At the end, the fearsome militant leader who had helped unleash a vicious war seemed barely a threat. In video captured by an Israeli drone, a man sat alone, badly wounded and caked in dust amid the ruins of a building in the Gaza Strip, wrapped in a kaffiyeh and …
Read More »Opinion | Yahya Sinwar’s Death Is a Tricky Opportunity
Reading the news that Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s pitiless leader, had been killed on Wednesday by Israeli forces in southern Gaza, I had the same sense of elation so many people felt when Osama bin Laden was killed. To take satisfaction in the violent end of another human being, even an …
Read More »Russia Is Clawing Back Land Taken by Ukraine This Summer
Russia has recaptured a few villages in its western borderlands that Ukraine invaded over the summer, threatening Kyiv’s hold on territory it views as crucial leverage for pushing Moscow toward negotiations to end the war. In recent days, Russian troops have intensified efforts to dislodge Ukrainian forces from the bulge …
Read More »How Israel’s Army Uses Palestinians as Human Shields in Gaza
After Israeli soldiers found Mohammed Shubeir hiding with his family in early March, they detained him for roughly 10 days before releasing him without charge, he said. During that time, Mr. Shubeir said, the soldiers used him as a human shield. Mr. Shubeir, then 17, said he was forced to …
Read More »Opinion | What China’s Leaders Grasp About Another Trump Term
At the beginning of the Biden presidency, many of us serving in the National Security Council gathered to read the intelligence and reached a key conclusion: The 2020s would be what we called the “decisive decade” in U.S. competition with China. Beijing seeks to displace the United States from its …
Read More »Russian Strikes on Ukrainian Ports Target Civilian Shipping
Russia has stepped up its assaults on Black Sea port infrastructure and civilian shipping in recent days, in what Ukraine says is an attempt to disrupt its exports and damage its economy. The attacks are part of an intensifying campaign of strikes on the city of Odesa and the region …
Read More »Secret Documents Show Hamas Tried to Persuade Iran to Join Its Oct. 7 Attack
For more than two years, Yahya Sinwar huddled with his top Hamas commanders and plotted what they hoped would be the most devastating and destabilizing attack on Israel in the militant group’s four-decade history. Minutes of Hamas’s secret meetings, seized by the Israeli military and obtained by The New York …
Read More »Israeli Strikes on Northern Gaza Kill at Least 20, Aid Workers Say
The humanitarian crisis in the northern Gaza Strip deepened on Saturday as an Israeli bombardment killed at least 20 people, trapped thousands more and prompted one of the area’s last functioning hospitals to issue desperate pleas for assistance. Israeli airstrikes overnight and into Saturday hit the Jabaliya area of northern …
Read More »Opinion | ‘Are We Not Humans?’
After my reporting trip to the Chad-Sudan border and columns about the murder, rape and starvation that have devastated Sudan, readers wrote in with many thoughtful comments and questions. Here’s my effort to address some of them: Perhaps you could help us understand the root causes of this conflict. Is …
Read More »Lebanon’s Leader Calls on U.N. for Cease-Fire Amid Search for Airstrike Survivors
Rescuers dug through piles of rubble in central Beirut on Friday, looking for survivors and bodies, a day after deadly airstrikes in two densely populated neighborhoods of the Lebanese capital spread fear that no place in the country was safe from the Israeli military onslaught against Hezbollah. Lebanese officials said …
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