Weekly Review
A truce between Israel and Hamas, planned to last four days but later extended to six, went into effect following a delay in negotiations during which an Israeli air strike killed 27 Palestinians at the Jabalia refugee camp.1 2 3 As part of the truce, 69 hostages were released by Hamas, including a four-year-old girl with dual Israeli and U.S. citizenship whose parents were killed on October 7, and more than 150 Palestinians were released from prison, chosen from a list of primarily women and teenage boys; the grand majority of detainees on the list had been or are currently being held in remand without being charged, some of them for throwing stones.4 5 6 7 8 Israeli forces sprayed tear gas and fired stun grenades at crowds of Palestinians who were celebrating the prisoners’ release.9 In Jenin, eight Palestinians were killed in an Israeli raid, and in Vermont, three college students of Palestinian origin were shot by a white man.10 11 Geert Wilders, a far-right politician who was once banned from visiting the United Kingdom owing to the extremity of his anti-Islam views, won the largest number of parliamentary seats in the Dutch election, and said that he supported the relocation of Palestinians to Jordan.12 13 Javier Milei, a far-right politician who has said that he would move Argentina’s Israeli embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, won the Argentine election.14 15 In Dublin, far-right rioters looted stores, set fires, and damaged public transportation after five people, including three children, were stabbed and reports that the attacker was an “illegal immigrant” circulated online.16 17 A Brazilian delivery worker who hit the assailant over the head with his motorbike helmet during the attack said of the riot, “It doesn’t make sense.”18
West Bank militants said they had executed two men accused of collaborating with Israeli authorities.19 In Iran, a 21-year-old man was reportedly executed for his role in the anti-government protests last year, and a 17-year-old boy was hanged, in violation of the United Nations’ covenant that prohibits the execution of anyone under the age of 18, of which Iran is a signatory.20 21 22 Lawyers for an Alabama man on death row asked a federal judge to block his execution by nitrogen gas, arguing that, since the method has never been used on an inmate before, it may constitute cruel and unusual punishment.23 As New York’s Adult Survivors Act neared its expiration, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, current New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Guns N’Roses front man Axl Rose, and rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs were accused of sexual assault, and a South Korean court ordered Japan to compensate a group of Korean women who were forced into sex work during World War II.24 25 26 27 A man who killed his ex-girlfriend was extradited from Germany to Italy, where demonstrations to protest violence against women took place across the country.28 In New York, protesters demonstrating for the liberation of Palestine disrupted the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, cutting in front of the enormous dinosaur balloon sponsored by Sinclair Oil Corporation, which has violated air emission limits and was granted fuel waivers by the Trump Administration.29 30 31 In Sydney, 1,500 people blocked a port from exporting coal, and it was reported that, because of climate change, Peru has lost over half its tropical glaciers in the past six decades.32 33 It was announced that U.S. President Joe Biden would skip the climate change conference known as COP28.34
It was reported that over 300 animals transported from San Diego to Arizona to be adopted were instead sold to the owner of the reptile breeding company the Fertile Turtle, who may have turned them into reptile feed.35 It was announced that more than 1.3 million chickens would be slaughtered to curb the spread of bird flu at an egg farm in Ohio.36 Nearly 20 sheep escaped from a seminary in Minnesota.37 A horse drove its carriage into four cars in New York.38 “This moose has brought so much joy to so many people and so much hope,” said a Minnesota resident about Rutt, a moose on the loose who is being tracked across the country.39 “The only path forward is you have to be really aggressive and you have to use all the tools in the toolbox,” said a leading authority on the management of Canadian “super pigs,” which are nearing the United States, and President Biden confused Taylor Swift with Britney Spears while pardoning a pair of turkeys named Liberty and Bell.40 41 “I’ve done the math over and over, and it doesn’t look really good,” said Republican Representative George Santos about his possible expulsion from Congress, adding that “it’s done when I say it’s done,” and comparing himself to Mary Magdalene.42 Marjorie Taylor Greene published her first book, in which she admits to calling fellow House member Lauren Boebert “a little bitch”; white supremacist commentator Laura Loomer called the book “trash” and Greene “a shameless grifter.”43 44 45 Police in Manchester investigated a fight that broke out during a performance of the musical Hamilton.46 —Megan Evershed
