The week around the world in 20 pictures

Simone Biles at the Olympics, the prisoner swap between Russia and the US, Israeli bombardment in Gaza and wildfires in California: the last seven days as captured by the world’s leading photojournalists

• Warning: this gallery contains images that some readers may find distressing

Main image: Brazil’s Gabriel Medina reacts after round three of the men’s surfing during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Teahupo’o, Tahiti. Photograph: Jérôme Brouillet/AFP/Getty Images

  • Paris, France

    Simone Biles, of the US, performs on the balance beam during the women’s artistic gymnastics all-around finals in Bercy Arena at the Paris Olympic Games 2024. Biles won her sixth Olympic gold medal and her second of the Paris Games this week, seeing off a stiff challenge from Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade to capture the women’s all-around title for a second time
    Simone Biles on a balance beam in Bercy Arena

  • Prince George’s County, Maryland, US

    Reporter Evan Gershkovich hugs his mother, Ella Milman, at Andrews air force base after his release as part of a 24-person prisoner swap between Russia and the US
    Reporter Evan Gershkovich hugs his mother Ella Milman at Andrews air force base

  • Toretsk, Ukraine

    The commander of the artillery division Vlad with the call sign Kalyna looks at a combat tablet and adjusts the shot from a howitzer
    The commander of the artillery division Vlad with the call sign Kalyna looks at the combat tablet and adjusts the shot from the howitzer in Toretsk

  • Golan Heights

    Children walk on the site of an explosion which Israel said was caused by munitions fired from Lebanon. Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, vowed that Hezbollah would ‘pay a hefty price’ after the strike on a football pitch killed 12 people, including children, in a remote town in the occupied Golan Heights
    Children walk on the site of an explosion which Israel said was fired from Lebanon, near Majdal Shams, a Druze village in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights

  • Tehran, Iran

    A girl reacts as it rains during the funeral procession of assassinated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh. Haniyeh was killed by a strike in Tehran in the early hours of Wednesday, only hours after Israel said it had killed a top Hezbollah commander in Beirut
    A girl reacts as it rains during the funeral procession of assassinated Hamas chief, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran

  • Khan Younis, Gaza

    Palestinian children receive treatment at the Nasser hospital, after the Israeli military targeting of the south-eastern district of Khan Younis
    Palestinian children receive treatment at Gaza’s Nasser hospital

  • Khan Younis, Gaza

    Palestinians return to their homes after the withdrawal of the Israeli army from eastern Khan Younis
    Palestinians return to their homes after the withdrawal of the Israeli army from eastern Khan Younis

  • Caracas, Venezuela

    Protesters smash an advertising board during demonstrations against the official election results that declared President Nicolas Maduro had won re-election. Maduro went on the offensive after suspicions that he stole last Sunday’s presidential election plunged Venezuela into turmoil and diplomatic isolation, blaming the unrest on a far-right conspiracy being spearheaded by ‘perverse and macabre’ political foes
    Protesters smash an advertising board during demonstrations against the official election results declaring President Nicolas Maduro’s re-election, the day after the vote in Caracas

  • Southport, England

    Sebastian Taylor and his sister Evelyn sweep up outside a mosque that was attacked during civil disorder in Southport. More than 50 police officers were injured and five men arrested after far-right riots, which broke out as the town reeled from an attack that killed three children
    Sebastian Taylor and his sister Evelyn sweep up outside a Mosque that was attacked during civil disorder in Southport

  • Meppadi, India

    Volunteers look for survivors through debris in the village of Mundakkai. The death toll from a series of landslides in Kerala rose to 166 and almost 200 people were still missing as the southern Indian state reeled from one of its worst disasters in years
    Volunteers look for survivors through debris in the village of Mundakkai

  • Wayanad, India

    Rescuers try to make their way upstream as they search through mud and debris after landslides set off by torrential rains in the district of Wayanad. The landslides occurred after the steep terrain was hit by five times the normal amount of rain, with some regions reporting more than 300mm (1ft) of rainfall within 24 hours
    Rescuers try to make their way upstream as they search through mud and debris after landslides set off by torrential rains in the district of Wayanad

  • Chamonix, France

    Alpinists walk across ice near fissures on the Glacier du Tour, its snow tinged pink by dust from the Sahara. According to local glaciologists, if current climate conditions persist, the Glacier du Tour and other glaciers below 3,500 metres in the region will disappear completely by the end of the century
    Alpinists walk across ice near fissures on the Glacier du Tour, its snow tinged pink by dust from the Sahara, near Chamonix

  • Tehama county, California, US

    Surrounded by flames, Grant and Andrea Douglas pull over while evacuating as the park fire continues to burn near Paynes Creek. The largest wildfire in the US swelled to more than 380,000 acres (154,000 hectares) this week, an area bigger than the city of Los Angeles and three times the surface area of Lake Tahoe, as thousands of firefighters battled the blaze in a remote wilderness area in northern California
    Surrounded by flames, residents Grant and Andrea Douglas pull over on the side of the road while evacuating as the Park fire continues to burn near Paynes Creek in Tehama County

  • Warsaw, Poland

    Poles light flares during a rally to mark the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupiers. The armed insurgency against occupying Nazi German forces broke out on 1 August 1944 and lasted for two months before it was crushed. Nearly 200,000 people, mostly civilians, died over the course of 63 days of battle, and the Polish capital was reduced to a pile of rubble
    Poles light flares during a rally to mark the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupiers in Warsaw

  • Nyon, Switzerland

    Festival-goers listen to the performance of Congolese singer and rapper Gims at the Paléo festival
    Festival-goers listen to the performance of Congolese singer and rapper Gims at the Paleo Festival in Nyon

  • Paris, France

    Italy’s Filippo Macchi competes against Cheung Ka Long of Hong Kong during the men’s foil individual gold medal bout during the Paris Olympic Games 2024 at Grand Palais.
    Italy’s Filippo Macchi competes against Cheung Ka Long of Hong Kong during the men’s foil individual gold medal bout at the Paris Olympic Games 2024 at Grand Palais

  • Teahupo’o, Tahiti

    Brazil’s Gabriel Medina reacts after the fifth heat of the men’s surfing, during the Paris Olympic Games 2024, in Teahupo’o on the French Polynesian Island of Tahiti. On a distant reef nearly 10,000 miles from Paris, surfer Medina gave Olympic viewers one of the most memorable images of the Games yet, with an airborne celebration so well poised it looked too good to be true
    Brazil’s Gabriel Medina reacts after getting a large wave in the 5th heat of the men’s surfing round 3, during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, in Teahupo’o on the French Polynesian Island of Tahiti

  • Paris, France

    Nelvie Raman Tiafack of Germany receives medical attention after his men’s 92kg preliminary-round fight against Azerbaijan’s Mahammad Abdullayev at the North Paris Arena
    Nelvie Raman Tiafack receives medical attention after his men’s 92kg preliminary-round fight against Azerbaijan’s Mahammad Abdullayev at the North Paris Arena

  • Paris, France

    A man sleeps on the floor of a Métro station
    A man sleeps on the floor of a Métro station in Paris.

  • Paris, France

    Kimia Yousofi, of Afghanistan, makes a political statement after a heat in the women’s 100m. The 28-year-old carried the country’s flag at the Tokyo Games, but fled to Iran when the Taliban took control in 2021. Her team in Paris is made up of three men and three women, selected by the Afghanistan Olympic Committee which operates outside the country. ‘I just want to represent Afghan people with this flag, our culture. Our girls in Afghanistan, our women, they want basic rights, education, and sport,’ she said
    Kimia Yousofi, of Afghanistan, makes a political statement after a heat in the women’s 100m at the Paris Olympic Games 2024 in Saint-Denis
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