Hurricane Kirk is heading towards Europe. At its peak strength in the mid-Atlantic, Kirk reached category 4 status with maximum wind speeds of 145mph. As Kirk tracks north-east towards Europe, leaving the warm seas behind, it is expected to be downgraded to a category 1 hurricane by Monday.

Over the next few days, Kirk will undergo extratropical transition, becoming an ex-hurricane by the time it reaches Europe’s shores on Tuesday or Wednesday. Although there remains some model differences in the exact path of extratropical cyclone Kirk, it is projected to track across northern Europe with France, Belgium, the Netherlands and then northern Germany having the strongest winds and heaviest rain. Southernmost parts of the UK may experience some heavy rainfall if the system tracks ever so slightly further north.

Hurricane activity remains strong in the Atlantic, with Hurricane Leslie also being closely monitored. Leslie, situated in the mid-Atlantic, was upgraded to a category 1 hurricane on Saturday, with maximum sustained winds reaching 90mph by Sunday evening. Leslie is not forecast to last long and is expected to be downgraded back to a tropical storm by Tuesday morning, with no interaction with land.

A tropical disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico, named Milton, has recently been upgraded to tropical storm status, marking the 13th tropical storm to date in the Atlantic this season. Milton is projected to rapidly intensify to major hurricane status as it tracks towards Florida over the coming days. While there is still some uncertainty on the exact track and intensity of the system, damaging winds, heavy rain, and a life-threatening storm surge are possible across parts of the west coast of the Florida peninsula. This will be barely a week after Hurricane Helene caused significant loss of life and devastation across a number of states.

Meanwhile, in South America, drought remains a major crisis for many after months of below normal rainfall. This led to extensive wildfires in Brazil only a few weeks ago. Water levels across the Amazon River have been decreasing for months, with levels reaching a 120-year low at the Port of Manus, which lies on the Negro River tributary in northern Brazil, according to Brazil’s geological service. Water levels here measured 12.66 metres, compared with an average of 21 metres, and are expected to continue dropping for several weeks.

Rivers dried up at the highest rate in three decades in 2023, putting global water supply at risk, data has shown.

Over the past five years, there have been lower-than-average river levels across the globe and reservoirs have also been low, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s (WMO) State of Global Water Resources report.

In 2023, more than 50% of global river catchment areas showed abnormal conditions, with most being in deficit. This was similar in 2022 and 2021. Areas facing severe drought and low river discharge conditions included large territories of North, Central and South America; for instance, the Amazon and Mississippi rivers had record low water levels. On the other side of the globe, in Asia and Oceania, the large Ganges, Brahmaputra and Mekong river basins experienced lower-than-normal conditions almost over the entire basin territories.

Climate breakdown appears to be changing where water goes, and helping to cause extreme floods and droughts. 2023 was the hottest year on record, with rivers running low and countries facing droughts, but it also brought devastating floods across the globe.

The extremes were also influenced, according to the WMO, by the transition from La Niña to El Niño in mid-2023. These are naturally occurring weather patterns; El Niño refers to the above-average sea-surface temperatures that periodically develop across the east-central equatorial Pacific, while La Niña refers to the periodic cooling in those areas. However, scientists say climate breakdown is exacerbating the impacts of these weather phenomena and making them more difficult to predict.

Areas that faced flooding included the east coast of Africa, the North Island of New Zealand, and the Philippines.

In the UK, Ireland, Finland and Sweden, there was above-normal discharge, which is the volume of water flowing through a river at a given point in time.

“Water is the canary in the coalmine of climate change,” said the WMO secretary general, Celeste Saulo. “We receive distress signals in the form of increasingly extreme rainfall, floods and droughts which wreak a heavy toll on lives, ecosystems and economies. Melting ice and glaciers threaten long-term water security for many millions of people. And yet we are not taking the necessary urgent action.

“As a result of rising temperatures, the hydrological cycle has accelerated. It has also become more erratic and unpredictable, and we are facing growing problems of either too much or too little water. A warmer atmosphere holds more moisture which is conducive to heavy rainfall. More rapid evaporation and drying of soils worsen drought conditions,” she added.

These extreme water conditions put supply at risk. Currently, 3.6 billion people face inadequate access to water for at least one month a year, and this is expected to increase to more than 5 billion by 2050, according to UN Water.

Glaciers also fared badly last year, losing more than 600 gigatonnes of water, the highest figure in 50 years of observations, according to the WMO’s preliminary data for September 2022 to August 2023. Mountains in western North America and the European Alps faced extreme melting. Switzerland’s Alps lost about 10% of their remaining volume over the past two years.

“Far too little is known about the true state of the world’s freshwater resources. We cannot manage what we do not measure. This report seeks to contribute to improved monitoring, data-sharing, cross-border collaboration and assessments,” said Saulo. “This is urgently needed.”

London Wetland Centre – the capital’s branch of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. A regular haunt, just a train ride away in Barnes. Today’s visit has an added frisson. Someone has seen a bittern, and I want a piece of the action. Some people will travel countrywide for a glimpse of a rare bird’s backside. I won’t, but will happily make a short trip across town for this most charismatic bird.

Not that the sighting’s guaranteed. Bitterns are secretive birds, fond of skulking in reedbeds, their streaky brown plumage the most effective camouflage. Factor in their relative scarcity, and any encounter is to be treasured.

Bitterns have a weird, alien quality. Streaky tubes of awkwardness, prowling through the reeds, head forward, thick neck slung low. In the right place, in breeding season, you might hear one. Their far-carrying boom – like someone blowing across the top of a milk bottle – is the deepest British bird sound. Unlike other birdsong, it’s produced by the expulsion of air through the oesophagus. Get close enough and you’ll hear clicks and wheezes as it inflates the bellows before burping out the call. Hooomb – hooomb – hooomb.

Once regarded as an ill omen, that haunting sound is a boon for modern birders. The bittern’s recovery from 19th-century near-extinction was slow, but recent restoration of reedbeds has boosted their population. And each winter, one or two choose this wetland reserve as their temporary home. A bird of the fens in the heart of London’s urban sprawl. Crazy.

The hide is empty. Tranquillity seeps into my bones. A Cetti’s warbler shouts from deep in the reeds. A cormorant perches on a post – beaky, prehistoric, strangely noble. On the island, 30 lapwings stand stoic, buffeted by the wind. Starlings scurry among them, Flash Harrys in shiny suits. Gulls, geese, ducks. No bittern.

The lapwings, spooked, fly up in a flurry. They swing round in a loose, coordinated flock, accompanied by the starlings. Sweeping low over the water, they jink to the left as if dodging a tackle. The unanimity of it is breathtaking, group telepathy at work. Nimble, elegant and mesmerising, an aerial ballet of the highest order. Enough to take me out of myself, and away from the cares of the world. I almost – almost – forget about the bittern.

Country diary is on Twitter/X at @gdncountrydiary

Al Pacino has revealed he almost died from Covid-19 in 2020, saying he “didn’t have a pulse” for several minutes.

In interviews with the New York Times and People magazine published on the weekend, the 84-year-old Godfather and Scarface actor detailed his experience with the virus, which he contracted in 2020 before a vaccine was available.

“They said my pulse was gone. It was so – you’re here, you’re not. I thought: Wow, you don’t even have your memories. You have nothing. Strange porridge,” Pacino told the New York Times.

The actor said he “felt not good – unusually not good”, and recalled having a fever and dehydration before losing consciousness. “I was sitting there in my house, and I was gone. Like that. I didn’t have a pulse,” he said.

An ambulance arrived and he woke up to a medical team in his living room including six paramedics and two doctors. “They had these outfits on that looked like they were from outer space or something,” he said. “It was kind of shocking to open your eyes and see that. Everybody was around me, and they said: ‘He’s back. He’s here.’”

Speaking to People, Pacino questioned whether he had actually died, despite a nurse confirming his lack of pulse. “I thought I experienced death. I might not have … I don’t think I died. Everybody thought I was dead. How could I be dead? If I was dead, I fainted.”

The Oscar winner told the New York Times he “didn’t see the white light or anything” and that “there’s nothing there” after death – though the experience did prompt some existential reflection.

“As Hamlet says, ‘To be or not to be’; ‘The undiscovered country from whose bourn, no traveler returns.’ And he says two words: ‘No more’. It was no more. You’re gone. I’d never thought about it in my life,” Pacino said. “But you know actors: it sounds good to say I died once. What is it when there’s no more?”

When asked by People whether his brush with death had changed how he lives, he replied: “Not at all.”

Pacino details the experience in his upcoming memoir, Sonny Boy. His latest movie – titled Modì, Three Days on the Wing of Madness – premiered last week at the 72nd San Sebastián film festival.

A Royal New Zealand Navy vessel has run aground and sunk off Samoa, the New Zealand Defence Force said in a statement on Sunday.

Manawanui, the navy’s specialist dive and hydrographic vessel, ran aground near the southern coast of Upolu on Saturday night as it was conducting a reef survey, Commodore Shane Arndell, the maritime component commander of the New Zealand Defence Force, said in a statement. All 75 crew and passengers were safe.

Late on Sunday Samoa’s acting prime minister said an oil spill was “highly probable” as a result of the sinking.

Officials in Samoa were conducting an environmental impact assessment in the area where the ship sank, Tuala Tevaga Iosefo Ponifasio said in a statement.

Several vessels responded and assisted in rescuing the crew and passengers who had left the ship in lifeboats, Arndell said.

A Royal New Zealand air force P-8A Poseidon was also deployed to assist in the rescue. The cause of the grounding was unknown and would need further investigation, New Zealand Defence Force said.

Video and photos published on local media showed the Manawanui, which cost the New Zealand government NZ$103m in 2018, listing heavily and with plumes of thick grey smoke rising after it ran aground.

The vessel later capsized and was below the surface by 9am local time, New Zealand Defence Force said.

The agency said it was “working with authorities to understand the implications and minimise the environmental impacts”.

Chief of Navy Rear Adm Garin Golding told a press conference in Auckland that a plane would leave for Samoa on Sunday to bring the rescued crew and passengers back to New Zealand.

He said some of those rescued had suffered minor injuries, including from walking across a reef.

Defence minister Judith Collins described the grounding as a “really challenging for everybody on board.“

“I know that what has happened is going to take quite a bit of time to process,” Collins told the press conference.

“I look forward to pinpointing the cause so that we can learn from it and avoid a repeat,” she said, adding that an immediate focus was to salvage “what is left” of the vessel.

Rescue operations were coordinated by Samoan emergency services and Australian Defence personnel with the assistance of the New Zealand rescue centre, according to a statement from Samoa Police, Prison and Corrections Service posted on Facebook.

Manawanui is used to conduct a range of specialist diving, salvage and survey tasks around New Zealand and across the south-west Pacific.

New Zealand’s navy is already working at reduced capacity with three of its nine ships idle due to personnel shortages.

With Reuters and Associated Press

Florida has expanded its state of emergency as it braces for a major storm expect to pummel the state’s western peninsula by midweek, after Tropical Storm Milton gathered strength and was declared a category 1 hurricane on Sunday.

The impending landfall of Milton comes days after Hurricane Helene caused devastation and destruction through large swaths of Florida and other parts of the south-east of the US including North Carolina. The death toll stands at 230 people, and is expected to rise.

Forecasters expect Milton to continue to build, and could approach a category 3 hurricane or higher as it hits the Florida peninsula on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. The National Weather Service said there could be life-threatening storm surge and damaging winds, and urged local residents to follow evacuation orders as counties began to prepare for Milton’s arrival.

Kevin Guthrie, director of Florida’s emergency management division, urged people to prepare for the “largest evacuation that we have seen most likely since 2017 Hurricane Irma”. More than 6.8 million people were evacuated for Irma.

“I highly encourage you to evacuate,” Guthrie told Floridians in a press conference.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that 51 counties are under a state of emergency which had been expanded Sunday morning as Milton strengthened.

Counties on Florida’s west coast were readying for the storm surge and flooding. Pinellas county issued mandatory evacuation orders for six hospitals, 25 nursing homes and 44 assisted living facilities, totaling about 6,600 patients, according to the county’s emergency management department. Pasco county issued mandatory evacuations to go into effect Monday at 10am for all those living in low-lying or flood-prone areas.

Residents in parts of Florida whose lives have been upended by Helene now worry that a second wave of catastrophe could be imminent as debris left by the first disaster is shifted in further overpowering rains.

Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, said on Sunday that while it remains to be seen just where Milton will strike, it’s clear that Florida is going to be hit hard – “I don’t think there’s any scenario where we don’t have major impacts at this point.”

As many as 4,000 National Guard troops are helping state crews to remove debris, DeSantis said, and he directed that Florida crews dispatched to North Carolina in Helene’s aftermath return to the state to prepare for Milton.

“All available state assets … are being marshaled to help remove debris,” DeSantis said. “We’re going 24-7 … it’s all hands on deck.”

Florida is the state mostly directly in the current expected path of Milton but the National Weather Service in Wilmington North Carolina warned that local impacts in north-east South Carolina and south-east North Carolina “are currently expected to be high surf & strong rip currents along with gusty winds along the coast”.

Joe Biden on Sunday ordered an additional 500 US troops to be sent into the hurricane-stricken area of North Carolina, bringing the total of active-duty troops assisting with response and recovery to 1,500. That is on top of 6,000 national guards personnel and 7,000 federal workers.

“My administration is sparing no resource to support families,” the president said.

The new storm barreling towards the western coast of Florida presents the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Fema, with a whole new level of crises. The agency has already had to respond to swirling misinformation concerning Helene, amplified on the presidential campaign trail by Donald Trump and his surrogates.

Helene made landfall on the Florida Gulf coast on 26 September. It then ripped through Georgia and North Carolina, both of which are battleground states that are being aggressively fought over by the Republican and Democratic presidential campaigns.

The Fema administrator, Deanne Criswell, told ABC News’s This Week on Sunday that claims put out by the Trump campaign that millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money had been diverted from disaster relief to house undocumented immigrants were “frankly ridiculous and just plain false”. Criswell condemned what she called a “truly dangerous narrative”.

She added that “this kind of rhetoric is not helpful to people. It’s really a shame that we’re putting politics ahead of helping people”.

On Thursday, Trump told a rally in Saginaw, Michigan, that his Democratic opponent, the Vice-President Kamala Harris, had “spent all her Fema money, billions of dollars, on housing for illegal immigrants”. Then on Sunday Lara Trump, the former president’s daughter-in-law and the co-chair of the Republican National Committee, told CNN’s State of the Union that “you have migrants being housed in luxury hotels in New York City”.

She added: “We have paid so much money from our tax dollars into the crisis that didn’t need to happen.”

The Trump line that federal funds are being redirected away from hurricane relief to housing immigrants is false. Fema does have an immigration housing fund known as the Shelter and Services Program which has been granted $650m by Congress this year, but it is separate from disaster response.

Fema has indicated that it has enough resources to deal with Helene, but may need additional funds in the event of further calamities during the hurricane season.

Trump’s falsehoods have received some pushback from Republican leaders. Thom Tillis, the US senator from North Carolina, disputed the claim that funds had been diverted to immigrants.

“We could have a discussion about the failure of this administration’s border policies and the billions of dollars it’s costing. But right now, not yet is it affecting the flow of resources to western North Carolina,” he told CBS News’s Face the Nation.

Christopher Ciccone, a multihyphenate artist, dancer, designer and younger brother of Madonna, has died aged 63.

Ciccone died Friday in Michigan, his representative Brad Taylor told the Associated Press Sunday. He had cancer.

Madonna paid tribute to her brother in an Instagram post, describing him as “the closest human to me for so long”.

“Its hard to explain our bond,” she wrote. “But it grew out of an understanding that we were different and society was going to give us a hard time for not following the status quo. We took each other‘s hands and we danced through the madness of our childhood. In fact dance was a kind of superglue that held us together.”

“I admired him. He had impeccable taste. And a sharp tongue, which he sometimes used against me but I always forgave him,” she added.

She said had not spoken for a while but when Ciccone fell ill, “we found our way back to each other. I did my best to keep him alive as long as possible. He was in so much pain towards the end … I’m glad he’s not suffering anymore. There will never be anyone like him.”

A dancer since his youth, Ciccone was deeply intertwined with his sister’s rise in pop stardom in the 1980s, appearing in music videos like Lucky Star, art directing her Blond Ambition World Tour and serving as tour director for The Girlie Show tour. He also directed music videos for Dolly Parton and Tony Bennett.

In 2008, Ciccone released a bestselling autobiography called Life with My Sister Madonna in which he wrote about their strained relationship, her romantic entanglements as well as recollections from his time on tour with her. For two decades, he was by her side, choreographing, directing, dressing and helping his sister. He also interior designed her homes in New York, Miami and Los Angeles. He said that it was a bit like a marriage at times.

“It was a double-edged sword,” he told Good Morning America in 2008. “Nobody was chaining me down to make – to stay.”

The book, and his no-filter descriptions of the exploits of his sister’s famous circle, took its toll on some of his Hollywood friendships too. Several years later, in 2012, around the launch of a shoe collection he designed, he told the Standard that he and his sister were “on a perfectly personable level” and in contact.

“I don’t work for her, and it’s better this way,” he said.

In recent years Ciccone relocated to Michigan’s lower Peninsula to be closer to family. In 2016, Ciccone married Ray Thacker, a British actor, who was by his side when he died.

Madonna also lost her stepmother, Joan Clare Ciccone, to cancer just a few weeks ago, and her older brother Anthony Ciccone in early 2023.

Kamala Harris has embarked on a week-long media blitz, hurtling from TV studios and late-night shows to podcast interviews as she seeks to gain an edge over Donald Trump in the US election’s key battleground states that remain nail-bitingly close.

The vice-president’s decision to face a raft of largely friendly media outlets came as the campaigns entered the final 30 days. More than 1.4 million Americans have already cast their ballots in early voting across 30 states.

The Democratic nominee’s whirlwind media tour has been carefully crafted for maximum reach and minimum risk. Harris has talked to the CBS News show 60 Minutes, along with the popular podcast Call Her Daddy.

On Tuesday she hits the media capital, New York, for appearances on ABC News’s daytime behemoth The View and the Howard Stern Show, followed by a recording with late-night host Stephen Colbert.

The first of a flurry of comments from Harris was put out by 60 Minutes on Sunday before a full broadcast on Monday. Harris will appear alone, after Trump declined to be interviewed by the election special which has been a staple of US election coverage for more than half a century.

In a short clip released by 60 Minutes, Harris was asked whether the Biden-Harris administration had any sway over the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu, the hardline prime minister of Israel who appears not to listen to Washington. Asked whether the US had a “real close ally” in Netanyahu, she replied: “With all due respect, the better question is: do we have an important alliance between the American people and the Israeli people? And the answer to that question is yes.”

Since Harris’s meteoric propulsion as Democratic presidential nominee after Joe Biden stepped aside, her relative avoidance of press or TV interviews has become a point of contention on the campaign trail. Republican leaders and pundits on Fox News routinely accuse her of being media-shy.

This week’s blitz is designed to counter that impression, while reaching large audiences focused on demographic groups which will be central to Harris’s chances of winning in November. Call Her Daddy is Spotify’s most-listened to podcast among women, while The View is the number one ranked daytime talk show with 2.5 million average viewers, again heavily weighted towards women.

Meanwhile Colbert’s show on CBS is the highest rated late-night talk show attracting large numbers of younger viewers aged 18 to 49 – another critical demographic on Harris’s target list.

Harris’s running mate, the Democratic governor of Minnesota Tim Walz, is also making his own media scramble which began on Sunday, with him entering less comfortable territory on Fox News Sunday. He was questioned about the pro-abortion law that he signed in his state, and also asked to clarify the occasions on which he has misrepresented his record.

That included a comment that he had carried weapons in war when he had not, and his classifying the treatment that he and his wife received to have a child as IVF when it was in fact a different type of fertility treatment.

At last week’s vice-presidential debate Walz recognised his missteps, calling himself a “knucklehead”.

Walz told Fox News Sunday: “To be honest with you, I don’t think American people care whether I used IUI or IVF, what they understand is that Donald Trump would resist these things. I speak passionately … I will own up when I misspeak and when I make a mistake.”

As the contest enters its final month, the Guardian’s latest tracker of opinion polls shows Harris up on Trump by three percentage points nationally. In the more telling test of the seven battleground states that will decide the outcome, though Harris is ahead in five of them, the margin remains essentially too close to call.

Both candidates and their running mates are speeding up their frantic dash around the seven states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Harris and Walz will be in Arizona this weeks, where early voting begins on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the Democratic ticket will gain extra ballast when former president and campaigning superstar Barack Obama kicks off a round of stump appearances in the all-important swing state, Pennsylvania. He will begin in Pittsburgh, and will then travel across the country on Harris’s behalf, campaign aides have said.

Trump was scheduled to hold a rally in Juneau, Wisconsin, on Sunday afternoon, a day after he made a pointed return to the fairgrounds in Butler, Pennsylvania, where he came close to being assassinated on 13 July. Trump and his younger son Eric used the occasion to spread the baseless claim that the Democrats had been behind the attempt on his life.

“They tried to kill him, it’s because the Democratic party can’t do anything right,” Eric Trump said. Billionaire Elon Musk also appeared on stage.

On Sunday, Mike Johnson, the Republican speaker of the US House, was asked by ABC News’s This Week whether such comments were responsible amid mounting fears of political violence in the build up to the 5 November election. Johnson sidestepped the question, saying he had not heard the full speeches.

The speaker also notably refused to answer whether Trump had lost the 2020 election, in the wake of Trump’s ongoing lies that he was the actual victor. “This is the game that is always played by the media with leading Republicans, it’s a gotcha game, and I’m not going to engage in it,” Johnson said.

The former president’s wife, Melania Trump, sat down for an interview with the Fox News host Maria Bartiromo. She was asked given how close her husband had come to being shot in Butler whether she trusted the top officials of the FBI, CIA and other federal agencies who “appeared to be against President Trump and yourself from day one”.

Melania Trump replied: “It’s hard to say who you really trust. You want to, but it’s always a question mark.”

Melania Trump, who is promoting her book, Melania, also spoke about her pro-abortion stance which she revealed in the volume. She said her husband had always known her convictions.

“He knew my position and my beliefs since the day we met, and I believe in individual freedom. I want to decide what I want to do with my body. I don’t want government in my personal business,” she said.

As Israelis approached the beginning of the high holy days last week on the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the news began to circulate. Several IDF units fighting on the border with Lebanon had taken casualties in at least two different locations. Soldiers had died in combat, and many were wounded.

The confirmation of the wounded and dead, if not the circumstances served as a stark reminder for Israelis of the blows that come in war, even as Israel’s punishing air offensive has killed hundreds of Lebanese and wounded more. The soldiers’ deaths came after two weeks in which Israel struck a series of blows against Hezbollah, including the assassination of the group’s leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, and most of the top leadership.

Underlining that sense of hazard was another story that revealed itself slowly last week: how the wave of Iranian missiles launched against Israel had not been as inconsequential as initially claimed by Israel’s leadership, and instead shown that a large-scale strike could not only overwhelm Israel’s anti-missile defences but thatTehran could accurately explode warheads on the targets it was aiming for, in this case several military bases.

All of which raises serious questions as Israel prepares for a “significant” military response to Iran for the its missile attack.

A year into Israel’s fast metastasising multi-front war that now includes Iran, Lebanon and Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Iraq, Israel’s undoubted military and intelligence superiority is faltering on several fronts.

In Israel’s expanding war, as Israeli security analyst Michael Milshtein told the Guardian last week, there have been “tactical victories” but “no strategic vision” and certainly not one that unites the different fronts.

What is clear is that the conflict of the last year has seriously exposed Israel’s newly minted operational doctrine, which had planned for fighting short decisive wars largely against non-state actors armed with missiles, with the aim of avoiding being drawn into extended conflicts of attrition.

Instead, the opposite has happened. While Israeli officials have tried to depict Hamas as defeated as a military force – a questionable characterisation in the first place – they concede that it survives as a guerilla organisation in Gaza, although degraded.

Even as Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in Gaza, levelled large areas of the coastal strip and displaced a population assailed by hunger, death and sickness on multiple occasions, Israeli armour was assaulting areas of the strip once more this weekend in a new operation into northern Gaza to prevent Hamas regrouping.

Hezbollah too, despite sustaining heavy losses in its leadership, retains a potency fighting on its own terrain in the villages of southern Lebanon where it has had almost two decades to prepare for this conflict.

All of which raises serious questions as to whether Israel has any clearer vision for its escalating conflict with Iran.

A long-distance war with Iran, many experts are beginning to suggest, could also devolve into a more attritional conflict despite the relative imbalances in capabilities, even as Israel continues to plan for the scale of its own response to last week’s missile attack.

Speaking to Bloomberg TV, Carmiel Arbit, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programme, described that dynamic. “I think we are going to be looking at this as the new reality for a long time,” Arbit predicted.

“I think the question is simply going to be how often is the tit for tat going to happen, and is it just going to be tit for tat, or is this going to escalate only further. And I think the hope of the international community at this point is to avert a world war three rather than this smaller-scale war of attrition.”

Nicole Grajewski, a fellow at of the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, echoes that view in part, while cautioning that an extended series of exchanges could push Tehran to a less predictable reaction.

“The continued asymmetrical tit-for-tat between Iran and Israel risks devolving into a futile cycle of Iranian missile strikes and Israeli retaliations, each exposing Tehran’s military limitations while failing to alter the balance – and potentially driving Iran toward more desperate and unpredictable measures in its quest for credible deterrence.”

“In the long term – and it cannot be assumed that the Israeli-Iranian conflict will end soon,” wrote Haaretz’s main military analyst, Amos Harel, “there will be competition between the production rate and sophistication of Iran’s offensive systems on one side and of Israel’s interception systems on the other.”

With Israel now so deeply immersed in a widening conflict, it is unclear whether it can escape what Anthony Pfaff, the director of the Strategic Studies Institute at the US Army War College, in August called the “escalatory trap”.

“If Israel escalates,” wrote Pfaff, “it fuels the escalatory spiral that could, at some point, exceed its military capability to manage.

“If it chooses the status quo, where Hamas remains capable of terrorist operations, then it has done little to improve its security situation. Neither outcome achieves Israel’s security objectives … Forcing the choice between escalation and the status quo gives Iran, and, by extension, Hezbollah, an advantage and is a key feature of its proxy strategy.”