TODAY IN HISTORY
April 22, 1809: Napoleon’s army defeats the Austrians under Archduke Charles at the Battle of Eckmühl, in Bavaria. The victory is considered a turning point in the 1809 War of the Fifth Coalition, because it blunted Austria’s invasion of Bavaria, which had caught the French leader somewhat by surprise, and allowed Napoleon to go on the offensive by invading Austria.
April 22, 1948: In one of the last major engagements before the civil war in Mandatory Palestine turned into the Arab-Israeli War, the Jewish paramilitary organization Haganah captures the Arab sections of the port city of Haifa from the Palestinians. Haifa was one of six largely mixed cities that the Haganah captured between the start of April and the middle of May. By the end of May, between voluntary flight and involuntary expulsions the number of Arabs living in those cities collectively dropped from an estimated 177,000 to an estimated 13,000.
MIDDLE EAST
LEBANON
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least five people across southern Lebanon on Wednesday, including another journalist. The reporter, Amal Khalil, worked for the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar. She was covering an earlier IDF strike on the village of at-Tiri when the IDF attacked a building in that same village, burying her in the rubble. Continued IDF strikes in the area prevented rescue workers from reaching the site for hours afterward. A second journalist caught in that same attack was recovered alive and is reportedly in serious condition. The IDF denies targeting journalists. Lebanese and Israeli delegations are scheduled to meet in Washington on Thursday, when the most immediate item on the agenda should be an extension of their current ten day “ceasefire.”
