Major allies sent Israel a warning
Israel’s threats to drastically escalate the war in Gaza and its blockade of humanitarian aid to the population, which is already at risk of famine, have drawn the sharpest condemnation yet from some of its allies since the conflict began 19 months ago.
Britain said yesterday that it was suspending talks with Israel on expanding a free-trade agreement. The day before, Britain, France and Canada demanded that Israel stop its “wholly disproportionate” escalation and made clear that its conduct of the war, the high death toll and the abysmal humanitarian conditions in Gaza were pushing the limits of what allies would tolerate.
“If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response,” the three countries warned in a rare public reprimand.
Response: Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the allies had handed Hamas “a huge prize” and accused them of encouraging a repeat of the militants’ Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, which started the war.
A warning: A senior U.N. humanitarian official, Tom Fletcher, told the BBC yesterday that 14,000 babies in Gaza could die in the next 48 hours unless aid was allowed in. But the U.N. later appeared to walk back his remarks.
Ukrainians brace for a longer war
Since his two-hour phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Monday, President Trump has seemed to step back from trying to end the war in Ukraine. Many Ukrainians take that to mean the fighting will rage on with no end in sight.
Few in Ukraine thought the recent diplomatic efforts had any chance of success unless the Trump administration put pressure on Moscow. “America and Russia are playing a dirty and bloody game,” said Liliia Zambrovska, a pharmacist in Dnipro. But Ukraine will fight on, she added, “because our future belongs to us alone.”
Analysis: Putin held firm against pressure to agree to an immediate cease-fire. But that victory could undermine, or at least delay, his broader goal of normalizing relations with the U.S. Trump has said that a renewal of economic ties would come after peace was achieved in Ukraine, not before.
Sanctions: The E.U. expanded its sanctions on Russia to include the country’s fleet of covert oil tankers. European officials said more such measures were on the way.
The system, inspired by Israel’s Iron Dome, is meant to be capable of intercepting rockets and missiles, but experts say the plan faces logistical and financial hurdles. The U.S. is more than 400 times the size of Israel.
By the numbers: Trump has said the project’s cost would be $175 billion, though one Congressional Budget Office estimate puts it as high as $542 billion. The president said that $25 billion would come from his domestic policy bill, which has yet to pass Congress, and that Canada had expressed interest in taking part and might contribute.
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What do teenagers know? Plenty, it turns out. My colleagues at The Learning Network invited young people from around the world to explain how to perform any task, then picked 10 winning submissions. (See the full list of winners.)
A story collection won the International Booker Prize
“Heart Lamp,” a collection of stories about Indian Muslim women’s daily struggles with bothersome husbands, mothers and religious leaders, won the International Booker Prize, the major award for fiction translated into English.
Written by Banu Mushtaq and translated from the original Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi — the two women are pictured above, with Mushtaq at left — “Heart Lamp” is the first story collection to win the prize. Max Porter, the chair of the judging panel, praised Bhasthi for filling the translation with Indian phrases and ways of speaking that give the stories “an extraordinary vibrancy.”
The choice was a surprise, said my colleague Alex Marshall, who covers European culture: “It’s rare enough for publishers to want to issue a short story collection, let alone for judges to want to anoint one the year’s best book.”
