Valerie the dachshund has finally been reunited with her owners after surviving 540 days alone on Kangaroo Island in South Australia.

Owners Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock described the moment they got to hold the tiny pup in their arms in a statement published Wednesday.

Gardner said she “burst into tears” when Valerie ran up to her as they saw each other again for the first time on Tuesday.

“She was wagging her tail, making her little happy sounds, and wiggling around with joy. I held her and cried and cried,” she said in the statement.

“She’s stockier now, strong and healthy… healthier than we are, honestly!” added Gardner.

Fishlock said the pair hadn’t expected to see Valerie again.

“It still doesn’t feel real,” he said in the statement.

Valerie, who will soon celebrate her third birthday, went missing on a camping trip to the island in November 2023.

When strangers tried to help, she fled into the undergrowth, and her owners eventually gave up and returned home to the mainland.

With no sightings it was assumed Valerie had met her match with a snake or perhaps one of the giant Rosenberg’s goannas — reptiles up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) long — that occupy the island.

However, reports of sightings started to emerge, sparking a massive search operation led by volunteers from the Kangala Wildlife Rescue, a non-profit group set up in 2020 following the devastating Australian bushfires.

Valerie was eventually found on April 25, and has been looked after by the charity since.

Director Jared Karran described Valerie as “truly something special.”

“She was just so much smaller than we imagined. If it was a miracle before that she’d survived — seeing her size — it’s just unbelievable that she was able to survive and thrive out there!” he said in the statement.

Home to around 5,000 people, Kangaroo Island is about 45 minutes from the mainland by ferry. Tourists go there to see Australian native wildlife, but officials have long had a problem controlling introduced species including feral cats. The island is thick with bush, and there are many places for a small dog to hide.

Another difficulty is the island’s vibrant ecosystem, according to the charity.

“One of the reasons this is such a difficult rescue and not as easy as just baiting and setting traps, is due to the fact we are constantly competing with hundreds of wildlife like possums, wallabies, kangaroos, goannas and feral cats. All which are all just after a feed also,” the group said in a post on Facebook before the little dog was found.

Now Valerie is preparing to return home to Albury, New South Wales, where she will be reunited with Gardner and Fishlock’s other pets, Lucy the rescue cat, Mason the red heeler and their latest addition, Dorothy, a fellow dachshund.

Families of October 7 hostages held in Gaza demanded any new information from the Israeli government after US President Donald Trump said three more captives had died.

“As of today, it’s 21. Three have died. So, this is a terrible situation,” Trump said on Tuesday.

The remark was a shock to the families of the hostages.

“We demand once again from the Israeli government – if there is new information that has been hidden from us, pass it on to us immediately,” the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said on Wednesday.

“The headquarters once again calls on the Prime Minister to stop the war until the last abductee is returned. This is the most urgent and important national task.”

Israel’s public and official position, reiterated on Tuesday by Israel’s Coordinator for the Captives and the Missing Gal Hirsch, is that 24 hostages are alive. “The Hamas terror organization is currently holding 59 hostages,” Hirsch said on social media several hours after Trump’s comments. “24 of them are on the list of living hostages.”

But there have been clear indications that Israel has reason to believe the true number is fewer, even beyond Trump’s comments.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu published a video statement in which he made the clearest acknowledgement, yet that Israel believes not all 24 are alive.

“We know for certain that there are 21 alive. There’s no argument about this. There’s three where there is doubt about whether they are alive,” he said in the prerecorded video. “We’re not giving up on anyone.”

Earlier this week, Netanyahu approved an expansion of the war in Gaza and a plan to force the Palestinian population into a shrinking tract of land in the southern part of the besieged territory. Israel says its military operations are intended to put pressure on Hamas to make a ceasefire agreement, but prospects for an imminent deal are quickly dwindling, and with them the hope of bringing the remaining hostages out soon.

Even before the latest video statement, Netanyahu has recently been careful to say that “up to 24” hostages are being held alive in Gaza.

Last week, when Netanyahu said there were “up to 24” living, his wife, Sara, interrupted him and said: “Fewer.”

The open mic moment sparked its own outcry from the families of the hostages. “If the wife of the prime minister has new information about the kidnapped who were killed, I demand from her to know if my Matan is still alive, or if he was murdered in captivity because your husband refuses to finish the war,” Einav Zangauker, the mother of one of the hostages, said on social media.

Israeli officials have said there are “grave concerns” about three of the hostages but would not say whether Israel knows for certain that they are dead.

Trump’s comments strongly suggest otherwise and appear to indicate that Israel has shared sensitive information about the condition of the hostages with the Trump administration.

More than 250 people were taken hostage when Hamas militants launched a surprise attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 – sparking the ongoing war in Gaza.

A three-day ceasefire in Ukraine that was unilaterally declared by Russian President Vladimir Putin last month was set to come into effect at 5 p.m. ET on Wednesday (midnight Moscow time), as Russia prepares to mark the anniversary of its World War II Victory Day on Friday.

It was not immediately clear whether Russian forces observed the ceasefire.

A statement from the Kremlin last month said that Putin ordered “all military actions” in Ukraine to be suspended from midnight May 8 to midnight May 11 based on “humanitarian considerations.”

Kyiv rejected the short-term truce when it was first announced. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called Putin’s announcement a “theatrical performance” and reiterated his country’s support for an earlier US proposal for a 30-day ceasefire which Russia has rejected.

The three-day period Putin picked for the ceasefire coincides with Russia’s World War II Victory Day commemorations, including a traditional military parade set for Friday, May 9.

The high-profile event is expected to be attended by the leaders of several countries that are friendly with Russia, including China’s Xi Jinping.

As in previous years, it is expected to be used by Putin and his government to peddle propaganda, which falsely frames Moscow’s current aggression against Ukraine as a fight against a “Nazi” regime in Kyiv.

Ukrainian drones shut Moscow airports

As Russia prepares to mark the anniversary of the end of WWII, Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow for the second consecutive night overnight into Wednesday.

The attacks forced Russian authorities to temporarily halt air traffic at 13 airports – four in Moscow and nine further afield.

More drones were flying on Wednesday, with the Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin saying one drone that was heading to Moscow was shot down on Wednesday afternoon.

The shutting down of airports was potentially embarrassing for Moscow, as delegations from countries that have remained friendly to Russia were flying in to attend the parade on Friday.

Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Vietnam’s President To Lam and Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko are among the 29 leaders on the guestlist, according to Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov.

Ukraine has previously said it “cannot be responsible for what happens on the territory of the Russian Federation” because of the war.

Zelensky said his country would not be “playing games to create a pleasant atmosphere to allow for Putin’s exit from isolation on May 9.”

While Russia has rejected the US ceasefire proposal, the unilateral ceasefire around the Victory Day celebration was the second short-term truce Putin announced in less than a month.

In a surprise move over Easter, the Russia leader announced he instructed his troops to stop all military activity for some 30 hours. Ukraine accused Russia of breaching the truce, although it did say that fighting has slowed along some parts of the front lines.

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa has said that his government is holding indirect talks with Israel to bring an end to Israeli attacks on Syria.

“There are indirect negotiations (with Israel) via mediators to calm and contain the situation so matters don’t reach a point where both sides lose control,” Al-Sharaa said at a news conference in Paris.

“We are trying to speak to all the countries that are in contact with the Israeli side to pressure them to stop interfering in Syrian affairs.”

Al-Sharaa said the objective is for Israel to abide by the United Nations-brokered 1974 disengagement agreement with Syria, and retreat to the boundary it demarcated to make way for the return of UN peacekeepers. The boundary separates Syria proper from Israel and the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 war.

Since the regime of former President Bashar al-Assad fell in December, Israel has taken more territory in Syria and staged multiple attacks to prevent reconstitution of military capabilities and root out militancy that it says could threaten its security. Israel’s move into Syrian territory was initially described as temporary but officials have since said that the military will remain in Syria indefinitely.

Israel has declared a buffer zone in the south of Syria with the stated aim of protecting Syria’s Druze minority, and on Wednesday Israel Police said that its Border Police are now operating inside Syria, for the first time.

“The Israeli interventions have violated the 1974 agreement. Since we arrived in Damascus we stated to all relevant parties that Syria is committed to the 1974 agreement,” Al-Sharaa said.

Reuters reported on Wednesday that the United Arab Emirates has set up a back channel for talks between Israel and Syria, citing sources it didn’t identify. The talks are focused on security and intelligence matters and confidence-building, it said. Al-Sharaa visited the UAE last month.

But Lana Nusseibeh, UAE assistant foreign minister for political affairs, denied that her country was mediating talks between Israel and Syria.

“The claim that the UAE is ‘mediating secret talks’ between Syria and Israel is categorically false. The UAE is not part of any such talks,” she said.