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An Israeli strike killed seven World Central Kitchen workers. José Andrés as alleging the marked convoy was targeted systematically, cites criticism from President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and quotes Israel’s military chief describing the strike as a misidentification and mistake.
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An Israeli strike killed seven World Central Kitchen workers. José Andrés as alleging the marked convoy was targeted systematically, cites criticism from President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, and quotes Israel’s military chief describing the strike as a misidentification and mistake.
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World Central Kitchen dossier
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Gaza
World Central Kitchen attributed the deaths of seven foreign-national aid workers to an Israeli airstrike. Israel said it was conducting an in-depth examination of the incident.
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Chronology
Off Leash 4 April Ukraine Videos of the aftermath of Ukraine's drone strike deep inside Russia's Tatarstan showed that the weapon was possibly delivered by a converted $90,000 Aeroprakt A-22 single-propeller sport plane (or perhaps two of them) modified for the task. Analysts noted that the high-bank-for-buck converted drone is extremely scalable, so we could see Ukraine use more of them in the near future. Russia Russian defense minister Sergey Shoigu held an unusual call with his French counterpart, Sébastien Lecornu, yesterday. Shoigu reportedly warned Lecornu against deploying French troops to Ukraine [even though France is nowhere close to sending troops, and the idea was just a remote future possibility Pres. Macron raised last month without EU backing]. Shoigu also told Lecornu that Russia is ready to take part in peace talks, but its ongoing escalations on the battlefield suggest otherwise. Gaza Global media reported widespread condemnation of the Israeli strike that killed seven food aid workers from celebrity chef José Andrés's World Central Kitchen NGO. Andrés himself angrily accused Israel of targeting a marked humanitarian convoy "systematically, car by car." Pres. Biden said he was "outraged and heartbroken" by the strike, and U.S. SecDef Austin also criticized it with a warning that it raised concerns about Israel's ability to differentiate civilians and humanitarian personnel from militant targets if and when it embarks on a looming ground offensive in Rafah. Israel's military chief of staff offered as much of an apology as we'll probably ever hear from an Israeli official at his rank over the strike: "It was a mistake that followed a misidentification, at night during the war in a very complex condition. It shouldn’t have happened." China TSMC's semiconductor factories appear to have withstood the earthquake that hit Taiwan on Wednesday with no major damage, and are already nearly back to normal production rates. Since TSMC makes around 90% of the world's advanced chips, its resilience in an earthquake was good news for chipmaking, which has been operating near peak capacity since rebounding from COVID-induced supply chain problems. Venezuela Pres. Maduro accused the U.S. of building "secret military bases" in the large, oil-rich chunk of Guyana that Veneuzela disputes and calls Essequibo. Maduro may be using such provocative escalation to stir up fear and justify his plans to "defend" the disputed region as Venezuela's own. Other News The speaker of South Africa's parliament tendered her resignation amidst an investigation into allegations that she took bribes in exchange for awarding defense contracts while she was defense minister. Despite her resignation and the criminal charges that followed it, she denies wrongdoing.
Open source reportOff Leash 2 April Update Iran Israel carried out a brazen strike on Iran's consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing seven Iranian military advisors - including three generals. Israel acknowledged the strike but rejected the notion that the building was a diplomatic facility and said it was a military building instead. The distinction is important because - as one NGO director noted - targeting a known diplomatic building would be "akin to targeting Iran on its own soil." Israel seems to be escalating its covert war on Iranian targets in a manner calculated to hinder Iran's offensive operations without drawing it and its proxies into all-out war. Indeed, Iran's response to the Damascus strikes was cautious: Tehran vowed revenge "at the appropriate time and place." Its proxies were more audacious in their revenge threats: the head of the Iraq-based, Iran-backed Hezbollah Brigades militia threatened to arm over 12,000 Jordanians to exact retribution on Israel for the Damascus strike. Israel and Gaza Israel's Knesset passed a law that will allow PM Netanyahu to temporarily block foreign media outlets from operating in the country on national security grounds, and Netanyahu said he will promptly use the new law to ban Al Jazeera, which he has accused of being "a Hamas mouthpiece" and a "terrorist channel" for its sympathetic coverage of Palestinian causes. The White House called the looming ban "concerning" for its challenge to the free press. Separately, the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK) said an Israeli airstrike killed seven of its foreign national aid workers in Gaza. Israel said it was "carrying out an in-depth examination" of the "tragic incident," and it's already drawing criticism from the aid community. Ukraine and Russia Ukraine launched a drone assault on an oil refinery deep inside Russia in Tatarstan, which is over 600 miles (1,000 km) from the Ukrainian border. Local authorities said the attack caused minimal damage but later conceded several people were injured. China Chinese electronics firm Xiaomi rolled out its new, Porsche-looking Super Ultra 7 (SU7) electric vehicle yesterday, and surprised the market with 90,000 orders for it on the first day - even though it launched in a market already crowded with inexpensive competitors. Xiaomi shares rose 16% on news of its strong first day of sales, raising the firm's enterprise value above that of traditional automakers GM and Ford. DRC Pres. Tshisekedi appointed Judith Suminwa Tuluka to be DRC's first female prime minister. Tuluka was formerly DRC's planning minister, and will now be called upon to craft a plan to bring peace to the restive east of the country. North Korea North Korea fired a suspected intermediate-range ballistic missile into the sea off its east coast early this morning - its third this year. The UN is no longer monitoring the sanctions violations that helped supply North Korea with kit for building missiles like this, thanks to a recent Russian veto on a motion to extend the monitoring program. Some analysts linked Russia's veto to an alleged weapons procurement agreement between Moscow and Pyongyang.
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