There is a magnificent, snow-white wolf on the cover of Time Magazine today – accompanied by a headline announcing the return of the dire wolf.

This now extinct species is possibly most famous for its fictional role in Game of Thrones, but it did exist – more than 10,000 years ago – when it roamed across the Americas.

The company Colossal Biosciences is behind today’s headlines. It announced that it used “deft genetic engineering and ancient DNA” to breed three dire wolf puppies and to “de-extinct” the species.

But while the young wolves – Romulus, Remus, and Khaleesi – represent an impressive technological breakthrough, independent experts say they are not actually dire wolves.

Zoologist Philip Seddon from the University of Otago in New Zealand explained the animals are “genetically modified grey wolves”.

Colossal publicised its efforts to use similar cutting edge genetic techniques to bring back extinct animals including the woolly mammoth and the Tasmanian tiger.

Meanwhile experts have pointed to important biological differences between the wolf on the cover of Time and the dire wolf that roamed and hunted during the last ice age.

Paleogeneticist Dr Nic Rawlence, also from Otago University, explained how ancient dire wolf DNA – extracted from fossilised remains – is too degraded and damaged to biologically copy or clone.

“Ancient DNA is like if you put fresh DNA in a 500 degree oven overnight,” Dr Rawlence told BBC News. “It comes out fragmented – like shards and dust.

“You can reconstruct [it], but it’s not good enough to do anything else with.”

Instead, he added, the de-extinction team used new synthetic biology technology – snipping out pieces of DNA and inserting them into the genetic code of a living animal that has its entire biological blueprint in tact, in this case a grey wolf.

“So what Colossal has produced is a grey wolf, but it has some dire wolf-like characteristics, like a larger skull and white fur,” said Dr Rawlence. “It’s a hybrid.”

Dr Beth Shapiro, a biologist from Colossal Biosciences, said that this feat does represent de-extinction, which she described as recreating animals with the same characteristics.

“A grey wolf is the closest living relative of a dire wolf – they’re genetically really similar – so we targeted DNA sequences that lead to dire wolf traits and then edited grey wolf cells… then we cloned those cells and created our dire wolves.”

According to Dr Rawlence though, dire wolves diverged from grey wolves anywhere between 2.5 to six million years ago.

“It’s in a completely different genus to grey wolves,” he said. “Colossal compared the genomes of the dire wolf and the grey wolf, and from about 19,000 genes, they determined that 20 changes in 14 genes gave them a dire wolf.”

The edited embryos were implanted in surrogate domestic dog mothers. According to the article in Time, all three wolves were born by planned caesarean section to minimise the risk of complications.

Colossal, which was valued at $10bn (£7.8bn) in January, is keeping the wolves on a private 2,000-acre facility at an undisclosed location in the northern US.

The pups certainly look like many people’s vision of a dire wolf and the story has gathered global attention. So why is this scientific distinction important?

“Because extinction is still forever,” Dr Rawlence told BBC News. “If we don’t have extinction, how are we going to learn from our mistakes?

“Is the message now that we can go and destroy the environment and that animals can go extinct, but we can bring them back?”

The Green Party of England and Wales is aiming for a “record” number of councillors as it looks to increase its power base for an eighth election in a row, party co-leader Adrian Ramsey has said.

The party is looking to build on its successes, after passing 800 councillors for the first time last year.

The local elections in England on 1 May will be a major test for the Greens who quadrupled their number of MPs to four at last year’s general election – but have failed to match the poll increases seen by Reform UK.

Speaking at the Green Party’s campaign launch on Tuesday, co-leader Carla Denyer said her party offers a “positive change” compared to “old tired parties”.

The Green Party leadership predict these elections will lead to a “record-breaking” year for the party.

The party is seeking to win over voters “disillusioned” with mainstream politics.

Ramsey argued the UK was at a “crossroads”, where political instability means smaller parties can help shape the future direction of the country.

Reform is “throwing everything” at the local election “because they want to take advantage of voters feeling understandably let down by Labour and the Conservatives”, Denyer told campaigners.

“But we are here to say that voters have another choice – a positive choice – instead of one of the tired old parties, or worse a party that is divisive, dishonest, in disarray,” she added.

The Greens have failed to match the recent polling successes of Reform, which has overtaken the Tories and been neck-and-neck with Labour in recent national polls.

In contrast the Greens have remained on around 9% in the polls since the general election – while the Liberal Democrats have remained around 14%.

Asked about the party’s polling, Ramsey to BBC Breakfast: “The polls that matter are how people vote in elections.”

The Greens argued their “track record of delivering” is a key point of difference with smaller parties like Reform who are also looking to make in-roads at the local elections.

Green councillors are part of the ruling administration on 40 councils – including Bristol City Council, where the party took control in 2024.

Last year the Greens also became the largest party on Hastings Borough Council and have big numbers on councils including East Hertfordshire, Babergh, East Suffolk, Mid Suffolk, Lewes, Folkestone and Hythe and the Forest of Dean.

The party unveiled its local election pitch in Warwickshire – where the Greens are the largest party on Warwick District Council.

Green leadership of Warwick Council had led to a £5m investment “in improving the quality of council homes to keep bills down and keep homes warm”, Ramsey said.

He added: “These are the sorts of practical things that Green councillors are doing – both for the environment, for people and for affordable housing right around the country.”

About 1,650 seats will be contested on 14 county councils, eight unitary authorities, one metropolitan district, and in the the Isles of Scilly.

There will also be mayoral elections in the West of England, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and – for the first time – in Hull and East Yorkshire and Greater Lincolnshire.

Elections to all 21 county councils in England were due to take place.

But last month, the government announced elections would be postponed in nine areas, where the councils are undertaking reorganisation and devolution.

Those areas are Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Thurrock, Surrey, East and West Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.

Some lenders are set to cut rates on mortgages after turmoil from US President Donald Trump’s tariff policy raised expectations that UK interest rates could be cut further this year.

TSB Bank said it will reduce some two-year fixed rate mortgages by up to 0.25 percentage points on Wednesday, following MPowered Mortgages which trimmed rates across a number of its deals.

Financial markets and economists are predicting that the Bank of England will cut interest rates by more than expected this year to avoid an economic downturn.

The Bank’s main rate stands at 4.5%. It was forecast to reduce it twice this year but the uncertainty created by US tariffs has changed the expectation to three cuts.

Sarah Coles, head of personal finance at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the Bank of England, and other countries’ central banks, “will be really looking to cut interest rates as much as possible in order to support growth”.

“And of course mortgage companies start to price that in right away and we’ve already seen mortgage rates start to fall and we should see plenty of that in the coming days,” she added.

The average mortgage rates on two-year and five-year fixed deals were unchanged on Tuesday, at 5.32% and 5.17% respectively, according to financial information company Moneyfacts, although it said rates were expected to come down in the coming weeks.

Mortgage brokers told the BBC that if so-called swap rates, which lenders use to price loans, stay as they are then some mortgage rates may fall to as low as 3.79% in the coming weeks.

However, the lowest rate deals will not be available to all borrowers, particularly first-time buyers, and may come with a hefty fee.

And many homeowners coming off fixed deals signed before interest rates started rising in mid-2021 will still find themselves in a higher mortgage rate environment.

According to the Bank of England, around a third of those on households will be looking to renew in the next year or two.

A detailed analysis of a full-sized digital scan of the Titanic has revealed new insight into the doomed liner’s final hours.

The exact 3D replica shows the violence of how the ship ripped in two as it sank after hitting an iceberg in 1912 – 1,500 passengers lost their lives in the disaster.

The scan provides a new view of a boiler room, confirming eye-witness accounts that engineers worked right to the end to keep the ship’s lights on.

And a computer simulation also suggests that punctures in the hull the size of A4 pieces of paper led to the ship’s demise.

“Titanic is the last surviving eyewitness to the disaster, and she still has stories to tell,” said Parks Stephenson, a Titanic analyst.

The scan has been studied for a new documentary by National Geographic and Atlantic Productions called Titanic: The Digital Resurrection.

The wreck, which lies 3,800m down in the icy waters of the Atlantic, was mapped using underwater robots.

More than 700,000 images, taken from every angle, were used to create the “digital twin”, which was revealed exclusively to the world by BBC News in 2023.

Because the wreck is so large and lies in the gloom of the deep, exploring it with submersibles only shows tantalising snapshots. The scan, however, provides the first full view of the Titanic.

The immense bow lies upright on the seafloor, almost as if the ship were continuing its voyage.

But sitting 600m away, the stern is a heap of mangled metal. The damage was caused as it slammed into the sea floor after the ship broke in half.

The new mapping technology is providing a different way to study the ship.

“It’s like a crime scene: you need to see what the evidence is, in the context of where it is,” said Parks Stephenson.

“And having a comprehensive view of the entirety of the wreck site is key to understanding what happened here.”

The scan shows new close-up details, including a porthole that was most likely smashed by the iceberg. It tallies with the eye-witness reports of survivors that ice came into some people’s cabins during the collision.

Experts have been studying one of the Titanic’s huge boiler rooms – it’s easy to see on the scan because it sits at the rear of the bow section at the point where the ship broke in two.

Passengers said that the lights were still on as the ship plunged beneath the waves.

The digital replica shows that some of the boilers are concave, which suggests they were still operating as they were plunged into the water.

Lying on the deck of the stern, a valve has also been discovered in an open position, indicating that steam was still flowing into the electricity generating system.

This would have been thanks to a team of engineers led by Joseph Bell who stayed behind to shovel coal into the furnaces to keep the lights on.

All died in the disaster but their heroic actions saved many lives, said Parks Stephenson.

“They kept the lights and the power working to the end, to give the crew time to launch the lifeboats safely with some light instead of in absolute darkness,” he told the BBC.

“They held the chaos at bay as long as possible, and all of that was kind of symbolised by this open steam valve just sitting there on the stern.”

A new simulation has also provided further insights into the sinking.

It takes a detailed structural model of the ship, created from Titanic’s blueprints, and also information about its speed, direction and position, to predict the damage that was caused as it hit the iceberg.

“We used advanced numerical algorithms, computational modelling and supercomputing capabilities to reconstruct the Titanic sinking,” said Prof Jeom-Kee Paik, from University College London, who led the research.

The simulation shows that as the ship made only a glancing blow against the iceberg it was left with a series of punctures running in a line along a narrow section of the hull.

Titanic was supposed to be unsinkable, designed to stay afloat even if four of its watertight compartments flooded.

But the simulation calculates the iceberg’s damage was spread across six compartments.

“The difference between Titanic sinking and not sinking are down to the fine margins of holes about the size of a piece of paper,” said Simon Benson, an associate lecturer in naval architecture at the University of Newcastle.

“But the problem is that those small holes are across a long length of the ship, so the flood water comes in slowly but surely into all of those holes, and then eventually the compartments are flooded over the top and the Titanic sinks.”

Unfortunately the damage cannot be seen on the scan as the lower section of the bow is hidden beneath the sediment.

The human tragedy of the Titanic is still very much visible.

Personal possessions from the ship’s passengers are scattered across the sea floor.

The scan is providing new clues about that cold night in 1912, but it will take experts years to fully scrutinise every detail of the 3D replica.

“She’s only giving her stories to us a little bit at a time,” said Parks Stephenson.

“Every time, she leaves us wanting for more.”

It doesn’t take long to make David Hockney laugh.

At nearly 88 years old, he is frail but still very dapper in his beige, red and black houndstooth suit with a white silk handkerchief poking out of the pocket, and trademark round yellow glasses perched on his nose.

Britain’s most popular artist chuckles a lot, his throaty laugh betraying his many years of smoking.

But, he tells me, as a young student from Bradford at the Royal College of Art in London in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the other students laughed at him.

“People would mock my accent,” he says. But it didn’t faze him. Hockney knew his worth even then. “I’d look at their artworks and I’d think, well, if I drew like that, I’d keep my mouth shut.”

What would the young boy growing up in Bradford think about the life he’d go on to have and the work he’d create?

“He’d have thought it was pretty daft.”

For decades, Hockney has been among the world’s greatest living artists, and he is now opening his biggest ever show.

As we sit together in a vast gallery at the Louis Vuitton Foundation, a stunning museum designed in reflective glass on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris, I ask him what he thinks of the exhibition.

He says it’s his best ever, and bursts into laughter again.

It’s an expression of pure delight at the 11 rooms filled across four floors with his art – and at being alive to see it. “I’m just laughing, I mean we made it!”

Two years ago, when they started planning the exhibition, “I just thought I probably wouldn’t be here”, he says. “I’m still a smoker, a happy smoker fed up of bossy people telling you what to do… but I didn’t know.”

Hockney is sporting a badge that says “End Bossiness Now” in a gallery dedicated to his love of spring. During the pandemic in 2020, Hockney, who was living in Normandy, used his iPad to paint the trees and flowers blooming as spring arrived.

Those 220 iPad works adorn this gallery, floor to ceiling, the walls bursting with blossom and pure joy, made at a time when the world wasn’t feeling very hopeful.

Visitors to the show are greeted at the entrance by Hockney’s message from that time: “Do remember they can’t cancel the spring.”

Hockney has been in poor health. He now has two full-time carers, who have accompanied him to Paris from London, where he now lives. Portraits of both, sitting in their dark blue nurses’ uniforms, are the most recent works in the exhibition, made earlier this year.

A self-portrait of Hockney, painting and smoking a cigarette (his two great loves) is also very new.

He still paints for four to six hours every day, he tells me.

He believes you can’t judge a painter until their last work is done – but looking at his own work gathered together in Paris, “I can see what I was always trying to do, really”.

And he promises that “anybody who has just a little visual sensibility will really enjoy this show”.

His great-nephew Richard Hockney, who has regularly sat for him for 28 years, since he was four years old, including for this exhibition, tells me everyone was determined the artist would make it to Paris.

The night before, Hockney got into a car with his dachshund Tess to be driven across the Channel. And on the morning before they left, they were playing him variations of the jazz classic April in Paris.

Having arrived, “he is glowing”, Richard says. “I think this will keep him going for a long, long time, to be honest.”

And with spring unfolding in the French capital, it’s entirely appropriate that the artist known for chronicling spring would open his exhibition, David Hockney 25, now.

This is a man who would fly back from his home in Los Angeles when he heard the hawthorn had begun to blossom in his native Yorkshire, just so he could paint the dazzling spectacle.

Some of his earliest works, including probably his most famous, A Bigger Splash, are also on show in Paris.

That painting, capturing the moment of a swimmer diving into a Santa Monica pool, is on the wall next to Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), the south of France pool painting that broke records when it sold at auction in 2018 for £70m.

Next to those are Mr and Mrs Clark and Percy, another of Hockney’s most recognisable works, which depicts his good friend Celia Birtwell and her husband Ossie Clark, with their white cat on his knee. Seeing them brought together in one room is spectacular.

But the show’s main focus is the last 25 years because “it’s 2025”, he says. “People think it’s miserable, but in 1925 they’d had the First World War.”

It’s a visual feast, full of the bright colours and optimism for which Hockney has become known.

“I’ve always had it. I’ve always thought it was an absurd world.”

A world to laugh at, to look at closely, as Hockney does, and to paint vibrantly.

Some of the iPad paintings are huge. He’s “amazed they could be blown up so big” when they were created on something so small.

One room is almost pitch dark to show off paintings he did of the Moon, made possible by advances in iPad technology.

There’s also a floor devoted to his portraits (about 60), including a 2022 painting of singer Harry Styles in a striped cardigan with a set of pearls around his neck.

But the rest are the friends and family Hockney knows well – Birtwell, her children and grandchildren, the show’s curator Sir Norman Rosenthal wearing full regalia, Hockney’s partner JP, sometimes with Tess the dog – and two of Richard.

Even though they’re related, when he’s having a portrait done “it’s very surreal looking at him and then realising you’re being painted by David Hockney”, he tells me. “You know he’s always going to create a masterpiece.”

His great uncle chooses to paint people he loves because “he sees the truer representation of yourself than you do”. In one of the portraits, Richard is grinning, in a green and white striped T-shirt.

Because Hockney likes Richard’s cheeky grin, “he will sit there and grin at me because he knows it’s going to make me grin… after six hours, it aches a bit”.

King Charles went to visit Hockney at home in London before he travelled. “He’s a very nice man, thoughtful, I thought,” the artist says. “He does watercolours himself.”

But he doesn’t fancy painting the King. “The problem there is the majesty, isn’t it really? I would find that a bit difficult, I think.”

He does, though, have a work on the go, a new painting of his great-nephew.

Richard tells me Hockney “says he’s still got a lot of work to do, which is good”, adding: “As long as that’s in his head, then he’ll keep going.”

The artist says he’ll finish his painting of his great nephew and then “I will paint somebody else. And I just carry on.”

David Hockney 25 is at the Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, from 9 April until 31 August.

A 15-year-old boy and 13-year-old girl have been found guilty of killing an 80-year-old man who was filmed being punched and kicked during a fatal attack at a park.

Leicester Crown Court heard the boy racially abused Bhim Kohli, and slapped him in the face with a slider shoe while he was on his knees during the “intense attack”, while the girl encouraged the violence and filmed it on her phone while laughing.

Mr Kohli died the day after the assault, which occurred yards from his home while he was walking his dog Rocky in Franklin Park, Braunstone Town, Leicestershire, on 1 September.

The boy was charged with murder and manslaughter, but was acquitted of the more serious charge on Tuesday.

Neither defendant can be named because of their ages.

The boy was remanded in custody, while the girl was released on conditional bail.

They will be sentenced on 19 and 20 May.

When the verdicts were read out, the boy leaned forward in the dock while the girl cried, and hugged her mother when she was released.

Addressing the girl, Mr Justice Turner said: “I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that the fact that bail is being granted should not be taken as any indication as to the sentence when the time comes.”

The judge, who will consider a media application to lift reporting restrictions on 19 May, thanked the jury – which deliberated for more than six hours – for their “obvious hard work”.

After the hearing, Mr Kohli’s daughter Susan Kohli recalled the moment she found her dad at the park “screaming out” in pain.

“It was horrendous, we have never seen him like that before. We all thought he would go to hospital to be treated and he would then be fine. We never imagined he wouldn’t return home. My dad passed away before our eyes, surrounded by his family,” she said.

“We feel anger and disgust towards the teenagers who took dad away from us. They humiliated an 80-year-old man, assaulted him, filmed it and laughed at him.

“The boy… used violence so severe that he broke three of dad’s ribs and neck which caused trauma to his spinal column.”

Mrs Kohli told of watching the video of her father being hit by the slider shoe.

“A loud horrible slapping sound is heard when the boy struck dad,” she said. “Hearing the girl laugh at this assault on dad is utterly disgusting. This sound plays over and over in our heads. Also captured on video is dad’s attempt to call for help as he shouted out for his grandson.”

Mrs Kohli said her father was a “devoted life partner to my mum for 55 years”, as well as a retired businessman, a close friend to many and a “very active” man who had three allotment plots where he grew fruit and vegetables.

“He was an amazing man who loved life. He never took himself seriously. He was good fun to be around and very chatty,” she said.

“He was the person who knitted our family together and we miss him every second of every day.

“The area we have loved for so many years and called home feels so different now and we will never feel safe.

“Having happened only a minute’s walk of where we live is something we cannot get away from and it is a constant reminder.

“Every time my mum opens the front door she thinks about what happened to her husband.”

Both defendants were among a group of children who encountered Mr Kohli in the park on the day he was fatally injured, the trial, which lasted more than five weeks, heard.

Opening the prosecution case, Harpreet Sandhu KC said: “[Bhim Kohli] left his home on Bramble Way. Having left his home, he walked a few yards to the entrance of Franklin Park, where he was going to take his dog for a walk.

“However, Mr Kohli would not get the opportunity to walk his dog for long and never would he return home. That is because in Franklin Park, Mr Kohli had the misfortune to encounter these two defendants.”

Mr Sandhu told the court the boy and girl had spent the afternoon together at Braunstone Park before going to the boy’s home, where he changed his clothes and wore black sliders – a loose-fitting type of shoe similar in appearance to flip-flops – which the barrister said were used in the attack.

He said CCTV footage showed Mr Kohli walked with his dog to Franklin Park at about 18:18 BST, followed by the two defendants and three other children a few minutes later.

The footage of the assault was shown to the jury.

Jurors heard Mr Kohli was discovered by two of his children “on the ground and in obvious pain”.

Mr Kohli, the court heard, had told his daughter he had been punched in the face, kicked, and racially abused.

His cause of death was given as a neck injury causing spinal cord damage, and he had a number of other injuries including fractured ribs.

The boy told a friend he would go “on the run” to Hinckley, in Leicestershire, the day after the attack but was arrested by police minutes later while hiding in a bush, the court heard.

In a letter written by the boy, after he had been charged, to a professional who was working with him, he said: “I am so nervous, well scared and worried. I accept I did it and I’m doing time, I’m just scared about how long I have to do.”

He also said in the letter that his girlfriend had broken up with him and he had been “struggling with that”, so he “needed anger etc releasing”.

When the professional told the boy that the contents of his letter would need to be disclosed, the boy said “that’s my manslaughter plea gone”, Mr Sandhu told the jury.

As Birmingham’s bin strikes enter their fifth week, the health secretary has said he is concerned about the impact of the walkout on public health.

Speaking to Times Radio, Wes Streeting said: “I certainly am concerned about the public health situation and the poor conditions we’re seeing for people in Birmingham.

“As the bin bags are piling up, we see rats and other vermin crawling around.”

Birmingham City Council said on Tuesday morning: “All of our waste wagons have been deployed from our three depots citywide this morning.”

Asking residents to leave their bins out as they normally would, the authority said it would collect them “asap” and apologised for what it called “the current situation”.

Natasha, whose 11-week-old son’s immune system is impaired due to being born prematurely, told BBC Radio WM part of her street in Winson Green was “quite literally a waste site”, blocking her route to the bus stop.

“That pathway is basically covered in black bin bags and physical household waste bins that are overflowing,” she said. “You can clearly see where rodents have actually bitten into the bin bags and they’ve been opened up.

“Do I walk past that tip point, where all that rubbish is, where all the rodents are accumulating, and all the pests are?

“Or do I… walk on the road with my son’s pushchair?

“Essentially, I’m having to choose between my son becoming possibly critically ill or being hit by a car.”

Talks between bin workers and the city council ended on Monday without an agreement being reached and are due to resume on Tuesday.

The strike has made headlines around the world, and last week the city council declared a major incident.

With the backlog of waste growing by 1,000 tonnes a week, neighbouring Lichfield District Council is due to start sending crews to help clear it.

The impact of fly-tipping on communities in the West Midlands, due to the strike, is being debated in the Commons on Tuesday.

“I understand industrial disputes happen,” Streeting added. “I understand people have the right to withdraw their labour, that’s part and parcel of industrial relations in our country.

“But what is not acceptable is allowing these sorts of… unsanitary conditions… to occur on people’s streets.”

Bin workers began indefinite strike action on 11 March, although walkouts have been taking place since January.

They are fighting plans to remove some roles and downgrade others.

Birmingham City Council said only a small number of workers would be facing pay cuts, and it desperately needs to save money after effectively declaring itself bankrupt in 2023.

Unite the Union, which is representing the workers, said Monday’s talks had been “productive” despite the lack of resolution.

But it would not go into the details of what had been discussed.

“All I can say is we both want an end to this dispute,” said Unite regional officer Zoe Mayou.

England’s health secretary’s comments reflect the crisis point many in Birmingham feel the situation has reached.

Speaking to the BBC, one resident said he felt like he was “living in a Third World country“, while others have complained of having to take their rubbish to temporary collection sites after coming home from long overnight shifts.

The council is advising people to continue putting out their household waste on collection days, saying workers who are not on strike will do their best to remove it.

A previous bin strike in 2017 went on for seven weeks before an agreement was reached.

Warning: This article contains distressing content

Palestinian detainees released back to Gaza have told the BBC they were subjected to mistreatment and torture at the hands of Israeli military and prison staff, adding to reports of misconduct within Israel’s barracks and jails.

One man said he was attacked with chemicals and set alight. “I thrashed around like an animal in an attempt to put the fire out [on my body],” said Mohammad Abu Tawileh, a 36-year-old mechanic.

We have conducted in-depth interviews with five released detainees, all of whom were arrested in Gaza in the months after Hamas and other groups killed about 1,200 people in Israel and took 251 hostage. The men were held under Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law, a measure by which people suspected of posing a security risk can be detained for an unspecified period without charge, as Israel set out to recover the hostages and dismantle the proscribed terror group.

The men say they were accused of having links with Hamas and questioned over the location of hostages and tunnels, but were not found to be involved in the 7 October 2023 attacks – a condition Israel had set for anyone released under the recent ceasefire deal.

Some of those freed under the deal were serving sentences for other serious crimes, including the killing of Israelis, but that was not the case for our interviewees. We also asked the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and the Israel Prison Service (IPS) if there were any convictions or accusations against the men but they did not respond to that question.

In the men’s testimony:

• They each describe being stripped, blindfolded, cuffed and beaten
• Some also say they were given electric shocks, menaced by dogs, and denied access to medical care
• Some say they witnessed the deaths of other detainees
• One says he witnessed sexual abuse
• Another says he had his head dunked in chemicals and his back set on fire

We have seen reports by a lawyer who visited two of the men in prison, and have spoken to medical staff who treated some of them on their return.

The BBC sent a lengthy right of reply letter to the IDF which laid out in detail the men’s allegations and their identities.

In its statement, the IDF did not respond to any of the specific allegations, but said it “completely rejects accusations of systematic abuse of detainees”.

It said some of the cases raised by the BBC would be “examined by the relevant authorities”. It added that others “were brought without sufficient detail, without any detail regarding the identity of the detainees, making them impossible to examine”.

It continued: “The IDF takes any… actions which contradict its values very seriously… Specific complaints about inappropriate behaviour by detention facility staff or insufficient conditions are forwarded for examination by the relevant authorities and are dealt with accordingly. In appropriate cases, disciplinary actions are taken against the staff members of the facility, and criminal investigations are opened.”

The IPS said it was not aware of any of the claims of abuse described in our investigation, in its prisons. “[A]s far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility,” it added.

Dr Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne, co-director of the Centre for International Law at the University of Bristol, said the treatment the men described was “entirely inconsistent with both international law and Israeli law”, and in some cases would “meet the threshold of torture”.

“Under international law, the law of armed conflict requires you to treat all detainees humanely,” he said. “The obligations relating to the basic needs of detainees are unaffected by any alleged wrongdoing.”

The five Palestinians interviewed in depth were returned earlier this year under the ceasefire deal with Hamas – the group that led the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel.

They were among about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees exchanged for 33 Israeli hostages, eight dead and 25 living, some of whom have described being abused, starved and threatened by their Hamas captors.

Female hostages previously released have detailed physical and sexual assaults in captivity.

Israel says forensic tests show some of the dead hostages returned in the ceasefire, including children, were killed by Hamas, though the group denies this.

The five released Palestinian detainees all described the same pattern – being arrested in Gaza, taken into Israel to be detained first in military barracks before being moved on to prison, and finally released back to Gaza months later.

They said they had been abused at every stage of the process.

More than a dozen other released detainees, whom the BBC spoke to more briefly as they arrived home in Gaza, also gave accounts of beatings, hunger and disease.

These, in turn, align with testimony given by others to Israeli human rights group B’Tselem and the United Nations, which in July detailed reports from returning detainees that they had been stripped naked, deprived of food, sleep and water, subjected to electric shocks and burned with cigarettes, and had dogs set on them.

A further report by UN experts last month documented cases of rape and sexual assault, and said using this as a threat was “standard operating procedure” for the IDF. Israel responded to say it “categorically rejects the unfounded allegations”.

As Israel does not currently allow international journalists free access to Gaza, our interviews were conducted by phone call and text message, and also in person by our contracted freelancers in the territory.

All five men told us their abuse had begun at the moment of their arrest – when they said they had been stripped, blindfolded and beaten.

Mechanic Mohammad Abu Tawileh told us he had been tortured for days.

He was taken by soldiers to a building not far from the location of his arrest in March 2024, he said, and held in a room – the sole detainee there – for three days of interrogation by troops.

Warning: Graphic image below

Soldiers mixed chemicals used for cleaning into a pot, he told us, and dunked his head in them. The interrogators then punched him, he said, and he fell to the rubble-strewn floor, injuring his eye. He said they then covered his eye with a cloth, which he said “worsened his injury”.

They also set him alight, he told us.

“They used an air freshener with a lighter to set my back on fire. I thrashed around like an animal in an attempt to put the fire out. It spread from my neck down to my legs. Then, they repeatedly hit me with the bottoms of their rifles, and had sticks with them, which they used to hit and poke me on my sides,” he said.

They then “continued pouring acid on me. I spent around a day and a half being washed with [it],” he told us.

“They poured it on my head, and it dripped down my body while I was sitting on the chair.”

Eventually, he said, soldiers poured water on his body, and drove him into Israel where he received medical treatment in hospital, including skin grafts.

Most of his treatment, he said, took place at a field hospital at Sde Teiman barracks, an IDF base near Beersheba in southern Israel. He said he was cuffed naked to a bed and given a nappy instead of access to a toilet. Israeli doctors at this hospital have previously told the BBC shackling patients and forcing them to wear nappies is routine.

When the BBC interviewed Mr Abu Tawileh shortly after his release, his back was covered in red welts. The residual pain from his burns still woke him up, he said, and his vision had been affected.

The BBC was not able to speak to anyone who witnessed an attack on Mr Abu Tawileh, but a specialist eye doctor who treated him on his return to Gaza confirmed that he had suffered a chemical burn to the eye, damaging the skin around it. He also said Mr Abu Tawileh’s vision was weakening, due to either the chemicals or other trauma.

We showed images of his injuries and gave details of his testimony to several UK doctors, who said they appeared consistent with his account, though they noted there were limitations to what they could assess by looking at photos.

The BBC gave extensive details of this account to the IDF, giving it five days to investigate. It did not respond directly to Mr Abu Tawileh’s allegations but said it took any actions “which contradict its values very seriously”.

It said it would “examine” some of the cases, but did not respond to follow-up questions about whether this included Mr Abu Tawileh.

Others we interviewed also described abuse at the point of arrest.

“They cuffed us and hit us. No-one would give me a drop of water,” said Abdul Karim Mushtaha, a 33-year-old poultry slaughterhouse worker, who told us he was arrested in November 2023 at an Israeli checkpoint while following evacuation orders with his family. A report filed by a lawyer who later visited Mr Mushtaha noted he had been “subjected to severe beatings, humiliation, degradation and stripping during his arrest until he was transferred to prison”.

Two said they had then been left outside in the cold for hours, and two said Israeli soldiers stole their belongings and money.

The BBC gave details of the allegations of theft to the IDF, which described it as “contrary to the law and IDF values”. It said it would “thoroughly” examine the cases if more details were provided.

All our interviewees, including Mr Mushtaha, said they were transferred to the Israeli barracks of Sde Teiman, where Mr Abu Tawileh also said he received treatment in its field hospital.

One interviewee told us he was mistreated on the way there. He asked for his name not to be published for fear of reprisals, so we are calling him “Omar”.

He said Israeli soldiers stood and spat on him, and others with him, calling them “sons of pigs” and “sons of Sinwar” – referring to the Hamas leader and architect of the 7 October attacks, killed by Israel five months ago.

“They made us listen to a voice recording that said: ‘What you did to our children, we will do to your children’,” said the 33-year-old, who worked for an electrical cable company.

Sde Teiman has been the focus of previous serious complaints in the wake of the October 2023 attacks. Several soldiers stationed there were charged in February after they were filmed assaulting a detainee, resulting in his hospitalisation for a torn rectum and a punctured lung. In a separate case, a soldier at the base was sentenced after he admitted to the aggravated abuse of Palestinian detainees from Gaza.

Three of the men we spoke to alleged that dogs were used to intimidate detainees at Sde Teiman and other facilities.

“We would get beaten up when they took us from the barracks to the medical clinic or the interrogation room – they’d set [muzzled] dogs on us, tighten our cuffs,” said Mr Abu Tawileh who was held in general detention in the barracks, as well as being treated there.

The BBC asked the IDF to respond to allegations it frequently used dogs to intimidate and attack detainees. It said: “The use of dogs to harm detainees is prohibited.”

It also said there were “experienced terrorists considered to be very dangerous among the detainees held in IDF detention facilities” and that “in exceptional cases there is extended shackling during their detention”.

Several detainees said they had been forced to assume stress positions, including having their arms lifted above their heads for hours.

“We would be sitting on our knees from 5am until 10pm, when it was time to sleep,” said Mr Abu Tawileh.

Hamad al-Dahdouh, another interviewee, said beatings at the barracks “targeted our heads and sensitive areas like the eyes [and] ears”.

The 44-year-old, who worked as a farmer before the war, said he had suffered temporary back and ear damage as a result, and his rib cage had been fractured.

The IDF did not respond to this allegation.

Mr Dahdouh and some of the other released detainees said electric shocks were also used during interrogations or as punishment.

“The oppression units would bring dogs, sticks and stun guns, they would electrocute and beat us,” he said.

They would be subjected to beatings and intimidation every time they were moved, Mr Abu Tawileh added.

During these interrogations they had been accused of links with Hamas, the men added.

“Anyone who was imprisoned… they said: ‘You are a terrorist’,” said Mr Mushtaha. “They always tried to tell us that we had taken part in 7 October. They all had a grudge.

“I told them: ‘If I am Hamas or anyone else, would I be moving through the safe passage? Would I have listened to your calls to leave?'”

He said interrogations would go through the night.

“For three nights, I couldn’t sleep because they were torturing me. Our hands were tied and put above our heads for hours, and we weren’t wearing anything. Any time you would say ‘I’m cold’… they would fill a bucket with cold water, pour it on you and switch on the fan.”

Mr Dahdouh said their interrogators told them that whoever is from Gaza “is affiliated with terrorist groups”, and when detainees asked if they could challenge this in court they were told there was no time for that.

He said he was not given access to a lawyer. The IDF told the BBC: “Israeli law grants the right to judicial review in a civil district court, legal representation by an attorney, and the right of appeal to the Supreme Court.”

“Omar” said he was taken for three days of interrogation when he first arrived at Sde Teiman.

He said the detainees were dressed in thin overalls and held in a freezing room, with loud speakers playing Israeli music.

When the questioning was over, the men said they were led back to the barracks blindfolded.

“We didn’t know if night had come or morning had come. You don’t see the sun. You don’t see anything,” said Omar.

The IDF said it had “oversight mechanisms”, including closed-circuit cameras, “to ensure that detention facilities are managed in accordance with IDF orders and the law”.

Omar and Mr Mushtaha said they were then transferred to Ketziot prison, where they described a “welcoming ceremony” of beatings and other abuse.

Omar said he witnessed sexual assault at Ketziot.

“They took the clothes off some of the guys and would do shameful acts… They forced guys to perform sex acts on each other. I saw it with my own eyes. It wasn’t penetrative sex. He would tell one guy to suck another guy. It was obligatory.”

The BBC did not receive any other reports of this nature, but the Palestinian Prisoners Society, which tracks conditions of Palestinians in Israeli jails, described sexual abuse of detainees held in Ketziot as a “common occurrence”. This ranged from rape and sexual harassment to the beatings of genitals, it said.

The group said that while it had not received testimony of forced sexual acts between detainees, it had been told some had been made to look at each other naked and had been thrown on top of each other naked.

A report by B’Tselem has also gathered allegations of sexual violence, including from one prisoner who said guards attempted to rape him with a carrot.

The BBC put the allegation that prisoners were forced to perform sexual acts on each other to the Israel Prison Service (IPS). It replied that it was “not aware” of the sexual abuse claim or any of the other claims made about treatment and conditions at Ketziot and other prisons that the BBC had gathered.

It said: “IPS is a law enforcement organisation that operates according to the provisions of the law and under the supervision of the state comptroller and many other official critiques.

“All prisoners are detained according to the law. All basic rights required are fully applied by professionally trained prison guards. We are not aware of the claims you described and, as far as we know, no such events have occurred under IPS responsibility.

“Nonetheless, prisoners and detainees have the right to file a complaint that will be fully examined and addressed by official authorities.”

Omar said they were also hit with batons at Ketziot prison.

“After we got tortured, I was in pain all night – from my back to my legs. The guys would carry me from my mattress to the toilet. My body, my back, my legs – my whole body was blue from beatings. For nearly two months I couldn’t move.”

Mr Mushtaha described having his head slammed into a door, and his genitals hit.

“They would strip us naked. They would Taser us. They would hit us in a sensitive place. They would tell us ‘We will castrate you’,” he said.

He said beatings were “meant to break your bones”, and that detainees would sometimes be grouped together and have hot water poured over them.

“The amount of torture was enormous,” he added.

Both he and Omar also described incidents of what they said amounted to medical negligence.

“My hands were all blisters and swollen,” said Mr Mushtaha.

“If people could have seen my legs they would have said they needed to be amputated from the inflammation… [Guards] would just tell me to wash my hands and legs with water and soap.

“But how was I meant to do this, when there was only water for one hour a day [between us], and as for soap, every week they would bring [only] a spoon of shampoo,” he added.

Mr Mushtaha said he was told by guards that: “As long as you have a pulse you are in good shape. As long as you are standing, you’re in good shape. When your pulse is gone, we will come to treat you.”

A report by a lawyer who visited both Mr Mushtaha and Omar in Ketziot last September said of Mr Mushtaha: “The prisoner, like the rest of the prisoners, suffers from pain due to boils on his hands, feet and buttocks, and there is no cleanliness and he is not provided with any kind of treatment.”

Mr Mushtaha also provided the BBC with a report compiled by a doctor in Gaza, which confirmed he was still infected with scabies on the day of his release.

Omar said detainees were beaten for requesting medical care.

The lawyer noted that Omar needed attention for “pimples spreading on the skin – in the groin and buttocks due to the harsh prison conditions” including lack of toiletries and polluted water. “The prisoner says that even when it is his turn to shower he tries to avoid it because the water… causes itching and inflammation.”

All the detainees added they had been given limited access to food and water while in detention at various facilities – several reported losing significant amounts of weight.

Omar said he lost 30kg (4st 10lb). The lawyer said Omar told him food was “almost non-existent” in the first few months, though conditions later “improved a little”.

Mr Mushtaha described food there being left outside their caged compounds for cats and birds to eat from first.

Another of our interviewees, Ahmed Abu Seif, said he was taken to a different prison – Megiddo, near the occupied West Bank, after being arrested on his 17th birthday.

He said Israeli authorities would regularly storm their cells there and spray them with tear gas.

“We would feel suffocated and unable to breathe well for four days after each tear gas attack,” according to Ahmed, who said he had been held in the prison’s youth wing.

“There was no consideration of us being children, they treated us like the militants of 7 October.”

During interrogations he had his nails pulled out, he told us. When the BBC filmed him the day after his release, he showed us how several of his toenails were still affected, as well as scars on his hands he said had been caused by handcuffs and dog scratches.

The IPS did not respond to this allegation.

Two of the men said they had witnessed the deaths of fellow detainees in Sde Teiman and Ketziot – one through beatings, including the use of dogs, and one through medical negligence.

The names and dates they gave of the incidents match media reports and accounts from human rights groups.

At least 63 Palestinian prisoners – 40 of them from Gaza – have died in Israeli custody since 7 October 2023, the Palestinian Prisoners Society told the BBC.

The IPS did not respond to questions about deaths of Palestinians in custody, while the IDF said it was “aware of cases of detainee deaths, including those who were detained with pre-existing illness or injury resulting from combat”.

“According to procedures, an investigation is opened by the Military Police Criminal Investigation Division (MPCID) into every detainee death,” it added.

The abuse continued right up to the moment they were freed in February, some of the men said.

“On the release day, they treated us brutally. They tightened the handcuffs and when they wanted to make us move they put our hands above our heads and pulled us,” Mr Mushtaha said.

“They said: ‘If you interact with Hamas or work with Hamas, you will be targeted.’ They said: ‘We will send a missile directly to you.'”

Ahmed, 17, also said conditions worsened after the ceasefire deal was signed in January. “The soldiers intensified the aggression against us knowing we were getting released soon.”

It was only once the detainees were transferred to the Red Cross bus for transportation back to Gaza that they felt “safe”, Omar said.

Footage showed some being returned in sweatshirts with the Star of David on them and the words: “We do not forget and we do not forgive” written in Arabic.

An official at Gaza’s European Hospital, which assessed the conditions of returned detainees, said skin conditions, including scabies, were common, and medics had observed many cases of “extreme emaciation and malnutrition” and “the physical effects of torture”.

Legal expert Dr Lawrence Hill-Cawthorne told us: “Certainly the use of chemicals to burn the detainee and submerge their head would meet the threshold of torture, as would the use of electric shocks, removal of toenails, and severe beatings. These, or comparable acts, have all been recognised to constitute torture by international bodies,” as have the use of stress positions and loud music.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which conducts interviews with returning detainees, said it could not comment on individuals’ conditions due to privacy concerns.

It added that it was eager to be granted access to those still detained – something which has not been allowed since the 7 October attacks.

“The ICRC remains deeply concerned about the wellbeing of detainees and emphasises the urgent need for it to resume visits to all places of detention. We continue to request access in bilateral and confidential dialogue with the parties,” it told the BBC.

Fifty-nine hostages are still being held in Gaza, 24 of whom are believed to be alive. The ICRC has never been granted access to them in their 18 months in captivity, and their loved ones have grave concerns over their wellbeing.

For many of the released Palestinian detainees, returning to Gaza was both a moment of celebration and of despair.

Mr Abu Tawileh said his family was shocked by his appearance when he was released, and added he was still affected by his experience.

“I am unable to do anything because of my injury, because my eye hurts, and it tears and feels itchy, and all of the burns on my body feels itchy as well. This is bothering me a lot,” he said.

Teenager Ahmed said he now wants to leave Gaza.

“I want to emigrate because of the things we saw in detention, and because of the mental torture of fearing the bombs falling on our heads. We wished for death but couldn’t find it.”