World roundup: February 9 2024

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

PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’re going to have a couple of interruptions in service over the next couple of weeks. After Kendrick’s “Week in Review” tomorrow I will be taking a couple of days away from the newsletter and will return on Tuesday. The following weekend is a holiday here in the US and I will be taking a few days then as well, starting after next Thursday’s roundup and resuming the following Tuesday. Thanks!

TODAY IN HISTORY

February 9, 1234: The Siege of Caizhou ends in victory for the combined Mongol-Song Dynasty besieging army and the end of the Jin Dynasty. The Mongols and the Jin, who ruled northern China, had been at war essentially since Genghis Khan first invaded the region in 1211 and Emperor Aizong of Jin had fled to Caizhou following the Mongol conquest of Kaifeng in February 1233. He sought aid from the Song, who ruled southern China, but they opted instead to ally with the Mongols in what proved to be a pretty big mistake. After their victory, the Song attempted to retake areas in northern China that they’d lost to the Jin the previous century but were driven off by the Mongols, who eventually eliminated the Song altogether in 1279.

February 9, 1943: US Army Major General Alexander Patch confirms that Japanese forces have retreated from Guadalcanal, marking the end of the six month long Guadalcanal Campaign. Japan’s retreat allowed the US to establish bases on Guadalcanal and the island of Tulagi to support further Pacific operations. The US victory is regarded as one of the major turning points in World War II’s Pacific Theater, helping to put Japan on the defensive.

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered his military (IDF) on Friday to “submit to the cabinet a combined plan for evacuating the population and destroying the [militant] battalions” in the southern Gazan city of Rafah. The inevitability of an IDF assault on Rafah has been building for days and really weeks—after destroying Gaza City and Khan Younis, there was nowhere left for Israeli forces to go. There’s also nowhere left for the population of Rafah—swollen by an estimated 1.3 million people already displaced from other parts of Gaza by the IDF campaign—to go, which makes Netanyahu’s notion of “evacuating” them nigh impossible. Of course, if anybody reading this actually thinks that Benjamin Netanyahu cares if these people are evacuated safely, all I can say is that I’ve recently been appointed director of the US federal government’s wallet inspector division so please send your wallets and their current contents to me as soon as possible.