Category World News

Manager: Xabi Alonso
Star player: Kylian Mbappe
Club World Cup record: Five-time winners
Fixtures: Al Hilal (June 18), Pachuca (June 22), FC Salzburg (June 26)

For most teams, second place in their domestic league, runners up in both domestic cups and reaching the quarterfinals of the Champions League would mark a season of relative success.

For Real Madrid, it means it is time to change the manager.

Following two successful spells in charge of Los Blancos, a trophyless season, and not making the last four of the Champions League, marked the end for Carlo Ancelotti – the most successful manager in history.

The Italian’s boots are big ones to fill, but that is the task that former Real midfielder Xabi Alonso has taken on.

A title winner in Germany, in his first managerial job with Bayer Leverkusen, Alonso was always hot favourite to replace Ancelotti when the time came.

What is Alonso’s greatest challenge at Real?

The 43-year-old is hardly walking into a minefield in Madrid with the Spanish giants claiming a league and European double only a season ago.

Added to that squad last year was the latest Galactico, Kylian Mbappe. In the French forward, Alonso may face his biggest challenge – not due to Mbappe’s personality or work rate, but purely his position in the side.

In the words of Alonso’s predecessor, Real are unbalanced but also lack “collective commitment”.

In short, the squad had too many attackers that Ancelotti felt he had to cram onto the field, while injuries left the defence in tatters, and Madrid did not sign someone to replace midfielder Toni Kroos, who retired last year.

Veteran midfielder Luka Modric’s departure after the Club World Cup means Alonso will be losing yet more poise, technique and wisdom from the midfield.

Two seasons ago, prior to the retirement of Kroos, Real swept all before them with their then-new signing, Jude Bellingham, playing in an advanced role through the middle, flanked by Vinicius Junior and Rodrygo.

The arrival of Mbappe forced Bellingham deeper, and something of a false-nine formation was changed to a straight 4-3-3 set up. The chemistry didn’t blend easily.

Mbappe ended up as the leading scorer in La Liga, helped in some part by a late-season injury to his closest competitor, Barcelona’s Robert Lewandowski. The former PSG striker netted 43 goals across all competitions with his new club.

That did not mask the fact that the team was not as fluid as the one that glided through the previous campaign to finish 10 points clear of Barcelona. Ancelotti’s final season saw his side trail their fierce rivals from Catalonia by only four points.

Still, the conundrum of making Madrid tick again, with a side that has no choice but to pick Mbappe, Bellingham and Vinicius for all the big games, is Alonso’s great challenge – and that begins at the FIFA Club World Cup.

How important is the Club World Cup for Real Madrid?

On the eve of the final El Clasico of the season, and what would be the last of Ancelotti’s career, the Italian politely reminded everyone that Real Madrid would be competing in FIFA’s showpiece club event and not their rivals, Barcelona.

The pressure was growing on Real’s then-manager, and the speculation was mounting that his time at Santiago Bernabeu was coming to an end, potentially before the end of the season.

Real would lose the match at Barcelona 4-3, and with it any final realistic chance of retaining their La Liga title, having already seen their Champions League defence ended by Arsenal. Ancelotti was not one to be pushed quietly aside after a glittering career across Europe.

“Playing Barcelona is special,” Brazil’s new national manager said on the eve of the game. “And this will be the last El Clasico of the season, because Barca are not in the Club World Cup.”

Whatever the merits of FIFA’s Club World Cup, long term, there is little doubt that, short term, the importance off the field far outweighs the significance of the tournament on the field.

A Palestinian man in a red cap walks down the narrow alleyway in Nablus’s old city towards a group of Israeli soldiers, clearly unarmed.

He attempts to talk to the soldiers, who had flooded into the occupied West Bank city in the early hours of Tuesday as part of Israel’s latest military raid – believed to be the largest carried out in Nablus in two years.

The soldiers immediately kick and shove the man – 40-year-old Nidal Umairah – before his brother walks over, attempting to intervene. Gunfire follows, and soon the two brothers are lying dead.

Nidal and his brother 35-year-old brother Khaled were the latest victims of Israel in the West Bank, after they were killed late on Tuesday. It is unclear which brother had initially been detained, but witnesses were adamant that the behaviour of the Israeli soldiers was an unnecessary escalation that led to the deaths of yet more Palestinians.

Ghassan Hamdan, the director of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society in Nablus, was at the scene of the killings.

“There were at least 12 soldiers and they all fired their automatic machine guns at once,” said Hamdan.

After the two men fell to the ground [medics] asked the soldiers if we could treat their wounds. They answered by firing at all of us.”

“We all took cover behind the walls of the old city,” he told Al Jazeera.

Hamza Abu Hajar, a paramedic at the scene, said that the Umairah brother who had initially approached the Israeli soldiers had been trying to go to his house to move his family out and away from the Israeli raid.

“They lifted his shirt up to prove he was unarmed,” Abu Hajar said. “They then started shooting at him, and at us as well.”

The Israeli army said it acted in self-defence after one of the Umairah brothers tried to seize a weapon from a soldier. It said that four soldiers had been injured in the incident.

West Bank raids

The raid in Nablus, which lasted more than 24 hours, is the latest Israel has conducted in the West Bank.

Israel has taken advantage of the world’s focus on its own war on Gaza since October 2023 to escalate its land theft and violence in the West Bank.

During that span, Israel has killed at least 930 people in the West Bank, 24 of whom were from Nablus, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Many of these deaths are the result of violent Israeli raids ostensibly aimed at clamping down on Palestinian fighters in the West Bank, but which have resulted in mass destruction and thousands of Palestinians fleeing their homes.

According to Hamdan, Israeli troops mainly targeted Nablus’s old city by storming into hundreds of homes in the middle of the night. Dozens of people were also reportedly arrested.

Young people in the city protested by burning tyres and throwing rocks at Israeli troops, yet they were met with heavy tear gas, injuring at least 80 Palestinians in the raid.

In the past, Palestinian protesters have been imprisoned on “terrorism” charges or shot and killed for simply resisting Israel’s occupation by throwing rocks or defying Israeli soldiers.

This time around, the Israelis classified the entire old city in Nablus as a closed military zone for 24 hours. No ambulances or medics were allowed inside to aid distressed residents, said Hamdan.

“Nobody was allowed in or out. Nobody was allowed to make any movement at all. We [as medics] could not enter the area during the entire raid to try and help people in need,” he told Al Jazeera.

Assault and vandalism

During the raid, Israeli troops stormed into several apartments after blowing off door hinges with explosives.

Umm Hassan, a 58-year-old resident who did not want to give her full name, recalls feeling terrified when several Israeli soldiers broke into her home.

About five months ago, her husband passed away from cancer, an illness that also claimed two of her children years ago.

Umm Hassan is also battling cancer, yet she said Israeli soldiers showed her no mercy. They flipped her television on the ground, broke windows and tossed her paintings off the walls and onto the living room floor.

They even vandalised her books by throwing them on the ground, including the Quran.

“I told them to leave me alone. I was alone and so scared. There was nobody to protect me,” Umm Hassan told Al Jazeera.

Another woman, Rola, said that Israeli soldiers stormed into her home two times in the span of six hours during the raid.

When Israeli soldiers returned the second time, Rola said that they attacked her elderly father, hitting him on the head and chest with the butts of their guns.

Rola described her three nieces and nephews – all small children – cowering with fear as Israeli soldiers vandalised and destroyed their home.

“The second time they came to our home, they put us all in a room and we weren’t able to leave the room from 8am until 3:30pm,” said Rola.

“We [Palestinians] always talk about being resilient. But the reality is when Israeli soldiers come into your private home, then you get very scared. It’s natural. We are humans and humans get scared,” she told Al Jazeera.

Psychological warfare

More than 80 Palestinians received treatment from the Palestine Red Crescent Society during the raid, 25 of them as a result of gunshot wounds.

While Israel says its raid was “precise”, inhabitants of Nablus say that the attack on the city was the latest attempt to intimidate and frighten Palestinians.

“Honestly, what were Israeli soldiers searching for in my home? What did they think they were going to find?” asked Rola. “The reason for their raids [violence] is to uphold the [illegal] occupation.”

The White House has said a trade deal with China is done and is awaiting the signatures of United States President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.

The White House said on Wednesday that the president is currently reviewing the details.

Trump announced the deal after days of trade talks between US and Chinese delegations in London, which followed an earlier round of negotiations in Geneva, Switzerland.

“We have reached a framework to implement the Geneva consensus and the call between the two presidents,” US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick told reporters during the announcement.

What’s included?

The deal includes a provision in which China will supply the US with rare earth elements vital to major US companies, particularly in the auto, semiconductor, and smartphone manufacturing sectors.

Trump said that minerals would be supplied upfront, but it is unclear what that entails.

China has disproportionate control over the rare earth market. It produces 60 percent of the world’s rare earth minerals and processes nearly 90 percent of them. That has been a longstanding concern of the US, including during the administration of former President Joe Biden.

In February 2024, then US Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said the US was “very concerned” about the nation’s reliance on China for its supply of critical minerals in an interview with CNBC.

Those concerns have been amplified in Trump’s second term, especially after he imposed sweeping tariffs – including a 145 percent tariff on China – and added on export control measures for China’s chip industry.

In April, China’s Ministry of Commerce retaliated by imposing export restrictions on these minerals.

Under the latest agreement, the US will impose 55 percent tariffs across the board on Chinese goods, down from 145 percent. In return, Beijing will impose a 10 percent tariff on goods it imports from the US, down from 125 percent.

The 55 percent US tariff includes a 10 percent baseline tariff – which is currently in legal limbo after a trade court ruled it illegal, a decision that a higher court has temporarily blocked – as well as 25 percent from tariffs dating to Trump’s first term and 20 percent related to alleged fentanyl trafficking.

The White House has framed the deal as a win, and the tariffs remain higher than when Trump first took office. Experts continue to argue that tariffs act as a tax on US businesses and consumers will ultimately bear the cost, not China.

‘A death sentence’

Retailers, including Walmart, have already said they will need to raise prices because of the tariffs. In an earnings call last month, CEO Doug McMillon said, “Given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren’t able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins.”

Walmart sources about 60 percent of its merchandise from China. It’s not clear if it will change any of its sourcing plans in the light of the latest deal.

The new deal hasn’t assuaged the concerns among the small business community.

“For many small businesses that mostly source their parts or products from China, this is a death sentence and will destroy their American dream,” the Main Street Alliance, an advocacy group representing small business interests, said in a publicly released statement in response to the trade deal.

Small business owners have also had to implement hiring freezes and pause development due to tariffs on China. Wild Rye, an outdoor apparel brand that previously spoke with Al Jazeera, said this hasn’t changed anything.

“It is devastating, 55 percent tariffs are still insane,” Cassie Abel, founder of Wild Rye, told Al Jazeera.

She added that because of the previously announced tariffs, anticipatory spending and orders to cater to, it was very challenging for small businesses like hers to find shipping containers to get her existing orders to the US.

“It’s really hard to find a container. The chances of getting our product out of China within the 90-day window is basically zero,” Abel said.

The deal for a 90 day pause on most tariffs was announced in April and expires July 8. Because the specifics of the trade deal have yet to be made public, it is not clear when the new tariffs will kick in for China.

The White House did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for clarification.

The deal also includes a concession allowing Chinese students to continue attending US universities, a matter that had not been contested until Trump raised it a few weeks ago. The sudden shift in the US stance on that had left thousands of Chinese students – and the universities they were set to attend or are currently enrolled in – in limbo.

Lutnick said that US tariffs on China will not change again and will go into effect as soon as next week, although analysts believe that may be a negotiating tactic.

Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, believes that despite Lutnick’s claims, this will not be the end of tariff negotiations with China. He expects further industry-specific exemptions in the months ahead, similar to the exception for semiconductor chips.

“The tariffs are high, but I believe this is … a starting point. The framework’s established, and I’d expect more deals going forward,” Ives said.

Adam S Hersch, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, agrees it will lead to more negotiations.

“It seems like the two sides have agreed to postpone facing their deeper disagreements,” Hersch said.

Market response

Global markets generally responded positively to the news. In London, the FTSE closed up 0.1 percent. The Nikkei in Tokyo closed up 0.6 percent, the Hong Kong Hang Seng Index rose 0.8 percent, and Shanghai markets ended the day up 0.5 percent.

In the US, markets remained largely flat, balancing optimism from the trade news with the release of new inflation data. Consumer prices increased by just 0.1 percent, which was lower than expected. Analysts say the figure reflects both subdued inflation and consumers scaling back spending, partly due to the uncertainty surrounding trade policy.