World roundup: August 9 2024

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

TODAY IN HISTORY

August 9 (or so), 378: A Gothic army annihilates a larger Roman army at the Battle of Adrianople (modern Edirne). Some two-thirds of the Roman soldiers were killed, including Emperor Valens. This virtual eradication of an imperial army opened the door for the Goths to move into the empire for good and contributed to the eventual collapse of the empire in the west.

August 9, 1945: The United States drops its second atomic bomb, this time on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, while the Soviet army invades Japanese-occupied Manchuria. Some 80,000 people are believed to have died of causes that can be linked to the bombing. The combination of the atomic bombings and the entry of the Soviets into the war against Japan is credited with convincing Japanese leaders to surrender, though there was and is evidence that they were preparing to do so anyway and the debate over the necessity of the bombings continues to the present day.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

The Israeli military (IDF) reentered Khan Younis on Friday, one day after it ordered another civilian evacuation of that city. The United Nations estimated that the order displaced some 60,000 people from the city’s eastern outskirts. This now well-established practice of “clearing” an area, then returning to “clear” it again under the claim that militants have reestablished themselves there, feels like it’s becoming normalized. But at the risk of stating the obvious it’s another manifestation of the IDF’s institutional disregard for Palestinian lives. It could actually secure the places it “clears,” but that would require manpower and would put Israeli soldiers at greater risk. It’s much easier to simply move on and return later if militants reemerge in a particular area. The only real downside is more dead and displaced civilians, and those things aren’t actually downsides as far as the Israelis are concerned.