Israeli strikes on a Gaza hospital killed five journalists
Two Israeli strikes hit a hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis yesterday, killing 20 people, including five journalists. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for what he called a “tragic mishap” and said the Israeli military would conduct an investigation.
It was one of the deadliest attacks on journalists during the nearly two-year war. The Gaza health ministry, which provided the death toll, also said that dozens of other people were wounded. The five journalists had worked for media outlets including Reuters, The Associated Press and Al Jazeera.
“Double tap” strike: A live video feed from Al-Ghad TV, a broadcaster based in Cairo, captured the aftermath of the blast at Nasser Hospital. The video, which was verified by The New York Times, showed emergency responders and others moving a white body bag on a staircase. Shortly after, a second strike is captured live on camera. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to questions as to whether its forces had conducted a “double tap,” the term for a double strike at the same location. Rights groups have deplored such attacks.
Context: The war in Gaza has been deadly for journalists, with at least 192 killed so far, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Israel has barred international correspondents from reporting freely in Gaza, so much of the world currently relies on Palestinian journalists to report from Gaza.
The journalists: Among the five killed were Mariam Dagga, a 33-year-old visual journalist and freelancer for The Associated Press, and Hussam al-Masri, a cameraman for Reuters. Here’s more about them.
Trump met with South Korea’s leader
During his first meeting with President Lee Jae Myung of South Korea at the White House yesterday, President Trump heaped praise on Kim Jong-un, the North Korean dictator. Trump, who made a historic visit to meet Kim in 2019, repeatedly mentioned that he had a good relationship with him, said the North had “great potential” and offered to arrange a meeting between Kim and Lee.
Lee started off by complimenting the Oval Office’s gilt décor and praising Trump as a peacemaker, even as the alliance between South Korea and the U.S. is showing some signs of strain. Trump, who has often spoken admiringly about authoritarians, mentioned that he was looking forward to another meeting with Kim “in the appropriate future.”
Context: Since taking office in June, Lee has repeatedly said that he wants to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula. But North Korea last month rejected his proposal for talks.
The end of China’s once mightiest property firm
China Evergrande, once China’s biggest property developer, was delisted from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange yesterday. Evergrande’s collapse set off a housing downturn that has been hanging over China’s economy for five years, with no end in sight.
The company, which went public in Hong Kong 16 years ago, will be remembered for a mammoth default in 2021 with $300 billion of debt, exposing the vulnerabilities of China’s economy and the country’s overreliance on real estate to drive growth.
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| Vietnam: The government issued evacuation orders for more than 325,000 people as Typhoon Kajiki moved across a wide area between Hanoi and Da Nang. Economy: Trump removed Lisa Cook from the board of governors of the Federal Reserve, in a legally dubious move that could undermine the central bank’s independence. U.S.: Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the immigrant who was deported to El Salvador and then brought back to the U.S., was arrested again and may be sent to Uganda. Ukraine: While many militaries remove pregnant soldiers from combat, Ukrainian women usually serve until their seventh month. France: Prime Minister François Bayrou announced a special parliamentary session next month to address a ballooning public debt. Tech: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence firm, xAI, sued Apple, accusing the company of giving preferential treatment to OpenAI. Denmark: The wind farm developer Orsted’s share price plunged after the Trump administration halted a $6.2 billion project off the coast of Rhode Island. Germany: Prosecutors said that they had charged an American former military contractor with trying to sell sensitive U.S. information to China. Business: Keurig Dr Pepper said that it would acquire the European coffee company JDE Peet’s for roughly $18 billion. Science: Chinese scientists reported transplanting a lung from a pig into a brain-dead man. Music: The Northern Irish rap group Kneecap, which has made anti-Israel comments onstage, canceled its U.S. tour amid a legal dispute in Britain. |
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| MORNING READ |
Visitors to Pyongyang can pay for coffee at a knockoff Starbucks with their mobile phones or buy furniture at the North Korean version of IKEA. On the coast, a seaside resort offers foreign beers and water slides.
Footage from travelers obtained by The New York Times provided these glimpses into how North Korea is trying to modernize by embracing the consumerism of the outside world. Watch the video above by a Russian tourist who went to the beach resort last month.
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Heat waves might be making you age faster
Intense heat doesn’t just make you feel run down; new research shows that enduring heat waves can actually accelerate your rate of aging.
After analyzing 15 years of health data from nearly 25,000 adults in Taiwan, scientists found that long-term exposure to heat waves could add days and weeks to a person’s biological age, which compares the health of a person’s internal organs and cells to those of a perfectly healthy person. Groups like older people and outdoor workers experience worse effects, and longer exposure results in more pronounced aging. Read more.
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