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Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Israeli strikes on health workers and United Nations peacekeepers, Canada expelling six Indian diplomats, and North Korea destroying roads connected to South Korea.
Hitting Noncombatants
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad accused Israel on Tuesday of targeting the country’s health sector. Thirteen hospitals across Lebanon have been completely or partially shut down since last October, when Hezbollah began launching rockets and missiles at Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, and Israeli attacks have killed more than 150 paramedics and health workers.
Welcome back to World Brief, where we’re looking at Israeli strikes on health workers and United Nations peacekeepers, Canada expelling six Indian diplomats, and North Korea destroying roads connected to South Korea.
Hitting Noncombatants
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad accused Israel on Tuesday of targeting the country’s health sector. Thirteen hospitals across Lebanon have been completely or partially shut down since last October, when Hezbollah began launching rockets and missiles at Israel in solidarity with Hamas in Gaza, and Israeli attacks have killed more than 150 paramedics and health workers.
Israel’s military maintains that many of these sites are near Hezbollah facilities and that it “strikes solely on the base of military necessity.” It has also accused the militant group of using emergency rescue vehicles, such as ambulances, to transport fighters and other members, though it has not provided evidence of such activity, and Lebanese officials and hospital directors have denied those claims.
Last month, Israel launched a major campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, killing more than 1,400 people and displacing over 1.3 million. At least 400,000 of those displaced have been children, UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Ted Chaiban said.
Last week, international condemnation over Israel’s war strategy grew after its forces repeatedly fired on United Nations peacekeepers stationed in southern Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused the mission (known as UNIFIL) on Sunday of “providing a human shield” to Hezbollah, saying its presence in the area makes the peacekeepers “hostages.” He urged UNIFIL staff to move 3 miles north to get “out of harm’s way.”
U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, however, confirmed on Monday that the peacekeepers would remain in their positions. Any attacks on peacekeepers “may constitute a war crime,” a spokesperson for Guterres warned on Sunday, adding that “UNIFIL personnel and its premises must never be targeted.” Nearly 10,000 peacekeepers from around 50 countries are stationed in Lebanon to help oversee the Lebanese side of the 75-mile Blue Line, a boundary that U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 says no one can fire or move across without permission from the Lebanese government. UNIFIL says both Israel and Hezbollah have violated their international commitments at the line and beyond.
Israeli attacks in Lebanon injured five peacekeepers last week. On Sunday, 15 more peacekeepers suffered skin irritations and gastrointestinal reactions after smoke rounds were fired into their camp, two hours after Israeli tanks destroyed the main gate of their post in Ramyah and “forcibly entered” the premises, according to a UNIFIL statement. All parties must “respect the safety and security of UNIFIL personnel and U.N. premises,” the U.N. Security Council said on Monday—remaining careful not to blame any one side.
Also on Monday, an Israeli airstrike hit an apartment building in northern Lebanon, killing at least 21 people. The strike followed a Hezbollah drone attack on an Israeli army base the day before that killed four soldiers and severely wounded seven others. “We will continue to strike Hezbollah without compassion in every part of Lebanon, including in Beirut,” Netanyahu said on Monday, acknowledging the deadliest Hezbollah strike on Israeli forces since the conflict began a year ago.
His vow follows reports that Netanyahu appears willing to limit Israel’s retaliatory strikes on Iran to military targets rather than oil or nuclear facilities in response to Tehran’s Oct. 1 ballistic missile attack. Iran backs Hezbollah and Hamas in their fight against Israel. Netanyahu’s more limited response suggests that he may want to prevent a full-scale regional war, something the United States has been urging Israel to avoid. The Biden administration also told Netanyahu in a letter dated Sunday that Israel must increase the amount of humanitarian aid allowed to enter Gaza within 30 days or else risk losing U.S. weapons funding.
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What We’re Following
Diplomatic rift. Ottawa expelled six Indian diplomats on Monday after identifying New Delhi’s high commissioner to Canada as a person of interest in the killing of Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar last June in British Columbia. Nijjar was known for promoting the creation of an independent Sikh homeland, an action that branded him as a “terrorist” by India. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has previously said there was credible evidence linking India’s government to Nijjar’s death.
New Delhi has denied these claims, resulting in tit-for-tat diplomatic expulsions, the temporary suspension of consular services, Canadian police arresting three Indian nationals, and a slew of political name-calling. Canada is home to the largest Sikh diaspora outside the Indian state of Punjab.
Relations reached an all-time low on Monday, when Trudeau accused the Indian government of coercive behavior targeting South Asian Canadians and of being involved in “over a dozen threatening and violent acts, including murder.” New Delhi rejected the accusations as a “deliberate strategy of smearing India for political gains” and expelled Canada’s acting high commissioner and five other diplomats in retaliation.
Targeting infrastructure. Pyongyang blew up two sections of unused inter-Korean roads and railways on Tuesday, underscoring North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s pledge to sever relations with South Korea and abandon efforts to achieve Korean unification. North Korea warned of such actions last week in an effort to better fortify its side of the border. Around the same time, Pyongyang accused Seoul of flying propaganda-filled drones over the North Korean capital.
South Korea denounced North Korea’s largely symbolic actions on Tuesday, saying the explosions violate past inter-Korean agreements and are an example of “regressive behavior.” Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said its military fired warning shots within southern sections of the border in response. Still, experts argue that North Korea is unlikely to launch a large-scale attack on South Korea for fear of a massive, U.S.-backed retaliation.
Malnutrition risks. Nearly 2 million children may die of malnutrition, UNICEF warned on Monday, due to a shortage in ready-to-use therapeutic food. The peanut-based, high-nutrient product is used to treat severe acute malnutrition (otherwise known as wasting) in children, many of whom suffer stunted growth from poor nutrition, limited access to safe drinking water, and exposure to diseases.
War, climate change, and economic crises have derailed global supply chains, exacerbating hunger emergencies. Coups, flooding and droughts, and high food prices have particularly hurt the Sahel, where Chad, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria have already exhausted their supplies of the critical product. Eight other nations—Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Madagascar, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, and Uganda—could run out of stock by mid-2025.
The United States recently donated $100 million to UNICEF for ready-to-use therapeutic food, but the agency still seeks another $165 million to refresh supplies.
Odds and Ends
The final 2024 Nobel Prize was awarded on Monday to three U.S.-based economists for their work on global inequalities. The trio—Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James Robinson—researched how some state institutions can cause extreme income gaps between countries, noting how democracies often grow faster fiscally than non-democracies and former European colonies are more likely to have structures with concentrated wealth in the hands of a small elite.
Unlike some of their research subjects, the three laureates were excited to share the monetary prize evenly. “They’re my best friends,” Robinson said.