Friday briefing

Israeli troops enter Gaza City as US pushes for a break

Israeli soldiers have surrounded Gaza City, the Israeli army said yesterday, engaging in “face-to-face fighting” with Hamas as they continue what officials have predicted will be a long and bloody ground invasion.

As the ground invasion has escalated and airstrikes have continued, Israel has come under increasing international pressure to abandon the campaign, or at least temporarily pause fighting with Hamas, to allow humanitarian aid into the enclave.

White House officials said that when Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrives in Israel today, he will urge the Israeli government to agree to a series of brief cessations of military operations in Gaza. The “humanitarian pauses,” as U.S. officials call them, are intended to allow hostages to be safely released and aid to be distributed. The request differs from a blanket ceasefire, which the Biden administration believes Hamas would benefit from.

Israeli officials have consistently rejected calls to stop or temporarily pause the fighting, saying they have not yet achieved their goal of destroying Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that controls Gaza.

The Israeli army said yesterday that it has hit more than 12,000 targets in Gaza since the start of the war. According to Gaza officials, more than 9,000 people in Gaza have been killed in the Israeli airstrikes.

Related:

Ukraine’s top commander says war with Russia is at a stalemate

Ukraine’s top commander has acknowledged that his forces are in a “stalemate” with Russia along a front line that has barely moved despite months of heavy fighting, and that no significant breakthrough was imminent. It was the most candid assessment yet by a senior Ukrainian official of the army’s stalled counteroffensive.

“Just like in the First World War, we have reached the level of technology that puts us in a stalemate,” the commander, General Valery Zaluzhny, said. told The Economist. The general said modern technology and precision weapons on both sides were preventing troops from breaking enemy lines, and called for advances in electronic warfare as a way to break the deadlock.

England is seeing signs of a weakening economy

The Bank of England yesterday kept interest rates at their highest level in fifteen years, amid signs that the economy was weakening. The bank, which kept interest rates at 5.25 percent, said rates should remain high for an “extended” period.

The economy is expected to flatline for most of the next two years, the bank said in projections accompanying the interest rate decision. Specifically, the bank predicted that data would show the economy stagnating in the third quarter of this year, growing by 0.1 percent in the last three months of the year and then remaining broadly stable in 2025.

High inflation also appears to be a persistent problem. Expectations for the inflation rate in 2024 and 2025 are now slightly higher than a few months ago.

Will the art market disregard masterpieces?

The $60 billion art market is red hot, but after an unusually weak spring auction season, major auction houses are offering concessions and pricing some of their top pieces more conservatively.

One expert said there had been a noticeable increase in guarantees from auction houses and third parties, which give sellers a confirmed reserve price for a work of art. In another notable decline, rampant speculation in the ultra-modern market for young artists born since 1975 has diminished, an expert said.

What’s behind this more cautious market? Magnus Resch, an art market economist, said higher interest rates and global uncertainty caused by the major wars in Europe and the Middle East could be to blame.