Weekly Review

Six months into its assault on Gaza, the Israeli military announced a “decline in the forces” in southern Gaza “for tactical reasons,” but emphasized that a “significant force” would remain active in the Gaza Strip.^{1 2 3 4} The World Health Organization called Al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical facility, “an empty shell with human graves” and “completely non-functional” in the wake of Israel’s weekslong siege.⁵ Israeli air strikes killed seven aid workers from World Central Kitchen, after which ships bearing 240 metric tons of aid returned to Cyprus, and more than 30 Democratic representatives, including former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, signed a letter urging President Biden to halt arms deliveries to Israel, to which the White House is planning to sell $18 billion worth of F-15 fighter jets.^{6 7 8 9} Israeli air strikes on an embassy in Damascus killed at least seven Iranian military officers, and a roadside bomb killed at least seven children in southern Syria, spurring lethal clashes between rival groups in Deraa.^{10 11} Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv against Prime Minister Netanyahu’s government, advocating for early elections and the return of hostages held by Hamas.^{12 13} Mexico severed diplomatic ties with Ecuador after its embassy in Quito was raided by police in pursuit of former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas.¹⁴ At least 1.4 million people are “a step away from famine” in Haiti, where state institutions are “close to collapse” as heavily armed gangs, whose primary source of weapons is the U.S., have seized control of 80% of the country’s capital.^{15 16} Nearly 5 million are on the brink of famine in Sudan, whose Darfur region received its first UN food deliveries in months as the country approached its second year of civil war.^{17 18}

Ahead of the Rwandan genocide’s 30th anniversary, President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged, in a statement that he did not end up delivering, that France and its allies “could have stopped the genocide” but “did not have the will to do so.”^{19 20 21} On NATO’s 75th anniversary, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance.^{22 23} “If Congress does not help Ukraine, Ukraine will lose the war,” said President Volodymyr Zelensky days after he passed a law lowering Ukraine’s military draft age from 27 to 25.^{24 25} A Russian drone attack killed four in Kharkiv, and Ukrainian drones struck a Russian-held nuclear power plant, whose radiation levels reportedly remain normal.^{26 27} In Myanmar, the opposition National Unity Government conducted a mass drone strike on the country’s junta government in its military-ruled capital, which reported no casualties.²⁸ Data from 73 million AT&T accounts containing addresses, Social Security numbers, and passwords was leaked on the dark web, and Google conceded in a settlement to erase billions of data records it had compiled from users of Chrome’s Incognito mode.^{29 30} New York City will pay $17.5 million to settle a lawsuit by two Muslim Americans who were forced to remove their hijabs for mug shots.³¹ Pro-Palestine sit-ins at Pomona College and Vanderbilt University resulted in the arrest of at least 19 students at the former and three expulsions, one suspension, and 20 probations at the latter; at Vanderbilt, the all-in cost of a year’s attendance reached $98,426.^{32 33 34 35 36}

A 7.4-magnitude earthquake in Taiwan killed at least nine people and injured at least 800; “There is no need for the Chinese side to assist in disaster relief,” asserted Taiwan’s Mainland Affairs Council.^{37 38} “It mostly felt like a brief speed bump,” said a Pennsylvania man who was receiving a vasectomy when a 4.8-magnitude earthquake struck New Jersey and the New York City metropolitan area.^{39 40} “Somebody’s sending us a message,” said former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, adding, “The communist states are getting earthquakes—look at California.”⁴¹ The moon totally eclipsed the sun.⁴² “I’ve been told that I need to stop this eclipse, and I do not have the authority to do that,” said the mayor of Michigan’s only city situated on the path of totality.⁴³ “The beauty of this is that when I have these on, I don’t see the media,” said Mayor Eric Adams while observing the phenomenon through eclipse glasses in lower Manhattan.⁴⁴ Trillions of cicadas will emerge in the midwestern and eastern U.S. this spring, and a Michigan poultry facility and Texas egg producer have reported outbreaks of avian flu.^{45 46} “I’m a little bit tired,” said a British man after running the length of Africa over the course of 352 days.⁴⁷ A journalist with the Colorado Sun was removed from the state’s Republican Party assembly after being accused of “very unfair” reporting by the state party chair, who in 2022 introduced a resolution thanking the January 6 insurrectionists and unsuccessfully attempted to insert “Let’s Go Brandon” into his name on the ballot.^{48 49} Chechnya’s culture ministry announced that all of the republic’s music must now “correspond to a tempo of 80 to 116 beats per minute,” Tiger Woods has reportedly “‘eliminated sex” from his routine as he trains for the 2024 Masters, and the former Patriots quarterback Mac Jones confessed on TikTok to rapping as a secondary profession, stating he felt comfortable coming clean “now I’m not in New England.”^{50 51 52} —Becky Zhang