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Days after the devastating Air India-171 crashkilled at least 270 people, investigators from across the world are putting their heads together to find out what exactly went wrong. So far, there is no indication of where the fault lies, and it could take months before we have an answer.

But as the waiting game begins, the Tata Group – which owns the airline along with other iconic brands such as Jaguar Land Rover and Tetley Tea – confronts a litany of unprecedented challenges at a critical juncture of the carrier's ambitious turnaround.

The narrative was just beginning to change for Air India in the lead-up to the tragedy.

In the hands of a new private owner – the Tatas bought the airline from the government in 2022 – Air India showed an operating profit, better revenues and fewer customer complaints.

Although disgruntlement about poor service standards, dysfunctional in-house entertainment and flight delays hadn't entirely gone away, there was an understanding that these were niggling transition troubles as the airline undertook multiplecomplex mergersto streamline its operations.

Cosmetically the improvements were beginning to show too; slick new livery and retrofitted interiors on some aircraft, brand-new A-350s in the fleet deployed on key routes and a record-breaking order for new planes to retire old ones and service India's booming aviation market.

After years of neglect when Air India was under state ownership, the Tatas said earlier this year that they'd embarked on the "final climb phrase" of the carrier's transformation journey towards becoming a "world class" airline.

Last week's horrific crash has now cast a shadow on these plans.

"I'll never fly Air India again" was a common refrain heard among people gripped by panic and fear last week. While Air India, and particularly the Dreamliners it flew, have a strong safety record, this knee-jerk reaction was to be expected, say experts, when a crash on this scale happens. This loss of passenger confidence could derail the turnaround efforts that were already under way.

A spate of other reported incidents this month – including engines developing suspected technical snags and a hoax bomb threat aboard a plane carrying 156 passengers from Phuket to Delhi – could worsen matters.

"There will definitely be a short-term impact where people may be wary of flying Air India. The disaster was very tragic, many lives have been lost and the event will stay in people's memories for long," said Jitendra Bhargava, a former executive director with the airline.

"We are already hearing of cancelled bookings," Shukor Yusof, founder and analyst at Singapore-based Endau Analytics, told the BBC.

"Air India was a difficult flag carrier to turn around, to begin with, bogged down by legacy and financial issues. There will be a need to pause as they grapple with the aftermath of the tragedy and this [the turnaround] will likely take more time than management had envisaged."

A lot of resources will now have to be redirected to non-operational issues dealing with the crash, such as insurance, legal and reputation damage in the coming weeks, months and even years, says Mr Yusof.

Drawing parallels with the unprecedentedtwin tragediesthat Malaysia Airlines suffered in 2014, he said it took a full decade for the airline to turn a profit after those crashes.

Air India will require time to "heal" too, he said, whereas the advantage of the exceptional growth in air travel in India "may now go to its rivals".

The strain on operations is already beginning to show. Air India has said it is cancelling international services on its wide body aircraft by 15% until mid-July amid enhanced safety inspections and rising airspace restrictions.

Meanwhile, the investigation – and what it potentially throws up – will continue to hang over the airline.

With authorities from the UK, US and India overseeing various safety inspections and regulatory aspects of the investigation, the airline will be under intense global scrutiny, according to Mark Martin, an aviation expert.

"Questions will be raised about operational and aircraft maintenance issues, and about what Air India has done to fix its old fleet," he said.

The most critical step after any crisis is the recovery action and consistent communication around it, says Mitu Samar Jha, whose firm offers risk and reputation advice to companies and corporate leaders in Mumbai. And Air India will need to make sure it doesn't get this wrong.

In a sense it is a triple whammy for the Tatas, who have the tough job of fielding questions on the fleet they inherited after acquiring Air India from the government, for Boeing's continuing troubles and their own maintenance and safety standards, she says.

"Investigations to identify the cause, corrective measures, and enhanced safety standards will follow soon but from the reputation lens, I hope they consistently communicate and that too authentically," says Ms Jha.

Often, companies focus a lot on action post crisis but "fail to regularly update the larger world on the progress. This results in the formation of incorrect perspectives and loss of control over the narrative, aggravating the reputation loss", she adds.

But Air India hopes it can navigate this crisis from a position of strength.

The carrier's CEO Campbell Wilson has highlighted the airline's commitment to co-operating with investigators and supporting the families of the victims.

Earlier this week, Tata Group chairman N Chandrasekaran held a town hall meeting with employees asking them to stay resolute amid any criticism, Reuters reported. He said last week's plane crash was the "most heartbreaking" crisis of his career and the airline should use it as a catalyst to build a safer airline.

The airline has some of the world's "best pilots and engineers" Sanjay Lazar, an aviation consultant told the BBC. Additionally,enhanced safety inspectionsordered by India's regulator on all the carrier's 787 Dreamliners should be a morale booster for worried passengers.

"History indicates that post accidents and emergencies, airlines become ultra cautious, that is the human tendency. It's like a homeowner after a burglary, adds tons of locks. The airline will follow every comma and full stop in SOP [standard operating procedure]," said Mr Lazar.

The Tatas may also take comfort from having Singapore Airlines (SIA) as a shareholder and partner – widely regarded as one of the world's best airlines.

SIA could be instrumental in "helping nurse Air India back to health", said Mr Yusof.

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A controversial South African opposition MP, central to a row over race relations in the country, has been denied entry to the UK.

The Home Office said Julius Malema had been deemed "non-conducive to the public good" and that it was "undesirable" to grant him entry.

In a letter released by Malema's party, the Home Office cited his vocal support for Hamas, including a speech he made after the 7 October attacks in which he said his own party would arm the group if it came to power.

The UK said Malema had made "statements calling for the slaughter of white people [in South Africa] or hinted that it could be an acceptable option in the future", and also cited this as a reason for its decision.

His Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party, which came fourth in South Africa's parliamentary election last year, condemned the decision as "cowardice" and said it would stifle democratic debate.

The EFF said the UK had distorted Malema's views on how the "genuine frustrations of Africans who are excluded [from the economy] at the behest of a white minority may lead to social violence and resistance" in South Africa.

Malema and the party would not "trade" their "revolutionary beliefs in exchange for a visa", the EFF said.

"The UK and all of its allies can keep their visas, and we will keep our Africa and a commitment to support the oppressed of the world, especially the Palestinian people," the party added.

Malema featured prominently in a video played last month by President Donald Trump during a visit by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa to the White House.

In the video, Malema is seen singing "Shoot to kill" and "Kill the Boer", which Trump says incites violence against the ethnic Afrikaner group.

However, South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal has ruled that the lyrics do not amount to hate speech and were a "provocative way" of advancing the EFF's political agenda – which was to end "land and economic injustice" .

The court added that a "reasonably well-informed person" would understand that when "protest songs are sung, even by politicians, the words are not meant to be understood literally, nor is the gesture of shooting to be understood as a call to arms or violence".

Malema is a fierce critic of what he sees as "Western imperialism", and advocates the nationalisation of white-owned land in South Africa to address the legacy of colonialism and the racist system of apartheid.

White-minority rule ended in South Africa in 1994, with the rise of Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress (ANC) to power.

This is the second time Malema has been denied entry to the UK in just two months.

The first time the UK government said he had submitted his application too late – this time, a British official in South Africa told the BBC it was a "substantive decision".

The Home Office said he has no right of appeal and was likely to be denied any future applications, according to the letter released by the EFF.

A Home Office spokesperson told the BBC: "It is our longstanding policy not to comment on individual cases."

Some of Malema's critics in South Africa are likely to welcome the UK's decision, and will hope that he will be more cautious in his public statements in the future.

But his supporters are likely to argue that he is being targeted for expressing views that the UK finds uncomfortable.

Official statistics show that South Africa's unemployment rate has risen to 33%, with black people being worst-affected.

The EFF's support-base, made up largely of young people, believes that more radical action is needed to tackle racial inequality and injustices.

The party got less than 10% of the vote in last year's election, and fell from third to fourth spot after losing support mostly to former President Jacob Zuma's uMkhonto weSizwe (Spear of the Nation) party.

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New Zealand has paused millions of dollars in funding to the Cook Islands over wide-ranging deals that its smaller Pacific neighbour had made with China.

Wellington, the Cook Islands' biggest funder, said it was blindsided by the deals that were struck in February, covering infrastructure, tourism, technology and perhaps crucially, deep-sea mineral exploration.

Fresh funding will not be considered until the Cook Islands "takes concrete steps to repair the relationship and restore trust", said a spokesman for New Zealand Foreign Minister Winston Peters.

The NZ$18.2m ($11m; £8m) funding halt comes as concerns grow among US allies, including New Zealand and Australia,over China's rise in the Pacific.

"Funding relies on a high trust bilateral relationship," Peters' spokesman said on Thursday.

"New Zealand hopes that steps will be taken swiftly to address New Zealand's concerns so that this support can be resumed as soon as possible," the spokesperson added.

The Cook Islands responded by saying it was "determined to address [the issue] as a matter of urgency", adding that it "highly values" New Zealand's development assistance over the years.

"Constructive dialogue is ongoing, and the Cook Islands remain committed to engaging closely with New Zealand to understand where their concerns lie and how they can be addressed," its foreign ministry said in a statement.

New Zealand's latest move also comes as Prime Minister Christopher Luxon is on an official visit to China, where he will meet Chinese President Xi Jinping on Friday.

Peters' spokesman said he was not worried that Beijing might view the move negatively, noting Wellington's "special relationship" with the Cook Islands.

The deals with the Cook Islands are part of China's broader campaign to woo small but strategic Pacific nations. Beijing had earlier signed asecurity deal it signed with the Solomon Islands in 2022which alarmed Western nations.

Cook Islands Prime Minister Mark Brown said in February that its deals with China were based on his country's "long-term interests" and tried to reassure its neighbours Australia and New Zealand that they do not replace their "longstanding relationships".

China also said the deals were not meant to antagonise anyone in the region

The deals sparked protests on Rarotonga – the largest of the Cook Islands – and a vote of no confidence against Brown in parliament, which he eventually survived.

New Zealand has what is known as a "free association" relationship with the Cook Islands, and helps the latter with defence and foreign affairs. In the last three years, Wellington provided NZ$194m in funding to the Cook Islands, according to government figures.

Cook Islanders also hold New Zealand passports. There are around 15,000 Cook Islanders living in their own nation, but as many as 100,000 live in New Zealand and Australia.

Culturally, Cook Islands Māori, who make up the majority of the population, are also closely related to, but distinct from, New Zealand Māori.

These close ties explain why the Cooks' first-of-their-kind deals with China led to such strong reactions.

Even before that, however, the Cook Islands had already shown signs of wanting to pull away. Late last year, it abandoned a proposal to introduce its own passportfollowing a public outcry.

Officials from Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo have reached a draft agreement aimed at ending decades of conflict.

The breakthrough, mediated by the US and Qatar, provides for the "disengagement, disarmament and conditional integration" of armed groups fighting in eastern DR Congo.

Rwanda denies widespread accusations that it backs one of those groups, the M23, which has seized large parts of the region this year.

It also includes provisions for a joint security mechanism to prevent future flare-ups. The peace deal is expected to be formally signed next week.

The deal could open the way for billions of dollars of western investment in the mineral-rich region, which been plagued by conflict for three decades.

However, analysts say that many questions still remain about the contents of the peace deal.

The US State Department said technical teams had initialled the draft text on Wednesday, ahead of a formal signing ceremony next Friday to be witnessed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

In a statement, it said the deal was reached during three days of "constructive dialogue regarding political, security, and economic interests" between officials of the two countries in Washington.

The latest draft agreement builds on a previous accord signed earlier, it added.

In late April, Rwanda and DR Congo signed an agreement in Washington, promising to respect each other's sovereignty and come up with a draft peace deal within days.

The decades-long conflict escalated earlier this year when M23 rebels seized swathes of mineral-rich territory in eastern DR Congo.

Rwanda denies supporting the M23, insisting its military presence in the region is a defensive measure against threats posed by armed groups like the FDLR – a rebel group composed largely of ethnic Hutus linked to the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Rwanda in turn accuses the Congolese government of backing the FDLR, which is denied by DR Congo.

The M23 captured Goma in late January, followed by the city of Bukavu, and has since set up governing structures in the regions under its control.

Thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands of civilians forced from their homes in recent months following the rebel offensive.

The questions which are yet to be answered in the draft agreement include:

Following the loss of territory, the government in Kinshasa turned to the US for help, reportedly offering access to critical minerals. Eastern DR Congo is rich in coltan and other resources vital to global electronics industries.

Peace deals between the two countries have unravelled in the past.

Last year, Rwandan and Congolese experts reached an agreement twice under Angolan mediation on the withdrawal of Rwandan troops and joint operations against FDLR – but ministers from both countries failed to endorse the deal. Angola eventually stepped down as a mediator in March.

Additional reporting from Emery Makumeno in Kinshasa

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Armenia's liberal government has never been an ally of the deeply conservative Armenian Apostolic Church (AAC), but when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made extraordinary allegations against an unnamed senior clergyman, it blew open a deep divide.

"Your Grace, go fool around with your uncle's wife. What do you want from me?" said Pashinyan.

He also accused the supreme spiritual leader – Catholicos Karekin II – of breaking his vow of celibacy and fathering a child, calling on him to resign.The BBC has approached the Church for comment but has not had a response.

Until now the Church and government had found a way to co-exist, but the row threatens to split an already polarised Armenian society still further – and affect the outcome of next year's election.

It could also harm peace talks that have the potential to re-shape the entire region of the South Caucasus, after Armenia's bitter defeat in a war against Azerbaijan.

Armenia is believed to be the first nation to make Christianity the state religion, after its king was baptised in 301AD. Although there is a separation of Church and state by law, the Armenian constitution recognises the AAC "as a national Church".

The Church has not addressed the allegations but said the prime minister had sought "to silence its voice". It has reiterated that the government has no say in the matters of Church governance.

If true, Pashinyan's allegation would make the Catholicos unfit for office. Under the Church's by-laws, only monks who took a vow of celibacy can be elected a Catholicos.

On these grounds Pashinyan now demands Karekin's resignation, despite having no jurisdiction over the Church. He has presented no evidence but threatened to release it.

Pashinyan has also attacked other senior clergymen, including accusing one archbishop of having an affair, with the extraordinary allegation of "fooling around" with his uncle's wife.

The opposition parties and two of Armenia's former presidents, Levon Ter-Petrossian and Serzh Sargsyan, have rallied behind the Church and condemned Pashinyan's move against it.

The government's relationship with the Church deteriorated after the defeat in the 2020 war against neighbouring Azerbaijan, when Karekin II joined calls from various political factions for the prime minister to step down.

Pashinyan stayed in power, and the Church became a prominent anti-government voice.

Recently, Karekin II demanded the right of return for the Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan that it recaptured in 2023.

The prime minister's allies are unhappy with such interventions, as they contradict the government's position in the ongoing peace talks.

Pashinyan pushes for a swift peace treaty that would see both countries drop mutual claims. But Azerbaijani media seized on nationalist opposition demands as proof that Armenia is not ready for peace.

The Armenian Church has benefited from becoming a hub for dissent. With personal rivalries between the leaders of opposition parties, it is drawing in those disaffected with the authorities.

Political analysts in Armenia suggest this might be a real reason for the government's sudden attack on the Church leader.

The next general election has been scheduled for June 2026, and the anti-Church campaign could be a pre-emptive strike against the stronghold of conservative opposition.

The prime minister himself has linked his position to politics: "We returned the state to the people. Now we must return the Church to the people."

When a powerful benefactor spoke out in support of the Church this week, the government swiftly moved against him.

Russian-Armenian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan threatened to "intervene in the campaign against the Church in our own way" if opposition politicians failed to defend it.

Hours later, his residence was raided and on Wednesday he was charged with "making public calls to overthrow the government". He denies the charge.

The conflict between Armenia's political and spiritual leader is a highly sensitive matter far beyond its national borders, as the Church has hundreds of parishes in the diaspora, from Russia and Ukraine to Western Europe, the Middle East and America.

While rumours about Karekin's alleged secret family have long circulated in tabloids, for years more serious accusations were being made by diaspora parishes.

They alleged that Church leaders were extorting monthly payments and micro-managing dioceses that used to enjoy operational autonomy.

In 2013, the Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem accused Karekin II of having no spiritual values and only tending to its material wellbeing. The Church said the allegations were false.

Until recently, Nikol Pashinyan has largely stayed above the fray. "It is my belief that government has no place in the Church's internal issues," he said soon after taking office in 2018. After years of respecting this pledge, the prime minister might have changed his mind.

Whatever the outcome of this row, it is likely to deepen polarisation in a society that has already been fractured, not just by political infighting, but by wedge issues over whether to be allied to Russia or the West and by tensions between the residents of Armenia and ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.

A part of a US national suicide prevention hotline that caters for LGBTQ young people says it will soon close, after the Trump administration cut its funding.

The administration has accused the service of "radical gender ideology".

It says it will still fund the wider 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – of which the LGBTQ youth option is one part – and that all callers will receive "compassion and help".

The Trevor Project, an organisation that helped to run the LGBTQ option, said the decision would have a harmful impact on vulnerable young people.

"Suicide prevention is about people, not politics," said Jaymes Black, the organisation's CEO. He said his service had been told to close within 30 days.

"The administration's decision to remove a bipartisan, evidence-based service that has effectively supported a high-risk group of young people through their darkest moments is incomprehensible," Mr Black added.

The decision comes during international Pride Month, which celebrates LGBTQ culture and history.

The news also arrived ahead of a US Supreme Court decision on Tuesday that upheld the state of Tennessee's ban on transition-related healthcare for minors who identify as transgender.

The general 988 Lifeline offers free mental health support via call, text, or chat. It is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a subsidiary of the US Health and Human Services Agency (HHS).

Currently, LGBTQ young people can select option 3 from a call menu in order to connect with counsellors.

After the changes, the remaining 988 Lifeline services would "focus on serving all help seekers", including those who previously chose to access LGBTQ youth services, SAMHSA said.

But the hotline would "no longer silo LGB+ youth services", SAMHSA wrote in a statement, omitting the "T" and "Q" that refers to transgender and queer people in the LGBTQ acronym.

Officials at HHS proposed cutting the 988 Lifeline's LGBTQ youth services last week.

In a statement to NBC News at the time, an HHS spokesperson described the option as a "chat service where children are encouraged to embrace radical gender ideology by 'counselors' without consent or knowledge of their parents".

Legislation passed in 2020 by the US Congress required the 988 Lifeline to provide services and staff specifically for LGBTQ people as well as other at-risk groups like rural and Native Americans.

The legislation noted that LGBTQ youth were "more than 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide than their peers, with 1 in 5 LGBTQ youth and more than 1 in 3 transgender youth reporting attempting suicide".

The law received bipartisan support – including from Donald Trump, who was then serving his first presidential term, and signed the bill into law.

According to the 988 Lifeline website, LGBTQ communities are "disproportionately at risk for suicide and other mental health struggles due to historic and ongoing structural violence."

The Trevor Project began providing its services through the 988 Lifeline in 2022. In 2024, it served more than 231,000 crisis contacts, the organisation said in a statement. It says it will continue to provide its own independent services.

The decision to eliminate the 988 Lifeline's designated LGBTQ youth option comes amid Trump's push to curtail services, support, and access for transgender people across the federal government.

He has pushed to end diversity, equity, and inclusion policies (DEI) within the federal government, arguing that such programmes are themselves discriminatory.

The president has also ordered the removal of transgender servicemembers from the US military and issued an executive order that the US would only recognise two sexes – male and female.

The US Department of State also announced it would no longer allow applicants to choose "X" as their gender on US passports. Instead, transgender individuals must choose "male" or "female" corresponding to their sex assigned at birth.

If you are suffering distress or despair and need support, you could speak to a health professional, or an organisation that offers support. Details of help available in many countries can be found at Befrienders Worldwide. www.befrienders.org

In the UK a list of organisations that can help is available at bbc.co.uk/actionline

The US joining Israeli strikes would cause "hell for the whole region", Iran's deputy foreign minister has told the BBC.

Saeed Khatibzadeh said this is "not America's war" and if US President Donald Trump does get involved, he will always be remembered as "a president who entered a war he doesn't belong in".

He said US involvement would turn the conflict into a "quagmire", continue aggression and delay an end to the "brutal atrocities".

His comments came after the Soroka hospital in southern Israel was hit during an Iranian missile attack. Iranian state media reported that the strike targeted a military site next to the hospital, and not the facility itself.

Israel's Ministry of Health said 71 people were injured during the attack on the Soroka Medical Centre.

Meanwhile, Israel's military said it had targeted Iran's nuclear sites including the "inactive" Arak heavy water reactor and Natanz facility.

Tehran has not given an update on casualties in Iran from Israeli strikes.

The latest attacks come at a critical time. On Thursday, the White House said Trump would decide whether or not the US gets directly involved in the conflict within the next two weeks.

Speaking to the BBC, Khatibzadeh insisted that "of course, diplomacy is the first option", but said but while bombardment continues "we cannot start any negotiation".

He repeatedly called Iran's attacks on Israel "self defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter" and said "we were in the middle of diplomacy" when in a major escalation of the conflict on 13 June, Israel launched attacks on Iranian nuclear sites, killing several top generals and nuclear scientists.

The deputy foreign minister called the conflict "unprovoked" and "unnecessary".

Responding to Trump's repeated comments that the conflict could have been avoided if Iran had accepted a nuclear deal, Khatibzadeh said they were negotiating until Israel "sabotaged" discussions by launching attacks Iran.

"We were planning to have the sixth round of nuclear talks in Muscat, and we were actually on the verge of reaching an agreement," he said.

"President Trump knows better than anybody else that we were on the verge of reaching an agreement."

He also criticised Trump's "confusing and contradictory" social media posts and interviews, which he said indicated "that Americans have been aware and have participated" in the conflict.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi have reportedly spoken on the phone several times since Friday, in a bid to find a diplomatic end to the crisis, Reuters reported.

According to three diplomats who spoke to the news agency and asked not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the matter, Araqchi said Tehran would not return to negotiations unless Israel stopped the attacks.

Israel has alleged Iran has recently "taken steps to weaponise" its enriched uranium stockpile, which can be used for power plants or nuclear bombs. Iran has always claimed that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.

On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the UN's nuclear watchdog – said Iran had amassed enough uranium enriched up to 60% purity – a short technical step away from weapons grade, or 90% – to potentially make nuclear bombs.

"This is nonsense," Khatibzadeh said in response. "You cannot start a war based on speculation or intention.

"If we wanted to have a nuclear bomb, we would have had it way before.

"Iran has never developed any programme for nuclear weaponisation of peaceful nuclear activities. Bottom line."

IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said that nuclear facilities "must never be attacked, regardless of the context or circumstances, as it could harm both people and the environment".

Khatibzadeh also discussed potential diplomatic channels after a G7 summit in Canada.

He said: "What we are hearing from Europeans is that they would like to get back to diplomacy at a ministerial level".

"They are going to have a meeting in Geneva and we are very much happy that finally they have to come and talk at the table about the issues at hand."

Southern Mexico began a major clean-up on Thursday in the aftermath of Hurricane Erick, which hit its Pacific coast as a powerful Category 3 storm.

The tourist town of Puerto Escondido in Oaxaca state was left without electricity and phone coverage, after the storm damaged infrastructure, including two hospitals, and flooded streets.

There have been no reports of deaths or injuries. The storm dropped to Category 1 soon after making landfall, although the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said flooding and hurricane-force winds would persist as Erick headed north.

The NHC warned of a potential for "life-threatening" storm surge in the hurricane's wake and Mexico's environment ministry also warned of waves of up to 10m (33ft).

Hundreds of troops were called in to help with clean-up efforts in Puerto Escondido, where several buildings had suffered damage and roads were flooded near where the storm made landfall.

The water "had never hit with this magnitude", 44-year-old merchant Luis Alberto Gil, whose shop was among those flooded, told AFP.

State-owned utility CFE said that more than 120,000 users lost power in Oaxaca, with service restored to a quarter of those affected by late morning.

Gusts in the state reached 125mph (205km/h) an hour before falling to 85mph.

Around 250 miles (400km) north along the Pacific coast, the port and resort city of Acapulco was largely deserted as residents heeded calls to hunker down, with shops boarded up and tourist boats grounded.

Many had stocked up the day before on food, water and gasoline.

Alerts remained in place on Thursday for life-threatening flooding and mudslides in Oaxaca and neighbouring Guerrero, as well as the potential for a life-threatening storm surge on the coast.

However, the NHC said that Erick was to continue its "rapid weakening" and would probably dissipate in the later hours of Thursday.

President Claudia Sheinbaum had urged people to avoid going out and advised those living in low-lying areas or near rivers to move to shelters – some 2,000 of which had been set up in Chiapas, Guerrero and Oaxaca in anticipation.

Southern Mexico was severely battered by Hurricane Otis in 2023. At least50 people were killedwhen the Category 5 hurricane battered Acapulco.

Otis intensified rapidly, meaning many people were unprepared when the hurricane made landfall.

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At least 12 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces while waiting for aid in central Gaza, according to rescuers and medics.

Reports say the group was killed by gunfire near an aid distribution site run by the US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) on Thursday.

The GHF denied there were any incidents near its site. The Israeli military told Reuters that "suspects" had attempted to approach forces in the area of Netzarim, and that soldiers had fired warning shots. It said it was unaware of any injuries.

The incident is the latest in almost daily shootings near such aid sites in Gaza.

Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed since late May, when the GHF took over aid distribution in Gaza in an attempt by Israel to bypass the UN as the main supplier of aid.

Nearly all the casualties in Gaza in recent days have been linked to incidents around the delivery of aid, rather than Israeli strikes on Hamas targets.

Gaza's health ministry said on Thursday that since midnight 12 people had been killed while seeking aid, without giving further details.

The Hamas-run civil defence agency – Gaza's main emergency service – told AFP news agency that a group was killed by Israeli gunfire near the Netzarim corridor, where thousands of people have been gathering daily seeking aid.

Civil defence official Mohammad al-Mughayyir said 15 people were killed and 60 injured in the incident. Israel does not allow international news organisations, including the BBC, into Gaza, making it difficult to verify figures.

AFP said it had spoken to witness Bassam Abu Shaar, who said thousands of people had gathered overnight at the GHF-backed distribution site, and that Israeli forces opened fire at about 01:00 (22:00 GMT).

He said the size of the crowd had made it impossible for people to escape the gunfire, adding: "We couldn't help them or even escape ourselves."

The GHF however told the BBC: "There were no incidents anywhere near our site today."

"This is yet again another example of false and misleading reporting by the GHM [Gaza health ministry]."

The BBC has contacted the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for a response.

According to Reuters, the Israeli military said people had approached its forces in a threatening manner.

In a Telegram statement on Wednesday, Hamas called for the UN and its humanitarian agencies to be the sole distributors of aid in Gaza.

The UN and other aid groups refuse to co-operate with the new aid system led by the GHF. The UN says the system contravenes the humanitarian principles of neutrality, impartiality, and independence.

They also warn that Gaza's population faces catastrophic levels of hunger after an 11-week total Israeli blockade that was partially eased a month ago.

The US and Israel say GHF's system will prevent aid being stolen by Hamas, which the group denies doing.

Separately on Thursday, civil defence teams recovered dozens of bodies from various parts of the Gaza Strip following reports of Israeli shelling.

Seven people were reportedly killed when a tent sheltering displaced civilians was hit in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.

Eyewitnesses and relatives of the victims told the BBC that those killed were a couple and their five children from the Asaliya family.

The Israeli military launched a campaign in Gaza in response to the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage.

At least 55,637 people have been killed in Gaza since then, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.