World News Roundup: Volunteers reinforce gravediggers at main Israeli military cemetery; Kremlin says damage to Baltic pipeline is 'disturbing', mentions Nord Stream attack and more

Israel's death toll reached 1,200 with more than 2,700 wounded, its military said, from Hamas gunmen's hours-long rampage after breaching the fence around Gaza on Saturday. Ukraine accuses two men of helping guide missile that killed dozens in Hroza village Ukraine's domestic intelligence service on Wednesday accused two villagers who fled to Russia of helping guide a missile strike that killed dozens of people, mostly civilians, at a soldiers' wake in the Ukrainian village of Hroza.

Following is a summary of current world news briefs.

Volunteers reinforce gravediggers at main Israeli military cemetery

Volunteers helped gravediggers at Israel's main military cemetery on Wednesday as burials began for soldiers slain in the assault on Israel by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip. Using shovels and a mechanical digger, they scooped out earth to prepare plots for the soldiers' final resting place at Mount Herzl National Cemetery.

After Hamas attack, Israeli retaliation tactics raise Gaza invasion fears

Israel's military has rallied after an initial chaotic scramble to halt an assault by Palestinian Islamist group Hamas and is retaliating with airstrikes on roads, buildings and other sites in Gaza while sending huge reinforcements towards the enclave. To many of the 2.3 million residents of the strip of land that Israeli forces quit in 2005, the mobilisation and intense bombardment look ominously familiar: the prelude to a ground invasion and one that may match, or even eclipse, Israel's incursions in 2008 and 2014.

Putin's spy master says issue of Ukraine support turning 'toxic' in US

Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign intelligence chief said on Wednesday that the issue of support for Ukraine was becoming toxic in the United States and that the divisions would deepen ahead of next year's U.S. presidential election. Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year, the United States and the European Union have made more than $160 billion in commitments to Ukraine, including tens of billions of dollars in weapons.

Another quake strikes western Afghanistan; official says more homes destroyed

A strong earthquake rattled Afghanistan's western province of Herat on Wednesday, forcing authorities to redeploy relief and rescue teams already in the field following a series of deadly quakes on Saturday. There were no details on casualties so far, disaster management spokesman Janan Sayeeq told Reuters, but provincial officials said hundreds of homes had been destroyed.

Zelenskiy, at NATO HQ, asks for weapons to face winter of 'terror'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Wednesday asked NATO allies for more weapons and air defences to tide his country through another wartime winter as it braces for a barrage of Russian attacks on power stations and other infrastructure. Zelenskiy made his first visit to NATO headquarters since Russia's invasion last year, at a time when turbulence in the U.S. Congress threatens to disrupt aid for Kyiv and the world's attention is drawn to another crisis unfolding in Israel.

Kremlin says damage to Baltic pipeline is 'disturbing', mentions Nord Stream attack

The Kremlin on Wednesday described news of damage to the Balticconnector gas pipeline between Estonia and Finland as disturbing and said that the attack on the Nord Stream pipeline last year was a dangerous precedent. Finland said on Tuesday that a subsea gas pipeline and a telecommunications cable connecting Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea had been damaged in what may have been a deliberate act.

Australian journalist Cheng Lei back home after China release

Australian journalist Cheng Lei, who had been detained in China on national security charges for more than three years, returned home on Wednesday after being released, Australia's Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said. Cheng, 48, was a business television anchor for Chinese state television when she was detained in August 2020 for allegedly sharing state secrets with another country.

Israel pounds Gaza by air; Biden condemns 'evil' Hamas

Israel bombed Gaza overnight ahead of a potential ground assault against Hamas while U.S. President Joe Biden condemned the Palestinian militant group's surprise attack as "sheer evil" and issued a warning seemingly aimed at its Iranian backers. Israel's death toll reached 1,200 with more than 2,700 wounded, its military said, from Hamas gunmen's hours-long rampage after breaching the fence around Gaza on Saturday.

Ukraine accuses two men of helping guide missile that killed dozens in Hroza village

Ukraine's domestic intelligence service on Wednesday accused two villagers who fled to Russia of helping guide a missile strike that killed dozens of people, mostly civilians, at a soldiers' wake in the Ukrainian village of Hroza. The Oct. 5 strike was the deadliest attack in Ukraine this year, and one of the worst since Russia invaded in February 2022. Ukrainian prosecutors put the death toll at 55, and a local official told Reuters a sixth of the northeastern village's population of about 300 people had been killed.

Russian campaigner defends right to disagree with Putin at trial over 'fascism' article

Veteran rights campaigner Oleg Orlov urged a Moscow court on Wednesday to acquit him of discrediting the armed forces by speaking out against the war in Ukraine, saying Russians had the right to disagree with their president. Orlov, 70, was defending himself in a case based on a November 2022 article in which he wrote that Russia under President Vladimir Putin had descended into fascism.