A fast-moving wildfire in northern Greece has claimed at least two lives — a retired professor and, in a development feared by authorities, a missing child — as the country's summer fire season delivers its most devastating blow yet.

A prosecutor in Thessaloniki has ordered a preliminary investigation into far-left activists who claim to have staged an "anti-Zionist patrol" through the city, after the group posted images appearing to show members marching in black uniforms emblazoned with the Palestinian flag.

Arsonists targeted the homes of New Democracy politicians in Thessaloniki in the early hours of Wednesday, July 1. More specifically, the homes of the president of the ND Thessaloniki Steering Committee, Zisi Ioakimovits, former member of parliament for the 2nd Thessaloniki district, Savvas Anastasiadis, and member of parliament for the 1st Thessaloniki district, Afroditis Nestora, were targeted with arson attacks.

The sudden collapse of an apartment building in the Petralona neighborhood has displaced multiple families and stunned the engineering team working on an adjacent excavation site, which is suspected of triggering the disaster.