Wednesday briefing: Israel enters the largest city in southern Gaza
Israeli forces invade South Gaza’s largest city
Israeli forces were fighting in the heart of Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, a military commander said yesterday, describing some of the heaviest fighting of the two-month war.
After days of warning civilians to leave the city, Israeli forces stepped up their attacks overnight. Heavy bombardments were heard yesterday from Nasser Hospital, the city’s largest medical facility, where many Palestinians seeking shelter slept in hallways.
The southward advance comes after a seven-day ceasefire ended Friday and weeks after Israeli forces invaded northern Gaza. Israel is under increasing international pressure not to repeat civilian deaths and physical destruction in the north, but reports from Gaza show no change in the intensity of military operations or resulting casualties.
The UN Humanitarian Office said that the period from Sunday to Monday afternoon saw “some of the heaviest shelling to date in Gaza.” Due to the renewed fighting, the humanitarian crisis in Gaza is worsening by the hour, the World Health Organization said.
Zelenskiy canceled a session with US senators before the vote on aid
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine yesterday canceled plans to make a direct, last-ditch appeal to US senators for tens of billions of dollars more in emergency military aid. Zelensky planned to speak to senators in a classified briefing via confidential video call, a day before a vote expected to show growing opposition in Congress over continuing to fund the war effort.
“Something happened at the last minute,” Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, said yesterday, announcing the change in plans without providing further explanation.
Zelensky’s comments were part of an effort by Democrats and the White House to undermine Republican opposition to a bill that would give Ukraine more than $61 billion. Ukraine urgently needs more ammunition and other weapons to try to turn the tide on the battlefield. The alternative would be “catastrophic,” Mychailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelensky, said yesterday.
Moody’s lowers its outlook for China’s creditworthiness
In a further blow to the Chinese economy, credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded its view of the country’s finances and raised concerns about the potential cost of bailouts for local governments.
Moody’s warned that the economy was entering slower growth as the huge real estate sector began to shrink. At the same time, Moody’s confirmed its overall A1 rating for the Chinese government.
Xi claims control: The Communist Party released a document making clear that it expected banks, pension funds, insurers and other financial organizations in China to follow Marxist principles and be obedient to Xi Jinping, the Chinese leader.
The Evergrande crash: Blame for the demise of a property developer has been laid on China’s credit policies, but questionable accounting and poor corporate oversight had already set the company on the verge of disaster.
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Mexico’s complicated relationship with corridos tumbados
The pop music phenomenon corridos tumbados combines singing and rapping with melodies from traditional Mexican music, along with lyrics inspired by narcocorridos – songs that tell stories about the drug trade.
“It’s the most exciting moment in Mexican music in 20 to 30 years,” said one music producer. Artists have used “the relationship with violence, the relationship with the street, with politics, with what is happening with fashion.”
Although artists can draw thousands of young fans home around the world, they often find themselves in contested territory, where the drug war is not a dramatic fantasy but a bloody everyday reality. Concerts have been canceled due to security threats, and Tijuana recently banned corridos tumbados in all public spaces with fines of up to $70,000.