World
France agrees to autonomy deal for New Caledonia. Hundreds die in Sudan attacks. Trump’s Ukraine flip-flop. By Jonathan Pearlman.
Israel claims Syrian strikes are to ‘eliminate regime’s gangs’
Great power rivalry
Syria: Israel launched attacks on Syria this week that targeted troops and the defence ministry in Damascus, saying it was intervening to protect the Druze community, which has been battling Syrian forces and Bedouin fighters.
The Israeli attacks on Wednesday followed an outbreak of heavy fighting in southern Syria between Sunni Bedouin tribes and Druze groups. Syrian forces intervened and clashed with Druze forces, reportedly attacking civilians. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting has left more than 350 people dead, including 79 Druze fighters and 55 civilians, 189 Syrian security personnel and 18 Bedouin fighters.
Israel has pledged to protect the Druze minority in Syria and has also been trying to keep hostile militant groups away from its border.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Wednesday he was “working to save our Druze brothers and to eliminate the regime’s gangs”.
Following the Israeli strikes on Damascus, Syrian officials and Druze leaders announced a ceasefire that included the withdrawal of Syrian forces from the southern region of Sweida. The United States, which recently lifted sanctions on Syria, said it had worked to broker the ceasefire.
Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, who headed an Islamist group that led an offensive that ousted Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad last December, said in a televised statement on Thursday he was not afraid of war but was committed to protecting the Druze community.
“We have put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction,” he said.
Meanwhile, talks between Israel and Hamas about a 60-day ceasefire deal in Gaza faltered as mediators tried to settle a disagreement about the amount of territory that the Israeli military will be allowed to control.
Israel expanded its military offensive in Gaza this week, including attacks that killed at least 61 people on Tuesday, according to local officials. Israel said it had killed dozens of Hamas fighters.
US President Donald Trump, who has been pushing for a ceasefire, said on Wednesday he had “good news about Gaza” but provided no further details.
The neighbourhood
New Caledonia: Residents of New Caledonia will vote on a deal that will grant greater autonomy to the territory and make it a “state” of France amid efforts to ease separatist tensions that spilled into deadly violence last year.
The 13-page deal, announced last weekend after 10 days of negotiations in France with pro- and anti-independence groups and French officials, could allow New Caledonia to adopt a new name and flag, and includes an economic package that would restart the territory’s nickel industry.
French President Emmanuel Macron endorsed the deal as a “bet on trust” that would allow for the creation of a Caledonian nationality. But the move falls short of granting independence to the Pacific territory, as sought by indigenous Kanaks.
Emmanuel Tjibaou, a pro-independence member of the French National Assembly, backed the deal as a way to help “us get out of the spiral of violence”.
Sonia Backès, a loyalist leader and president of the territory’s south province, said: “This New Caledonian nationality takes nothing away from us: neither from our belonging to the Republic nor from our French nationality.”
The deal was also criticised by elements of the pro- and anti-independence camps.
Brenda Wanabo-Ipeze, from the pro-independence group Coordination Cell for Actions on the Ground, who is in jail in France, said: “This text was signed without us. It does not bind us.”
The deal follows unrest that erupted last May after the French parliament proposed granting a vote in New Caledonia’s elections to French citizens who have lived there for at least 10 years – a move that would weaken the pro-independence movement. Fourteen people, including two police officers, were killed during the rioting.
The new autonomy deal is due to be voted on by residents in New Caledonia at a referendum in February.
Democracy in retreat
Sudan: The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary force in Sudan that is at war with the army, killed more than 300 people during attacks in the country’s centre, prompting thousands to flee and adding to the world’s worst displacement crisis.
The deaths occurred during three days of fighting last week in villages around Bara, a district in the state of North Kordofan. The United Nations said at least 20 people were also killed in attacks on villages in the state of West Kordofan, including an air strike on a school sheltering residents who had fled.
“Violence, displacement & heavy rains are deepening the humanitarian crisis after nearly 27 months of conflict,” the UN’s humanitarian affairs agency said in a post on X on Tuesday.
The civil war between the army and the RSF has displaced more than 14 million of Sudan’s 50 million residents and left 30 million needing aid and protection.
The army recaptured Khartoum, the capital, in March but has struggled to hold territory in the north and the west. Fighting recently renewed around El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state and the army’s last stronghold in the region. Hundreds of thousands of people have fled the city since April.
Médecins Sans Frontières said in a report this month that daily violence in Darfur has included mass killings and sexual violence by the RSF against non-Arab communities.
“Sexual violence has been perpetrated on a large scale, while reports of numerous abductions of men and women suggest that disappearances have been a source of income for the RSF and their affiliates,” the report said.
A rights group based in Sudan, Emergency Lawyers, said RSF attacks in Kordofan last week were designed to force residents to flee.
“These targeted villages were completely empty of any military objectives,” it said.
Spotlight: Trump’s Ukraine flip-flop
For the past three years, US President Donald Trump has backed a largely isolationist approach to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that has put him at odds with the mostly pro-Ukraine sentiment in Washington.
Trump has suspended aid to Kyiv, described Vladimir Putin’s seizure of eastern Ukraine as “genius”, held negotiations on Ukraine’s future without inviting Ukraine, and openly sparred with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who, he said, “should never have let that war start”.
Trump’s strongman-to-strongman efforts to placate Putin were unable to persuade the Kremlin to back a ceasefire, and failed to end the war – as Trump promised – within 24 hours of his inauguration. In recent weeks, Russia has launched some of the most intense air attacks and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities since the invasion in 2022.
But Trump changed tack this week, announcing he would resume US military support for Ukraine, including supplies of Patriot air-defence missiles. He also threatened to impose tariffs on countries that trade with Russia if there is no peace deal within 50 days.
“I’m disappointed in [Putin],” Trump told BBC News this week. “We’ll have a great conversation. I’ll say: ‘That’s good, I’ll think we’re close to getting it done’, and then he’ll knock down a building in Kyiv.”
Zelensky welcomed Trump’s new measures, saying, “Russia’s war financing must be cut off.”
A spokesperson for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, told reporters Trump’s comments were “serious” and were being assessed by Moscow.
“If and when President Putin deems it necessary, he will definitely comment,” he said.
But Trump’s apparent flip-flop came with qualifiers. The new US weapons for Ukraine will need to be paid for by the country’s European allies, and the 50-day tariffs deadline has raised concerns that Russia could use the time to step up its summer offensive.
Trump this week denied he had been duped by Putin.
“He’s fooled a lot of people,” Trump told reporters. “He fooled Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden. He didn’t fool me.”
This article was first published in the print edition of The Saturday Paper on July 19, 2025 as "Israel claims Syrian strikes are to ‘eliminate regime’s gangs’ ".
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