World roundup: March 8 2024

Stories from Israel-Palestine, Niger, Portugal, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

March 8, 1010 (or thereabouts): Persian writer Abu’l-Qasim Ferdowsi completes his monumental epic, the Shahnameh.

March 8, 1722: At the Battle of Gulnabad, a Ghilzai Afghan army under Mahmud Hotak defeats the Safavid army, inflicting heavy casualties. The Safavid defeat exposed their capital, Isfahan, to the Afghan forces, who then besieged it. The Safavids surrendered on October 23, and while they had a brief semi-revival in the early 1730s, for all practical purposes this defeat brought their dynasty to a close.

March 8, 1963: Syria’s 8 March Revolution

MIDDLE EAST

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

At least five people were killed and ten more injured during another humanitarian airdrop in northern Gaza on Friday. Apparently a parachute failed to open and one of the pallets fell onto a residential area at full speed. It’s unclear who was involved in this specific operation (the US apparently carried out another airdrop on Friday but officials insist they weren’t involved in the fatal drop) but as an overall metaphor for the way the international community (and in particular the US government) has responded to what’s happening in Gaza I’m not sure it would be possible to construct a better one.