World roundup: February 21 2024

Stories from Israel-Palestine, Somalia, Colombia, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

February 21, 1916: The Battle of Verdun—the longest battle of World War I and, indeed, in modern history—begins. It would end with a French victory over the attacking Germans almost a full ten months later, on December 18, after more than 300,000 soldiers had been killed on either side and upwards of 800,000 wounded. The battle is remembered today for its extended brutality and, in France, for the resistance the French army showed in the face of a sustained German effort to wear it down.

February 21, 1921: The Iranian Cossack Brigade marches into Tehran and, in a coup supported by British officials in Iran, forces Ahmad Shah Qajar to appoint a new cabinet led by journalist Ziaʾeddin Tabatabaee and military commander Reza Khan—the future Reza Shah Pahlavi.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

The Israeli military (IDF) reportedly “intensified” both its ground operation in Khan Younis and its air assault on Rafah on Wednesday. It’s been a while since we checked in on the official casualty figures, which now stand at 29,313 killed and 69,333 wounded since the start of the IDF’s Gaza campaign. Both figures, but particularly the former, are likely undercounting the true extent of the violence. On the ceasefire front, Israeli “war cabinet” member Benny Gantz held a press conference in which he described “promising early signs of possible progress” without elaboration. Gantz and other Israeli leaders have set the start of Ramadan (March 10 or 11) as the deadline for a prisoner exchange deal that would postpone—but not cancel—the IDF’s planned Rafah ground assault. And in the West Bank, IDF soldiers killed at least three Palestinians in the city of Jenin during a raid overnight. Israeli officials described all three as “terrorists.”