He runs two shops, packed with clothes, bedding, jewellery, souvenirs and ornaments, and he hasn't sold anything for days.

The tourists who should be thronging these streets aren't here.

We are only a short walk from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the most important sights in the Christian world, and Jaffa Gate, one of the main entrances to the city's historic warren of sites and shops.

But it's quiet. Worryingly quiet.

'I think there will be another war'

"Jerusalem is very empty," he says, waving an arm at the quiet street. "We have no tourists, we have nothing. They have fled because of the war."

Having survived the COVID lockdown, his business is now having to cope with another slowdown. And now Mohammed fears another shock.

Does he think there will be another war, I ask. "To be honest, from what I hear, yes I think so. I think there will be another war. And nobody likes war."

That may be true, but there are certainly those who are more open-minded to war than others.

'Take off the head'

At Jaffa Gate, we bump into Moshe Cohen, 23, who's actually quite keen on military action against Iran starting as soon as possible.

"I hope it starts in a few days," he tells me, smiling.

I ask why. "Because they give all the money to Gaza, to Hamas. Everything comes from them. It's a lot of money. So you have to take off the head and make the world a better place."

So what if Americans were to decide not to attack Iran - should Israel go alone? "Yes we should. If they [the Americans] don't want to, then we'll have to go first."

Alongside him, his friend, Bezalel, nods in agreement. They have no doubt at all that an attack on Iran has to happen.

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By contrast, Khalil Al-daqaq freely admits he doesn't know what's round the corner.

His shop, a short stumble from the Holy Church, has been run by his family for decades. He first worked here as a child - he's now 67. Friendly, welcoming and happy to chat.

'Some people are really scared'

"Trade is bad, but we are surviving," he tells me. "It could be worse. I'm a very optimistic person. In this country, you have to be.

"It's tense here. Unexpectedly. We don't know what's going to happen in the coming days. Or the next hour. Some people are really scared, but you know - what will happen, will happen.

"But people will always want to come here. When it is calm and peaceful, they will return. It's a holy place for everyone. What we are missing over here are logical, sensible guys. For the leaders… we're just numbers to them."

And that sense of fatalism is a line you hear regularly - a feeling that it's not worth worrying about the future because it will happen soon enough.

We bump into Yaakov Simcha, a 21-year-old who has come here from New Jersey to study the Torah, Judaism's most important text.

So what, I ask, is going to happen?

"I have no idea. I'm not nervous or anything. I believe in God, and I believe that whatever he wants to happen is going to happen. And so, you know, I think his plan is going to work."

He smiles at me. "Whatever happens, happens. It's his plan. I'm just going to sit back and continue my studies."

On 21 July 2011, the day it was announced that the former prince would step down from the role, Epstein wrote: "I assume he knows that this is Charles doing."

The email was in response to a message from an associate, who said: "Lots of TV coverage on PA and always big feature on you. Insane."

Sky News believes PA refers to Prince Andrew.

The former prince served as the UK's special representative for international trade and investment between 2001 and 2011. The role gave him access to senior government and business contacts around the world.

He stepped back from the role amid increasing scrutiny and criticism about his continued relationship with the US financier and convicted sex offender.

A photo of the two men walking in New York made headlines in the months ahead of him stepping down.

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The three million files released by the US Department of Justice provide a glimpse into fragments of personal conversations that were occurring when Andrew and Epstein's relationship was making headlines 15 years ago.

The convicted sex offender had been emailing friends about the news Andrew had lost his official trade role all day.

In another email about the news, Epstein said: "I'm sure this is good for him, he will now be free."

He also sent a news article about Andrew stepping down to Ghislaine Maxwell, who asked: "Why?"

Epstein responded: "I think he wants to make money."

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office on his 66th birthday.

After 11 hours of questioning, he was released under investigation.

Last week in a statement, the King stressed that Buckingham Palace would help the police if it was approached as part of the investigation.

The monarch wrote: "What now follows is the full, fair and proper process by which this issue is investigated in the appropriate manner and by the appropriate authorities.

"In this, as I have said before, they have our full and wholehearted support and co-operation. Let me state clearly: the law must take its course.

"As this process continues, it would not be right for me to comment further on this matter."

Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has always denied any wrongdoing.

It added that six others on the speedboat, who are also Cuban citizens, were injured and have been detained.

The Cuban commander of the border patrol boat was also wounded, according to Cuba's interior ministry.

In a statement, the ministry said the 10 passengers on the speedboat, which it claims was registered in Florida, had been living in the US and that "according to preliminary statements by those detained, intended to carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes".

It said the passengers were armed and that most "have prior records involving criminal and violent activity".

Assault rifles, handguns, and Molotov cocktails were among the items seized, the statement added.

The ministry identified the six people detained and said two are wanted by Cuban authorities "based on their involvement in the promotion, planning, organisation, financing, support or commission of actions carried out in the national territory or in other countries, in connection with acts of terrorism".

The ministry also identified one of the dead and said efforts were under way to identify the other three.

The government said another Cuban national had been arrested, adding that he "had been sent from the United States to facilitate the landing and reception of the armed group and has confessed to his role".

US secretary of state Marco Rubio said no US government personnel were involved but insisted: "We are going to have our own information on this, we are going to figure out exactly what happened."

He said the US would try to determine if those in the incident were US citizens or permanent residents.

How the incident unfolded

The speedboat came within one nautical mile of a channel on Falcones Cay, on Cuba's north coast, when it was approached by five members of a Cuban patrol unit, the interior ministry said in an earlier statement.

The crew of the speedboat then opened fire, wounding the commander of the Cuban vessel, the statement added.

It said the injured were evacuated and given medical attention.

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Florida's attorney general James Uthmeier said he was ordering prosecutors to open a separate investigation with other state and federal law enforcement partners.

"The Cuban government cannot be trusted, and we will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable," he wrote on X.

Florida congressman Carlos Gimenez, a Cuban-American former mayor of Miami, demanded an "urgent" investigation into what he called a "massacre".

It comes amid a time of heightened tensions between the US and Cuba following increased pressure from Donald Trump's administration.

The two countries previously collaborated on combating drug smuggling and other crimes, but have ceased to do so.

The US has also blocked virtually all oil shipments to the island, piling pressure on its communist-run government.

Some families said that baby deaths were being misclassified to prevent further investigation.

Baroness Amos, who is leading a national investigation into maternity care, said: "Maternity and neonatal services in England are failing too many women, babies, families, and staff."

Investigators spoke to hundreds of harmed families and staff across 12 NHS trusts in England, many of whom shared shocking accounts of their experiences.

Some families alleged in the report that their babies were designated stillborn instead of dying after birth.

"They felt the system incentivised the recording of deaths as stillbirths as this prevents the case from being investigated by a coroner," the report said.

Jack and Sarah Hawkins, whose daughter Harriet was stillborn, were not part of the Amos investigation, but have fought to get a separate inquiry launched for bereaved and harmed families in Nottingham.

Jack said: "We have met a number of people and heard reports from a number of people whose babies they say were born alive and who the hospital say were born dead.

"And that is a horrific position, a horrific thing to say, and yet of course we believe the victims, not the NHS, who have shown themselves to be sparing with the truth around some of these issues."

Neither supported Baroness Amos' inquiry. Sarah said it "isn't going to change anything".

'There needs to be a public inquiry'

"Families just want accountability and this report is not going to bring accountability," she said.

"There needs to be a statutory public inquiry and some form of justice. Because if your child died in any other circumstance in life, you would get justice. People would be held to account.

"Yet in maternity services, it doesn't happen like that and that is so unfair."

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The National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation (NMNI) in England was set up by Health Secretary Wes Streeting in June after he met families harmed by poor maternity care.

In her initial report released in December, Ms Amos said "nothing prepared her" for the amount of "unacceptable care" families currently receive.

Investigators have met more than 400 family members and heard from over 8,000 people, including NHS staff.

They are one of several families Sky News has spoken to who have been told they do not qualify for asylum in the UK because parts of Ukraine are judged to be "safe" - as the war there rolls into its fifth year.

Ukraine war - follow latest updates

About 310,000 Ukrainians have been welcomed to the UK under special visa schemes following Russia's invasion in February 2022.

The Homes for Ukraine scheme, which allows UK residents to sponsor Ukrainian nationals and their family members to come to the UK, has been extended twice, with the latest extension allowing them to stay until September 2028.

But four years on from the beginning of the war, many of those Ukrainians feel like the UK is home, and some children have spent more time in the UK than in Ukraine, so they wish to settle here.

There is no pathway to settlement through the Ukraine schemes, as agreed with the Ukrainian government, which wants its citizens to return after the war. Many are now applying for different visas, which could lead to indefinite leave to remain in the UK.

Sky News has spoken to Ukrainian families who have claimed asylum over fears of being killed if they return to the country.

But their applications have been rejected, with letters from the Home Office telling them to relocate to "safe areas" in the west of Ukraine, including to areas that have recently seen heavy bombing, and to the capital Kyiv, where there is a high risk of missile and drone attacks.

The Home Office told Sky News the Ukraine schemes remain open, and they have twice been extended.

'No part of Ukraine is safe'

Families are concerned that the Home Office is citing out-of-date data about how safe areas are, with guidance from January 2025 currently being used.

It said: "In general, the humanitarian situation in Ukraine is not so severe that there are substantial grounds for believing that there is a real risk of serious harm because conditions amount to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment."

But the families have pointed to a UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) statement, released in November, that said a deadly aerial attack on Ternopil in western Ukraine "demonstrates clearly that no part of the country should be considered safe".

Immigration lawyers told Sky News that most asylum claims from Ukrainians were now being rejected, but before April 2025 almost all of them were approved.

The government does not agree with this assessment. But Home Office data from 2024 to 2025 show a dramatic reduction in the number of Ukrainians being approved for asylum since April last year.

Try noise-cancelling headphones, family told

One family, whose teenage daughter suffered from panic attacks following their escape from Kyiv in the early days of the war, was told they could relocate within Ukraine, and she should use noise-cancelling headphones.

The Home Office rejection letter, seen by Sky News, said: "As we will be relocating you to a non-conflict zone, it [her panic attacks] does not reach the threshold.

"You could look into noise-cancelling headphones and soundproofing rooms to help with your daughter's panic attack symptoms."

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Her mother, who we are not naming as the family are appealing their asylum rejection, told Sky News: "I left Ukraine on the second day of the war. I tried to protect my five children, but we had a really long and dangerous trip; we had to leave my husband and mother-in-law behind, and we lost connection with them for quite a while.

"My daughter started having panic attacks because of it, and the doctors in the UK have been helping her, and she hadn't had one for a while.

"But, she's a teenager, not a child, so she understands, and since they told her she should go back to Ukraine and just wear noise-cancelling headphones, she's started having panic attacks again."

The family was told they could relocate to Chernivtsi, Ternopil or Rivne, but they do not understand why the Home Office said such areas were safe.

'You can be shot - and you will die'

The mother told Sky News she told her interviewing officer that Ternopil had just been bombed, with dozens of civilians killed and more than 120 injured in November.

"But they didn't listen," she said as she emphasised how grateful she was to the UK for taking them in.

"When they told me I could just go back to western Ukraine because it's not a conflict zone, I have never felt so tiny before.

"The Foreign Office travel advice says all but essential travel to western Ukraine, why are my children less precious than British people?

"You can be sure if you stay in Lviv [in western Ukraine], for example, you can be shot, and you will die, so I don't understand how I can relocate there."

Father tortured by Russian forces

Another family, whose young son is autistic and whose house in Mariupol was destroyed in the fighting, was also told they did not meet the asylum criteria.

The Home Office said it accepted that the father was being sought by Russia's security services after being tortured by Kremlin forces, who believed he was in the Ukrainian army, following the family's escape from Mariupol after hiding in a basement for a week.

The rejection letter also said the Home Office was "satisfied" the family would reach the threshold of persecution and acknowledged the father's fear that Russian forces could kill him or make him become a Russian citizen and serve in their army.

However, it said they would not be at "real risk" if they relocated to the west of Ukraine or Kyiv, citing data from January and October 2025.

'Our son stopped talking'

The Home Office also said the fact that their son was autistic was not considered to meet the criteria of "exceptional compassionate family life circumstances".

His mother said: "Because of the stress of having our home bombed and the difficulties we had leaving Ukraine, our son stopped talking.

"Being with new people, a new area, different language, everything is stressful for him, but he has made a lot of progress in the UK - but we can't even move house here because he will regress.

"Now, the situation in Ukraine is very different to 2022; we don't have any safe spaces; every day there are more and more deaths and bombs, and if we were to live there, we'd have to go to a bomb shelter all the time, which is very stressful for typical children but more stressful for someone with autism.

"The Home Office said there are programmes to help people move back, but rent in western Ukraine is now very high, it's hard to get a good salary.

"I understand every situation is different, but we're talking about children here, they've lost their sense of safety, they've lost their home, they've lost their childhood and stability."

Calls for clear pathway to settlement

Liberal Democrat MP John Milne accused the government of "pulling the rug from under the feet of Ukrainian families" who were welcomed to the UK.

He called on Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood to create a "clear pathway to settlement for those who have built their lives here" and said extending the current Ukraine visa scheme by 18 months at a time simply prolonged the anxiety felt by families.

Mr Milne told Sky News: "Ukrainians I've spoken to are deeply anxious about being forced to return to a country at war - and that, according to the government's own travel advice, is not safe.

"If we stand with Ukraine, that must mean standing with Ukrainians too - offering clarity, compassion and a proper settlement pathway for those who cannot safely return."

A Home Office spokesperson said: "Our Ukraine schemes remain open for those seeking sanctuary. More than 310,000 Ukrainians and their families have been offered or granted continued support.

"In September 2025, we announced the Ukraine Permission Extension scheme would be extended for a further 24 months following the initial 18‑month period."