Good morning. We’re covering Israel’s preparations for a Gaza City offensive and Russia’s push to take even more of Ukraine. Plus, Africa’s push for a new world map.
Israel moved ahead on Gaza City and new settlementsIsrael approved 3,400 new settlements in the occupied West Bank yesterday, and its troops reached the outskirts of Gaza City with plans to take it over. Both developments cast further doubt on the chances of either a cease-fire or the creation of a Palestinian state. World leaders quickly condemned the action against Gaza City. Experts said the moves suggested Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was bending to the ideologies of extremists in his coalition in order to remain in power — even at the cost of isolating Israel internationally. Gaza City: Israeli military officials said that tents were being moved into southern Gaza for people who would be displaced. Under the plan, troops would encircle the city and allow the population to move south through checkpoints to catch militants. Then, Israel would move in with force. The military “has begun the next phase of the war,” the Israeli military’s chief spokesman said. Thousands of Palestinians in Gaza City considered moving to the central or southern parts of the territory, but many have already relocated repeatedly. Some said they wouldn’t move again. Settlements: The settlement project, called East One, is in the heart of the occupied West Bank. Human rights groups and European countries say building there would increasingly bisect the central West Bank, making the possibility of a future Palestinian state there even more tenuous. The idea of a Palestinian state “is being erased from the table,” Bezalel Smotrich, the hard-line finance minister, declared after the government had approved the project.
Russia is pushing hard to grab Ukrainian landAs Trump presses Ukraine and Russia to make peace, President Vladimir Putin of Russia is pushing to capture as much land as possible. The tactic could force Ukraine to enter negotiations from a position of weakness, a Ukrainian commander said. The Russians are sending in small groups of soldiers on foot, who are harder to detect. They effectively sneak past the Ukrainian troops, regroup and attack, and then repeat this cycle as they inch forward, my colleagues Kim Barker and Finbarr O’Reilly reported from near Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, where fighting remains intense. Diplomacy: Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said yesterday that Moscow would insist on being a part of any future security guarantees for Ukraine, a condition that European and Ukrainian officials see as absurd. It was the clearest sign yet that enormous gaps remain in the negotiations over a possible end to Russia’s invasion.
My colleague Maggie Haberman explains how Trump has engaged with Russia and Ukraine in the video above.
Xi made a rare visit to TibetXi Jinping, China’s leader, made a tightly choreographed trip to Lhasa yesterday, his first since 2021 to the capital of Tibet. The visit reflected the Chinese leadership’s concern with redoubling control ahead of a potential succession fight after the eventual death of the Dalai Lama, who is 90. In a speech, Xi called for stronger regulation of “religious affairs” and for measures to “guide Tibetan Buddhism to adapt to socialist society.” More China news:
Many of us learned world geography at school with the Mercator map. But the centuries-old map, which was created by a German cartographer, distorts reality. It makes Europe and Africa appear to be the same size, even though Africa is actually three times as big. “A lot of people are asking, What are we actually looking at here?” my colleague Saikou Jammeh in Dakar, Senegal, said. “Why are we still teaching children this 16th-century map that shows Europe as primary and minimizes global south countries?” Saikou covered a push by African leaders to replace the Mercator map with a more accurate alternative, called the Equal Earth projection. Read more. Lives lived: Rodrigo Moya, a photojournalist who captured farmworkers, guerrillas and celebrities in Mexico and across Latin America, died at 91.
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