Good morning,
Israeli warplanes have attacked targets in Gaza after the end of a seven-day ceasefire, with strikes across much of the region that health officials in the territory said had killed 35 people.
Loud, continuous explosions were heard coming from Gaza and black smoke billowed from the territory.
Neither Israel nor Hamas had announced an extension to the truce, and both had said repeatedly in the previous 24 hours that their forces were ready to resume fighting.
Israel’s military announced on Friday morning that it was dividing the whole of Gaza into dozens of numbered blocks as a prelude, it said, to demanding targeted local evacuations in the crowded south of the strip before planned bombing. It dropped leaflets on to Gaza with a QR code to a website with a map of all the areas and geolocating people within them.
Earlier this week, Israeli military sources said they anticipated the next phase of the operation in Gaza to involve an attack on the south, and in particular Khan Younis, where Israel believes Hamas’s leadership is based. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would call for the civilian population to relocate on a district-by-district basis before targeting the area with airstrikes and artillery.
The renewed Israeli offensive appears to be wide-ranging. The Shehab news agency, which is considered close to Hamas, reported that explosions and gunfire could be heard in northern Gaza, where fighting was heaviest before the ceasefire. Other Hamas-affiliated media also reported sounds of military and drone aircraft flying over Gaza City. Airstrikes were reported in southern Gaza too, including in the community of Abassan east of the city of Khan Younis, the interior ministry in the Hamas-run territory said.
Hamas has claimed responsibility for a deadly gun attack at a busy bus stop in west Jerusalem on Thursday in which three Israelis were killed, prompting the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to pledge to eliminate the group whenever the hostage release halted. The shooting overshadowed negotiations aimed at extending the truce in Gaza.
On Thursday, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, met Israeli and Palestinian officials and called for the pause in hostilities to be extended. But fighting resumed on Friday morning.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s security minister and the leader of the far-right Otzma Yehudit party, said on X that the Israeli military must “return and crush Gaza with all our might, destroy Hamas and return to the strip, without compromises, without deals, at maximum power”.
What does this mean for hostage negotiations? During the truce brokered by Qatar, 80 Israeli hostages were freed in exchange for 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. More than 20 foreigners, most of them Thais living in Israel, were freed outside the scope of the agreement. Overnight, Hamas released six more Israelis, some holding dual nationality, hours after two women were freed; then Israel freed 30 Palestinian prisoners, 23 minors and seven women.
How many people have been killed? The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says more than 15,000 people have been killed by Israeli action, mostly civilians. On 7 October, Hamas killed about 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and kidnapped about 240 people, according to Israeli authorities.
Is there hope for another pause to the fighting? At the time of writing, Qatar has confirmed that talks are continuing between Israel and Hamas – brokered by Qatar and Egypt – with the aim of reinstating the ceasefire.
What will happen next? Humanitarian groups said on Friday that a plan to divide and attack the south, where 2 million people were sheltering, risked stretching Gaza to breaking point. “There is fundamentally nowhere for people to go,” said Danila Zizi, the Palestine country manager for the charity Humanity and Inclusion.
Agreement struck on global climate damage fund for vulnerable countries at Cop28
A landmark deal to help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable countries pay for the irreversible impacts of climate disaster was agreed on the first day of the Cop28 UN summit.
The agreement was met with a standing ovation from delegates on Thursday.
The host country the United Arab Emirates and Germany both pledged $100m to the loss and damage startup fund, which will aim to keep up with the rising costs caused by extreme weather and slow-onset disasters such as sea level rise, ocean acidification and melting glaciers.
Germany’s development minister, Svenja Schulze, said “many countries that were still developing countries 30 years ago can now afford shouldering their share of responsibility for global climate-related loss and damage”.
The UAE is likely to see this as a major win for its presidency, as the two-week climate conference kicks off amid controversy over the country’s oil and gas expansion plans.
How much cash will the fund have? The initial funding is close to $429m. The EU will contribute $245m (€225m), including the $100m from Germany. There is also $75m (£60m) from the UK, $24.5m from the US and $10m from Japan. Germany called for further donations.
Is it enough to help vulnerable nations? In short, no. The loss and damage in developing countries is already estimated by some studies to be greater than $400bn annually, and expected to rise.
What’s on Friday’s Cop28 agenda? More than 160 heads of state are attending a grand ceremony on Friday. Much of the next 10 days will be taken up with talks on how to prevent global heating from exceeding the vital limit of 1.5C (2.7F) above preindustrial levels.
Trump hits out at wife of New York judge after gag order reinstated by court
Donald Trump renewed attacks on the wife of the judge in the New York civil fraud trial of his business empire, before and almost immediately after an appellate court on Thursday reinstated a gag order against him in the case.
The New York appellate court decided to reapply the gag order that barred the former US president and his lawyers from making public statements about court staff in his civil fraud trial, court records showed.
The gag order against him, which had been paused two weeks ago, was reinstated on Thursday, but it did not stop Trump lashing out further. The order only specifies comments about members of Judge Engoron’s staff, not his family.
Trump on Wednesday attacked Dawn Engoron, the judge’s wife, and the judge’s clerk, on his social media platform Truth Social.
What did Trump say? He called Dawn Engoron a “Trump-hating wife” and said that she and Arthur Engoron’s law clerk had “taken over control of the New York State Witch Hunt Trial aimed at me, my family, and the Republican Party”.
What is the case against Trump? The $250m case brought by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, is against Trump and his two adult sons over illegally inflating the value of assets of the family business empire, the Trump Organization.
What’s the latest? The court has found them liable but the trial, taking place without a jury, is to establish more details about the offenses and consequences. It is expected to wrap up in December.
In other news …
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said he had “genuine doubts” about whether Israel was complying with international humanitarian law in its offensive in Gaza. The comments led the Israeli government to recall its ambassador in Madrid and say it will be reprimanding Spain’s top diplomat in Tel Aviv.
Meta said it eliminated a network of nearly 4,800 fake accounts in China on Facebook and Instagram that were attempting to polarize US voters. The accounts had fake photos, names and locations to mimic normal Americans weighing in on political issues.
New York City police are encrypting police dispatcher channels, an “upgrade” expected to cost hundreds of millions of dollars by completion in December 2024. For nearly a century, the NYPD has communicated over public radio channels, helpful for journalists and citizens.
An ID card that appears to belong to a Chinese prisoner was found inside the lining of a coat from the British brand Regatta, raising concerns that the clothing could have been manufactured using prison labour. The waterproof women’s coat was bought online by a woman in Derbyshire in the Black Friday sale.
The US saw a rise in executions in 2023 as a result of Florida’s revival of the death penalty, amid Ron DeSantis’s “tough on crime” campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. DeSantis scheduled six executions this year, the largest number in almost a decade.
Don’t miss this: Undying empire – why the decline of US power has been greatly exaggerated
For all the talk of multipolar worlds, other poles of world power have been hard to find, writes Tom Stevenson in this long read. Russia has hardly proved itself a global power in its botched invasion of Ukraine. Fantasies of European strategic autonomy have shown themselves insubstantial. India’s economic growth has been notable but it projects very little influence away from the subcontinent. So why the reticence to explain the nature of American power? The fact remains that global power at present remains unipolar. The task for those not committed to its continuation is to understand it and, wherever possible, to challenge its assumptions, Stevenson writes.
… or this: Remembering Shane MacGowan, the mythic poet-musician of dereliction
Behind the cartoonish popular image of Shane MacGowan, the Pogues frontman who died on Thursday aged 65, there was something unknowable, writes Alexis Petridis in this obituary. He became a mythic figure, which was clearly exactly what he wanted. After all, the Pogues had always dealt in mythology: from the besuited image MacGowan described as equal parts “Brendan Behan and typical Irish grandad” to the Irish legends his lyrics relocated to the pubs of north London, to the persistent rock’n’roll fable of the damned loser. It made sense that the Pogues’ frontman became a mythic figure himself.
Last Thing: How chinstrap penguins survive on microsleeps of 10,000 naps a day
Phoebe Weston writes about the scientists studying chinstrap penguins in the wild – on King George Island, Antarctica – who found they nod off more than 10,000 times a day. It allows the birds to keep a constant eye on their nests, protecting eggs and chicks from predators. In total, they manage 11 hours of snoozing a day – without ever slipping into uninterrupted sleep. “Sleep is much more complex in its diversity than what we read about in most textbooks,” said Paul-Antoine Libourel, from Lyon Neuroscience Research Centre.
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