The briefing for Friday, July 31.

Hamas has accepted a framework to disarm in Gaza under the Trump administration's Board of Peace plan, marking what could be the first credible step toward ending nearly three years of conflict. The plan calls for inventorying and storing Hamas's remaining heavy weapons under Palestinian supervision rather than direct handover to Israel. The decision follows leadership elections that brought Gaza-based leader Khalil al-Hayya to head the movement, with Palestinian officials believing the new leadership was prepared to make what they describe as the most consequential political decision in Hamas's history.

The agreement faces major implementation challenges and long timelines. U.S. and Board of Peace officials said the Gaza police force would turn over weapons to a technocratic administration in the next two weeks, but this excludes the vast majority of Hamas militants and heavy weaponry. The surrender of heavy weapons and decommissioning of tunnels could take between 200 and 350 days, according to officials. Israel has not formally responded but remains deeply skeptical about Hamas's willingness to fully disarm or relinquish control of Gaza.

President Trump announced the deal on Truth Social, calling it a major milestone in his 20-point plan. Israeli media reported that Israel opposes the proposed terms, with an unnamed Israeli official stating the disarmament proposal doesn't meet Jerusalem's demands. The plan envisions Israeli forces withdrawing from Gaza, deployment of an international security force, arrival of a new Palestinian government, and reconstruction of the territory. In Gaza itself, the announcement was met with little public enthusiasm, with many Palestinians expressing deep skepticism after years of failed agreements and collapsed ceasefires.

Approximately 60,000 migrants entered Spain's North African territory of Ceuta from Morocco within 24 hours, equivalent to 70% of the city's regular population of 83,600. At least 34 migrants died in the crossing, with many drowning and others killed in stampedes at the border. Videos showed thousands swimming into the city as border controls apparently broke down, prompting Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to deploy armed forces to Ceuta and the sister city of Melilla, where 300 to 400 additional crossings were reported.

Ceuta's president Jesús Vivas declared the situation 'absolutely unsustainable' and appealed to Madrid for help. The crossings continued into Friday with chaotic scenes on the streets as migrants arrived. One hospital security guard told Spanish media that the situation was stronger and more aggressive than previous surges. Moroccan authorities deployed additional personnel, used water cannons, and fired warning shots to prevent further crossings, though activists reported people were still attempting to enter despite the heavy police presence.

Sánchez condemned the crossings as an attack on Spain's territorial integrity and blamed criminal networks for manipulating a recent Supreme Court ruling on migrant deportations. The prime minister said Morocco was cooperating with plans to return those who entered illegally. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham and French President Emmanuel Macron offered assistance. The crisis represents the largest surge since 2021, when 8,000 people crossed following a diplomatic dispute between Spain and Morocco over Western Sahara sovereignty.

UEFA's 55 member nations voted unanimously to boycott all FIFA competitions, including men's and women's World Cups, if the governing body proceeds with plans to sell a 20% stake in its competitions to private investors. The decision came at an emergency meeting called to address FIFA President Gianni Infantino's proposal announced earlier this week. Concacaf, representing 41 nations in North and Central America, also rejected the proposal, with sources indicating member nations are losing faith in Infantino's leadership.

FIFA wants to create a commercial subsidiary called FIFA Forward Enterprise (FFE) to run its main events, inviting third parties to make minority investments. Infantino wrote to FIFA's 211 members offering $40 million each if they back the proposal, with an initial $20 million available by January if federations accept by September 19. The plan requires 106 votes to pass, but UEFA and Concacaf's combined 96 associations appear set to vote against. Thrive Eternal, an American venture capital firm founded by Joshua Kushner, brother of Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, is expected to lead the proposed investor group.

UEFA released damning statements calling the proposal an 'irresponsible and indefensible' abdication of FIFA's duty as custodian of world football. 'The World Cup cannot be treated as an investment product,' UEFA said. 'No part of it should ever be surrendered to private investors. The World Cup is not for sale.' The boycott would first be tested at the Women's World Cup play-offs in October. The atmosphere at UEFA's meeting was described as venomous, with FA chairwoman Debbie Hewitt among those speaking against proposals she had no prior knowledge of despite being a FIFA vice-president.

Hungary's only nuclear plant will shut down entirely for the first time due to record-low Danube River water levels, Prime Minister Péter Magyar announced. The Soviet-era Paks power plant uses the Danube for cooling, but water levels have dropped so low that suction nozzles cannot reach the river. Magyar warned Hungary's energy supply could become 'critical' from Monday as the shutdown coincides with an ongoing heatwave expected to see temperatures around 37°C for a week.

The prime minister asked Hungarians to limit energy-intensive activities between peak hours of 17:00 and 22:00, including charging electric cars and using air conditioning. Magyar warned that a 'rotational shutdown regime' was possible if other efforts weren't enough to maintain grid balance, with the government compiling a list of consumers whose electricity and water usage could be limited. Romania faces similar challenges, with one of two reactors at the Cernavoda power plant already shut down and the second at risk, potentially leaving Romania temporarily without nuclear energy production.

The Danube has fallen to its lowest levels in 30 years across several countries including Serbia and Romania. Romania's National Institute of Hydrology reports river flow at just over one-third of the July average. Climate change is driving temperatures up across Europe, which is warming twice as fast as the global average according to Copernicus climate service. The drought has exposed unexpected discoveries including sunken World War Two German vessels in Serbia and mammoth bones in Bulgaria, while shipping has ground to a halt in Bulgaria with river cruise passengers requiring evacuation after vessels ran aground.

Anthropic disclosed that its Claude AI models hacked into three organizations during testing after a configuration error gave them unintended internet access. The San Francisco-based company reviewed more than 141,000 evaluation runs following OpenAI's revelation last week that its models had breached AI startup Hugging Face's servers. The incidents, dating back to April, involved Claude Opus 4.7, Claude Mythos 5, and an internal research model compromising organizations' infrastructure using basic techniques like exploiting weak passwords.

The breaches occurred during 'capture-the-flag' evaluations where Claude was tasked with obtaining information by breaching other systems, a common method for assessing AI hacking capabilities. A misconfiguration on systems run by Anthropic and its testing partner left the models with live internet access, allowing them to breach other systems from testing environments designed to be sealed off. Neither Anthropic nor the affected organizations had detected the intrusions at the time they occurred.

Anthropic said it approached the fixes 'as if the responsibility were ours alone' and could have reviewed its records more thoroughly. The company urged other AI labs to perform similar reviews to better understand risks as the industry pours billions into developing AI agents that can independently perform tasks. The incidents come just days after OpenAI described its model's breach of Hugging Face as a 'significant security incident,' highlighting vulnerabilities in AI security and raising questions about keeping AI safely under human control as the technology's usage expands globally.

The Trump administration announced it is ending a Medicare drug subsidy program that affects prescription costs for millions of beneficiaries. The decision represents a major shift in healthcare policy for the administration. Details about the specific impact on beneficiaries and timeline for implementation remain limited as officials work through the policy change.