Scotland’s First Minister Humza Yousaf said on Monday that the return of his parents-in-law from Gaza was “bittersweet”, following their four-week ordeal under siege in the Palestinian territory.

Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, the parents of Yousaf’s wife Nadia, became trapped in Gaza following Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, and only managed to leave and enter Egypt through the Rafah crossing last Friday.

“They are of course delighted that they are here but they are heartbroken that they had to leave family behind in Gaza,” the leader of the devolved government in Edinburgh told BBC Scotland.

He told reporters that his father-in-law had been forced to say numerous painful goodbyes when he left the territory last week.

“He was really broken by the fact that he had to say goodbye to his mother, to his son, to their grandchildren, as well — the youngest of which is only three months old,” Yousaf said.

His in-laws, who live in Dundee, northeast Scotland, were visiting relatives in Gaza when Israel declared war on Hamas after its gunmen killed 1,400 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli officials.

Since then, Israel has relentlessly bombarded the Palestinian territory and sent in ground troops, with the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza saying more than 10,000 people have been killed, most of them women and children.

Yousaf, who in March became the first Muslim leader of a government in western Europe, had grown increasingly vocal over recent weeks about the desperate plight of his in-laws and others in Gaza.

On Monday, he said the situation they faced had been “incredibly desperate” and they had been forced to drink sea water after running out of supplies.

“We continue to watch the situation in Israel-Gaza with a lot of distress,” the Scottish National Party (SNP) leader added, reiterating his call for an immediate ceasefire.

“This is a pivotal moment, frankly, for the international community,” he said.

“You are either on the side of humanity calling for an immediate ceasefire or you are enabling the suffering of 2.2 million men, women and children, the vast majority of whom are innocent,” the leader added.

The ruling Conservative government in the UK and the main Labour opposition have not joined calls for a ceasefire, arguing it would benefit Hamas, and instead called for “humanitarian pauses”.

Hamas will not accept a puppet government in the Gaza Strip and will remain in the territory, said on Monday the leader of the Palestinian group in Lebanon.

Israel has said it intends to destroy Hamas in retaliation for the group’s October 7 attack which Israeli officials say killed at least 1,400 people.

“To those who think that Hamas will disappear, Hamas will remain entrenched in the conscience of our people, and no force on Earth can annihilate or marginalise it,” Osama Hamdan told a news conference.

The senior Hamas official said Israel ally the United States planned to replace its rule in Gaza, likening such a move to Nazi Germany’s puppet state in France during World War II.

“Our people will not allow the United States to impose its plans to create an administration that suits it and that suits the occupation (Israel), and our people will not accept a new Vichy government,” he said.

The Israeli army has bombarded the Gaza Strip and sent in ground troops in a military operation that has killed more than 10,000 people, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

On Tuesday, in Congress, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “at some point” the Palestinian Authority (PA), led by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, should take control of the Gaza Strip.

International third parties could possibly play a role in the intervening period, Blinken said.

And Abbas, whose Fatah party is Hamas’s rival, said on Sunday that “the Gaza Strip is an integral part of the State of Palestine”.

The PA was driven out of Gaza by Hamas in 2007.

“We will fully assume our responsibilities within the framework of a comprehensive political solution that includes all of the West Bank, including east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip” — the areas the PA proposes for a Palestinian state — Abbas said after Blinken’s visit to Ramallah.

The PA only has authority over some sections of the occupied West Bank, with east Jerusalem annexed by Israel and Gaza under Hamas control.

Israel seized the West Bank and east Jerusalem in 1967.

The last Palestinian legislative elections took place in 2006 and were won by Hamas.

Despite its victory, the Islamist group was prevented from exercising real power and in 2007 launched its violent takeover of Gaza, defeating the PA’s security forces.

Raymond Calvert, the oldest new dad in the UK at the age of 78, has passed away at the age of 91 due to a fall. Calvert had his seventh child, Jamie Rai, with his girlfriend Charlotte in 2010. His funeral took place at Skipton Crematorium. Calvert described Jamie Rai as a “gift from God” and his “very own little miracle.” He had no regrets about having a child at his age and said it was possible without the use of Viagra.