Israel is voting in record numbers and trading fraud claims before the polls even close; Russia opens a humanitarian window on the Dnipro while it pounds Kyiv’s bridges; two Nordic leaders pick up the phone to Putin; and Ebola in Congo passes 10,000 cases. Ten stories as of Tuesday morning, October 27.
1. Jerusalem / Israel. Turnout in Israel’s Knesset election reached 55.7% by 4 p.m., the highest ever at that hour and up from 47.5% at the same point in 2022, with just over four million ballots cast, The Times of Israel reports. It’s Benjamin Netanyahu against former army chief Gadi Eisenkot and his Yashar party, and polls suggest neither bloc reaches 61 seats. The day has been noisy: Netanyahu claimed “they are trying to steal the election,” Eisenkot’s camp accused him of laying the groundwork to contest the result, half a dozen parties reported irregularities, and the Central Elections Committee says there’s no evidence of systematic tampering. Police arrested three Ra’am activists on suspicion of bribing voters, and detained a man with a knife near Democrats chief Yair Golan in Tel Aviv, though they deny it was an attempted stabbing. Polls close at 10 p.m. local time (1 p.m. Pacific), with exit polls right after, BBC News reports. Final official results are due by November 4.
2. Oleshky and Kyiv / Ukraine. A Russian-declared truce around occupied Oleshky, on the left bank of the Dnipro in the Kherson region, began at 4 a.m. Moscow time and runs to 11:59 p.m. on November 1, with an evacuation planned for Friday. Up to 6,000 people remain in the area, including about 200 children, and some 1,700 in the town itself; the White House credits Melania Trump with brokering it, BBC News reports. Elsewhere it was business as usual. Overnight Russia fired 16 ballistic missiles and more than 280 drones at Ukraine, hitting Kyiv’s South Bridge, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it “a serious escalation in Russia’s campaign targeting our logistics,” Al Jazeera reports. There were also casualties in Kharkiv and Pavlohrad. Russian-installed officials in occupied Zaporizhzhia say a drone strike on a bus killed one and injured 30, and one person was killed in Russia’s Bryansk region.
3. Helsinki / Finland and Oslo / Norway. Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre spent about 90 minutes on the phone with Vladimir Putin, the first European leaders to call him since Emmanuel Macron in July 2025, BBC News reports. Støre said there were “big differences in views” and that both leaders stressed de-escalation. The Kremlin says Putin blamed “confrontational” EU and NATO policies. Not every neighbour was impressed: Denmark’s Mette Frederiksen said she was “very sceptical” and that the call wasn’t coordinated with her. US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi are pencilled in for early November.
4. Gaza and the West Bank / Palestinian territories. The UN Commission of Inquiry says Israel’s genocide in Gaza continued after the ceasefire took hold, and found crimes against humanity in the occupied West Bank, including extermination, ABC News reports. The commission counts 254 Palestinians killed by Israeli airstrikes in the West Bank since October 7, 2023. Israel dismissed the report as a “propaganda document.” The findings land on election day, with an Israeli military operation around Hebron that has already displaced more than 3,000 people.
5. Kinshasa / DR Congo and Algiers / Algeria. Congo’s Ebola outbreak has passed 10,060 confirmed cases and 4,887 deaths, the fastest-growing and deadliest in the country’s history and the second largest on record after West Africa in 2014–16, Al Jazeera reports. It’s the Bundibugyo strain, which has no approved vaccine; the first vaccine trial began Friday. About 80% of new cases sit outside known transmission chains, across 66 health zones in eight provinces. A nurse was killed in Bafwasende, Uganda now requires a 21-day quarantine for returnees, Kenya has nine cases (two fatal), and a case diagnosed in Nigeria was evacuated to Switzerland. Up north, Algeria is sending troops to Niger, its first foreign deployment since 1973. The senate voted 148 of 174 in favour, according to AFP, and the lower house followed. The troops will guard energy facilities in northern Niger near the Libyan border. Numbers and timing weren’t announced. “We are not sending our soldiers to wage war in Niger,” Senator Belkacem Boulghiti said, BBC News reports.
6. Daraa / Syria and Karak / Jordan. Jordanian jets struck targets in southern Syria in retaliation for Friday’s attack on a funeral at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak that killed nine and injured 34. Syria says seven people were killed across Daraa and Sweida, including three children and a woman. Jordan’s communications minister, Mohammed al-Momani, said Amman “regrets” the civilian casualties and claimed more than 20 Islamic State fighters were killed, DW reports. Damascus says it wasn’t told in advance, called the strikes an “unacceptable violation,” and closed the Nassib border crossing. Jordan has arrested three Jordanian suspects in the church attack, two brothers and a brother-in-law, BBC News reports.
7. Moscow / Russia and Tehran / Iran. Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, met Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum in Moscow, Al Jazeera reports. Iranian state TV says they talked energy and bilateral ties, with no mention of the war that has seen Iranian missiles and drones hit targets across the region, Qatar included. Doha was blunter at home: a foreign ministry spokesman called on Iran to stop threatening Gulf states so diplomacy can work, and said a Qatari delegation had visited Tehran to support mediation with the United States.
8. Brasília / Brazil and Buenos Aires / Argentina. Two days after losing to Lula, Flávio Bolsonaro is grounded. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes cancelled his regular and diplomatic passports, citing a money-laundering probe linked to lawyer Willer Tomaz, The Guardian reports. After a report that he’d slipped into Argentina, President Javier Milei’s press secretary denied he had entered the country, Buenos Aires Times reports. His own Liberal Party has recognised the result, but he still hasn’t conceded and is preparing a case to disqualify Lula’s ticket. In Washington, President Trump said “it looked like another rigged election,” offering no evidence, NPR reports.
9. New York / United States. A federal judge ruled the Justice Department illegally fired former prosecutor Maurene Comey. Judge Jesse Furman said the dismissal violated the Constitution and her right to due process, and ordered her reinstated with back pay from July to December 2025, BBC News reports. The department says it disagrees and “will appeal in due course.” The ruling came the same day her father, former FBI director James Comey, was charged with leaking national defence information, his third federal case. He denies wrongdoing.
10. Saipan / Northern Mariana Islands, Geneva / Switzerland, and Antarctica. Typhoon In-fa is a Category 3 storm with 125 mph winds and could become a super typhoon by Thursday. Forecasters expect it near or over Pagan late Friday, on a track between Anatahan and Agrihan; Saipan sits just outside the cone, and there are no watches or warnings yet, RNZ reports. In Geneva, the World Meteorological Organization’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin says all three main gases hit records in 2025: carbon dioxide at 426.8 ppm (153% of pre-industrial levels), methane at 1,948 ppb and nitrous oxide at 339.1 ppb. “Another year, another new record,” said Deputy Secretary-General Ko Barrett, warning that this year’s strong El Niño could set up another surge, according to the WMO. COP31 opens in Antalya on November 9. And down south, the British Antarctic Survey’s 2026/27 season is under way, with plans for its largest-ever penguin census across about 200 colonies, first-ever drone monitoring of humpback whales, and the Autosub “Boaty McBoatface” headed for the Amundsen Sea, says the British Antarctic Survey.
Coming Up
Oct 27: Israel exit polls at 10 p.m. local. Oct 27–28: Fed meeting. Oct 29: China’s Fifth Plenum wraps. Oct 30: planned Oleshky evacuation. Oct 31: more French protests planned. Nov 1: Bulgaria’s presidential runoff; Oleshky truce ends. Nov 3: U.S. midterms. Nov 4: Israel’s final results due. Nov 6: Pope Leo XIV begins a South America trip. The full board is on The Watch.
