World roundup: August 1 2024
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Sudan, Russia, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
August 1, 1798: The Battle of the Nile

August 1, 1927: The Nanchang Uprising marks the start of the Chinese Civil War. In a direct response to the Shanghai Massacre of April 12, in which Kuomintang forces purged Chinese Communist Party members from their ranks (and killed thousands of them, though the casualty figures are disputed), a CCP army captured Nanchang, home of the Revolutionary Committee of the Chinese Nationalist Party. This was one of several CCP uprisings around the country. Realizing they couldn’t hold the city against a counterattack, the CCP withdrew on August 5 and undertook what became known as the “Little Long March” south to Guangdong province. China’s People’s Liberation Army dates its founding to this uprising.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The Israeli military (IDF) said on Thursday that it has confirmed that its July 13 airstrike on Gaza’s al-Mawasi “protected zone” did kill Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif—along with more than 90 other people, most of them civilians. Hamas has been insisting that Deif survived the attack, without providing any evidence though that’s not necessarily significant for a shadowy figure like Deif. It’s unclear how the IDF was finally able to confirm his death and it’s reasonable to question how “confirmed” it should be considered without some more independent information.
Elsewhere, Hamas is calling for a “day of rage” on Friday in response to the Israeli assassination of the group’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Iran on Wednesday. The Iranian government held a funeral service for Haniyeh on Thursday (more on that below) and his body will be buried in Qatar on Friday. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in Mongolia on his big Asia trip, called on “all parties to talk, to stop taking any escalatory actions.” The thing is there’s really only the one party taking escalatory action right now and the Biden administration has no stomach for pressuring it to stop. On a somewhat unrelated note, Reuters reported on Thursday that the Turkish government “has blocked cooperation between NATO and Israel since October because of the war in Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner until there is an end to the conflict.” Israel is a NATO “partner,” a status that involves regular meetings and joint exercises under normal circumstances.
It still remains to be seen what effect killing Haniyeh will have on Gaza ceasefire talks. Believe it or not there are analysts making the argument that this actually makes a ceasefire more likely, in that the Israeli government now has a reason to declare victory and pull back. Given that the Israeli government has been the main obstacle to a deal this isn’t an entirely baseless supposition. But as with most foreign policy analysis it treats Hamas as a two dimensional entity that can only react to whatever Israel does and has no real agency of its own. It’s hard to imagine the group going back into talks immediately after the Israelis killed its senior-most political leader. And even on the Israeli side, while I’m sure they’re celebrating Haniyeh’s death a ceasefire would undermine Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s need for a lengthy conflict to keep him in office. Unless killing Haniyeh gives Netanyahu a sudden boost of popularity such that he feels he can win a snap election I think it’s unlikely he’ll be looking for an exit ramp even now.
LEBANON
An Israeli airstrike reportedly killed at least four Syrian nationals and wounded five Lebanese nationals in southern Lebanon on Thursday. AFP described the deceased as farm workers.
Israel’s killing of senior Hezbollah military figure Fuad Shukr in southern Beirut on Tuesday has gotten a bit lost in the furor over the Haniyeh killing the following day, but Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah issued a reminder on Thursday that a retaliation for that attack “is settled and beyond debate.” Nasrallah, who was delivering a speech at Shukr’s funeral, also referred to “a new phase” in the conflict with Israel. Reuters, citing diplomats and “security sources” allegedly familiar with the situation, suggests that the IDF’s decision to strike Beirut violated understandings that Hezbollah had regarding US efforts to convince the Israelis not to carry out any strikes in the Lebanese capital in retaliation for the deadly weekend rocket strike in the occupied Golan that Israel has blamed on Hezbollah. Which likely means the group will be less receptive to international diplomacy moving forward.
IRAN
Haniyeh’s funeral in Tehran on Thursday included a number of “calls for revenge” against Israel, as AFP put it. There may be some indications that whatever revenge is coming will be measured. AFP also reported, based on “sources and analysts,” that Iranian and “Axis of Resistance” officials met on Wednesday to discuss plans for a coordinated retaliation. This reporting suggests a two-stage response, with Iran and its various partners in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen conducting one phase and Hezbollah, perhaps because of the additional insult of the Shukr killing, carrying out its own phase. The Iranian-led phase could be restricted to military targets while the Hezbollah phase may threaten more civilian targets to reflect the fact that the Shukr strike took place in a residential Beirut neighborhood and killed five civilians in addition to the intended target. Whatever they do may be calibrated to try to minimize further escalation, though that will of course be up to the Israelis.
The New York Times, citing “seven Middle Eastern officials, including two Iranians, and an American official,” is reporting that Haniyeh was killed not in an airstrike as originally reported but by an explosive device that “had been hidden approximately two months ago” in the “Tehran guesthouse” where he was known to stay. It doesn’t matter as far as the end result is concerned of course, but this does change the calculus around the attack if it’s true. For one thing, it lends a bit more credence to claims from US officials that they were uninvolved, because this is something the Israelis could have pulled off on their own (note that I’m not saying the US wasn’t involved, just that it’s easier to believe that in this scenario). For another, it shows conclusively that the Israelis have been planning to kill Haniyeh for at least two months and this wasn’t a spur of the moment decision. You’ll note that the Biden administration has been insisting for about that long that the Israeli government was 100 percent committed to a ceasefire. If that assertion wasn’t already in doubt before it certainly should be now. For yet another thing, this scenario compounds the Iranian failure to provide security for their guest and could lead to purges or the like in the Iranian security establishment.
ASIA
INDIA
There’s been an overall increase in militant attacks in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state in recent months, but Al Jazeera also notes what appears to be another trend: that violence seems to be shifting toward Jammu, rather than Kashmir. At least seven militant incidents have taken place in Jammu this year, compared with three in all of 2022 and 2023. The reason may be opportunity. Indian security forces have focused their resources and attention on Kashmir and on the Chinese border, leaving Jammu relatively unprotected. Moreover, Jammu’s terrain allows for guerrilla style attacks more readily than Kashmir’s.
BANGLADESH
The Bangladeshi government on Thursday proscribed the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami party and its student wing in response to the anti-quota protests last month that left scores of people (the toll is now apparently up to over 210) dead. The party denied any responsibility for the violence, much of which does seem to have originated with Bangladeshi security forces and pro-government groups rather than with the protesters. Jamaat-e-Islami was already barred from participating in elections after officials ruled in 2013 that its religious character violates Bangladesh’s constitution, but this order will completely outlaw it as an institution.
NORTH KOREA
Former North Korean diplomat Ri Il Kyu, who defected to South Korea last year, has claimed in an interview with Reuters that Pyongyang is hoping to resume nuclear negotiations with the US if Donald Trump wins November’s presidential election. According to Ri, North Korean officials are “working to devise a new negotiating strategy” in hopes of escaping US sanctions and even securing economic aid. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held two summits with Trump, the second of which went badly due to disagreements over sanctions. Ri also claims that Kim is interested in meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio. He’d like to trade unspecified “concessions” around the issue of several Japanese nationals who were kidnapped and taken to North Korea in the 1970s and 1980s for economic assistance from Tokyo.
AFRICA
SUDAN
The Famine Review Committee has declared a famine, according to the internationally recognized Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), in the Zamzam displaced persons camp in Sudan’s North Darfur state. This is just the third time such a designation has been made since the IPC scale was created in 2004. There are some 500,000 people living in that camp, which is located near North Darfur’s besieged capital, Al-Fashir. The Rapid Support Forces group’s siege has prevented humanitarian aid from entering that area for months and local food availability will be minimal until at least October, the traditional harvest season. It’s believed that other displaced persons camps around Al-Fashir are likely facing similar conditions.
MALI
Mali’s Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD) rebel coalition claimed on Thursday that its forces killed at least 131 Malian soldiers and Russian Wagner Group/African Corps mercenaries in a battle last week in northeastern Mali’s Kidal region. The CSP had previously claimed a major victory there but had not offered any details in terms of casualties. That figure includes at least 84 mercenaries, which if accurate would make this one of the worst losses in Wagner/Africa Corps history. The jihadist group Jamaʿat Nusrat al-Islam wa’l-Muslimin is also claiming to have killed some 50 mercenaries and ten soldiers in Kidal at around the same time, but it’s unclear if these are supposed to be in addition to the deaths claimed by the CSP.
NIGERIA
A bombing, possibly a suicide attack, targeting a teahouse in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state reportedly killed at least 19 people on Wednesday evening. There’s been no claim of responsibility.
Elsewhere, at least three people were killed in northern Nigeria’s Kaduna state on Thursday amid nationwide protests over Nigerian President Bola Tinubu’s economic agenda and the pain it’s inflicting on ordinary Nigerians. Apparently motivated by the success of recent protests in Kenya in forcing President William Ruto to rescind a planned tax hike, demonstrators are demanding measures to combat inflation and some restoration of social programs that Tinubu has cut in service of his broader austerity agenda. Specific details as to these three deaths are unknown so it’s unclear what role security forces played in causing them.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
What was already rumored to be a major emerging US-Russian prisoner exchange turned out on Thursday to be the largest such swap since the days when “Russia” was part of the Soviet Union. In all 24 people were released, 16 by the Russian government and eight by authorities in Germany, Norway, Slovenia, and the United States. Included among the 16 released by Russia are US journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, along with former US Marine Paul Whelan and Russian-British activist Vladimir Kara-Murza. The released Russians include Vadim Krasikov, a retired FSB officer who was in German prison for having assassinated Chechen militant Zelimkhan Khangoshvili in Berlin in 2019. Negotiations on this exchange had apparently been going on for quite some time—at one point they also involved Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny, who died in prison in February.
The scope of this deal, apparently mediated by the Turkish government (the exchange itself took place in Turkey), raises some obvious questions about what else the US and Russian might be talking about behind the scenes. Maybe they’re not talking about anything—in fact that’s probably the right answer. If they are talking, most likely it’s about the US nationals who are still in Russian custody, at least two of whom Washington considers wrongfully imprisoned.
UKRAINE
A recent investigative piece from VSquare highlights the mass exploitation of Ukrainian refugees across Europe:
The struggles Ukranians face in European labor markets range from missing wages and illegally low pay to unlivable housing conditions, psychological violence and a complete disregard for the wellbeing of workers and standards set by employment law.
Eva Malá from the NGO People in Need summarizes the situation like this: “The war stirred up the business of poverty. Companies can make money at the expense of Ukrainians in three ways: charging rent, receiving subsidies for refugees and exploiting them through agency work.”
NGOs engaged in helping affected workers have been reporting rising numbers of Ukrainians seeking help in dealing with abusive labor practices. For example, Faire Integration in Germany, a consultant network that advises foreigners, reportedly received over 1,400 cases of Ukrainians seeking advice in 2023, with work related questions being the overwhelming focus. Similarly, the Czech NGO Foreigner is not a slave registers hundreds of requests for help per year.
The Czech Labor Inspectorate reports that common labor law violations against Ukrainian workers include unpaid or underpaid wages, illegal work, missing time records and incomplete agreements. On social media, Foreigner’s founder Jaroslav Čepa described these practices as the “wage mafia.”.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Colombian President Gustavo Petro, and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador had themselves a group phone chat on Thursday, after which they issued a joint statement calling on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to release “itemized ballot box level results” from Sunday’s election to the public. Venezuela’s National Electoral Council should already have released that data, and its failure/refusal to do so has become evidence for the opposition’s claim to have won the election regardless of the “official” result. At this point it’s unclear whether opposition leaders (and their international backers, especially the US) would accept that data as valid—if the figures show Maduro winning they can now easily claim that the books were cooked.
In what I suppose was meant as a concession to doubters, Maduro on Wednesday offered to have Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice audit the election results. Given how many of its judges have been appointed by Maduro this seems unlikely to pacify the opposition. Late Thursday news broke that the Biden administration has decided to recognize opposition candidate Edmundo González as Venezuela’s legitimate president. This worked out great the last time the US government tried it, so I’m excited to see how it goes this time around.
UNITED STATES
Finally, there’s a movement afoot in certain US political circles supporting a return to nuclear weapons testing. At Foreign Affairs, Jeffrey Lewis cautions against it:
The United States has not conducted a nuclear explosion in more than 30 years. Nor has Russia or China. The United States, Russia, and China are among the 187 countries that have signed the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) which prohibits all nuclear explosions, of any size. The treaty is administered by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization, which maintains a vast international monitoring system of seismic, infrasound, hydroacoustic, and radionuclide stations. Thanks to the treaty, there is a strong international norm against nuclear testing. Since nuclear detonations by India and Pakistan in 1998, no other country has conducted an explosion, with the lamentable exception of North Korea.
Still, the treaty itself has never entered into force. Although the United States signed it in 1996, Republicans in the Senate voted against ratifying it. China, which also signed, has refused to ratify it until the United States does. And Russia, which ratified the treaty in 2000, withdrew its ratification in November 2023. After nearly 30 years in limbo, the treaty’s future is very uncertain.
[Former Trump administration national security adviser Robert] O’Brien’s proposal, then, comes at an awkward moment. There are real questions about whether Russia might resume nuclear explosions. Russia, China and the United States all keep their nuclear test sites in at least a partial state of readiness. Satellite images show new buildings, ongoing work on tunnels, and a steady stream of people and equipment at all three sites. The big problem is the possibility that one of the big three nuclear powers will resume detonating nuclear weapons. Once one does, the other two are likely to follow suit. And make no mistake: the resumption of nuclear weapons testing would be bad for the United States.