| | | | | | | Hello. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has laid out his vision for post-war Gaza. As Jenny Hill explains, the plan presents several controversial points. In Ukraine, Andrew Harding reconnects with a front-line medic whose personal experience of the war mirrors the struggles of the wider conflict. Finally, your weekly invitation to give your best go at the news quiz. |
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| | | | | | Questions Answered | | Netanyahu’s vision for post-war Gaza | | | | As the humanitarian situation worsens in Gaza, there is international pressure too for the war to end. Credit: Reuters |
| | Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has presented his vision for a post-war Gaza to cabinet members. The plan is inconsistent with some of the conditions that the US, Israel’s major ally, has been proposing. | | | | Jenny Hill, World Affairs correspondent |
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| | What’s Mr Netanyahu’s plan, in a nutshell? | | Under his plan Israel would control security indefinitely, and Palestinians with no links to groups hostile to Israel would run the territory. The short document makes no mention of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA) governing Gaza after the war, which is what the US has proposed. | | What does it mean for Israel to control security? | | Mr Netanyahu envisages a "demilitarised" Gaza; Israel would be responsible for removing all military capability beyond that necessary for public order. There would be a "Southern Closure" on the territory's border with Egypt to prevent smuggling both under- and overground. Under the plan Israel would also maintain security control over the entire area west of Jordan from land, sea and air. | | Does the plan see other countries being involved? | | The plan mentions "de-radicalisation" programmes that would be promoted in all religious, educational and welfare institutions. The document suggests Arab countries with experience of such programmes would be involved, though Mr Netanyahu has not specified which. | | | | | | |
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| AT THE SCENE | Eastern Ukraine | | Front-line medics count the cost of war | | | | Maj Oleh Kravchenko says he was not prepared for the brutality of Russia's invasion. Credit: BBC | | Maj Oleh Kravchenko has spoken powerfully to the BBC at different points of the war in Ukraine. The changes in his demeanour underscore the toll the long conflict - and the sacrifices and patience it requires - has taken on people. | | | Late one evening, in October 2023, Kravchenko was working at the building he and his medical team had moved to near Izyum, in the eastern Donetsk region. They'd just been operating on a seriously wounded soldier and had put him in a vehicle ready for transport to a larger hospital. Kravchenko and three others went back inside to collect some equipment. At 23:40, a Russian rocket hit the building. "Svitlana had five children, and Yuliia had three. Vladyslav was never married. He didn't have children yet. He was 32," said Kravchenko, when we met this week for a third time.
A stern, haunted expression spread across his face as I asked him about the incident itself, and the death of his three close colleagues. "It's too heavy. It's difficult for me," he said in a deep, gruff voice. The same rocket that killed the others had brought a heavy pipe down on his own leg, smashing his left knee. Kravchenko had been taken to a hospital in Dnipro, then to Kyiv. Now he was back in his hometown of Kremenchuk, on the Dnipro River. |
| | | | • | New sanctions against Russia: The US has announced more than 500 fresh restrictions over the invasion of Ukraine and death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny. Among the targets are more than two dozen entities outside of Russia, accused of links to businesses that deal with Russia's military. | | • | Adding up: Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the US, UK and EU, along with countries including Australia, Canada and Japan, have imposed more than 16,500 sanctions on Russia. |
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| | Your weekend listening | | | | Strength of a hurricane | | Climate change is increasing the destructive power of tropical cyclones. Would adding a “Category 6” level to the Saffir-Simpson measurement scale better reflect the growing danger of these extreme weather events? | | Listen now > |
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| | The big picture | | Cosmic ‘murder mystery’ solved | | | | Supernova SN 1987A was the first to have been visible to the naked eye for 400 years. Credit: David Malin AAT |
| | In February 1987, a star exploded in a galaxy not-so-far away. Shining with the power of 100 million suns, it was visible from Earth for four months. But it left astronomers with a mystery on their hands: what was left of the star after its collapse, and did it fit existing theories of the death of a star? Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has finally provided an answer. | | | | |
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| | | For your downtime | | Plov of love | | Uzbekistan’s national dish is traditionally eaten on Thursdays to inspire baby-making. | | |
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| | And finally... in India | | An Indian court has ruled that a zoo in West Bengal, which named a lioness after a Hindu goddess and a lion after a Mughal ruler, must change the big cats’ names following a complaint from a hard line Hindu group. The court has also established a series of off-limits categories for animal names that include, but are not limited to, deities and prophets. |
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| | | | | | | | US Election Unspun newsletter | | Cut through the noise in the race for the White House, every Wednesday to your inbox. | | |
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| | | | More BBC newsletters | | • | Football Extra: Latest news, insights and gossip from the Premier League, weekdays. Subscribe. | | • | Royal Watch: The full story from royal correspondent Sean Coughlan, every Thursday. Subscribe. | | • | Tech Decoded: Timely, trusted tech news from global correspondents, twice-weekly. Subscribe. |
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– Sofia |
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