Israel denies attack on UN refuge in Gaza that drew rebuke from Washington

The United Nations said on Wednesday that Israeli tanks struck a huge U.N. compound in Gaza sheltering displaced Palestinians, causing "mass casualties", but Israel denied its forces were responsible and suggested Hamas may have launched the shelling.

The attack, which the U.N. said hit a vocational training centre housing 30,000 displaced people in Khan Younis, southern Gaza's main city, prompted rare outright condemnation from the United States.

"Mass casualties have taken place, some buildings are ablaze and there are reports of deaths. Many people are trying to flee the scene, but unable to do so," U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for the Palestinian Territory James McGoldrick said.

Thomas White, director of Gaza affairs for the U.N. agency UNRWA, said two tank rounds hit one of the centre's buildings where some 800 displaced people were sheltering. At least nine people were killed and 75 wounded. The agency's head Philippe Lazzarini said the death toll was probably higher.

"The compound is a clearly marked U.N. facility and its coordinates were shared with Israeli Authorities as we do for all our facilities. Once again a blatant disregard of basic rules of war," Lazzarini said.

In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said: "We deplore today's attack on the U.N.'s Khan Younis training centre."

"Civilians must be protected, and the protected nature of U.N. facilities must be respected, and humanitarian workers must be protected so that they can continue providing civilians with the life-saving humanitarian assistance that they need," Patel said.

Israel's military initially released a statement describing the wider Khan Younis area as a base of Hamas fighters and acknowledged that fighting was taking place near large numbers of civilians.

In a second statement sent following Washington's criticism, the military said an examination of its operational systems ruled out that its forces had struck the centre. It added that a through review was still under way to examine the possibility that the strike was a result of Hamas fire.

Since Israel's ground offensive began in late October, Washington has raised concerns and asked Israel for information about incidents, but has rarely been openly critical of a specific Israeli action.

Hours after the attack as night fell, U.N. staff were still unable to reach the area and all communications were shut down.

Israeli forces have launched their biggest ground offensive in at least a month, encircling Khan Younis where hundreds of thousands of people who fled fighting elsewhere in Gaza are staying.

Residents said that Israeli announcements warning them to leave the area came only after the operation was under way and the main road out already shut.

The bulk of the 2.3 million-strong population of Gaza is now penned into Khan Younis and the towns just north and south of it. Palestinian officials say the Israelis have cut off and besieged the city's main hospitals, making it impossible for rescuers to reach many of the wounded and the dead.

Israel said that Hamas has "command and control centers, Hamas outposts and Hamas security headquarters" in the area.

"Dismantling Hamas' military framework in western Khan Younis is the heart of the logic behind the operation," the Israeli military said.

"It is a dense area and an area that consists of civilians, it is a place that requires very specific methods of action and precise operations. There is an area with shelters, there are several hospitals, several sensitive sites. We have seen terrorists use these sites."

'WHERE DO WE GO?'

Palestinian health officials said at least 25,700 people had been killed in Gaza in the war, including 210 in the previous 24 hours. Israel launched its assault to wipe out Hamas after fighters stormed Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and capturing more than 240 hostages.

In Rafah, a small town just south of Khan Younis on the Egyptian border, an air strike hit a mosque, and residents were gathering scattered pages of holy books from among the pulverised ruins.

Several men hoisted up a concrete block and pulled away rubble, revealing the legs of a dead man in jeans. When the body was finally pulled out, they carried it on a blanket under a stretcher, chanting religious slogans.

Several bodies were later laid in plastic body bags at a morgue, where relatives wailed in sorrow, clutching the corpses.

Um Khaled Baker, whose son was among the dead, told Reuters they had fled to Rafah because it was supposed to be safe.

"I don't even have a tent to stay in. They bombed us and my son is a young martyr. Where do we go? The old and helpless people? What can they do? Where do we go?"

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society, which runs the Al-Amal hospital in Khan Younis, said troops had blockaded its staff inside and imposed a curfew in the area, including its local headquarters, where three displaced individuals had been killed.

Israel says Hamas fighters operate in and around hospitals, which hospital staff and Hamas deny.

 

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia accuses Ukraine of killing 65 of its own PoWs by shooting down plane

Russia accused Ukraine on Wednesday of deliberately shooting down a Russian military transport plane carrying 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers to a prisoner exchange in what it called a barbaric act of terrorism that had killed a total of 74 people.

Ukraine called for full clarification of the circumstances of the incident and did not directly confirm it had shot down the plane.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his evening address said: "It is clear that the Russians are playing with the lives of Ukrainian prisoners, the feelings of their loved ones and the emotions of our society."

The Russian defence ministry said six Russian crew members and three Russian soldiers had been on the Ilyushin Il-76 military transport plane shot down near the Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukrainian border.

After a long pause, the Ukrainian military said it would continue to destroy Russian military transport aircraft it believed were carrying missiles with which to strike Ukraine.

It said it had noticed more Russian military transport aircraft landing in Belgorod, something it linked to Russian missile strikes on Kharkiv and other Ukrainian cities.

Air Force Commander Mykola Oleshchuk accused Russia of trying to undermine international support for Ukraine.

"Ukraine has the right to defend itself and destroy the means of the aggressors' aerial attack," he said.

The Russian defence ministry said the exchange was to have taken place on Wednesday afternoon at the Kolotilovka border checkpoint and Ukraine knew a transport plane carrying captured Ukrainian soldiers was expected at the Belgorod airfield.

"By committing this terrorist act, the Ukrainian leadership has showed its true face. It disregarded the lives of its own citizens," the ministry said in a statement.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov called for a meeting of the U.N. Security Council and said Russia sought to establish "the reasons behind the Ukrainian criminal act".

A French spokesperson at the U.N. said the meeting would be held at 5 p.m. (2200 GMT) on Thursday.

Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency said Ukraine had not been asked to ensure airspace security around Belgorod unlike previous swaps and had not been informed about what means of transport would be used and which routes.

"On this basis, we may be talking about planned and deliberate actions by Russia to destabilise the situation in Ukraine and weaken international support for our state," GUR said in a statement on Telegram.

Russia's defence ministry said radar operators had detected the launch of two Ukrainian missiles at the time of the crash.

If the details are confirmed, it would be the deadliest incident of its kind inside Russia's internationally recognised borders during the almost two-year-old war.

UKRAINE SAYS PRISONER SWAP WAS SCHEDULED

Ukraine's intelligence agency confirmed a prisoner swap had been planned for Wednesday and said the captured Russian servicemen had been delivered to the agreed exchange point on time and were safe.

"Landing a transport plane in a 30-km combat zone cannot be safe and in any case must be discussed by both sides, because otherwise it jeopardises the entire exchange process," it said.

It had no reliable information about who was on the downed plane, it added.

Video footage posted on Telegram by Baza, a channel linked to Russian security services, and verified by Reuters, showed a large aircraft falling to the ground near the village of Yablonovo in Belgorod region and exploding in a fireball.

Andrei Kartapolov, a member of Russia's parliament and a retired general, told the SHOT news outlet it was impossible for operators of Ukrainian surface-to-air missile systems to mistake transport planes for military planes or helicopters as targets.

"It was done deliberately to sabotage the prisoner exchange," said Kartapolov, saying a second Russian Il-76 transport plane carrying around 80 Ukrainian soldiers to the exchange had managed to turn around.

Kartapolov, who has close links to the Russian defence ministry, said the plane had been downed by three missiles of either U.S. or German manufacture.

Reuters could not immediately verify details of who was on board the downed plane, but Moscow and Kyiv have regularly swapped prisoners since Russia began what it calls its "special military operation" in Ukraine in February 2022.

The Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, has come under frequent attack from Ukraine in recent months, including a December missile strike which killed 25 people.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Belgorod plane attack: Kiev deliberately shot down plane carrying its POWs, Moscow says

Kiev's forces knowingly downed a Russian plane carrying

Ukrainian prisoners of war that crashed on Wednesday, killing all on board, in order to pin the attack on Moscow, the Defense Ministry has said, adding that Kiev had once again shown its “true colors”.

In a statement following the incident, the ministry revealed that a Russian IL-76 cargo plane had crashed in Belgorod Region, claiming the lives of 65 Ukrainian POWs, as well as six crew members and three Russian soldiers. 

The Defense Ministry claimed that the “Kiev regime committed a terrorist act” by targeting the plane, which was transporting POWs for a further prisoner exchange, from the Chkalovsky military airbase near Moscow to Belgorod.

Russian officials stated that the plane had been hit at 11:15am local time by Ukrainian air defense forces stationed in Kharkov Region, adding that the military had registered the launch of two missiles.

Confirming that everyone aboard was killed in the attack, the ministry said that the Ukrainian leadership was well aware of the flight and its mission. It noted that Moscow and Kiev had agreed to conduct a prisoner exchange later on Wednesday near the Russian border village of Kolotilovka in Belgorod Region. 

Nevertheless, the Nazi Kiev regime [carried out this attack] in a bid to accuse Russia of killing members of the Ukrainian military. By committing this terrorist act, the Ukrainian leadership showed its true face, disregarding the lives of its citizens.

Russian officials stated earlier that the attack used either US-made or German air defense systems, with State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin urging Kiev’s Western backers to finally realize that they are backing a “Nazi regime.”

Russian MP Andrey Kartapolov said a second plane had been carrying another 80 captured Ukrainian troops, which was swiftly diverted from the danger zone after the first aircraft was attacked.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry has so far declined to comment on the incident, saying only that it was looking into the matter. However, Andrey Yusov, a spokesman for Kiev’s Main Directorate of Intelligence (GUR), confirmed that Russia and Ukraine were indeed scheduled to carry out a prisoner exchange on Wednesday, adding that it had since been canceled. 

Ukrainian newspaper Ukrainskaya Pravda initially reported, citing unnamed defense officials in Kiev, that the IL-76 was destroyed by the country’s military. Later, however, it removed the mention of Kiev’s role in the attack.

 

Reuters/RT

Your iPhone contains sensitive information, including saved passwords, Apple Wallet cards, and cherished photos. Losing your phone, even temporarily, can evoke concerns about the security of your data.

In its recent iOS update, version 17.3, Apple introduced a new feature called Stolen Device Protection to alleviate such worries.

Tech reporter Rich DeMuro from Nexstar’s KTLA explains that this setting enhances security against potential theft attempts, making it more challenging for thieves to access personal information, even if they possess your passcode.

DeMuro points out that typically, someone with your passcode could perform actions such as changing your Apple ID password, disabling Find My iPhone, accessing saved passwords, and erasing your data.

With Stolen Device Protection, specific actions now require a biometric sign-in (Face ID or Touch ID) or a time delay before execution.

The Stolen Device Protection feature becomes active when your iPhone is away from familiar locations like home or work.

In unfamiliar locations, accessing stored passwords and credit cards requires Face or Touch ID with no passcode alternative. Additionally, certain actions, such as turning off Lost Mode, erasing content and settings, applying for an Apple Card, and other activities with Apple Cash and Savings, are restricted.

Security actions like changing your Apple ID password involve a biometric login, followed by an hour-long wait and a second biometric login. The delay may end early if your iPhone detects a return to a familiar location.

While these precautions may seem inconvenient initially, they are actions that thieves commonly attempt once they have possession of an iPhone. It’s essential to enable the Stolen Device Protection feature before your phone is lost or stolen, and it is only available with the latest iOS update, version 17.3.

To activate Stolen Device Protection, ensure two-factor authentication is enabled for your Apple ID. Set a passcode, use Face ID or Touch ID, enable Find My, and turn on Significant Locations.

After adjusting these settings, go to Settings, tap on Face ID & Passcode, enter your passcode, and toggle Stolen Device Protection on. If you decide to deactivate this feature, follow the same steps but switch the toggle to off.

In case your iPhone is lost or stolen, Apple recommends logging into your iCloud account online to report the device as lost. You can lock it with a passcode, display a return message on the screen, and use the Find My app on another Apple device to locate your iPhone. Additional steps, such as changing your Apple ID password and filing a claim, can be found on Apple’s website.

It’s worth noting that not all iPhones can access iOS 17.3. If you have a newer iPhone with sufficient storage space, updating should be straightforward. However, iPhones older than the XS and XR models (iPhone 8 and older) are not compatible with the latest update, as clarified by Apple during the release of iOS 17.

 

The Artistree

As the superrich gathered in Davos last week, business leaders polled by ‘Fast Company’ say capitalism exacerbates the wealth gap at its own peril.

Capitalism is at an existential crossroads, and figuring out how to make it work better for people who are not top earners will require focused cooperation from world business leaders and policymakers, according to a new survey from Fast Company.

The global survey of professionals ranging from early-career managers to C-suite executives found that favorability toward capitalism in 2024 is decidedly mixed, with 36% saying they had a positive reaction to the word and 35% saying their reaction was negative. Another 29% said they felt neutral.

Attitudes were slightly more positive when it came to "stakeholder capitalism," defined in the survey as a system in which "companies seek to serve the interests of employees, customers, suppliers, and local communities," as opposed to just maximizing shareholder profits.

Forty-one percent viewed stakeholder capitalism favorably compared to 15% who viewed it negatively. Respondents were even more favorable when asked if they thought stakeholder capitalism has the potential to make capitalism better, with a full 72% saying they thought it could.

The finding is notable given recent critiques of stakeholder capitalism from investors who believe it unfairly penalizes certain industries, not to mention vocal critics such as Vivek Ramaswamy, who has made attacks on "woke capitalism" one of the cornerstones of his presidential campaign.

Stakeholder capitalism has conversely been championed by high-profile financial CEOs, such as Larry Fink of BlackRock and Brian Moynihan of Bank of America.

Fast Company's Future of Capitalism survey was conducted in December 2023 and January 2024 and included responses from more than 25 countries, with about 60% coming from the United States.

Some Davos-bound executives said they were not surprised by the lukewarm response that capitalism received in the survey.

“The growing skepticism toward traditional capitalism resonates deeply with me as a woman of color and tech founder with Danish-African roots living and working in Silicon Valley," Soulaima Gourani, cofounder and CEO of the software firm Happioh, told Fast Company. "There is a broader crisis within capitalism, particularly evident in the tech sector where ethical and morale considerations often clash with relentless innovation."

Nigel Vaz, CEO of digital consultancy Publicis Sapient, added that a more holistic view of capitalism can also be good for companies' bottom line. “Today, companies are becoming increasingly focused on how they create value for customers, and customers are also asking how companies are contributing to society," Vaz says. "For business leaders, making the connection between these two ideas is key to creating a shared ‘why’ for the organization, which can be one of the most powerful contributors to growth, profit, and impact.”

Respondents were also asked to rank stakeholders (customers, employees, shareholders, community, suppliers, and government) in order of importance. While 21% said community should be the top priority for business, only 9% said it was the top priority in their own business, a detail economist Byron Auguste, cofounder and CEO of Opportunity@Work, said was "striking." "Stakeholder capitalism that truly delivers requires business models that transform more of the community into valued employees and priority customers," he says.

Greed is not good

The survey also revealed a variety of opinions about the future viability of capitalism itself. Asked what they believed was capitalism's biggest threat, respondents provided write-in answers that were as disparate as they were visceral, with people citing a range of perceived threats like far-left politics, DEI, the media, artificial intelligence, government, and greed. Others said that capitalism itself was the problem.

However, one common theme among the assortment of answers was income inequality, with at least 13% of respondents mentioning it or related issues as a potential threat to capitalism.

Gourani said concerns about the wealth gap have been reflected in other polls, and justifiably so. She points to data from the 2022 World Inequality Report, which found that more than half of the world's income is captured by the top 10% of earners.

"There's a clear call for reshaping economic frameworks to foster fairness and opportunity across diverse backgrounds," Gourani says. "To quote Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, 'We have to rewrite the rules of the economy to make it fairer.'"

 

CNBC

The Naira, on Tuesday, continued its downward spiral, dropping to N1,365 per dollar at the parallel section of the market.

The figure represents a N35 or 2.63 percent depreciation compared to the N1,330 it traded on January 16, 2024.

Currency traders, also known as Bureau De Change (BDC) operators, put the buying price of the dollar at N1,355 and the selling price at N1,365 — leaving a profit margin of N10.

A BDC operator in Lagos, who identified as Aliyu, said demand for the greenback has continued to increase.

“Demand is increasing for the dollar as we have been recording more purchases,” he said.

At the official section of the foreign exchange market (FX), the local currency gained by 5.05 percent to N878.61 on Tuesday — from N925.3 on Monday.

FMDQ Exchange, a platform that oversees official FX trading in Nigeria, said the naira recorded a high of N1,336.05 and a low of N701.

Meanwhile, the association of Bureau de Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), on Tuesday,  said the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) granted its members permission to post exchange rates online.

In a briefing on January 22, 2024, Aminu Gwadabe, ABCON’s president, said the association has been in discussions with relevant agencies to allow BDC operators to import dollars to bolster liquidity in the sector.

 

The Cable

Federation Account Allocation Committee says it shared a total sum of N1.13 trillion of earnings in December 2023 with the Federal Government, States, and Local Government Councils.

This is N50bn more than the N1.08trn shared to each state in November.

The FAAC in a communique after its January 2024 meeting, chaired by the Accountant General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein, said the N1.13trn total distributable revenue comprised distributable statutory revenue of N363.188 billion, distributable Value Added Tax revenue of N458.622 billion, Electronic Money Transfer Levy revenue of N17.855 billion and Exchange Difference revenue of N287.743 billion.

Madein, who was quoted in a statement by the Director of Press and Public Relations, Bawa Mokwa on Tuesday, also said A total sum of N57.92 billion (13% of mineral revenue) was shared to the benefiting States as derivation revenue.

According to the communique, total revenue of N1,674.230 billion was available in December 2023.

Recall that the federation account began to enjoy more revenue following the removal of subsidies and unification of the country’s exchange rate by the current administration.

The statement read, “The N1.13trn total distributable revenue comprised distributable statutory revenue of N363.188 billion, distributable Value Added Tax revenue of N458.622 billion, Electronic Money Transfer Levy revenue of N17.855 billion and Exchange Difference revenue of N287.743 billion.

“Total deductions for cost of collection was N62.254 billion; total transfers, interventions, and refunds was N484.568 billion.

“Gross statutory revenue of N875.382 billion was received for December 2023. This was lower than the N882.560 billion received in the month of November 2023 by N 7.178 billion.”

The statement added that the gross revenue available from the Value Added Tax in December 2023 was N492.506 billion which was N132.1bn higher than the N360.455 billion available in November 2023.

The communique stated that from the N1,127.408 billion total distributable revenue, the Federal Government received a total of N383.872 billion, the State Governments received N396.693 billion and the Local Government Councils received N288.928 billion.

It added, “N57.915 billion (13% of mineral revenue) was shared to the benefiting States as derivation revenue.

“From the N363.188 billion distributable statutory revenue, the Federal Government received N173.729 billion, the State Governments received N88.118 billion and the Local Government Councils received N67.935 billion. N33.406 billion (13% of mineral revenue) was shared with the benefiting States as derivation revenue.

“The Federal Government received N68.793 billion, the State Governments received N229.311 billion and the Local Government Councils received N160.518 billion from the N458.622 billion distributable Value Added Tax revenue.

“The N17.855 billion Electronic Money Transfer Levy was shared as follows: the Federal Government received N2.678 billion, the State Governments received N8.928 billion and the Local Government Councils received N6.249 billion.

“The Federal Government received N138.672 billion from the N 287.743 billion Exchange Difference revenue. The State Governments received N70.336 billion, and the Local Government Councils received N54.226 billion. N24.509 billion (13% of mineral revenue) was shared to the benefiting States as derivation revenue.”

However, FAAC stated, “In the month of December 2023, Companies Income Tax, Excise Duty, Petroleum Profit Tax, Value Added Tax, and Electronic Money Transfer Levy increased significantly, while Oil and Gas Royalties decreased substantially. Import Duty and CET Levies decreased marginally.

“The balance in the ECA was $473,754.57, the statement concluded.

 

Punch

Plateau State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang, has declared a 24-hour curfew on the Mangu Local Government Area of the state with immediate effect.

The development was confirmed in a statement issued on Tuesday by the governor’s Director of Press and Public Affairs, Gyang Bere.

He said the decision followed the deteriorating security situation in the area.

The statement read in part, “Governor Mutfwang took the decision after consultations with the relevant security agencies.

“He stated that only persons on essential duties are allowed to move within the local government area until further notice.

“He urged all citizens, especially residents of Mangu Local Government Area, to comply with the directive and assist the security personnel by providing reliable information to restore peace and order in the area.

“He lamented that some people are still determined to create an atmosphere of insecurity in the state, despite the government’s efforts to end the activities of terrorist elements.

“He expressed his sympathy to the families of the victims and the injured and assured them that the government would not relent in ensuring lasting peace in the state.

“He promised that the curfew would be reviewed as soon as the security situation improves.”

Special Adviser to the Governor on Security and Homeland Safety, Gakji Shipi, in an interview with journalists, blamed the unrest leading to the imposition of the curfew on a misunderstanding between two individuals in the council area.

“The current situation in Mangu is a result of two people that escalated. The crisis is not political or has anything to do with the farmers-herders crisis. It was just two human beings that had an altercation and by coincidence, one of them happens to be a herder and the other person is a native.

“The native was crossing with his motorcycle and the Fulani was grazing his cattle and crossing the road and that obstructed traffic and there was an altercation between them. When that happened, the Fulani people came in support of their own and the natives also came in support of their own and the thing just got out of hands and that led to the imposition of curfew in Mangu,” he said.

It was learnt that during the unrest, several houses including churches and mosques were burnt down.

A former lawmaker representing Mangu South, Bala Fwangji, confirmed the arson while lamenting the situation.

Fwangji said, “What happened today in Mangu is not good at all. We just woke up to hear that some people are burning houses in Mangu and attacking anyone in sight. I cannot tell you how many houses were burnt, or the number of people attacked or killed, but these things happened today. But we thank God the security agents have been deployed and the situation is calm now.”

Secretary-General of Plateau Initiative for Development and Advancement of the Natives, Nanle Gujor, however, confirmed that four persons were killed during the unrest.

He said, “I returned to Jos from Abuja and given what happened in Mangu today, we are not happy. We are still assessing the situation, but I was told that four persons were killed. I will let you know the details of the situation when we are done.”

 

Punch

21 Israeli troops are killed in the deadliest attack on the military since the Gaza offensive began

Palestinian militants carried out the deadliest single attack on Israeli forces in Gaza since the Hamas raid that triggered the war, killing 21 soldiers, the military said Tuesday, a significant setback that could add to mounting calls for a cease-fire.

Hours later, the military announced that ground forces had encircled the southern city of Khan Younis, Gaza’s second largest, and thick, black smoke could be seen rising over the city as thousands of Palestinians fled south. Witnesses said Israeli tanks and troops had also moved into Muwasi, a nearby coastal area that the military had previously declared a safe zone for Palestinians.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mourned the Israeli soldiers, who died when the blast from a rocket-propelled grenade triggered explosives they were laying to blow up buildings. But he vowed to press ahead until “absolute victory,” including crushing Hamas and freeing more than 100 Israeli hostages still held by the militants.

Israelis are increasingly questioning whether it’s possible to achieve those war aims.

In the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, outraged Israelis set aside long simmering political differences and rallied behind the war. More than 100 days later, divisions are re-emerging, and anger is growing over Netanyahu’s conduct of the war. Families of the hostages have called for Israel to reach a deal with Hamas, saying time is running out to bring their relatives home alive.

A senior Egyptian official said Israel has proposed a two-month cease-fire in which the hostages would be freed in exchange for the release of Palestinians imprisoned by Israel and top Hamas leaders in Gaza would be allowed to relocate to other countries.

The official, who was not authorized to brief media and spoke on condition of anonymity, said Hamas rejected the proposal and insists no more hostages will be released until Israel ends its offensive and withdraws from Gaza. Israel’s government declined to comment on the talks.

Egypt and Qatar — which have brokered past agreements between Israel and Hamas — were developing a multistage proposal to try to bridge the gaps, the official said.

‘ONE OF THE HARDEST DAYS’ FOR ISRAEL

Israeli reservists were preparing explosives Monday to demolish two buildings outside central Gaza’s Maghazi refugee camp, near the Israeli border, when a militant fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a tank nearby. The blast triggered the explosives, collapsing both two-story buildings onto the soldiers.

Israeli media said the troops were working to create an informal buffer zone, about a kilometer wide (0.6 miles) along the border to prevent militants from attacking Israeli communities near Gaza. Military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the mission was to clear buildings to “create the conditions” that would allow the residents of the south to return to their homes.

The United States has said it would oppose any attempt by Israel to shrink Gaza’s territory.

Throughout the war, Israeli troops have used controlled detonations to destroy structures that the military says hide Hamas tunnels or have been used by militants as firing positions — one reason for the massive destruction wreaked by the ground offensive. Blasts have destroyed entire city blocks, apartment complexes, government buildings and universities, fueling Palestinians’ fears that the territory will left unlivable.

At least 217 soldiers have been killed since the ground offensive began in late October, including three killed in a separate event Monday, according to the military.

Netanyahu acknowledged on social media that it was “one of the hardest days” of the war but vowed to keep up the offensive.

“We are in the middle of a war that is more than justified. In this war, we are making big achievements, like the encircling of Khan Younis, and there are also very heavy losses,” he later said in a video statement.

Israel launched its offensive after Hamas crossed the border Oct. 7, killing over 1,200 people and abducting some 250 others. More than 100 were released in November during a weeklong cease-fire.

The offensive has caused widespread death and destruction, killing at least 25,490 people — the majority women and children — and wounding another 63,354, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Its count does not differentiate between civilians and combatants. An estimated 85% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes in a humanitarian crisis that has left one-quarter of the population facing starvation.

TROOPS IN THE “SAFE ZONE”

With fighting raging in neighboring Khan Younis city, witnesses said that in the past few days Israeli troops and tanks had entered parts of Muwasi. Previously, the military had told Palestinians to take refuge in the tiny rural area on the Mediterranean coast, saying it would be spared military operations.

On Monday, troops stormed Al-Khair Hospital inside the zone and struck the nearby Al-Aqsa University where displaced people were sheltering, according to health officials.

The advance sent families who had fled to the area from fighting elsewhere fleeing once more, said one witness, Aseel al-Muqayed. One main street “had been very crowded with displaced people, you could hardly find a place without a tent. Now the area is almost empty,” she said, adding that she had seen tanks now stationed nearby.

The 21-year-old al-Muqayed has already been displaced multiple times since her family evacuated from northern Gaza. They moved repeatedly, fleeing bombardment — her younger brother and a cousin were killed in a strike that hit one of their refuges — and eventually ended up in Khan Younis. She came to Muwasi several days ago, learning there was electricity there to charge her mother’s phone, and now was afraid to move.

“For two nights, we have not been able to sleep as the sounds of tanks, gunfire and explosions are very close,” she said.

Inside Khan Younis, heavy fighting raged around the two main hospitals. Shelling hit the fourth floor of Al-Amal Hospital, where a shell hit the fourth floor, killing one person and wounding 10 others, according to Raed al-Nems, a spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent rescue service which runs the facility.

Shelling on Monday also hit a U.N. school in the city sheltering displaced people, killing at least six people, according to the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA.

Israel’s offensive has focused for weeks on Khan Younis and several urban refugee camps in central Gaza, after the military claimed to have largely defeated Hamas in the north.

Israel believes Hamas commanders may be hiding in tunnels beneath Khan Younis, the hometown of the group’s top leader in Gaza, Yehya Sinwar, whose location is unknown.

PRESSURE FOR A CEASE-FIRE

The growing death toll and dire humanitarian situation have led to increasing international pressure on Israel to scale back the offensive and agree to a path for the creation of a Palestinian state after the war. The United States, which has provided crucial military aid for the offensive, has joined those calls.

But Netanyahu, whose popularity has plummeted since Oct. 7 and whose governing coalition is beholden to far-right parties, has rebuffed both demands.

Instead, he has said Israel will need to expand operations and eventually take over the Gaza side of the border with Egypt — an area where some 1 million Palestinians are packed into overflowing U.N.-run shelters and sprawling tent camps.

That drew an angry protest from Egypt’s government, which rejected Israeli allegations that Hamas smuggles in weapons across the heavily guarded frontier.

Diaa Rashwan, head of Egypt’s State Information Service, said Monday that any Israeli move to occupy the border area would “lead to a serious threat” to relations between the two countries, which signed a landmark peace treaty over four decades ago. Egypt is also deeply concerned about any potential influx of Palestinian refugees into its Sinai Peninsula.

 

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities kill 18, Zelenskiy says

Russian missiles hit Ukraine's two largest cities, killing 18 people, injuring more than 130 and damaging homes and infrastructure, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said as Moscow's war approaches its third year.

The eastern city of Kharkiv suffered three waves of attacks. There were strikes on Kyiv and in central Ukraine and the southern region of Kherson, subject to constant shelling.

Zelenskiy, in his nightly video address, said Russia had launched nearly 40 missiles of different types in "another combined strike to try to circumvent our air defence system".

More than 200 sites were hit, including 139 dwellings, with many deaths in "an ordinary high-rise apartment building. Ordinary people lived there," he said.

Kharkiv's mayor and the governor of Kharkiv region said eight people had been killed in the city, which has been subjected to repeated attacks in 23 months of war.

Ukraine's Emergency Services posted online a video of teams sifting through a shattered apartment building. Police said search operations were suspended before midnight as there was a danger of debris falling on rescue squads.

Kharkiv regional Governor Oleh Synehubov said more than 100 high-rise blocks had been damaged in the first two attacks. He said there were three hits in the evening on an apartment block and other infrastructure, injuring seven.

Ukraine's General Staff said the country's armed forces had destroyed 22 of 44 missiles of various types. Nearly 20 had been shot down over Kyiv, the city's military administration said.

The strikes coincided with Defence Minister Rustem Umerov telling the latest international ministerial meeting on Kyiv's defence needs that Russia was stepping up missile attacks.

Over the past two months, he said, Russian forces had used more than 600 missiles and more than 1,000 drones.

German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said after the meeting that Berlin would send six "Sea King" helicopters to Ukraine later this year, the first delivery of its kind.

WOUNDED IN KYIV

In Kyiv, emergency services said 22 people, including four children, had been wounded across at least three districts. At one site, rescuers tended to dazed and groaning victims as workers swept away debris and broken glass.

"There was a very loud bang, and my mother was already running outside, shouting that we need to leave. We all went to the corridor," said Daniel Boliukh, 21.

"Then, we went on the balcony to have a look, and saw all these buildings were on fire."

Emergency services said apartment buildings, medical and educational institutions were damaged in Kyiv. Some of the damage occurred next to the United Nations office, resident coordinator Denise Brown said in a statement.

The Kremlin, asked to comment on the strikes on Kyiv and Kharkiv, said the Russian military does not target civilians.

Kherson regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said Russian aircraft had pounded his region throughout the day. Officials said two people had died. One person was killed in the southeastern city of Pavlohrad, the regional governor said.

The attacks damaged a gas pipeline in Kharkiv and thousands were left without power after infrastructure was hit.

Russia has carried out regular air strikes on cities and civilian infrastructure far behind the front lines since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Its troops, meanwhile, are attacking along the sprawling eastern front and seeking to seize the initiative, Ukraine's military says.

Russian forces have increasingly employed a mix of air- and land-based missiles that are more difficult to shoot down.

Moscow accused Kyiv on Sunday of shelling the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, killing 27 people. Ukrainian forces said Russia bore responsibility for the attack.

The Russian defence ministry said on Tuesday it had struck enterprises producing missiles, explosives and ammunition.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian strikes on Kiev and Kharkov not retaliation for Donetsk – Kremlin

Russian missile strikes on Kiev and Kharkov on Tuesday morning were not retaliation for the recent Ukrainian attack on a busy market in Donetsk, which killed over two dozen civilians, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. 

His statement came after the Russian Defense Ministry reported carrying out a large series of high-precision missile strikes on military targets in Ukraine, particularly sites producing rockets and other munitions. 

Ukrainian media reported on Tuesday, however, that residential buildings in Kharkov and Kiev had sustained damage and that several dozen people had been injured in the attacks. The Ukrainian military also claimed to have shot down 21 out of 41 missiles fired by Russia. However, it was unclear where those projectiles landed and if they could have been the cause of the damage sustained in residential areas in the two Ukrainian cities.

Kremlin spokesman Peskov stated that the Russian attack was not a response to Kiev’s assault on Donetsk, stressing that it was only part of Moscow’s ongoing operation. He also insisted that Russian forces “do not target social infrastructure, residential areas or civilians, unlike the Kiev regime.” 

”This is what fundamentally distinguishes our military from the military of the Kiev regime,” Peskov emphasized. 

Tuesday’s missile strikes follow the shelling of the Russian city of Donetsk on Sunday. The attack, which targeted a busy local market and shops, left 27 civilians dead and several dozen others seriously injured, including children. Moscow condemned the attack as “barbaric” and a “heinous act of terrorism,” also suggesting it was carried out with Western support.  

”The Kiev regime continues to show its savage face, they strike at civilian infrastructure, at people, at the civilian population,” Peskov said following the incident, adding that Moscow will do everything possible to prevent any repeat in future.  

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also condemned Sunday’s attack on Donetsk but refused to assign blame, instead calling for a general cessation of any hostilities toward civilians and civilian infrastructure.

 

Reuters/RT

 

Vincent Deary, psychologist, fatigue specialist and author, has been telling me what an “anxious creature” he is. He barely slept last night. The hotel room was unfamiliar and noisy. Worse, the prospect of an interview and of meeting someone new made his arrhythmic heart race.

It’s racing now as we sit together in a London hotel. We’re here to discuss his new book, How We Break: Navigating the Wear and Tear of Living, an exploration of our varying responses to the corrosive pressures of daily life, especially work, and an assertion of the vital necessity of rest, recovery and the lost art of convalescence. The book is the second in a trilogy by Deary, a professor of psychology at Northumbria University and a clinical fatigue specialist at the Cresta Fatigue Clinic, a role from which he has just retired. The NHS clinic, which is closing later this year, is unique in the UK for taking a multi-disciplinary approach to disabling fatigue. Deary goes on to share something else with me: he dreads the intimacy of dinner parties and hates surprises, before adding that his partner of 10 years recently threw a surprise party for his 60th birthday – and he loved it. Proof, it seems, that people can change.

Well yes and no. Deary believes we can make changes, if circumstances allow, and we can adapt, but we can’t fundamentally change the self we were born with. First, there’s our genetic makeup. Then, he says, there’s our constitution, which is encoded with memories of previous generations and sometimes by intergenerational trauma; the body remembers, it keeps score. Deary offers himself up as a good example of this, and there are three other case histories in the book, including that of his late mother.

When he hit 40, long since amicably divorced, Deary left his job as an NHS therapist, sold up in London, moved back to Scotland, and corralled material for the first book. Five years later, he became a single parent when his 16-year-old daughter came to live with him. The finished book cowered in a drawer, Deary lacking the confidence to seek publication. How to Live, the first book in the trilogy, was finally published when he was 50. Now he was an author, too, an acclaimed one. Lots of changes there then.

But who he is, fundamentally, has not changed, he says. “I still have social anxiety.” What he has managed to change is his relationship with this anxiety: “I recognise that it is part of me, that it’s going to show up, so I now literally bring it along with me as a companion. And that’s OK. It might mean I am hyper and talk a lot, but that can be quite useful.”

For Deary, arriving at this place of self-acceptance and self-love has been a project, it’s been work and that’s also OK, because we each have to work on the self we are born with in order to survive, or thrive. Some, like Deary, won’t be a good fit for their environment, which means “some of us are harder work for ourselves than others”. We “tremble” as we encounter the turbulence of life, including the changes we have to navigate but, again, some of us tremble more than others. In turn, holding steady in the face of change, what’s known as the allostatic load, becomes too much, “There’s no wriggle room and we break,” as Deary himself did while writing his new book.

As part of his work on himself, Deary has traced the reach and roots of his anxiety, as he does for his patients in the fatigue clinic. Early on, he “meets” an effeminate child growing up in a working-class culture on the west coast of Scotland and sees what “a misfit” he was. He ran with the “rejects and the freaks”.

“I was visibly different from my peers,” he tells me, “very gentle, soft-spoken. I was little and timorous by nature. That’s not necessarily great in a working-class comprehensive in the 70s in Scotland. There was bullying. I was called either snobby or poofy. I was neither.” He had a big nose and was called Concorde. “My body remembers the early threats; I am still easily frightened.”

So was his mother. Gentle and open-minded, she had a punitive upbringing and, like her son, had an “anxious constitution”. Deary was an “unexpected pregnancy,” he writes, his mother already dealing with a large family and the wear and tear of poverty and a difficult marriage. “I was born alarmed,” he writes. But home was good. “I had quite an exceptional mother,” he says, “and an exceptional home life. We were enculturated into art, literature, theatre very early on and so that marked us out as different. I did not come from a typical west coast Scottish family.”

He shares his story in the book, not “to say I had a really difficult time, but because I wanted people to find resonance – I wanted them to see that when you don’t fit in, you’re given back to yourself as work because you need to learn to manage that not fitting. You need to learn to manage the difficult feelings coming out of that and you need to learn to manage yourself.”

Key to that self-management is not only understanding and self-love, but rest. Deary has a mantra: work needs rest and rest takes work. We need to take time out to rest in order to heal from extreme exhaustion, chronic illness, or unexpected life events, what Deary terms “biographical disruption”. We also need to take a rest from work and free ourselves from an “audit culture” that pushes us, sometimes to breaking point. But first, we need to learn how to rest. “It’s a skill,” he says, one that nowadays has to be acquired.

“One of the things I noticed in the fatigue clinic is that tired people can often do the things they need to do, but a lot of them really struggle with switching off. We often associate our worth and our value in terms of productivity and output. Both within academia and the NHS there are whole mini-industries dedicated to evaluating your productivity and your output, often telling you that you could do better and, actually, could you do better with less, please. It’s very easy to buy into that narrative that your work equals your productivity. So, for people who are exhausted and can’t be productive, it’s very easy to go, I don’t deserve to rest, I am worthless, I have done nothing to earn this.

“But we need to allow ourselves to rest, to nap, to enjoy, to deliberately switch on to joy and nourishment and the stuff that actually fills the tank. I wrote this book to understand myself, but also because, in the last few years, I saw friends, family, colleagues, society, to an extent, just become overwhelmed, or exhausted, or hopeless or joyless. Ordinary people going through ordinary suffering. Some of them crossed the clinical line into physical or mental health systems, but most of them were just struggling to get on with life. Often the first casualty of stress is joy. Deliberately leaning into that joy and finding out the stuff that restores you is really key to recovery.”

Some GPs have started handing out joy as a “social prescription”. But how do we identify what brings us joy? “The clue is in our everyday language: ‘That really lifted my spirits,’ or ‘I got a lot out of that.’ It’s the stuff that cheers us up or energises us.” A meal with loved ones is often high up on the list. Deary’s academic research looks at the challenges faced by head and neck cancer survivors. “It’s not the food they miss,” he says, “it’s the sharing. They were mourning the connection. It’s what we call commensality: that social magic which comes when you’re sharing food. Our research with food and head and neck cancer and other conditions highlighted that pleasure is a necessity; being deprived of it is literally depressing and demoralising.”

One day, halfway through writing How We Break, Deary discovered this for himself. He woke up “in a state of exhaustion. I had no real ability to get out of bed. When I finally took myself for a walk, I was wiped out the next day. I was in a state of hopeless exhaustion. My mood went down as well. I was completely disengaged from life. It was a very difficult time.”

To recover he did “what I help people in the fatigue clinic do, which is, gradually get back into things at my own pace and do a combination of physical and emotional rehab. Incremental engagement with life. I think that is what true convalescence is. It’s not just rest and it’s not just activity, it’s that mixture of both: it’s acknowledging that there is a deep need for rest and recovery. It’s like Thomas Mann’s Magic Mountain where they are all sitting about in the sanatorium: there’s the beauty, there’s the connection, there’s the food. There’s the joy” – even in an interview. “A joyful encounter!” was Deary’s verdict, glad that he came, proud of himself and proof that a little self-love goes a long way to ease the wear and tear of life.

 

The Guardian, UK