Monday briefing
A third exchange of hostages for prisoners
Hamas, the armed group that controls Gaza, released another 17 hostages, including a four-year-old girl, and said it would seek to extend a temporary ceasefire with Israel. The current four-day break ends today. Another 39 Palestinians in custody were released on Sunday, according to Israel’s prison service.
The ceasefire was the longest break in fighting in Gaza since October 7, when gunmen from Hamas and other militant groups launched a deadly attack on southern Israel.
Israel has said it is willing to grant another day’s break for every 10 hostages Hamas releases over the 50 stipulated in the deal. The country said in that agreement it would release 150 Palestinian women and children.
Promises: Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visited his country’s troops in the Gaza Strip. “We will continue until the end – until victory,” he vowed, adding: “Nothing will stop us.”
The toll in Gaza: Even a conservative reading of the casualty figures shows that the pace of civilian deaths during Israel’s campaign has few precedents this century, military analysts said.
Related news:
The Wagner group falters in Africa
The death of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the former leader of the Wagner mercenary group, has disrupted once cozy relations with the Central African Republic. The country is now weighing offers from Russia and Western countries, including France and the US, to replace Wagner as its main security guarantor.
The outcome of this battle could be a bellwether for the group’s future on the continent, where the CAR is perhaps the most entangled among the handful of African countries working with Wagner.
It remains unclear whether Western countries can provide the same level of security as the mercenary group and whether hard-pressed Central African officials will dare to confront rebel groups and other security threats without Wagner’s familiar embrace or the promise of troops.
A wave of deadly outbreaks
Disruptions to healthcare systems during the Covid-19 pandemic have left more than 60 million children worldwide without a single dose of standard childhood vaccines, which in turn has resulted in major outbreaks of diseases that kill mostly children.
Many who missed their vaccinations have now forgone routine immunization programs. Protecting them will require a costly vaccination blitz.
According to the numbers: By mid-year, 47 countries reported serious and fatal measles outbreaks, up from 16 countries in June 2020. Twelve countries reported circulating poliovirus. Nigeria is facing a major outbreak of diphtheria, with nearly 600 deaths so far.
THE LAST NEWS
Around the world
“As austere as these refugee services were, they were almost luxurious compared to what migrants receive today.”
Joseph Berger, a reporter and editor at The Times for 30 years, gives a firsthand account of his arrival in New York City as one of 140,000 Jewish refugees fleeing postwar Europe. For today’s migrants, he writes, it is even more difficult.
SPORTS NEWS
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Football punishes the wrong people: Owners can walk away if something goes wrong, but supporters feel the impact.
ARTS AND IDEAS
Stay ‘delulu’
Call it magical thinking or manifesting, but the belief that people can influence their reality through sheer will has existed for centuries. Now there is a new term for this idea: ‘delulu’.
Derived from the word delusion, delulu first became popular online as an abbreviation for unrelenting confidence. It has become a description of the process by which the seemingly impossible becomes possible. And for young people who might otherwise feel like everything – the cost of living, job insecurity, politics – is stacked against them, it has become a way to have a degree of control over their lives.
In the words of Bianca Bernardo, a 23-year-old content creator from Los Angeles: “May all your delulu trululu come, because to be delulu is to be the solulu.”