At least 19 dead in Israeli attack on designated “security zone”

Rivalry between the great powers

Gaza: Israeli air strikes hit a camp declared a security zone in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday after Israel signaled that it was ready to allow Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to leave the enclave as part of a ceasefire agreement.

The Israeli attack on Al-Mawasi, a crowded camp for evacuees in southern Gaza, killed at least 19 people and wounded 60, according to Gaza authorities. Israel said the attack hit a Hamas command center and targeted three senior Hamas figures. Hamas called the Israeli statement a “blatant lie.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this week that a new ceasefire agreement would be presented to Israel and Hamas “very soon”.

“We have only a handful of problems left – not even a handful of problems – that are difficult but completely solvable,” he told reporters.

On Tuesday, Israeli hostage envoy Gal Hirsch told Bloomberg News that Israel would allow Sinwar and his family to leave Gaza in return for the release of the hostages and an end to Hamas rule in the enclave.

“We want demilitarization, deradicalization… a new system to govern Gaza,” he said.

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, at least 41,020 people have died in Israeli attacks in Gaza since the war began, including 16,500 children. No distinction is made between civilian victims and combatants.

Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage in the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7. More than 340 soldiers have died in fighting in Gaza.

The neighborhood

Vanuatu: Three Pacific states – Vanuatu, Fiji and Samoa – have called on the International Criminal Court to recognize “ecocide,” or mass environmental destruction, as an international crime alongside genocide and war crimes.

A request to the Court, submitted by Vanuatu and supported by Fiji and Samoa, would allow individuals, such as heads of companies or heads of state, to be prosecuted for actions they know are likely to cause “serious and either widespread or long-term harm to the environment”.

The change in the law could lead to criminal prosecutions of those who cause oil or chemical spills, destroy rainforests or rivers, or emit greenhouse gases on a large scale.

Belgium criminalized ecocide earlier this year, introducing prison sentences of up to 20 years, and the European Union has outlawed environmental damage “comparable to ecocide.”

Ralph Regenvanu, Vanuatu’s special envoy for climate change, said in a statement that recognizing serious environmental damage as an international crime could prevent further destruction.

“Environmental and climate loss and damage in Vanuatu is destroying our island’s economy, submerging our territory and threatening our livelihoods,” he said.

More than 120 countries, including Australia, are parties to the court, but some of the world’s largest emitters – including the United States, China, India and Russia – are not involved.

Democracy in retreat

Sudan: A United Nations call to send an independent force to Sudan to protect civilians was rejected by the military-led government this week after at least 40 people were killed in an attack on a market by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

Last Friday, a UN Human Rights Council fact-finding commission found that both the military and its rival, the RSF, had committed “atrocious” human rights abuses and called for an arms embargo and the immediate deployment of an “independent and impartial” force to protect civilians. Separately, World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus visited Sudan last weekend and called on the international community to protect health facilities, secure aid and help with vaccinations.

“We call on the world to wake up and help Sudan out of the nightmare it is going through,” he said in a statement.

Since the civil war began in April 2023, around 12 million people have been displaced and 25.6 million people – more than half the population – are facing acute food shortages. Parts of the country are already affected by one of the worst famines in the world. At least 150,000 people are estimated to have died in the war, but the exact number is unknown.

The government, believed to be backed by Saudi Arabia, this week rejected the UN mission’s findings, calling it a “political and illegal organization.” The RSF, believed to be backed by the United Arab Emirates, did not comment.

The RSF is believed to be responsible for an attack this week that killed at least 40 people and injured about 100 at a market in Sennar, a military-controlled town. The shelling of the market followed military airstrikes that killed at least four people in al-Souki, a town near Sennar.

Sudan’s media reported that satellite images showed that tens of thousands of items had been stolen from the country’s National Museum, which has one of the most important collections of mummies and other antiquities in Africa. The museum is located in a district of the capital Khartoum that is controlled by the RSF.

Mohamed Albdri Sliman Bashir, an archaeologist at the University of Khartoum, wrote on The Conversation website on Tuesday that the losses were a “tragedy for future generations.”

“The antiquities we have lost were not just objects, but expressions of shared experiences that united the different communities in Sudan,” he wrote.

Spotlight: Harris cool, Trump cooks

USA: Ahead of this week’s first US presidential debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, Trump’s team reportedly advised him to remain calm and “cheerful” and not to appear aggressive.

But that plan failed miserably because Harris, a former prosecutor and experienced debater, coolly and methodically provoked and provoked the former president until a grim expression spread across his face that never went away.

Harris looked Trump straight in the eye as he stared straight ahead, mocking him for the bored crowds that left his rallies early, his six bankruptcies, his numerous indictments against him, his rebukes from his former aides and his flattery toward Xi Jinping.

Referring to Trump’s fraudulent claims that the 2020 election was rigged, Harris said, “Trump was fired by 81 million people… it’s obvious he’s having a very difficult time processing that.”

Trump apparently became unnerved and missed an opportunity – presented by the moderators – to attack Harris’s policy shift on issues such as crime and immigration, instead repeating debunked far-right claims on social media about migrants in Ohio eating people’s pets.

“We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics,” he insisted.

Ahead of the debate, Harris’s weaknesses were seen as the country’s economy – which most Americans, suffering from recent inflation, believe is in poor shape – and her unpopular role as vice president during the Biden administration. But she largely avoided challenging those potential weaknesses, instead attacking Trump for his anti-abortion record and portraying him as a relic of the past.

“[Trump] has no plan for you because he cares more about defending himself than exposing you,” she said.

When Trump attacked Biden’s age, Harris responded: “It’s important to remind the former president: You’re not running against Joe Biden; you’re running against me.”

Before the debate, polls suggested that Harris’ momentum had stalled since she replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee, but that she still holds a small lead over Trump, the Republican nominee. Although debates before this year were typically seen as having little significance for the campaign, the first presidential debate in late June ended with a dismal performance by Biden, who abandoned his re-election bid three weeks later.

On Tuesday night, Taylor Swift told her 284 million Instagram followers that she watched the debate and decided to vote for Harris.

“I consider her to be a calm and gifted leader and I am convinced that we can accomplish much more in this country if we are guided by calm, not chaos,” she wrote.

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