Attention to the Unseen

Julian Borger writes: US retaliation, when it came, was broad and deep, and telegraphed five days in advance. The White House, the Pentagon and state department had spent the best part of a week talking about the response to Sunday’s drone attack on a US base in northern Jordan, which killed three Americans and wounded more than 30. They warned that retaliation against the suspects, primary among those the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia, would be “multi-tiered” and continue over many…

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Time reports: As much of the world’s attention has focused on the ongoing carnage in Gaza, where Israel’s war of retribution will soon enter its fourth month, the issue of rising Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank largely fell by the wayside. But on Thursday, the Biden administration unveiled an executive order imposing new financial sanctions on Israeli settlers who have been implicated in such violence, in what is perhaps the most significant step taken by…

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The Washington Post reports: Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development and a world-renowned scholar on genocide, was pointedly challenged by current and former USAID employees who during a public event Tuesday questioned her stance on the war in Gaza and complicity in the divisive U.S. policy. “You wrote a book on genocide and you’re still working for the administration: You should resign and speak out,” said Agnieszka Sykes, a global health specialist who told The Washington…

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The Guardian reports: A robust and united position among EU member states convinced Viktor Orbán to end his “blackmail” and support a €50bn (£43bn) funding package for Ukraine, European prime ministers have said. The Hungarian prime minister, who had been vowing to block the funds since December, performed one of the fastest U-turns seen at a leaders’ summit after six weeks of brinkmanship. There was relief that the deal was finally done but also a sense of fury among leaders…

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The Times of Israel reports: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government does not support the immediate discontinuation of UNRWA, a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday as a host of Western countries moved to suspend funding for the UN relief agency for Palestinians amid allegations that roughly a dozen of its employees took part in Hamas’s October 7 terror onslaught and hundreds more are either operatives or have close ties with members. “If UNRWA ceases operating on the ground, this could…

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Middle East Eye reports: British Foreign Secretary David Cameron’s suggestion that the UK is considering recognising a state of Palestine has been dismissed as “PR” and a “masterclass in mental gymnastics” by legal experts and Palestinian advocates. Speaking to the Conservative Middle East Council in the House of Commons on Monday night, Cameron said that the Palestinian people would have to be shown “irreversible progress” towards a two-state solution. “We should be starting to set out what a Palestinian state…

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NBC News reports: If only young voters knew more about what Biden has done to erase billions in student loan debt, for example, they’d feel differently, the president’s allies contend. In an interview before the church service [in Sumter, SC], Clyburn summoned one of his security aides, a Black man in his 40s, who described his delight in getting a letter telling him that his and his wife’s student loan debt totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars had been wiped…

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The Guardian reports: Hamas militants have returned to northern Gaza, where they are mobilising against Israeli forces and rebuilding a system of governance, aid officials, Gaza residents, analysts and Israeli officials say. Elsewhere in Gaza, Hamas administrators and police maintain firm control of the south, where much of the population is concentrated, though civil order is breaking down in central regions. The apparent resurgence of Hamas in areas seized and cleared by Israeli troops during the nearly four-month offensive underlines…

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