On Monday, July 21, 2018, this is how things are going.
Fighting
According to the state-run RIA Novosti news agency, Russian forces have taken control of the village of Bila Hora in eastern Ukraine.
A 78-year-old woman was killed in a Russian attack on the Sumy region of Ukraine, according to Governor Oleh Hryhorov.
Local governors claim that there were six more fatalities in Russian attacks on Synelnykove and Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region, as well as Kostiantynivka, Pokrovsk, and Raiske in the Donetsk region.
Governor Ivan Fedorov reported that three women were hurt in a third Russian attack on the Zaporizhhia and Vasylivka districts of Ukraine, adding that Russia had already launched 457 attacks on 18 settlements in the area on Sunday.
Ukraine’s Air Force reported shooting down 18 of 57 Russian drones overnight into Sunday.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported on Telegram that several Ukrainian drones “flying toward Moscow” had been shot down eight times in total over the course of 24 hours. In each case, he stated, “Emergency services are working at the location of the debris fall.”
Russian forces shot down 216 Ukrainian drones in total, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense, on Sunday at 11:20 p.m. (Moscow time).
diplomacy and politics
Vladimir Putin, the country’s president, said Moscow’s main goal was to reach its goals, despite the fact that spokesman Dmitry Peskov claimed that the Kremlin was ready to pursue a peace agreement with Ukraine. The comments were made days after Donald Trump gave Moscow a 50-day deadline to accept a ceasefire or be subject to more stringent sanctions.
Russian conductor Valery Gergiev’s performance was canceled as part of Russian efforts to use “culture as a tool of propaganda,” according to the Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
According to the Kyiv Independent, Ukraine has sanctioned former Ukrainian lawmakers Natalia Korolevska and Hennadiy Balashov, as well as exiled Russian journalist Yulia Latynina and Ukrainian blogger Andrii Serebrianskyi, who allege they had assisted in spreading Russian propaganda.
The sanctions against India’s Nayara Energy refinery by Rosneft, Russia’s largest oil producer, were criticized by the EU as being unlawful and unjustifiable, claiming they directly threatened India’s energy security.
In one of the deadliest single incidents involving aid seekers since May, Israeli forces killed at least 115 Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday as they waited patiently for desperately needed food aid.
Health officials claim that more Palestinians have been injured.
At least 67 people were killed near the Zikim crossing in northern Gaza when an Israeli bomb struck aid gatherings. In the south of the country, there were also six fatalities close to a separate distribution site. 36 Palestinians were killed in similar circumstances the day before.
More than 900 people have been killed trying to access food relief as a result of the death toll since May, bringing the total to more than 900.
The Israeli forces opened fire on Ahmed Hassouna, who was attempting to collect food from a Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid site, when he attempted to get food from it.
A young man and I were accosted, and they began to shoot gas at us. With the gas, they used to kill us. We hardly managed to escape the air, he claimed.
A wounded elderly man was saved from the gunfire by an additional man, Rizeq Betaar.
There are no ambulances, no food, no life, and no longer a way to live, according to the statement from the group that carried him on the bicycle. We’re just about hanging on. He prayed, “May God comfort us.”
A convoy of 25 aid trucks, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP), opened fire shortly after entering Gaza.
The organization stated in a statement that WFP reiterates that any violence against civilians seeking humanitarian aid is completely unacceptable.
Israel’s military denied intentionally attacking aid convoys, but claimed that its forces fired “warning shots” at what it called “an immediate threat.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) issued a warning on Sunday that the Gazan situation has reached “catastrophic” levels, with some children dying before aid arrives.
People are taking their lives to search for food, OCHA said, calling the situation “unconscionable.”
Israel’s ongoing attacks on aid seekers were also denounced by the US-based Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR).
The ongoing massacres of starving Palestinian women, children, and men who have been denied food by the US and the government are both a human tragedy and an indictment of a Western political order that led to this genocide, according to Nihad Awad, CAIR’s national executive director, in a statement.
Western governments are unable to deny ignorance. They are choosing to do nothing as innocent civilians are purposefully starved, forced to relocate, and slaughtered in real time. The Western world’s indifference to Gaza’s forced starvation, ethnic cleansing, and genocide will stick in history’s minds forever. ”
starvation caused by humans
UNRWA’s head of UNRWA, Phillipe Lazzarini, claimed that Gaza’s staff were ecstatic about the lack of food.
“All created, in complete impunity. Only a few kilometers away, he wrote on X, adding that UNRWA has enough supplies at the border to feed Gaza for three months. However, since March 2, Israel has been preventing aid.
According to Dr. Mohammed Abu Afash, the Gaza-based Palestinian Medical Relief Society’s director, women and children are suffering from hunger.
We are entering the unknown, the author says. He warned of a looming disaster if aid is not immediately given that children are at their highest levels of malnutrition.
Israa Abu Haleeb, a mother of Palestine, cares for her five-month-old daughter Zainab at Khan Younis’ Nasser Hospital for malnutrition.
The Ministry of Health in Gaza echoed that warning, warning that a number of Palestinians who are dehydrated and malnourished could soon pass away.
We issue a warning that hunger poses the greatest risk of death for hundreds of people whose bodies have been wasted, according to a spokesperson.
According to Palestinian families, the only basic staples are flour. Since the start of the war in 2023, according to the ministry, at least 71 children have died from malnutrition, while 60,000 others have shown signs of severe undernourishment.
It reported 18 deaths tied to hunger alone on Sunday.
Most people in Gaza are unable to afford food because of the rising prices there. 3 million people are battling to survive in Israel’s strict siege arrangements.
A 35-day-old baby in Gaza City and a four-month-old child in Deir el-Balah had both passed away from malnutrition at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, according to Al Jazeera’s reporter from central Gaza, Hind Khoudary.
Khoudary said, “The mother was touching her body and saying, I’m sorry I couldn’t feed you.”
Parents who visit the GHF distribution centers run the risk of killing their children. We ran into a mother who only fills her children’s stomachs with water. She can’t afford flour, and when she could, she couldn’t find it. ”
more forced evictions
More Palestinians are being forced to flee in the meantime. Residents of Deir el-Balah reported air attacks on three homes after Israel issued leaflets warning residents to leave with what little they could carry.
Israel’s military stated that it had not yet entered those areas, but that it would be doing so even if it had been “terrorist infrastructure”.
Hani Mahmoud, a Deir el-Balah-based reporter, reported that “we are facing yet another misleading evacuation order. Palestinians have been killed there since day one despite the instructions to move to al-Mawasi, a rumored safe zone.
Following the three European nations’ warnings that failing to resume negotiations would result in Tehran receiving new international sanctions, Iran, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom will hold nuclear talks in Istanbul.
The E3 nations’ foreign ministers and the European Union’s foreign policy chief had their first phone call with Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi on Thursday following Israel and the United States’ earlier attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities a month ago.
The three European nations are the only remaining parties to a 2015 nuclear agreement that the US withdrew from in exchange for restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program, along with China and Russia, which had lifted sanctions on the Middle Eastern nation.
According to Esmaeil Baghaei, a spokesman for Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “the meeting will take place at the deputy foreign minister level.”
If Iran and the US have been holding nuclear talks before Israel launched a surprise attack, the E3 have declared they will impose UN sanctions on Tehran until the end of August.
Iran has accused the US of being a factor in the Israeli attack, which resulted in the deaths of top military figures, nuclear scientists, and hundreds of civilians. Additionally, the US attacked three significant Iranian nuclear sites, claiming they had “obliterated” them. On June 24, a ceasefire was declared in effect.
According to Araghchi, “If EU/E3 want to have a role, they should act responsibly and put the stale policies of threat and pressure, including the “snap-back,” for which they lack unquestionable moral and legal ground.
Tehran and Washington had five rounds of nuclear negotiations with Oman in the lead up to the Israel-Iran conflict, but they encountered significant obstacles, including uranium enrichment, which Western powers want to reduce to zero in order to reduce the risk of weaponization.
Tehran maintains that its nuclear program is merely intended for civilian purposes.
Middle Eastern evaluations
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian supreme leader Ali Larijani, the top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader on nuclear issues, had a surprise meeting at the Kremlin on Sunday.
According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Larijani “conveyed assessments of the Middle East’s growing nuclear threat” and “conducted surveys” of the unannounced meeting.
Putin went on to state Russia’s “well-known positions” regarding stabilizing the region’s climate and political solutions to the Iranian nuclear program.
Surbacked by a wave of populist rhetoric, anti-immigration warnings, and populist pledges on social welfare, Japan’s far-right Sanseito party has emerged as a major winner in the nation’s upper house election.
Sanseito was projected on Sunday by national broadcaster NHK, which dramatically increased its presence beyond the single seat it previously held, as a fringe movement that emerged on YouTube during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The party, which only controls three seats in the more powerful lower house, has benefited from voter outcry over rising living costs and the economy’s decline.
Former English teacher and manager of supermarkets Sohei Kamiya, 47, has been in charge of this shift. He openly credits US President Donald Trump’s “bold political style” as inspiration for conspiracy theories about vaccines and “globalist elites.”
Japan’s ruling coalition is likely to lose its majority in the upper house, according to a poll conducted by local media, 32 to 51 seats are expected to be won.
The “Japan First” movement
Kamiya defended his “Japanese First” motto in an interview with Nippon Television following the election.
By repressing globalism, the phrase was intended to express how the Japanese people rebuilt their lives. He did not advocate for a total ban on foreigners or for every foreigner to leave Japan, he said.
Sanseito has built its platform on fears of an “silent invasion” by immigrants despite his denial of xenophobia. Many Japanese voters are familiar with this message, which are echoed by political analysts, who are dealing with a sluggish economy and weakening the yen, which have attracted record numbers of tourists and fueled inflation.
Only about 3 percent of the population, or 3.8%, of foreign residents in Japan, despite concerns that immigration is still prevalent.
Just 7% of respondents to NHK polls prior to the election cited immigration as their top concern. More voters expressed concern about the country’s declining birth rate and rising food costs, particularly rice, which has doubled in price in the last year.
Sanseito’s populist and anti-foreign message is what has caused the buzz, according to the author. However, it also reflects the LDP’s [Liberal Democratic Party] weakness, according to Joshua Walker, president of the US-based Japan Society.
