mohammad Al Aswad described a "horrific scene" in the aftermath of the strike, telling CNN that he ran to the refugee camp to check on family after hearing the missiles land.

"Children were carrying other injured children and running, with grey dust filling the air. Bodies were hanging on the rubble, many of them unrecognised. Some were bleeding and others were burnt," Al Aswad told CNN by telephone.

People in the area were hysterical, he added.

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"I saw women screaming and confused. They didn't know whether to cry for losing their children or run and look for them, especially since many children were playing in the neighborhood."

Images from the scene showed a huge crater among rubble and damaged buildings.

Palestinians and rescue workers are seen attempting to find victims, some using their hands to scoop the detritus away.

Speaking to CNN's Wolf Blitzer, IDF spokesperson Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht accused Hamas of "hiding, as they do, behind civilians".

Reminded that there are many innocent civilians in the camp, Hecht responded, "this is the tragedy of war" and urged civilians to move south.

Southern Gaza has also seen lethal airstrikes, and aid organisations have repeatedly warned that there is no safe place in the isolated enclave.

Israel's bombardment of Gaza has killed at least 8,485 people and injured more than 21,000, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Ramallah, which draws on information from the Hamas-controlled enclave.

'A scene no one can imagine'

At the Indonesian hospital, the nearest major medical facility to Jabalya, videos showed a long line of bodies lying on the floor of the hospital as well as large numbers of wounded people, including children, as doctors rushed to treat their injuries.

Many of the injured could be seen receiving treatment on the floor because of the hospital's overcrowded conditions.

Hospital head Dr Atef al-Kalhout estimated that scores had been killed in the blast.

"What you see is a scene no one can imagine: injured martyrs, charred bodies in the hundreds," said another doctor, Mohammad al Rann.

"All we can do is keep taking them in. Most of the injuries are from explosives and head injuries and amputations."

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Mohammed Hawajreh, a nurse with Doctors Without Borders (MSF) at Al Shifa hospital in Gaza, said that some of the wounded also arrived at that hospital.

"Young children arrived at the hospital with deep wounds and severe burns. They came without their families. Many were screaming and asking for their parents. I stayed with them until we could find a place, as the hospital was full with patients," Hawajreh said in a statement.

According to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Interior in Gaza, twenty homes were "completely destroyed" in the bombing.

The world reacts

Jabalya, like other refugee camps in the Strip, is crowded with homes, shops, and apartment buildings, where many roads between them are barely wide enough for a car to pass.

Many Palestinian refugees settled in the camp in the wake of the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, after fleeing villages in what became the state of Israel, according to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

The camp is the largest refugee camp in Gaza, says UNRWA, is spread out across 1.4 square kilometres, and has long grappled with overcrowding.

It is also among the poorest areas in the enclave and home to busy open-air markets.

Shortly after the blast, Israeli human rights organisation B'tselem condemned Israel's weeks-long aerial bombardment of Gaza, saying "the scale of killing Israel has and continues to wreak on Gaza is horrifying", in a statement released on Tuesday.

"More than 8,000 people have been killed so far, more than half of them women and children. Entire buildings have collapsed with occupants still inside. Whole families have been wiped out in an instant. This criminal harm to civilians is intolerable and the obvious needs to be stated again and again – not everything is allowed in war, including war on Hamas," it said.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs described the strike as a "massacre", referencing "chilling documented scenes" of children and women.

"It has its bones, in a large-scale massacre carried out in full view of the world and under the pretext of self-defence," the statement added.

Saudi Arabia, Iran, Jordan and Egypt have also condemned the strike, with Egypt accusing Israel of breaking international law with what it said was the "inhuman" targeting of a residential area.

"Egypt considered this as a new flagrant violation by the Israeli forces against the provisions of international law and international humanitarian law," the ministry said.

When pressed multiple times throughout a White House briefing on the Jabalya strike and on whether Israel is doing enough to protect Palestinian civilians, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the US has "indications they are trying".

"We're not going to react to every event in real time, but we've certainly recognised that civilians have been hurt," he said.

"Civilians have been killed to the tune of many thousands … We recognise that, we observe that, and we're not accepting of any single civilian death in Gaza."

He added that "it is not the goal of Israeli forces to go out and deliberately take innocent civilian life and they have tried to make efforts to minimise that".

Riyad Mansour, the head of the Palestinian Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations, told CNN on Tuesday that the Israeli strike on Jabalya refugee camp was a war crime and should be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"Those who are responsible for giving the orders for that crime should hear something from Mr (Karim A A) Khan from the ICC (International Criminal Court)," he said in reference to the ICC prosecutor.

"And if he has the courage, and I hope he does, we appreciate the fact that he came to Rafah crossing, and he made a statement there. But it would be also nice to issue a warrant of arrest for those who are responsible for such crimes."

Wounded Palestinians heading to Egypt

As hospitals in Gaza bear the brunt of airstrikes and shelling, according to aid groups and health workers, an Egyptian border official told CNN that 81 wounded Palestinians from Gaza will be allowed to travel for treatment in hospitals in Egypt.

The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media, said the patients were "seriously injured" and the Rafah border crossing is set to open on Wednesday morning to allow them to pass.

The 81 patients are currently undergoing treatment in hospitals across Gaza, many of whom require surgical intervention in operating rooms that are not currently available in Gaza, the director of Al Shifa Hospital, Dr Mohammed Abu Silmiyeh, told CNN.

They will be discharged from the hospitals in Gaza and then complete their treatments in a field hospital in Egypt's Sheikh Zuweid city, he added.

The Director of the Egyptian Red Crescent in North Sinai, Khaled Zayed, also confirmed the location of the field hospital to CNN, saying Egypt is "ready to receive them".

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Major UN agencies are calling for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow deliveries of aid for more than two million civilians trapped with scarce supplies of food, water, and medical equipment, and for the safe release of 240 hostages that Israel believes are being held by Hamas, the militant group that controls the enclave.

A Hamas military wing spokesman claimed on Tuesday that in the coming days the group will free some foreign nationals they are holding hostage.

"Some countries have intervened through mediators to free some foreign nationals' detainees in Gaza," Abu Obeida, a spokesman for the Qassam Brigades, said in a video clip without naming the countries.

"Therefore, we informed the mediators that we will release a number of foreigners in the coming days."

He did not elaborate further on the nationalities or number of hostages they planned on freeing.

Ground operation continues

The Israeli military claimed it killed "approximately 50 Hamas terrorists" during ground operations in the northern Gaza Strip on Tuesday.

It comes after Israel said over the weekend it had entered a "second stage" of its war against Hamas following weeks of strikes on Gaza.

In a statement on Tuesday evening, the IDF said that troops from its Givati Brigade also operated in western Jablaya and were targeting a Hamas commander in the area.

The area of operation included "firing positions, terror tunnels used by terror operatives as a passageway to the coast, and a large stock of weapons," the statement added.

The IDF said "soldiers killed a number of terrorists in the course of combat" in addition to targeted strikes by the Israeli Air Force.

In addition to seizing weapons and military equipment, the IDF claimed to have located intelligence documents as well.

Exclusive: Australian Troy Birthisel has languished inside a Philippines prison for a decade, maintaining his innocence, waiting for his trial to be completed.

On Friday, 10 years and four days after he was arrested on suspicion of trafficking sex workers, the Queensland father and mining executive finally got a verdict: guilty.

Birthisel was sentenced to life, meaning the 54-year-old is now staring at another 30 years in Lapu-Lapu jail in Cebu province, where he has been jailed since 2013.

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"It was shock, total shock," Birthisel told 9news.com.au over telephone from the prison.

"I really thought I was going home on Friday."

Birthisel, originally from Gladstone, claimed prosecutors had "convicted me on nothing" and said his life had been devastated by waiting 10 years for a judicial outcome.

That painful wait, he said, contravened his human right to a speedy trial.

He said he planned to appeal the verdict, a process that could take 18 months.

In October 2013 Birthisel was detained at Mactan-Cebu International Airport on suspicion of trafficking sex workers from the Philippines.

He was detained along with his Filipino girlfriend and six other Filipino women, while the group was attempting to board a plane to Singapore.

Birthisel said he had been asked to escort the women to Singapore, where they had hoped to secure jobs in the hospitality sector.

Prosecutors later reduced the charges of sex trafficking to illegal recruitment involving economic sabotage; an accusation Birthisel has denied.

He claimed an airport official had tried to extort money from him at the time of his arrest.

According to court documents, four of the women Birthisel had travelled with later denied in affidavits that the Australian was engaged in any illegal activity.

They had initially signed complaints to the contrary, but in subsequent retractions said they had signed because officials had confiscated their passports and they were afraid.

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"I was 99 per cent sure (the verdict) would be in my favour," Birthisel said.

"It was a kick in the guts, but I've got to keep my chin up and keep going.

"I'm not going to give up the fight."

Birthisel said his case, plagued by countless adjournments and delays, had taken so long to conclude that one of his key witnesses had died.

Birthisel's girlfriend Lovely Jane Modina was also given a life sentence.

The pair were also fined 2 million pesos ($48,000).

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Actor Robert De Niro has shouted "Shame on you!" as he testified in a New York courtroom, directing the comments toward his former executive assistant and vice president who is seeking millions of dollars after accusing her former boss of being abusive.

Graham Chase Robinson watched with her lawyers on Tuesday while De Niro's anger built as lawyer Andrew Macurdy pelted him with some tabloid-style accusations his client made about De Niro's behaviour toward Robinson as she served his needs, large and small, from 2008 until several months into 2019.

Robinson, 41, seeks $19 million in damages for emotional distress and reputational harm that she claims has left her jobless and unable to recover from the trauma of her job.

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She was being paid $473,000 annually when she quit, frustrated by her interactions with De Niro's girlfriend and the effect she believed it was having on the actor.

The jury is also considering evidence pertaining to a lawsuit De Niro filed against Robinson in which he claimed that she stole things from him, including five million points that could be used for airline flights.

De Niro is seeking the return of three years of Robinson's salary.

Macurdy asked De Niro whether it was true that he sometimes urinated as he spoke with Robinson on the telephone.

"That's nonsense," De Niro answered. "You got us all here for this?"

Macurdy told De Niro he called Robinson "bitch to her face."

"I was never abusive, ever," the actor snapped back, though he conceded that he might have used the word in conversations with her.

And the claim that he told Robinson he preferred that she scratch his back rather than using a back-scratching device drew another angry rebuke from De Niro, who said it might have happened once or twice, but "never was with disrespect or lewdness."

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Finally, he angrily looked toward Robinson and shouted: "Shame on you, Chase Robinson!"

Quickly, he blurted an apology in a quieter voice, as he glanced toward Judge Lewis J. Liman.

De Niro, 80, has won two Oscars in a six-decade movie career that has featured memorable roles in films including The Deer Hunter and Raging Bull.

He is currently starring in Martin Scorsese's Killers Of The Flower Moon.

Latrell Mitchell has broken his silence surrounding his "traumatic" arrest after police threw out fighting charges against him and Jack Wighton.

Prosecutor Sam Bargwanna decided not to offer any more evidence on Wednesday morning, ending the prosecution of the star NRL duo.

The most senior police officer involved in their arrest – Sergeant David Power – admitted on Tuesday he gave false evidence and lied under oath while testifying.

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https://twitter.com/tiffgenders/status/1719494175471948210

Lawyers for the NRL players flagged civil action would stem from the botched prosecution, with the ACT's attorney-general reportedly considering a review into the case.

Mitchell, who was hugging and giggling with his distant cousin Wighton after the charges were pulled, admitted it had been a hugely difficult process to go through.

"I hope everyone knows and understands the seriousness of what's going on and (it was) a massive hit on the community," he told reporters outside court.

"For the last 10 months it's been very hard for not only myself but my family and what they've had to read and endure … (it's a) traumatic experience that I've had of Canberra."

Power initially said he'd removed former Canberra player Wighton from Fiction nightclub after seeing him with clenched fists, anger in his face and grabbing another man by the shirt in an aggressive manner.

But Wighton's lawyer Steve Boland pieced together a timeline via CCTV footage that forced him to admit his "memory had failed me" and that what he'd said hadn't happened.

Power later addressed Wighton, saying: "Sorry, Jack, if that's what happened mate, I thought I saw something different … I'm sorry."

Wighton wouldn't respond when asked what he made of the apology, instead paying tribute to the support of his former club and its CEO Don Furner.

"You backed me the whole way through and it means a lot to me … I spent so long at this club and in this town and the support is massive," he told reporters.

"You've got to thank your family for backing you through moments like this, it was a long 10 months, there were a couple of big mistakes made and we come up with this result."

The star duo had been at Fiction celebrating Wighton's 30th birthday, before they spilled onto the street when the former Raider was removed from the venue for alleged aggressive behaviour.

Police had accused the pair, who'll be teammates at South Sydney next season, of fighting each other after Wighton was given an exclusion direction.

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South Sydney fullback Mitchell could be heard pleading with police to ease up while they were arresting him, his friends heard telling the officers to stop their "police brutality".

Mitchell, 25, had been charged with affray, fighting in a public place and resisting a territory official, while Wighton, 30, was charged with fighting in a public place and failing to comply with an exclusion direction.

In the weeks leading up to his violent death, former Royal Air Force serviceman Adrian Humphreys grew increasingly excited about taking his new camper on its first trip.

Having purchased it just a month prior, Humphreys had spent countless hours modifying it, adding his personal touches and getting it ready for the rugged terrain of backcountry Taranaki, on the west coast of New Zealand's North Island.

The 57-year-old never got to spend his first full night inside the camper after he'd parked it at the remote Bushlands Campground at Tāngarākau, off State Highway 43, the Forgotten World Highway, Stuff reported.

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Instead, the Rotorua-based Humphreys was stabbed five times as he lay in his sleeping bag before he staggered outside, blood pouring from his torso, his life ending slumped on the grass outside.

Less than six hours later, his body was found by a mentor from START Taranaki, a Kaponga-based organisation that specialises in helping troubled young people.

Enrolled on that course in May last year was 16-year-old Justice Williamson-Atkinson, who the Crown now says murdered the unsuspecting camper with a knife from the campground's kitchen, motivated by a desire to steal Humphreys' car.

In her opening address in the High Court at New Plymouth on Tuesday, Crown prosecutor Jo Woodcock said Humphreys had simply found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Williamson-Atkinson has denied a charge of murder, and another of committing a burglary with a weapon.

However, Woodcock said the Crown would show through the evidence collected it could only have been him who stabbed Humphreys to death, before he stole his victim's phone and case containing valuables before disposing of them in thick bush surrounding the campground.

Included in that evidence was Humphreys' blood on a sweatshirt found in Williamson-Atkinson's tent, while his DNA was found in the cut marks of the sleeping bag.

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Woodcock said there was also a string of inconsistencies in what the accused said after Humphreys' body was found.

They included a claim that he had heard the victim arguing with "a guy" outside, although his story changed when interviewed by police, when he claimed he was in a deep sleep after taking his medication, something the Crown said he refused to take that night.

In an intercepted phone call between Williamson-Atkinson and his girlfriend, police also heard him say that his mother knew what he had done, but he was told to stick to his story.

He later told police that an associate had killed Humphreys, and he had simply moved the knife.

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Defence counsel Matt Phelps focussed his opening on that point, telling the jury that it was that associate, who was also on the START programme, who had killed Humphreys.

Phelps said his client was not in the camper when Humphreys was killed, and he does not accept any evidence which said he had confessed to the killing to family members.

The first five of 40 Crown witnesses then gave evidence throughout the day, including START mentor Kajin Phillips, who described Williamson-Atkinson as a "good kid" who struggled to follow instructions.

The trial continues today.

This article was reproduced with permission from Stuff.

The cosmos is full of mysteries waiting to be solved, and some of them appear especially eerie with the arrival of Halloween.

A haunting "face" on Jupiter and a ghostly, skeletal hand-shaped nebula are just a couple of creepy celestial features recently spotted by NASA missions.

Jupiter's eerie 'face'

The Juno mission, orbiting Jupiter and some of its largest moons since 2016, made its 54th close flyby of the largest planet in our solar system on September 7.

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The JunoCam instrument captured swirling clouds and storms in Jupiter's northern regions along the planet's terminator, or the line dividing the day side from the night side.

A Picasso-like face appears to emerge from the turbulent atmosphere in a phenomenon called pareidolia, in which viewers spy faces and other recognisable objects within random patterns.

The raw data, available to the public on the JunoCam website, was processed by citizen scientist Vladimir Tarasov. During the close pass, Juno flew about 7700 kilometres above the planet's cloud tops, where the low angle of sunlight added to the dramatic nature of the image.

X-rays spot celestial bones

X-rays were first used by physicist Wilhelm Röntgen to image the bones of his wife's hand in 1895 — and now, two X-ray telescopes have revealed the "bones" of a glowing hand-shaped cloud that formed in the aftermath of a star's collapse.

The cloud of gas and dust, or nebula, was created 1500 years ago when a massive star burned through its interior nuclear fuel and collapsed. The nebula, known as MSH 15-52, is located about 16,000 light-years from Earth.

As the star collapsed, it left behind a dense remnant known as a neutron star. Rapidly rotating neutron stars that have strong magnetic fields are called pulsars. Newly formed pulsars send out jets of energised material and have powerful winds, which created this particular nebula.

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory observed the pulsar, known as PSR B1509-58, for the first time in 2001. The bright pulsar was spotted within the base of the "palm" of the hand-shaped nebula. A jet from the pulsar can be traced down to the "wrist."

Map of a nebula's magnetic field

More than 20 years later, NASA's Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer, or IXPE, spent 17 days observing the nebula. This is the space observatory's longest observing campaign since launching in December 2021. The results of the new telescope's operations were published on Monday in The Astrophysical Journal.

"The IXPE data gives us the first map of the magnetic field in the 'hand,'" said lead study author Roger Romani, professor of physics at Stanford University in California, in a statement.

"The charged particles producing the X-rays travel along the magnetic field, determining the basic shape of the nebula, like the bones do in a person's hand."

The telescope's unique observational capabilities are allowing scientists to determine where particles in the nebula are accelerated by turbulent regions within the magnetic field.

An Adelaide funeral home is giving Aussies the opportunity to send the ashes of loved ones to space in a nationwide first.

The new way to remember someone would allow those on earth to follow their loved one's space journey for up to a decade.

New Zealand-based company Stardust Me is offering the service through Adelaide Funeral Home, Alfred James.

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It will see a gram of ashes put into a titanium container and sent into orbit on an Elon Musk-owned Space X Falcon 9 Rocket.

"In a rocket from Cape Canaveral – it goes up and orbits for 10 years and eventually as it re-enters the atmosphere it blazes up as a star," Romeo Barone from Alfred James said.

It's an eternity only previously available to the rich and famous.

"We were trying to change that narrative around death being about finality," Stu Potter from Stardust Me said.

"There is death and there is an end to it but it's also about celebrating all those wonderful things we remember about our family member."

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Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry was the first sent where no ashes had gone before, aboard space shuttle Columbia in 1992.

Now those on Earth can follow their loved one's orbit on an app at a cost of just over $3000.

The cost is comparable to a traditional burial.

The average tombstone costs upwards of $2000.

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One family is already ready to launch ashes to be sent from Adelaide to blast off in March.

"They're over the moon to be doing this. Stardust Me offered them a free token and they are super excited," Barone said.

At least 3000 people young and old were out tonight, a resident estimates.

An extraordinary mission to play all 406 golf courses in memory of a beloved teenager.

The master chef outlines her greatest fear, her bucket-list hopes and a vision for NZ.