At least 12 people have been killed and 15 more were wounded in an Israeli air strike on the al-Mawasi "safe zone" in southern Gaza. The victims included women and children, as well as the intended targets: Hamas police chief Mahmoud Salah and his deputy, Hassam Shahwan.

Despite being declared a protected area by the Israeli military, al-Mawasi has been struck several times by missiles. The UN claims Israel has also imposed heavy restrictions on aid deliveries to Gaza. Cold conditions have added to the growing humanitarian crisis, with at least six babies dying there from hypothermia in the past week, according to the BBC.

What did the commentators say?
Safety is an "illusion" in Gaza, where displaced families have been killed "everywhere they might seek refuge", said Dr Ghada Ageel on Middle East Eye. To call al-Mawasi a safe zone "is not only misleading, but a tragic irony, as it has become a graveyard for countless civilians".

The Israeli military claimed the target of the latest air strike, Shahwan, was the head of Hamas's internal security apparatus in southern Gaza and had been hiding among the civilian population. The IDF said it had taken steps to protect civilians ahead of the strike, "including using precise munitions, aerial observations and other intelligence gathering", said The Times of Israel.

"Frequent" evacuation orders from Israeli forces have worsened the crisis unfolding at al-Mawasi, said The Independent. Hundreds of thousands of civilians now live within the 10-mile strip of land, and conditions have become "unbearable" as winter sets in, said Pascale Coissard, an emergency co-ordinator with Médecins Sans Frontières. "Most of the people in Gaza are living in tents that barely isolate the cold wind and rain."

What next?
The humanitarian crisis is likely to worsen over the coming weeks. After a "tense relationship" that has lasted "for decades", Israel is moving to ban the UN's Relief and Works Agency from Gaza, said The New York Times. The agency is a "critical lifeline" for Palestinians but its "crucial" work could "grind to a halt" if the proposed ban goes ahead.

The rise of Afghanistan's men's team has been "one of the great cricket stories of this century", said The Telegraph. The national side has secured high-profile victories against England, Pakistan and Sri Lanka over the past few years, and against all the odds beat Australia in the T20 World Cup last summer, reaching the semi-finals for the first time after defeating Bangladesh.

But England is "under pressure" to boycott its fixture against Afghanistan in the International Cricket Council (ICC) Champions Trophy group stage on 26 February, said the Daily Mirror, in protest at the Taliban's "appalling treatment of women", including a ban on women's cricket.

'Playing ball with apartheid'
Australia and England have declined to schedule any domestically controlled bilateral series with the Afghanistan side since the Taliban returned to power, but while Afghanistan remains a full ICC member, both countries play the team during ICC fixtures. 

"How in all conscience can this game go ahead?" asked Janice Turner in The Times. The Taliban is practising "gender apartheid", and when South Africa did the same "along racial lines, it rightly suffered sporting boycotts". The Taliban love cricket, so boycotting it would be a "rare way to sanction its monstrous regime". And "shame on any Englishman who plays ball with apartheid next month".

The outgoing ICC chair, Greg Barclay, last month accused Cricket Australia of hypocrisy over their bilateral series boycott. "If you really want to make a political statement, don't play them in a World Cup," he said. 

'The only source of happiness'
However, "most Afghan women players" oppose such a boycott, said The Economist. Despite a "paltry budget", the men's team has become "wildly popular", and female cricketers, most of whom are living in exile, have argued that a ban would "deprive their compatriots of a rare source of pride and pleasure". 

The team's success also provides a platform for players to speak out. Last month two of the men's team called on the Taliban to lift the ban on women training as doctors and nurses, which had been "one of the last remaining loopholes" available under the overall ban on higher education, said The Guardian.

The new season of "The Traitors" kicks off with an "utterly gutting twist", said Rachel Aroesti in The Guardian. As the contestants "merrily bond" on a steam train to the Scottish Highlands, Claudia Winkleman makes the shock announcement that three players must be ejected.

After a stretch of "awkward silence", three "noble souls take one for the team and clamber [down] to the tracks". It's a "thoroughly galling" opening that proves the third series of this hit reality TV show won't be "resting on its laurels".

From a "self-destructive mistake" to an "emotional betrayal", last year's finale "had everything", said Nick Hilton in The Independent. "So how do you top that?" Each season "lives and dies on its casting", and this year's line-up features another assortment of "mild eccentrics", including a Londoner who has decided to fake a Welsh accent, and an ex-soldier "masquerading as a nail technician". Viewers will already be "fearing" for the trio of Traitors. "Unsubtle looks, teary over-performance, near-audible gasping: this doesn't look like a team capable of making it to the last leg."

If this season is to reach the same level of drama as last year's, the "brutality must be upped", said Carol Midgley in The Times. The final has been tweaked for this instalment, so the last few contestants to be banished will no longer reveal whether they are a Traitor or a Faithful, making things even harder for those who remain.

But the "key ingredients" are "already in place", said El Hunt in London's The Standard. "Potential threats" are coming into view. "A winning formula strikes again."

At best, 2025 will be a year of slow economic recovery. As for the worst? Brace yourselves
Larry Elliott in The Guardian
This has been a "dismal decade" so far, writes Larry Elliott, and while the second half "should be an improvement", 2025 "will be a time of slow recovery" at best. "At worst", we'll see "recession, global fracturing and increasingly angry voters", including in the UK. Impatient citizens want "quick results", and Keir Starmer's government "could do with some good economic news arriving sharpish". Unfortunately, "there is not much chance of that happening".

Zelensky wants more than just survival – that's why he needs Syria
Anne McElvoy on the i news site
Syria was "a client state of the former Soviet Union" and, following the fall of Bashar al-Assad, "Ukraine glimpses opportunity", says Anne McElvoy. Kyiv is seeking to "emerge from victim status" and create "external relationships in opposition to Moscow's interests". Forging links with Syria's new overlords is partly a "raw power play, rubbing the Kremlin's nose in its failure to rescue Assad", but it is also a "reminder that Ukraine is conducting its own foreign policy".

To get healthier and wealthier, avoid Veganuary – and do 'Canuary' instead
Flic Everett in The Independent
Tinned food is "probably the safest, and cheapest, you can eat", writes Flic Everett, and it can last "through at least six house moves and two divorces". Little wonder that "rather than Veganuary", many of us are "turning to 'Canuary'". It's possible to "craft some truly decent meals" using canned beans, tomatoes and potatoes, and "let's not forget the absolute joy of tinned fish – not a sentence I ever imagined myself writing".