Category: 2. World

In the weeks leading up to Israel’s war with Iran, which it launched on 13 June, there had been little let-up in its offensive in Gaza. A tenuous ceasefire had broken down in March, and a wave of airstrikes followed, as well as an 11-week blockade on all aid. Though some humanitarian assistance was allowed in from late May, military action intensified at the same time.

Growing numbers of desperate Palestinians were being killed as they sought scarce food either from looted aid convoys or from distribution hubs set up by the new, secretive Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a group backed by Israel and the US as an alternative to the existing, much more comprehensive UN-led system. Rolling IDF “evacuation orders” covered much of the territory.

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14 June

On the second day of the Israel-Iran conflict, at least 20 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes in Gaza, according to local health officials, and another 11 near food distribution points run by the GHF. Palestinian witnesses said Israeli forces fired on the crowds, while the Israeli military said it fired warning shots near people it described as suspects who approached its forces.

Footage filmed in Gaza City showed people pleading for food at a soup kitchen distribution point.

Gaza City soup kitchen 14 June.

A day later, eight more Palestinians were killed as they sought aid.

16 June

Before dawn, Israeli troops opened fire on crowds of hungry Palestinians heading for two hubs managed by the GHF. At least 37 people died, mainly while trying to reach the GHF centre near the southern city of Rafah, which has largely been razed by the Israeli military, and close to a second GHF site in central Gaza.

Most of the casualties were taken to the Nasser hospital, which received more than 300 injured people. More than 200 patients were take to a Red Cross field hospital – the highest number received by the facility in one single mass casualty incident to date.

17 June

On the bloodiest day for weeks in Gaza, witnesses described scenes like “a horror movie” after Israeli forces fired towards a crowd waiting for UN trucks loaded with flour near Khan Younis in the south, killing at least 59 Palestinians and injuring hundreds more.

Gaza death graphic

Footage showed people carrying flour bags away from the scene before the IDF began shooting.

People carrying flour at food distribution site.

A short time later injured Palestinians were seen arriving at a hospital in Khan Younis.

The incident led to a temporary suspension of such convoys, exacerbating an acute lack of food in the devastated territory. Fuel, clean water, medical supplies and much else is also in short supply, with dire humanitarian consequences. An Israeli military spokesperson said troops followed international law and took feasible precautions to mitigate civilian harm.

18 June

Once again, vast crowds gathered to “self-distribute” flour loaded on to aid convoys in central Gaza, and once again they were fired on by Israeli troops. Reports put the death toll at 11. A series of airstrikes killed at least 24 Palestinians, including a nine-year-old boy, who died in the Bureij refugee camp.

19 June

Aid officials said an average of 23 UN trucks a day were entering Gaza through the main checkpoint of Kerem Shalom, but admitted most aid had been “self-distributed” by hungry Palestinians who stopped them, or was looted by organised gangs. Fifteen Palestinians waiting for aid were killed in central Gaza. Elsewhere, about 60 people were reported killed in a wave of airstrikes.

20 June

New displacement orders issued by the Israeli military sent thousands fleeing eastern parts of Gaza City. Elsewhere, at least 24 people waiting for aid were killed by Israeli fire, according to local health authorities, in addition to other deaths by airstrikes.

Marwan Abu Nasser, the director of al-Awda hospital in the town of Nuseirat, said his staff had dealt with 21 injured and 24 dead people. “The injuries were extremely severe, most of them in the chest and head. There were women, children and young people among the injured,” Abu Nasser said.

This footage shows scenes from a funeral in held in Gaza on 20 June.

This footage shows scenes from a funeral held on 20 June for Palestinians killed by the IDF.

21 June

The Israeli military retrieved the bodies of three Israeli hostages from the Gaza Strip. All had been killed on 7 October 2023 during the Hamas raid into Israel that triggered the war. Fifty Israeli and foreign nationals remain captive in Gaza, more than half of whom are thought to be dead.

23 June

Further displacement orders were issued by the Israeli military for parts of Khan Younis in advance of new operations. More than 80% of the territory in Gaza is now covered by such orders or held by Israeli troops. Israeli authorities said they had facilitated the entry of 430 trucks of humanitarian aid into Gaza over the previous seven days, a fraction of the 500 a day the UN estimates is needed.

Footage from Beit Lahiya in the far north of the territory showed people attempting to clamber on to aid trucks.

Crowds of people gather on and beside aid trucks in Gaza’s Beit Lahiya on 23 June

24 June

Another 25 Palestinians seeking aid were killed and dozens wounded when Israeli forces opened fire with bullets and tanks in Rafah, about 1.5 miles (2km) from a US-backed aid distribution point.

Medics in Gaza said they also received casualties from a second incident near the Netzarim corridor, a strategic road that separates the northern third of the territory and is partially held by Israeli troops.

Seven Israeli soldiers were killed in a Hamas attack in southern Gaza, in one of the most lethal such incidents for many months. The soldiers died when militants planted a bomb on their armoured vehicle in Khan Younis.

CNN
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Thailand’s embattled prime minister was suspended from duty Tuesday and could face dismissal pending an ethics probe over a leaked phone call she had with Cambodia’s powerful former leader.

Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 38, has only held the premiership for 10 months after replacing her predecessor, who was removed from office. Her suspension brings fresh uncertainty to the Southeast Asian kingdom, which has been roiled by years of political turbulence and leadership shake-ups.

Thailand’s Constitutional Court accepted a petition brought by a group of 36 senators who accused Paetongtarn of violating the constitution for breaching ethical standards in the leaked call, which was confirmed as authentic by both sides.

The court voted to suspend Paetongtarn from her prime ministerial duties until it reaches a verdict in the ethics case. Paetongtarn will remain in the Cabinet as culture minister following a reshuffle.

Paetongtarn has faced increasing calls to resign, with anti-government protesters taking to the streets of the capital Bangkok on Saturday, after the leaked call with Cambodia’s Hun Sen over an escalating border dispute sparked widespread anger in the country.

The scandal prompted the Bhumjaithai party, a major partner of the prime minister’s government, to withdraw from the coalition last week, dealing a major blow to her Pheu Thai party’s ability to hold power. Paetongtarn is also contending with plummeting approvals ratings and faces a no-confidence vote in parliament.

In the leaked call, which took place on June 15, Paetongtarn could be heard calling former Cambodian strongman Hun Sen “uncle” and appeared to criticize her own army’s actions after border clashes led to the death of a Cambodian soldier last month.

The Thai prime minister could be heard telling Hun Sen that she was under domestic pressure and urged him not to listen to the “opposite side,” in which she referred to an outspoken Thai army commander in Thailand’s northeast.

She also added that if Hun Sen “wants anything, he can just tell me, and I will take care of it.”

Her comments in the leaked audio struck a nerve in Thailand, and opponents accused her of compromising the country’s national interests.

Following the ruling, Paetongtarn said she accepts the court’s decision and that her intention “was truly to act for the good of the country.”

“I want to make it clear that my intentions were more than 100% sincere — I acted for the country, to protect our sovereignty, to safeguard the lives of our soldiers, and to preserve peace in our nation,” she said in a press conference Tuesday.

“I also want to apologize to all my fellow Thais who may feel uneasy or upset about this matter,” she added.

Thailand and Cambodia have had a complicated relationship of both cooperation and rivalry in recent decades. The two countries share a 508-mile (817-kilometer) land border – largely mapped by the French while they occupied Cambodia – that has periodically seen military clashes and been the source of political tensions.

In the wake of the scandal, Paetongtarn tried to downplay her remarks to Hun Sen, saying at a press conference she was trying to diffuse tensions between the two neighbors and the “private” call “shouldn’t have been made public.”

The prime minister said she was using a “negotiation tactic” and her comments were “not a statement of allegiance.”

Paetongtarn became prime minister last year after the Constitutional Court ruled that her predecessor Srettha Thavisin had breached ethics rules and voted to dismiss him as prime minister.

The same court also dissolved the country’s popular progressive Move Forward Party, which won the most seats in the 2023 election, and banned its leaders from politics for 10 years.

The United States on Monday announced the approval of a $510 million sale to Israel of bomb guidance kits and related support, after Israel expended significant munitions in its recent conflict with Iran.

“The proposed sale will enhance Israel’s capability to meet current and future threats by improving its ability to defend Israel’s borders, vital infrastructure, and population centers,” the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) said in a statement.

“The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to US national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability,” it added.

The State Department approved the possible sale and the DSCA has provided the required notification to the US Congress, which still needs to sign off on the transaction.

Israel launched an unprecedented air campaign on June 13 targeting Iranian nuclear sites, scientists and top military brass in a bid to end the country’s nuclear program, which Tehran says is for civilian purposes but Washington and other powers insist is aimed at acquiring atomic weapons.

Trump had spent weeks pursuing a diplomatic path to replace the nuclear deal with Tehran that he tore up in 2018 during his first term, but he ultimately decided to take military action, ordering US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites.

A ceasefire brought the war to a halt last week, but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to prevent Tehran from ever rebuilding its nuclear facilities, raising the prospect of a future conflict.

Is the “big, beautiful” India-US trade deal slipping out of reach?

With just days to go before a 9 July deadline set by US President Donald Trump’s administration, hopes of clinching an interim trade pact between Delhi and Washington remain alive but increasingly entangled in hard bargaining.

Despite White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt hinting that the deal was imminent, and Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s upbeat assertion that Delhi would welcome “a big, good, beautiful” agreement – in response to Trump’s claim that a trade deal with Delhi is coming and would “open up” the Indian market – negotiators remain locked in tough discussions.

Key sticking points persist, particularly over agricultural access, auto components and tariffs on Indian steel.

Indian trade officials have extended their stay in Washington for another round of talks, even as Delhi signals “very big red lines” on farm and dairy protections, and the US presses for wider market openings. The tone remains optimistic – but the window to strike a deal appears to be narrowing.

“The next seven days could determine whether India and the US settle for a limited ‘mini-deal’ or walk away from the negotiating table – at least for now,” says Ajay Srivastava, a former Indian trade official who runs Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI), a Delhi-based think tank.

That uncertainty hinges on a few key flashpoints – none more contentious than agriculture.

“There are two real challenges to concluding an initial agreement. First on the list is US access to the Indian market for basic agriculture products. India will need to protect its basic agriculture sector for economic and political reasons,” Richard Rossow, who tracks India’s economy at Washington’s Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the BBC.

For years, Washington has pushed for greater access to India’s farm sector, seeing it as a major untapped market. But India has fiercely protected it, citing food security, livelihoods and interests of millions of small farmers.

Mr Rossow says the “second issue is India’s non-tariff barriers. Issues like India’s growing set of ‘Quality Control Orders’ (QCO) are significant obstacles to US market access and may prove tricky to meaningfully handle in a trade deal”.

The US has raised concerns over what it calls India’s growing and burdensome import-quality rules. Over 700 QCOs – part of the “self-reliant India” push – aim to curb low-quality imports and promote domestic manufacturing. Suman Berry, a senior member of a government think tank Niti Aayog, has also called these rules a “malign intervention” that restrict imports and raise costs for domestic medium and small scale industries.

The elephant in the room is farm exports. India-US farm trade remains modest at $8bn, with India exporting rice, shrimp and spices, and the US sending nuts, apples and lentils. But as trade talks progress, Washington is eyeing bigger farm exports – maize, soya bean, cotton and corn – to help narrow its $45bn trade deficit with India.

Experts fear tariff concessions could pressure India to weaken its minimum support prices (MSP) and public procurement – key protections that shield farmers from price crashes by guaranteeing fair prices and stable crop purchases.

“No tariff cuts are expected for dairy products or key food grains like rice and wheat, where farm livelihoods are at stake. These categories are politically and economically sensitive, affecting over 700 million people in India’s rural economy,” says Mr Srivastava.

Curiously, a recent Niti Aayog paper recommends tariff cuts on US farm imports – including rice, dairy, poultry, corn, apples, almonds and GM soya – under a proposed India-US trade pact. It’s unclear, however, whether the proposal reflects official government thinking or remains a policy suggestion on paper.

“If the US were to say ‘no deal’ if India does not include access on basic agriculture, then clearly American expectations were not set correctly. Any democratically-elected government will have political limits to commercial policy choices,” says Mr Rossow.

So what could happen with the deal now?

Experts like Mr Srivastava believe that the “more likely outcome is a limited trade pact” – styled after the US-UK mini trade deal announced on 8 May.

Under the proposed deal, India may cut tariffs on a range of industrial goods – including automobiles, a long-standing US demand – and offer limited agricultural access via tariff cuts and quotas on select products like ethanol, almonds, walnuts, apples, raisins, avocados, olive oil, spirits and wine.

Beyond tariff cuts, the US is likely to push India for large-scale commercial buys – from oil and LNG to Boeing aircraft, helicopters and nuclear reactors. Washington may also seek FDI easing in multi-brand retail, benefiting firms like Amazon and Walmart, and relaxed rules on re-manufactured goods.

“This ‘mini-deal’, if concluded, would therefore focus on tariff reductions and strategic commitments, leaving broader FTA issues – including services trade, intellectual property (IP) rights and digital regulations – for a future negotiation,” says Mr Srivastava.

At the start, the India-US trade talks appeared to be grounded in a clear and fair vision.

“The two leaders [Trump and Modi] laid out a simple concept in their first summit this year. The US would focus on manufactured goods that are capital-intensive, while India would focus on items that are labour-intensive,” says Mr Rossow. But things appear to have changed since.

If talks fail, Trump is unlikely to reinstate the 26% tariffs on India, experts believe.

While 57 countries faced these levies in April, only the UK has secured a deal so far. Targeting India specifically could seem unfair. “Still, with Trump, surprises can’t be ruled out,” says Mr Srivastava.

The 12-day war of aggression waged principally by Israel against Iran has been fascinating for its starkness on multiple fronts. Much like Israel’s genocide of the Palestinians, on open display yet unstoppable, the falsehood and illegality of both Israeli and American words and actions continued unabated throughout the war.

It was, in every way, a no-holds-barred affair: the facts, the rhetoric, the deceit. And this wasn’t about domestic politics or some marginal policy issue. This was about taking nations to war. It was about planning to tear down a country, deploying weapons and unloading tonnes upon tonnes of missiles. 

It was about flaunting cutting-edge technology, including 30,000-pound GBU-57 bunker buster bombs, to be dropped by the B-2 bombers – the most expensive planes ever built, worth $2.2 billion each. 

The logistics story was made captivating, numbing the mind to more critical questions – such as what these 30,000-pounders could achieve when targeting material located more than a kilometre beneath the earth. 

Reports were sent out dutifully about the unprecedented ‘heroic’ 37-hour-long missions of the B-2 bomber pilots, who would drop fourteen of these bombs, guaranteeing annihilation and destruction at three sites.

The power-wielding architects of this dramatically worded bombing mission spread their ‘faith’ with conviction. The shrill messaging around this unprecedented, colossal task was delivered in fascistic simplicity: that the ‘noble’ objective was to rid the world of the ‘most dangerous threat’ to global security. 

The mission, they claimed, would demolish Iran’s nuclear programme once and for all. Israel had been making the claim for over two decades – and was now seconded by US President Donald Trump – that Iran was just months away from producing nuclear weapons for what they called the world’s most dangerous and dreaded regime.

Thus, the shrill rhetoric proliferated globally. Digital and legacy media buzzed with talk of the mission, of bombers and bombs, of Top Gun-style pilots in Tom Cruise mode who had rehearsed every step of ‘Mission Annihilate’. 

All the rest was drowned out. Questions about the impact on areas and people surrounding the nuclear sites of Isfahan, Fordow and Natanz – and above all, concerns about possible radiation from these bombed sites, where the world had been told Iran held several hundred kilograms of enriched uranium – surfaced only as outlier opinions. 

The dominant mood in the power corridors of the US, most Western nations and India was one of rah-rah, let’s gun for Iran. Questions did emerge regularly, but they evaporated just as quickly. Often, this was because the lead decision-maker, President Donald Trump, would simply brush off all concerns, almost mocking any journalist who dared to raise them.

This was a fantasy being spread, much like the ugly truth that was systematically concealed about a hundred years ago. It was the truth of how today’s aggressor, Israel, was born – and who actively midwifed its then-illegitimate birth. 

That concealed truth was about how Palestinians were robbed of two-thirds of their land, and how Irgun and Haganah, the two terrorist Zionist organisations, killed, maimed and pushed out from Palestine its rightful owners, who were actively resisting the occupation of their land.

Significantly, in the 12-day war of aggression, Israel and the US alone cannot be given credit for the major political, military and psychological setback it represented. Much of the West had politically and diplomatically partnered with the aggressors.

The Israel–US duo’s determination to deny Iran nuclear weapons was shared by most European governments, as well as the EU.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz unabashedly stated that he was happy that “Israel is doing [this] for all of us. We’re also affected by this regime. This Mullah regime has brought death and destruction over the world. The dirty work that Israel did here – I can only say that I have the highest respect that the Israeli army was courageous enough, that the Israeli government was courageous enough to do this. Otherwise, we possibly would have seen this terror made by this regime for months and years, and possibly with a nuclear weapon in their hand”. 

These deeply partisan, hate-ridden words in praise of the aggressor were, of course, spoken somewhat prematurely.

Nato Secretary General Mark Rutte also sent a profusely congratulatory WhatsApp message to Trump, which Trump then posted on social media: “Thank you for your decisive action in Iran. That was truly extraordinary and something no one else dared to do. It makes us safer…” Rutte wrote. Again, prematurely.

Only on Switzerland’s foreign ministry website did a post appear that cautioned against the aggressors’ complete disregard for legality. It read: “Switzerland emphasizes the importance of full respect for international law, including the UN Charter and international humanitarian law.”

However, beyond all the bravado and chest-thumping by the self-declared winners of the 12-day war lay the uncomfortable reality: Not even one of the three objectives that Netanyahu and his team had bragged they were determined to achieve was fulfilled – no regime change, no destruction of Iran’s nuclear capability and no major disabling of Iran’s missile infrastructure. 

Satellite imagery shows only limited irreversible damage to Iran’s storage and launch sites. Iran’s stockpiles of its most advanced ballistic missiles were largely left intact.

The dramatic B-2 bombers and 30,000-pound bombs weren’t able to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability. The core components of Iran’s nuclear facilities were not destroyed – at best, their progress was delayed by only a few months.

The first to report this was the US’s own Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). CNN quoted their report, noting that no irreversible damage had been done and that more information was required from the actual nuclear sites to confirm the extent of the damage. Both the IAEA and DIA conceded that, without access to the sites, all estimates were merely “guesstimates”. Claims of “obliteration” or “significant damage” were baseless.

Trump’s assertions that the 30,000-pound bombs had “obliterated” Iran’s programme at depths of over 800 meters beneath a mountain at the Fordow facility clashed with the IAEA’s conclusion that the programme had only been delayed by a few months, with all of Iran’s enriched uranium safely stashed away – unreachable to everyone but the Iranians. And the majority of the centrifuges had not been damaged.

The IAEA’s own duplicity was unmistakable. Rafael Grossi, head of the UN nuclear watchdog, said on June 23 that the airstrikes had probably caused “very significant” damage to Fordow, a major uranium enrichment facility. Yet the IAEA subsequently veered toward the DIA’s more cautious assessment.

As for what has long been deployed by Washington as a ‘legitimate’ policy tool – the removal of governments in foreign lands through force, sabotage and other means – that too failed. After all, Iran is neither Syria, Iraq, nor Libya, nor even the Iran of 1953. 

This was not a regime that could be brushed aside easily. Iran’s revolution-hardened, four-decade-old government stood its ground. Paradoxically, for a regime already facing multiple domestic challenges, Israeli aggression somewhat boosted its political fortunes. Nationalist sentiment rose.

After the war, despite mounting economic and security problems, Iran’s regime emerged more confident and self-assured, having successfully fought back and survived the much-hyped Israeli-US war machine.

Amid the widespread chatter about what comes next, only two facts appear reliable. First, and fortunately, beyond all the litter of whimsical, flashy and fictional verbosity, there are signs of re-engagement between the two principal players: Iran and the US. 

Trump has publicly criticised some of Israel’s recent actions, while in important circles in Tehran, there is recognition that indirect communication between Iranian and American officials continues. Some Iranians even see in Trump a potential president willing to pursue an ‘America First’, not ‘Israel First’, policy.

The second important development appears to be a ceasefire in Gaza. But does this mean progress toward a definitive two-state solution or merely a deceptive lull, under the cover of which the ‘Greater Israel’ agenda advances? At present, with a disengaged Arab and Muslim world, Donald Trump remains – somewhat paradoxically – central to advancing a lasting and viable solution for Palestine. And that solution, clearly, is a two-state one.

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The writer is a senior journalist. She tweets at @nasimzehra and can be reached at: [email protected]

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Disclaimer: The viewpoints expressed in this piece are the writer’s own and don’t necessarily reflect Geo.tv’s editorial policy.

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Originally published in The News