THE HAGUE, May 9 – Eindhoven Airport in the southern Dutch province of North Brabant was temporarily closed on Friday morning after a false bomb threat involving a flight bound for the Turkish resort city of Antalya.

The incident began when a 51-year-old woman claimed, prior to departure, that there was a bomb in her luggage, according to airport authorities. However, a subsequent inspection by the bomb squad found no explosives.

The woman was arrested, taken off the plane, and detained. Her motive remains under investigation.

Due to the disruption, one flight was diverted to Weeze Airport in neighboring Germany, about 80 kilometers from Eindhoven, while several other flights were delayed.

XINHUA

SINGAPORE, May 9 – A fire broke out at a two-storey industrial building in eastern Singapore on Friday, according to the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF).

The SCDF said it was alerted to the blaze in the Tampines area at around noon. By around 1:40 p.m. local time, firefighters were at the scene deploying five water jets to contain the fire, it said in a Facebook update.

Photos from the scene showed thick black smoke billowing from the building.

The fire prompted office workers and students at a nearby school to evacuate, local media reported.

XINHUA

COLOMBO, May 9 – Six military personnel succumbed to their injuries after a Sri Lankan Air Force helicopter crashed into the Maduru Oya Reservoir in the country’s North Central Province on Friday morning, said a spokesperson.

Air force spokesperson Eranda Geeganage said 12 people, including two pilots, were on board at the time of the crash, and six of them have succumbed to their injuries, after being sent to regional hospitals.

The other six are still in the hospital, Geeganage said.

Earlier, Geeganage said that all the 12 on board were safe and had been sent to hospitals for treatment.

The incident took place during a demonstration held as part of a passing-out ceremony for the Sri Lanka Air Force.

XINHUA

GAZA, May 9, 2025 – Four Palestinians, including three members of the same family, were killed early Friday morning in Israeli airstrikes targeting two residential areas in the central and western parts of the Gaza Strip.

Local sources reported that Israeli warplanes bombed a home belonging to the Hamdan family in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The strike resulted in the murder of Rashad Abu Hayya, his wife Safa, and their infant son Amr.

In a separate attack, an Israeli drone targeted an apartment in a residential building in Gaza City’s Al-Rimal neighborhood, killing a resident, Jasser Shamieh, and injuring several others.

Meanwhile, Israeli military vehicles opened heavy fire toward the eastern areas of Gaza City.

WAFA

SANTIAGO, May 8 – A small ambulance plane carrying six people that lost contact on Wednesday en route from central to northern Chile has been found crashed with no survivors, local authorities confirmed on Thursday.

“We extend our condolences to the families, friends and all those mourning the loss of these six compatriots,” Gonzalo Duran, presidential delegate for the Metropolitan Region, told the press.

The Chilean Air Force (FACH) reported that the wreckage was located in the town of Curacavi, on the outskirts of Santiago.

FACH announced that it had deployed personnel and resources immediately after the plane was reported missing and had coordinated closely with other agencies involved in the search effort.

According to the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics, the aircraft was traveling from Santiago to the northern city of Arica when it disappeared from radar on Wednesday afternoon.

The public prosecutor’s office, along with emergency response teams, is investigating the cause of the crash.

XINHUA

GAZA, May 8 – At least 21 Palestinians were killed and dozens of others wounded in Israeli attacks across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, the Civil Defense in Gaza said.

Nine people, including children and women, were killed when Israeli warplanes attacked a residential house in the town of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza, Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal told Xinhua.

Three young men were killed and four others wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a Palestinian gathering on the outskirts of the Al-Shati refugee camp west of Gaza City, Basal said.

Besides, nine people, including a girl and a woman, were killed in Israeli airstrikes and artillery shelling targeting homes, a school, and tents housing displaced persons in Khan Younis city in southern Gaza, Deir al-Balah city and the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, and the Shuja’iyya neighborhood east of Gaza City, the spokesperson added.

The Israeli army has not commented on these incidents yet.

XINHUA

KHARTOUM, May 8 – At least three children were killed and four others injured on Thursday in a drone strike by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Omdurman city, northwest of Sudan’s capital Khartoum, according to a volunteer group.

“An RSF drone struck a home in District 16, west of Omdurman, killing three children and injuring four others, who were transferred to the hospital for medical treatment,” the Sudanese Doctors Network, a volunteer group, said in a statement.

The group condemned the RSF’s targeting of populated areas in Omdurman and several other cities, which has resulted in the killing of unarmed civilians, particularly women and children, describing it as “a violation of all laws of war and international law.”

The network noted that the RSF has escalated the use of drones over the past two weeks and deliberately struck civilian infrastructure, directly impacting civilians and exacerbating their suffering.

The group called on the international community to pressure the RSF to halt these violations and open safe corridors for besieged areas in Kordofan and Darfur.

Meanwhile, the non-governmental medical aid group Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said, “Today at 11:30 a.m. local time (0930 GMT), a reported drone strike in Dar El Salaam, Omdurman, inflicted tragic casualties among civilians.”

“Several injured, mostly children, were rushed to the MSF-sponsored Al Nao hospital, including two young girls who were declared dead on arrival,” the MSF said on social platform X, noting that more injured are being brought to the hospital.

Also on Thursday, local media reported that RSF drones targeted locations in Port Sudan, which has become the de facto administrative center of the country since May 2023, while activists shared videos on social media showing oil depots burning in Kosti city, White Nile State, after being struck early Thursday morning.

The RSF has not commented on these incidents so far.

In recent days, the RSF has intensified drone strikes on military sites and critical infrastructure in areas controlled by the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF).

XINHUA

JAMMU, India, May 8 – Kalia Devi was among hundreds of fearful civilians evacuated before dawn from the line of fire along India’s northwestern border with Pakistan as clashes between the two nuclear-armed arch-rivals intensified.

India says at least 13 of its civilians have been killed and 59 wounded from cross-border gunfire and shelling while Pakistan says at least 31 of its civilians have died and about 50 have been wounded by Indian airstrikes and artillery.

“Fear has entered my heart,” said 50-year-old Devi, seated on the steps of a college on the outskirts of Jammu city, which was buzzing with students just a few weeks back.

Devi, a daily labourer, had recently come along with 15 relatives from Bihar, one of India’s poorest regions, for employment in the village of Akhnoor near Jammu, in the Indian-administered part of the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

“We have to live first,” she said. “If this (conflict) does not get resolved soon, we will have to consider leaving.”

Hundreds like her were evacuated in buses on Wednesday from two border villages that have previously been caught in crossfire between the old enemies, to a college 20 kilometers (12 miles) back from the frontier that has been converted into a shelter for the displaced.

Explosions rang out across Jammu later on Thursday during what Indian military sources said they suspected was a Pakistani drone attack across the region on the second day of major clashes between the estranged South Asian powers.

World powers from the U.S. to Russia and China have called for calm in one of the world’s most dangerous, and most populated, nuclear flashpoint regions.

Efforts to move villagers back from the border were to save civilian lives, according to an Indian police officer who did not want to be named.

“The day before, gunshots could be heard for an hour at a stretch at midnight and then another fusillade at 4 a.m. (local time),” evacuee Pratima Devi said. “I just could not sleep out of fear. But I slept peacefully in the college last night.”

The college classrooms were converted into bedrooms with thin mattresses to accommodate around 400 people, replacing desks and chairs. Indian authorities assigned two doctors to the facility and arranged for basic meals.

Nearby, a Hindu spiritual retreat was also turned into a sheter for hundreds of evacuees, mainly women and children.

“This is a border area and because of the (high) chances of gunfire we have been moved here. We feel protected here,” 11-year old Sameer Pawar said in English.

Most of the evacuees were farmers or daily labourers who earned on average the equivalent of less than $60 a month.

REUTERS

GAZA, May 8, 2025 – At least 106 Palestinians were killed and 367 others were injured in the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours as a result of the ongoing Israeli genocide in the region, according to medical sources.

Local health authorities confirmed that the Palestinian death toll from the Israeli onslaught since October 2023 has risen to 52,760 fatalities, with an additional 119,264 individuals sustaining injuries. The majority of the victims are women and children.

According to the same sources, the death toll since Israel’s resumption of the genocide on March 18 after a two-month truce has also climbed to 2,651, in addition to 7,223 others injured.

WAFA

SRINAGAR, India – Poet Zareef Ahmed Zareef has watched India and Pakistan fight for decades over his homeland, the disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir.

He was born in 1947, the same year India and Pakistan became independent nations and British colonial rule ended. The two nuclear-armed neighbors have since fought two wars over Kashmir, which is split between them but claimed by both in its entirety.

Now the 78-year-old worries this week’s dramatic escalation heralds yet another war.

“We’ve been told that Kashmir is paradise on earth,” he said. “But for us, it’s living in a permanent fear of hell. Every war has brought misery, death and destruction.”

His fears have only been exacerbated by the developments.

On Wednesday, Indian missile strikes killed 31 people in Pakistan, including women and children. The strikes came in the wake of an April 22 attack, when gunmen killed 26 people, mostly Indian Hindu tourists, in the India-controlled part of Kashmir.

India accused Pakistan of backing the militants who carried out the attack, a charge Islamabad denied. Pakistan has vowed to avenge the killings.

Since Wednesday, exchanges spiked across the so-called Line of Control, the boundary dividing the Indian and the Pakistani-controlled sections of Kashmir.

Militaries on both sides have mobilized. The people are scared.

A devastated border town

Indian and Pakistani soldiers guard their side of the frontier. Coils of razor wire snake around mountain foothills, by ancient villages and across fields of rice and corn. Watch towers stand on every few hundred meters (yards) and some Indian and Pakistani troops are so close they can wave to each other.

Like many places along the frontier, the border town of Poonch in Indian-controlled Kashmir is swarmed by soldiers, their barracks close to civilian homes.

Shortly after India’s strikes, Pakistani shells and bullets rained on Poonch, killing 13 civilians, including three women and three children, and wounding 44, Indian officials and medics said.

Mehtab Din, 46, and his wife were lightly injured when three shells hit their home in Poonch. Their next-door neighbor was not that lucky, he said.

“His two children were killed and he’s battling for his life in a hospital,” Din said. “Leaders are safe in their homes. The brutal axe of the war they start falls on us.”

A shattered calm

The region saw a tentative calm in 2021, after India and Pakistan renewed a ceasefire agreement from two decades earlier. But this weeks escalation shattered that.

Rubina Begum said early morning explosions in her village of Salamabad in the area of Uri sent her running for cover with her children.

“There was confusion and smoke all over. Thank God, we’re alive,” she wailed, standing in front of her heavily damaged home as relatives tried to calm her.

Begum was among few left in Salamabad on Thursday. Many had fled in fear of more attacks; some houses were still smoldering.

Caught in the middle of bitter rivalry

In the Indian-controlled portion of Kashmir, tens of thousands of civilians, rebels and government forces have been killed after an armed revolt erupted against Indian rule in 1989.

India decries the rebellion as Islamabad’s proxy war and state-sponsored terrorism. Many Muslim Kashmiris consider it a legitimate freedom struggle and support the rebel goal that the territory be united, either under Pakistani rule or as an independent country.

Zareef, the poet, said the people of the region have become “cannon fodder” in the conflict.

“One group says you belong to us,” he said. “The other too says you belong to us. But at critical times, they … punish us,” he said.

Kashmiris have particularly reeled after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi scrapped the Indian-controlled sector’s semi-autonomy in 2019, bringing it firmly under India’s control. Since then, the government’s heavy-handed approach has largely silenced people, with civil liberties eroded and the press gagged.

Jagmohan Singh Raina, a 72-year-old Sikh businessman said like him, many Kashmiris feel they’ve had enough of being used in the fight between Pakistan and India.

“Don’t push us further,” he said. “End this warfare and let Kashmiris live in peace.”

AP

BEIRUT, May 8 – One person was killed and eight others injured on Thursday in the Israeli airstrikes on Lebanon’s southern city of Nabatieh, said the Public Health Emergency Operations Center at the Ministry of Public Health.

According to the National News Agency (NNA), a tense and anxious atmosphere prevailed among residents in the city of Nabatieh and its surrounding areas following the Israeli airstrikes that targeted the highlands and woodlands between the village of Kfar Tebnit, Upper Nabatieh, and the city of Kfar Remen.

Civil Defense teams worked to extinguish fires that broke out in the Ali al-Taher woodlands as a result of the strikes. Their efforts were hampered by the area’s challenging terrain and the presence of suspicious objects believed to be remnants of the bombardment.

The Israeli army confirmed the strike in a statement, saying it targeted a military infrastructure site in the area of the Beaufort Ridge in southern Lebanon, which it said was used by Hezbollah to “manage its fire and defense array.”

The strike destroyed the site as well as weapons and tunnel shafts, the military said.

During Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam’s visit to Baalbek in eastern Lebanon on Thursday, he inspected the military and security measures in place to secure the border, prevent smuggling, and safeguard the area.

According to NNA, Salam said Lebanon has spared no political or diplomatic effort to achieve Israel’s withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

“My stance has not changed; the Israeli violations of UN resolution 1701 must be stopped as soon as possible. The government has spared no political or diplomatic effort to accelerate the Israeli withdrawal from all Lebanese territories and stop all the aggressive actions in Lebanon,” he said.

XINHUA

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM, May 8 – Israeli warplanes carried out a series of intense airstrikes on Thursday on the outskirts of the city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, according to official and security sources.

Israeli warplanes conducted two waves of violent strikes targeting valleys, highlands, and wooded areas between the village of Kfar Tebnit, Upper Nabatieh, and the city of Kfar Remen, said the official Lebanese National News Agency (NNA).

A Lebanese security source told Xinhua that Israeli warplanes carried out around 15 airstrikes in the vicinity of Nabatieh, launching approximately 30 air-to-ground missiles.

“The panic led to heavy traffic congestion, with dozens of ambulances heading toward the targeted areas. Most government offices closed their doors,” said the NNA.

The Israeli army confirmed the strike in a statement, saying it targeted a military infrastructure site in the area of the Beaufort Ridge in southern Lebanon, which it said was used by Hezbollah to “manage its fire and defense array.”

The strike destroyed the site as well as weapons and tunnel shafts, the military said.

Although a ceasefire agreement between Hezbollah and Israel has been in place since Nov. 27, 2024, the Israeli military continues to conduct occasional strikes in southern Lebanon, citing the need to counter ongoing Hezbollah threats.

XINHUA

LAHORE/NEW DELHI, May 8 – Pakistan said on Thursday it shot down 25 drones from India in its airspace while India said it “neutralised” Pakistan’s attempts to strike military targets with drones and missiles, as fighting spread between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

The latest exchanges come a day after India said it hit “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan in the early hours of Wednesday – two weeks after it accused the Islamic nation of involvement in an attack in Indian Kashmir in which 26 people – mostly Hindu tourists – were killed.

Islamabad had denied the accusation and vowed to retaliate to the missile strikes, also saying it shot down five Indian aircraft. The Indian embassy in Beijing termed reports of fighter jets being shot down as “misinformation”.

Pakistan shot down 25 Israeli-made drones from India at multiple locations, including the two largest cities of Karachi and Lahore, and their debris is being collected, Pakistan military spokesperson Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said.

One drone was also shot down over the garrison city of Rawalpindi, home to the Pakistan army’s heavily fortified headquarters, he said.

One drone hit a military target near Lahore and four personnel of the Pakistan army were injured in this attack, Chaudhry said.

“Indian drones continue to be sent into Pakistan airspace…(India) will continue to pay dearly for this naked aggression,” he said.

The Indian defence ministry said Pakistan attempted to engage a number of military targets in northern and western India on Wednesday night and early Thursday and they were “neutralised” by Indian air defence systems.

In response, Indian forces targeted air defence radars and systems at a number of locations in Pakistan on Thursday, it said in a statement, adding that the “Indian response has been in the same domain with the same intensity as Pakistan”.

Pakistan also increased the intensity of its firing across the ceasefire line, the de facto border, in Kashmir and 16 people, including five children and three women, were killed on the Indian side, the statement said.

The relationship between India and Pakistan has been fraught with tension since they gained independence from colonial Britain in 1947, and the countries have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir, and clashed countless times.

Both acquired nuclear weapons in the 1990s.

Trading was halted on Pakistan’s benchmark share index (.KSE), opens new tab after the index slumped 6.3% on news of the drone attacks. Indian equities, rupee and bonds fell sharply in late afternoon trading after the Indian defence ministry statement.

INDIA REITERATES WARNING

Pakistan says at least 31 of its civilians were killed and about 50 wounded in Wednesday’s strikes and in cross-border shelling across the frontier in Kashmir that followed, while India says 13 of its civilians died and 59 were wounded.

On Thursday, Indian government ministers told a meeting of political parties in New Delhi that the strikes on Pakistan had killed over 100 terrorists and that the count was still ongoing, government sources said.

In the Kashmir valley, the cable car in Gulmarg, a major tourist attraction, was shut due to its proximity to the border with Pakistan. A hotel manager there who did not want to be named said police had ordered the hotel vacated on Wednesday night.

Blackout drills were conducted in India’s border regions on Wednesday night.

Local media reported panic buying in some cities in the Indian state of Punjab which shares a border with Pakistan, as people hoarded essentials fearing a Pakistani retaliation to the Indian strikes.

Pakistan’s aviation authority “temporarily suspended” flight operations at airports in Lahore, Karachi, and the northeastern city of Sialkot until noon (0700 GMT). It did not give a reason for the suspension.

Although Pakistan’s federal government has pledged to respond to India’s strikes, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told The New York Times on Wednesday that Pakistan was ready to de-escalate.

Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said New Delhi did not intend to escalate the situation. “However, if there are military attacks on us, there should be no doubt that it will be met with a very, very firm response,” he said at a India-Iran Joint Commission Meeting.

With India saying it would “respond” if Pakistan “responds”, global powers have urged a calming of tensions. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he hoped the countries could “work it out”, adding he “will be there” if he can help.

China urged both countries to act in the larger interest of peace and stability, with the Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson saying that Beijing was ready to work with the international community “to avoid actions that further complicate the situation”.

Russia and the U.S. have also urged restraint.

The current escalation comes at a precarious time for Pakistan’s $350 billion economy, which is still recovering from an economic crisis that brought it to the brink of defaulting on external debt obligations in 2023 before it secured funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

REUTERS

NEW DELHI, May 8 – At least five persons died and two were injured when the chopper they were flying in crashed in India’s northern state of Uttarakhand on Thursday, confirmed a local official working with the disaster management department.

The private chopper crashed at around 09:00 a.m. It was flying towards Gangotri, the origin point of the River Ganga.

The deceased were tourists, said the police, adding that the injured people were being shifted to a local hospital.

Expressing his condolences over the loss of human lives, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami instructed a probe into the mishap.

XINHUA

PHNOM PENH – Three people died after their houses were engulfed in an inferno from an oil tanker in southwest Cambodia’s Preah Sihanouk province, according to the National Police’s Department of Fire Prevention, Extinguishing, and Rescue on Thursday.

The incident happened Wednesday midnight in Prey Nop district’s Prek Pros village when the oil tanker driver transferred gasoline from the truck into small containers, the department said, adding that the gasoline fumes were ignited by a nearby grill fire.

“Three people were pronounced dead in the fire,” it said, adding that the victims were aged 18, 15, and 13 years old.

Negligence was blamed for the tragic incident that also completely destroyed the tanker’s cab, two houses, and five motorcycles, the department said.

The Southeast Asian country recorded a total of 823 fire incidents in 2024, killing 20 people and injuring 59 others, according to the National Committee for Disaster Management.

XINHUA

NEW YORK, May 8 – A pro-Palestinian protest broke out at Columbia University on Wednesday afternoon and more than 100 demonstrators occupied part of the university’s main library, leading to the arrest of some 75 individuals.

Tensions escalated quickly as clashes erupted between protesters and university public safety officers. Protesters were pushed back toward the library entrance, and two safety officers sustained injuries during the confrontation. A fire alarm was triggered amid the chaos.

Protesters chanted slogans including “No cops. No K.K.K. No fascist U.S.A.” and “Free Palestine.”

The New York police entered the main campus of Columbia University at the university’s request around 6 p.m. local time (2200 GMT) and made arrests on the grounds of trespassing.

This marks the most significant protest at Columbia University since the demonstrations in April 2024 and resulted in a big number of arrests to date.

XINHUA

LAHORE, Pakistan – Pakistan’s air defense system shot down an Indian drone early Thursday in the eastern city of Lahore, according to Pakistani officials, as India evacuated thousands of people from villages near the two countries’ highly militarized frontier in the disputed region of Kashmir.

The drone incident follows Indian missile strikes on Pakistani locations that killed 31 civilians a day earlier, including women and children, according to officials.

Tensions between the two countries have spiked since April 22, when gunmen killed 26 people, mostly Indian Hindu tourists, in India-controlled Kashmir. India accused Pakistan of backing the militants who carried out the attack, something Islamabad has denied.

Local police official Mohammad Rizwan said a drone was downed near Walton Airport, an airfield in a residential area of Lahore that also contains military installations, about 25 kilometers (16 miles) from the border with India.

Local media reported that two additional drones were shot down in other cities of Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital.

Two security officials said a small Indian drone was taken down by Pakistan’s air defense system. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. It was not immediately clear if the drone was armed.

The incident could not be independently verified, and Indian officials did not immediately comment.

In Punjab’s Chakwal district, a drone cashed into farmland. No casualties were reported. District police chief Ghulam Mohiuddin did not say whose drone it was. Authorities have secured the wreckage and are investigating the drone’s origin and purpose.

India said its strikes Wednesday targeted at least nine sites in Pakistan linked to planning terrorist attacks against India. Some of these targets were in Punjab and most of Wednesday’s casualties were in this province.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif vowed overnight to avenge the killings but gave no details, raising fears of a broader conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbors.

Across the de-facto border in Indian-controlled Kashmir, tens of thousands of people slept in shelters overnight, officials and residents said Thursday.

Indian authorities evacuated civilians from dozens of villages living close to the highly militarized Line of Control overnight while some living in border towns like Uri and Poonch left their homes voluntarily, three police and civil officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with departmental regulations.

AP

SANTA ANA, Calif. – One student was killed and two others were wounded in a stabbing in front of a Southern California high school Wednesday, authorities said.

The three male Santa Ana High students were taken to a hospital, where one of them died and the other two were in stable condition, according to city police spokesperson Officer Natalie Garcia.

The stabbing happened in the afternoon as students were leaving school for the day, district spokesperson Fermin Leal said. The incident involved both students and nonstudents.

Authorities were searching for at least two suspects whose connection to the school and motive were not clear, Garcia said.

Other details such as the ages of the victims were not immediately made public.

After-school programs and athletics were canceled, and officials said the school would make crisis counselors available Thursday.

Santa Ana is a city of about 300,000 people roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles. The school serves roughly 3,000 students.

AP

NEW DELHI/ISLAMABAD, May 8 – A blast was heard in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on Thursday morning, according to broadcaster Geo TV and a Reuters witness, a day after Indian strikes at multiple locations in the country and fears of an escalation in conflict between the nuclear-armed neighbours.

There was no immediate word on the reason for the blast.

India hit “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan in the early hours of Wednesday, two weeks after it accused the Islamic nation of involvement in an attack in Indian Kashmir in which 26 people – mostly Hindu tourists – were killed.

Islamabad had denied the accusation and vowed to retaliate to the missile strikes, also saying it shot down five Indian aircraft. The Indian embassy in Beijing termed reports of fighter jets being shot down as “misinformation”.

Pakistan says at least 31 of its civilians were killed and about 50 wounded in the strikes and in cross-border shelling that followed, while India says 13 of its civilians died and 43 were wounded.

The cross-border exchange of fire tapered off slightly overnight, Indian officials said.

India also conducted blackout drills in regions close to its border with Pakistan, including the northern city of Amritsar which houses the Golden Temple revered by Sikhs, in anticipation of retaliation to its strikes.

In Pakistan, meanwhile, most cities restored some normalcy and children returned to school, but in the border province of Punjab, hospitals and civil defence authorities remained on high alert.

Although Pakistan’s federal government has pledged to respond to India’s strikes, Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told The New York Times on Wednesday that Pakistan was ready to de-escalate.

With India saying it would “respond” if Pakistan “responds”, global powers have urged a calming of tensions. U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he hoped the countries could “work it out”, adding he “will be there” if he can help.

The relationship between India and Pakistan has been fraught with tension since they gained independence from colonial Britain in 1947, and the countries have fought three wars, two of them over Kashmir.

The current escalation in tensions comes at a precarious time for Pakistan’s $350 billion economy, which is still recovering from an economic crisis that brought it to the brink of defaulting on external debt obligations in 2023 before it secured funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

REUTERS