Hamas has handed over the bodies of four dead Israeli hostages as part of the Gaza ceasefire deal. The terror group identified them as Shiri Bibas and her two young sons Kfir and Ariel, who were nine months and four years old when they were abducted, and 84-year-old veteran peace activist Oded Lifshitz. Donald Trump has escalated his feud with Volodymyr Zelensky, accusing the Ukrainian president of riding a US “gravy train” and repeating the accusation that he is a “dictator” for refusing to hold an election. Keir Starmer spoke to Zelensky last night, expressing his support afterwards for Ukraine’s “democratically elected leader”. Nasa has upgraded the risk of a potential “city killer” asteroid colliding with Earth to 3.1%, making it the most threatening space rock ever recorded. Scientists have warned that a direct hit from 2024 YR4, which is thought to be between 40 and 90 metres wide, could happen on 22 December 2032, with a blast radius of around 30 miles.

Trump is “his own worst enemy”

It’s always hard to distinguish when Donald Trump is just “popping off for attention” and when his remarks indicate a real change in policy, says The Wall Street Journal. Unfortunately, his unconscionable comments on Ukraine – claiming Kyiv started the war with Russia, chiding Volodymyr Zelensky for not holding elections and describing him as a “dictator” – appear to be the sign of an “ugly settlement” to come. None of this should need saying, but the only dictator in this war is Vladimir Putin – “call us when he holds a free election” – and Ukraine is quite right not to go to the polls while it is “fighting a war for survival”. Britain didn’t hold elections during World War Two. “Was Churchill a dictator?”

Trump currently appears more desperate for a deal than Putin, which is “the opposite of leverage in any negotiation”. He evidently wants to fulfil his campaign pledge to end the war, and his unpleasant rhetoric looks like a political gambit: the more he trashes Zelensky and Ukraine’s democracy, the easier it will be to sell a deal that “betrays” Kyiv. He should consider the “cautionary tale” of his predecessor. Joe Biden wanted to “wash his hands of Afghanistan”, and tried to sell the US withdrawal as a triumph. But “the public knew better”, and America’s chaotic retreat set in motion a chain of global crises that “defined his presidency”.

🕊🤬️ What’s particularly frustrating about Trump’s outburst, says David Ignatius in The Washington Post, is that it undermines the good work being done by his subordinates. His secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, have only just begun the delicate and necessary process of negotiating a peace deal with the Russians. If the president conducts a daily “weave” airing his “personal beefs and grudges”, those talks will become impossible. He really is “his own worst enemy”.