Israel-Hamas War

Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Israel’s overnight raid into Gaza, Slovakia’s decision to cancel military aid to Ukraine, and a freed women’s education rights activist in Afghanistan.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) launched an hourslong overnight raid into northern Gaza on Wednesday that stretched into early Thursday morning. Israeli troops and tanks killed alleged fighters and razed large swaths of land to “prepare the battlefield” for a forthcoming ground operation, IDF officials said. All Israeli troops then withdrew unharmed back into Israel.

A final timeline for the much-anticipated invasion has yet to be announced by Israel’s war cabinet. Yet the ground invasion itself is just “one stage in a long-term process that includes security, political, and social aspects that will take years,” said Benny Gantz, a member of the cabinet and a former defense minister.

In addition to the ground raid, Israel said IDF forces had undertaken around 250 airstrikes across Gaza in the past 24 hours. On Wednesday, Al Jazeera reported the deaths of 12 members of its Gaza bureau chief’s family, including his wife, son, daughter, and grandson, who were sheltering at the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

In a statement, the Qatari state-owned news organization condemned the strike, which it called an “indiscriminate assault by the Israeli Occupation forces.” An Israeli military spokesperson told the New York Times in an email that the IDF had targeted “Hamas terrorist infrastructure” in the area, adding that its forces take “feasible precautions to mitigate civilian casualties.”

Meanwhile, the international response to the Israel-Hamas war is growing more fragmented as leaders struggle to find common ground. Spain broke European Union ranks this week to demand an immediate halt in fighting, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused the European Union of indifference to Muslims’ suffering after EU foreign ministers failed to pass a resolution calling for a cease-fire. The day before, in an address to Turkey’s parliament, he criticized Western countries for supporting Israel and defended Hamas—which maintains political offices in Turkey and whose senior leaders have met with Erdogan many times—saying it was “not a terror organization” but rather “an organization of liberation.”

And on Thursday, a Hamas delegation traveled to Moscow, where it met with Russian officials to discuss the release of foreign hostages, including Russian citizens, being held by the Islamist militant group in Gaza.

• The World Can’t Solve the Israel-Hamas War Without Egypt by Jon B. Alterman and Daniel Byman
• The Best Books for Understanding the Israel-Hamas War by FP Staff and Contributors
• Why AUKUS Is in Danger of Stalling by John Lee

Cutting off aid. Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico announced at his first EU summit on Thursday that Bratislava would no longer provide military aid to Ukraine. He also said Slovakia would not support new Western sanctions against Russia. The move signals a dramatic pivot away from the EU, which has donated billions of dollars toward Kyiv’s war effort, and it fulfills a key campaign promise for the newly elected far-right leader.

In the past, Slovakia has donated fighter jets, an S-300 air defense system, and de-mining vehicles to Ukraine. But by moving to solely supporting humanitarian relief efforts and calling for peace talks, Fico is joining Hungary’s camp as another Western ally increasingly siding with Moscow.

Education activist freed. The Taliban released a prominent Afghan women’s rights activist on Thursday after she was first arrested seven months ago. Matiullah Wesa is the founder of Pen Path, a nonprofit that advocates for girls’ right to education through grassroots advocacy efforts. When Wesa was first arrested in March, Taliban forces allegedly assaulted her family members and confiscated her phone. She was imprisoned for 215 days.

One of the Taliban’s first actions upon seizing power in August 2021 was barring women and girls from attending school beyond the sixth grade, and the Taliban have forced what little education is available to follow curricula that promote Islamist extremism.

Mexico’s hurricane catastrophe. Hurricane Otis killed at least 27 people along Mexico’s Pacific Coast, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador announced on Thursday. The Category 5 storm made landfall in Acapulco early Wednesday morning, destroying key roads and damaging numerous buildings, including hospitals, hotels, and homes. The popular tourist port city currently has no working power, communications infrastructure, or clean water.

López Obrador deployed more than 8,300 soldiers and National Guard members to lead search and rescue efforts as well as to survey the region for potential landslide risks. Otis was the most severe hurricane to hit the region in Mexico’s recorded history, with the National Hurricane Center calling it a “nightmare scenario” for the country.

After 140 years of painstaking work, Swedish linguists finally completed the country’s first definitive dictionary—only to learn that volumes A through R are vastly out of date. Around 10,000 modern terms, including “allergy,” “Barbie doll,” “app,” and “computer,” must be added to the Swedish Academy Dictionary’s historical record. Who knows what new words will be around by the time the second round of edits is done?