At least one tourist has been killed and 13 others injured in a suspected terror attack in the disputed Himalayan region of Jammu and Kashmir on Tuesday, authorities said.

The attack took place in a popular tourist destination in Pahalgam, in the mountainous Anantnag district.

A group of tourists were fired on by suspected militants and the injured were taken to the district’s main hospital for treatment, authorities said.

The attack took place in the Baisaran Valley, which is only accessible by foot or on horseback.

One eyewitness told the Indian news agency PTI that unidentified gunmen opened fire on the tourists from close range.

“My husband was shot in the head while seven others were also injured in the attack,” one woman survivor said, according to PTI.

Jammu and Kashmir’s chief minister Omar Abdullah called the attack “much larger than anything we’ve seen directed at civilians in recent years.”

The picturesque Himalayan region, which is administered in part by India and Pakistan, is no stranger to violence – but tourist-targeted attacks are rare.

For more than two decades, several domestic militant groups, demanding either independence for Kashmir or for the area to become part of Pakistan, have fought Indian security forces, with tens of thousands of people killed in the violence.

Violence surged in 2018, and the Indian government took greater control of the region in 2019 amid a heavy military presence and a monthslong communications blackout.

While the Indian government has said that militancy has since reduced, attacks continue to plague the region.

On Tuesday, a regional spokesperson from India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) accused Pakistan of fueling terrorism in the region and called the attack an “outcome of Pakistan’s frustration.”

“Pakistan and its proxies are unable to digest the return of peace and tourism in Jammu and Kashmir. They want to stifle growth and plunge the region back into fear. But we won’t allow that to happen,” Altaf Thakur said.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly condemned the attack and sent his condolences to those who had been affected in a statement posted to X.

“Those behind this heinous act will be brought to justice… they will not be spared! Their evil agenda will never succeed. Our resolve to fight terrorism is unshakable and it will get even stronger,” he said.

Pahalgam lies on a major pilgrimage route, known as the Amarnath Yatra, which takes place every year and has been exposed to previous attacks.

Thousands of tourists flock to Kashmir during its peak season each year, which runs from March to August.

The last major tourist attack in the region took place in June, when at least nine people were killed and 33 others were injured after a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims plunged into a gorge after suspected militants fired on the vehicle.

Although Pope Francis simplified the papal funeral rites in a move of typical modesty, Saturday’s ceremony will still be full of pomp and pageantry, as the world’s Catholics bid him farewell and cardinals in the Vatican ready themselves for the millennia-old process of picking a new pontiff.

Here’s what we know about the funeral of Pope Francis, who died of a heart attack and stroke on Easter Monday.

Where is Pope Francis’ body now?

After a period of rest in the chapel of Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse where Francis lived during his papacy, his body will on Wednesday morning be moved to St. Peter’s Basilica. There, he will lie in state in an open coffin for three days, while cardinals and the wider public pay their respects to the late pontiff.

Francis’ coffin will then be carried into St. Peter’s Square – the piazza outside the basilica – for Saturday’s funeral.

When is the funeral?

Francis’ funeral will begin at 10 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) Saturday – six days after his death. The last papal funeral – for Pope Benedict XVI in 2023 – was also held six days after his death.

Where will it be held?

The Vatican announced that Francis’ funeral will be held outside in St. Peter’s Square. Previous papal funerals have also been held outside, with thousands of mourners filling the open space in front of the basilica.

Francis’ funeral liturgy will be presided over by Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, dean of the College of Cardinals – the group which will in the coming weeks be tasked with appointing a new pope.

How did Francis ‘simplify’ the ceremony?

The Vatican said the funeral will follow the rites laid out in the “Ordo Exsequiarum Romani Pontificis.” This liturgical book, detailing the procedures for papal funerals, was published in 2000 but revised by Francis last year.

Diego Ravelli, master of apostolic ceremonies, said Francis had sought to “simplify and adapt” the ceremony, so that the papal funeral is “that of a pastor and disciple of Christ, and not of a powerful person in this world.”

Who will attend?

A string of world leaders have confirmed they will travel to the Vatican for Saturday’s service. Javier Milei, the president of Francis’ native Argentina who had previously clashed with the pontiff over economic policy, will attend. Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, president of neighboring Brazil who had a close relationship with Francis, is also going.

French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, outgoing German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are among the major European leaders traveling to the Vatican.

US President Donald Trump will also attend.

Tens of thousands of others are expected to show up. About 50,000 people came to Benedict’s funeral in 2023, while around 300,000 attended John Paul’s in 2005.

Who won’t be?

Russian President Vladimir Putin has “no plans” to attend, the Kremlin said Tuesday.

Because the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Putin, police in Italy – one of the 125 ICC member states – would be obliged to detain him.

Where will Francis be buried?

In his will, Francis gave simple instructions for his burial: “The tomb should be in the ground; simple, without particular ornamentation, bearing only the inscription: Franciscus.”

Francis also said that throughout his life, he had always entrusted himself to the Virgin Mary. “For this reason, I ask that my mortal remains rest – awaiting the day of the Resurrection – in the Papal Basilica of Saint Mary Major,” he wrote.

This basilica lies outside of the Vatican walls, on the other side of Rome’s River Tiber. After the funeral in the Vatican, Francis’ body will be transported there to be interred.

When does conclave start?

The process of choosing a new pope, known as conclave, is a combination of ancient tradition, religious ritual and politics. The voting takes place behind closed doors. Only cardinals under the age of 80 – slightly over half the total number – have a say in the decision.

Once the cardinals are assembled in Rome, usually around 15 days after the pope’s death, they meet in the Sistine Chapel to begin the decision-making process.

It typically takes between two and three weeks for a pope to be chosen, though it can stretch slightly beyond that if cardinals struggle to agree on a candidate.

Of the 135 cardinals eligible to appoint the next pontiff, Pope Francis installed 108.

That means four out of five votes in conclave will be cast by cardinals elevated by Francis, which has led some analysts to suspect they will appoint a successor who will continue to follow his pastoral priorities.

On March 13, 2013, Oscar Crespo was watching TV in his native Buenos Aires when he saw the white smoke appearing above the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican: a new pope was elected.

As with millions of Catholics in Latin America, he was curious to know who would succeed Pope Benedict XVI. To his surprise he heard the name Bergoglio – the surname of his childhood friend – and was immediately overwhelmed by emotion, he recalled.

His election took Crespo and all of Argentina by surprise, while the rest of the world wondered who Jorge Bergoglio was.

In the following months, the local government even organized a special tour, “the papal circuit,” so tourists and pilgrims could get a glimpse of Bergoglio’s early years in his native Buenos Aires.

Soccer with friends

Jorge Bergoglio was born in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, on December 17, 1936. The son of Italian immigrants, Mario and Regina, he was the eldest of five siblings.

He spent his childhood and teenage years at his family’s house in the heart of the middle-class neighborhood of Flores. A plaque outside his former home, 531 Membrillar Street, now proudly announces: “Pope Francis lived here.”

Like many South American kids, Bergoglio played soccer with friends around his neighborhood. A plaque on the ground at the Herminia Brumana square in Flores says: “In this plaza neighborhood children used to gather. Here, Jorge M. Bergoglio chased the ball with his friends. Afternoons of games and friendship.”

Young Bergoglio became a big soccer fan, supporting the Argentine team San Lorenzo. His love of the sport and of his team never diminished as pope, with Francis often seen holding San Lorenzo’s jersey, and hosting soccer teams at the Vatican.

“He loved music, dancing, and football. We went to watch so many football games,” Crespo said. He and Bergoglio became friends when they were 13 years old, a bond that endured when the latter became Pope Francis, even though he was never to return to his homeland.

Bergoglio grew up learning about literature and chemistry, among other subjects, and enjoyed everything typical of a teenage boy, Crespo says.

When he was 12, the Argentine even had a girlfriend who, decades later, was chased by the press after his election to the papacy.

Amalia Damonte told reporters in 2013 that the new pope had sent her a letter when they were both children. “He said to me, ‘If I don’t marry you, I’ll become a priest,” she recalled.

Years passed and Bergoglio indeed opted for priesthood. His deep spirit of service made him choose the Church, according to Crespo. Bergoglio entered the Jesuit religious order as a novice in 1958, was ordained in 1969 and became the sole archbishop of his native Buenos Aires in 1998.

He was made a cardinal in 2001 and served as president of the Argentine bishops’ conference from 2005 until 2011.

Bergoglio the priest and archbishop

As a Jesuit living under a vow of poverty, Bergoglio led a humble and austere life, forgoing even the slightest of luxuries. His rejection of the trappings of status once he became archbishop gave the world a hint of how his papacy would unfold years later.

He declined to live in the archbishop’s palace, choosing instead to live in a simple apartment. He also refused to use a chauffeured limousine, preferring to take the bus with ordinary people, and cooked his own meals.

“He never had a car, that was the reality. I used to travel with him on public transport. And when I bought a car, I used to give him a ride,” Crespo said.

The journeys with Archbishop Bergoglio included visits to the “villas” – shanty towns outside the capital – where he became a familiar face.

“He went to the villas to see who he could help. He (had) told me clearly: Look, I am going to be a priest because my aim is to be at the service of the people. For that, I’m going to the villas, I am going to go to the heart of the country,” Crespo recalled.

The austerity and simplicity of his life, along with a deep need to be close to the poor and marginalized, defined him as a priest and as a future pope, explained Argentine journalist Elisabetta Piqué, author of “Pope Francis: Life and Revolution.”

Piqué met Bergoglio for the first time in 2001 for an interview in Rome, an encounter which sparked a friendship that lasted for decades. At that time, she described him as a shy man who surprised her.

“He was really an open-minded priest with whom you could talk about everything,” Piqué said.

A day after Cardinal Bergoglio became Pope Francis, on March 14, 2013, he called Piqué and asked her about the reaction in his native Argentina.

The new pope mentioned he had been to pray at the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome, where he would years later request to be buried, and then went in person to pay his lodging bill at the Paulus VI hotel at which he stayed during the conclave – a gesture that surprised everyone.

Later that month, Francis’s decision not to live in the papal apartment on the top floor of the Apostolic Palace but in the Casa Santa Marta, the Vatican City residence where cardinals stay during the conclave, was unexpected and considered a revolutionary act by the new pope, Piqué explained.

As archbishop in Buenos Aires, Bergoglio would celebrate Mass in a prison or a hospital or hospice, trying to reach the marginalized and open the church up to everyone, a tradition that continued during his papacy and became part of his legacy.

“His legacy is about an inclusive church, a church that is for all, not only for a small group of perfect people. This is a pope who speaks to everyone and who speaks specially to the sinners … We have seen him going to prisons all over the world. We have seen him on Holy Thursdays going to prisons and washing the feet of the prisoners,” Piqué said.

Emilce Cuda, an Argentine theologist who worked closely with Francis as secretary of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America, described him as a strategist who used humor to navigate the Vatican as pope.

Crespo said that despite Bergoglio’s obvious talents, it had never occurred to his contemporaries that he would come to lead the Roman Catholic Church.

“I never imagined a classmate would become a pope. We would have thought that due to his intelligence he would become a minister, a position in public office, even president, but that he was going to be pope? It didn’t occur to any of us,” Crespo said.

He was a pope who never forgot his beginnings at the end of the world and always reached out to those on the peripheries, Piqué reflected. He stayed true to his friends too.

“One day in June 2013 the telephone rang, and a familiar voice said: ‘Hello Oscar, it is Jorge Mario,’ and I said, ‘The pope is calling me!’ Despite our friendship, I was still very surprised the pope called me,” Crespo said.

Israeli police on Tuesday scoured the Mediterranean coast for a swimmer they fear may have been attacked by a shark in an area that has long seen close encounters between marine predators and beachgoers who sometimes seek them out.

A shiver of endangered dusky and sandbar sharks has been swimming close to the area for years, attracting onlookers who approach the sharks, drawing pleas from conservation groups for authorities to separate people from the wild animal.

Nature groups say those warnings went unheeded. Police and rescue workers launched a search along the coast after reports that a shark attacked a swimmer on a beach near the city of Hadera. Israel’s Fire and Rescue Authority announced Tuesday afternoon they had found remains of a body, which was brought to the forensic institute for identification.

On Tuesday, the beach was closed as search teams used boats and underwater equipment to look for the man. His identity was not immediately known, but Israeli media said he had gone to swim with the sharks.

Israelis flocked in large numbers to the beach during a weeklong holiday, sharing the waters with a dozen or more sharks. Some tugged on the sharks’ fins, while others threw them fish to eat. Dusky sharks can grow to 4 meters (13 feet) long and weigh about 350 kilograms (750 pounds). Sandbar sharks are smaller, growing to about 2.5 meters (8 feet) and 100 kilograms (220 pounds).

Yigael Ben-Ari, head of marine rangers at the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, said it was not known how the man behaved around the sharks. But he said the public should know not to enter the water when sharks are present and not to touch or play with them.

One video shared by Israeli media showed a shark swimming right up to bathers in thigh-deep water.

“What a huge shark!” the man filming exclaims, as the shark approaches him. “Whoa! He’s coming toward us!”

“Don’t move!” he implores a boy standing nearby, who replies: “I’m leaving.”

The man then asks: “What, are you afraid of the sharks?”

The behavior, some of which was witnessed by an Associated Press photographer two days before the attack, flew in the face of the advice of the parks authority.

“Like every wild animal, the sharks’ behavior may be unpredictable,” the authority said in a statement.

This would be just the third recorded shark attack in Israel, according to Ben-Ari. One person was killed in an attack in the 1940s.

The area, where warm water released by a nearby power plant flows into the sea, has for years attracted dozens of sharks between October and May. Ben-Ari said swimming is prohibited in the area, but swimmers enter the water anyway.

“It would have been appropriate to take steps to preserve and regulate public safety, but over the years, chaos has developed in the area,” the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, an environmental group, said in a statement.

It said fishermen, boats, divers, surfers and snorkelers intersected dangerously with a wild animal that “is not accustomed to being around crowds of people.”

SPNI said further steps were needed to prevent similar incidents, like designating a safe zone from where people could view the sharks without swimming close to them.

Israeli authorities on Monday closed the beach and others nearby and they remained closed Tuesday.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not attend talks in London on Wednesday aimed at working toward an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine, as Kyiv signaled it would reject a key detail of the Trump administration’s proposal to end the three-year conflict.

Rubio had been expected to take part in the discussions with Ukrainian, UK and European officials, but State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said Tuesday that he would no longer attend due to “logistical issues.”

President Donald Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, Keith Kellogg, will represent the US instead, Bruce said. The talks follow a meeting in Paris last week in which officials from the US, the United Kingdom, France and Germany discussed a US framework for a ceasefire.

Any move to recognize Russia’s control of Crimea would reverse a decade of US policy.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky made clear Tuesday that he was open to talks with Russia, but that Kyiv would not accept a deal that recognizes Moscow’s control of Crimea.

“Ukraine will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea,” he told reporters. “There is nothing to talk about. It is against our constitution.”

Rubio said in a post on X that he had a “productive conversation” with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, who is hosting Wednesday’s meeting, and that he “(looks) forward to following up” with the United Kingdom and Ukraine at a later point.

The talks in London come after US officials have publicly voiced frustration over the lack of progress at bringing an end to the war.

Trump has said he would “have to see an enthusiasm to want to end it” from both sides for the US to continue negotiations, after Rubio warned last week that Washington could walk away from its efforts to end the conflict if there were no signs of progress.

Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow this week to continue negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the White House said Tuesday. The Kremlin confirmed Witkoff’s visit, but did not disclose further details, according to Russian state media.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday the negotiations were “hopefully moving in the right direction,” and declined to say what “stepping back” from the peace efforts might look like for the US.

Moscow has previously stalled on negotiations and rejected an earlier US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire agreed to by Kyiv.

However, under pressure from Trump, Ukraine and Russia have expressed willingness to negotiate for the first time in years; the two sides have not held direct talks since the early weeks of Moscow’s invasion in 2022.

On Monday, Putin raised the prospect of holding direct talks with Ukraine about a ceasefire that would halt striking civilian targets, but said further discussion was needed on how to define a civilian target.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later confirmed the Russian president’s remarks, saying “(Putin) had in mind negotiations and discussions with the Ukrainian side,” Reuters reported, citing Russia’s Interfax news agency.

The final call lasted 30 seconds. Just enough time to say hello and ask if everyone was okay. But for Gaza’s tiny Christian population, the phone call from Pope Francis was a ray of hope that shone through the horrors of war.

For Palestinians, it became a daily reminder that Gaza was not forgotten.

“He shows us his paternity. He is very close to us,” said Romanelli. “All the time he called us throughout this war – this horrible war – for more than a year and a half, he would call for peace and send his blessings to all of Gaza’s people.”

From the beginning, Francis repeatedly called for an end to the war and was an outspoken critic of Israel’s siege on the territory. In his Easter message the day before he died, he wished that “the light of peace radiate throughout the Holy Land and the entire world.”

“I think of the people of Gaza, and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and to create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation,” Francis’ message said. “I appeal to the warring parties: call a ceasefire, release the hostages and come to the aid of a starving people that aspires to a future of peace!”

The Holy Family Church in Gaza has become a shelter for the enclave’s tiny Christian community. Displaced by Israel’s bombardment of the territory, Christian families have turned to the parish as a place to find relative safety. Makeshift tents fill the crammed courtyard, the solid edifice of the church overlooking the flimsy havens. According to the church and Gaza’s Ministry of Health, Israeli strikes have killed around 20 members of the enclave’s small Christian community. Some Muslim children and their families have come to the church as well, the church said.

“His Holiness the pope was not an ordinary person,” said Musa Antone, a Christian resident of Gaza. “He was a man of faith who inquired about both Christians and Muslims.”

“It is true that we have lost his body, but we will not lose him as a spirit,” Antone said.

In May 2014, Francis made his only visit to the occupied West Bank. He never visited Gaza, but the Holy Family Church described his concern for the enclave as a “father’s anxiety for his children.”

The world’s Catholic population numbers around 1.4 billion. In Gaza, fewer than 1,400 Christians remain, and the number of Catholics is smaller still – an almost invisible minority within an overwhelmingly Muslim Palestinian society. Pope Francis could have overlooked them, as they represented less than 0.0001% of his global flock. He could have called less often.

But he refused.

“He was so sick but insisted to do that call as usual.”