World roundup: August 3-4 2024

Stories from Israel-Palestine, Bangladesh, Sudan, and elsewhere

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THIS WEEKEND IN HISTORY

August 3, 1940: An Italian army crosses from Italian East Africa into British Somaliland, beginning an invasion that will end with Italy’s annexation of the colony on August 19. Britain organized a counterattack, Operation Appearance, which began on March 16, 1941, and ended with the British recapture of Somaliland on April 8. Following World War II, Britain assumed control over Italian East Africa, and eventually the former British and Italian Somalilands gained independence and merged into Somalia. Nowadays the territory of British Somaliland, under the name “Somaliland,” considers itself independent of Somalia, though that claim is not recognized internationally.

August 3, 1960: Having expressed its intention to leave the neocolonial “French Community” the previous month, the government of Niger gains full independence. Annually commemorated as Nigerien Independence Day.

August 4, 1578: The Battle of Alcácer Quibir

August 4, 1791: The Treaty of Sistova ends the Austrian-Ottoman War of 1787-1791. This rather unremarkable treaty, ending a rather unremarkable war (the Ottomans lost a little territory, but that’s it), turned out to be quite remarkable in hindsight because it marked the end of the long (265 year) series of Ottoman-Habsburg conflicts. Austria’s attentions turned west, due to the French Revolution, and later toward Prussia, while Russia became the Ottomans’ main adversary moving forward.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Concerns about a potential Middle Eastern war are so high in the wake of the Israeli government’s most recent provocations that the BBC could run a headline on Sunday that says “Casualties after third Israeli strike on school in a week” and it seems to have barely registered. But that is in fact what has happened. Sunday’s strike hit a school compound in Gaza city, one that the Israeli military (IDF) claims was being used by Hamas as a “hiding place.” Palestinian media is reporting that the attack killed at least 30 people, most of them women and children. The IDF also struck schools-turned-shelters in northern Gaza on Saturday and Thursday, and it also bombed al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah on Sunday (killing at least five people). I assume Hamas was using all of those places too, at least as far as the IDF wants anyone to know.

In case you’re still wondering, another round of ceasefire talks on Saturday ended with no deal. It turns out that when you change the terms of the deal in what is allegedly the final stage of talks, and then kill the political leader of the organization with which you’re negotiating, it isn’t conducive to reaching an accord. Who knew? Reports in Israeli media have even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own top security officials—Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and IDF boss Herzi Halevi—challenging his commitment to negotiating a ceasefire in closed door meetings. There are now rumors that Netanyahu is planning to fire them along with Shin Bet head Ronen Bar.

In other news:

• Stop me if you’ve heard this already, but Joe Biden is super mad at Netanyahu. Or at least that’s what the Biden administration is telling every media outlet under the sun. To be fair, while we’ve seen this vaudeville routine innumerable times since October 7, I can certainly imagine even Biden reaching the end of his rope after Netanyahu figuratively spit on him yet again by undermining the ceasefire talks and killing Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh. How is he showing his dissatisfaction, you ask? By doing whatever he can to insulate Netanyahu from the consequences of his actions. I believe it’s called “tough love.”

• Medical personnel in Gaza tell AFP that they’ve seen a rise in the number of burn wounds as a result of IDF attacks, which may reflect some sort of change in munitions or just the fact that the Israelis have spent the past few weeks attacking displaced persons camps full of flammable tent material. Needless to say Gaza’s crippled medical infrastructure is not equipped to handle these cases in anything approaching a humane fashion.

• The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said in a statement on Saturday that it’s effectively given up on getting permission from the Turkish government to undertake a humanitarian relief mission to Gaza. The Istanbul Port Authority has been stringing the coalition along for some time now and the suspicion is that Ankara is under pressure from the US not to allow the flotilla to set sail. The relationship between Israel and Turkey is in tatters so it’s unlikely the Turks are blocking the mission out of some sort of concern for Israeli sensibilities.

LEBANON

The IDF and Hezbollah engaged in what The New York Times characterized as “limited” shelling across the Israeli-Lebanese border over the weekend, but nothing that looks like Hezbollah’s big retaliation for the Fuad Shukr and Haniyeh killings. Ahead of the expected attacks from Iran, Hezbollah, and other members of the “Axis of Resistance” and the equally expected response from Israel, foreign nationals in Lebanon are reportedly making a break for the exit, even as airlines are cancelling flights to and from the country. Multiple governments have now warned their citizens to leave Lebanon as soon as possible, including the United States.

YEMEN

The Houthi movement acknowledged attacking a container ship in the Gulf of Aden on Saturday. Whatever damage the vessel suffered does not appear to have been serious. The group is also claiming to have shot down another US MQ-9 Reaper drone over northern Yemen, though I haven’t seen any comment on this from any other source as yet.

IRAN

The Iranian government finally commented publicly on the Haniyeh killing on Saturday and it appears to be sticking with the initial claim of some sort of airstrike, contradicting likely Israeli leaks suggesting that Haniyeh was killed by an explosive device covertly planted in his regular Tehran guest accommodations. The Iranians are claiming that the weapon that did the deed was “a short-range projectile with a warhead,” meaning it was presumably fired from within Iran. As I’ve said before I think the Iranians prefer this scenario because while it still reflects a security failure on their part it’s a much less egregious failure than the Israeli covert bomb story. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong, and the Israelis have just as much incentive to push the covert scenario because it hypes their intelligence capabilities.

Drop Site News’s Jeremy Scahill interviewed an Iran-based Hamas official named Khaled Qaddoumi who concurs with the airstrike story and argues that the Israelis manufactured the covert bombing tale to make Iranian officials paranoid over the possibility of moles or turncoats inside their security services. There are apparently reports that the Iranians are investigating the security failure and have made several arrests as a result, though again this was a security failure either way so that doesn’t necessarily indicate anything about what really happened. The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, is reporting that the Biden administration has “asked European and other partner governments to convey a message to Iran not to escalate,” and the Iranians in response have told them to get bent. It’s anybody’s guess whether that’s actually the case, but if you’re into dark humor you might get a kick out of learning that the administration has assured the Iranians that it is also pressuring Israel not to escalate. It seems like the horse is already out of the barn on that front, but what do I know?

ASIA

BANGLADESH

A shocking wave of violence attended a new round of anti-government protests in Bangladesh on Sunday, leaving at least 91 people dead (including 13 police officers) across the country. Those police deaths appear to have stemmed from some sort of attack on a police facility in the city of Sirajganj, details of which are still unclear. Demonstrators calling for Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s resignation clashed with security forces and with pro-government counter-protesters. The government has imposed a new nationwide curfew that went into effect at 6 PM local time, but protest organizers seem determined to ignore that.

VIETNAM

As expected, Vietnamese President Tô Lâm was named general secretary of the country’s communist party on Saturday. He replaces Nguyễn Phú Trọng, who died last month. Lâm was already serving in that capacity on an interim basis. It’s unclear whether he will now give up the presidency, which is technically Vietnam’s head of state but in practice is subordinate to the party leader, or if he will maintain both posts and effectively merge them.

AFRICA

SUDAN

More shelling from the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group reportedly killed at least 23 people in the besieged Sudanese city of Al-Fashir on Saturday. RSF attacks on the city have killed more than 80 people over the past week or so and at least 260 people since late June according to Doctors Without Borders. It’s still unclear when the RSF plans to make a move to seize the city, which is the last major population center in the Darfur region that the group doesn’t already control.

MALI

Mali’s ruling junta announced on Sunday that it’s cutting diplomatic ties with Ukraine. Given the extent of the junta’s relationship with Russia the main question this prompts is: what took them so long? As it happens, it was the claim of unspecified Ukrainian involvement in the defeat the Malian army and its Russian mercenary partners suffered to a rebel force last month that prompted this decision. It’s still not entirely clear how (or whether, really) the Ukrainians were actually a participant in that battle, but it seems Malian officials are convinced that they played a significant role.

SOMALIA

Friday evening’s al-Shabab attack on a popular beach area in Mogadishu left at least 37 people dead, according to Somali authorities. Over 200 people were wounded, most of them lightly though 11 are reportedly in intensive care. Al-Shabab has targeted the Lido beach area on several occasions in the past.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

Despite a humanitarian truce that expired on Saturday and a ceasefire that was supposed to kick in on Sunday, the M23 militia has been able to seize control of two towns in the eastern DRC’s North Kivu province this weekend. On Saturday they entered the town of Nyamilima near the Ugandan border as the pro-government militia that had been occupying it withdrew. On Sunday they took another town near the border, Ishasha, as local police fled into Uganda to escape them. In neither case was there any report of fighting, making this something of a gray area in terms of whether or not M23 actually violated the ceasefire’s terms.

EUROPE

UKRAINE

The Ukrainian government ordered the evacuation of children and their guardians from areas of Donetsk oblast on Sunday, shortly after the Russian military announced that its forces had seized the town of Novohrodivka. The order covers 744 children and their families, according to provincial governor Vadym Filashkin, and presumably reflects the government’s dimming hopes of being able to stem Russia’s slow but steady advance. On the other side of the scale, the Ukrainians are claiming that they were able to sink a Russian Kilo-class attack submarine and strike an S-400 air defense system in Crimea over the weekend. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the receipt of Ukraine’s first batch of F-16s on Sunday. It’s unclear how many F-16s Ukraine has received so far (eventually it’s supposed to take possession of around 60 of them), nor is it clear how much of an impact the aircraft is going to be able to make.

UNITED KINGDOM

Far-right mobs have been attacking minorities and clashing with police across parts of the UK for the past week, stemming from false claims that the perpetrator of a knife attack in the town of Southport on Monday was an immigrant (in reality the suspect, who is in custody, is from Wales).

Saturday’s riot in Rotherham (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

The violence escalated precipitously over the weekend, as The Washington Post reports:

Far-right and anti-immigrant demonstrations across Britain descended into violence over the weekend, including clashes with riot police at a hotel housing asylum seekers, following misinformation about a mass stabbing that killed three children at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class last week.

No employees or guests at the Holiday Inn Express in Rotherham were injured, police said, but at least 10 officers were injured.

It was not immediately clear how far the sieging demonstrators went into the hotel, but photos showed confrontations between police and protesters, violence that Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned as “far-right thuggery.”

“Be in no doubt, those that have participated in this violence will face the full force of the law,” he said in a speech Sunday afternoon.

The UK’s Conservative Party-led government spent several years demonizing asylum seekers and fanning the flames of intolerance in a frantic effort to fend off political threats from its right. The party is no longer in power but its leaders own a sizable chunk of what’s happening here.

AMERICAS

VENEZUELA

Thousands of Venezuelans protested across the country on Saturday to express their…oh, let’s say “reservations” about President Nicolás Maduro’s victory (at least officially) in last month’s election. Maduro is, unsurprisingly, not in the mood to consider their objections. He told a crowd of his supporters at their own rally in Caracas that his security forces have arrested some 2000 people so far in connection with what he’s characterized as an attempted coup.

UNITED STATES

Finally, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced late Friday that he’s overruling the plea deal that military prosecutors reached earlier in the week with three Guantánamo Bay detainees—(alleged) 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi. The deal would have taken the death penalty off of the table in their cases and I’d assume that was deemed too politically sensitive for an election year (it had already drawn criticism from some 9/11 victims’ families and from Republicans in Congress).

The US government’s main impetus for making these deals concerns the potential inadmissibility of any evidence (including confessions) obtained from the three men during or after the torture they suffered at the hands of the CIA. That issue has been the primary factor in holding up their trials and the plea deal was viewed as a way to get things moving again. The decision to rescind the agreement injects new uncertainty into the case, particularly around said evidence and its legality.