Author: Reporter

Collective punishment: How Netanyahu’s retribution on Palestinian civilians has transformed the region

GRAPHIC PHOTO WARNING: This gallery contains news images from war that some viewers may find disturbing. January 14 marks 100 days that Israel and Hamas have been at war. The conflict already is the longest and deadliest between Israel and the Palestinians since Israel’s establishment in 1948, and the fighting shows no signs of ending. Israel declared war in response to Hamas’ unprecedented cross-border attack on October 7 in which the Islamic militant group killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 250 others hostage. It was the deadliest attack in Israel’s history and the deadliest for Jews since...

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Cries of tiny children: The horrors a Gaza doctor endures while saving lives over 100 days of war

GRAPHIC PHOTO WARNING: This gallery contains news images from war that some viewers may find disturbing. For a few hours every day or night, Dr. Suhaib Alhamss tries to sleep on a thin mattress in an operating room. He swings in and out of half-consciousness, both too tired to open his eyes and too tense to let go. Thunderous shellfire often rattles the windows of the hospital he directs in the southern Gaza Strip. But the worst sounds, Dr. Alhamss said, come from inside Kuwaiti Hospital: the cries of tiny children with no parents and enormous wounds. The panicked...

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100 days and counting: Families of hostages held by Hamas reach sad milestone for absence of loved ones

Every morning, before she is even out of her pajamas, Rachel Goldberg-Polin tears a piece of masking tape off the roll, grabs a marking pen, and in thick black strokes writes down the number of days her son, Hersh, has been held hostage by Hamas militants. Then she sticks the tape to her chest. “I find it so remarkable how nauseating it is every single time,” she said. “And it’s good. I don’t want to get used to it. I don’t want anybody to get used to the fact that these people are missing.” Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, was last...

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Forced labor: South Korean court orders Japanese firms to compensate more Koreans for wartime work

South Korea’s top court ordered two Japanese companies to financially compensate more of their wartime Korean workers for forced labor, as it sided in December with its contentious 2018 verdicts on the firms that caused a huge setback in relations between the Asian neighbors. But observers said that the ruling would not likely hurt bilateral ties much since Seoul and Tokyo, now governed by different leaders, are pushing hard to bolster their partnerships in the face of shared challenges like North Korea’s evolving nuclear threats and China’s increasing assertiveness. The Supreme Court ruled that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries must provide...

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South Koreans want their own nuclear weapons as deterrent to North Korea’s burgeoning arsenal

To the steady rat-tat-tat of machine guns and exploding bursts of smoke, amphibious tanks slice across a lake not far from the big green mountains that stand along the world’s most heavily armed border. Dozens of South Korean and U.S. combat engineers build a pontoon bridge to ferry tanks and armored vehicles across the water, all within easy range of North Korean artillery. For seven decades, the allies have staged annual drills like this recent one to deter aggression from North Korea, whose 1950 surprise invasion of South Korea started a war that has technically yet to end. The...

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A shared struggle: Nelson Mandela’s support for Palestinians endures with genocide case against Israel

Barely two weeks after he was released from prison in 1990, Nelson Mandela flew to Zambia to meet with African leaders who had supported his fight against South Africa’s apartheid system of forced racial segregation. One figure stood out among the men in dark suits eagerly waiting to greet Mandela on the airport tarmac: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, wearing his black and white checkered keffiyeh headdress, had traveled to see the newly freed Mandela. He grabbed Mandela in a bear hug and kissed him on each cheek. Mandela smiled broadly. It was confirmation of the solidarity between two men...

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