World roundup: August 22 2025

Stories from Israel-Palestine, North Korea, Somalia, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

August 22, 1153: A Crusader army captures the city of Ascalon (modern Ashkelon) from the Fatimid Caliphate, ending a nearly seven month siege. Ascalon had been a priority for the Crusaders since the First Crusade, and its importance had only grown since then as it served as a Fatimid beachhead into Crusader territory and was the main point of origin for Fatimid raiding parties. With brief interruptions the city remained in Crusader hands until the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate destroyed it in 1270 as part of its wider and ultimately successful campaign to eliminate the Crusader kingdoms altogether.

August 22, 1864: An international convention held in Geneva produces a treaty outlining humane “rules” of war, including provisions for the treatment of sick and wounded soldiers. That treaty would subsequently be amended and expanded four times and is the basis of the First Geneva Convention, which was adopted along with the other three Geneva Conventions in 1949.

The convention signing, by French illustrator Charles Édouard Armand-Dumaresq (Wikimedia Commons)

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

The Israeli military (IDF) has killed at least 65 people in Gaza since daybreak on Friday including at least a dozen civilians in a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City. But perhaps the bigger headline involved the official designation of famine conditions in northern Gaza according to the United Nations-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) system. By IPC standards some 514,000 people in Gaza City and surrounding areas are facing famine, which is roughly a quarter of the total population of Gaza, and that figure is expected to hit 641,000 by the end of next month when the famine will likely have spread south into Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis. IDF operations north of Gaza City have made it impossible to assess conditions there so the situation may actually be worse than this designation suggests. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the designation “an outright lie.”

Elsewhere: