BEIRUT (AP) — An oil spill caused by leakage from a U.K.-sanctioned tanker grounded for weeks off Oman appears to be expanding dramatically, reaching shorelines and far out to sea, according to experts and satellite images reviewed by The Associated Press.

Greenpeace Germany said in a statement Monday that satellite images from a day earlier indicate the oil spill now covers an estimated 150 square kilometers (58 square miles), affecting large stretches of Qibliyah Island off Dhofar, Oman’s largest governorate.

Compared to satellite images from a week earlier, “it is a drastic increase,” said Nina Noelle of Greenpeace Germany, who noted that clearly a large amount of crude oil is leaking. Last week, the spill’s surface area was estimated at 20 square kilometers (8 miles.) It was not clear what has caused the leak to grow.

The images from Sunday showed an oil sheen spreading to the northeast from the 274-meter (899-foot) Suezmax tanker Caroline Bezengi, which is sanctioned by the U.K. for carrying oil that originates from Russia.

The affected area is part of the Arabian Sea reserve, a marine protected area and host to wildlife including endangered petrels and the rare Arabian Sea humpback whale.

Wim Zwijnenburg, an environmental expert for PAX, a Dutch organization that focuses on conflict and the environment, said the sheen is a thin layer of oil that often evaporates depending on the type of crude oil and weather conditions. Thick black patches of oil reached the southern and western shores of the island, he added.

Zwijnenburg said the oil sheen appears to be roughly 90 kilometers long (56 miles), nearly double its length a week ago.

He estimated that the tanker had been carrying over 800,000 barrels of crude oil.

The tanker has been grounded since June, according to two shipping and maritime news outlets which reported that the crew reported an explosion on board at the time. The AP was not able to independently confirm the reports.

The U.K. government said in its decision to sanction the vessel that it “has been or is likely to be involved in activity whose object or effect is to destabilize Ukraine” or to support the Russian government. The Cameroon-flagged tanker is also sanctioned by the European Union, Canada and Switzerland.

SynMax Maritime, a geospatial data tracking company, earlier said on X it obtained images in May showing the tanker at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in Russia before its most recent voyage.

“This dramatic expansion (of the oil spill) underscores the serious and continuing environmental threat posed by the stranded tanker — and exemplifies the dangers associated with the practices of Russia’s shadow fleet,” Greenpeace Germany said in its statement.

It was not clear where the ship had been going when it grounded off Oman.

Oman’s Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology had ordered the ship’s owners to remove it and its cargo by July 23, according to the Omani Muscat Daily. It was not clear Tuesday if the owners have replied.

By Joey Roulette

WASHINGTON, Aug 4 (Reuters) – A SpaceX rocket piece floating in space since last year is on track to smash into the moon at high speed early Wednesday morning.

The school-bus-size object is the second stage of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that had launched a lunar lander from Firefly Aerospace toward the moon in January 2025.

Weighing four metric tons (4,000 kg), the rocket body is due to hit the moon around 2:35 a.m. ET (0635 GMT), hitting its surface at 5,400 miles per hour (8,690 kph). The space junk will kick up a plume of lunar dust that will likely be illuminated by sunlight but difficult to spot with the naked eye from Earth.

The impact is unintentional, SpaceX said. The rocket piece is expected to hit Einstein Crater on the moon’s western limb, which is often difficult to see from Earth.

COSMIC FORCES NUDGED PIECE TO MOON

Such stages typically fall back into Earth’s atmosphere and burn up or plunge into the ocean after boosting the rocket’s payload to a precise spot in orbit. 

But because the January lunar lander mission required more thrust than missions closer to Earth, the rocket’s second stage remained in space, floating aimlessly among thousands of other pieces of space junk that active satellites must steer clear of.

It was not until earlier this year that astronomers determined that the rocket stage, which had dumped its remaining fuel and cannot be controlled, was on an orbital trajectory ending at the moon.

“What has happened is essentially a mixture of solar activity and gravity forces have put it on a path toward the moon,” Julianna Scheiman, SpaceX director of NASA science and Dragon programs, told reporters on Monday.

“This may be of some — probably minor— scientific interest, and we may learn some things from it,” said Bill Gray, creator of widely used astronomy software who published a report on the stage’s impact in April.

“It doesn’t present any danger to anyone, though it does highlight a certain carelessness about how leftover space hardware (space junk) is disposed of.”

Space junk impacts on the moon are rare. A Chinese rocket stage crashed into the moon in March 2022 after completing a lunar test mission. In 2009, NASA intentionally crashed a rocket stage into the moon to study the plume of lunar material kicked up by the impact.

Several spacecraft intending to softly land on the moon in recent years have crashed instead. Russia’s nuclear-powered Luna-25 mission spun out of control and crashed in 2023. Its small power source of plutonium-238 likely remains harmlessly on the lunar surface.

India’s Chandrayaan-2 lander mission crashed in 2019. Israel’s Beresheet lander crashed that same year. Among the Israeli lander’s payloads were tiny tardigrades, microscopic animals known for surviving radiation and other harsh environments and which may still be on the surface.

NASA intentionally crashed stages from its Saturn V moon rocket into the moon in the 1970s to study the impacts’ seismic effects.

NASA and SpaceX are discussing ways to prevent future lunar impacts, Scheiman said. The U.S. space agency plans to build a lunar base and send routine astronaut missions to the lunar surface beginning later this decade under its multibillion-dollar Artemis program. It would not want errant pieces of space junk impacting those assets.

(Reporting by Joey RouletteEditing by Rod Nickel)

By Camillus Eboh

ABUJA, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Nigerian President Bola Tinubu has approved pay rises of up to 80% for members of the armed forces, the presidency said on Tuesday, in a move aimed at boosting troop welfare as the country battles insurgency, banditry and kidnappings.

The salary increase comes as Nigeria grapples with multiple security challenges across different regions.

Islamist insurgents, including Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), continue to stage attacks in the northeast, while heavily armed criminal gangs, known locally as bandits, operate across parts of the northwest.

Kidnappings for ransom have become widespread in parts of north-central Nigeria, while security forces also face periodic separatist-linked violence in the southeast.

Under the new pay structure, effective Sept. 1, officers above the rank of colonel, including generals, will receive a 30% salary increase. Personnel from colonel to warrant officer will receive a 50% raise, while soldiers from private to staff sergeant rank will see salaries rise by 80%, according to a statement by presidential adviser Bayo Onanuga.

The new package will increase the annual wage bill for the armed forces to 924 billion naira ($678.68 million) from 660 billion naira.

Successive governments have struggled to contain insecurity despite increased military deployments and spending, with attacks by armed groups continuing to strain security forces and communities.

Tinubu said his administration would continue to prioritise troop welfare and modernise the armed forces with the weapons and technology needed to tackle security threats.

($1 = 1,361.47 naira)

(Writing by Chijioke OhuochaEditing by Nick Zieminski)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Kenya has introduced a cap on the amount of carbon emissions credits it will authorize for sale to overseas buyers, unveiling one of Africa’s most detailed rule books for international carbon trading.

The country has set a 10 million metric ton (11,023,113 ton) carbon dioxide equivalent budget for international carbon market transactions up to 2030. It establishes a ceiling against which every request will be assessed under the country’s new carbon markets guide.

The guide, released Monday, creates a framework for approving projects under Article 6 of the Paris Agreement, which allows countries to trade emission reduction credits to help meet global climate targets.

“It introduces a national carbon budget for trading to safeguard our Nationally Determined Contribution,” or NDC, Environment Cabinet Secretary Deborah Barasa said.

The Paris Agreement, signed just over a decade ago, commits countries to keeping the rise in global temperatures by the year 2100 compared with preindustrial times “well below” 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and says they will “endeavor to limit” them even more, to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Kenya’s carbon budget covers emissions reductions generated in the energy, transportation, industrial processes and waste sectors, with annual allocations capped at 1.67 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. Officials say the cap is intended to prevent Kenya from overselling carbon credits that it may later need to meet its own NDC under the Paris Agreement.

The framework replaces an often uncertain approval process characterized by its three-stage decision pathway comprising No-Objection, Approval and Authorization.

“The guide establishes a national carbon budget for trading as a binding safeguard,” Environment and Climate Change Principal Secretary Festus Ng’eno said, adding that it provides state agencies with practical decision-making tools throughout a project’s life cycle.

The guide also introduces a conditional list of priority activities covering renewable energy, transportation and waste projects. Forests and other land-use projects are excluded for now while the country develops stronger baselines and data to manage reversal risks. Officials say inclusion on the list does not guarantee approval but is intended to speed the review of projects that align with Kenya’s development priorities.

Kenya has emerged as one of Africa’s largest carbon market destinations, attracting investments in clean cooking, renewable energy, mangrove restoration and forest conservation. The government says the new framework will improve investor confidence by making decisions more predictable while protecting climate integrity and ensuring local communities benefit from carbon market projects.

“Predictability, transparency, and institutional coherence are essential to attracting quality investment,” Ng’eno said, adding that government decisions will be based on “clear, published criteria designed to deliver national benefits without compromising Kenya’s climate integrity.”

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Princess Eugenie has given birth to a baby girl, her third child and first daughter, Buckingham Palace said Tuesday.

Eugenie, the younger daughter of the former Prince Andrew and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, and husband, Jack Brooksbank, announced the birth of the 6-pound, 9-ounce (3 kilograms), girl delivered Monday in Lisbon, Portugal.

The girl was not named yet. The couple has two sons August, 5, and Ernest, 3.

Eugenie is the niece of King Charles III, the older brother of the former prince now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.

“Their majesties the King and Queen and other members of the royal family were delighted to be informed of the news,” the palace said.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Hundreds of mourners dressed mostly in white walked through central Kyiv on Tuesday behind the open casket of a university student killed at the weekend by a Russian strike as she helped people wounded in an earlier attack.

The farewell for 20-year-old Vitalina Yarovenko began inside St. Michael’s golden-domed Cathedral, where clergy read prayers over the casket and relatives and friends approached her body to say goodbye.

Her family said they had asked mourners to wear white or traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts instead of black, so that Vitalina “would not feel too sad.”

Although Yarovenko was a civilian, her mother asked that she be given the kind of funeral procession used in Ukraine to honor fallen soldiers. Several hundred people followed her casket from the cathedral downhill toward Independence Square.

Traffic stopped for several minutes to allow the procession pass. Drivers stepped out of their cars and stood silently. Some knelt on one knee, while others placed a hand over their heart.

Yarovenko, a fourth-year psychology student at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, had been an instructor at a military training school affiliated with the university.

In July, she began volunteering with the Hospitallers, a Ukrainian medical organization which is mostly focused on delivering frontline medical aid and whose teams travel to the sites of Russian attacks to treat and evacuate the wounded.

Early Saturday, Yarovenko rushed to the scene of a Russian missile strike that hit Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district. As she and other volunteers were at the scene, another strike hit the same location, according to her relatives and friends.

Ukrainian officials have previously accused Russia of targeting rescue workers by hitting residential buildings with two consecutive missiles — the first one to draw crews to the scene and the second one to wound or kill them. The tactic is called a “double tap” in military jargon.

At Independence Square, the crowd observed a minute of silence for those killed while defending Ukraine.

Yarovenko’s mother, Nataliia, stood holding a microphone in her right hand and a large portrait of her daughter in her left. Crying, her voice shaking, she said she was giving up the most precious thing she had.

“I have given up the meaning of my entire life, but I am immensely proud,” she said. “I don’t want a hero at home. I want my child at home. But this was her path.”

Beside her stood another mother, also named Nataliia, whose daughter, 25-year-old Eva Royce, was working alongside Yarovenko and was also killed.

Royce had not yet been buried because her remains were severely burned and the identification of recovered body parts was still underway. Her mother did not speak during Yarovenko’s ceremony as she mourned her own daughter.

Yarovenko had planned to enlist after completing her fourth year at university, said her friend Anastasiia Alieksieieva.

“Her decision to volunteer and help people in Kyiv after the attacks showed how committed she was to that plan,” Alieksieieva, 21, said. “She did not even make it to graduation.”

Another close friend, Anna Donets, 19, said Yarovenko had raised money for Ukraine’s military, volunteered at a military hospital and helped organize military training for youth.

“There are not many people like her, and she was going there to help people,” Donets said. “People like her shape the future, and others should follow them. But unfortunately, Russia kills them.”

Donets described Yarovenko as exceptionally funny and someone whose presence could lift those around her.

“We were remembering her humor yesterday and laughing because she was always teasing everyone. It was never boring with her,” she said. “At 8 in the morning on teaching days, when everyone else was exhausted, she would arrive as if she were stepping onto a runway. She was so beautiful — simply a queen.”

Serhii Beskrestnov, a family friend and a presidential adviser on defense technology development, struggled to find words.

“We understand that there is a war, that men and women are dying,” he said. “But when it happens away from the front, to people who are helping … I don’t know. I have no words right now.”

Russia launched 220 aerial weapons across Ukraine that night, including 35 missiles and 185 drones, Ukraine’s air force said. Twenty-seven missiles were ballistic Iskander-M missiles or missiles fired from S-400 systems. Ukrainian defenses intercepted only one of them, along with one guided air-launched missile.

At least nine people were killed and 33 were wounded in Kyiv that night, according to Ukrainian authorities. The attack underscored Ukraine’s critical shortage of Western-supplied defenses against ballistic missiles. Ukraine relies heavily on U.S.-made Patriot systems, but interceptor missiles remain in short supply.

At the end of the ceremony, mourners approached Yarovenko’s casket one by one, laying white flowers beside her. She was later buried at a military cemetery in Kyiv, a distinction rarely granted to civilians.

Her mother spoke of the future she had imagined for her daughter — and the future she said Ukrainians must still defend.

“We must withstand this war so that this land remains for our Ukrainian children,” she said. “Unfortunately, my child will now lie in this earth. I would have very much liked to give her a beautiful wedding, but today that is no longer possible.”

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Police from five Amazon countries have arrested hundreds of people and seized timber, minerals and thousands of livestock in one of the largest coordinated crackdowns on environmental crime ever carried out in the world’s largest rainforest.

Authorities from Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru said Tuesday that Operation Green Shield 2026, which ran from July 15-31, deployed more than 3,600 officers targeting illegal mining, logging, wildlife trafficking, fuel smuggling and land grabbing — the illegal seizure or occupation of land, often followed by forest clearing — across the Amazon Basin.

The operation resulted in 839 arrests during 1,045 field actions and the seizure of more than 280,000 cubic meters (9.9 million cubic feet) of illegally harvested timber — enough to fill roughly 110 Olympic-sized swimming pools — along with 195 metric tons of minerals and equipment used in illegal mining like gold, carbon, iron and copper, according to officials. Authorities also rescued more than 3,000 live animals and recovered at least 430 dead animals linked to wildlife trafficking, including snakes, birds, lizards and fish.

Environmental crime has become one of the Amazon’s most profitable illicit industries, fueled by global demand for gold, timber and wildlife. Investigators say the same criminal organizations often combine illegal mining, logging and wildlife trafficking, using shared trafficking routes and financial networks that span national borders. Officials say that has made cross-border cooperation increasingly important, as criminal groups frequently move people and goods across neighboring countries to evade law enforcement.

The operation was coordinated from Colombian capital, Bogota, by the International Initiative of Law Enforcement for Climate, or I2LEC, a United Arab Emirates-backed initiative launched in partnership with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in 2023 to strengthen international cooperation against environmental crime.

The crackdown follows a similar multinational operation in 2025 that brought together more than 1,500 officers from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru. That operation marked one of the first large-scale attempts to coordinate intelligence sharing and simultaneous enforcement across borders against environmental crime, reflecting growing concern that criminal groups involved in illegal mining, logging and wildlife trafficking increasingly operate across national boundaries.

This year’s operation expanded to include Bolivia and involved synchronized deployments in remote border and river regions, authorities said.

“The UAE leadership firmly believes that collaboration is essential to combating transnational crime,” Col. Dana Humaid, director general of the International Affairs Bureau at the UAE Ministry of Interior, said in a statement. “By working together, law enforcement agencies can achieve stronger results.”

Officials said the combined value of the goods seized during the operation exceeded $280 million.

Colombian National Police Director Gen. William Oswaldo Rincón Zambrano said the operation showed how intelligence sharing could be translated into coordinated enforcement.

“Protecting our natural resources requires a shared response,” he said.

Peruvian police environmental chief Gen. J. Manuel Cruz Chamba said environmental crimes “do not respect borders” and therefore require international cooperation.

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

GLASGOW, Aug 4 (Reuters) – Scottish police are investigating reports of foreign athletes, identified in the media as boxers from Uganda and Pakistan, who failed to return home after competing in the Commonwealth Games that ended in Glasgow last Sunday.

“Police Scotland has received reports of several athletes who are unaccounted for,” a spokesperson said on Tuesday.

“Enquiries are ongoing to assess the circumstances, and early engagement is taking place with the Home Office.”

Uganda’s NBS Sport reported that four of the country’s six-member boxing team had gone missing ahead of the team’s scheduled return home on Tuesday and one of them told the broadcaster they planned to seek asylum.

The Pakistan Today website said one of the country’s boxers had also failed to show up for a flight home on Tuesday.

Reports of missing athletes after Commonwealth Games have been common in recent editions, which have been hosted in Australia or Britain since Glasgow 2014.

In 2018, after the Gold Coast Games in Australia, authorities were seeking 50 athletes and officials still missing a month after competition ended, with another 190 seeking asylum.

Some 3,000 athletes from 74 nations attended the 11 days of the Glasgow Games.

(Reporting by Alan BaldwinEditing by Christian Radnedge)

‘Speak Out in Defense of Spain’s Territorial Integrity,’ Spanish MEP Urges Netanyahu

Tens of thousands crossed into a city of 84,000 in a matter of days, leaving at least 83 dead on both sides of the border and raising questions about Morocco’s role, Spain’s sovereignty and Israel’s response

By Gabriel Colodro / The Media Line

The border crisis in Ceuta prompted Juan Carlos Girauta, a Spanish member of the European Parliament, to make a direct appeal to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“With my greatest admiration and respect for Netanyahu’s life story and courage, I ask Netanyahu to speak out in defense of Spain’s territorial integrity, because the Spanish government is not Spain,” Girauta told The Media Line.

The scale of the influx from Morocco was difficult to measure in real time. Spain initially estimated that just under 50,000 people entered on Thursday, July 30, and the total reached close to 60,000, including those who followed over the next several days. By Monday, Aug. 3, police sources said about 69,500 had returned to Morocco. That figure may have included earlier arrivals and people who crossed more than once. People entered through the land frontier, climbed the fences, or swam around the Tarajal breakwater. Ceuta itself has only about 84,000 residents.

José Bentolila, president of Ceuta’s Jewish community, said residents had noticed a steady movement toward the city before the main crossing began. “We had already spent several days seeing an incessant trickle of migrants, morning and afternoon,” Bentolila told The Media Line.

From workplaces facing the Moroccan coast, residents could see what he described as “a line of flotation rings in the water—hundreds of them.” On Wednesday, he said, police advised businesses to close because they could not predict how large the movement would become.

As border controls were overwhelmed, much of Ceuta stopped functioning. Shops closed, bread became difficult to find, and many residents remained inside. Bentolila said people who had crossed stopped cars to ask for food, money or access to a telephone. He said police responded to fights, while residents and business owners reported thefts, looting and attempted entries into homes. “Any business that tried to open even a little had perhaps 500 people come in and had to close and call the police,” he said. “You cannot serve 90,000 people all at once.”

By Monday, Ceuta had yet to absorb the aftermath. Between 3,000 and 5,000 migrants were still in the city, according to official estimates, and some were sleeping outside because the reception centers were full. Spanish authorities had taken responsibility for 862 children and teenagers who arrived without an adult.

The human toll was also becoming clearer. Spanish officials reported 72 deaths on the Spanish side of the border, while Morocco’s Foreign Ministry reported 11 deaths on the Moroccan side. Spanish authorities said more than 1,000 people had received medical treatment.

Police and military reinforcements remained in Ceuta. By Aug. 2, a 500-meter floating barrier had also been deployed off the Tarajal breakwater.

For Ceuta’s Jewish community, the crisis brought fear but no reported antisemitic attacks. Bentolila said the synagogue and other communal sites already receive discreet police protection because authorities consider them sensitive locations. Shabbat services went ahead. “People go out with some apprehension, some fear, because they do not know what they will find in the street,” he said. “Suddenly, you may come across a group of 40 or 50 people.”

“We have not had any antisemitic incident,” Bentolila added. “We cannot point in that direction, at least for now.”

The emergency was concentrated in Ceuta, but the political dispute surrounding it soon reached Madrid, Brussels and Jerusalem.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, accused Spain of hypocrisy for deploying troops in Ceuta after repeatedly criticizing Israeli security policies. “Maybe before it continues lecturing us, it’s time it explained to the world why it still maintains colonial enclaves in Africa,” Danon wrote, referring to Ceuta and Melilla.

Israel’s chargé d’affaires in Spain, Dana Erlich, quickly distanced the government from the post. Danon’s comment “does not represent the position of the State of Israel,” she wrote. Bentolila said it was the only public Israeli response the community had seen. “Of course we would have liked” a message of support, Bentolila said. “That is always welcome.”

For Girauta, Erlich’s clarification did not undo the political damage. He said Danon’s intervention gave supporters of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez material to use against Vox and other Spanish defenders of Israel. Television discussions about the border failure soon included claims that Israel and the United States had contributed to the crisis.

Online accounts also revived a 2019 post by Netanyahu’s son Yair mentioning Ceuta and Melilla. No evidence has emerged connecting Israel to the crossings. “That is the political ammunition they are giving Israel’s enemies in Spain,” Girauta said.

Ángel Mas, president of ACOM, a Spanish organization that campaigns against antisemitism and supports relations with Israel, said Israeli anger toward Sánchez was understandable after years of disputes over the Gaza war. Mockery directed at Ceuta, however, harmed some of the people most willing to defend Israel inside Spain. “The pro-Israel position in Spain has probably not been this compromised or this weak for a long time,” Mas told The Media Line. “Who does that help? It helps Sánchez.”

Neither Mas nor Girauta accepted comparisons between the border crisis and the October 7, 2023, attack in Israel. “Nothing about this is comparable to October 7,” Girauta said.

The only resemblance they identified concerned the first hours after the border controls were overwhelmed, when residents did not know who had entered or whether the authorities controlled the surrounding streets.

Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish autonomous cities, and their residents are Spanish citizens. Ceuta has been under Spanish sovereignty since the 17th century, although Morocco claims both Ceuta and Melilla and characterizes Spanish rule there as colonial.

Girauta called the mass crossing “hybrid warfare” and accused Moroccan authorities of allowing or encouraging it. Mas used the same term, arguing that an influx of such magnitude was difficult to explain as a simple loss of control.

Public evidence has not established that Morocco organized the influx. Reports citing officials familiar with Spain’s intelligence assessment said Rabat apparently did not plan the crossing but allowed it to develop by gradually relaxing border controls. Morocco denied using migration to punish Spain and blamed human traffickers, economic hardship and false information spread online.

Sánchez visited Algiers 10 days before the largest arrivals. His July 20 meeting with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune ended with an agreement to expand political cooperation and reconvene senior officials in October. Algeria supplied 42.7% of Spain’s natural gas in May.

With Algeria and Morocco locked in a longstanding regional rivalry, the sequence of events immediately raised questions about Rabat’s motives. Some analysts and political figures suggested that the border crisis could have been a warning over Madrid’s renewed contact with Algiers. So far, nothing made public by either government supports that theory.

Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska did not endorse that interpretation. Even amid the crisis, he continued to refer to Morocco as a reliable partner. He blamed smuggling networks for spreading false claims about a Spanish court ruling on summary returns.

Sánchez, meanwhile, described the crossing as an “attack” and a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity, yet thanked Morocco for helping return those who entered.

Girauta said those positions were difficult to reconcile.

Grande-Marlaska also said Spain’s CNI intelligence service had not warned him that a mass crossing was imminent. Reports of a breakdown between security agencies subsequently produced friction between the interior and defense ministries.

The reaction elsewhere in Europe was swift, even though the influx remained confined to Ceuta. Twenty-two EU governments called for urgent talks on external border security. Girauta said they had reacted “with concern, great concern.”

“It is not only Spain’s border; it is Europe’s border,” he said.

Italy temporarily began checking passengers arriving by air and sea from Spain, focusing on travelers from outside the European Union.

Sánchez accused European partners of abandoning Spain. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen sought to calm fears of onward movement. “Not a single person reached mainland Spain or the rest of the EU,” she said.

Vox MEP Hermann Tertsch was unsurprised by the response in Brussels. “We did not expect much from there,” he told The Media Line, accusing the European Parliament of repeatedly favoring illegal immigration.

Support instead came from conservative and nationalist groups that “reacted immediately and with full solidarity with the Spanish nation and Spain’s national and territorial integrity,” Tertsch said.

He compared the status of Ceuta and Melilla to that of a US state. “For the United States, Hawaii is the United States,” Tertsch said. “The Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands are Spanish. That is simply how things are.”

Israel’s close relationship with Morocco further complicated the position of its Spanish allies. As the crisis unfolded, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar congratulated King Mohammed VI on the 27th anniversary of his accession to the throne and praised Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita for his commitment to bilateral relations.

Girauta said the timing was difficult to explain without a separate Israeli statement supporting Spain’s territorial integrity.

Tertsch made the same argument in sharper terms. “Attacks on Spanish sovereignty and Spanish territories only benefit Sánchez,” he said, accusing the prime minister of trying to separate Spain from Washington, Jerusalem and its “natural allies.”

“We must not make that easier by giving an opening to those who want to present Israel and the United States as enemies that encourage the Islamist invasion of Europe,” Tertsch said.

Mas warned Israelis not to confuse warm relations with Morocco’s government with attitudes across Moroccan society. “The Moroccan government is friendly. The people are not,” he said. “The Spanish government is not friendly, but the people are not hostile.”

“Many Spanish Jews have their origins in Morocco,” Mas added. “There were 250,000 Jews living in Morocco until 1948.”

Most of Morocco’s Jewish population left in the decades after Israel’s establishment, though estimates of the community’s size and the timing of its departure vary. By contrast, the Jewish communities of Ceuta and Melilla remain part of cities that have long presented coexistence among Jews, Christians, Muslims and Hindus as central to their identity.

Bentolila said Ceuta’s residents largely know one another regardless of religion. “One of the pillars of the city is that it is the city of four cultures,” he said. “We always raise the flag of those four cultures because of the understanding among them.”

By the beginning of the week, thousands of people remained in Ceuta, reception facilities were overwhelmed, and residents were still trying to understand how border controls had been overwhelmed so quickly.

Bentolila would not turn the Jewish community into a party to the dispute among Spain, Morocco and Israel. His concern remained closer to home: protecting families, reopening businesses and preserving the coexistence on which the city prides itself.

CAPE TOWN, Aug 4 (Reuters) – An airplane’s tyre burst on landing at Cape Town International Airport on Tuesday afternoon, causing flight disruptions as the main runway was closed though all passengers disembarked the plane safely.

South Africa’s airports management company said the Kenya Airways plane was disabled on the main runway for several hours before the runway could reopen and flights resume.

Earlier, flights into Cape Town had been diverted to other airports and international departures put on hold.

Some flights may still be delayed as operations return to normal, Airports Company South Africa said in a statement.

Kenya Airways said in a post on X that its engineers and technical team were working to get the plane fixed.

Cape Town is a popular tourist city and its international airport the second-busiest in South Africa.

(Reporting by Wendell Roelf and Anathi Madubela;Editing by Alexander Winning)