Saturday, Jul 27th
Last update11:32:54 PM GMT
International Glance
The French government has joined the chorus of detractors taking aim at South Dakota governor Kristi Noem’s political autobiography No Going Back, which many now see as having eliminated her chances of being Donald Trump’s vice-presidential selection.
Days after Noem removed a passage claiming she had met with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, officials at the Élysée Palace in Paris are questioning a passage that describes a cancelled meeting with French president Emmanuel Macron.
The State Department in a much anticipated report on Friday evening said it's "reasonable to assess" that Israel used U.S.-made arms.
"It's reasonable to assess that in a number of instances, Israel has not acted in a manner that is consistent with international humanitarian law," Blinken said Sunday on CBS.in ways that did not sufficiently mitigate civilian harm, but it could not definitively conclude that any specific incident met the violation threshold.
Ukrainian officials didn’t confirm whether Russian had taken the villages, which lie in a contested “gray zone” on the border of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region and Russia.
Ukrainian journalists reported that the villages of Borysivka, Ohirtseve, Pylna and Strilecha were taken by Russian troops on Friday. Russia said the village of Pletenivka was also taken.
In an evening statement Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said fighting was still ongoing in the settlements of Strilecha and Pletenivka, as well as Krasne, Morokhovets, Oliinykove, Lukyantsi and Hatyshche.
Israel ordered new evacuations in Gaza’s southern city of Rafah on Saturday, forcing tens of thousands more people to leave as it prepared to expand its military operation deeper into what is considered Gaza’s last refuge, in defiance of growing pressure from close ally the United States and others.
As pro-Palestinian protests continued against the war, Israel’s military also said it was moving into an area of devastated northern Gaza where it asserted that the Hamas militant group has regrouped after seven months of fighting.
Volodomyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine’s president, said from Kyiv: “Russia launched a new wave of counteroffensive actions in this area. Ukraine met them there with our troops, brigades and artillery ... Now there is a fierce battle under way.”
Ukraine’s military said it had deployed more troops and Zelensky said Ukrainian forces were using artillery and drones against the Russian advance. Residents of Vovchansk were evacuated on Friday, Reuters reported from the area. “We are leaving because we are dying from the ‘Russian world’,” said Valerii Dubskyi, 60, referring to a Russian concept of extending Russia’s influence beyond its borders. “It can go to hell, together with Putin and their authorities. They are our enemies. They tested all types of weapons on us, except for the nuclear bomb.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed the head of the department responsible for his personal protection on Thursday, two days after two of its members were accused of plotting to assassinate him. Zelenskiy issued a decree dismissing the head of the state guards, Serhiy Rud. No successor was identified.
A Ukrainian drone struck a major oil processing plant in Russia’s Bashkiria region on Thursday from 1,500 km (932 miles) away, a Kyiv intelligence source said, its longest-range such attack since the start of the war. Ukraine also hit two oil depots in southern Russia, as Kyiv tries to undermine Russian forces pressing along frontlines on its territory by attacking energy facilities that are crucial to funding the economy and the war.
President Joe Biden said on Wednesday that Israeli forces have not yet launched an anticipated ground invasion on Rafah — a red-line move that he’d previously said would halt the U.S. supply of weapons to Israel. But as of Thursday, media reports and humanitarians suggest that a ground assault on Rafah had already begun.
In an interview with CNN that aired Wednesday night, Biden publicly admitted for the first time that Israel has used U.S. weapons to kill Palestinian civilians. The president also relayed a message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: The U.S. will withhold shipments of offensive weapons to Israel if the military launches a full-scale ground invasion into Rafah that causes major civilian harm.
“I made it clear that if they go into Rafah — they haven’t gone in Rafah yet — if they go into Rafah, I’m not supplying the weapons,” Biden told CNN’s Erin Burnett.
“They haven’t gone into the population centers,” he added, of Israel’s movements.
But media reports dispute the Biden administration’s characterization of Israeli actions in Rafah as limited.
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