Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Israel launching its Gaza City ground offensive, Chinese and Philippine ships clashing in the disputed South China Sea, and a tight general election race in Malawi.
‘Gaza Is Burning’
Israel launched its long-anticipated ground assault on Gaza City on Tuesday, forcing thousands of Palestinians to flee as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted some of its heaviest bombardments on the city since the Israel-Hamas war began.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Israel launching its Gaza City ground offensive, Chinese and Philippine ships clashing in the disputed South China Sea, and a tight general election race in Malawi.
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‘Gaza Is Burning’
Israel launched its long-anticipated ground assault on Gaza City on Tuesday, forcing thousands of Palestinians to flee as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted some of its heaviest bombardments on the city since the Israel-Hamas war began.
“Gaza is burning,” Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X. “We will not relent and we will not go back—until the completion of the mission.”
That mission, Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said, is to secure the release of Hamas’s remaining hostages and completely destroy the militant group. The operation will “last as long as necessary,” Defrin said, adding that current estimates put its timeline at “a number of months.”
Three divisions of active-duty and reserve troops are currently deployed in Gaza City, though that number is expected to rise in the coming days as Israel seeks to target the up to 3,000 Hamas combatants that the country believes to be operating in the city. Hamas, meanwhile, denounced the offensive, saying it could worsen the humanitarian catastrophe already engulfing Gaza.
Such devastation was highlighted in a new report on Tuesday in which a United Nations Commission of Inquiry concluded that Israel has committed “four genocidal acts” against Palestinians in Gaza. These include the killing of Palestinians, causing Palestinians “serious bodily and mental harm,” “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,” and “imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group.”
The 72-page report cited aid blockages, forced displacement, and the destruction of a fertility clinic as evidence. It also accused top Israeli officials, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, of inciting these acts. “The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza,” said Navi Pillay, the head of the commission. Nearly 65,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the conflict began.
“Israel categorically rejects the distorted and false report,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a statement calling for the commission’s abolition. The report was commissioned by the U.N. Human Rights Council, which Israel has repeatedly accused of being biased. The Commission of Inquiry, however, does not officially speak for the United Nations, which has yet to use the term “genocide” to describe Israel’s actions in the war despite facing international pressure to do so.
As tanks rolled into Gaza City on Tuesday, several Western powers expressed concerns that Israel’s ground assault will only lead to more deaths. “The new IDF assault on Gaza is utterly reckless and appalling,” British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper wrote on X. Foreign ministers from Germany, Sweden, and other European nations joined in with warnings against Israel’s actions.
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What We’re Following
Clashes at Scarborough Shoal. China’s coast guard accused a Philippine vessel on Tuesday of deliberately ramming one of its ships stationed near the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. Manila denied the allegations, instead claiming that Chinese forces used water cannons to damage a Philippine fishing ship and injure a crew member—a common tactic of Beijing’s military. China acknowledged that it did use water cannons but said it did so only after more than 10 Philippine government ships entered the waters around the shoal.
The incident comes less than a week after Beijing designated part of the Scarborough Shoal as a national nature reserve, to which Manila responded by filing a diplomatic protest. Both nations have clashed over ownership of the disputed maritime territory for years, though such skirmishes have become more frequent in recent months.
China’s actions are “yet another coercive attempt to advance sweeping territorial and maritime claims in the South China Sea at the expense of its neighbors,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of Beijing’s nature reserve designation. Australia, Canada, and the United Kingdom have also denounced China’s claims of environmental protection as a ploy to extend its influence.
Corruption on both sides. Seventeen candidates vied for top office on Tuesday during Malawi’s general election, but the tight race appears to be coming down to just two individuals: President Lazarus Chakwera and his predecessor, Peter Mutharika. The last time that Chakwera and Mutharika competed for the presidency, the country’s Constitutional Court annulled Mutharika’s victory and called for a re-run that Chakwera won in 2020.
Democracy activists heralded the court’s intervention at the time, even as both candidates found themselves mired in corruption scandals. With new allegations of voter manipulation and potential tampering, though, public opinion going into Tuesday’s general election is not as optimistic.
High costs of living, food shortages from climate change, and economic stagnation are among the biggest concerns for voters. Nearly 75 percent of Malawians live below the World Bank’s poverty line of $3 a day, and around 50 percent of the population does not have access to adequate nutrition. Chakwera has vowed to improve the nation’s agriculture-dependent economy, while Mutharika has pledged to decrease inflation and bolster infrastructure development.
Widespread corruption. The South Sudanese government has stolen billions of dollars in public funds since achieving its independence in 2011, even as the country suffers from a catastrophic hunger crisis, a new 101-page report by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan found on Tuesday.
“While a small group of powerful actors pillage and loot the country’s wealth and resources, enriching themselves, the state has effectively abdicated its sovereign responsibilities to its population, outsourcing critical services,” the report states. “Corruption is killing South Sudanese.” More than 7 million people in South Sudan currently face extreme hunger, according to the World Food Program.
Among the revenue streams affected, $1.7 billion of $2.2 billion earmarked for infrastructure development are unaccounted for, while 95 percent of roads under the oil-for-roads initiative remain incomplete. Instead, much of the funds from this program have been funneled to companies linked to businessman Benjamin Bol Mel, who President Salva Kiir appointed vice president this year.
The South Sudanese government denies the allegations, calling them “absurd” and claiming that it did not have sufficient time to respond to the report’s accusations.
Odds and Ends
Not all mummies come from ancient Egypt. A new study published Monday found that some of the oldest human burial remains appear to originate from the other side of the world—namely, southern China and Southeast Asia. According to Peter Bellwood, the study’s co-author, these archeological sites contain mummies that are between 4,000 and 14,000 years old, dating back much further than the oldest Egyptian mummies from roughly 4,500 years ago.
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