World roundup: December 13 2024

Stories from Syria, Georgia, Sudan, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

December 13, 1577: Francis Drake begins the expedition that would eventually take him around the world, returning to England in 1580. Although Ferdinand Magellan circumnavigated the Earth first, roughly 60 years earlier, he managed to get himself killed along the way. Drake has the distinction of being the first person to command a voyage around the world from start to finish.

December 13, 1937: The Imperial Japanese army defeats the Chinese National Revolutionary Army and captures the city of Nanjing. What followed became known as the Nanjing Massacre, as Japanese soldiers spent the next six weeks slaughtering prisoners and civilians in the city. Estimates of the death toll vary widely, but most scholars believe it was somewhere between 40,000 and the official Chinese count of 300,000.

INTERNATIONAL

A new report from Reporters Without Borders finds that 54 journalists worldwide have been killed as they were working this year. The Israeli military (IDF) has been responsible for killing one-third of them, 16 in Gaza and two in Lebanon. The total in Gaza far surpasses the next three places on the list: Pakistan (seven deaths), Bangladesh (five) and Mexico (also five). Earlier this week a report from the International Federation of Journalists found that at least 104 journalists and other media workers have been killed this year, 55 of them in Gaza.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

A new report from Airwars offers a stunning assessment of Israel’s campaign of annihilation in Gaza over just the first month after the October 7 attack:

By almost every metric, the harm to civilians from the first month of the Israeli campaign in Gaza is incomparable with any 21st century air campaign. It is by far the most intense, destructive, and fatal conflict for civilians that Airwars has ever documented. Key findings include:

At least 5,139 civilians were killed in Gaza in 25 days in October 2023. This is nearly four times more civilians reported killed in a single month than in any conflict Airwars has documented since it was established in 2014.

In October 2023 alone, Airwars documented at least 65 incidents in which a minimum of 20 civilians were killed in a particular incident. This is nearly triple the number of such high-fatality incidents that Airwars has documented within any comparable timeframe.

Over the course of 25 days, Airwars recorded a minimum of 1,900 children killed by Israeli military action in Gaza. This is nearly seven times higher than even the most deadly month for children previously recorded by Airwars.

Families were killed together in unprecedented numbers, and in their homes. More than nine out of ten women and children were killed in residential buildings. In more than 95 percent of all cases where a woman was killed, at least one child was also killed.

On average, when civilians were killed alongside family members, at least 15 family members were killed. This is higher than any other conflict documented by Airwars.

The IDF resumed battering Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahia area overnight, in case you were wondering if anything’s changed since last October.