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World Monthly Headline News February 2024
By WAFAA SHURAFA and KAREEM CHEHAYEB

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Israeli troops fired on a crowd of Palestinians waiting for aid in Gaza City on Thursday, witnesses said. More than 100 people were killed, bringing the death toll since the start of the Israel-Hamas war to more than 30,000, according to health officials.

Hospital officials initially reported an Israeli strike on the crowd, but witnesses later said Israeli troops opened fire as people pulled flour and canned goods off of trucks.

Israeli officials acknowledged that troops opened fire, saying they did so after the crowd approached in a threatening way. The officials insisted on anonymity to give details about what happened, after the military said in a statement that “dozens were killed and injured from pushing, trampling and being run over by the trucks.”
By TIA GOLDENBERG, WAFAA SHURAFA and SAMY MAGDY

JERUSALEM (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden signaled that a cease-fire in Gaza could be at hand, saying that Israel has agreed to pause its offensive during the upcoming Muslim holy month of Ramadan if a deal is reached to release some hostages held by Hamas.

But both Israel and Hamas downplayed on Tuesday the idea that a breakthrough was imminent.

In the wake of Hamas’ attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, Israel’s air, sea and ground campaign in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of people, obliterated large swaths of the urban landscape, displaced 80% of the battered enclave’s population and sparked concerns that a famine could be imminent, according to the United Nations.
By Katie Polglase and Muhammad Darwish, CNN

CNN — Israeli forces fired on a United Nations convoy carrying vital food supplies in central Gaza on February 5, before ultimately blocking the trucks from progressing to the northern part of the territory, where Palestinians are on the verge of famine, according to documents shared exclusively by the UN and CNN’s own analysis.

CNN has seen correspondence between the UN and the Israeli military that show the convoy’s route was agreed upon by both parties prior to the strike. According to an internal incident report compiled by UNRWA, the main UN relief agency in Gaza, which was also seen by CNN, the truck was one of 10 in a convoy sitting stationary at an IDF holding point when it was fired upon.

No one in the convoy was hurt, but much of its contents – mainly wheat flour desperately needed to bake bread – were destroyed. Tracing the strike offers a window into the major challenges that humanitarian efforts face in getting aid to Gaza’s more than 2 million people – nearly 85% of whom are internally displaced – amid Israel’s nearly five-month bombardment of the strip.

“A convoy that had food on it, heading to the northern parts of the Gaza Strip. That convoy on its way in what we call the middle areas, it got hit. One of the trucks carrying supplies was hit by Israeli naval fire,” Juliette Touma, global director of communications for UNRWA, told CNN.
Alexei Navalny’s team, as well as the Russian authorities, have not confirmed the whereabouts of his body
Tom Watling, Stuti Mishra, Matt Mathers

Vladamir Putin believes that he is “untouchable” after years of an iron grip on Russia, the wife of jailed opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza has said, as she accused the autocrat of murdering Alexei Navalny.

Speaking to the BBC, Evgenia Kara-Murza said: “All that impunity that lasted for decades has led [Putin] to believe he’s somehow untouchable.”

It comes as an independent Russian newspaper cited an anonymous source claiming that Mr Navalny’s body had been delivered to the Salekhard District Clinical Hospital.

The unnamed source, identified as an experienced paramedic, said the body was bruised and had been transported from the nearby town of Labytnangi.
Story by Tucker Reals

"You're not allowed to give up." That was the central message Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny wanted to stress to his supporters in the event of his death. He said it in an Oscar-winning 2022 documentary about his life by Canadian director Daniel Roher, in which Navalny spoke about his political ideals and surviving a purported poisoning attack.

"If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong," said the anti-corruption campaigner who arguably turned into President Vladimir Putin's most potent political challenger. "We need to utilize this power to not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed by these bad dudes."

Russian prison authorities said Friday that Navalny had died after going for a walk, feeling suddenly unwell and then collapsing. The Office of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia for the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District said medics at the IK-3 penal colony in Russia's far north were unable to revive him.
Story by tporter@businessinsider.com (Tom Porter,Thibault Spirlet)

Alexey Navalny, Vladimir Putin's political nemesis, died suddenly in prison at the age of 47, officials said. Russia's Federal Prison Service said Navalny felt unwell after taking a walk and almost immediately lost consciousness.

Medics were called and tried to revive him, but he was quickly pronounced dead, a statement said. It did not explain further.

Navalny was imprisoned in a detention facility about 40 miles north of the Arctic Circle, where he was serving a 19-year sentence which many saw as punishment for his opposition to the Russian president.

Hours after his death, the Russian SOTA social-media channel shared what it said was footage of Navalny in court this week. He appeared to be healthy and smiling.
Story by Aadil Brar

Palau's leader has written a letter to a U.S. senator warning lawmakers about an offer from China to buy its allegiance.

President Surangel Whipps Jr. wrote to the unidentified senator about China's attempt to get it to switch ties from Taipei to Beijing and curtail relations with Washington. The letter was shared on X, formerly Twitter, by Cleo Paskal, a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

"The PRC has already offered to "fill every hotel room" in our tourism-based private sector – "and more if more are built" – and $20 million a year for two acres for a 'call center,'" Whipps wrote in the letter on February 9.

The Republic of Palau is a small island country in the western Pacific and a U.S. ally.

Pacific leaders including Whipps wrote a letter to Congress on February 6, urging the U.S. to sign the pending Compacts of Free Association. They said the delay in approving the agreement has sown uncertainty among their citizens and risks economic exploitation by competitive powers, in a thinly veiled reference to China.
The Israeli military announced the rescue of Fernando Marman and Louis Har in an overnight operation that saw a volley of airstrikes that Palestinian health authorities said killed at least 67 people.
By Chantal Da Silva

TEL AVIV — Israel’s military hailed the rescue of two hostages overnight in Rafah, while local officials said the raid killed dozens of people in the crowded, southern Gaza Strip city sheltering more than 1 million displaced people.

At least 67 people were killed in Israeli strikes, Palestinian Health Ministry spokesperson Dr. Ashraf Al-Qudra said. An NBC News crew that has been working on the ground in Gaza since the start of the war described the bombing in the area of Shaboura camp of Rafah as a strikingly violent and deadly assault.

The dramatic rescue of Fernando Marman, 60, and Louis Har, 70, came amid mounting international concerns over a planned Israeli ground assault on Rafah.

Israeli forces retrieved the two Israeli men taken captive during the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in a “complex” overnight operation carried out "under fire in the heart of Rafah," Israel Defense Forces spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said.
Analysis by Nick Paton Walsh, CNN

London CNN — Remarks by Donald Trump normally reverberate in an echo chamber of his own creation, a sort of vacuum that often strips them of any consequence globally. It is white noise, one might think – rhetoric designed to project strength and the rejection of the status-quo, rather than an expression of any actual policy. It is just Trump being Trump.

But when the former president suggested on Saturday that he would let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO member that doesn’t meet spending guidelines, the impact was acute.

He recalled what he said was a conversation with a “large” NATO ally – it was unclear who he was referring to or when the conversation took place – which, according to his telling, had declined to spend the 2% recommended equivalent of their GDP on defense, but nevertheless wanted assurances from the US that they would be protected if Russia attacked. Trump said he would not give such an assurance, as the ally was “delinquent,” and Russian President Vladimir Putin should feel free to have his way.
By Adam Durbin | BBC NewsDonald Trump's suggestion the US would not protect Nato allies failing to spend enough on defence "undermines all of our security", the Western military alliance's chief has said.

Jens Stoltenberg also suggested it put US and European troops at greater risk. The Republican said he had told allies he would "encourage" Russia to attack any Nato member that failed to meet the alliance's target of 2% of their GDP.

Members of Nato commit to defend any nation in the bloc that gets attacked. President Joe Biden called Mr Trump's comments "appalling and dangerous", suggesting his predecessor intended to give Russian President Vladimir Putin "a green light for more war and violence".

Addressing crowds during a rally in South Carolina on Saturday, Mr Trump said he had made his comments about Russia during a previous meeting of leaders of Nato countries. The former president recalled that the leader of a "big country" had presented a hypothetical situation in which he was not meeting his financial obligations within Nato and had come under attack from Moscow.
Story by Brendan Cole

Kremlin-controlled media corrected a mistake that Vladimir Putin made about World War II in his interview with Tucker Carlson.

Interjections by the former Fox News anchor during his interview released on Thursday were also cut, it was reported, and a version viewed online omitted a controversial segment in which the Russian president spoke about Adolf Hitler.

The fallout from the interview continues as the American anchor faced criticism that he did little to challenge the Russian president, especially during monologues about Russian history that he used to justify his full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

In one part of the interview, Putin made a factual error in describing an alleged encounter with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, when according to the Kremlin website, Carlson asked him about whether the Ukrainian president had "the freedom to negotiate a resolution to this conflict."

Putin replied: "It's difficult for me to judge" and he said that Zelensky's "father fought against the fascists, the Nazis, during World War II."
By Helen Regan and Abeer Salman, CNN

CNN — Dozens of people, including children, have been killed as “extremely intense” Israeli airstrikes and shelling pounded multiple locations in Rafah overnight Monday, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, as international alarm mounts over Israel’s planned ground offensive in the southern Gazan city.

More than 100 people were killed due to Israeli airstrikes as warplanes targeted different areas of the city and helicopters fired machine guns along the border areas, the PRCS said early Monday.

CNN cannot independently verify the number of casualties on the ground.

There are fears the death toll could rise further as the PRCS said people remain trapped under the rubble and there is still a heavy presence of warplanes in the skies over Rafah.

The director of Abu Yousef Al-Najjar Hospital said medical facilities in Rafah “cannot handle the large number of injuries due to the Israeli occupation’s bombardment.”

Footage obtained by CNN showed a chaotic scene inside Rafah’s Al Kuwaiti hospital, with medics trying to resuscitate a motionless child in one scene and another showing doctors treating a wounded man on the hospital floor. In another video a woman was inconsolable as she held a child’s body wrapped in white cloth.
BBC News

Israel is facing growing international warnings over its planned offensive in Rafah - the city in southern Gaza crammed with Palestinian refugees. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the Israeli military will go ahead with its planned ground offensive, insisting an evacuation plan is being prepared.

UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron said "over half of Gaza's population are sheltering in the area". Saudi Arabia warned of "very serious repercussions" if Rafah was stormed. Dutch FM Hanke Bruins Slot also warned of "many civilian casualties", while the United Nations has said there is nowhere safe to go for the more than a million Palestinians who have already fled to Rafah.
By Chris Lau, Nadeen Ebrahim and Andrew Raine, CNN

The US said it struck 85 targets linked to Iran-backed militias in Iraq and Syria on Friday in response to a drone strike in Jordan that killed three American soldiers. The aircraft used included long-range bombers flown from the United States, according to officials.

President Joe Biden said adversaries should heed US warnings, while his defense secretary vowed: "This is the start of our response." The US is seeking to deter further attacks on its troops while avoiding a full-scale conflict with Iran in a region already roiled by the Israel-Hamas war.

Syria has warned that the US strikes "fuel the conflict in the Middle East in a very dangerous way." Similarly, a spokesperson of Iraq's Armed Forces said "the outcomes will be dire for the security and stability in Iraq and the region."
America might be overextended in the region, and Iran might not be able to control its proxies. That’s a recipe for a wider conflict.
By Michael Hirsh

Can two nations that don’t really want a full-scale war — in fact believe it could be disastrous — find themselves slip-sliding toward one anyway as events escalate inevitably beyond their ability to stop it?

Absolutely. It’s a problem that goes back at least to the Peloponnesian War 2,500 years ago — when the Athenians hurtled toward their doom — and now it’s an issue that both President Joe Biden and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are openly grappling with in the Middle East.

On Friday, Biden launched a broad series of military strikes in retaliation for the Jan. 28 drone attack by an Iranian-aligned militant group that killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded more than 40 others. But the president also clearly said that he’s trying to deter Tehran without provoking a full-scale war, and it was notable that the retaliatory strikes were aimed at the facilities of proxy groups outside of Iran, in Iraq and Syria. Asked by reporters Tuesday how directly Iran was involved in the Jan. 28 attack, Biden replied, “We’ll have that discussion,” and he clarified, “I do hold them responsible in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it.” Biden also added: “I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for.”
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said more than 100 people were killed across the Palestinian territory overnight.
Agence France-Presse

Israel pressed its blistering assault in the Gaza Strip on Saturday as fears grew over a push into Rafah, the southern city teeming with civilians uprooted by the nearly four-month war.

A barrage of air strikes and tank fire rocked Khan Yunis overnight and through the day, an AFP journalist said of the main city in southern Gaza that has been the focus of Israel's offensive.

The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said more than 100 people were killed across the Palestinian territory overnight, mostly women and children. The Israeli army said its forces killed "dozens of terrorists" in northern and central Gaza over the past 24 hours.

Hundreds of thousands of Gaza's 2.4 million people displaced by the fierce fighting have fled south to Rafah since the outbreak of the war, with their tents crammed along streets and in parks.
By AFP

A fire broke out overnight at a major Russian oil refinery in the southwestern Volgograd region, authorities said Saturday, after a drone strike claimed by Ukraine.

A Ukrainian defense source told AFP that Kyiv's SBU security service had "organized" the attack, which came after months of Ukrainian drone attacks against Russia.

"Last night, the air defense and electronic jamming repelled an attack by drones in the Volgograd region's Kalachyovsky and Zakanalye districts," Governor Andrei Bocharov said on Telegram.
By James Doubek

Salvadorans are voting this Sunday in elections for president, vice president and all 60 seats in the country's unicameral legislature.

Nayib Bukele, the president since 2019, is widely expected to be reelected in a landslide despite a constitutional ban on presidents serving consecutive terms. His party, Nuevas Ideas, is also expected to take on a larger majority in the Legislative Assembly.

Bukele, 42, is incredibly popular in El Salvador. He's perhaps best known for his brutal crackdown on the country's violent and powerful gangs that had dominated public life.

The country is much safer now than just a few years ago; the murder rate has dropped steeply from a 2015 high, according to the Salvadoran government. But it has come at the cost of civil rights — tens of thousands of people have been arrested on accusations of being affiliated with gangs. The incarceration rate is now the highest in the world.
Farmers’ frustration over French and EU regulations are a new dimension in a longstanding problem.
By Ellen Ioanes

French farmers’ unions on Thursday called a halt to protests in which they’ve blocked traffic with their tractors and dumped manure and rotting produce in front of government buildings to make their point. The message: They can no longer earn a living due to cheap imports, a lack of subsidies, and increased production costs.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal announced a series of concessions, including an agreement not to import agricultural products that use pesticides banned in the EU as well as new financial subsidies and tax breaks. The new policies have — for now — appeased France’s two largest agricultural unions, the Young Farmers and the FNSEA (the French acronym for the National Federation of Farmers’ Unions).

While farmers throughout Europe have been protesting poor wages and bureaucratic policy within their own countries and the EU, the French context is slightly different from other countries. It’s partly because of France’s self-conception and the place of agriculture within its national consciousness, but also because of France’s politics, specifically President Emmanuel Macron’s unpopularity.
Verdict comes less than a week before national elections and follows another case in which the couple were sentenced to 14 years.
By Abid Hussain

Islamabad, Pakistan – A court in Pakistan has now jailed former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his wife Bushra Bibi for seven years, ruling their 2018 marriage violated the Islamic law.

The civil court, set up inside the Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi city where Khan is imprisoned, delivered the sentence on Saturday in the presence of the couple. It also slapped a fine of a million rupees ($3,560) on them.

The case against the couple was filed last year by Bibi’s former husband Khawar Maneka, who alleged that his divorced wife did not observe the necessary three-month break required under Islamic law before remarrying Khan.

Maneka claims he divorced his wife in November 2017. Khan announced his third marriage with Bibi in February 2018, months before he became the prime minister.
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