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As the Israeli military stepped up pressure on what it calls Hamas’s last stronghold in Gaza, fighting elsewhere in the Palestinian enclave on Sunday led to warnings that the militants might remain a force for a long time to come. Close-quarters ground combat between Hamas fighters and Israeli troops raged in parts of northern Gaza over the weekend, both sides said on Sunday, even as the world’s attention was largely focused on the southern city of Rafah, where Israel escalated military operations last week. It has become a familiar scenario in the Gaza Strip over the course of the seven-month war: After pitched battles, Israel declares an area clear of Hamas, only to return after the militants reconstitute their forces. On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he was concerned that Israel’s failure to lay down a template for the governance of Gaza meant that its victories might not be “sustainable” and would be followed by “chaos, by anarchy and ultimately by Hamas again.”

Persons: Hamas’s, Antony J, Blinken, ” Organizations: Hamas Locations: Gaza, Rafah, Israel

Within the course of mere days, hopes for a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip have been raised, dashed and raised again, with no clear explanation. Thursday, May 2A Hamas leader said that the group would soon send a delegation to Cairo to “complete ongoing discussions” on a cease-fire deal. Sunday, May 5The talks — which are held indirectly, through mediators — hit an impasse, and Hamas said its delegation had left Cairo. An Israeli official described the negotiations as in “crisis.”Late in the day, Hamas launched rockets at a border crossing between Gaza and Israel, killing four Israeli soldiers. Then it said would send a working-level delegation back to the talks in Cairo anyway.

Persons: Israel —, —, Israel Organizations: Hamas Locations: Gaza, Gazan, Rafah, Cairo, “, Israel, Egypt, Qatar

Israeli negotiators, offering a hint of hope for negotiations over a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, have reduced the number of hostages they want Hamas to release during the first phase of a truce, three Israeli officials said on Monday. For weeks, cease-fire talks have been at a standstill. Hamas did not respond to a request for comment about whether it would send representatives to Cairo. A senior Hamas official said on social media on Monday that the group was studying a new Israeli proposal. The American secretary of state, Antony J. Blinken, who was meeting in Saudi Arabia on Monday with Arab diplomats, said the onus was now on Hamas.

Persons: Antony J, Blinken Organizations: Hamas Locations: Gaza, Israel, Cairo, Saudi Arabia

A Palestinian man inspecting damage on Saturday after Israeli settlers attacked the village of Al Mughayir, in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Israeli military announced on Saturday that it would bolster its forces in the West Bank with additional companies and police. Israeli settlers, some of them armed, entered the villages, the official added, and there were reports that they had opened fire. At one point, “rocks were hurled” at Israeli soldiers, leading them to open fire in response, the Israeli military said. Last February, an attack by Israeli settlers devastated the Palestinian town of Huwara in the northern West Bank.

Persons: Al Mughayir, Binyamin Achimair, Yesh Din, Abu Aliya —, Amin Abu Aliya, Binyamin’s, Naser Dawabsheh, “, ”, Na’asan Na’asan, Shaul Golan, Golan, Biden, Binyamin, Abu Aliya, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel, Yair Lapid, ” Mr, Na’asan Organizations: West Bank ., West Bank, United Nations, Duma Locations: Al, Palestinian, Ramallah, torching, East Jerusalem, Gaza, Al Mughayir, “, Israel, Huwara, West Bank

Hezbollah militants fired dozens of rockets into northern Israel from Lebanon on Wednesday, in what they said was retaliation for an Israeli strike in southern Lebanon overnight. The militants’ barrage came as pro-Palestinian protesters turned up the pressure on the government in neighboring Jordan to sever ties with Israel. It also came as the United States said a previously canceled meeting with an Israeli delegation in Washington to discuss a planned offensive into the southern Gazan city of Rafah would be rescheduled. For months, Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed group based in Lebanon, has traded fire with Israeli forces across the border, and on Wednesday, the Israeli military said its forces had targeted a “significant terrorist operative” near the town of al-Habbariyeh in southern Lebanon. Lebanon’s Ministry of Health, which said the Israeli strike had hit an emergency medical center and killed seven paramedics, denounced it as “unacceptable.”

Persons: ” Organizations: Lebanon’s Ministry of Health Locations: Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, United States, Washington, Gazan, Rafah, Iranian, al, Lebanon’s

The killing of an enemy admiral in a missile strike would be a coup for any military, but the celebration in Ukraine over the death of Russia’s Black Sea fleet commander may turn out to be short-lived. A day after announcing that the admiral was among 34 officers killed in a strike deep behind enemy lines, Ukrainian officials acknowledged on Tuesday that there might be some uncertainty. The Ukrainian military’s statement that it was now “clarifying” whether the admiral, Viktor Sokolov, had in fact been killed in an audacious strike last week in Russian-held Crimea came after Moscow released a video on Tuesday purporting to show the admiral attending a meeting earlier in the day. Given Moscow’s long history of refusing to acknowledge military setbacks, and the challenges of authenticating its video, it remained uncertain on Tuesday whether Admiral Sokolov was among those killed in the Ukrainian attack on the headquarters of Moscow’s fleet in Sevastopol.

Persons: Viktor Sokolov, Admiral Sokolov Locations: Ukraine, Russian, Crimea, Moscow, Sevastopol

☆ Philippines Says It Removed Chinese Barrier That Blocked Fishing Boats
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-25 | by ( Eric Nagourney | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Faced with China’s determination to exert control over a vast area of the South China Sea far from its mainland, the Philippine Coast Guard said Monday that it had taken matters into its own hands, taking down a Chinese barrier that had kept Filipino fishing boats at bay. The Coast Guard released video of a diver cutting through the ropes that kept the barriers in place at the Scarborough Shoal, which is claimed by both the Philippines and China. “The barrier posed a hazard to navigation, a clear violation of international law,” the Philippines said in a statement. “It also hinders the conduct of fishing and livelihood activities of Filipino fisherfolk.”With tensions already rising in the South China Sea, it was unclear how Beijing might respond. But China has made clear its intent to militarize the waters through which one-third of global ocean trade passes.

Organizations: Philippine Coast Guard, Coast Guard, Scarborough Locations: South China, Philippines, China, Beijing

☆ Home Is Where the Horses Are for a Threatened Culture
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-15 | by ( Mary Turner | Eric Nagourney | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

There is the world, and then there is Appleby. Appleby as in the annual Appleby Horse Fair, where thousands of Irish Travellers and Gypsies gather in northwest England for the rare pleasure of being not shunned by communities, but embraced. “When we come to a place like Appleby Fair and sit around the campfires, it gives a sense of place, a sense of belonging, a sense of ancestry,” said Billy Welch, an organizer. “We feel for that week that we are actually home.”

Persons: Appleby, ”, Billy Welch Organizations: Irish Travellers, Appleby Locations: Appleby, England

A barrage of attack drones were downed over Moscow on Tuesday, the first time civilian areas of the Russian capital have been touched directly by the Ukrainian conflict and a signal that a distant war may soon begin to feel somewhat less so for ordinary Russians. “If the goal was to stress the population, then the very fact that drones have appeared in the skies over Moscow has contributed to that,” wrote one pro-war Russian blogger, Mikhail Zvinchuk, who posts under the name Rybar. The drones, numbering at least eight, came as Russia has been engaged in a particularly sustained aerial assault on Ukraine’s own capital, Kyiv. And while President Vladimir V. Putin blamed Ukraine for what he branded “terrorist activity,” no one was killed in Moscow on Tuesday. The same could not be said for Kyiv, where one person died in the Russian attacks.

Persons: ”, Mikhail Zvinchuk, Vladimir V, Putin Organizations: Kyiv Locations: Moscow, Ukrainian, Russian, Russia, Kyiv, Ukraine

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